one PoV: Alexia

At the Kaiyo daughter's table the dinner served was beautiful. It was Roast Lamb with a side of LAMB SAUCE(R.I.P. Gordon). The side courses were a type of river Shrimp that didn't look familiar to any Earth animal. There was also a large cake with writing on it.

It read "Happy Birthday!".

The people sitting at the table were Uncle Army, Auntie Eliza, Mother, and Grandpa. They all ate food but it appeared that the presence of the Kaiyo Patriarch was too strong for them to endure, they left the table after one plate each.

I was still wary of my grandfather as well but I tried not to show it. After nine plates of food, I excused myself and ran to my room.

When I entered I was met with my collection.

My entire room was filled with jars of specimens to study and to research with but I was always most proud of my collection.

It was twenty baby sized jars that housed small parasites. I had to feed them once a day and I had been slowly adapting their genes to create the perfect way to extract information.

Their teeth would rotate on biting to provide a deeper groove into the animal which, they would spit their eggs into the wounds to fester and grow.

The pain brought by the eggs hatching would be enough to make the nerves of a dead man shrivel up. Not even patients in a coma could escape the suffering because their toxins in their teeth would maximize the animal's nerves and would, in fact, increase the body's natural rate of regeneration.

All of this led to the Animals feeling extreme pain while in an agonizing limbo.

They were beautiful little monsters yet they released an aura of death and evil so I decided that they had to be removed.

With my grandfather in the Castle, they would not be able to leave my room due to the aura they emitted. I decided that burning them would be safest.

The final clean up I did, involved the last living vivisection. This was a human... Not just any human but the first artificial human that was grown from one egg.

We made it with a human we captured in the city, I think that she was a whore? I can't quite recall but all I know was she didn't live long due to the advancement of the class I used to train my girls in the human anatomy.

Our living baby was practically an inside-out version of a human where the insides and bone structure was in full view.

It could be considered cruel to the poor child so I made sure to get rid of its nerves and it's hearing drums. I didn't want it to develop a working mind and instead preferred a living corpse.

So to maintain it's life I began treating it quite well. 'Well' in my eyes not in a normal person sort of way though.

I gazed into the listless eyes of my human toy before sighing... I was truly going to miss this creature. I sliced out the Vocal cords of the thing then I burned it.

*Sigh*

As soon as my idiot Grandfather leaves I need to make a couple more to display to my girls...

~~~~~~~~~~~

PoV: Idiot Grandfather

As my granddaughter fled the table I watched her go.

Only after she was completely out of sight did I turn towards my daughter.

"Olivia?"

"Yes, father?"

"Your daughter is strange... Not in a good way..."

"What? Dad! I don't want to hear you talk about my sweetie like that!"

"It's the truth though! She is one hundred percent hiding something terrifying in her room. I was feeling extremely bad vibes coming from that area. I wouldn't be surprised if she had that was dying in there!"

My daughter was not looking pleased with how I was talking about her daughter. It was like she was a mother bear protecting her cubs.

My daughter had the face of a gorgon while she spoke like a lord of hell. "Father? I want to hear nothing bad about my daughter. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

It appears my wife had some serious influence on my baby girl! She's too protective and scary for me to respond!

~~~~~~~~~~

That night, after being led to a room to sleep I headed out to look into the creeping darkness in my granddaughter's room.

I decided that it would be best if I simply tried to go inside through the main door rather than peeking through the window.

I slowly opened the door in order to not alert the young girl in her bed.

I glanced around before entering the bedroom.

It was filled with dead animals either displayed in jars or on the wall... At first glance, I was terrified by the multiple snakes and venomous scorpions displayed in wired across the top of the room.

Then I realized that they were not on display. They were living in a hammock style living quarters dangling from the ceiling...

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

They began looking at me too...

Now there is one thing in my life I am afraid of...

It's neither Spiders or Scorpions nor Snakes. It's my wife...

However, there is simply no way of not being afraid of dozens of famously dangerous animals and arachnids watching you...

There is no way of not moving away from the room and back to bed for a sleepless night...

I hope that I didn't lead any back with me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

PoV: Alexia

In the night I awoke to a half-disguised presence in the hallway.

At first, I was prepared to fight someone. Then I realized it was my grandfather. It seems like he was wanting to know what sort of things in my room could cause such a terrible aura...

I was saddened by the fact that it was no longer being emitted but I knew in my heart it was for my own good. After all, if someone discovered those objects, no one, I repeat no one would win.

While I was drowning in my misery it seems my pets awoke, it appears they were alarmed by the presence my Grandfather emitted.

They began watching the new being in my room with great interest.

Oh? It appears my grandfather does not enjoy their looks? How rude! My little babies are the most wonderful creatures in this world!

As he left I noticed the scent of fear drifting into my room...

Is that man really afraid of such cute creatures?

Pathetic.

~~~~~~~~~

The next morning my Grandfather took my mother out into the Capital...

I didn't go because he wanted 'Daddy Daughter time'.

I bet he is just flat out terrified of me, or rather my darlings! So I prepared my girls for their monthly missions and directed out a small task force to prepare the next batch of experiments for when my Grandfather leaves.

Our scouting troops had been making detailed maps of our topography for the purpose of making large maps for our eventual exit from this country. We discovered a large canyon that led to an ancient passage through a mountain range. Nothing else was remotely intriguing about our topography.

It appears that our Empire's maps are rough and unrefined so this will give a large advantage over any invaders that only know the geography by maps.

On another, note my male slaves had finally changed from the wimpy useless toys into verifiably strong foot-soldiers! They could easily outfight any normal human and they had been given psionic treatment to accelerate their growth so it made them each into seven-foot tall monsters.

Their muscles were extremely compressed and tough so they looked more like an average human, then a soldier. This was planned to give them the pushover feeling and reduce the enemies wariness in battle.

They would become my little pawns in the future so I kept them content and happy through continuous brainwashing and loyalty building.

When it became midday I received word that my mother was returning do I put aside my activities and moved to the gates.

It turned out that the main clan had decided to send a trained to strengthen me and get me strong...

My grandfather was meeting with the Emperor and said that he would be back before supper, so I had a solid hour maybe two to grill my mother on him.

