Day 34
Untold fury swirled within Damien's heart. His unknown foe had come to destroy him and while Damien had emerged victorious, the cost was beyond the count of grief.
They were insects. They fought and died every day. Some became food for his other minions, others died in skirmishes with the ants. It was natural, they could only grow stronger through these fierce trials. His minions fought for the sake of the lair. But this was wrong, a twisted perversion of their endless struggles. The troops who had died valiantly defending his home had been obliterated, the sacrifice of their brothers rendered pointless. Because of one single enemy, his minions had been annihilated. They were his minions! His maggots! His flies! His beetles! His ants! His spider!
She should have just been another bug in his collection but she had been so much more. She had led his troops. She was his most powerful pet. His prided champion. And of his minions she had been the brightest, the most sensitive. She had been there to comfort him. But she had been taken by this unknown enemy. Damien had failed her.
He was too weak to protect his minions. Too weak to protect himself. He had to change. He had to grow stronger. He had to evolve. He had to destroy this blue villain. But what could he do?
He had lost all of the power gained from the battle. His army was in shambles, and his only other fighter was crippled. As he surveyed his troops, there were only two things gained in the ordeal. The survivors were stronger, and they had grown considerably. And then there was the battlefield itself. With a mountain of corpses at his disposal, he didn't need to worry about food for quite some time.
Every last creature in his army had grown in some way from the ordeal, whether through valor or feeding off the tidal surge of mana from Damien's wounds. Most experienced small growths in size and strength, as even the lowly maggots participated in bringing down the greatest foes the lair had ever known. Two of his minions had grown exceptionally in the ordeal.
Despite his injuries, bringing down that rabbit and mouse had caused Ajax to undergo an extensive growth spurt. His leg span had increased to a miraculous six inches. His remaining leg and stumps had swelled, growing far stronger and beginning to heal. He now resembled a tarantula more than the common spider he had once been and the yellow mask on his back had begun to glow ever so slightly. It was a truly formidable appearance.
Next were the surviving ants. Little more than fifty had survived the battle, but those that did were unimaginably huge. After burrowing into the brains of the mice, these tiny and utterly insignificant creatures had brought down foes five thousand times their mass. All of that power from the dying creatures had coursed through their little bodies, and they had each swelled to an inch in length. Even with only fifty survivors, they would prove a powerful force in the battles to come.
Ajax and the ants would lead his troops to glory in the future, but he needed time to replenish his forces. Time he didn't have. The rodents could return at any moment. The blue lair could send a new wave of foes at any time, and he would be powerless against them. He needed new troops. Damien hungrily eyed the red ant colony beside him, and cast his gaze upon the bearded dragon. He knew what he had to do.
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Three days passed in quiet as Damien gathered his strength, however he had heavily fortified his position. He had dug dozens of very deep pits all along the southern wall, with multiple rows of the traps. He had dug straight down, with sheer cylindrical sides and a rounded bottom. Each was two feet deep and a full foot wide. He wanted to lay spikes in the pits, however he had no wood to use. As his minions desecrated the battlefield, he had discovered an alternate resource: Bones.
He had gathered the bones of the fallen beasts, broken them and sharpened them into stakes before lining the bottoms of his traps with them. Except for the rabbit bones, they likely wouldn't be long or large enough to cause serious damage, but they would bleed and impede the enemy advance. He directed his two newest queens to abandon their nests, and to take up residence just below the ranks of traps. The tunnels of the new colonies would connect the bottom of all the traps, allowing the ants to quickly rush from one to the other to annihilate trapped and wounded foes. Later, as soon as Ajax was healthy the traps would be covered in a thick webbing and topped with moss and dirt to conceal them. For now, they remained as basic pitfalls.
Absolute desperation had given birth to a cunning plan that he should have come up with long ago. Except for the energy spent digging, every last bit of his energy was poured into the red ant colony. He had corrupted a little over twenty of the great red monsters. Though he only commanded their youngest and weakest, he was not planning for a war, and he would not wait until the ants turned on their corrupted brethren. His ants began to smuggle out their eggs and larvae by the dozen.
They first gathered the oldest and most mature pupae, bringing them back into the rear wall of the second and largest chamber where a new colony was being prepared to receive them. They continued to make trip after trip, and as another two days passed the colony had been completely emptied of eggs. By now he had successfully corrupted thirty ants. Now began the hard part. He needed the queen.
He quickly sealed off all access to the queen and sent his ants to retrieve her, however the red ants were excellent diggers. Each time he sealed a passageway, the ants would swarm to excavate their trapped queen. Before he could begin to whisk her away, they had restored the passage and seethed around her before returning to her duties. Damien was forced to resort to other methods. He sent half of his spies up to the surface of the colony, and ordered them to release the danger pheromone. As all fifteen ants released it in unison, the colony quickly became a seething frenzy as each ant that received the message released their own pheromones and rushed to the surface to do battle. It was then that Damien struck.
