Zhu awoke to the sound of a police siren blaring directly in his ear. He ripped out his earbuds and rolled out of bed. His inner primate urged him to rest for another six hours, but he refused to succumb to its gormless gibbering. Sleep was one of life’s great evils. To capitulate to its demands was to piss a third of his life away.

Struggling to overcome his stupor through willpower alone, Zhu punched himself in the face. To his annoyance, the sharp pain in his cheek only partially banished his drowsiness. He would have to up his game. Zhu stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the sink. He filled a cup with the near-scalding liquid and poured it over his shoulder.

That did the trick. His masochistic waking ritual complete, Zhu ran to his room and practically slammed his visor over his head. The moment the device was secure, a flash of light blinded him. When he regained his vision, he found himself in an endless, white, empty void.

Well, almost empty.

Fifty feet across from him, an imposing monster pointed its empty eye sockets at him. The hulking beast hung from an enormous cross. Dozens of iron stakes had been driven into its hands and serpentine tail. Black blood oozed out of its ghastly wounds. Cruel fangs had carved a cave into its abdomen. Oily blood dripped off of boney stalactites. A clump of tapeworm-like organs hung out of the massive rupture. Yet, despite its gruesome demise, a toothy grin was etched across the pseudowyrm’s face.

Zhu jogged towards the cadaver. He climbed up its body, using the nails hammered into the creature’s tail as steps. When he reached the highest rung, he leaned forward until his head entered its eviscerated belly.

Suddenly, the limp tubular organs hanging out of the corpse latched onto his arms and dragged him inside. The gaping rent in the carcass’ midsection reknit itself, trapping Zhu inside.

Sensing that it was whole again, the corpse came roaring back to life. It lurched forward with a snarl, ripping its upper body loose. Still devoid of sight, the monster blindly groped at the rest of the spikes lodged in its tail and vengefully snapped them in half.

“▁▂▃▅▆▇▇▇▆▅▃▂!”

Black and silver liquid pooled into the pseudowyrm’s empty eye socket as it uttered a harrowing cry. When the liquid congealed into solid flesh, its terrifying yowl transitioned into a yawn.

Zhu, now in control over his character, scanned his surroundings. To his delight, his clan mates had taken the time to drag his unconscious body back to Parabellum, by far his favorite of their bases. This service did not come without a price. They had divested him of his armor and weapons. Zhu shrugged this theft off. Like most veteran players, he typically equipped himself with cost-effective and replaceable gear.

Humming to himself, Zhu merrily headed over to his private chambers to reequip himself. He flung the gate to his room open and enthusiastically greeted the occupants. “I’m byaaaaack”

Zhu grinned when Sarin XVI and two of his more monstrous creations—Dirge III and Aldrin—bowed. His honorary vassal, Strychnine, was considerably more affectionate than her adopted siblings and caught him in a bone-crushing embrace. Laughing, Zhu pried the synth off his body and gave her a noogie.

Zhu dramatically pointed at Sarin. “Suit me up, woman!” Nodding, Sarin reached into her inventory and helped him put on a cuirass. He peered down at her chest as she did this. Sarin’s assets were completely hidden behind a practical steel chest piece, but Zhu still licked his licks in a comically over-the-top fashion.

“Mmmmm, looking fine as usual!”

“Holy crap, you’re such a creep Zhu!” a feminine voice rang out behind him. He turned around and greeted the lithe avian being with mock offense.

“Don’t judge me, Iris! What is the point of custom NPCs if you can’t build yourself some eye candy?”

“Normal people don’t do that. I have the right to be very judgmental!”

“No, you don’t! You might not have built yourself a digital boy toy, but I’ve seen the way you drool over Blahyi’s giant schlong!”

Coincidentally, said individual happened to stroll by. Thankfully, the saboteurs’ burly frame was fully clothed for once.

“What is this about my schlong?”

“Oh hey, Blahyi, we were talking about how Iris is always checking out your junk.”

“I do not!”

Blahyi scowled at his female acquaintance with his hands on his hips.

“Iris, we’ve been over this.”

“What are you going on about?”

“I am not a piece of meat for you to ogle! I am a strong, independent man and I demand to be treated as such!”

“Yeah, you perv!” Zhu chimed in.

“Creeper!”

“Pig!”

“Sex maniac!”

“Nympho bitch!”

