Chapter 31.East

Glrt's faction was growing more powerful at a pace that left the rest of the army behind. Even outside of her faction, the quail and banshees were mostly class six or above. The goblins were limited by their race, but the cannibals were starting to itch with need to progress. Even if they weren't quite ready for it. Cannibal physiques were often designed up to the sixth class, but the design at that level was often conceptual. A limitation of the runes used, not a level refined by actual use. As such, balance was an issue, one that harmonized with cannibals that cared more about class than effectiveness. The most apparent side effect was an explosive increase in the damage to equipment and the environment.

When they'd left Adrian, the force had been quite well equipped with wagons. Now they dragged sleds, if they had any sort of vehicle. As they advanced beyond their comfortable limit, many destroyed the vehicles they had, leaving them carrying everything they wanted to bring. Until they were willing to make more. The sleds were often made with their own bones, or the bones of class four goblins. I could supply materials from my constructs, but they seemed to see that as too sacrilegious to ask. As a result, the only materials they had access to were each other. Many saw the pain of removing a bone as more important than having a sled, or anyone else having a sled. Their justification for needing one also decreased every day, as more of their equipment broke in their hands or became obsolete in comparison to using their hands.

Other than the cannibals, everything else wanted advancement as well. Watching the horses advance into mythic monsters before being separated into their own herds had had an effect. Except for the bugs. Those were still at a stage where following the army was the extent of their capability. Jealousy was a foreign concept to them.

Bears asking to be advanced to the peak of their species were chief among those responsible for the damage, though I repaired the equipment destroyed accidentally that wasn't useless to the owner. Their advanced classes had them warping to proportions much more similar to their baby form. Their arms and the massive claws at the ends of their hands were still lethal, but their legs got more than a mere increase to the class of their circuits. With massive power in their legs, they leapt at their enemies with enough force to create a two pedes tall wave in the earth. However, jumping was a new skill for bears. They had a long learning curve before they figured out the best ways to jump, leading to many of them accidentally impacting all sorts of things on their way down.

Against my assumptions, boars advancing to their peak at class six were much cleaner. There were issues in the lower classes, but class six boars cleaned the earth behind them, removing any damage that was already there. At class four they became so heavy that their legs sunk into the earth to their ankles, but they had a circuit that absorbed the entire force applied to them by the sky so that they were both solidly attached to the ground as well as not kicking up a cloud of dust despite the extreme levels of suppression that applied to a beast as large as they became. Especially since at class six they gained a shell of earth, amplifying the suppression even further. At class five they'd left massive holes in the earth every time they took a step, but class six fixed that issue.

The ease of advancement for creatures with inherent circuitry drew more jealousy from the cannibals as they became more interested in advancement for themselves. Boars and bears outstripping them in power also caused the goblins to become extremely interested in advancement beyond their limits. That led to another surge in the number of Glrt's faction as well as many joining Lagt in her quest to alter goblin circuitry. All of them less competent than Lagt, but quantity was a very important variable in the progress of research.

As the differences between Glrt's philosophy and the rest of the army became more apparent, there were many that tried to emulate her methods without understanding her philosophy. They had very limited success, merely speeding up the pace of acclimating to their new power level instead of being capable of being comfortable in a constant state of discomfort. It required me to play an active role in their advancement but they weren't utterly incapable of controlling their power or completely left in the dust despite their best efforts by Glrt's faction, unlike the rest of the cannibals.

I had some concerns about the single-minded way they were progressing, but in comparison to their power they were inconsequential. With the number of single-minded growers, each choosing their best function as the core of their focus, the army was still quite rounded. The only gap in that roundedness would be awareness of the surroundings. Even those tasked with scouting had larger priorities. Perhaps the force would be caught unawares and that would spur some to focus on their awareness, but anything that could actually do damage to the force would warrant a warning from me and anything less was unlikely to have much of an effect.

