Looking down on where the river met the lake, the rushing water dropping the length of a great many not-Needles and finding its home below, I felt a surge of excitement. Finally, after the last few days of gathering my forces, I was nearly ready to face the leviathans of the depths again.

Already, I could see one of them far out in the distance; it broke the surface of the lake, mouth yawning wide to display its many jagged teeth, the many tendrils that spread from its lower jaw forcing the water to violently churn. Its form was highlighted by the sheer brightness of the surrounding mana-water, a brilliant blue expanse that stretched thousands of slithers in every direction. I could even make out the appearance of a few of the bad-things that I had captured on my way. A Blueswift here, a Tanglesting there. Even a Razorfin or two, a type of swimming bad-thing that I had only found a few of so far, their far-smaller forms fleeing from the giant bad-thing’s gaping maw.

Before it could get away, one of the Razorfins was caught within the wake of the leviathan’s tendrils, pulled back by the violently churning waters. A mouth snapped shut, and the Razorfin vanished.

I hissed in distress. I wanted that Razorfin for myself; I still didn’t know what Trait they would give.

While I was interested in finding out, that would have to wait. The bad-things wouldn’t be so easy to catch in the lake. I couldn’t stretch threads all the way across, and there was little in the way of currents to force them against it anyway.

Not to mention the threat that the leviathans posed.

I’d have to convert them, first. Then, when the lake was claimed by the Great Core, I would feast. Then, I would discover what the bad-things held for me.

I twined my way up a nearby spore-puppet, beating back my instinctive revulsion at the touch of its leg against my scale-flesh. Reminding myself that, as ill it might have made me to be so near the many legs of a many-legged bad-thing, you couldn’t just catch legs. They weren’t a disease, even if they were the designs of a diseased mind. It didn’t work like that. Hopefully.

If it did, I’d have to kill myself. The Great Core would surely understand. Some things just had to be done.

Wrapping myself around my spore-puppet’s underbelly and clinging tight, I began the descent. A vast number of my spore-puppets, the one that I had wrapped myself around included, started to scale down; long threads and grasping legs let them almost float down to the lake below, forming deep lines of black that outlined the falling river. Those that remained above immediately set to creating new thread-traps, stretching the tangling fibers across the raging water. The traps might not have been useful down in the lake, but they would still work above, gathering more bad-things for me to consume while I accomplished what needed to be done below.

We reached the bottom. Many, many legs stretched down. They found purchase on the narrow stretch of stone that spanned the lake’s shore. A thought-hiss forced my puppets to turn, attempting to snip through their threads now that they were no longer needed.

Blinded by the lake’s light, many of them missed.

I hissed in agitation, focusing enough to send thought-hiss after thought-hiss to each of the blinded spore-puppets, adjusting their movements myself. Just as I feared, the Darkweavers were weakened by the nearby light; even as spore-puppets, the blinding light was enough to disorient them. Weakened as they were, fighting the leviathans was a lost cause.

It was a good thing that I had so many, and that I never planned on a fair fight in the first place.

Sending another wave of thought-hisses outwards, I started to get ready.

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I pulled back, my fangs releasing from many-legged flesh with a parting [Sting]. The former puppet flinched, its leg jerking back - but only barely. The threads that wrapped around its entire body held it firm. They pulled and tugged at each of its limbs, forcing the healing bad-thing to stretch beyond its body’s natural limits, keeping it from escaping by slashing through the confining threads.

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Behind the complicated weave of threads that kept it trapped, the once-puppet’s limbs began to thrash in rage, its nature as a poorly-designed bad-thing once again taking over. I hissed lightly, trying to comfort it with the knowledge that it would return to serving the Great Core before much longer.

That done, my attention turned away from the enraged Darkweaver. Moved inwards, towards the mass of spores waiting within my mouth-flesh. Unlike the spore-roots that they grew into, the spores themselves weren’t yet alive. Still, even before they found their home in a bad-thing’s flesh, they were different from one another.

When I had captured the Darkweavers, I had looked for the ones that were the most infectious. The ones that devoured host-flesh to grow more powerful. The ones that I knew would let me quickly take over the many many-legged bad-things, regardless of what it might do to them.

Now, however, I needed something different. Something that wouldn’t ruin my spore-puppets’ bodies and threads before they could manage what I needed. It had been fine for capturing smaller bad-things, but I was well aware of how big the leviathans of the lake could get. The spores that I had used didn’t just ruin the Darkweavers’ bodies; they weakened their threads, too. Made them more brittle and prone to snapping, something that I had ignored mostly through sheer numbers.

For what I needed now, that wouldn’t be enough. It would take quite a few threads to capture a leviathan, and I would need the trap they formed to be strong enough to hold it in place - at least for a little while.

Hissing lightly, I breathed out a single spore, and the first of the reinfested many-legged bad-things was pulled to the side, where it would wait to serve the Great Core again. It thrashed and struggled, a few threads snapping with the strain, but my other spore-puppets were more than enough to hold it in place. With [Verdure Parasite] increasing the growth of the burgeoning spore-roots within its flesh, it would fail to break free and interfere.

Another spore-puppet took its place, silently allowing its brethren to tie it with threads. Mana twisted inside me, shifting into life essence before splitting into drops of vitality. I bit down.

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Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vitality X] Increased.

[Life - Vitality XI] Acquired.

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By the time it finished healing, I was more than ready to breathe out another spore.

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It took far longer than that for the trap to be ready, however. There were a lot of spore-puppets to fix, even if I didn’t need to fix all of them. Just enough to make the bundles of thread strong enough. Every so often, I was forced to slither closer to the mana-water to refill my mana reservoirs, a group of spore-puppets blocking any potential bad-things from reaching me while I gulped and guzzled giant mouthfuls of the liquid.

With my increased size, and the increased amount of mana-water that meant I could consume at once, it didn’t take nearly as long for my mana core to refill - which was good, since some of the bad-things had started to creep closer, and I wasn’t sure how effective my Darkweavers would be against something attacking them from below the surface. They didn’t really swim in the water. They just…stood on it, legs splayed out ridiculously wide, undersides horribly exposed.

Before I was done, I learned that I was right to worry; they couldn’t do much against the underwater bad-things. Their sacrifice would be honored. Remembered, even if they had been covered in so many repulsive legs that I’d rather not.

Because, with their help, I eventually managed what I set out to do. Something that, hopefully, I would manage to repeat in any future lives.

I made a thread-trap fit for a leviathan.

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Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vitality XI] Increased.

[Life - Vitality XII] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vitality XII] Increased.

[Life - Vitality XIII] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life Essence Manipulation VI] Increased.

[Life Essence Manipulation VII] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigorous Spores IV] Increased.

[Life - Vigorous Spores V] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigorous Spores V] Increased.

[Life - Vigorous Spores VI] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigorous Spores VI] Increased.

[Life - Vigorous Spores VII] Acquired.