Iris raised her arms in exasperation. “How am I supposed to not look at it when it's bouncing all over the place?”

Zhu pointed an accusatory finger at her. “See, she admits it!”

Their loud heckling soon drew the attention of a man suited in a ridiculously impractical set of armor.

“Hey, Caustic,” Zhu greeted the acting leader of the southern division.

“Sup. What are you guys up to?”

“Just bullying Iris.”

“I see. Must be a day that ends in y. Hey Iris, can you port over to HQ? Sovereign is organizing a leader’s meeting.”

“I can go now,” she replied, happy to get away from her hecklers.

Blahyi watched them depart with a scowl.

“Look at those pompous douches. Guess they’re too important to talk amongst us commoners!”

“Tell me about it. I’ve been in this group for years and I’m still just a count. I deserve to be a duke!”

Blahyi rolled his eyes. “Maybe you’ll get it when you ask another thousand times.”

“When I get promoted, will you call me your dukeyness?”

“I’d doubt we’d have much of a group left if you ever got into a position of power.”

“Fuck you. I’d be a great leader.”

“You make a much better babysitter.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Since we’re on that subject, I was planning on hatching a clutch of bloodletters. You want a few?”

“Sure, I’ll raise some more shantus while we are at it.”

They made their way to the main hatchery along with Sarin. Blayhi’s conjurer hung from his waist. If it weren’t for its blinking eyes, the immobile creature could have easily been mistaken for a lifeless lump of flesh.

Although creating a synth with fell powers was always an expensive affair, the resources needed to create a standard “flesh pocket” were a pittance compared to the cost of a more traditional combat-capable tier-four synth such as Sarin. Zhu could not deny the convenience of a portable inventory, but he never created flesh pockets himself. He couldn’t stand the idea of giving life to such a boring design. He was often nagged for investing too many resources into his creations’ cognitive and physical abilities, but his contributions gave him more leeway.

A towering metallic ziggurat formed the heart of Parabellum. Its futuristic design was at odds with the city’s mostly renaissance-level architecture. This aesthetic clash served as a constant reminder of its significance. Unlike the other buildings, the ziggurat and its three counterparts were entwined with Tannin. Virtually indestructible, a clan could only claim dominance over a moon if they controlled them and the advanced machines within them.

Massive as the xenotech structure was, it still wasn’t big enough for the coalition’s purposes. Nearly every square foot of the first floor was occupied, forcing Zhu and Blahyi to calculate their every move to ensure that they didn’t accidentally squish any newborns or disturb the synths nursing them.

“Is it just me or are we short a few den mothers?” Zhu asked.

“Yeah, Sovereign used a bunch of the older ones as suicide bombers two or three days ago.”

“Why didn’t he just use some of the hellvetii or the belli?”

“He did at first, but we started running out. Your bugs did good that day,” Blahyi grudgingly admitted.

“Told you they were worth keeping around!”

“The termites are useful. Still don’t think the ants are worth keeping around. I heard a handful tried defecting to the enemy last battle.”

“Hah! C’mon, you got to admit that their backstabbing tendencies are hilarious!”

“It won’t be when they eventually do some real damage.”

“Everything has its drawbacks and uses. The females are almost as good at fighting as our bronze blooded soldiers and are way easier to feed. If we could indoctrinate them, they would be nearly perfect soldiers.”

“But we can’t.”

Zhu shrugged. “They’re living war trophies. We stole them from ZJH and they’re exclusive to Ferous. It would be a shame to kill them all.”

He clapped his hands when an unrelated thought occurred to him.

“Now that we're down a few den mothers, the higher-ups can’t nag me if I create a bunch of tier-ones! Sarin, hand me the good stuff!”

Sarin did as she was bid, albeit with a strange, almost human reluctance. Blahyi's eyes widened at the amount of resources that poured out of her pocket dimension.

“Holy crap, how did you gather so much?”

“Hard work, extortion, and bribery. Mostly bribery.”

Blayhi was no longer impressed. “Oh, so you just bought stuff from Hustleman again?”

“Hey, I farm plenty! I just also pay people to do some of it for me!”

“Where do you even get all that money?”

“My mom’s sperm donor.”

“...You mean your dad?”

“I’m legally obligated not to call him that. Probably. Sort of. Maybe. Actually, I just received a really stuffily worded email, but I don’t see any reason I should break my end of the deal.”

