The final count comes to one hundred and fifty soldiers, ninety throwers of all kinds, twenty fighters, one hundred skulldwarves, fourteen casters, one Merlin, one Bob, one Kaiman, one Asterion and one Gorger, the fighting forces. After that we have sixty new drones, ten of them special ones and all the bone fortifications I have created for this.

This will not be all, and I think most of the new ones may die, this is a very large forest, who knows what’s there. I ain’t taking any chances so I will keep pumping skeletons.

Asterion breaks through the tunnel connecting to the greenhouse, as soon as he does he runs to the mouth of the tunnel. He leaps to the soft dirt ground and begins digging, I can actually feel excitement. It's easy to forget that this little guy has literally never seen any of this before, look at him all happy making a moat, or more like a trench, most would probably stare at the trees instead of getting happy digging dirt, but hey, this is the first time he’s diggin actual dirt.

At least that’s what I want. Skulldwarves are right behind him with bone shovels, they come in and start helping, throwing the dirt in little mounts, interestingly enough Asterion does not seem to eat dirt. I already have the old skull drones all around keeping a silent vigil. I have seen some weird stuff here, first of all is that there is a day night cycle here, after a while the light shed by the fake sun on the ceiling starts getting darker, before becoming dim enough to simulate a moonlit night.

After that there is the fact that it seems there is a turf war going on here, the famous lizards with the constant and unrelenting aggression fighting against… crabs, giant crabs and crab men and a few lobsters too, My undead have spotted camouflaged enemies with their life vision too.

Initially I thought that this whole place was a forest, most of it is forest, but here’s the thing, there is a river coming from deep inside the lizard’s territory, this stupidly full lake goes from one side of this forest to the other, it’s not a straight line but it continues to the other end of this greenhouse. This river also starts overflowing, and in fact creates a lake at the left side of the forest. The whole place has a kind of swampy rainforest look to it, it’s canopy is a lot more difficult to look into from above and I have seen some giant slugs there too,they are called Plated Slugs, and by giant I don’t mean hand or arm sized slugs I mean elephant sized, with what I assume are babies the size of baby elephants too. They have armor on their backs too. They also only stay on the left side.

I should also clarify that there are giant crabs, but these ones are, well, they are giant in comparison to normal crabs so about a meter tall. They seem pretty chill with the slugs, I can see why they seem to only eat plants and not crabs. I’m pretty sure they would be attacked on sight on the snake’s side, I am not even sure if they taste good, or nutritious. I remember that some insects were actually pretty nutritious, but I am not sure about slugs, I think people used to eat slugs back somewhere in the past of humanity. In my era they were just recreational drugs, and also hitman drugs, pump a few of them in your system and you could see spells before they were cast.

Anyway the crabs seem mostly peacefull, they only attack the lizards when they come to attack them, they never retaliate with an invasion of their own.

Oh? I may have spoken too soon, I am seeing movement from the left side, coming right to where my troops are, seems like today will be crabs for food.

With my floating skulls I can see a few of the camouflaged beings slowly come closer too.

I tell Bob, Gorger, and the heavy squad to move to the left side to meet them, meanwhile Asterion is digging in that direction too, making a small tunnel. The heavy squad is composed of thirty skeletons with bone hammers and thirty squires.

Soon enough the enemy arrives, there are seven crabs, pretty standard looking, outside of being the size of a human child, two same sized pincers, six legs, two eye stalks, all of them are either a dark orange or dark red, just like their bigger siblings.

The other three are different though, they are larger for starters at least 1.50 meters tall, so more like teen than child sized, they are however humanoid, they stand on four legs connected diagonally to their humanoid torsos, one of them with two arms ending in large pincers, another has four arms, all holding red chitin knifes, the last one taking point has four arms holding weirdly textured white maces. I notice that instead of a third pair of legs they seem to have small nubs of chitin. Not sure what’s going on there, I remember reading that if insect-like beings were to grow in size they would most likely need to abandon the large number of limbs, so many limbs would be an energy sink, but I am not sure that’s what’s happening here.

These crabs also don’t really have necks, their dome head connects directly to their torso, I am pretty sure they don’t really have the need for a neck all that much with their eyestalks.

They have a slightly hunched posture due to their backs; it's a solid plate of crab shell, which only segments at their hips.

