Devour

Go forth they did, absurdly silent as a gentle breeze after releasing their chaotic cries after transformation. Those same cries had already alerted the nearby camps and campers, drawing out the people gathered together deeper in the camp.

Three groups of fifteen people, ten varying warriors and five varying mages apiece, had come out of hiding before the second ten transformations had even started. Upon witnessing the event taking place, however, these lurking support troops were shocked into slowing down, stopping, and then bracing for impact. Once the corrupted parasite zombies found targets, they went on the move.

Even before they halved the new distance to the enemy forming a defensive line outside of their camp the bygones from the camp were already launching a combination of spells and ranged skills. Surprisingly, there were few archers to be found in the lot. Regardless of this, the twenty plague beasts started taking heavy damage long before they reached the line.

Once the first dying wave reached the line of shields and giant defensive weapons, I triggered Spore Shoal. Just as the front liners were lashing out with their weapons at close range, the plague beasts exploded into a bloody mass of mist and particulates. The entire defensive formation was blinded by the mist in the air and in their eyes, unaware of the particulates slowly descending.

I received the first notification less than two seconds later and then more started rising up the middle of my field of view as the screams of the dying rang out through the air. The enemy was taking heavy parasitic damage.

All of the front line warriors were now writhing on the ground as their bodies and equipment grew out infected mass from the coating of spores within and without as they formed a corrupted and fluid-like body of flesh and gear. The magic units in the back, though, were crowded together while the mist and spores in the wind were breezing over. Many of them blindly ran into and clung to one another, fusing together as the cordyceps killed them with corruption before taking over.

Right behind the airborne cordyceps came the second wave of ten plague beasts who had been puked on. From the camp were coming all of the other clansmen rushing around and even through the various tents and pavilions. Whether drawn by the first sounds of screaming and combat or from the most recent explosions and screams, it did not matter.

Now that I had successfully set up a sizable force of suicide troops, the first game and match were all set. All I had to do was walk slowly along with the plague dragons following close behind while guiding the second wave of ten plague beasts. The new arrivals were too late to witness the actual infection of the cordyceps, but the mage units were still in the process of transforming.

It did not take a genius to realize what was going on. Half of the people who were in line with the running paths of the second wave quickly turned and ran back the way they came. The others were either not as smart or thought that they could buy time because they either braced for impact or ran forward to keep the plague beasts further away.

As soon as one of them was struck, I would trigger its Spore Shoal self-destruct and wash the surrounding handfuls of people with infectious cordyceps like spreading a zombie virus. Ten suicide bombers quickly became ten clusters of three or four screaming and corrupting people. Even though I had witnessed some truly crazy things during fantasy game wars and other epic events, this was pretty disgusting.

Fluids, mush, and raw mass covered the ground for thirty yards beyond the side of the Bygones WERE Bygones camp and it spread out like a cone the deeper into the camp one looked.

[CordAniCol Blossom is finished mutating]

Looking over at the mage unit cluster after receiving the first of five notifications, I find myself both satisfied and horrified by what I see. Standing half the size of a horse on four enlarged human legs with a tall closed bloom of blood and ivory colored flesh and bones rising from the conjoined bodies of three different people, five CordAniCol Blossoms struggled to move their legs and maintain balance.

Then, as if coming to a sudden consensus as the original front line warriors started running into camp, the blossoms suddenly bloomed the upper protrusions into massive toothy petals surrounding a gaping hole of a mouth with three spinal tentacles reaching out like tongues. Each petal or jaw was five feet in length and two feet wide at the base and the inside surface was covered in mismatched fangs of jaggedly broken or melted bones.

Bloomed in their full glory as the front line plague zombies meet up with the other newly formed plague beasts, the blossoms take off at track star speeds into the camp. Even I had to run to keep them in my range of control. However, they quickly stopped running after plowing through the first two lines of tents and pavilions.

Here they came across a new line of defense that reacted to their presence with a barrage of skills and magic that were almost blinding to behold. The ground was churned up into dust storms of debris and pieces of living quarters were fluttering through the air. A few seconds later, the dust settled.

