How predictably the town had descended into turmoil after the little performance that Henry had put on. Mar kept the entire settlement under surveillance from a distance and they had observed how it had only taken a full day for the riots to begin. The threat of death by dehydration and starvation was only the fire, the true fuel had been the innocent lie about having hidden agents in the town.

"Subterfuge, patience, and deception. That is how we will beat the entire world."

Mar could already see the plans that they were constructing taking shape before their inner eye. Just as they could sense the torture that the defeated inhabitants of the fortress were being subjected to. Consent was consent after all and if it was given to them through coercion rather than genuine desire? Well, that was unethical from a sexual perspective, but when it came to this Mar did not feel any guilt.

Enduring having countless ants eating your insides until you agreed to be converted? That was a minor obstacle to them, especially since regeneration would help with overcoming the damage. Taking the fortress had apparently been easy since they lacked the anti-vermin defenses of Hor. Mar had not actually noticed it happening until the Ant-Termite General had informed the rest of the Swarm about it. They had focused so much on the town and their larger plans that the actual assault on the fortress had mostly passed them by, almost like background music while working out.

This was a bit of a concern, yes the Swarm could not equally pay attention to everything that transpired within it. But an actual assault on a human settlement should have left more of an impact, it is true that there were almost no casualties or much fighting. Some energy expenditures had come with it but it was well within the allotment that Ant-Termite General had access too, so at the time Mar had not thought about it.

It was still early in their development, so losing track of something like that was...disconcerting. They had even ignored the choir of dying Units that had come with the brief assault. When Mar focused on that it struck them how much of a far cry it was from when a single Unit being killed had caused the entire Sovereign Swarm to mark an unimportant bear as a notable enemy that needed to be punished.

Death was not important in the grand scheme of things, the Swarm would be eternal and all would be of the Swarm given time. It was lack of control that was worrying Mar. For without perspective how could you have control? Yes, in the past Mar had overfocused on specific interests and not bothered much with events occurring around them. But they had at least been on some level consciously aware of those events, this assault had happened and Mar could not recall having actually noticed it on any level.

Suddenly there were just more in the Swarm and the report of the successful assault had reached their attention. But ultimately what could Mar do about this except be less invardly focused? There was at least not a good answer that Mar could think of at the moment. Maybe learning meditation could work for it, but that was presently beyond them.

Mar was jolted back to observing the town as the fragments yelled to make them look. A Runner! Someone had jumped down from the wall and was trying to run for it while carrying a large backpack. It was a young man who had taken to running and Mar considered the situation carefully.

Letting him go could be an option, the man could not actually outrun the Swarm in any way so putting on a show could further deceive the townsfolk. Maybe more would be tempted to flee with the added hope of knowing one of them succeeded. Or, Mar could crush their hopes and capture the poor fool immediately and without giving him even a glimpse of hope. It didn't particularly appeal to do either.

"Henry, we are going to put on a show. The Fungal Zombies will fail to capture him but you will succeed and do so in a visible manner. Drag him then back to the main concentration of Units and have the insects begin their work, he will become your brother in the Swarm soon enough."

Mar did not bother paying attention to Henry long enough to sense what his reply was. A single individual was largely unimportant to them and they were more actively paying attention to some of the new logistical schemes pondered up by Ysandra and the Logistics-Collective.

"So, while the show is taking place give me insight into the developments we want to see."

"Well, the Subject known as Ysandra has been most helpful in expanding our understanding of plants. We hope that in time we should make the Forest more cost-effective. Acorns and other nuts are being gathered as we speak and along with all the loose biomass we find they should help with the nutrition shortage."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"I have also pointed out that while lesser plants are rendered a uniform part of the Fungal-Floral Network, there is potential to develop crops in the future. We will have to experiment with your ability to alter units and my own magics, but I hope that we can do more to feed the Swarm. In addition to my proposed plan to make the Fungal-Floral Network transfer nutrients more effectively between all parts of the Swarm."

"Food will also be less of an issue once the new Subjects join us. We will use their farming experience to begin large scale food production, with Workers aiding them we hope to get this up to industrial scale farming. Breeding of livestock is off the table as of now but maybe future Unit types can address that."

"Speaking of breeding, Ysandra helped point something to this Collective. Why do we not expand our esocial insect operations to the next level, with Fungal Zombies of larger species protecting them we could set up more colonies or more importantly create many more queens. We could increase our current egg laying capacity of 146 000 eggs per month to the scale of millions very quickly. The natural breeding instincts within the queen candidates have been excised by the infestation process, but we can manually make them do it."

"That is a good initiative, we commend the er... both of you for this innovation. What about the underground expansion project we proposed it will be needed once we enter stage four-"

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Henry watched the young man run and dodge a leaping deer before he joined in on the race. His new legs made his acceleration explosive as they pushed with far more force than any human leg could, the way they distributed his weight and transferred the force to the ground made it seem like he almost skipped across the plains. A few days ago this would have been awe inspiring to him and while Henry was still learning to use his body, the wonder of it had already begun to pass. It was just what he was capable of now and he knew that there was still far more that separated him from Heroes and high-ranked Adventurers. Henry was far closer to those peaks than he had been before, but humility was important. The duel against that arrogant twerp Crabs had taught him that much.

It was a haggered thing that he was pursuing. The man had a spear with him and it dripped with blood after he had been forced to stab a fox that had gotten "close" to stopping him. Master had ordered Henry to capture him in style so that was what he was going to do. The wet grass flew in patches behind him as he added in a final burst of speed to accelerate and then he lept over and twisted in the air to land in front of him while facing him.

Credit was deserved for the man because while he did shriek loudly and with much gusto, he did not freeze up, hesitate, or run away from Henry. He just lifted his spear and continued the sprint like nothing had happened. This actually forced Henry to parry the blow and it made him frown as it partially ruined his entrance. But he didn't let that distract him as he rapidly spun to the side of the charging man and kicked up towards his face.

Henry didn't have "feet" in the traditional sense anymore, rather than those he had four talons on each "foot" that served as balancers, weapons, and in this case grabbers. The claws grasped the man by his face and Henry pushed him down to the ground and held him place with a single leg. Shrieking soon followed and futile attempts to pull the claws off his head, but Henry paid it no mind.

People were watching from the walls and Henry ensured that they all saw that while the young man had been able to elude the lesser servants, he would always catch up to them. Henry then grabbed the young man by the hair and started pulling the weeping and wailing man towards the waiting hordes of monsters.

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Mariam Du Eralt watched Henry with great interest as she noted the way he had dealt with the desperate fool. He had certainly picked up more than just a dark robe from his service to the Thrall-King, but she thought that maybe she could avenge her friends before the town fell. The problem she had been grappling with since learning of his defection and the conclusion that he had murdered Crabs had been how to get him alone. But he had now been so obliging in showing her how to do just that.

She would give him and herself a night, but she would face him on the second day. After all the third day was going to be when Hor fell, and she would most likely lose her chance at that time.