While Gorger and Merlin are dealing with the imps, mostly Gorger hunting and eating them and Merlin standing guard near me, I look through my minions and watch the barghest.

The quest said that the barghest could only be fought individually, so that immediately takes out most of my soldiers, who are strongest together, that pretty much leaves only Bob and Kaiman. Of the two Kaiman seems to want to fight it the most.

I tell him to go, I am slightly afraid of what may happen, especially since I cannot see the level of the monster and I am pretty confident that attacking it with multiple undead might lead to problems, for all I know it could just summon a second or third barghest.

Kaiman gets close to the barghest, at ten meters both of us start sizing it up. It’s about the size of a bear, though it is built like a fighting dog and has particularly big teeth, which are easily visible in its snout and claws. Its eyes are two red lights, almost as if they were burnt there having little depth or texture like an eye, on the top of its head are a pair of pointy upwards ears, looking like a doberman's but standing taller.

Its pitch black fur makes it almost look like a shadow, the being is just standing there, not moving and seemingly not breathing, another wave of imps explode into my room and are again easily dealt with.

Hmmm. I didn’t want to do this before but this might be a dangerous fight. I tell Kaiman to go back to the base and grab all the spare skull ammunition there and absorb them. There shouldn’t be too much need for them, since the other dungeons are also dealing with their own trials I imagine, plus I can make more fast enough.

Once again more imps appear, this time there are more of them too, not that it changes much. I can see that Gorger's teeth are changing color from all the eating though, his flesh is burnt by the fire but with his regen it’s really inconsequential.

Kaiman goes back to the barghest a little bigger, and about 100 kg heavier. I do kinda wonder how big he can get, I probably need to let his energy saturate the bones and make them stronger before making him too big, otherwise he is probably going to collapse under his own weight.

He is not quite there yet, but he still towers over the barghest who does not seem fazed at it’s opponents new size.

Again the imps appear, right as I tell Kaiman to attack. He lunges at his opponent, the barghest vanishes, or rather, it simply turns invisible, I see the skill {Innate Spell: Minor Invisibility}.

Kaiman doesn’t sweat it, he immediately spins and uses his tail to swipe a large area around himself. The huge dog monster jumps up to dodge the tail swipe, It suddenly doubles in size, {Innate Spell: Englarge}, becoming almost as large as Kaiman. It lands heavily on the ground, jaws wide open and going for a bite, as it bites Kaiman on the arm and another skill is used {Barghest's Curse}. Kaiman immediately turns and lands a claw attack on it, the barghest is hit but it doesn't rot, instead it tries to pull Kaiman down by pulling the arm.

The bone juggernaut simply decides to give the dog a taste of its own medicine, and bites it right in the throat, but before Kaiman can use any of his skills the huge dog turn huger, again doubling in size, it bites Kaiman right in the ribs and like a dog it shakes Kaiman around, who starts clawing at its face, it then lets him go, which throws him into the ground and away from it.

The barghest loses its impressive size, returning to its large dog size. Kaiman gets up and stares around, I know that it is farther than five meters since I cannot see it, interesting enough the barghest does not have a life signature, at least not one that Kaiman can see. Meaning it’s at least partly undead. When the barghest first turned invisible I wanted to help Kaiman find it, but I felt a small tug from the quest, I imagine even my participation counts as breaking the challenge. I can feel that I could help him, the quest does not impede me, but it certainly is paying attention to what I am doing.

The wounds on Kaiman’s bone body are cured, using his {Remold Bone}, unlike regeneration each time Kaiman does this he is losing bone/body mass.

The barghest is just looking at him, it waits until Kaiman looks towards the ground, certainly trying to see weirdly flat grass that the animal’s digits are leaving, the dog suddenly appears in my vision visibly growing in size again, its fanged mouth closing right on his neck.

Kaiman desperately gores the beast in its thorax, I can hear the cracking of his neck and his hands as the claws break inside the animal before Kaiman notices how little damage its stabs are doing, he transforms his long claws becoming denser and shorter and just plunges them into the barghest before trying to grab its ribs. {Minor Ghostly Bail}.

The canine again turns invisible, Kaimans for a split second can see his claw pieces inside of it, and he can also feel the ribs in his hand, oddly soft compared to when he was ramming his claws on them before. He feels the small weight on top of him, and the ribs move away, and a slime substance appears on his hands.