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As the ants emptied the bowels of their colony, the other fifteen ants rushed into the queen's den. They approached as friends but as they encircled her, one took hold of each of her legs and they bit down hard. The queen released a barely audible screech as all six of her legs were amputated all at once. She poured out all the pheromones she could muster, but no other ants were around to smell it. The six traitors took hold of her stumps just as before, and began to haul their frantic mother back down the deep dark passageway. The nine ants watching formed a rear guard to hold off any pursuit. The war was over before it had even begun.
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The addition of the red ants was not Damien's only success of the past four days since the wholesale slaughter of his armies. The great lizard had finally succumbed to his will, and two new species had entered into his domain. Massive flies even larger than his mutated flies had wandered into his domain. They were monstrous horseflies, each a full inch in length and they all had wicked teeth around their mouths. They must have smelled the bodies of the rodents, as they made a rush for the battlefield as they entered into Damien's lair. They weren't the only ones to come sniffing around the carnage though.
Hornets had swooped in, waging a war with the giant flies over the corpses of the rabbits and mice. Unlike the flies, they were unable to lay eggs, but Damien welcomed the feast of energy as Ajax caught them in his web. His legs were healing slowly, but he was able to set up and tend to his own webs now. The hornets seemed to be nesting a short distance away from his lair, but they were out of his reach for now.
Of course the greatest prize was the bearded dragon. The mighty lizard was finally allowed to emerge from his pit after eight days. After reaching his level of power, no other creature had been able to hold out this long against his concentrated influence. The beast had grown fat and powerful as he was force fed countless maggots over the past week, and Damien knew exactly how to put him to work. The great beast was sent to the entrance of the tunnel to the red ant colony. As the ant's came rushing out with their queen hostage, a horde of red ants were sure to follow. Her pheromone trail of distress would lead them to Damien's lair, and his dragon would be waiting.
Sure enough, as soon as the frenzy of the false alarm attack subsided the ants quickly discovered the queen's trail. A renewed frenzy swept over the hive, and they surged forth into the breach. As the passed through the tunnel and emerged out of the other side, they were greeted by a small army. The great lizard stood in the middle, surrounded by the fifty oversized war veterans and their 30 newly welcomed red brothers. Scattered amongst them were the surviving beetles to hold the line, and one hundred young ants. New insects were birthed every day by the thousand, they would be replaced in time. What Damien truly lacked was quality, and this battle would fuel the growth of his most powerful soldiers. He feared for his losses, but he soon realized it was a foolish thought. It was a complete slaughter.
The bearded dragon's gullet blackened in anticipation of the battle. It had been far too long since he hunted. As the red ants surged out, he launched himself forwards. The first ant's head was bitten clean off, the second smashed with a flick of the dragon's neck. He stormed forwards into the thick of the enemies and stomped, bit and crushed everything in his path. The enemy ants made to flank him, to surge over and tear him apart from all sides, yet he was not alone. Damien's ants dashed in and out, tearing apart any enemy which tried to harm the mighty beast. The beetles would rush forwards, slamming into the enemy from the sides and as they toppled over, the small ants would swarm over and efficiently put them to rest.
His veterans were a well oiled fighting machine, and with a titan like the dragon leading their forces there was no opportunity for the enemies to get a foothold. They were mercilessly slaughtered as soon as they emerged from their tunnels. Four hours later, the last wild ant had been slaughtered. As Damien gazed upon the battlefield, he knew what the lizards name would be. He had slaughtered nearly a thousand red ants with his own strength, he was covered in clear ant plasma and horrific bite wounds yet he stood tall. His body had swelled to fourteen inches from nose to tail, and nothing could stand before his might. His name would be Rex Tyrannus, the tyrant king of the battlefield.
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With the red ants brought into the fold, his queens, beetles and flies laying, his eggs hatching and larvae devouring everything in sight there was nothing more that could be done for his troops. They would continue to replenish, and there was no way for him to speed up the process. All he could do was hope and pray his enemies would wait just a few more days before they attacked again.
In the meantime, there was one final thing to do to prepare his defenses. He needed to move. He called down Ajax who limped his way down to the gem. He spun countless threads into a sling tied around Damien's heart, tying them together into one single strand for Rex to pull with, and Damien's heart was gently dragged across the floor into the hall of the second room. He finally had a beast capable of moving him, and at last he was further from the accursed light of the world above.
As he watched Ajax limp back to his web, something tiny caught his eye. Nestled up in a small hole in the earthen ceiling above the remains of an old abandoned web was something truly wondrous. A tiny ball of spun silk was nestled into this little crevice, looking down upon the entrance tunnel. As he brought his focus to bear, he sensed the tiniest beginnings of life squirming around inside. Sheila had left a parting gift behind, it was an egg sac.