The crabs stare at the skeletons for a second, their posture low, their legs far apart. They start taking small steps closer, and then divide themselves, without any communication, or at least something that would look like communication. Either these crabs are all seasoned warriors, who have made plans before the battle or they have someone, or something telling them what to do.

The knife crab is going toward Gorger, the mace is in the direction of Bob, and the pincer goes to my heavies, with a posse of crabs.

The rest of my forces outside of the dwarves are hidden in the tunnel, but Kaiman is ready to jump out if needed. Although I am pretty sure the crabs chose their enemies for a reason I still tell them to fight the crabs as is.

I can feel my skeletons, all of them seem… eager to fight. Bob is just always happy so that’s just normal for him, Gorger seems curious and happy to find the taste of crab, and the heavies seem to want to test their hammers.

Without me needing to say it my undead start walking slowly forward, Gorger suddenly runs ahead!

This causes Bob to run to meet his target too, while the heavies keep their pace. The crabs also decide this is the right moment to run too, maybe they got caught up in the feeling or something.

Gorger jumps headfirst into– actually they are within five meters already! {Analyse}

[Stabber Crab] LV14

[Meager Giant] LV7

Now let’s see Mace crab.

[Crab at Arms] LV20

[Tiny Giant] LV10

And the last one.

[Pincher Crab] LV13

[Molting Shifter] LV16

Molting wha–

I feel a sudden pull towards the crab, and then it suddenly starts molting, except that instead of a normal crustacean molt the carapace simply starts cracking apart as the crab grows.

I feel another pull and follow my instincts. {Analyze}

{Molt Armor}

Recent molt protects the body.

Huh, must’ve been something I got when upgrading my core. I can see enemy skills now.

The crab now is at least 2 meters tall now, taller than my skeletons. It punches the front row of squire shields. They immediately fall down, the hammers that can start pounding the pincer. The smaller crabs run sideways and try to go behind their backs, but a few of the squires stop them. There are seven crabs and ten skeleton squires, so four of them are fighting alone.

I really want to control them, but I also want them to win on their own, I am pretty sure that they would level faster that way.

A quick look at the others and I see that Bob seems fine, so does his enemy though.

Aaaand Gorger is getting his ass kicked. I can see a few wounds on his belly. Two fairly big ones, two long vertical cuts on his belly and another two smaller horizontal ones just under his armpit.

The crab seems…angry? I don’t know how or why I think that, the crab doesn’t really have an expression on its crab face. It just dodged an attack and is a few meters away. Gorger runs at it again and swings his arms.

The crab clicks its mandibles and dodges the swing, ducking under it and retaliating with two cuts right under the arms. As it passes Gorger it spears its legs on the soft ground using the momentum to pivot around and unleash four quick stabs right on the spine. I hear the popping as the spine is stabbed. I feel the pull again. {Analyze}

{Quick Stab}

The crab keeps stabbing Gorger’s spine, Gorger simply turns and slaps the crab in the eye, this seems to surprise the crab as not only does it get hit, but Gorger closes his his and pulls the eye and the stalk right out, Gorger then takes the opening to… eat the stalk like a noodle. Dammit you glutton.

The crab quickly backs off clicking its mandibles widely, I don’t speak in clacks but it seems very pissed. Very interesting that the crab knows how spines work, if Gorger was not an undead zombie that would’ve taken him out, if not at least cripple him for the fight.

I change my view again to a drone skull and survey the battlefield. The camo enemies are around but not advancing, staying near the tree line. I can see at least ten. Bob seems alright, the heavy group though is clearly having some problems. Some squires died, pulverized under their shields, the hammers clearly aren’t strong enough to crack the shell, and the other squires seem to just be defending against the crabs, not attacking, so they have not died, but have not killed their enemy either. And I can see that some of them are far from the others. Some of the hammer’s got a shield from the ground and are using it, they are holding it there though, they are lining and supporting the shields, quite literally supporting them, standing behind the shielders.

Gorger is starting to look like a crossword puzzle, but that doesn’t seem to bother him too much. The stabber's strategy is just not working, I am pretty sure it expected Gorger to slow down or just die from bleeding. Again, this crab knows about spines and how useful they are to most living beings. The problem is that Gorger is actually a perfect counter to it, stabber's strategy seems to be bleeding your opponent and then delivering a fatal blow to them. The problem is that Gorger doesn’t really care much about the tic tac toe being playing on his body, he is a zombie, the only way to make his spine stop working would be to destroy the majority of the flesh around it and then the spine.

