Just one today, though I will get a head start on one for tomorrow. Happy reading!
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With the queen captive, it came time for Damien to clean house. He tasked the surviving ants with hauling off all the maggot and ant corpses they could find from the battlefield to the corpse piles. They were a valuable resource to feed his ever growing hordes. While he waited for the ants to complete their work, some new guests arrived. A cluster of beetles had wandered into his domain. Their shells were half black, the rest covered in a vibrant metallic green pattern which lay in stripes and spots across their backs. Each was just less than an inch in length.
Unlike the carrion beetles, who waged a one sided war with his feeding maggots, these were herbivores. Though the last beetles remained in the first stages of indoctrination, these new arrivals were far more important. Although their pincers were shorter and their carapace thinner than their carnivorous cousins, they were vital to his ecosystem. Currently everything he had relied on the worm harvests, however as time progressed, all those within range had been hunted into scarcity. The maggots and flies fed off the worms and the accumulated dead from his battles. The carrion beetles ate the maggots and the spiders devoured the flies. The worms were the base of his food chain.
The moss he had nurtured however had grown rapidly, quickly spreading in large patches across the floor and walls of his cavern. The addition of a new herbivore would allow for a second pillar to support his rapidly growing food chain. A herbivorous mammal would prove even more useful, as it would be food itself but also convert it's meals into refuse which the flies and maggots could thrive in. But that was a dream for a distant day. For now, he had to make those beetles his. As they crawled across the dirt of his entry tunnel, he called out to his wonderful Sheila once again.
She deserved time to rest and recover, but this new larger food source was more important for her growth than any other creature in his army. She was nearly too massive already to be content with flies, even if they were twice as large as they would naturally be. Without this new prey, she would likely starve but at the very least her growth would stagnate. She happily responded, quietly creeping along the ceiling from her post. Half of the lost leg had already healed, and while it was an unsightly stub it did not slow her down. As she passed over head of the beetles, Damien ordered her to drop.
She dutifully plunged through the air, landing roughly as she adapted to her rapid growth. The less than graceful impact shocked the peaceful beetles, who jumped away from the giant spider into a seemingly defensive posture. Their heads lowered to the ground, and they raised their rears into the air, straining on their toes to make themselves seem as large as possible while presenting their armored carapace to the enemy. Just as before she raised her forelegs, rearing up and screeching fiercely at the the unfortunate nomadic beetles. Their wills shattered at that moment, and they fled. The beetles scattered in pairs and dashed to the corners of the room, those who found moss patches stayed there while the rest cowered in whatever dark crevice they could find.
Every so often, a beetle would attempt to return to the light and the world above, however Sheila remained at her post. Every time one grew bold enough to challenge her, she charged, scaring them back into the dark. Damien rewarded her with a steady supply of flies to keep her fed while her web stood vacant. As the ants finished their work, and the honored dead had all be hauled from the field of battle, he set about filling in the tunnels. In the same way that he could remove dirt to dig, he could fill it back in. He started back at the queen's lair, and packed in the tunnel he had carved through the center of the old colony before filling in the long tunnel he had used to find them and march his maggots to war. Filling in material was actually far easier than it was to excavate it in the first place. It seemed what he carved out of the hillside was somehow stored in his heart.
With the ants vanquished, the tunnels filled and new livestock penned in, there was nothing to do but wait for the queen to break.
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It took three days for the queen to submit. She was by far the oldest creature he had corrupted, having ruled her colony for 10 years before the war began. The youngest creatures were the first to succumb to his influence, it had been that way for the fly maggots, the ant larvae, and even Sheila had been a young spider as he brought her under sway. Had the queen not been bound to his heart and bathed in the full glory of his power it would have taken far longer. The ants had brought her food to keep her well fed, and they had started digging out a new colony into the front wall to the side of the entryway. Despite her resistance, she continued to lay eggs throughout the ordeal, and these were brought to the first storerooms of the colony.
When Damien finally felt her mind enter the fold, he called out to Sheila's comrade. The second spider and the carrion beetles had joined his legions as well. This spider was a fine match to the carrion beetles, his black body accented by a fierce yellow pattern resembling a horrific mask. He skittered to Damien's side when called, and did his best to free the queen. Still less than a half inch in size, the new spider struggled with Sheila's thick webbing. It took time, but he soon extricated Damien's latest minion. With telepathic approval, the black and yellow spider raced away towards his roost. Despite coming under Damien's influence, the spider had yet to grow comfortable with Damien's rule.