Kaiman stares at his hands and sees a transparent liquid in them. I use {Analyze} on it.

Ectoplasm

Special material that enables incorporeal beings to interact with the physical world.

Kaiman lowers himself and stands on his four limbs, crouched low like a tiger he prowls while looking around. I can feel that he is trying to both find crumbled grass and his bone fragments. Again he restores himself, losing a bit of weight and height doing so.

I can tell he is focusing hard, suddenly his body shifts and a few holes open in his body, black mana coming out of them. Why is he doing that? I can see him focusing even harder now, as his mana connects to the ever present miasma around him, the miasma didn’t seem to help against the barghest before so why… Oh could he be trying to—

Kaiman moves his head up, jaws wide open right as the barghest appears in my vision, the barghest grows in size right as Kaiman’s jaw closes on it and he slams the mutt on the floor.

I can feel Kaiman’s focus reach a new pinnacle as his hands morph, new claws growing from both of his hands, his ten digits become twenty as he jabs his claws on the barghest who immediately starts trashing on his jaw hold. As Kaiman pulls back his clawed hand the claws break inside the animal’s body staying inside, the barghest grows up again, becoming taller than Kaiman, and surprisingly, it grows a third time now being much taller than Kaiman, the dog bites down in him, half of Kaiman’s body inside it mouth.

The huge beast snaps its mouth and breaks away Kaiman’s lower body, who immediately starts clawing his way deeper inside of it. Kaiman creates blades and hooks all over his arms as he tries to pull himself deeper, and yet he is too big, his attacks tearing hole in the dog’s throat.

The barghest shrinks in size, its throat tearing out as its size decreases, Kaiman falls out and the dog, showing its undead resilience, immediately attacks him biting into his throat yet again. Kaiman stops for a brief moment, less than a second, I feel something click deep inside of him.

Cult Initiate to Boneshaper Cult Initiate

Gained

{Strengthen Bone}

Bones connected to the user’s body get stronger with time.

{Enhance Bone}

Enhance an aspect of bones.

{Bone Dart}

Shoots out a small dart made of bone .

{Remold Bone} to {Shape Bones}

A ripple passes through Kaiman’s body, his bones almost look like they are made from liquid, as teeth jut out from his arms, like a bear trap his arms close with a powerful snap as the do the blades on each arm connect with one another creating a bladed prison, the pieces of bone inside of the beast are also connected back to Kaiman immobilizing it inside of his gigantic arm jaws. The barghest’s bones and body are crushed and cleaved apart by the fanged embrace of Kaiman who absorbs the bones and the necrotic energy coming out of it into his body, leaving only its hide behind.

He walks by and reattaches his legs back, just as Gorger finishes the last of the imps.

Invasion Trial: Barghest and Imps completed!

A Demonic Implosion imp summoning blast proof stone circle has been gained!

I see a large stone with blood red markings on it appear near my body. The stone is quite thick too, I tell everyone that the invasion is over, and tell Merlin about the stone circle. I want him to take a look at it and see the engraving differences, and I see Gorger pipe down… wait a minute.

I take a closer look at Gorger. Are your teeth… yellow? Also what the fuck are those nubs growing on your head Gorger! Are those baby horns? How did that happen!?

Merlin comes close to Gorger and seems to tell him about the summoning stone, before going back to manipulating mana and staring at the circle, Gorger just looks at the summoning circle. He seems hungrier than normal, so I put some mana in the stone and see it summon a single imp… Hey, that was quite cheap. I summon more imps as Gorger keeps eating them, and with my better than human dungeon vision I can see the yellowish material growing on Gorger’s teeth and mini chub horns. Actually {Analyze}.

Sulfur

Huh, from eating the imps? Are they made of sulfur? They don’t look like it, with their incredibly dark red bodies, maybe their flames have some?

Gained {Merry Feast}!

{Merry Feast}

Chance to gain some aspects of the Feasted food, changes are greatly improved when happy or hungry.

Okay, so is there anybody else who has gained something?

Merlin creates a circle with his necrotic mana, he makes his palms face each other and creates a second one, I see the thread of mana connect the circles, it’s a basic tripwire array, very simple, Merlin forcefully breaks it, initiating the second part of it and causing a small detonation of necrotic energy to come out of them. He tells me that two imps tried that on him.

I guess this invasion really was profitable. Merlin even learned and stole someone else’s design without me even telling him to. He truly is becoming a mage!