It was already an exceptionally rare talent in all of my forces, the few exceptions being in forests near oceans. In an open plain, I didn't have any truly focused scouts. It wasn't surprising, their surroundings being so utterly boring that falling asleep was a more common result than finding anything. A glance twice per day was enough to notice almost every possible threat, as there was nothing to hide a foe.

That it was such an abandoned discipline may also have been due to my interference. I was almost always vigilant, and I had many options for recourse if something did slip through my watch. The first, and least effective, of which would be the constant state of having scouts scouring around the army. Less effective than other means at my disposal, but definitely an influence on the state of mind of those within the armies. Those within the army itself were often completely oblivious to the surrounding terrain, entirely trusting in me and the scouts to warn them long before anything actually became an issue.

That the force hadn't even encountered a goblin camp or any other random monsters for almost a month probably didn't help either. I knew why, but for the army it was merely more boring than normal. What should have raised their vigilance instead dropped it.

So much so that when a dull drone started to echo through the air the army became much more vigilant, but no more aware of the source. The scouts at least had the discipline to castigate themselves for failing to see the source. To assume they should be able to see the source. The rest of the army merely looked toward the nearest scout relay, waiting for a message. After several leagues of marching with the drone only growing louder, the vigilance turned to tension. Tension that turned out to be as useless as the vigilance in locating the source for both scouts and regulars. Even at the height of their vigilance, none thought it suspicious that they hadn't encountered anything for so long.

None of them thought to look up either. I couldn't really blame them for that, though. They'd never seen anything fly that wasn't thrown, before my avatars, and as they weren't approaching from the north they wouldn't have noticed the shadow. As such, the bugs in the air would have been ignored by the army if it weren't for me. They'd have been wary of threats until they passed the sound on the other side, allowing the massive construction in the sky to go unnoticed.

From how the bugs were coming from various directions but leaving from none, they would prefer that outcome. Most interestingly, they avoided flying in the air above the army, creating a bubble of air that was free of bugs directly over the army. The bubble also extended east as well as slightly south of the army. They understood that shadows and the blood dripping from their prey would give them away. Either that or they were gathering their forces for an assault, wanting ignorance to shield them from any protective measures the army may have. Unless they were merely cautious about flying anywhere too close to a large force, though that answer didn't provide an explanation for why the bubble around the army was so much larger towards the south and east than any other direction.

Their intentions only really mattered as an indication of intelligence for my future research into their species. I drew Grace's attention to the sky and her euphoric cries alerted the rest of the army. Any flying bug would mean a breakthrough in insect circuitry, an observation that Grace noticed almost as quickly as I had. I couldn't let the army ignore them. I'd decided to take a hands off approach this time. Until they'd developed a workable means of defeating the bugs, I would help as little as possible.

The intention of the army was to conquer the flying fortress, but they found themselves in a dilemma as to how they could accomplish such a feat. The Conclave had records of wasps and how to deal with them, but all of their plans were dependent on their towers. Nobody in the force knew those measures, either way.

Their first idea was entirely predictable; a battle in the air. Unfortunately, they didn't know how to fly. There were a few in the army that were good enough with circuitry to recreate the floating of my avatars, but that was hardly an effective method for combat. Without having their feet on the ground, the vast majority of the army would be helpless even if they could float up to the wasps. If they got a grip on the wasps they'd have a good chance of winning the battle, but without control it was unlikely they'd get their hands on anything.

Glrt decided that the stalemate was a bad idea, even if they had no real means to attack. She launched a spike of earth while protecting it from the rejection of the sky, intending to establish combat. It worked as a message, but didn't accomplish what she wanted. The wasps flew between the spike and their hive, only two dying because they misjudged the speed of the projectile as the rest grabbed it and slowed it down by flying in the opposite direction.

