In the hollow of a large tree, there lay a red crystalline cocoon, pulsing.

With each beat, the glow slowly grew brighter until all at once it dimmed and faded out. The beating gone and appearing motionless, the cocoon suddenly burst apart with the sound of shattered glass.

Letting out a sharp cry, a bony creature with a featureless face save for a mouth with needle-like teeth and a split lower jaw stood from the remains of the cocoon. Rotten wood and desiccated flesh freely fell from the creature as it shook off the injuries it received from its previous encounter.

Flashing the long blades at its hands, it waved them freely as if to test the movement of its body.

Seemingly satisfied, it then made for an opening at the base of the tree and appeared to sniff at the air. Its injuries had set it back, but now it must begin its work.

For its master to begin encroaching this world, it needed forces to protect its tendrils as they begin to corrupt and decay the matter within the materium. For that, it needed flesh bodies that could be sacrificed and encroached upon by its master’s servants similarly to itself.

The bodies of nature fae were incompatible. The energies that make up their existence are an anathema to the energies of the beyond from whence it came, just as its own energies could harm the very same fae in turn.

With this, it must turn towards the abundant beasts of this wood. Preferably, it wanted to acquire resources from further within the center of this domain, but the entities that exist there are beyond the powers that are currently afforded to it.

It didn’t know what entity could possibly exist that could ward a creature that solely existed to move according to the machinations of its master by its presence alone, but it instinctually knew that whatever is within the center of that region, it must avoid it at all costs until its master could descend onto this world.

Its decision made for it, it could only move south and westward exiting the land of the fae onto the region below the cliffs. The atmospheric energies there were much thinner thus making it harder to find compatible materials, but it was much safer than staying in the lands of its nemesis.

With the offerings its current host previously left, the hollow where its direct lord resided would be protected for a time, but it will not last unless more sacrifices are given to embolden their numbers.

The crystal on its back hummed lowly as it was guided towards a certain direction. With a skittering snarl, it ran, guided towards the source of pulsing blood; readying its blades to spill it once more.

***

An endless blackness filled its vision. Slowly, hazy images started to form just as light gently invaded its eyes.

Staring at the sky, the changeling found itself having turned back into its miniature self. A mild throbbing pain seemed to radiate from its head so it slowly turned to the side.

There, it saw the little pups happily gorging on some remains of the massive beast it had earlier slain. The little green creature was sitting on the side, watching the pups enjoy themselves, but it soon came to notice the stirring from the changeling.

Snappily getting to its feet, it quickly hopped over to the changeling’s side. The little creature seemed concerned as it fidgeted while looking at the changeling.

Its memory still hazy, it looked towards its other side and noticed a massive insectoid leg with a huge chunk of it missing.

Seeing the remains, it suddenly remembered what caused it to blank out. After absorbing a piece of the gigantic creature, a huge wave of information crashed onto its brain, causing immense pain that made it momentarily shut down.

Whatever genetic information this creature held, it held a lot of it. From the chemical compounds that produced its calculi to its immense size and weight that somehow defied gravity, the changeling had come to understand more than it had bargained for.

While it was now convenient to be able to easily process genetic information, it found that being put into a vulnerable position each time it found new bio data to be getting problematic.

This creature’s biological structure was so new and complex, it created an entirely new branch in the gene tree stored in its mind. It was the first massive insectoid it had come into contact, and it seems that not even the black entity it consumed before possessed any biological information on this creature.

Perhaps this was why the experience was several times more excruciating than when it had consumed the potamids or the wargscales. The potamids seemed to share a branch within certain large mammalian species, while the wargscales on the other hand shared a genetic ancestry with wolves and certain canids. However, this massive insectoid had its own entire main branch to itself.

Slowly sifting through the information, its haziness gradually faded and it gingerly got up.

Seeing the changeling back on its feet, the little fae hopped around with spritely energy then got on the changeling’s back as before and climbed onto its head, appearing as if nothing more than a green moss ball.

Leaving the little green thing to do as it pleases, the changeling was more preoccupied with the new genetic information it had attained.

Somehow, that behemoth of a beast was able to sustain its massive size by filtering a different kind of energy the changeling never noticed was actually spread throughout the atmosphere.

Unlike mana, which it has now recognized, this new energy was somewhat thicker and, in a sense, purer.

Whatever this energy was, it seemingly defied more rules of logic than even mana since unlike mana, which is basically a type of fuel that can be used to bring about changes in nature, this new kind of energy seemed to empower or elevate one’s own lifeforce or existence.

Although this knowledge seemed to have come from the black monstrosity, what the changeling could only understand with its still limited intellect was that the energy allowed one to go up higher in the natural food chain.

In its head, something that could turn what it generally knows as “small” within an entire main branch of species into something entirely different is definitely worth looking into, but just like mana, the way to utilize such energy is still elusive.

