The wall’s cracks kept growing as some huge creature was hitting and roaring. It looked like whatever we did with the acid rain, did not like the creatures outside, and far from scattering, they turned extremely aggressive.

We had only been here for half an hour, and the hole in the wall was less than 20% advanced. The work from the roots took longer than I expected. We needed to hold at least 1.5 to 2 more hours to get out of here.

* Thump!! Cr-crack!! Thump!!!

“Host, the integrity of the machines and the wall structure is weakening.”

“I know. Sigh…”

The water inside was slowly being turned into a soup of acid, and we could soon use it to produce something of use.

“Ok, we will double down on the blood worms! Darwin, prepare to mend the cracks with seeds!”

I threw some seeds from the liquid to the transporter that had grown twice and looked like a red pulsating tumor and had several hundreds of worms inside it twisting and wriggling.

By creating more tubes, I attached the acid biomass pool to the transporter and feed it with even more biomass to produce an ever-growing excess of blood worms. It was a desperate and dangerous move, as the creature's integrity was being eroded pretty fast. I created several layers to reinforce the pulsating mass, and once everything was connected, we reversed the flow.

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

The rain stopped, and the transporter and its seed-tubes started to move the acid to the waterfall.

The falling waters then started to turn redder and even had some blood worms in it as acid and toxins were expelled through the opening falling over the angered corrupted beast, damaging its skin even further.

It tried to bash into the cave, but after a few tense minutes, it surrendered and moved away, as the corrupted octopus could not withstand such constant damage, it had to move backward.

The beast roared so that its companions would take its place, yet received no response.

It turned in anger, only to see the damaged bodies of several of its kin being trapped and devoured by an expanding net of roots that twisted and morphed into what looked like a pulsating gate towards hell.

Hundreds of roots had expanded all over the biome and captured every living creature that was nearby. Despite the creatures' efforts, the tree brought them started merging them into a living and construct of horror and gore.

From the insides of that net, the beast saw more tentacles appearing, and felt something it had not felt in many years.

Fear.

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

From inside the room, we stopped hearing the creature roared, and I smiled, but I felt something, wicked and cold, like a tentacle touch the back of my head.

I turned fast, chopping the air, and felt the same sensation on the left side of my body.

“Darwin, what was that?! Is there something invisible in the room?”

“I have weird lectures. There is a strong warp presence nearby.”

“Warp? That means, demons? That or something equally scary.”

I swallowed and started to concentrate, trying to create a psychic field to keep at bay any being from the immaterial with my powers.

Yet, it felt like I just created a bullseye on me, as more and more weird psychic tentacles kept trying to grab me, even paralyzing parts of my body or cracking my limbs.

I was scared and felt like someone was throwing strings that slowly got attached to my body.

And the more scared I was, the more I lost control from my psychic field, attracting whatever was lurking in the warp closer to me.

After a few minutes, my whole body fell on the pool of corrupted biomass and acid, and the pain slowly managed to turn any numbing sensations away.

“Aghhh… fuck. What was that!?!”

I stopped using any psychic powers, and the sensation simply passed away, looking for some other prey. One of my units that were trying to communicate was slowly caught, and I saw how it got paralyzed and then started to turn paler until it merely stood in its place, as its eyes turned grey.

Once it turned to look at me, I felt something so alien and weird that I immediately chopped the Gaunt in half with my scythe talons.

“It looks that an Enslaver has caught attention from us.”

“A what?! Weren’t those beings destroyed in the War in Heaven?”

“They are Warps beings and aren’t easily killed. They can possess beings from this side of reality, given a chance.”

I looked like the body of the Gaunt slowly melted at the acid, still looking at me with grey and ethereal eyes. It gave me the creeps.

“Fuck it. We must get out of here, now!”

I started to produce bombs and seeds, trying to dig deeper into the wall and break the rocks faster, as I was feeling something weird growing on the biome we left behind.

What I felt was some mind-numbing cold, expanding from the other side of the wall, and I did not want to wait here to see what it would give birth.

For another tense hour, we worked in a hurry, hurting my claws and talons several times, I kept working and hitting the weak parts of the wall as the roots and acid kept weakening the wall.

As we approached a specially hard area, I noticed a thin metal plate and stopped.

“Darwin, can we cut this wall?”

“The color and density seem like steel, yet it could be adamantium. If the walls are truly made of such metal, we will have to find an alternative route.”

I waited for my scythe talons to mend its cracks and stabbed at it. I left a minor mark, but that proved enough to fuel my tired body. “We can break it!”

My core shone for half a second, and I felt invigorated, and attacked over and over to the metal plate, slowly cutting my way through. I could feel some feeble breeze as I finally stroke through the metal plate and could see some light on the other side.