They then turned it around and let go, creating a star. A star that blasted through a fourth class ogre and shattered the earth below it. Ogres weren't meant to fight anything in class six. Far from making them attack in a reckless fashion, the wasps seemed perfectly content to maintain their maelstrom around the hive while tossing back any more earth spikes Glrt decided to hurl.

The army stopped during the day for the first time as Glrt, Grace, and the council tried to come up with a plan to convert the wasps. Their first decision was to leave it to me, but I assured them I wasn't going to solve this problem for them. They didn't come up with any other ideas that could work, though they attempted each ineffective one anyone proposed that wasn't immediately shot down. Their most effective idea was having hounds go beneath the hive and release as much of their fire into the air as possible.

The principle of the idea was sound, wasp hives were extremely flammable. Wasps themselves were also very vulnerable to fire. The problem was that the fire produced by the hounds covered less than a quarter of the distance from the ground to the hive. Despite being incapable of understanding the jeering coming from the wasps, the hounds were universally ashamed. It wasn't their fault, so much as the commanders. Judging vertical distance was a skill nobody had developed, but even they should be able to understand the distance better than that. They didn't even think of the idea that if they maintained the fire for several days they may be able to light the hive that way.

With all of their ideas ending in failure, on top of other issues, the army had low morale as night fell. Losing track of the hive in the darkness and needing to march for half of the morning to catch up to where it had drifted didn't help. The next day saw them try several more tactics doomed to failure, each less viable than the last. The worst idea they tried was hurling a quail at the hive. It hadn't even reached fifty pedes before it ran out of force to use against the sky's rejection and was hurled into the earth with enough force to turn it to paste. It was a close race to the bottom though. The idea of having bears leap on top of a leaping bear had wasted even more time and failed significantly closer to the ground, but they knew from the beginning that the quail wouldn't reach the hive.

Every projectile they protected from the rejection was used as a star against themselves. After the first few, they didn't even manage to kill a single wasp before the projectile had been slowed down. Whatever weapons they threw up always returned, and shattered on contact with the ground. Weapons were becoming useless as they advanced in class, but it was still a waste of material.

Another fruitless day passed, followed by a morning that required an even longer march to catch up with the hive. The army didn't feel like they were accomplishing anything or making any progress in their assault of the hive, but the wasps were getting nervous. As such, they were doing their best to push the hive as fast as possible. They wouldn't be able to outrun the army, however.

It seemed like the third day was a good day, though. One of Glrt's followers had focused on fire, a hellhound. She'd been inspired by her failure to burn the hive, instead of dissuaded. She was a true believer in Glrt's method, and did her best to ensure that every failure was a lesson. With that mindset, she didn't give up after failing with her breath.

She turned to circuitry where inherent abilities had failed, taking the lesson to heart that inherent abilities were merely a framework from which a true expert could be born. Every rune necessary to create the fireball Katrice favored was accessible to the army. She was merely the one that saw the potential after spending days cycling through the runes she had access to. The rarest of abilities was to invent spells that the caster was capable of, and Cerkark proved to lack both the dreaming qualities that led to good wizards being bogged down in spells they'd never be able to cast and the trap of ease that kept other wizards mediocre. The fireball was a minimum of class five to be effective against the wasps, and she was stretching her capabilities to be able to cast class five spells. She was pushing the boundary of a balanced ability to progress, but that had Glrt's signature written all over it.

Once she started launching fireballs, the hive finally reacted outwardly like the army was a threat. Technically, it wasn't much of one. Cerkark could only launch one fireball every hour, or so. Each fireball was dealt with by a sacrificial wasp rushing at it, causing it to erupt long before it could make contact with the hive. They could produce wasps faster than Cerkark could fireballs. The real threat was the ten other hounds among Glrt's faction, each inspired by Cerkark's feat. It would probably take them a week, or more, to be able to cast it consistently. A much shorter time than the rest of the hounds, most of whom merely watched with a feeling of defeat eroding their will to progress. It may take years, at the rate of ten competent hounds hurling fireballs, but it would be an inevitable loss from that point forward.

