Ozzy sat in the grass watching the boar finish off yet another imp. While he was still working through upgrading his domain he’d found a few tweaks that helped with the pain. Instead of triggering every single line at once he triggered them in a wave around the circumference of the large reservoir. The whole ten thousand still took less than half a second to execute yet it was to the point that he felt no pain any longer. So he was able to think about other things while working on improvements. The boar now had a few more lacerations around its head, and along its body. Some lucky few imps having been able to retaliate before it obliterated them. Though all of them were healing, and the one inflicted by the first imp had already closed and wasn’t even discernable as a scar any longer.
This wasn’t going to be a war of attrition. The imps just couldn’t do enough damage, not fast enough to overcome the amount of healing the energy they gave the boar did. He could open more of the imp line and see how that changed things. If he opened the ones closer to the beginning they would more than likely die to the boar even faster. Though they could distract it for the others. If he opened those further down the line Ozzy may not be able to handle them after they did the cleanup for him, but they would do more damage. He didn’t just have imps. He had rats, and technically he had sharks and catfish too, but he wasn’t sure if the rats would help or what those last two could even do to help. What more of them would do was at least add to the chaos and distraction for the boar, maybe enough that the stronger imps and rats could start doing real damage before they died. Maybe he could get involved himself.
With his mind made up he began to open the veil on both sides of each and every haven he had connected to his own. Well every one except the one he was currently hiding out in. The boar that had been about to lay back down from its recent murder froze in place. Grunting it turned about to get a better look at the array of newly revealed havens and their occupants. While the boar didn’t look frightened there was definitely an air of apprehension as it surveyed the newcomers. The rats and imps were equally stoic in their evaluation of the situation.
The Mexican standoff was broken when a rat decided it would try to go for some of the fruit. To its credit the movements were smooth and stealthy. It was one of the smaller ones. The boar though was having none of this. It stomped in the rats direction and grunted its disapproval. The rats all jerked, not just the one that had first moved, but they almost immediately retaliated. It appeared they at least had some kind of comradery as none of them went for one another, but instead all pounced toward the boar. The imps hung back for a moment, but when a rat was trampled under hoof they were drawn into the fray. The impression though wasn’t one of them taking the side of the rats. Nor even that they would like to take down the boar. More that they simply couldn’t resist the urge to fight once they saw the blood. Like they were giddy to inflict pain onto others.
The plan worked significantly better than he’d been planning on. With the rats banding together against the boar and the imps just going at it for fun the boar was not having a good time. Any of the rats that were murdered were quickly replaced by their havens. The imps actually ended up killing a few of them in their frenzy, but their main focus was on the boar. With the boar so distracted by the rats it didn’t have a chance to kill any of the imps. The four largest rats were putting in great work on the boar's sides. They looked reminiscent of a pack of dogs as they bit down and refused to let go. Their little bodies wiping back and forth to inflict maximum damage.
Around the time this realization was hitting Ozzy was about the same time that the boar also seemed to realize. There was not going to be as smooth a victory it had in the fight with the thirteenth imp. Which hadn’t even rejoined the battle yet. Suddenly the boar stopped and bolted toward the edge of the haven. Disappearing through the edge he saw it reappear in its own haven shortly after. Dangling from it were still the two strongest rats which had amazingly held on through the mad dash. Viciously rolling the boar did its best to rid itself of them. While they’d done valiantly in a mob on the boar, being one of two assailants didn’t offer quite the same advantage. One quickly fell off and was smashed almost as fast. The other, likely the strongest of them all, took only a bit longer to be dispatched. After which the boar roared at the edges of its haven forlornly and began pacing about. It looked very much like a person after an argument trying to think of things it could have said to come out on top.
Turning his attention back to the haven Ozzy watched the battle continue. The rats were not as capable as the boar in jumping at the imps and they were being slaughtered. Their numbers dwindled but never completely zeroed out due to the respawning. The imps kept on the attack even then but with much less targets began to turn on one another. The combatants fell into a rhythm of mayhem. Into this chaos was spawned another thirteenth imp who didn’t immediately join the fight. The tiny black eyes in its skull swept across the battlefield and examined it carefully. Only after it had watched the ebbs and flows repeat a few times did it flow like molasses out of its haven. It didn’t appear to be doing so out of caution. Rather it was confidence that fueled its actions. Sidling up to the tree next to where the eleventh imp was sitting it perched there lazily.
For a time it again just observed, though this time it was specifically watching the next three imps in order of strength. All of which were still frenzied and slaughtering rat and imp alike. Without warning its domain snatched out and scooped a section of air next to the eleventh imp. Air that contained a section of the imps domain. That imp did look over but only eyed the other imp warily before moving to a tree further away. The stolen glob of domain was writhing and slithering trying to escape its captor. Piece by piece the thirteenth imp began to chomp into the air and the writhing diminished until it stopped entirely. After which it again casually positioned itself near another imp and again stole a portion of its domain. This time what he was pretty sure was the tenth.
