Devourer

As I approached the beating heart I could sense the eyes of all the queens on my back. The Eternal Mother said when I eat her heart I will assume control of the Armazaftund. I will also be able to change them, apparently they are creatures that are based on the one who commands them. So I could change the Armazaftund to fit my designs. She also warned me not to squirm when I finally understood what the Armazaftund truly are, crude and simplistic creations. A creation made by those who have a rudimentary understanding of the art of flesh sculpting.

The Eternal Mother can apparently control what essence she chooses to store in the heart. In the past she has prioritised adaptations that can extend her lifespan but now she is going to expend what little energy she has left to give me the tools that I need. She told me after she does this she will die soon after, she simply doesn’t have enough strength remaining.

“Farewell young one, even in death may I be triumphant.” the Eternal Mother said softly as she shut her eyes.

I opened my maw now wet with saliva as I approached the heart. I bit down hard on the organ and I savoured the explosion of flavour. 

Oh my god this tasted good, this must be how crackheads feel…

Essence is a hard drug, no one can convince me otherwise…

When I finished the heart I heard a crackling overhead. I looked up and saw the crystals seemingly short circuit before dimming. Well that’s broke as shit now…

I felt my body heat up and I don’t mean like it’s getting warm here I mean really hot. I felt my body change and shift as I began absorbing this enormous amount of essence. The amount of essence in that heart was probably more than I had in total…

Then I heard the voice ring out in my head…

Acquired New Devourer Strain

[Eternal Mother] Strain Acquired

Warning Strain Incomplete…

Analysing…

[Eternal Mother] strain assimilated

[Gestalt Domination] Acquired

[Mutagenic Parasite] Acquired

[Flesh Sculpting X] Acquired

[Psionic Transcendence VIII] Acquired

[Ether Mastery] Acquired

Core Evolution Achieved Stage: 5

Core Evolution Achieved Stage: 6

[Monomolecular Edge] Acquired

Blade Sharpness greatly improved

Augmenting…

Combining [Chitinous Bone Blades] with [Monomolecular Edge]

[Kaiser Blades] Acquired

[Kaiser Spines] Acquired

[Metabolic Boost] Improved

[Metabolic Frenzy] Acquired

[Movement Speed] Greatly Increased

[Strength] Greatly Increased

[Perception] Greatly Increased

[Advanced Cognition] has evolved to [Ascendant Cognition]

[Memory Assimilation] has evolved to [Greater Memory Assimilation] 

[Intelligence] Greatly Increased

[Eternal Mother] Strain augmenting base [Wraith Strain]

[Void Core] Acquired

Adjusting [Void Core] to present adaptations

[Void Enchant] Acquired

[Void Enchant] now available for [Kaiser Blades] and [Kaiser Spines]

[Void Enchant] causes strikes to ignore 30% of [Resistances]

[Void Enchant] causes [Sunder] effect on [Resistances] reducing their effectiveness by 5% per stack up to 25%

[Void Cloak] Acquired

[Void Cloak] combining with [Ethereal Invisibility]

[Unseen Predator] Acquired

[Stealth] is no longer susceptible to [Advanced: Magic Detection]

This effect is [Toggleable]

Oh so I can adjust the strength of my invisibility on the fly. Well I can do alot of mental fuckery with this…

Augmenting...

[Unseen Predator] and [Gestalt Domination] combining with [Ether Decoy]

[Void Decoy] acquired

[Void Decoy] can now use [Unseen Predator]

User can now swap positions with [Void Decoy]

[Void Decoy] can now be controlled to a greater degree

[Void Decoy] [Automated Intelligence] improved

Woah shit… that’s cool. My decoy is now smarter and I can actually use it to reposition on the battlefield.

[Void Burrow] Acquired

[Burrowing: Movement Type] effectiveness greatly increased

There it is, the Armazaftund’s burrowing ability. I didn’t get much combat stuff, just a few things here and there. Most of the combat related traits just came from my core evolution. If I took the combat related abilities I am sure I would have gotten some really good stuff. The Void stuff must just have been the tip of the iceberg. I hope I made the right choice...

But overall some pretty cool stuff I’ll examine those in more detail later, now there is a more pressing thing to address. I can now sense a presence in the back of mind, it wasn’t that strong and it had no control over me but I know it’s there. I focused on the presence and I started to feel a connection.

I turned to the queens and they all bowed in unison. Then I heard a chorus of voice speaking in perfect unison echoing in my mind.