Either way, the legion of wasps that erupted from the hive spoke of the reality of the threat. So far as the queen was concerned, at least. They became a black flood of bodies, numbering in the millions, as they rushed at the army. An effort doomed to failure. Like quail, the army was simply a foe the wasps weren't equipped to defeat. They lacked the raw force to be able to claim victory.

The wasps were an effective unit, their tactics very sound. They attacked in squads of three for a human sized target, increasing the number based on the size of their enemy. One deactivating the sky-repelling circuit to become a living star as the two others followed slightly behind. The star would pierce the foe with their stinger, often dying in the process, striking with enough force that the suicidal first class wasp could deal legitimate damage to a fourth class ogre. Then the other two would grab the stunned foe and lift them into the sky, from where they'd drop them. The power of the creature would become their undoing, as the more powerful they were the more the sky rejected them.

A solid tactic, one that had doubtlessly been extremely useful for the hive. One that probably led the queen to think that her hive couldn't be threatened. There were several ways to counter that tactic, however. Some easier than others.

Unfortunately for the hive, they'd encountered one of the most direct counters to their tactics; hounds. Specifically, hellhounds. Their assault caused them to enter the range of the hounds' breath. The rest of the army barely had to do anything as the air above them was filled with an ocean of fire. The only wasps with a chance at surviving the fire were the suicidal members of their units, but they were often the weakest wasp and as such had the least chance of surviving any contact with fire at all. Even if they did survive, their wings wouldn't. Without their wings, there was no way to stop their suicidal plummet.

The few wasps that did make it through the fire were easily caught by the army. Another counter to their tactic was an extreme level of discipline. Glrt's force may not be the most disciplined, but they were far from weak enough to be stunned by a two pedes long spear piercing into their body, let alone the creature that pulped itself against their defenses. They grabbed the few spindly wasps that survived their own attack and either tried to convert it themselves or waited for someone more adept to claim it. Even had the other members of the squad survived, they were too weak to resist an attack from the members of Glrt's force. Without a stunned foe, their tactics became much easier to resist. The weak poison on the stinger was far from enough to affect any of my worshippers outside of a brood construct. It lacked all circuitry, being the most basic form of poison.

Seeing as they'd finally come up with an effective means of dealing with them, even if it was dependent on the queen being an anxious mess that decided on open warfare at the first risk to herself, I used the wasps I'd converted within the hive to conquer it. It was a necessary act, as if I could only convert the drones and soldiers that participated in the attack, I'd never be able to build a wasp brood construct. If Cerkark had burned the hive, she'd have killed the queen. That would have been a terrible waste.

There were no real issues until I entered the queen's chamber. In the center of a massive sphere surrounded by broken eggs the queen fought another wasp that seemed almost identical. Neither used weapons, and that was a mistake. As I watched, one segmented hand impacted against the queen's abdomen. Doing absolutely no damage. The queen grabbed the offending hand, and with a mighty twist of her body managed to deal slight damage to the joint before the contender pulled it back. The only weapons they had that could do real damage to each other were their stingers, and having only one weapon made it a very predictable weapon. When one tried to turn her back, the other grabbed an appendage and was pulled along but maintained a the battle as one based on the use of their hands.

I watched for several hours, fascinated by the differences in hand to hand combat when the combatants had four hands. It would have been a better fight to watch if it was a little bit less evenly matched. They were both constantly doing damage, but none of it lasted.

At least, none of it lasted until my avatar entered the room properly. The challenger turned to glare at whoever interrupted the fight, but the queen had noticed me long ago. Before the challenger could buzz at me accusingly, a stinger ripped through her middle. She turned to glare at the queen, but the queen's only response was to bite down on the challenger's neck.