All it knows is that it now has an entirely new tier of energy to look forward to once it has accessed the means to directly utilize mana.

Letting out a sigh when it understood this, the changeling moved on to the next new ability it had gained and now directly had access to.

Projectile weaponry.

The design of the armatect’s weapon was simple, yet had a complex internal mechanism. On top of the calculi, it had chambers filled with highly pressurized gases that were a byproduct of the calculi production. Building up the stored gases, it used the pressure to launch the calculi towards its target.

As to where it gathered the materials it needed for the calculi, it seemed to have stemmed from its filtering of the new unknown energy. It couldn’t refine all of the energy it filtered, so the excess became physical waste that it then converted into the calculi that it used as ammunition.

The changeling felt that this was an ingenious form of evolution that was in a way, very efficient. It couldn’t help but praise how this creature had evolved in such a way that it could use its own waste matter as a deadly weapon.

In hindsight, one could say it’s no different to how some certain primates would throw their feces at other creatures, but in this case the process has been fine-tuned to extreme weaponization beyond lethal levels.

Regardless of the implication, it was time to test this new ability.

The changeling hopped over to a section of the valley that was mostly hilly and had a rocky terrain. Once it confirmed that the wolf siblings were safely far enough, it then concentrated on morphing its left arm.

Visibly transforming, its arm slowly swelled up in the shape of a gourd. The end where its hand originally was, became a circular opening that was ridged with four mandible-looking appendages similar to the ones found on the armatect’s mouth.

The arm itself became a large pressurized cylinder of flesh with increased muscle mass and density to help withstand the buildup of gases. Its shoulder then swelled up to house the gas chamber and energy filter for the calculi production.  Specialized long leathery tubes exited out the back of its shoulder then reconnected to its arm cylinder to directly funnel the gases.

The area of its forearm that was directly attached to the elbow swelled up the largest. Here, the calculi projectiles were formed from the material wastes produced by the filters.

With all preparations seemingly made, the changeling excitedly pointed the almost two-meter-long arm towards a rock.

Sensing the process of production within its limbs, the changeling relished in the feeling of soon having a powerful ranged weapon at its disposal.

Feeling the calculi form and set in place within the chamber, it then began pumping the pressurized gas. Slowly, it felt the tension in its muscles tighten and as soon as it instinctively felt the pressure has reached its maximum capacity, it open fired.

The changeling was no stranger to experiencing setbacks due to miscalculation brought about by its lack of awareness or recklessness, but it believed that there was no better way to learn than with experience and this time was no different.

However, while it would still learn, this time it would come to wholly regret forgetting the reason why the behemoth made it look so easy to fire.

In other words, it had come to personally experience for the first time what it was like firing a massive projectile using compressed gas with its own arm.

BOOM

It happened within the fraction of a second. The last thing the changeling remembered was an explosive sound, a sharp pain on its shoulder, the feeling of weightlessness, and hitting something really hard.

For the first time, it got to experience recoil.

Dizzy from being flung several meters backwards into the air and embedded face first into the ground, the changeling grumbled to itself for forgetting that the behemoth’s size and weight anchored it to the ground which allowed it to easily fire its salvo.

It would need to redo the biological structure of the weapon if it wanted to use it in a practical way. Having to grow to its titanic form each time it wanted to use a ranged attack was simply unfeasible.

The problem laid in the fact it needed to do it via trial and error. This meant it would have to suffer being thrown off the ground and harming its body each time it wanted to test the weapon adjustments.

Thinking about all the work it had to do, it got up and pulled itself out of the hole it made on the ground just as a green object fell from its head.

Catching it in its hands, it found the little green creature looking dazed as its head was spinning in place. The changeling forgot that the little thing was nestled on its head and seemed to have suffered along with it.

Letting out a small sigh, it patted the little creature to ease it when it suddenly realized there was something in the behemoth’s memory that caught its interest and may help shorten the process of adapting the weapon.

To the north of their position following the cliff face, there was a waterfall that flowed into a lagoon. Within the woods of that area, there lived a type of large four-armed primate that possessed a smaller variation of the calculi firing weapon situated on its knuckles.

It wasn’t as destructive as the one possessed by the armatect, but it should give it an idea on how it could make proper adjustments and improve it as a whole.

With a new objective in mind, the changeling gave out a bark and a howl.

Hearing its call, the wolf siblings immediately answered its beckons and ran to its side.

After consuming the Greater Armatect, it seems that both siblings have grown in size again. It wasn’t sure how fast and how far their growth would go, but it knew that it needed to care for them a little longer before they become strong enough to truly take care of themselves. By then, they’d no longer be a burden and would actually be of help to the changeling with expanding their domain.

Seeing that the little green thing was still a little out of it, the changeling placed it back on the spot on its head that it liked so much and held it in place using prehensile hairs.

It would try to find this creature’s home in the future, but for now, it was time to attain more means of predation.

***