But between each strike, I started to hear the sound of something slithering and getting closer.

I turned to see how several dark tendrils and roots were growing into the room and had already captured one tank without me noticing.

The creature was fighting to break itself from the weird vines, but it proved useless.

I stopped and ordered the Gaunts to come, yet that called the attention of the tendrils, that started to spread towards me.

As I cut the mental link with my creatures, the tendril also stopped, and I was left to see how these physical tendrils grew at a languid pace into the room.

“Do not send mental links to our units; it will attract this being. We must distract it or flee from here before long, or else we will be captured.”

The Gaunts positioned near me, and the tendril moved towards them.

I turned and tried to use my claws to create an opening to escape, but the tendrils suddenly noticed the core in my body and began to grow, slowly, but surely towards me.

As I hit and tried to bend the metal, I noticed the same cold sensation, numbing the back of my mind as the roots of the parasites grew closer.

Once I got fed up with it, I created bombs and poured acid on it, making the rook-like tendrils to hiss and recede. “Are they gone?”

* BAANG!! CR-aackk! BAANG!!

Then, the wall started to get hit again, with more strength than ever, and from the cracks, some tentacles appeared, and started to pull, menacing with breaking the wall protecting us from the rock.

“For fuck's sake… Darwin! Make the transporter pump more worms!!”

“The creature is at its limit, any more and-”

“Just do it!!”

The transporter’s body started to crack, and I could see its body bloating, as more biomass got transferred into it, and red worms and acid were being poured outside the cave. Yet at the same time, the chitin plaques I used to reinforce it was starting to get melted and crack.

I turned to keep working on the wall and ordered the Gaunt troops to help me, creating a few new Gaunt eggs to grow in the next minute.

Right now, I had control over the damaged transporter, five Gaunts, one tank, and three Rippers' processing biomass. All I could do was hasten the attacks on the wall.

Slowly but surely, we were able to see more parts of the devastated garden we devoured a few weeks ago, where the birds lived.

I could see the rocky wall that led to the beginning of the second biome. The air vents were I moved through and-

* Thump! “AGHH!”

A terrible pain hit me in the back. I felt a burning sensation cut me as a huge tentacle suddenly pierced my body through and through, splashing blood and ichor on the wall in front of me.

I roared in pain, not understanding what had happened yet when suddenly I felt a pulling sensation. I clung onto the wall as my units began to move in disarray.

The Gaunts jumped at it and started to chop at the tentacle, trying to tear the muscle apart, but the octopus noticed it had caught something and kept pulling with more strength.

“Th-that fucking octopus!! AGhh!”

With a terrible strength, I lost my ground and fell, but I used my tail to grab onto the metal. Gritting my maws, I managed to hold as we all attacked the tentacle.

The room was a mess, but all my units had jumped over our enemy and were chopping, cutting, and devouring pieces of flesh, weakening the damaged limb.

* Roaagh!!

Under so many attacks, the tentacle finally was chopped and fell heavily, dragging me behind.

“Aghhh… aghh… that fucking bastard! I’m gonna… aghhh… kill it!!”

Yet as soon as I said those words, more tentacles entered the room and began to pull the huge rocks, causing the massive cracks and fissures to finally gave in.

* Cr-CRAACKK!!

The wall collapsed and fell over the octopus, revealing a horrifying scene.

The whole meadows and part of the forest had been covered in tendrils, brambles, and parasite flowers. The acid rain had made the roots back off but had also awakened the willow tree, and it sought the nearest energy source it could find, that seemed to be the maddened octopus.

Somehow, this beast managed to get out of the water and move closer to the waterfall but was not yet wholly enslaved to the parasites.

A large snake-like creature suddenly jumped over it and began to enter its body as the octopus roared and tried to chop it down, but after a few seconds, it had partially fused with it already.

The snake parasite had thrown tendrils and roots in the open wounds of the octopus and began to grow inside the creature’s body. Yet the acid vermin residing inside the octopus body managed to slow the assimilation process, causing acid wounds on the snake’s tendrils.

The octopus had suffered massive damage and terrifying wounds, that was evident, as it had all its skin burned, but it was not going down yet. The light on its eyes didn't dim as it tried to take off the parasite. But all that fight had somehow attracted the roots from the willow tree towards it.

I decided to use this chance to get rid of it finally and began to shoot at the dying creature, trying to kill it. But as the living ammunition began to hit the beast, it turned and saw me. “Oh, fuck…”

Right then, at the door’s deaths, the creature smiled. It had finally found its nemesis.

I, on the other hand, could see the massive maw of the beast approaching, ready to swallow me.