“Uh, okay. Does he have any issues with the way you spend your money?”

“Don’t know. Haven’t talked to him in years. That’s what the money is for.”

“What do you mean?”

“I get paid a thousand bucks a month as long as I don’t talk to him or anyone he knows. Pretty sweet deal, huh?”

“Oh. Okay. Still, don’t you think you could put that money to better use?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno? College fund? Investments? Actual prostitutes?”

“Sounds lame, I’d rather make a bunch of waifus!”

Zhu tossed armfuls of heart stones, meat, metal, and bones into a large transparent tank. He closed the hatch and tapped a few buttons on the console. A viscous substance flooded the vessel, liquefying the material he had placed within it.

“By the by, I don’t actually spend that much money on this game. I breed a lot of the animals that get put into the area and the racetrack, so I am entitled to a pretty big discount. I actually used to make a bit more than minimum wage off of that gig before we got sucked into this weird pseudo geopolitical kerfuffle.”

“Whoa! Seriously? That sounds wicked! I kind of wish they disabled cross transfer for a year or two so I could see what the game was like before then.”

Zhu watched the bubbling goo gradually turn into a shape more pleasing to his eyes.

“Yeah. These huge wars can be fun, but I wish we could go back to the old days where we could just kick back and chill. This place used to be a utopia. We didn’t have to worry about getting wiped and we used to host all these really cool events. If somebody really wanted to PVP they could just go to the arena or stage a flower war with another group. We even used to have friggin trains.”

“I didn’t even know you could make a train. Why did you get rid of them?”

“A railroad system is kind of useless when raiders are constantly ripping up the tracks or placing a bunch of boulders on top of them. Even in the old days, there used to be this douchebag troll that kept tying women onto them like in those old timey cartoons.”

Zhu licked his teeth when an unnaturally beautiful woman with a serpentine lower body formed inside the artificial womb. Not content with creating just one servant, Zhu dunked more resources into the other uterine replicators.

“Let’s see, snake lady. Snake lady. Snake lady. Hmm, maybe a lizard lady? Naw! Snake lady!”

As Blahyi watched Zhu design more synths, he slowly worked up the nerve to ask a question that had been on his mind for a long time.

“Hey, Zhu?”

“Yeah?” Zhu mumbled as he designed an especially endowed creation.

“Do you-do you actually beat off to the synths you make?”

“You don’t?”

“Uh, no,” Blahyi stammered, taken aback by Zhu’s utter lack of shame. He eyed Sarin’s serpentine tail dubiously. “What’s the appeal?”

“A girl without legs can’t run away from me.”

“Holy shit dude! Every time I think you can’t get freakier; you surprise me.”

“If you think he’s bad now, you should’ve seen him three years ago.” LongDongSilver, one of Zhu's original Bubble Buddy clan mates, joined in on the conversation. “The little perv used to fuck his synths.”

“Wut?”

Zhu stroked his chin nostalgically, “Oh yeah, those were good times!”

“No, fuck you. You’re busting my balls! There’s no way that happened!”

“I wish that was the case. I still have nightmares of what I saw.”

“How is that even possible?”

Zhu gestured around them. “How is any of this possible? This game is like something out of a sci-fi movie, man. I bet the devs could conquer the world if they wanted to. Wonder why they haven’t.”

Despite his better judgment, Blahyi was starting to believe them. “Did you feel anything?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because I could.”

“You're unbelievable! You still don't do that, do you?”

“Nah, like LDS said, I stopped a while ago. Turns out if you bang a synth, you can actually knock them up.”

“Now I know you’re lying!” Blahyi pounced. “Synths are infertile.”

Zhu preened. “My jizz is just too strong.”

“He’s not bullshitting you. He really did knock up one of his digital sex slaves. Little turd caused so many shitstorms and was the reason Charity’s group joined up with us.”

“What? How?”

“It took after his dad. Tried to eat every enemy player that it came across. It actually managed to permanently frag a few characters. The little bastard ended up eating one of Charity's friends. Guy even quit over it, so naturally, they were pissed. Sion made it up to them by inviting them into our group.”

“They forced us to kill Junior though,” Zhu sniffed.