The Eternal Mother is dead

Long live the Eternal King

I focused again on the presence and I instinctively began to trace the signal. I could feel a hundred thousand minds thinking in unison. A chorus of a hundred thousand voices… and… 

The reception was terrible… It's like an old radio...

Yeah ok I can see what the Eternal Mother means when she said these ones were hastily cobbled together messes. As I zero in on queens minds I could sense their Essence code. Honestly the whole thing was a giant hot mess, inefficient, crude, mediocre at best.

I can improve the reception by improving the queens. They lack the power to fully integrate into this hive mind as for the rest of them it was even worse. The biggest problems of the queens designs was that first off it was extremely inefficient, so much wasted potential. I could double their effectiveness just by shifting some things around. The second being is that their base hardware was crude to begin with, I could make them better and I instinctively know how…

But first a question…

I focus my mind and send out a clear message into that mass of minds.

Who do you serve?

Instantly I heard the voices ring out again.

We serve you great one

Good. That’s what I like to hear…

Now then, time to make some changes. I looked at the queens and I saw them look at me expectantly. I could tell they were excited and I could sense there was a good amount of relief in their minds. It was odd to say the least, it was like their minds were now a part of my psyche. I was still in control but it was like a part of me that I could control and command, kind of like a very obedient split personality.

Hmm… they were ashamed of their current state, the Eternal Mother must have harboured quite a bit of disdain for them. I mean I can see why, these guys were terrible. The moment that thought crossed my mind I saw the queens in front of me flinch slightly.

Right sorry, hive mind, gestalt consciousness and all that.

Well let’s start with the more obvious issues then…

Let’s see… ok first thing why the hell is this main artery going up from the heart into the neck and looping back down? What the hell is the point of this detour? I could put stuff there. Ok let's change that first…

The moment I made this change I saw the Queens curl up and a cocoon formed around them. As I examined the cocoon I could see their body change. Ok so that’s easy, I just make my changes and they alter themselves on the fly. From what I can tell… I can alter the different castes as well. The castes are better designed… far better... I wonder why… As I scanned the Eternal Mother’s memories I realised the Lizardkin only designed the queens, the queens designed the lower castes and the queens were directed by the Eternal Mother. Since the Eternal Mother couldn’t change the queens they were stuck with this crappy design for who knows how long.

Time to do some sweeping changes, I have a feeling this is going to hurt…

I started to resolve all the problems, I broke bone and tore flesh, rebuilding them from the ground up. They were now significantly more combat effective, I modeled them after myself. They now looked much more similar to me hmmm… actually…

I did a few more changes and reverted one of the queens to look more or less the same as its old form minus all the internal problems of course. If the Armazftund suddenly disappeared it would raise some eyebrows. The last thing I want is for someone to find this place. I still made the queen better than before. I just wasted some resources to maintain the appearance. 

As I continued to work I really started to understand why the Eternal Mother spoke about humanoids in the way she did. The way she talked about them it was like she was treating them like piles of talking shit. I mean honestly the older designs were really bad. I just got this new ability and I could tell the old design was crap. It was barely holding together, so much wasted potential. I’m not even that good at this whole thing, I could tell I still needed more practice and experimentation. My memory assimilation is limited and even what I do manage to get the information does lack some context so it’s up to me to make sense of it all. 

Well we’ll see how it goes I guess, everyone starts from somewhere.

By the end of my changes I made the queens stronger in terms of combat abilities but more importantly I made them smarter and extended their control abilities. They should be able to control more of the lower castes now and also control them better. They should also be able to make better modifications to the lower castes. 

The queens now had a crown of gold feathers on their heads just like me. Their bodies now looked much slimmer with the same white armoured skin that I have. I gave them a vaguely feminine torso and the same roughly shaped head I had. I didn’t give them sensor domes, it was expensive and honestly I see little purpose for it so I gave them four eyes instead with their heads covered with armored plates. Their lower bodies were snake-like similar to mine but the snake half was significantly thicker because they needed room for the ovipositor, or egg laying organ in simple terms. They also had four arms, with the top two tipped with blades, again similar to me in design. I will need to make some flyers in the army at some point since I can fly… having a flying creature like myself have an army of burrowers just seems weird. 

