RinoZ
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Chapter 1725 - Floating Along the Tunnels
🕑 Added 2025-12-01 01:28:39 +0000 UTCOnce again, I’m back out into the tunnels. For the fun of it, I’m deploying my submarine technique, even though it’s not particularly necessary. There’s just something satisfying about floating along, my legs tucked up under my carapace. I can almost imagine the sonar pinging sound ringing out from my antennae and bouncing off the tunnel walls.
Am I also satisfied at the way most monsters don’t realise I’m coming, then turn and flee when they catch sight of me?
Maybe. Could I really say one way or the other?
This time, however, I’m not leaving the nest on my own. Two battalions of ants and their non-insect support troops are with me, including dozens of priests. I’m making sure I stay well ahead of the priests….
More importantly, I have Tiny and Invidia along for the ride, not just Crinis.
I’m hoping that when we get down to the fifth, or, more likely, the sixth, that I’ll be able to start power levelling the three of them so that they too can reach the eighth tier. I can barely imagine how strong they will be with full mythic evolutions.
Perhaps I’d become the first person/monster to have three tier eight mythic pets, which is a nice thought. We’ll need to be that strong if we want to thrive as we go deeper. I expect the fifth is going to be more challenging than it was the last time I was there, but in my mind, I’m already looking forward to what lies beyond. A hidden world that almost nobody on Pangera has ever seen. Total victory over the slugs will be finally breaking through the wall they’ve presented for century after century.
Once that happens, the world will be a different place than it was before.
[So….] Tiny says to me. [... not… smash?]
[You can hit them,] I tell him, frustrated, [but you have to try not to actually kill anyone.]
[So…] he says, thoughts still trailing, [not hit… hard?]
I can tell he thinks the idea is completely ridiculous. Hitting something with less than the full strength he’s capable of must seem like an almost disrespectful thing to do.
How do I get this through to him… in a way that he can understand? I’m going to need his help in the battle to come, I’m fairly sure of it, but I can’t have him annihilating swathes of people and then expect there to be some sort of peaceful resolution afterwards. Key to my strategy is that we annoy and irritate our opponents, frustrate and confound them, but do not make them so angry they don’t care about the exorbitant cost of continuing the conflict with us.
If we do too much damage, cause too much trouble, then the people of Green Mountain might decide to seek vengeance, regardless of what it takes, in which case we’ll be drawn into a protracted war that will leave us and them significantly weaker.
That is not what I want!
What I want is for Green Mountain to snatch its hand back like a child who reached a little too close to the fire.
[Look, just… think of it as sparring, right?]
[... Sparring?]
[It’s… teaching. You’re going to be teaching them about your special brand of ape-boxing. So you can hit them, but only for the purpose of showing them… how great you are at hitting things. If you squish them all, they won’t be able to remember the lesson you taught them, right?]
Tiny thinks about this for a moment.
[Ape-boxing… good,] he says finally, nodding to himself.
[Exactly! And you want to make sure they appreciate how good it is, right?]
He thinks about this some more… then nods again.
[Right.]
[So, just this once, I need you to do some sparring, some teaching. Just… put them to sleep, alright?]
Bounding along beside me, I can tell the big ape isn’t quite all the way on board, but he’s starting to warm up to the idea.
[What about me, Master?] Crinis asks, mainly for attention, I think.
[You?! You better behave yourself. Is it even possible for you to fight without inflicting unspeakable horrors upon your enemies?]
[Well… maybe I could just inflict some… minor unspeakable horrors?]
[No!]
Goodness gracious. Crinis would certainly put fear into them, but a sea of dismembered bodies isn’t the sort of thing they would be likely to forgive. The mileage the Church of the Path would get out of that sort of thing… I can barely imagine.
[How about your Curse Magic?] I ask her instead. [Haven’t you been working on that for a long time?]
[I have,] Crinis says brightly. [Am I allowed to use it?]
[Sure. Absolutely. Use that instead of doing… what you normally do. That’ll be much better.]