“Fuck Junior! He was an asshole! Then again, I guess in the long run he did us a huge favor. Absorbing Charity’s group gave us a big power boost right before they made cross servers a thing. Plus, they finally got you to change that dumb edgy handle you used to use.”

“Hey, Botched Abortion was a perfectly fine name!”

LDS shook his head. “Anyway, not that I don’t appreciate waxing nostalgic, but can you boys do me a favor and go on a quick meat run before you pop out more babies? Our larders are low.”

Zhu nodded. “Yeah sure. Let’s take our wyverns.”

On their way to the hangar, they spotted Iris reluctantly speaking with a player dressed in brigandine. The man greeted Blahyi with a smile. His tone grew chillier when his eyes alighted on Zhu and LongDongSilver.

“Zhu. LDS.”

It took Zhu a moment to identify the player now that he wasn’t wearing his signature dog-shaped helmet.

“What’s up, Garm?” he asked, unperturbed by the cold greeting. “How was the meeting, Iris?”

“Sovereign got some intel. Apparently, the Empyreans are still sore about us beating them. Rumor is that they are aiming to hit us again this weekend.”

“So soon? Fuck! I just fixed my damn sleep schedule!” LDS groused.

“I doubt they’ll actually come,” Garm grunted. “They took a lot of casualties during the last invasion. Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Khiva spotted Gary and is tailing him where the old swamp donkey base used to be. I need you guys to come with us to buy some stuff.”

“Who's Gary?” Blahyi asked.

“The sales robot,” LDS answered.

“Oh. Why do you call it that?”

Zhu shrugged. “Don’t really know. One of our old clan mates, Peterfile, used to call him that and it just caught on.”

“Ugh, please don’t mention that guy. He was such a creep!” Iris shuddered.

“Somehow, I am not surprised,” Blahyi remarked dryly.

“Peter wasn’t actually a kid diddler!” LDS protested. “He was a really funny guy; he just didn’t know how to act around girls.”

Iris glared at LDS. “I doubt you would be so quick to downplay what he did if he had been perving on you.”

“Man, he must have been really bad if he got under your skin,” Blahyi said while pointedly staring at Zhu.

“Zhu’s always been a weirdo, but he only started pretending to be obsessed with me after we found out Peter actually was,” Iris replied.

Her defensiveness on his behalf amused Zhu. While it was true, he had no genuine interest in flirting with any of his female associates, Zhu and Iris were not nearly as close as she thought. He certainly never felt the urge to speak up for her whenever the more misogynistic members of the coalition insulted her behind her back.

“Iris, you wound me! My feelings for you are as real as your breast implants.”

“I don’t have implants! I’m flat as a board!”

“In that case, I will gladly chop off my man tits and donate them to you, milady.”

Garm whistled sharply. “Alright, that’s enough chatting. Khiva’s been waiting long enough as is. If you can come, grab a wyvern and a pocket conjuror.”

All four of them took off. They instinctively flew in a loose formation to avoid being tagged by an anti-air monster.

“Have you guys ever tried destroying one of those robots?” Blayhi shouted as they flew over a swamp.

Below them, a gigaonyx pursued a school of giant coelacanths. Its elongated jaws moved like green lighting. A fifteen-foot-long fish disappeared down its snapping jaws. It was just about to guzzle down another when a colossal metriorhynchid exploded out of the water. The aquatic horror clamped its crocodilian jaws around the spinosaurid’s neck and dragged it beneath the surface. The players scarcely noticed the struggle.

Gigaonyx

“Our clan hasn’t, but Sion and I once helped some of Vlad’s guys kill one,” Garm answered.

“Did it drop any special loot?”

“Not really. It dropped its entire inventory, but other than that, all we got were its enigma batteries and a bunch of scrap metal. Fighting them is not remotely worth it.”

“Damn, that sucks. Was the fight fun at least?”

“Hardly. The thing just flies around shooting lasers that could one-shot tyrants. When we finally wrestled it to the ground, it took like fifteen minutes to beat it to death.”

“That’s lame.”

“Yeah, don’t even think about attacking one,” Iris chimed in. “As far as I know, most mega clans have killed at least one, and it is never worth it. The only reason people do it nowadays is for the sake of bragging rights.”

Just a minute later, Blahyi caught sight of their target. He sized it up with a frown. “It doesn’t look that tough.”

