Chrysalis

[How long will the curious one remain imprisoned within the mouth?]

[Until she's learned not to be a massive pain in my commercial zone.]

A wave of heat washes over me from behind.

[What is this… commercial zone?]

[You know what? Never mind.]

The already sweltering temperatures of the third stratum inch up a couple of degrees as Al literally burns with a level of curiosity that, being honest, I just can't be bothered dealing with right now. All I'd wanted to do is hang out in the demon city and see what they got up to in there. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, yes. I'd kind of expected that things would go wrong, I mean, they tend to. Tiny would get into a fight, or Crinis would accidently mind-control somebody, or Invidia would nab something he shouldn't and then all hell would break loose.

I make it sound as if I'd expected my pets to be the cause of any issues, but I can be honest with myself. I fully expected that I'd be responsible for some kind of drama, be it getting into a fight I shouldn't have, pinching stuff I shouldn't or mind controlling someone. What I didn't expect was a damned hatchling to go freaking crazy on me!

Now the only way we're going to get back into Roklu is at the head of an army. Good thing the Colony is probably going to assault the place in fairly short order. In the meantime, we'll just have to hang out down here, I suppose. Not that it isn't exciting!

[I … dislike this place.]

Al has a distinctly displeased tone to his usually flat and unemotional voice which surprises me enough that I turn around to face him.

[What about it makes you so unhappy?] I ask. [Isn't this the place that you were born?]

The floating eye of fire swings around the plains around us in one irritated swoop.

[All demons are born of the plains. From the moment we emerge from the spawn points we know nothing but a desperate battle to survive, surrounded on all sides by foes. We consume each other until we piece together our sentience, bit by bit as we evolve. Even those who try to escape the fighting and climb the pillar are thrown back down. Until we reach tier six, we aren't considered a real demon.]

Most of my kind are born within the comfort and safety of the nest, surrounded by family, but I personally was born on my own, one of the weakest creatures in the entire Dungeon. It wasn't easy, but I was able to fight my

The demon eye glitters.

true that most monsters climb up and survive only by fighting for their lives, though some hide

a certain worm

it isn't common for a demon to actually enjoy returning to

Fair enough I suppose.

clinging to the pillar a hundred metres above the ground, looking down on the chaos going

are a lot of them, aren't there?]

try, for some mad reason, to purge them all, the spawn rate will increase until the numbers return. This is the

isn't it? This is

it was during the wave. When the wave was at its height, they were several

of infant demons beneath us. Each of the little creatures, with their dark coloured demon skin, two claws and strangely bulbous bodies fights maniacally against any of their own kind they can reach. Seeing how tightly packed together they are, there are a ton that they can reach. Some are larger than others, and these seem to ignore the smaller ones as

feeding and fighting that just goes on and on as new demons crawl from between cracks in the ground to replace those that have fallen.

of Biomass…]

harvest,] Al comments, [not that you or I would

wasn't thinking

was thinking about potentially hundreds of thousands of little hatchlings who would be more than happy to feast on these demons. Looking over the vast plains and the unending supply of small

I sigh

without squishing any demons in the process. To my surprise, they almost flow away from me, creating space where I won't crush them underfoot. As I bring more legs down, eventually bringing my

I point out the strange phenomenon

shift away from

[Weird…]

in a kind of

surprising. To an infant demon, you are either food for now, or food for later. Anything that is more powerful than themselves is food