His legs pushed him forward and into the chest of the hunter before him, sending the beastman tumbling back into a tent.

The rest of the attackers moved back in to fight, swiping their claws across him again, racking along his back with fury.

Egosum reached out with his arms to try and grab a hold of the closest beastmen. One dodged back while the other failed to pull away in time.

His leathery hand pulled the man into his reach and pushed him deep into the ground before him. The mud below him reached up to meet the body, flowing around his sides and sucking him deep.

The crowd around him watched in horror as their friend was subsumed into the earth with only his face exposed.

“How are they still fighting?!” A startled scream from the parasite's direction stole his attention away.

His sight turned to watch the battle and cringed as he saw the aftermath of the clash. Dried blood caked over the entirety of the crowd, the parasite’s hosts and the attacking beastmen were completely encased.

Only a dozen of the hosts were left to struggle while two dozen of the beastmen were still pressing their advantage on the enemy's shrinking numbers.

Random crackling noises accompanied by loud thumps signaled the end of another fight as Cinera kept any aggressors from getting too close.

The amphibians held their ground well as the hosts struggled with the vast majority of attention being placed on them.

“The head just moved!” Another startled scream arose from a random beastmen.

Egosum scanned the ground for the corpse they were talking about. He couldn’t find the head, but a swathe of other destroyed limbs began to come back to life before his eyes.

His enhanced sight showed him the pink worms carving their way through the flesh as they grabbed ahold of the ground and slowly pulled themselves together.

The hosts' numbers continued to fall as the fighting went on. The previous leader of the parasites had long since been diced up by the long claws. The body parts began to make it back to the fight, reaching for legs, tripping attackers, and crawling up backs.

Panic swam through the ranks as they were besieged by the limbs.

“Ah, get off me! Fucking human arms!” A cacophony of noises swelled with the battle going haywire as the vast discrepancy in numbers quickly turned.

Each cut limb became a new point of terror as the attackers turned to see the sea of body parts crawling their way back into the fight.

The mostly intact hosts reached for the closest beastmen as they were distracted, taking out a few in the process.

Egosum turned to the remaining men around him. Their faces were painted with pure confusion and horror as they watched the same sights as he did.

The fear of gore flesh coming back to fight the same skirmish was haunting when you understood what was happening and nightmare-inducing when you were clueless.

They seemed ready to cut their losses and book in when a violent shout whipped across the camp.

“Don’t stop fighting and don’t even think about running!” Punishe yelled from his position of safety on top of a berm near the edge of camp.

The entire battlefield changed under his command. The panicking immediately quieted down and the beastmen turned back toward the whole threat. The limbs grasped at their feet to slow them down but did very little to bother the group as a whole.

The attackers standing over him were quickly reinforced by some stragglers as they surrounded him once again.

Their furred faces turned up in violent snarls as they seemed to swell in size. Their muscles bulged with veins barely visible under their hair. Their claws extended from a quarter of the length of their fingers to half.

Egosum heard a low tone fall over the field as they grew violent.

‘Another call from Punishe?’

The beastmen lunged at him all at once.

Their speed increased drastically from the first clash as their empowered bodies reacted.. Their hands swept forward to grab him by his limbs. He quickly tucked in to avoid as many of the reaching hands as possible. Their feet sunk into the muck below him only for the raging beastmen to easily pull their ankles from its sticky grasp.

The men near his front pushed forward with long arcing swipes. He dodges back again and again while swiveling his sight back to avoid being boxed in.

He was being corralled back from the parasite's greater battle and back to where he started the fight. A random claw strike from the side glanced off his side as he retreated, successfully racking him and drawing the faintest line of blood.

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‘Shit. If they actually get ahold of me, I might be in trouble.”

The feeling of invincibility was quickly draining from his body as the first senses of susceptibility assaulted his senses.

The ache was short-lived as he quickly sunk his exposed extremities into the muck that had trapped the beastmen earlier. His Qi reconnected with the earth and sent the drying connection ablaze with new power.

“Go for the frog! Now!” Punishe shouted out more commands as nearly a full two dozen beastmen advanced on him.

Egosum looked around his trap. A flashback to the strange camouflaging creatures flooded his mind.

This time, the enemies surrounded him completely and were intimately aware of his tricks instead of the mindless rush the others had done to reach him. The human scraps off to the side signaled the end of the parasites.

He turned to look for his salamander friend only to be greeted by a few unconscious beastmen and dirty tents.