Indeed, the mechanical sphere did not bear any visible weapons and was no bigger than a hopper ball. Perhaps the only slightly ominous thing about it was the many glowing red ‘eyes’ dotted across its spherical body.

An almost disturbingly lanky wyvern rider greeted them.

“Hey, guys!”

“Hey, Khiva,” Garm replied. “Hope we didn’t keep you waiting for long.”

“Naw, you’re good. You guys got here pretty quick.”

“Gary, we want to buy some stuff.” Garm shouted once the machine floated over a solid patch of land.

Gary beeped and dropped out of the sky. Its eyes projected five holographic storefronts when Zhu and the others neared it.

“Crap. It only has ten canisters on it,” Iris complained.

“On the bright side, it's offering them at a huge discount. It’s practically a steal!” Khiva said happily.

“More like a slightly gentler ass fucking,” LDS muttered.

“Alright guys, you know the drill. Buy the other stuff first, but make sure that we have enough supplies to trade for the enigma,” Garm said.

Zhu tapped on one of the many icons on display. “Always need more age accelerators.” He grabbed a handful of red heart stones and presented it to Gary. The robot converted the objects into a ball of light, which it then absorbed. Several syringes materialized in Zhu’s hand a second later.

“Ooh, he’s also got holobooks for sale!”

LDS frowned as he watched Sarin exchange twenty copper ingots for a datapad. “The history of currency? You’re really gonna waste all that copper on that?”

Zhu shrugged. “Gotta find some way to keep me busy while I am indoctrinating stuff. Believe it or not, humming to babies all day isn't very fun.”

Blahyi dropped several gold bars. “Gimme that endrim!” He rubbed his hands when Gary provided him with a jet black ingot. “Gonna make a badass sword with this.”

Garm shot him a disproving look. “That would be incredibly wasteful.”

“And a Russian would probably just yoink it off your body when you go offline,” Zhu sniggered.

LDS bared his teeth. “Real talk, I am sick of those, asher fucks constantly pocketing our gear!”

“Hey, those are our clan mates, you're bad-mouthing!” Khiva said sharply.

“Fuck em! I only put up with those grubby commie bastards for so long cause we needed people to cover the night shift! Well, we have plenty of other Eurasian and Australian players now! I say we boot their asses!”

“If we did that, we’d have to call ourselves the BLAC coalition. Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Zhu jested.

Garm glared at LDS. “If we were planning on booting anyone, you and your degenerate clan would be the first to go. If it were up to me, you would have all been kicked out along with Peter.”

“Then you’d be called the LACK Coalition.”

“Shut the fuck up, Zhu!”

“See, this is why you're not a duke anymore. You always make dumb shit decisions,” LDS shot back. “If you had your way, the Chinese would have taken over this server.”

“You guys are not nearly as important as you think you are,” Garm scoffed.

“But my mamma told me I was special!” Zhu protested.

“She probably meant special ed!” Garm all but roared.

Zhu laughed. “Yeah probably.”

LDS shook his head. “Get your head out of your ass, Garm. Zhu is literally the reason the coalition exists in the first place.”

“Yeah, and you guys have hung that over our heads for over three fucking years. The past is the past. Lately, you guys have been way more trouble than you're worth.”

“Bullshit! The BB gang puts in more work than anybody else!”

“I wasn’t talking about your contributions; I was talking about your personalities. You guys are the most obnoxious, unlikeable, fucking losers I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. We receive constant complaints about your behavior. The only reason Sovereign and the other leaders tolerate you guys is because every single person in your dumbass group is a pathetic no-life loser that spends every waking hour playing this game.”

LDS thrust his middle finger at Garm’s crimson eye. “You don’t get to pull the high and mighty card on me! At least I never murdered anyone!”

“I was a marine, you little shit. And it's thanks to men like me that you have the freedom to run your dumbass mouth!”

“Oh yeah, I am really grateful that you fucks raped half the planet and razed Venezuela! Do you have any idea how many relatives I’ve lost to you semper fi fucktards!”

“Knock it off, guys!” Khiva placed himself between the two. “We’re all here to have fun!”

LDS was the first to turn away. “Well, I sure as hell am not in the mood to play anymore. Let’s just grab the enigma so I can log off.”

“Already got them,” Iris announced with strained cheer. She gingerly handed a pair of transparent canisters to each of her clan mates. The dense liquid sloshing within the vessels changed color every time they were jostled. The players took off once they secured the volatile resources to their bags.

