Chapter 28.East

The quail were an interesting enemy. They lacked the power to be a threat to the army, but the way they fought was unique. These were the first creatures I'd come across that used the air as a weapon. They leapt at their foes, spreading their wings to speed their descent as the air rejected them. Using that, the second class monsters were able to do damage to my fourth class ogres, if little more than scratches.

They had long legs which ended in massive talons, the force of their fall drove them through any defenses a creature of their class could marshal. Once their feet were lodged, their head slammed between them using the momentum of their fall again. That was their true weapon. Their beak was a horrendously sharp and long thing. The majority of their bodies were weapons, their talons being one pes long despite the curve and their beak being two. In comparison to their four pedes tall frames, their weaponry was almost cartoonish in proportion. Even then, once they were lodged it was dangerous removing them as their entire bodies were coated in hard bladed feathers. The air would knock them off even if you couldn't remove them yourself, but not before the creature had hit with a second jab of the beak and jumped off.

They moved fast and retreated as soon as their assault was over, immediately fleeing before rushing back to launch another assault. It was very effective, though this army was too powerful for that to work. Most of the quail were caught on their first assault and held down. In their class, they'd be devastating. The army was all fourth class.

Once they'd submitted, though, their potential was unparalleled. While the human circuits I'd gained from the Conclave ended at fourth class and level except for a few exceptions and the ogres internal circuitry became unstable at the fourth class, the quail still had potential for growth after the fourth class.

While their potential was higher, that didn't mean they could actually achieve a higher class. By the time the quail were third class, their speed had been increased to such an extreme that they would surpass the resistance the air provided and start slipping all overt he place, not to mention the fact that they were capable of such speed that when they ran into anything their toughness was so lacking the two I'd advanced to that stage in their natural state died. Their first response was strengthening the talons and digging them into the earth as it ran, but they provided too much force on the fourth for that to still be effective as they simply gouged out the earth and couldn't increase their speed anymore. They could manage their problem a little bit by extending their wings and pointing them down, but they were still highly unstable. The balanced versions I advanced later were better, as their toughness had scaled with their speed and they were no longer suicidal in their speed, but they still lacked control.

While I was considering ways of fixing it that derived from altering their will circuit, Grace provided a better solution, she mounted a banshee on one. Not only had the air rejection increased due to the banshee not having contact with the ground, but it could increase the wind rejection with the circuits in its wings. This was normally used on enemies to slow them down in order to maximize the effect of their confusion, but it worked on the quail as well as what they were lacking the most was something to keep them grounded. As an added bonus, the banshees could stop their circuit as the quail jumped and reapply it as they fell, allowing it to have an even more devastating drop. Without my balancing of their advancement they'd have become suicidal in their attacks again. Keeping their attacks from killing them was a new issue for me.

They were so useful and devastating that I decided to send a couple along with their banshee companion and a brood construct for each to my other armies. I could understand why quail didn't live in forests. Trying to maneuver their way through the trees would be suicidal even in their class two form, let alone higher classes. They were still useful as the fastest creature I'd come across.

Glrt's organization of the army was similar to what Grace had, but she did it competently. Instead of separating every race and telling them to fend for themselves, she turned each race into a part of the army to properly utilize the characteristics of each of them. The quail were in charge of scouting and would fight similarly in her army to how they fought naturally. The only difference would be that they weren't trying to break cohesion in their foes anymore, their job was to keep the enemy in a block. That block would be smashed by the goblins, assisted by the hounds and boars. The bears would lead the humans as they cleaned up after the brute-force assault, with the horses in assistance.

In all honesty, it wasn't her idea at all. She left the tactics up to the council while she made it her job to learn magic. She'd wanted to be a shaman when I met her, and now she had the chance. She was facing steep competition, as she'd started later than anyone else. She was the only one that had as strong an intent as she did, though. While she wasn't a great shaman, she was a perfect figurehead. The council controlled the army well, delegating properly. Without having to worry about corruption, councils were amazingly useful social constructs.

Nagt was a lost cause. He'd been consumed entirely by the lust and hadn't had a single ripple of resistance. Now that the army didn't need him for combat, there was no reason for him to do anything else. In his mind, at least. He'd advanced into the inner orbit, though. That surprised me, as Glrt still hadn't. Many of the males that lost themselves to the brood constructs had started entering the inner orbit. There were even some that didn't have the excuse of the lust circuit corrupting their will-cores. Several humans and hounds had surrendered to the brood constructs, ignoring all other training and purpose. They could be forced into training, but it would be much less effective so I left them to their own devices. I needed the brood constructs fed and the armies were progressing well without them.

The most surprising to lose themselves to the brood constructs were females that demanded it service them as well. Some had taken inspiration from the food goblins and asked for any males that didn't want to remain tied to the brood construct all the time. There were some volunteers, but far more of the females were forced to ask to use the brood construct without a justification.

All those that chose to surrender to the brood constructs had entered the inner orbit. As the number of broods produced by the constructs increased due to their volume increasing, they were less necessary for maintaining the power of the armies and their numbers increased.

Once it was known that the brood constructs were usable without needing to be male that lead to the largest shift as most of the army started occasionally asking for it. Not many were like the first females and dedicated themselves to the brood constructs but they were still in high demand.

As soon as I advanced my brood nexus, I gained the ability to separate the brood construct into as many pieces as I wanted and still retain in control as much as I wanted. Once that had happened, I started leaving pieces of brood construct in the females that weren't producing cum, allowing them to continue being useful while remaining devoted. Mostly useful. A little useful. They were capable of doing other things that required no concentration while remaining devoted to the brood construct. My brood construct didn't need to carry them anymore, though they occasionally ran into trees in the armies that trekked through wooded areas. They were still mostly useless and their training in both combat and magic had completely stopped, but they provided me with more exploration into the extremes of the human will-core, which was useful to me. I had delved into their will-cores, but I didn't know enough to draw out all of their secrets.

The brood constructs now had a core area where gestation happened and that was separated from all the harvesting that happened everywhere else. Seeing little cum worms became normal as the harvesters sent their excess back to the main brood construct.

What surprised me was that despite the males being unwilling to part with their cocks, they were much more useful while being harvested than the females were. Grace found all of this particularly fascinating and joined those that had devoted themselves to the brood construct, though her curiosity came nowhere near the intensity of those that truly drowned themselves in pleasure and lust. She quickly abandoned the idea of joining them entirely, but she kept her own brood toy.