Horter watched from atop his superweapon, the cloaked butterfly ship, as the army of grass snakes below him came slithering towards the smog wall of his home. They could not see him; the camouflage provided by the lower set of wings on the cloaked butterfly ship hid them from their sight. Horter watched them for a long moment more before he turned towards his butterflies that were flying in cloaked patterns nearby.

"Go." Horter said simply and suddenly, as if out of nowhere, thousands of undead butterflies flew out of the sky, no longer cloaked. All the undead butterflies had switched from their cloaked-patterned wings to a red, angry color as they floated above the grass snake army, who took notice of them. The grass snake army, noticing the undead butterflies circling above them in angry red patterns, stopped to see what they were up to.

But for a long moment nothing happened; the butterflies simply circled above them in pretty but safe dances with red-patterned wings. The elders in their nine-headed grass hydra were about to command the army forward once more when the attack began. As all of a sudden hordes of greater insects began pouring from all around the grass snake army and attacking them with a single-minded, berserk ferocity that was suicidal in nature.

The snake army, though initially surprised, reacted quickly to the sudden attack and fought back. So the grass fields beyond the smog wall of the smog kingdom were filled with sounds of clashing as insect claws met grass snake scale and tooth. The grass snakes found themselves being chewed on by hundreds of enraged greater insects, all bearing red eyes that swarmed up their bodies.

The grass snakes countered this by rolling around and crushing the insects beneath themselves. When they weren't crushing the insects swarming their bodies, the grass snakes were opening their mouths wide and swallowing the berserk one off and tearing them to shreds with their hundreds of grass blades that acted as teeth for the grass snakes.

Though the grass snakes were not having it entirely their way, as well as they were killing the enraged insects with ease, the enraged insects were doing some damage before they died, which was building up over time. Luckily the grass snakes had their grass pixie crafters inside of them and were repairing any damage being done from the inside.

Though while the grass snakes were showing how much of a dangerous and capable foe they were, the grass hydra was showing why it was the ruler of this horde of grass snakes. As it seemed with every move of an ant of its head, hundreds of enraged insects were killed in a multitude of ways. Some were killed as they were crushed by the hydra; others were sent flying high in the air and turned to mush when they landed, and those that didn't die the last two ways were shredded in one of the grass hydra's nine mouths.

Horter watched the battlefield unfold below him from far above it in the central platform that was on top of the head of the cloaked butterfly ship. "Well, it looks like my initial plan of simply using surprise, numbers, and suicidal rage isn't working. I suppose I had best change it up if I want to emerge victorious from this battle." Horter said before then went about giving new orders to his undead butterflies, having them change up their patterns, which would change up their exact effects.

The effect was immediate as the horde of enraged insects under the power of Horter's undead butterflies hypnosis began to break off their attack and organize themselves into separate groups. This moment of reorganization by the insect horde allowed the grass snake army to also reorganize itself. The grass snake army comes together, forming effectively one giant ball of grass snakes, all of them mixing together as their bodies constantly move among the mass, watching outwards for whatever happens next with the grass hydra at their center.

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Horter looked at all the grass snakes far below mixing together, forming their defensive ball so they couldn't be surprised and that any force of enraged insects that came against them would find itself plunging into a bundle of grass snake scales and fangs. "Hmmm, a rather interesting maneuver on their part." Horter said to himself, observing the grass snake's army's rather interesting maneuver.

"Though I suppose it will be fine in the end, my next ploy should be a rather good one." Horter said to himself with an aura of smug optimism as those bugs under his undead butterflies sway began to invade his will. When the battle had first begun, the bugs had been mixed together, so you had crickets, beetles, and mantises all fighting against grass snakes, all in one big wave of enraged insects.

Now after his forces had been reorganized, this was no longer true. As Horter had his undead butterflies reorganize his hypnotized bugs by species. So now when they attacked, hopefully his butterflies could better control them to more devastating effects. As their earlier mixed approach was effective for numbers and surprise, it left his undead butterflies with the difficult task of trying to maximize the ability of a dozen different hypnotized insect races that all had different strengths and weaknesses while in the middle of a battle.

Now though with the importance of surprise no longer necessary the focus has moved elsewhere and so with the his forces having been reorganized into the current more easily managed formation that were now currently fighting the ball of grass snakes. While it was no real surprise they were fighting far more effectively, as his undead butterflies now only had to command a single insect species effectively instead of the dozen they had to before.

So Horte watched as his forces pressed the attack from all directions against the defensive wall the grass snakes had become. The grass hydra at the center of the formation hissing out their instructions, causing the ball of grass snakes to shift to better deal with his attacks as the battle shifted around them.

Horter watched on for a long while, not saying much and seemingly just enjoying the nice breeze on top of the cloaked butterfly ship. It was as if he had forgotten the battle entirely going on below him as the insect he had enslaved and the grass snakes tore at each other. Eventually, though, Horter did finally break the silence.

"It is sad we didn't get to use any of the new undead we got, isn't it?" Horter said to himself, though he spoke as if he were talking to someone. "Though I supposed our youngest needed all the necrotic smog, which is fair, I suppose, though it would have been nice to use the new rage smog butterflies." Horter said with a sigh, clearly sad at the loss of using such an undead in the field.

He then focused on the battlefield below him. "But I suppose that will be for another time. This time I make do with my new superweapon and the undead butterflies I was created to command." Horter said with finality before his gaze sharpened towards the grass hydra. "No, I believe you and I have things to be doing, mainly me eliminating you." Horter said to the grass hydra that clearly couldn't hear him. As he began to direct the undead butterflies more personally so that the battle would be brought to a victorious close.