Eager to dispel the awkward tension that had fallen over the group, Iris blurted out the first thought that popped into her mind.

“I wish we could just store this xeno tech stuff in a pocket dimension.”

Garm rolled his eyes. “I swear to god somebody whines about this every day.”

“Of course we do! It’s cancer game design!”

“You know what would be even more cancer? Some asshole conjurer being able to stuff a bunch of gate portals or atom smasher bombs in their inventory and just take them out whenever.”

“Well, the devs already made it impossible to store explosives. If they were smart, they’d just exclude the overpowered xenotech stuff and let us pocket the rest.”

“Just please shut the fuck up about it! Complaining to us isn’t going to change shit!”

“Alright, geez! Just trying to make some small talk!”

“Hah, you must be in a really pissy mood, Garm!” Zhu cackled. “This is the first time you talked to a girl without trying to nice guy your way into her pants!”

Everyone save Garm laughed at that jeer.

When they returned to base, Garm and LDS emptied their flesh pockets and raced to their quarters.

“Good riddance.” Iris muttered once she was sure they were out of earshot. “I say we do something fun to wash away that bit of unpleasantness.”

“Me and Zhu were planning to go on a meat run for the babies.”

“Well, that’s not super exciting but, sure.”

“I’ll come too,” Khiva said.

They headed south. Within minutes, they arrived at a floodplain. Tens of thousands of formidable ceratopsians, towering sauropods, colorful hadrosaurs, and other herbivorous dinosaurs tramped across the vast stretch of mostly open land in search of fresh greenery.

They weren’t the only ones looking for food. Packs of theropods and crocodylomorphs trailed behind the massive herd. Any creature that betrayed the slightest trace of weakness was singled out and dispatched. The predators themselves were not exempt from this rule. One allosaurus learned that lesson the hard way when it mistook a subadult shantu as easy prey and was dealt a jaw-shattering tail thwap. A mob of albelisaurids instantly pounced on it.

The herd marched past the constant carnage with cold indifference. Although they moved in unison, the plight of an individual animal was their own to deal with. Even when Zhu and his companions started carrying off animals or blasting them with biochemical weapons, the horde of beasts continued their march.

But even their single-minded stubbornness had its limits. Several animals were crushed or impaled on quills when the quillgore vanguard ground to a sudden halt. They pawed at the ground and bobbed their horned heads at the tarrasques standing in their paths. Panicked eyes undermined their fierce front.

Quillgore

A group of jumbos—towering bipedal dinosaurs with long necks—stood behind the tarrasques. They loaded child-sized boulders into their staff slings and let them fly. Gunners riding atop the tarrasques fired two seconds later.

Jumbo

The quillgores’ boney frills weathered the hail of lead balls and giant rocks reasonably well. A considerable number suffered broken horns and chipped beaks, but they maintained their formidable phalanx, aware that to split up was to court death.

Other herbivores were not so resolute. Some of the flightier species were already breaking off from the rest of the herd. Many of these deserters headed north, hoping to find refuge amongst the cluster of trees there. The cover they banked their hopes on proved to be a death trap.

A tapestry of colors descended upon the wide-eyed herbivores. Varans were truly gorgeous lizards when admired from a distance. Leathery sails dyed in red and black hues unfurled from their splayed ribs as they leaped from the treetops. Strong osteoderms dark as polished onyx protected them from retaliation. They lost much of their majesty when they latched onto their trembling prey and ripped them open with serrated teeth. Some of the less disciplined reptiles ate their squealing victims alive. Ophidian handlers pulled on these troublemakers' brindles and directed them towards ambulatory targets.

Once the deserters were all hamstrung or dead, the varans scuttled towards the main herd. Moments later, a kasai rex stomped in from the west. Bits of gigantosaurus flesh hung from his teeth and a tyrannosaurus’ tail adorned his nasal horn. A pack of briar queens and impalers dispatched any predator their alpha failed to pick off.

Three tyrants proved too much to bear. Panic swept through the herd’s ranks. Animals standing on the outer edges of the formation tried to force their way into the center, while the strongest animals occupying those once coveted positions sought to break out of the press of bodies.

First blood went to the tarrasques. They bowled over twenty ton quillgores as if they were cardboard cutouts. Not to be outdone, the kasai rex leapt onto an armored mokole. Shantus squealed in agony as packs of varans scurried up their legs and sawed through their tendons.