All of the terrifying looking blossoms turned out to be complete glass cannons who could only manage to explode into spores and gores when faced with such a brutal onslaught. Unless I hid behind the dragons, I would probably go boom as well. Luckily for me, I was standing at the base of the cone of gore just watching the show.

Without the mist to help support it, the rust colored spores could only vaguely impair the defenders' view. They could pretty clearly see the oncoming bodies of running plague beasts whose numbers were roughly equal to their own. Many of their skills were now on cool for at least a few seconds, minimizing the amount of damage they could put out.

Only a few people in the remaining defenders stood out from the others, wearing magical or similar quality equipment while shouting orders to the grunts in the fronts. However, their real power players, like the sword king candidate and his tanks from Duality, were all gone. They were the first wave of ten to suicide bomb.

Lacking a source of overwhelming strategy or firepower, these defenders could only rush forward to meet their deaths.

Each death had increased my cordycep skills which gave me some experience from acquiring a few levels, but otherwise I received no rewards from these kills. The few times a dead player dropped goods it was just basic items or a piece of ruined 'infected' equipment alongside some money. Since they were not killed by a player but instead these 'wild' plague beasts, all of their loot was just lying around in the gore.

I delayed the self destruction of my pawns until their deaths, allowing their base attacks of infection skills to spread the cordyceps around while pushing behind the defenses of the falling PVP clan. Once there was nothing in front of them to buffer their explosions, the cordycep puppets exploded at their leisure. Behind the melee defenders who were already suffering from exposure, the exploded gores and spores swiftly descended upon the clustered magic units.

Did these people learn nothing or was their IQ lower than a rock? These guys go boom and spread infection, your best bet is to spread out as much as possible and minimize damage from small groups of infected to individuals. However, these guys knew nothing about zombies, especially mutant zombies who could stretch their arms into short spears to attack.

[Bygones WERE Bygones have been removed from The Lost Divinity territory]

Within moments, all the injured plague beasts who had not gotten to explode were joined by a couple dozen new zombies as well as nine new blossoms. "Go. Crash their party," I order with a dismissive wave of my hand, shooing the dozens of plague monsters forward toward the monochrome clan.

Turning away after they received their final orders, I lead the plague dragons away toward the Duality camp to prepare myself. The monochrome camp had way more people and they were probably all way stronger than the bygones camp. As well, they were better prepared by having born witness to the destruction of the bygones.

Could the big camp stop the infestation? Certainly. But not before taking damages and making sacrifices. By then they would at least be at about the size the bygone camp had been.

By then, at least Go and Lil will have made it to the territory while Duality and I make a stand and buy time for reinforcements to arrive. Between all of their new familiars and equipment, Duality now stood a much stronger chance of survival against such odds even if it was the remains of the fifth place guild instead of the ninth place guild.

With a vanguard of ten flightless tank dragons and my incredible powers, any of the other present clans would have to think twice about crossing them or my own clan. Tragedy's Traveler's was currently not accepting members so we were small in number, but the core party was more than capable of being a deterring force. Just the results of my impromptu trap could attest to the hazard level that came with being my enemy.

Camp Duality was gathered together and fully armed as I neared their camp, probably uncertain of what to expect from me after witnessing my work. In their shoes, I would have opened fire as soon as I came within range to ensure that neither I nor the dragons came close enough to trigger a plague. However, I had left other impressions on them as well.

Stopping thirty yards outside the edge of their camp, I call out, "If I were you guys, I would prepare for a retaliation. Those wild plague monsters won't last for that long. Bee, come here!"

Answering my call, the infection harvester I had parked at the back of the Duality camp zooms over from low over the ground and hovers beside me so that I can climb into the sticky cordycep silk saddle. In response to my previous words, the sword king candidate was already barking out orders at the rest of his crew who set about gathering materials from two of the pavilions in camp. From what I could clearly hear, it seemed they wanted to prepare traps and bulwarks for defenses.

Instead of going on the preemptive and attacking as soon as the plague threat had ended, these guys seemed to prefer the idea of committing to a siege of attrition.

Whatever, I would simply sacrifice the plague dragons to buy time if it came down to it and test my personal skills in some proper PVP while waiting for my people to show up. Considering two of them had bees and the others could probably tame one as well, it should not even be another hour from now before someone from my party shows up.