There used to be a myth that destroying a zombie’s head or disconnecting it would kill the zombie, it’s not true. The decapitated head may die, if it’s not reattached, the body would still work, though without seeing it would mostly just shamble around.

I actually think that the molting crab would’ve been more successful. The only way for the stabber to win is for it to stab Gorger’s head off then the rest of the limbs, which is not impossible, but seems unlikely to happen easily. The molting crab could’ve just smashed Gorger into a pulp, winning a long endurance fight.

Oh, wow. Bob is not having a good time. Well for human standards at least, he doesn’t seem that pissed. I take a look at his fight and see that he is actually getting pummeled, his mace wielding enemy is actually quite fast and dextrous with those. It keeps dodging every attack and retaliating with a mace attack, right to the head or arm. Damn, he is clearly aiming the attacks at the joints, or Bob’s jaw. Bob’s just taking them like a champion though.

The battle shifts slightly, I see a crab, one of the normal giant crabs, fighting one squire running from them. It runs towards another skeleton squire, who’s got their back turned to it!

The disengaged one pulls their bone spear from the shield and tosses it to the back of the crab! YES. Finally one of them used it!

The spear pierces the crab and it stops moving. The little thrower looks on at the dead crab, probably wondering why no one else had this idea. They go to the carcass and pull it out, and then throw the spear again at another crab! The two skeletons share a look, and I can see a few other skeletons also looking at the scene. For some reason Gorger shares a look as well. Oh, he’s walking towards the crab corpses, of course.

The skeletons that are fighting in pairs start moving, one bashes the crabs with their shields, the other goes a little back, pulls a short spear and throws them.

And just like that the squires are freed from the carcenized shackles. They recover the short spears and throw them at the molting crab, a few hit true and stick on the crab, it suddenly turns around and walks to them, and now I have to wonder if intelligence is contagious among skeletons.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

When the crab turns around one the hammers suddenly {Slams} their club into it! Unlike the other times, this time the blow was aimed directly at the leg joint, the attack hits and immediately breaks the leg. The crab tries to retaliate with a glancing blow, but the squires are able to block it! The other hammers catch one and also start hammering the crab legs.

{Refreshing Molt}

Suddenly the crabs molts again, this time though it doesn’t get bigger, it actually gets smaller, smaller than before actually, but its legs have regrown!

Gorger, out of nowhere, decides to run towards the hammers, stabber follows, clicking angrily all the while.

Just as the crab is getting pummeled by the hammers Gorger pushes them out of the way!

Gorger you dumbass what are you doing!?

Just as Gorger gets close enough the crab immediately punches him in the gut, actually piercing into the stomach. Gorger then simply pulls the crab towards him into a hug, and tries to shove the crab directly inside his stomach! The wounds on his belly worsen, they start to tear larger gaps into him, while the crab is thrashing wildly tearing chunks from him.

Gorger suddenly grips one of the crab's legs, rips it out and eats it! The crab starts struggling even more, stabber is trying to reach it but the squires are blocking the way. One of the hammers suddenly {Slams} the molting crab, while Gorger is taking out other legs.

I suddenly have a bad feeling, and decide to trust my gut.

Kill that crab now!

I feel the skill being used, the one I didn’t see the first time.

{Rapid Growing}

The crab starts molting and growing in size.

Asterion bursts from the earth! Ten white claws pierce deeply into the crab. Viciously Asterion digs out flesh and carapace from the skeleton, before slamming his claws into it again. Asterion is using a conjunction of {Gore} and {Stone Digging}. The molting crab dies before it can reach its larger size. Gorger just pats his stomach, or rather his stomach hole.

I turn to see a few hammers and squires dead, the tactic of stabbing the spine working a lot better on them. But now it has been surrounded. The hammers just beat it to death, they have learned their lesson, first breaking its legs and then arms. Slowly the stabber is broken into pieces.

Seeing his crab folk being brutally murdered must have shocked mace crab, he stops moving and stares, just for a few seconds. Bob grabs two of his arms, the crab then jumps, its front legs kick Bob in the clavicles and the back legs hit both of his muscled thighs.

{Vault}

The crab then backflips using Bob’s body tearing its own arms off, it twists while in the air and lands with its back turned to my troops, it then runs away towards the forest. Bob wants to chase but I tell him to let it go.