The hunters drove their quarry south. Great arrows skewered anything that tried fleeing through the gaps of their formation. Maintaining the western end of the net proved more difficult. Powerful as the tarrasques were, there were only two of them. Their jumbo assistants tried to beat back any beasts that got past them. No doubt the players had instructed them to avoid provoking the more formidable cryptids or any feyla, but such orders were beyond the simple-minded sauropodomorphs' comprehension.

Several of them bludgeoned a prickly stegosaurid that tried shoving its way past them. It wasn’t until they shed some of its azure blood that they realized their blunder. In an instant, a jumbo was laid open by the muhuru’s swishing thagomizer. Before the agitated stegosaurid could gut another one, a green gastrolith struck its face. It shattered upon impact and released a small cloud of vesicant gas. Zhu’s wyvern continued to lob more poisoned globes at the blistered dinosaur until it trundled off.

Zhu maneuvered his wyverns towards the tarrasques and waved at the men sitting atop them.

“Hey, King.” He nodded at his companions. “Hello, other people I do not know.”

“Zhu! What’s up my friend?” King responded in a deep Russian accent.

“Just going on a meat run, like you guys. What are you doing all the way out here?”

“The north end of the map is going through another resource drought.”

“Hm. That’s weird. I don’t think I've ever heard of that happening twice in a row.”

“Me neither! It’s fucking bullshit! It’s going to take so long to repair our base.”

“I’ve noticed that a lot of new players have been joining this server lately. Maybe that’s been affecting the drought cycle. If you want, I can go ahead and start eating noobs.”

King shook his head. “No, we need more recruits. I think we just need to raise the steel and gunpowder tax on the independents. I am sick of defending them. They can either join us or go to another server.”

“Forcing people to join is a good way to get insided.”

“Bah, you’re starting to sound like Sion!”

Zhu and his companions helped their Slavic allies drive the herd southwards. Green grassland eventually gave way to a wide, winding river.

Fleeing quillgores plunged into the water without hesitation. They were competent swimmers, and their prickly defenses usually dissuaded even the largest crocodiles from attacking them. The other animals hesitated to take the plunge but made up their minds when a fire wyvern charred a small group of ankylosaurs.

Just as the quillgore vanguard reached the deepest section of the river, a fleet of ugly wooden barges intercepted their path. Zobaka sailors cast barbed nets onto the ceratopsians. Ladened and entangled, the ceratopsians flailed and drowned. Their spiny bodies congested the river, preventing the animals behind them from crossing. Javelins and great arrows dealt with savvier beasts that tried swimming around the corpses.

Whenever a barge neared a sauropod, a zobaka would leap off the deck and drive a two-handed harpoon deep into the colossal animal’s spine. After a brief delay, the shatterglass-tipped blade would detonate, widening the wound.

The mega herd was wiped out in less than an hour. King and his subordinates' butchery skills were on par with their ability to slaughter. Any meat that could not be stuffed into their flesh pockets was loaded onto their ships.

Blahyi whistled. “Man, that must be like ten years’ worth of meat!”

“That will last them a month at best,” Khiva disagreed. “Baby wyverns are bottomless pits.”

“Still don’t see why we can’t take some,” Blahyi grumbled.

“They need it more. Come on, there’s another good spot I know of close to here.”

Zhu was familiar with the foraging grounds Khiva spoke of. Eager to shed more digital blood, he sped ahead of the others. His poison wyvern nimbly weaved her way through a maze of towering redwood trees. Without prompting, she dove upon a tribe of neanderthals and plucked a man off the ground. His kinsmen scattered in all directions.

“Settle down, girl. This chump might work for us.”

Thanks to Conquest’s sophisticated AI, players could facilitate complex interactions with NPCs without recruiting or conscripting them. Fledgling players sometimes formed equal trade alliances with these groups, but most mega clans lacked the patience needed to develop such a complex partnership and simply killed or enslaved NPC tribes as soon as they spawned.

Zhu’s clan, however, developed a more sophisticated approach. Tannin had a rather unique history. Whereas most of the greater moons were quickly dominated by a single oppressive group, the coalition was unique in that they used to share power between several clans. Prior to cross server travel, four out of the five clans functioned as independent entities. This system had honed the coalition’s diplomatic abilities and was a skill they extended to their NPC subjects.

