Pheromones started to accumulate in the cave, and some parasites moved nearby to investigate what happened to the weird and dangerous cave.

As the creatures knew it was a dangerous place, they started moved closeby and went back for reinforcements. As more units arrived, they noticed the nest structure standing in the middle of the enlarged acid pool was without any units defending it.

A few minutes later, more parasites and some enslaved spiders moved into the cave to explore, as the nest was burning with high energy levels. The spiders started to walk through the ceiling, securing that no enemies remained nearby.

They needed to capture those high energy sources. The hunger was eating them alive, and if they could not find more resources, the hunger would turn them mad.

The high level of caution was lowered as they thought the bug-things had either died or escaped. But the nest seemed to be a highly valuable structure, maybe where their Queen lied.

A third wave moved towards the cave, and this time, an elite creature was leading them, it was a giant vine looking snake with several flowers growing on its back. It had no eyes but used it’s psychic perception to advance.

It could notice the emptiness in the cave and the danger of the acid. It released a low pitched scream, and the enslaved spiders started to move to the ceiling.

The creature was over 3 meters in length and stood up like a cobra, trying to detect any hidden dangers or enemies.

On the deadly acid pool, there was a dead enslaved elite spider, a hybrid creature that was more akin to a tank than a fighter.

This snake-like creature was smarter. It had led the fight against the spider nest and captured the half-dead life of a high spider queen. All that remained were the mutated spiders, those tainted and mutated.

Now, the parasites detected the empty cave and moved in to locate their enemies.

Suddenly the greater snake noticed a few vibrations again, the enemy was escaping, yet they could not see where. The nest was then slowly pulled by several spiders and silk threads.

Once it started to rise, the greater snake noticed a weird set of tubes that kept throwing gas to the cave, yet it wasn't poison.

They then pulled the nest, and once the few spiders managed to pull it to safe terrain, the snake investigated it in detail, noticing a weird egg-like structure.

As it approached, the egg started to crack, and from inside, a weird organ began to produce a bluish electric light, followed by a buzzing sound.

The only thing the beast noticed before being burned alive was regret and surprise, as that thing was no egg to devour.

* BzzzZZZZZZZ!!! FGGAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

The whole cave, filled with flammable gas, ignited and caused a massive explosion that killed most of the creatures on the cave and tunnels as the flames expanded everywhere, searching for oxygen to keep the combustion.

A few seconds later, the whole weakened structure collapsed, creating a small crater-like structure near the lake.

The whole biome turned its attention towards the explosion. The enslaved spiders, the parasites, and the octopus creatures moved towards it in hopes of managing to secure food and energy for themselves, causing a minor fight between the forest and water creatures.

------------------

* Brraaammmm!!!

We didn’t have to wait for too long until we noticed a considerable vibration, followed by a huge ruckus on the biome.

“Looks like it worked. Let’s dig upwards and climb the waterfall.”

We started to move upwards, and we soon found soft, humid terrain. I stopped and sent the Gaunts to explore and take down any enemies nearby.

As the insectoid creatures dug up themselves near the river, they found themselves on the forest side, covered in webs. A few dozens of meters down the river, there had been a sort of landslide, caused by the early explosion.

From here, they could see how part of the webs had caught fire, and enslaved spiders were panicking, most of them not knowing how to react to the flames.

We started to kill any remaining parasites that took root around here and quickly moved to the waterfall before being noticed. The Gaunts moved in silent and coordinated efficiency.

I then ordered the transporters to carry half the load of blood worms each to ease their climbing.

Once the area was cleared, we moved closer to the waterfall. As I started to climb, I turned and looked at the biome’s state.

It was utterly devastated. The lights had dimmed, yet the fire from the early explosion had spread to the forest and web nest.

The flames devoured the silk and webs, and I could still see some corrupted beings trying to escape the fire. “I thought the parasite-flowers had captured all of them…”

I then turned towards the other side of the forest and saw that the tree at the meadows had grown to monstrous proportions. It was taller but also twisted in unnatural angles, like broken limbs or deformed body parts. Worst even, the leaves and branches moved without wind.

The roots were plagued with corpses of creatures, but the one that caught my attention was a huge spider, partially covered in roots and a few flowers. It was the Queen's remains that I killed before entering the biome.

I frowned and noticed some weird shadow lurking on the bark of the tree. I was too far to know what was that, but I knew I could not lower my guard.

“Okay, let’s move before we’re detected!”

We began to climb the mossy and wet rock wall, but the transporters were too weak to rise on their own, so I picked one, and a tank took the other. As I was reaching the top of the waterfall, I managed to locate and enter a sort of tunnel from where the water was exiting at high pressure.

The Gaunts followed me, and the tanks tried to do so. But as the high flow of water was way too strong, the tank carrying the transporter tripped, and the transporter fell, hitting the river’s rocks and activating the load of blood worms.

The transporter started screaming as the worms ate it alive, multiplying in mere seconds and bloating its broken body.

“Host, multiple enemies have detected the loud sound.”

The transport floated down the stream while roaring and releasing acid. The further it moved, the more attention it called from several creatures near the river.

I closed my eyes in regret and turned to climb, not paying it more attention.

“Leave it. The river will carry it downwards. We must find a way to escape.” Despite my upgraded units, I’m in no position to fight head-on against a whole biome of enemies.

As we enter the insides of the wall, I reach a water collector and use my new limbs to cut through the metal, after a full minute, managing to break the tank-like structure.

I exited it and found myself in a small but tall room filled with machinery and tubes.

As I broke one of the main pipes, water slowly began inundating the control room, and the stream of water at the river diminished to nearly nothing.

I quickly turned to locate any viable sources of biomass and found a sort of filters and water treating pipes, filled with algae and cleansing organic and chemical barriers. It was a closed, self-sustained ecosystem that collected part of the water from the lake and cleansed to pump it again to form the river. It was an absolute wonder how such an ecosystem had been created and survived for so long.

“I’m going to take samples of this, Norn will be happy for once if we can efficiently filter the corruption before eating it.”

With care, I took samples of every stratum and noticed several dozens of organisms of different sizes, interconnected to form a delicate equilibrium that allowed all of them to survive.

After absorbing their DNA and gaining several points of biomass, I used them to throw a seed to try and stop the room from getting inundated. The structure grew in less than a minute and stopped most of the water from falling into the room.

------------

But that couple of minutes before the water returned and the waterfall sound could be heard again seemed like two weeks in the forest. That sound was one that the biome had not known. Silence.

The creatures of the forest had been born and raised with the ever-present sound of water falling, and the sudden shift in the natural sounds caused a considerable reaction in them, moving from the bloated transporter that had turned into a flesh paste at this point.

More and more parasite creatures and slaved spiders moved towards the waterfall that had now nearly stopped pumping water.

A creature leads them, a half charred and severely injured great snake-parasite.