I tell Bob to give the two maces to Gorger, now that they are close I can see that they are not perfectly spherical, their very top and bottom are slightly flat, from a distance it very much looks like a sphere . I can see that they do have a weird texture to them with a lot of bumps all over the body. Each mace has ten vertical grooves with bumps inside. Actually the way some of the bumps are lined makes me think these were ten plates that fused into this shape. {Analyze}

{Urchin Shell Mace}

A mace made out of a sea urchin’s shell.

Ohh, that’s kinda cool. I tell everybody to come back to the tunnel, which is now slightly bigger than before thanks to all the dwarves mining. Asterion and his dwarves go back to making the moat. Everybody jumps into the hole in front of the entrance, expect Gorger who is now a lot heavier thanks to the giant crab in his stomach, I don’t let him eat more, stabber is going to become a undead, and the other crabs are going to be eaten by Bob, actually now that I think about it. Four crabs are going to Bob, the other three are to be brought to me.

So I give Gorger the task of bringing both the maces and the crabs to me, and no he can’t snack on the way. I tell my undead to keep working, the dwarves dig and a few other skeletons are destroying the glowing plants, there is no reason to keep them here, since they would only benefit my enemies, undead can see perfectly fine in the darkness.

Gorger goes up to my dungeon, I share his vision just to be sure he’s not eating. He seems to be eyeing it but not eating, though I can tell he wants to. A few squires go up too, with damaged equipment.

As he goes up I see a few skulldwarves working on a trap, it is a pretty simple thing. I had the thought that if that tunnel to the greenhouse gets compromised we would be in some trouble, enemies could go up and get very near my core, so I decided to fortify it a bit, there are a few bone walls with gates, there are actually two walls, one at the front, then a layer of large rock pieces resting on the wall, then another wall. The idea is that if the bone is broken the pieces of rock will fall from it, hurting whatever is there, hopefully.

Each gate has a skull on top embedded in it. These are actual undead so I can see through them. I have also given the undead orders to always warn me when they see someone, or when someone passes through. I have a few plans for them.

Furthermore the walls right outside the gates have stones that connect to the floor and wall, these were not mined out for a reason: They each hold a roughly spherical basketball sized rock. The idea is that in case an enemy invades I can let them loose, the rocks are not perfect, or even good, spheres but they are capable of rolling down, and hopefully hitting something, a few meters behind each door there is a deep groove that the stones fall in, instead of hitting the doors.

These are the fortifications for now. I kinda wish I could pump the oxygen from the corridors out, sadly I don’t have many easy ways of doing that, I think eventually I am going to create vacuum arrays with engravings inside, meaning even if the doors are open no oxygen is going in. I have other ideas too, but they are going to take some time.

After some time Gorger gets near enough that I can see him without the {Minion Sight} skill. I asked my minions underneath to tell me if something happens. The skulls have been taught to alert me should certain things happen, mostly if they see a large number of life coming to the tunnel or if they see something unusual, it took a while for them to understand what “unusual” meant, but they did and I feel a little proud of them. Since they are not able to fight effectively yet I am pretty sure getting smarter is one of the few ways they can level.

Gorger is now in my core room. It's a bit different now, there are ten dwarves, eight of them are in pairs digging four holes into the ground, the last two are the Grimm brothers, they are carefully, very carefully cutting pieces of the dark quartz into a plane winged shape. Indeed, cutting it, they are using a special array that I have made: The array absorbs mana and then spins it around a circular line of dark quartz, the circle is engraved in the stone, the pieces of quartz are broken and stuck inside of it, the mana spins around and basically acts like a circular saw. A very slow one, but thankfully undead are patient, and skeletons in particular can hold the same position very easily. The wings are for a special type of scouting skull. I am not sure I am not sure they will be able to fly all that well, so I am going to create and train them a bit, before sending them out. The wings are not normal plane wings, at least modern ones, they are joined at the middle, and right at the middle they have a lump of quartz.

I start restoring the equipment, and Gorger, he absorbs and heals using necrotic energy passively, like all undead. But me pumping it into him means he absorbs it faster. Soon enough all the equipment is restored. Gorger then drops the crabs and the maces in his hands.

Then he runs, like a kid with his arms splayed out and behind him. straight into a wall.

He crashes and bounces back, then gets up again and runs into another wall. Before I can ask what he is doing I hear a sound coming from his belly, a cracking sound. Oh, I see big guy, you should have eaten some stones, they help with that, for some animals at least.

Actually, lay down. I can help you. Gorger obliges, he lays down with his belly up.