Rather than simply prey on tribal NPCs, they collected tribute from select groups. In return, the coalition strengthened their tributary settlements. Some of their vassals almost developed renaissance level societies before constant inter-server conflict erased their progress. Although this almost benevolent relationship proved ‌unprofitable in the current PVP focused meta, the coalition still practiced it on a smaller scale for nostalgic reasons.

Necrotoxic did not give Zhu a chance to check the tribal for brand marks. She accidentally clenched her talons, crushing his spine.

Zhu shook his head. “No more treats for you.”

Truthfully, he doubted that the tribal was one of their serfs. Purebred neanderthals were not especially popular. Their squat frames and wide noses made them unattractive by modern human sensibilities and their status as a cosmopolitan species rendered them an inherently unexciting choice of minions.

Most players primarily valued neanderthals for their ability to interbreed with humans. Their value in this role admittedly skyrocketed ever since Eden—the only moon where human NPCs naturally spawned—was destroyed, but the coalition recently acquired a considerable number of pureblooded sapiens. Some members even advocated they discontinue their neander hybrid breeding lines, a sentiment that annoyed Zhu given that several of those same members strong-armed him into working on that project in the first place.

Aware that any ties they might have had with the fleeing neanderthals would have been irrevocably damaged, Zhu committed to finishing what his mount started. He lobbed sling stones at the fastest runners while Sarin dropped weighted nets on any of the tribals dumb enough to clump together. Zhu’s companions arrived soon afterwards and helped him capture the remaining NPCs.

“Rightyo, we don’t need any slaves, so let's get this done lickety-split.”

Zhu climbed down from his wyvern and reached out for the nearest neanderthal. The woman fought with the desperation of a cornered animal. She beat her fists against Zhu’s arm and chipped her teeth on his gauntlet. Snickering, he lifted the woman by her neck and slammed her head against his breastplate. He pinned the stunned neanderthal down with one hand and unsheathed a carchadin dagger with the other. His victim redoubled her efforts to escape when she saw the glassy shiv. Zhu watched her frantic struggles intently.

The fear in the woman’s eyes was so organic, so intense; he almost believed he was committing an actual murder.

With a few flicks of his wrist, Zhu carved a neat hole in his victim's chest and ripped out her heart. Like a machine that had its batteries taken out, the woman went limp.

Iris, who had been tasked with ensuring their captives didn’t escape, sniffed sadly as she watched a woman cradle her child.

“Oh my god, look at the baby hugging his mom! It’s so sad!”

“You know what’s even sadder?” Before Iris could say anything, Zhu ripped the bawling infant from its mother’s grasp and tossed it into Necrotoxic’s mouth.

“You’re awful!”

“And you’re soft. Why do you even play this game if gore bothers you so much?”

“Because when this game isn’t depriving me of sleep or showering my screen in blood, it’s the best thing ever.”

“Can’t argue—'' Zhu paused when he heard an angry bellow. A robust man broke out of his restraints and was charging at him. Zhu casually knocked the neanderthal down with a backhanded slap. “—with that.”

He grinned down at his attacker.

“Hey, check out the muscles on this guy! I think this fella might be worth bringing back alive.”

“He is a beefcake,” Blahyi acknowledged. “But is it worth the effort? We already have plenty of neanderthals.”

“Definitely not going to waste an afternoon indoctrinating him, but I think he’s worth a leech.”

Zhu dragged the man’s forehead towards his yawning jaws. The neanderthal closed his eyes, unwilling to look at the serrated tusks that would crush his skull.

The fate that awaited Zhu’s victim was far worse than he could have ever envisioned. The man cracked open an eyelid when a disgusting squelching noise emanated from Zhu’s mouth. He let out a strangled scream when a slimy abomination with a hundred segmented legs crawled out of Zhu’s throat. It latched its lamprey jaws onto his forehead. His wails ceased once the parasite drilled its way into his frontal lobe. Eyes glazed over, the lobotomite dumbly awaited Zhu’s command.

“Alright, from now on you're called ChubChub. Now be a good sport and help load some meat into Sarin’s pocket dimension.” Zhu turned to his companions. “Hey guys, make sure you keep a few of the females alive. I wanna see if I can breed this buffness into the rest of the population.”