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It repeated the same steps over and over. Slowly whittling away at the other imps domains. Ozzy had suspected the cause from the start, but could only see hints of it at the third iteration. By the fifth it was obvious it was adding to its own domain from those of the other imps. For a while Ozzy pondered why this would be. If the imp simply killed the others it could absorb their energy even easier. Since it wasn’t doing so suggested other reasons which confused him at first, but his mind thankfully supplied a possible solution. He’d seen a cause before many times but hadn’t really added those sightings and possibilities together. The imps like the rats released energy when they died. The difference was that in their death the explosion wasn’t increasing at the same rate as the rats.
If the release of energy was simply related to the amount stored in their domain the imps should be outstriping the rats two to one. If it was based on the total amount of energy between the body and domain it should match. If, however, the domain was somehow not released on death, then it would make sense to consume it before killing them. Ozzy continued his upgrade process and kept an eye on the unluckiest imp. If his suspicion was true then the release of energy on these imps' death shouldn’t be altered even though their domain was being harvested. This was going to take a while as this imp was being slow and methodical. It was also not always very accurate with its attacks. Ozzy suspected this was due to it not being able to see the domain, just having a general feel of where it was. Even when it did take more it was still only a small percentage of the domains and the processing was even slower.
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Ozzy had turned even more of his attention to his upgrade process. Only sparing a glance every few minutes for the imps, as they would be at it for ages. With his new method of staggering the upgrade he could easily increase the number of rows he had going around the edge. The current setup took up only a tenth of the space around the reservoir. Not wanting to break his stride he took to adding a section of new cells after each wave of upgrades. Slowly, but faster than the progress of the imp, he filled the outer edge of his reservoir with the cells and cylinders. Eventually resulting in a continuous ring of them which allowed him to constantly trigger an upgrade circling around the reservoir.
He was surprised to find it was even easier to maintain now that the ring was complete. As he was no longer stopping and starting or moving his focus from the end to the beginning. Instead there was a single set of repeated actions that followed a gentle curve which itself repeated. Trigger and move to the next on and on. He was even able to speed up the progress. However, Not long after completing the ring he was forced to pause and adjust the membrane housing the trips as it was full. All the while he kept his eye on the imps and the thirteenths ever increasing domain. He was nearing its original size but of course with its increased domain he didn’t want to be left in the dust. He’d tracked it’s growth and even at the beginning it wasn’t matching his own. He would soon catch up and then leave it in the dust.
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Ozzy watched as the thirteenth imp finally closed in on one of its brethren for the kill. He’d been keeping a closer eye for the last several minutes as the imp had barely a few particles left outside its skin and the last few swipes from it hadn’t garnered anything for the other imp. The imp had known long before that there was something off. It had stopped attacking the rats and other imps. Instead it had been eying the thirteenth imp warily and keeping its distance. Though with the third attempt from the thirteenth imp to grab more domain failing it had taken action. Alighting from its branch it lazily turned toward the imp with the devastated domain which flinched at the sight. The following chase was painful to watch as the helpless baby-faced monstrosity cowered and hid as best it could in the small space. All the while the thirteenth imp nonchalantly fluttered around in its general direction looking as smug and content as any self centered douche Ozzy had ever seen.
As it zeroed in on the helpless imp Ozzy did the same with his own domain. He’d finished his process of upgrading his domain over an hour ago. In the meantime he’d tested his new domain to a greater extent than he had before. The trips were still able to be altered into membranes. It was clear from the testing he’d done so far that they were capable of significantly more than the ops in that regard. With far more control in the properties of the membrane they turned into. After the testing he’d started a cleanup process in his haven. Reaching through and siphoning off all the energy that had built up in the fruit, the air, and the cores of all the fallen beasts. The imps, even the thirteenth, were just as blind as the boar was to his antics.
As long as he only used raw domain in the haven they couldn’t see anything he did. With all the death and destruction ongoing for the last several hours There was enough energy available to not just restore all he’d used, but to fill his reservoir. When it had begun to feel pressure trying to add more he’d instead begun to mete it out to his trips. Finding he also had more control over this process than with ops. He could will the energy to spread evenly between the whole of his domain, or to concentrate in many different ways. Down to a single trip if he wished until it was bursting with energy, or into a group, or many groups.
He’d been wrapping up with siphoning the energy when he’d seen one of the imps with only dregs left in its domain and begun to formulate a plan which he was now enacting. Behind the thirteenth imp mirroring it as the imp was chasing its own prey was enough domain to entirely engulf the thirteenth imp and its domain. That wasn’t the plan though. When the imp’s domain struck out at the weaker one so too did Ozzy’s. Though his goal wasn’t to kill the imp. Instead the domain bit off a large section of the imp’s and quickly retreated with it.