A Citadel class monster. Of all the terrible things The System had done, Citadel class monsters were not the worst; but they were some of the most dreaded.

They were easy to kill, and that was about the extent of the good news.

Inside the Pestilent Hive of Horrors, a humanoid fly with long wings that dragged behind it like a cape, walked. He was utterly monstrous to look upon. The world humanoid had never been stretched so far as to include this thing.

Around it, a symphony of activity buzzed. Insects of many kinds worked together in an unnatural fashion, fabricating the dungeon around them and performing basic city building tasks.

It was alien. The citadel was all biological and biological by-products, its color pallet included radioactive green, near black purple, bright pulsing red, browns and blacks.

The Pestilent Hive of Horrors was not a dungeon any longer. Not since the humanoid fly with wings that trailed like a cape and a crown on its head had entered that place. Anything could have killed it, and it's a shame nothing did, because the moment it found the dungeon core, it was Game Over.

Citadel monsters are incomplete. Killing one in the wild, out in the open, is considered a great cause for celebration. Such people are called heroes and are treated as such for the rest of their lives; given a special respect and title.

Out in the wild, it's easy to kill one.

But then they find a dungeon core, and that's when the problems really begin. They are the only known beings able to dominate a dungeon core and force it to do their bidding.

With that power, they build unto themselves great and terrible Citadels that grow and grow, that build armies and send forth wave after wave of invasion forces, consuming everything around them.

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From them, monsters gain all the powers of civilization, and it is a terrible thing to behold.

In the Pestilent Hive of Horrors such a being walked. A humanoid fly who couldn't fly but walked upright and had a crown on his head and a scepter of chitin in his clawed, ugly, insect hands.

He was building a city of nightmares and spawning a brood of true horror. His termites would bring the forest down. His worms would consume the underground. His flies would blot out the skies. His beetles would scour the ground of everything living.

The Citadel Fly's eyes were compound and red and a pupil black was centered in each compartment. They gleamed with utter malevolence, and an intelligence in possession of many secrets and powers.

The Citadel Fly moved with ceaseless energy, and his workers died from over work and were eaten where they fell. Great living vats of biological treasure, acids and mutagenic agents, substances as potent as an alchemist's potions, were labored over by Spiders, Ant Queens, Royal Bees, and long legged centipedes.

In secret chambers, new life was born. Insects which couldn't move, bugs with a thousand swords for legs. Beetles with a hundred shields for shells. Strange crickets with sixty antennae, wands and staves for magic. Caterpillars that bristled with biological spears.

These impractical creatures were bred and slaughtered, their bodies cut and processed, turned into weapons for an army.

Underground, millions of larva writhed and squirmed over one another, a thousand feet deep of wriggling white flesh. They ate what was thrown to them, and ate each other, and cruel eyed spiders sprayed them with mutagens, shaping them into what they needed to be for The Hive.

The sound of that place would taint your ears, the sight of slick dry chitin by the tons would sear your eyes. The Hive was a nightmare of nightmares, a fear of fears, a horror of horrors. An army would be needed to take this place, and an army had not been called.

It was patrolled and its walls were thick, its monsters were mean and keen eyed, and its leader was clever and cruel. It was a Citadel, it was death.

What fool would dare try and assault such a place?

The Citadel Fly looked up, feeling his crown grow hot, answering a distant challenge. He cackled, the sound abrupt and startling, a buzz mixed with a crickets song, as if the song were malicious laughter.

What fool indeed would dare try and assault such a place?