The queen however, had been utterly broken. She had spent the first two days violently flailing in her attempts to escape as Damien violently assaulted her mind. He grew impatient and nearly shattered the weak insect's soul, but she had endured. After the end of the second day, she stopped fighting. And now, she had willingly joined his army. Damien could have simply killed her. He had sensed two potential queens among the eggs that he had saved. However they would need time to grow and mature. Damien did not wish to wait. The ants were his only defense against large intruders. Even a grown man could be brought down if enough ants swarmed over him. Until he mastered larger animals, they were the most reliable option for protection aside from his spiders. He had secured the queen. And as she marched off to her new colony, Damien knew he needed more. Damien prepared for war
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
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Over the next week, Damien expanded aggressively. He crafted a large hall at the end of the rear tunnel. It was twenty feet long and ten feet wide, more than double the size of his first room. Just as he had added crevices and dens along the walls of the first room, he did the same in the second, although larger to allow for growth. He scattered his strongest maggots, flies, and beetles amongst the various holes, using the freshly opened floor for a renewed holocaust of the worms to fuel his ever increasing minion's needs. The strongest were sent to the rear, because as soon as he could find a creature strong enough to move him, that hall would be his new lair. He needed to put more distance between himself and the surface. He wouldn't truly feel safe until he did. But there was far more work to be done. His troops were ready to march.
The raids from the dragon continued. The beast had found a reliable food source, but Damien knew it was still out of his reach. He could be killed with his ants, especially as the young matured and replenished those lost in war, however he still believed the great lizard could be tamed. He was too large for Sheila to scare as she had the grazing beetles, and there was little hope of Sheila winning even with her venom. Damien had other targets in mind.
He had dug more searching tunnels, even narrower than before he sent the probing tendrils of his will far out in every direction. He had found another four ant colonies. Three common ants, and one nest of giant red ants. Two were around 10 feet away, the same range as the one he had conquered. One of these was the red one. The other two were over 30 feet away from his cave, and the closer one of these was truly massive. His count made over eleven thousand ants inside it's winding halls. The rest held between one and three thousand ants. He selected the closest colony of black ants, and surveyed his troops.
He did not need to muster his entire forces as he had in the past, leaving most to roam and feast as they pleased but still ready to defend should anything enter his domain. Most of his troops came from his majestic maggot hordes, a full five thousand of his strongest hulking maggots stood at attention. These were not the common maggots he had used in his previous battles. Many of his maggots had begun to mutate due to the continued exposure to his mana miasma. Most grew stronger, larger than ever before forming their pupae to emerge as flies. Others changed in more drastic ways. Some changed color, spots of brown, gray and black dotted the white fleshy horde. Some grew wider mouths, larger teeth, or thicker skin before they too transformed into flies, but many more hatched deformed or crippled and died early deaths. But a select few had become something greater.
A handful of maggots, only 200 out of all his tens of thousands, never transformed into flies. They grew far larger than even their mutated brethren instead. They reached a length of a full inch. These massive maggots became his new shock troops. Flies were airborne and maneuverable, but for these battles in the tunnels the mighty maggots were far superior. Next came the beetles.
Six carrion beetles bolstered the strength of his armies, half of those he had tamed. Each was only slightly longer than the mighty maggots, but they were far thicker and taller. Their armored carapaces would be his shield should he be on the defensive, and their mandibles his mightiest weapons.
Then came the ants. A mere fifty had been drafted from the fledgling colony, but continued exposure to his influence gave them an edge over their wild counterparts in size and strength.
Finally came his champion. Sheila would lead the army to glory.
Damien did not know his purpose in this world. He did not know why this power coursed through his body, or even why he was alive. He could not understand what drove him, or why he was afraid. But nothing was ever enough. Every time he saw his own progress, he celebrated before hungering for more power. For every cubic yard of dirt he hauled out he cheered as his territory grew, before he realized how exposed he was to the outside world. With every new creature he conquered and every minion who grew stronger he rejoiced, until he remembered that there were far more terrifying things than lizards in the world. He needed more. He needed more and power power to sustain himself. He needed more and more minions to keep him safe. He needed to dig deeper to hide from the world above. All of this could be secured through war. Every death fueled his power, every kill strengthened his soldiers, and every captured creature bolstered his armies.
This second colony would be the proof of his power. He had learned, he had grown. There would be slaughter and mayhem, and he would secure a second queen.
He widened the tunnel to a full foot, and sealed off every exit to the colony. This time he would not convert some to his side or collapse unnecessary tunnels. He had waited until the world above had surrendered to the darkness, and all ants had returned home to endure the cold night. All three thousand ants were at home in their nest. There would be no tricks or subterfuge. He would meet the entire colony in battle, and crush them utterly. He would prove his strength, and the strength of his armies.
"March!" He ordered, and the seething horde marched to war.