There was no reason form me to let the challenger die, however. A pulse of air rocketed the queen across the room, tearing a significant chunk out of the challenger. I could heal that. I approached the bleeding challenger, directly conveying what I wanted and what she'd get out of it via intent. As she complied, I couldn't help but appreciate the ease of this transaction. Wasps were very competent in communicating non-verbally. At least, royal ones were.

I turned to the queen, expressing the same offer. She wasn't a defeated loser bleeding out on the ground, though. Her stinger bounced off of the avatar, followed by the queen. It took her a few seconds to gather her bearings, but she was quickly ready to attack again. It was a bit like her fight with the princess, except my avatar was completely immune to the queen's methods. I reiterated my offer, but that just made her try to flee. I grabbed one of her feet, ignoring the stinger that struck the avatar's face afterwards.

Initially defiant, but slamming her into the ground of her own chamber was quite disgraceful. At least, the princess enjoyed it immensely while the queen grew too frustrated to resist me anymore after three slams. Having successfully converted the queen, the rest of the hive followed immediately and unwillingly into my storm of proponents. Their wills were subservient to the queen in a way that her worship made them worship regardless of all other factors. Apart from the wasps that belonged to the princess, but I'd gained those when she converted.

The queen had been fun to convert, but definitely worth the effort and time. More. If I'd needed to wait and watch that battle for another two years, it would have been a worthwhile conversion. The most important thing she'd given me was access to a tenth class rune that had eluded me from the very beginning of physique development; life. A flat rune may only be a tiny slice of the true rune, but it was a basis upon which I could work to recreate the full rune. I hadn't discovered the entirety of the true rune of space that I'd learned from the sheep, but I was getting close. Life would be just as useful, if not more. With a life nexus I wouldn't need to have a nexus for every kind of tissue I discovered anymore. I could also advance creatures beyond class eight, though the alterations to each physique necessary to create a class ten version would be extensive.

The princess wasp I'd rescued from the queen's maw was the only non-queen capable of reaching class eight, but that was merely the beginning of her uses. She was capable of producing every kind of wasp whereas the queen was incapable of producing another queen, though both could decide the fate of their offspring. That ability in and of itself was extremely valuable. It was the first genuine example I'd seen of a circuit that interfaced with the hidden circuitry of the species. They actively chose which type of wasp their offspring would be, meaning they had to actively choose between sets of hidden circuitry. Not only could they interact with the hidden circuitry, their species had multiple sets. And both interacted with those hidden sets in different ways.

The biggest difference between their reproductive methods was the medium, though. The queen could produce the offspring on her own, spewing out as many as a thousand eggs at a time that slowly grew until the wasp burst free, whereas the princess needed to inject her eggs into a host where they'd go through a very similar process. The princess was also limited in quantity, as too many eggs would drain the host of all their mana before the wasp was ready to eat their way out. The queen was a much lower class than she should be precisely because she filled her eggs with all the mana they'd need to mature. With the quality of her mana-accumulation circuits, there was no reason she should have been stuck at class four.

The biggest indication was that the princess was also class four. After I'd converted her, I realized she'd been flying without a hive, intending to conquer this one, but she was significantly younger than the queen. Despite the advantage, the queen had barely come out on top. They were well matched, as both were of the same class and similar sizes. At class four, royal wasps were of a similar height to cannibals. The class ten circuits the queen carried gave her a higher ceiling, but the princess had more power accessible to her at class four. The benefits of specialization not being enough to overcome experience, in this particular case.

It hadn't helped that they were fighting in a duel. The princess never fought personally, relying on her soldiers. She had far from enough to challenge the hive, however, so she'd chosen a duel. A mistake, as her soldiers were at least advanced to class four whereas the queen's were almost all at class two after a recent costly retreat. The illusion of power was maintained by the class four drones that continued to increase the size of the hive, but the princess probably could have won if she'd fought.