Only he was left to battle the entirety of the hunters. She had chosen correctly to flee and now it was up to him to either win the outnumbered fight or hop away if he could.

Punishe made himself known as the group parted down the middle to allow him entrance.

“It’s just a matter of time before you give up. Your human warriors have been shredded to pieces, your other ally fled to safety after seeing the futility of the fight, and you are stuck in your little bog with no way out.” His face turned up into a grin as he spoke.

“I will have my frog legs whether you give up now or in a few days.”

The tension around the clearing was thick enough to watch it pulse with each movement.

Violence dripped from their enhanced claws as they circled him.

A strange pit in his stomach formed as he saw doom enclose around him.

He inhaled as deeply as possible through his nostril before letting his Qi cradle him. His body slowly sunk below the surface of the muck.

He floated motionlessly with his mind racing for some out or some new trick he could form to force his way through.

The sounds of the feet slamming into the group only a few hops away were a constant reminder that death had not left. A continuous low drum of noise prevented any semblance of concentration.

The noises devolved from a mess of disorderly steps to a slowly codifying pattern.

His mind worked into overdrive to make sense of his surroundings. The weightless nature of the realm he found himself in isolated everything else.

His body was an island in the middle of an ocean. Too far from life to ask for help, and too close to the sharks to forget their presence.

His senses picked up a shallow but present hum in the background of the ever-marching beastmen. His chest was warm with the same barely noticeable feeling. His eyelids flickered as he concentrated on the sensations

The weightless, dark, and isolated nature of his muddy pool did wonders for cutting off everything but the Qi that flowed through him.

The hum grew louder and louder with each passing moment.

The warmth in his chest redoubled in its radiance as his body became aflush with the same heat.

The wound on his side lost the aching pain that had stolen his attention from him for moments at a time. The scar tissue from the sloth lost the tight nerves that kept him from forgetting his mistakes.

The unfamiliar sensations were all that stood out now.

The low hum and warmth vied for attention.

His qi flowed through his body like normal but transported the heat to every muscle available. His soul felt invigorated.

The low hum peaked through his concentration when he finally made the connection.

For the first time, he was intimately familiar with the source of his Qi. The core that he had been building with each step-in power he gained. Each sense lent a new feeling to his core in his mind, but at that very moment, he felt his core while still awake and aware of the world.

The reclusion he felt in his pit isolated him just enough to let the foundational source of all of his Qi be known It was brimming with life. Each time he focused in on it, a new smell or sight followed along.

He turned his full attention to the sphere lodged in his chest. It was so familiar in scope but so strange when he felt for it. Wetland Qi poured from it with a constant trickle to support the muck he sat in.

It was nowhere near empty enough to give him pause as it thrummed to life. He caused the pool around him to grow lively.

The beastmen up above hurriedly backed away from the source as they watched the mud begin to bubble and churn like a stomach. The stuck hunters flailed around from where they were entombed, begging to be rescued.

The others were far to terrified of the consequences of getting closer to the pool now that it was turned to energetic.

The trapped beastmen began to sink up to their heads before plunging deeper and deeper. The mud fled from their faces as a small air bubble formed around the eight men, offering them enough space to breathe.

The Qi sent small waves through the mud, splashing the sticky substance up and over the solid ground that the attackers considered safe.

They backed up further and further in fear as small streams of muck split the groups off from each other.

He had turned the small pond into a fresh spring. A never-ending upheaval of mud cut off more and more of the hunters from their friends. The circling was finally stopped as Egosum resurfaced again. He took a deep and slow breath as the feeling of doom that had cemented itself into his heart melted away.

His Qi core pushed the vestiges of fear out of his body and into the surrounding attackers as they realized the situation they found themselves in.

The mudflows he caused surged around to find the quickest paths away from him. The beastmen yanked their feet away as the mud spilled over them. The two dozen free men were becoming increasingly more claustrophobic as the small streams of mud zig-zagged through the camp, trapping them on small and smaller islands.

Punishe was standing behind his men with the frustration only a tyrant with a demoralized army could have.

“Moon damn it. What the hell is this? Back up more you idiots! Jump over the stream for fucks sake!” Now that his previous commands were overwritten, the beastmen turned in all directions to look for safety.

In the scramble to get out of the web of streams, they knocked into each other, pushed the smaller hunters out of the way, and trampled the fallen beastmen deeper into the muck.

It began to look more and more like the camouflaging beasts once again.

All he needed to do was throw in another surprise and the stiffly controlled puppets would get tangled up in a bid to follow their orders.