Chrysalis

I don't know what’s up with these demons, but they are seriously feeling themselves at the moment. Every now and again, we’ll be out on the plains and some tier five Stab Demon will come sprinting at me from out of nowhere, leap ten metres in the air and come crashing down like a spear from the heavens… only to bounce off my carapace without me noticing.

Where is your sense of self preservation, idiot?! Life is precious, a miracle of mana and coincidence, don’t waste it like this. Alas, monstrous life is as cheap as it gets on the third, and the price is currently crashing through the floor. In fact, I’d go further. It crashed through the floor, through the basement and burrowed deep into the earth where it found a portal to a new reality, the EvenDeeperVerse, where it continues to plunge to new, mind-bending levels of depth.

The spawn rate for demon larvae is getting so out of control, they’re starting to scrape the bottom of my carapace when I walk over them. Usually this happens when one of the vicious little stabbers jumps too high, not from being stacked on top of each other!

The vastly increased number of larvae of course means a vastly increased number of higher tier demons roaming the plains. They hunt each other, or, if feeling particularly full of themselves, have a go at passing Mythic Monsters.

But something else weird is happening as well. Something I haven’t seen before.

[Over there, Master. Another group.]

[Where?]

[Tiny is pointing at them.]

[Ah, so he is.]

Hmmm.

[It’s still odd, no matter how many times I see it.]

[It is unusual, Master.]

you think about it, Invidia? These are, at

eyeball blinks once,

issss unnaturalssss,] he says with some

he didn’t even demand something! My boy is growing up. I feel a

What

you… want me to ask

bat-faced gorilla shrugs one massive shoulder nonchalantly, but I can see his ears twitching in excitement. Ho

what do you think

he snaps his attention to me, a serious expression plastered on his face. He narrows his

[Odd,] he declares.

me a

I

large thumb jutting proudly into the air, he nods again, pats me on the back and steps to the side. The air coming off him is insufferably smug, as if he just

to say something, but I can’t bring myself to puncture this

in the pea-seed

five demons going absolutely wild on everything they see. This is extremely unusual behaviour for demons out on the plains. They’re solitary hunters, preying on each other until they reach tier

It’s not natural.

time we’ve seen this lately either. Ever since we broke off the assault on that demon

is that these demons have become possessed by the will of Arconidem and are acting against their own natures. Should they come across a horde, they’ll probably

me to

they have, in order to do whatever the Ancient

[... Most likely, Master.]

them get together, that’s just a brand new horde that