Crinis falls silent, satisfied with what I’ve had to say, and I feel some relief. Just thinking about what she could do to some people with those tentacles of hers… it doesn’t bear thinking about it. I can barely watch when she does it to monsters. No… a little Curse Magic will be much better.
Well… I think.
Now that I think about it, I have no idea what Curse Magic is actually capable of. I shake off the thought. No point worrying about it, there’s no way it can be worse than what she normally does.
Comments
Raman Abramchuk
“Minor unspeakable horrors” Keep that in mind
BLACK_STALKER_3512
I'm back 😭
Casper0173
Oof…. Brother… that flag looks pretty big don’tcha think?
Igor Chmurski
Cursed magic is going to be some testicular tortion casting type bs aint it?
Anthony Romanov
Or mended Butt hole? There is also manual breathing!
Runaway_Cactuar
War crimes are back on the menu, boys!
Runaway_Cactuar
Next chapter's flavor text should read: "Boy, was I wrong about curse magic..." -Eldest
Sean Bloodgood
Ape boxing is good
Peter Cigáň
Red flags 🚩 red flags everywhere.
Navarog
And after next evolution with brain twice as thick he will be a poet or philosoph.
Silent Consent
Time for Crinis to forcibly break their vows of celibacy… and maybe some light castration.
Slapjack
Just realised we haven't heard from the Templars or anything about the Sanctum in a while, are they down in the 5th?
Preston Murphy
His tendons have just been rested i thought
Crazy Abe
She’s going to make the poor sods wish they could die- isn’t she?
alt31415
Crinis: "Whoosh! All denizens of Green Mountain are cursed with being aware of their own tongue."
Koala Man
The colony Prob better put this line “No point worrying about it, there’s no way it can be worse than what she normally does.” On the list of things Anthony says that they should watch out for.
Anthony Romanov
So instead of mutilating bodies, Crinis will mutilate their ancestry! 😏
blucube 14
Thanks for the chapter! Oh boy, Crinis is going to cast some horrible curses.
Gonvas
Anthony only knows Curse magic is about debuffs, the Golgari explained it to him (Chapter 843 - Nope) IIRC, Tiny was poisoned with Shadow mana not Curse mana.
Pyronite_OD
This is the most words I think Tiny has ever spoken. Good for him.
Pyronite_OD
sounds like him, yep. Just add a little stunned silence at the start and its gold.
Pockman
I really would like an unfortunate Red Shirt’s POV when Crinis is loosed.
Pockman
Usually, the healing Holy magic is opposite to the debilitating Curse magic. Imagine your body feeling more exhausted and weak by the second. Your proud muscles or mentality slowly erode like a sand castle ankle high in water. A good curse is erosive. It’s demoralizing. It’s ruinous. Its unending. It’s inevitable. Tiny was (basically) terminally ill with a grain of curse mana bouncing around in his mana system. He got that by punching something carelessly. Crinis is a hundred times worse than that thing from two strata’s ago.
Pockman
Next chapter: “At times like this, I’m especially glad I’m not a human any more. I can dissociate from what I saw today. Turns out, curse magic is worse than what she normally does. By a lot.”
TheLostGolem
Anthony causes mass destruction. Tiny does the same. Crisis does Crinis things. Invidia befriends all the survivors.
Black Rose
Tftc
Slapjack
I'm thinking Crinis's idea of restraint is something like cursing her enemies with torture instead of immediately killing them.
Slapjack
Its funny that a demonic eyeball is the least threataning of Anthony's pets
Reza Muhammad Yusuf
Anthony will see an unspeakable horor in a different way lol
Chimurry Al
[background music: Jaws soundtrack]
UNKNOWN
I have a theory for Anthony's T9 evolution. Limitless Paragon, cause right now, he's only theoretically endless. But Limitless Paragon would reset his tendons and everflow well. The everflow well would become an excretion disc on its reset. And his tendons would be reset into the same material the border of gravastars are made of.
Tyler Hoover
Curse magic. Yes.
Ashborn99
Its probably going to be way worse
Tosk
Narrator: It was worse.
Im in Your walls
Thanks for thou chapter
KooZnack
Thanks for the chapter!