I tell the eight dwarves to return, they get back up. I tell them to help Gorger, in a specific way.

The dwarves then start puncturing his stomach with their picks, Gorger seems to enjoy it. I keep pumping him the necrotic energy, he then… Opens his mouth and points at it. I then start throwing some right into his mouth. He then actually starts using his {Swallow Whole} to try and get more of it, most of it is not even reaching his stomach, just being absorbed by his face, he uses {Dislocate Jaw}.

The dwarves stop picking his stomach, I then tell the squire to come in and help, well not the normal squire actually.

Skullsquire LV 11

{Distracting Blow}

An Attack that distracts the enemy more.

{Bleeding Missile}

Causes a target hit by a thrown missile to bleed more.

{Recall Armament}

Teleports a previously held Armament nearby.

{Swap Armament}

Able to swap armament with an ally nearby.

{Minor Weapons Repair}

Repairs slightly damaged weapons.

{Combat Repair}

Able to use {Minor Weapons Repair} while in combat. Must touch the weapon.

{Defender}

Becomes slightly stronger while defending an ally.

Cult Initiate LV1

Shield Bearer LV12

{Stand Tall}

Resist falling when defending an attack with a shield. Stronger with an ally behind.

{Reinforced Shield}

{Annoying Shielder}

Irritates enemies that strike your shield.

{Defensive Posture}

{Shield Bash}

{Concussive Blow}

Quite a lot of good stuff, some got different skills but it’s mostly in line with this.

For example, one got {Guiding Missile} which makes all other allies have an easier time aiming, somehow, I am not quite sure how it works.

Anyways I am going to have this skeleton de-stress, I tell them to pick one of the hammers and hit Gorger, who is still absorbing necrotic energy like a pig. I am pretty sure that ghouls are able to “digest '' food by just rotting it inside their bodies with their natural necrotic energy, so that would explain why his belly is clearly shrinking.

He suddenly stops absorbing energy and starts growing in size and… seriously?

Cult Initiate to Exuberant Feast Cultist

Exuberant Feast Cultist

{Feasting Frenzy}

Wildly and happily eat, gaining strength the longer the feast goes on.

{Rushing Bite}

Bites become faster, Run faster when approaching something with the intent to bite it.

{Digesting Rest}

While resting, digest faster.

{Digestive Bliss}

Gain a heightened state of happiness while digesting.

{Strong Stomach Muscles}

{Consumption Regeneration}

Regenerates by eating.

{Digestive Regeneration}

Regenerates faster while digesting.

{Taste of Magic}

Has had a taste of the arcane.

{Beast Maw}

Gains another mouth for feasting.

{Stomach Dentata}

Stomach has teeth, so it too can appreciate the act of feasting.

Gorging Ghoul LV18

{Necrotic Regeneration}

Regenerates from necrotic energy

{Thick Skin}

{Necrotic Acid}

Creates necrotic acid inside the stomach.

{Spew Vomit}

Squire LV3

{Taunt}

{Attract Enemy Attention}

I can't believe this. I CANNOT believe this. He went straight to cultist! He’s now at least two meters tall, still under Bob’s height. But now he has… a mouth, a large divide on his belly with fangs, sharp huge fangs protruding out in a constant smile, most are at least five cm each, they all vary in size with some even passing the thirty cm mark.

Gorger Open your mouth, your belly mouth.

He does so. His belly opens up revealing his stomach, which has a weird hole in it, a hole with teeth. I tell him to open that one, and he shows it’s almost like a lampreys mouth, filled with circular teeth. He suddenly looks like he has an idea, like a lightbulb lit inside his head.

I see it {Dislocate jaw} I hear the bone of his jaw moving his jaw opens wider. Then he uses it again, and I hear his spine pop, before again his belly mouth opens wider, then a third time, this time there is no– Oh I hear a pop as his ribs shift, and then his stomach leaps forward, teeth out and actually chomps the air!

Winged angels above those are scary. Quite disturbing too. Pretty awesome though.

Still this little bastard really had to steal the show from the little skeletons.

The demon Schjaarl Latst Cerise has taken note of Gorger.

Gorger has learned the {Fire Sucking} spell.

Gorger suddenly takes a quick intake of breath, with his three mouths, then he laughs, again with the three mouths, a deep gleeful laugh as if he just learned he could do that.

Seriously dude? I didn’t even know demons existed here yet, and now my first contact is through Gorger of all beings.