~~~~~~~~~~~

After a week of back and forth between the two people, they met with Olivia for a meal.

"Grandfather! I'm glad you could join us for our supper(Dinner)! I heard you wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Ahh. Well, umm, yeah. I wanted you to go back to the Kaiyo homeland to train... Your mom was pretty adamant about you staying here though, so after a while, we decided that it was best that you decided!"

The two grown-ups gave their looks at the young girl in their sweetest smiles.

"Well duh, of course, I want to stay here! I can have much more fun here!"

~~~~~~~~~~

And so the entire visit was quite disappointing for the Patriarch and made him feel as though it was a worthless trip. He only made himself feel better by thinking of the fact that they had a very talented individual that was growing up now.

He ended up spending an entire month in the Castle and only left when he knew if he didn't head off he would be late.

 The day he left was an auspicious day for Alexia. She didn't have to maintain a careful watch over her actions nor was she required to limit all interactions between her girls.

The two main researchers then realized it probably wasn't quite the smartest idea to do such blasphemous things in their home and created an underground bunker a couple hundred meters away which had two exits/entrances. One was the emergency escape and the other was, connected through the Castle's cellar, it was the only one that could be easily used.

 They began their next onslaught of research into the anatomy of Humans and the effects certain amounts of Qi would have on them.

These experiments continued as Alexia aged and grew into a fine young lady.

The teacher that was sent by the Kaiyo's was worthless and was kicked out the moment he attempted to touch Eliza inappropriately. He ended up hitching a ride to the East instead of the West(Since the Teacher came from the Western islands that the Kaiyo inhabit the teacher went East to avoid getting punished by the clan leaders for angering the Patriarchs daughter).

As the girl grew older her body stopped growing at around the age of eight, apparently, the genetic manipulation was not quite perfect.

Her body did seem older than most other children though. It had the air of maturity and the curves of a teen. 

Her hair remained the same as her youth, in that it would change when in the between dark and light rooms but it did grow a bit longer. Her skin gained a bit of color but it still remained mostly white. Her height was around 140 centimeters while it didn't make her seem like a child as her body seemed as though it was just a miniature human. 

Even with her body being so short her body was perfectly proportioned and her head didn't seem extra big nor did she look like a squashed person. (What I'm saying is that she's a midget that looks more like a large doll than a vertically challenged person[OMG VERTICALLY CHALLENGED HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH])

Her teeth grew with razor sharp edges, though you could not tell they were sharp at a glance. 

Last her eyes became a deep emerald green color that had slits for pupils. 

Even so, she could easily be considered in the top ten or so beautiful nobles of the Capital.

Another change that happened was that her army was frequently taking in about a hundred new babies every month from orphanages around the empire so her army was consistently gaining more fresh blood, and was around 2500 strong on her tenth birthday.

As the day of her tenth birthday was coming to an end the Empire announced that the Demon empire to the East had invaded and was attempting to conquer them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PoV: Alexia

Oh! It appears that my idiot homeland is under attack by the armies of the East! It appears that I should go out there and sweep up the trash! 

My past years have been spent training my soldiers and making a strong elite army to my back. This was for the moment I either decided to conquer this batshit crazy empire or someone attacked my family. It appears that I can do both!

I decided that my next plan was to prepare my army for the coming storm by equipping them with some strong armor and weapons. 

In doing experiments the idea was to get a good grasp on how the biology of this world works so of course, I had looked into the equipment made out of the Beasts and the Demons. So with those years of experiments, I discovered many different ways to create armor and tools out of scales and fur.

I had large quantities of material shipped in from the North and quickly began the mass creation of my Army's supplies. I had each of them trained in everything from swordplay to halberds and had each of them specialize in their own strengths so I was sure to have a bizarre time making shit for them.

~~~~~~~~~

(Third Person)

"Alexia? Can I come in?" A voice could be heard out the door of Alexia's room.

"Mom? Okay, I guess you can." Alexia responded. "Pardon the mess but I'm going to be doing stuff in here for a while."

"That's fine but I just wanted you to know that your Grandfather has called me and you back to the family to discuss something. He seemed pretty adamant about having both of us there so I was going to make sure you could come with me."

"Well-"

"It's not a question. We are leaving next week and we are going to travel by boat. It will only take a couple of days but I hope you didn't make any plans?"

Alexia had made plans though...

"Fine, I don't mind can I bring a couple of my girls?"

Olivia had known about them since the arrival of the first batch but she had no idea to what extent the army was at this point and time.

"Sure, not too many though! I don't want an army of females to go into a boat for our journey. No more than twenty, okay?"

"Sure!"

~~~~~~~~ 

Over the next couple of days, the true elites of the Army were chosen as the bodyguards for the journey. The final tally was sixteen guards, two field doctors, a Bowmaster, and a Chef/Maintenance for the equipment.

They were the majority of the most elite squad Alexia trained and they were only missing the five assassins and the seven other Bowmen.

However, the entire Army was actually positioning themselves at the edge of the continent in order to have a quicker deployment time should an emergency occur.