After I killed the first raggedy human, the rest scattered in massive disorder. It looks like a disturbed ant's nest, something I'm quite familiar with.

It's stunningly easy to finish these humans off since it only takes one hit to make them explode. Even Bubbles and the dragon are helping as much as they can, the dragon biting at the ankles of one of the men and making him trip, and Bubbles has eaten two people already. He doesn't seem to be any larger, so I'm assuming he's converting them into void.

Meanwhile, Alice and Baby are still fighting the humans' leader, who's using a hammer to great effect. Dylan is crouching on the ground, muttering something I can't make out through the chaos to himself.

A curious ding! filled the area, and the dragon expanded a full two feet in length, its spikes sharpening, and it happily lays into another human.

[Joule, what the heck was that?]

[I don't know! It just absorbed energy from nowhere and then grew significantly out of nowhere - and what was that sound?]

While I was distracted, one of the humans lunges at me with an ax, and the weapon practically explodes on my carapace, not injuring me in the slightest. I headbutt him, and he's hurtled away into a small group of terrified-looking humans with wide eyes and rusty weapons.

[Right, it's probably not a good time to think about this - lets finish these humans off!]

Joule's quiet for a moment, leaving me enough time to cut one of them cleanly in half.

[You seem pretty okay with this.]

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[Well, of course, I'm okay with it. They're just drones doing the command of the leader.]

She seems a little concerned when she tells me, [You know they all have their own identities, right? They don't really have to do what their leader tells them to.]

I think about it, then realize the solution. [Should I take him out then?]

[Probably. Your new buddies are having some trouble.]

I walk over to the fight, Alice and Baby literally holding the hammer in a desperate attempt to keep it from crushing them, and wrap my mandibles in void. [This shouldn't be too difficult.]

Biting down on the hammer's shaft, my mandibles go straight through and sever it near the end, and it smashes into the ground, leaving an indent.

Turning to the leader, I can see his face is pale as he draws a short blade from a sheath on his side. "What are you?"

[My name is Null. Sorry, but I can't talk right now. I have to kill you.]

His eyes widen and he turns to run. Not nearly fast enough - and he doesn't taste half bad.

Dylan throws up and the other two look a little green, but the man is providing quite a bit of void energy, and I can see no reason to stop eating.

True to my suspicions, the men have stopped running around, simply staring at me with wide eyes. Some of them pass out. Most of them throw up like Dylan.

Once I'm done, I turn to the men and extend my telepathic range. [Put down your weapons and get in a group.]

They comply with stunning speed, and I wonder if they think of me as their queen now. Unfortunately, I'm male, so that just won't work out.

Turning to my companions, I ask, [Do you know why the dragon got so big? It took me quite some time to grow that much.]

Dylan wipes his mouth and answers bleakly. "It leveled up. That's how the system works. You kill enough stuff and you level up."

I tilt my head curiously. [Why haven't I leveled up yet? I've killed plenty of creatures, though this is my first time with humans.]

Baby still doesn't look too healthy, and Alice is glaring at me as though I just asked her if I could kill her, but the bigger man still responds. "Look, Null, I don't have a carking clue why you didn't level up from-" he indicates the rather messy area we're in, "-all that, but next time, take prisoners, all right? Good grief..." He trails off into a stream of muttered words I don't recognize.

I frown at the dragon. [Why do you get to level up?]