However, while I was in the process of displacing a deep and broad trench around the Duality camp I received a very interesting notification.

[Fallen Monochrome has failed to break the siege of the Trollkin forces and has been removed from The Lost Divinity territory]

It was only then that I actually remembered the biggest camp on our side of the territory had been under siege when I arrived in the territory. They who had numbered toward two hundred were fighting off a few hundred trolls and I completely forgot! Now, caught in a pincer between the plague beasts and the trolls, the biggest camp was no more!

Turning my attention toward the front of the monochrome camp now that the bygone camp was leveled, I could plainly see a mass of fighting bodies struggling to gain ground on one another. Especially when one side's front lines would randomly explode and dozens of trolls would fall to the ground screaming like little troll girls. The plague was spreading.

Right then and there as I watched, the plague beasts were converting trolls by the dozens and steadily swarming over the enemy front line. The trolls were fighting to the best of their abilities and laying down some serious suppressive fire with ice based attacks. Sadly, every plague beast killed simply caused more to start spawning from among their enemies.

After only a few minutes, all of the trolls that had been attacking the monochrome camp were converted into plague beasts and began searching for new prey. Moments later, they started unanimously turning their heads and then bodies in the direction of the Duality camp. They had found their next hosts.

Sending out the plague dragons to form a ring around the Duality camp, I fly out from the camp on my infected harvester to meet the first corrupted trolls as they approached the ruined and vacant bygone camp. Many of the corrupted trolls who came into my range fell under the control of my title but there were hundreds more plague beasts who skirted around my boundaries. I simply could not cover a big enough area.

"Well, fuck, here goes," I say tiredly, initiating my own Spore Shoal skill so that my body suddenly exploded into a giant mass of spores. With the increased size of my presence as a cordycep colony, the range of my control also grew out dozens of yards from my cloud-like body. Then, I used Channeling to distract the parasitic undead monsters back to me.

Triggering tens of bodies to explode into spore at a time as they near me, over a hundred plague beasts of various forms filled the sky and surrounding territory with gores and spores that blotted out the sun within my personal territory. With all of that extra room, soon all of the plague beasts were crowding tightly around me with only a few clusters exploding to continually make room.

Once every remaining plague beast besides the dragons guarding the Duality camp had been enthralled by my Channeling and title effects, I triggered the final skill in my cordycep arsenal. Devour.

Every cordycep controlled body around me suddenly started breaking down into corrupted slime or spores and converged on my locations. Even as a giant spore cloud the cordyceps and corruption easily integrated into my existence which slowly condensed into a single point of mass and energy. Then, my body began to reform of its own volition.

Once my eyes had taken form and opened once again, notification began streaming into my field of view as the remains of hundreds of dead players and trolls were refined into creating my body. However, this was not my old body. The old body had been softened a little from corruption to accommodate my abilities, but this new body was built completely different.

The bones were now formed from alchemical compounds of calcium and other infected metals, the muscle and organ tissues were dense and rubbery with tens of times more connective and muscle tissues to move and shape the organs themselves, and even my skin was formed of an entirely new substance that moved like soft tissue but looked like marble.

All throughout my body ran cracks as if I were an entity made of glass or porcelain and these cracks mirrored the same infected veins and breakage of the familiars I created. However, these veins were not the only cracks in my body and every inch of me could fragment down to a minute level and reform in new shapes.

My Shapeshift ability alone had gained three levels from the devouring, unlocking the ability to create entire transformations instead of just changing certain aspects of my body.

Finding myself naked but censored in public by a mosaic pattern that blurred the air around my lower body, I watch as my old suit of armor begins reforming over my body as it usually did after having been broken down with the corruption of my Spore Shoal. Then, even the infected harvest began to form from the excess corruption in the air.

Now, though, even it had taken on a new longer and sleeker form that was more reminiscent of a giant wasp with a triangle of outwardly curving stingers. Two pairs of wings were spread out from its enlarged thorax and its crystalline body had changed mass and shape to suit its new name.

Hovering above the wasp's head was a basic Appraisal tag with the name 'Imperial Black Ruby Corruption Carrier'.