Chrysalis

As the approaching wall of legionaries draws closer, I perform a final check to make sure everything is ready for the battle to come. Do I have a giant ape? Check. Crazy shadow blob of unending horror? Check. Weird eyeball dude? Check. Omni-elemental construct fired up and ready to go? Check. Even my spiffy diamond carapace is back to full shininess. I couldn't possibly be more ready to deal out the pain.

[Tiny, you remember what you need to do?] I ask.

The big bat-faced gorilla turns to look down at me and nods slowly, a broad grin splitting his face.

[Tiny smash,] he declares confidently, one car tire sized paw patting himself on the chest.

With his patchwork armour and helmet strapped on, he makes quite the intimidating sight. Smithant outdid herself when slapping this stuff together, her work has kept the big fella’s injuries down to an almost unheard of level. He's going to need every bit of that protection for this one, as there is simply no retreat. We fight until the fight is won.

[How about you Crinis? Are you going to be alright?]

[I would rather stay by your side, Master,] she complains yet again.

far more punishment on the enemy from where you are rather than hanging on the back of my carapace. There's no avoiding the danger this time, we just need to dive in and hope for

will do my best to bring a swift end to this

of shadow flesh runs out,

[I know!]

to try and

you Invidia? You ready to cut

to need to rely on his firepower pretty heavily if we want to make it through this. The Legion is going to put a big target on him for sure and I expect a ton of magic and arrow fire to go his way once the

They wantsss to take what

tread and immediately the long range acid artillery kicks into gear. Huge, dense arcing jets of sizzling acid fly overhead, the force of the shots

the bomb does a great job of causing chaos and inflicting the occasional casualty, as well as serving the intended purpose of wearing down the barriers the Legion puts up, taxing their mages and soldiers alike. It's a great plan and I loved it, but this fight isn't like the others. This is going to be a grind. This is going to be a no holds barred head-butting contest until one side blinks. The bomb is a great piece of work, but it tires out my brains to the point that even with the Vestibule refilling my tank it takes a while to get back to full strength and frankly, I wasn't sure it would be a good idea to knock myself out

enough that I can manage to use the thing effectively. My current setup is to have the main sub-brain focus on maintaining the construct whilst the two sub-brains operate the thing. The only problem with this is that none of the brains are quite up to the tasks they've been assigned on their own. Maintaining the construct and helping to create the desired mana types is too much for the larger sub-mind, which means my main mind needs to chip in and help. Similarly, the two smaller sub-minds aren't quite up to the task of producing and weaving

usable. If fact, the time to put it to the test has finally arrived. I absentmindedly raise my abdomen to start aiming my own acid barrage toward the oncoming Legionaries whilst my focus turns inward. My main sub-mind is already straining under the pressure so I jump in to aid it as the two sub-minds begin to operate the construct. Raw mana flows from my core which is quickly replenished by the flow pouring up