Her one class six soldier was twenty pedes tall, his armor reinforced to the point it would be completely immune to the class four drones the queen could field, not only because it was larger than the three pedes tall class four drones but because drones weren't designed for battle. Their shells were soft and smooth, as befitted a servant. Against the spike-ridden carapaces of the princess' soldiers, all of the queen's drones would have been useless. A royal would have a much better chance, their carapace being both regal and extremely reinforced.

The way their civilizations were built was fascinating. Cannibals had kings and unicorns became the center of hordes, but royal wasps were the literal will of their entire army. Drones were less autonomous than nightmares while soldiers were slightly more, but only royal wasps had true will of their own. I had thought it was too easy to convert the few drones I had, but that was because the queen had been trying to figure out my goal. My presence had probably amplified her anxiety, especially as she was engaged in combat with the princess for the entire time Glrt's army had chased her hive. I was happy she hadn't won before Cerkark learned the fireball, though. Had the queen wasted the princess' soldiers against the hounds' ocean of fire it would have been a terrible waste.

As fascinating as the culture of the wasps was, that wasn't to dismiss the value of the wasp circuitry, much of it was extremely valuable. Especially in regards to advancing the class of my other bugs. In more ways than just circuitry, as well. An example of a flying bug allowed me to look for the pieces necessary to make the others similarly mobile. As I investigated the bodies of the wasps in comparison to the other bugs, I realized that all of my bugs had the basic pieces needed for wings, though the wings themselves didn't develop. As I could also see within the eggs filling the queen's chamber, I knew exactly when the wings developed in wasps; their advancement into class one. As the other bugs had no inherent circuitry, they probably didn't develop wings because they couldn't advance to class one.

Trying to explain this phenomenon became much more complicated. I'd thought wasps were a different kind of creature, meaning bugs maintained the status of the only non-human creatures that had no inherent circuitry. With northern humans breaking the norm on one end and wasps on the other, bugs having no circuitry became an issue. Perhaps bugs were the only species that didn't have access to their hidden circuitry. Perhaps there was one, merely disconnected from the bugs. An unsolvable problem I hadn't even known I had until I discovered the wasps and realized there was a means to solve the problem. It was far too complex for a quick fix, but at least I had a path of research. Grace would be ecstatic. In the meantime, I could easily adapt known builds for the bugs now, as wasps taught me why my earlier experiments had failed at the same time as giving me everything I needed to research even better builds than the ones I'd already thought of.

As I investigated the value of insect circuitry, I received a call I wasn't expecting. Cerkark was seeking me out. Seeking forceful advancement. Of all the members of Glrt's faction, I hadn't expected a hound to ask for advancement. Few tried, but all that tried gave up faster than swimmers inspired by Euri. What was less surprising was that she wanted me to force her advancement. There was instinctive terror that was getting in her way of advancing herself. Terror no amount of self-harm or focus could overcome. I'd watched her various attempts at overcoming that terror. She was determined, however.

I'd held back from advancing hounds because I didn't want to directly confront a hidden system of circuitry, but Cerkark being willing was enough to make it worth it. If the hidden circuitry wasn't stopping her from asking for forceful advancement, the chances of it being possible were much higher. Worst case scenario, I'd build her another body.

At least, that's what I thought when I started. Almost immediately I noticed a terrifying change happening; her will-core was shattering. Both of her will-cores were trembling under an intense stress, as if they were getting pulled in multiple directions. I decided that letting the process take too long could be more dangerous than speeding it up, so I immediately started pumping her full of mana, having to force it against the influence of her own will that wanted to let it roil in chaos instead of feed her circuits. I'd assumed that the hidden circuitry was capable of working on will, but this proved me right in ways I wasn't sure I wanted to be right.

At fourth class her face started to sag as it widened, but I wasn't sure if that was purposeful or a side-effect of her breaking will. She took turns howling, tearing at the ground, and shaking like she was covered with something trying to bore into her flesh and she had a hope of it falling off. The flaming ropes of saliva that dripped from the corners of her mouth could have been indicative of either a correct metamorphosis or a mistake. The white stripe that went from the base of her throat to the base of her tail and going down the insides of her legs turning crimson was indicative of a proper advancement, but her will was still being torn apart.

