Chrysalis

It's hard to turn my thoughts away from Jim and his eventual fate, but I force my mind to shift onto other priorities. If anything, it's a relief to have him finally caught and dealt with. It wasn't enough for him to betray us the once, he had to run around… slither around, and continue to try and bring down the Colony. This situation with the ka'armodo would likely have happened no matter what, but it wasn't helped by Jim spitting his poison into their ears.

As the Colony grew and expanded, having someone ringing alarm bells wherever we went would have been absolutely disastrous. In some ways, I can understand it, even if it infuriates me. Unable to accept he was wrong to betray the Colony, he had no choice but to double and triple down. He could never admit to himself that what he'd done was a horrible crime, that he had become a killer, he had instead run away from that realisation. In his mind, the Colony was bad, evil even, and with that 'fact' locked into his head, he had no choice but to act as he did.

But understanding and sympathising are far apart.

Good riddance to bad worms! We are moving on with the numerous challenges that face us. The greatest and most urgent issue of all, disposing of the literal tons of termite Biomass left over after the battle.

For once, the damn beetles stuck around to fight rather than retreating. The number of termites destroyed in the fighting runs up into tens of thousands, easily. Perhaps even more. I incinerated a good chunk of those, but there are plenty left to deal with the old fashioned way.

It's time for a good old fashioned, post battle feast!

[Let's dig in, everyone!] I announce to my pets.

The four of us merrily dive into the food, Tiny quite literally so, swan diving into a nearby mound of Biomass. What are you, a billionaire duck in a money bin? Have some damn class, man! I begin to shovel in the food myself. It isn't great quality, as Biomass goes. The termites aren't highly evolved or heavily mutated by monster standards, rarely even reaching tier five even, but we are still able to extract some value as we pack our stomachs fit to bursting, which takes a bit of work.

about pack away a literal mountain now. Crinis has three mouths and an almost bottomless appetite, only stopping when her reserves of shadow flesh are completely stocked. Invidia keeps his stomach in a pocket dimension and he has an inordinate amount of space in there. When his creepy mouth appears in thin air and

hear the 'yesssssssss' he purrs

wanted to walk anywhere. Tiny has finally emerged from the pile, his belly so round it looks like he inflated a beach ball in his guts. Even Crinis is reduced to a floppy pile of dark goop on the ground as she struggles to digest everything

worked hard for the Colony. Good job,

Everyone should spend and upgrade, check for Skills that need to be moved along as well. I know it'll take longer for you guys, but the final sprint

my pets were to die full stop, but dying as you close in on the next evolution seems even more cruel. After striving for so long to reach the next step, and

my guts, Calling me deeper. When I evolve, that feeling is only going to get worse. Still, if

get depressed about the Call. I'm about to complete my perfect evolution! Achieve my final (for now) form! That sweet, sweet bonus energy will be mine, and for an evolution of this size, that bonus will not be small!

left is the entire business district. My commercial empire has four major components, each

get the process done, I almost can't be bothered to check the options all that much. What do I want to emphasise, how do I want to proceed? Does it matter?! We are talking tier seven evolution! But

to amass a nice stockpile so I can mutate any reset parts of my body to a good standard straight away. For my Concentration Gland, I want to emphasise the 'thickening' aspect that I've taken on, and the weakening aspect of my Stimulation Gland. Making the acid more dense and potent is never a bad

the primary function, after all. Pressurising the shots to give me more range is nice, but I'm no sniper, I

want to emphasise the propagating aspect that I mutated recently. Having my acid be able to replicate itself to a degree is nice, keeping the damage going for a longer time after a single hit. With the acid binding and sticking to the target, then multiplying itself once it's on there,

said and done,

Acid Gland +25 -> Spreading Binding Mana-Feasting Acid Gland