They shouldn’t have much issues laying more eggs since the eggs grow and mature once laid swelling to the appropriate size. Interestingly they lay the same kind of egg and the egg will grow into the desired caste. So that is certainly useful, it makes it so that the hive can replenish its population extremely quickly. From what I can tell the lowest caste can be fully formed in just a few days. All the queens needed is food, which I can arrange with Cecilia. My plan is to make the Hive help out the humans in farming and construction to make their lives easier, since more food output means more extra food to feed my hive. It should buy me some good will as well. Hopefully that means less people will try to kill me…

As I focused on the hive mind I found the reception to be much better. The voices were clearer, less discordant and much more unified. But there was a problem…

The stronger queens meant their force of will in the hive mind is more pronounced as well. I can tell they are interfering with each other slightly… I could potentially solve this by making an overall controller, a caste above the queens. A prime queen? I guess? I dunno I’ll think of a name later.

Now then the only problem is I need some power to create it and I don’t feel like giving any of my own. Hmm… I could use one of the queens and ascend one of them… but a new addition would be good. I also want to try my hand at actually creating something…

Then I heard a crackle above me. I looked up and saw the large crystals still had a decent amount of juice in them…

Hello my pretty…

Yes, that'll do just fine...

But first I should probably get the queens out doing something, I don’t know how long this will take. They’re all still loyal, I have total control of them, yes they have individuality to an extent. They aren’t mindless drones but their minds are tied to me. Which is good, initiative is important for subordinates.

What is your will, my king?

I heard the queens ask in unison. Well for now the instructions are obvious.

“All of you except you.” I said as I looked at the one queen that still looked the same. 

“Prepare for travel. When the preparations are complete, have a look at your children. See how they can be improved. As for you the odd one out, your job is to stay here and maintain our presence here. Make sure the rest of the world thinks nothing has changed. Be more aggressive if you have to, just make sure no one knows what has happened today.” I said.

“Yes my king.” the queen said with a bow.

“We will make preparations at once my king. We will be burrowing towards a new home, yes?” one of the other queens said.

“Yes, we are moving south past the mountains.” I replied.

“If we wish to remain undetected we will first need to burrow deeply. The stunted ones occupy the earth below the mountains. If we are to avoid them, we must seal the tunnels behind us as we move to ensure secrecy. That will take some time.” one of the other queens said.

“Very well, how long will the journey to Averlon take?” I asked.

“A week my king.” the same queen said.

Huh, that's faster than I expected…

“Fine, play it safe, don't rush it. Take whatever detours you need, take whatever measures you need. No one is to know tens of thousands of us are moving through the mountain.” I said.

“By your command, my king.” the queens replied in unison.

“By the way what’s your name?” I asked.

“I am Nafas, I was the one who brought you here.” the queen replied. 

Ah so she’s the same one. Honestly, they’re a little hard to tell apart. What's more I just changed all of them dramatically and I didn’t really pay attention to which was which. I should probably give them some markings so I can tell them apart. But that’s something for later I suppose.

“My King, I will struggle to maintain the illusion of our combined presence here with only the children I have in my brood.” the unchanged queen said.

“Your name?” I asked.

“Yagdra my king.” the queen said with a bow.

“Can you all transfer forces between broods?” I asked.

“We can, my king.” the queens replied.

“Take what you need from the other broods, we’ll fill the ranks later.” I said.

“As you wish…” the queens replied with a bow.

“Alright get to it. I have some work to do.” I said as I turned away.

“As our king commands.” the queens said in unison.

I could feel commands being sent out in the hive mind and a hundred thousand affirmations being replied. These soldiers will be useful, for many purposes. One of the pressing issues was that humans fear things that are a lot stronger than them. It doesn’t matter if the thing in question means them no harm, they just want to kill it just in case.

That is something I’m going to have to address. Initially I thought just converting all of them to be my slaves would solve the issue but if I can’t do it to everyone at once. At some point everyone will just be terrified of what I was doing and unite against me. That may still happen regardless but at least if I come across as helpful some may think twice… hopefully…

I mean food and nice sturdy houses is better than facing a sea of gnashing maws and slashing claws. In the long term ideally I’ll create a hive so large to rival any nation, the world is lacking in essence but it has plenty of food, or should I say plenty of fuel…

The Armazaftund or at least what used to be Armazaftund were kind of similar to devourers in concept. They couldn’t change themselves but they could change the castes below them. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem to the rest of the world since the queens can’t grow that much stronger so the power level of the Armazaftund’s power is capped. But now I’m the top of the chain and I can grow infinitely.  

Which means now it’s time to make a level above the queens, a right hand to help me command the hive. I looked up at the crystals and I felt a smile grace my lips.

This is going to be good...