Class five saw her thickening considerably, doubling in thickness at the waist with a greater increase everywhere else, a shocking level of growth as she continued growing taller at the same rate. Especially in her shoulders, they were almost three times as wide as they'd been at class four. The pain of her will being torn apart was starting to get to her, adding an exhausted drop to the ground to her rotation of coping mechanisms. More shockingly, she was becoming the center of a raging storm of fire. A persistent storm of fire.

Ignoring the flames, I continued her advancement. Class six doubled her size, the only comparative change being a lengthening of her neck. Cerkark was now the center of a storm of fire that reached over a stade in every direction, turning the earth liquid for half of that distance. She was so hot that the sky couldn't even reject her, as the wind that crushed down on her was converted into fire that merely made her storm more tumultuous. Including arcs of excited air that ripped through the storm. As her will was still breaking, I continued.

Class seven explained why her will was breaking. Two more heads ripped out of her shoulders, joining her howl. Her will was showing signs of stabilization, but the change wasn't finished. The red line from her jaw to the base of her tail was now a burning chasm of lava, dripping on the liquid earth below her. Three times as thick, now that it had a river from two other heads as well. It had been a subtle shift, but her body was incorporating the liquid earth into itself. A more gradual change than the crystallization of the horses or the shell colossi wore, but similar in principle. Class seven was the first class that didn't have her growing larger in any way.

Class eight finally stabilized her will. More accurately, it stabilized her into three wills. One real will and two phantom wills. Somewhat similar to nightmares in how they functioned, but much more intimate. Having incorporated the lava, her flesh was little more than a persistent layer of ash that hid the seething ocean of fire that was her true body, occasionally cracking to reveal the scalding form beneath. The lava was only the outer layer of her true body, however. At the center, she was so hot the lava became air. Each breath expelled a tiny portion of that unfathomable heat into her storm of fire, increasing the intensity with which it burned.

As she calmed down, the storm did as well. She still radiated so much heat that being close to her would be fatal for anything under class six, but she wasn't a calamity two stades across anymore. She roared her gratitude, the sound ripping the suppression of the sky into shreds before it was in turn suppressed.

I could understand why her makers decided that finishing her maturation process ought to be nearly impossible. Her liquid body wasn't meant to rush forward, like everything else. Her most comfortable means of movement would be diving underground, swimming through the earth until she came up where she wanted to unleash a storm of fire that a chicken would never be able to survive. As hot as she was, fire would do nothing to her. The liquid body meant all of the weapons a chicken had access to would be utterly useless. Cerkark would be able to swim through the waves of a jumping chicken, ignoring the strikes of maw, tail, and feet alike as she cooked the chicken as quickly as she wanted.

She would effortlessly melt her way through the dark or scintillating clouds of horses. The lingering effects of bicorn fire may turn out to be fatal, but the bicorn would be long dead before Cerkark had to worry about it. Assuming she even went above the ground and didn't merely melt the earth below them. Will fire spread through the air, so she could avoid it entirely by remaining underground. Perhaps a prepared bicorn could send nightmares into the earth that could pose a threat, Cerkark had almost no inherent will-based circuitry, but it would be a very difficult win for the bicorn. Her two other heads had portions of will worked into their breath, but they were far from being up to the standard of nightmares.

No hound could access this stage without extreme assistance, however. I was sure of that. Her will had been tearing into three. It was possible that a particularly hardy hound could have survived, but with three foreign wills in one body it would have eaten itself. At class eight was when the circuit activated that converted the two separate wills into their pseudo-nightmare state. Cerkark was undoubtedly the first class eight hound, though as I congratulated her on her achievement she corrected me; she was the first cerberus.