Chapter 24: Casus Belli

Lord Zoll gazed upon the pile of red and white hobgoblin bodies and body parts stacked high. The crushed bodies of smaller goblins peppered the pile and a film of blood formed underneath it, trickling ever outwards.

"Give it to me," said Zoll, his voice grating. At a level tone, but with a force bubbling underneath it that made it obvious that he was ready to explode into a shout at any given moment. "Now."

"O-of course, my lord," said Hrunt as he shuffled to Zoll's towering side, hunching his back even more and lowering his head in a bow as he held out a torch. Its flickering head of flame shone bright despite the light dulling darkwoods, magically created as it was by the thrall himself.

Zoll snatched the torch from Hrunt. The wood cracked in his grip as he tossed it to the pile, igniting the bodies. The bugs of this forest did not venture into light, but the few times they did, it was when the scent of corpses overpowered their instinctive fear of the light.

The fire took to the corpses quick, spreading its heated tongues across the many bodies until it crackled and roared in a swirling blaze. In the light fueled by his dead men, Zoll gazed across the encampment he had spent weeks building up.

Utter ruin.

Half the camp's tents and forces destroyed, the food and water supply shattered and trampled upon.

The champion himself, the strongest military force among them, stronger in direct combat than even Zoll himself, gone.

Shun, the second strongest, gone.

Ganth, the secondary leader of the Frostskull tribe contingent, gone.

Not even a corpse remaining from them for Hrunt to try and reanimate.

"My lord," came Hrunt's aged yet higher pitched voice. "You should have seen the devastation the sorcerer's familiar wreaked upon us. The champion you respected fell so.

Yet, yet I, with the magics I have learned over many years, felled the beast. I know it is not my place, but perhaps you may consider granting me higher position?"

Zoll did not give Hrunt even a glance before he sent the thrall writhing on the ground with a backhand to the face. Hrunt groaned in pain as he covered his bleeding mouth with his withered hands.

"The beast still lives. The sorcerer whom you were supposed to parlay with strikes us. You were supposed to have been in this encampment an hour earlier. Had you followed your orders, perhaps we would not have thirty dead hobgoblins and a fallen champion.

Still you, you pitiful, groveling, miserable old thing, desire a reward? I have one in mind for you." Zoll took the greatsword in his left arm and raised it high, a dull shadow of death casting over Hrunt.

"Please forgive me, my lord," mumbled Hrunt through bleeding lips as he scrambled down to a prostrate position.

Zoll lowered the greatsword. He could not afford more losses. "The humans will come for us. They know we are here now. Their village to the south is a tiny, weak thing meant to be conquered, but now that they know our numbers, they will rally their forces.

The Adventurer's League will rear its ugly head in our direction."

"Should we not retreat?" said Hrunt. Zoll gave him a look, and Hrunt shivered and held his hands up in pleading.

"I mean no disrespect," said Hrunt. "Only…only that with our numbers like this and the loss of our stronger warriors, would it not be safer? We can even head north, beyond the mountains. To my home. There are far fewer humans there."

"No." Zoll stabbed the greatsword into the ground. "I have slumbered far too long to run now. The spirits themselves bless my cause. It is they who grant us a dungeon for a stronghold, and their will is clear: we must strike the humans down, then the gods themselves."

"But our forces-," began Hrunt.

"Call for more of your northern tribesmen," said Zoll. "Draw from our brethren across all the realms. I do not care if you die from spending your mana. Tap into the dungeon and summon as many of us as you can.

If you do not replenish those you have lost today, you will face suffering at my hands that will have you begging for the merciful release of death.

Now go."

"Yes, my lord!" Hrunt bowed several times before scrambling off as fast as he could, his bone ornaments and staff clattering behind him and making his shivering fear ever more evident.

Zoll looked at his right hand. Completely blackened, like a mass of shadow standing in stark contrast with his green skin. Glowing red lines streaked the dark, concentrating most in a circular pattern on his palm.

He heard the quiet and small footsteps of a little goblin behind him.

"Little one," said Zoll.

The smaller goblin squeaked to attention and rushed to kneel in front of him.

"Yes?" said the goblin, voice trembling and beady yellow eyes wide apart in fear.

"You wish to serve, do you not? To become one of my champions?" said Zoll.

"Of course!" said the goblin. "Always!"

"I did not wish to use this but hearing your devotion does ease my heart." Zoll wrapped his large, darkness inked hand over the goblin's head, smothering it entirely. The red lines on his hand glowed for a moment, and he released his grip.

The goblin looked dazed for a moment. Red arcs of energy started to crackle around him, and the goblin attempted to scream in pain. His voice did not manage to escape his throat as his body began to change, bones breaking apart in cracks and muscles tearing and rippling.

The goblin started to grow, its limbs and body stretching and morphing in hideous proportions as its form reconstructed itself.

In a few seconds, where before there was a little goblin, there now was a hobgoblin, eyes reddened, yet empty, whatever vestige of the goblin it had spawned from utterly gone.

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If the humans wanted war, thought Zoll as he gazed to the south. Then war, they would have.

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The Collector stalked the light zone of the forest with some measure of difficulty. Unlike the darkwoods which had trees thrice the size, the lighter zone had smaller trees packed closer together, making the Collector's bulked up boar form unsuited to easily wading through it.

The Collector did manage, somehow, by using its flexible ultrafiber muscles and exceptional control over them to deflate itself to shrink past tighter gaps, but its movement through the forest was definitively slower than before.

Efficiency decay of approximately twenty seven percent.

That was why when the Collector decided upon a quiet spot to evolve, it decided to keep its size the same. It would still tower over almost any creature here, but it would compromise some level of strength gain if it meant maintaining a capacity for stealth.

Initially, it had been confident that there was little to nothing that could start challenging it, but the nature of this 'magic' had made it more wary.

Once it was done evolving, it would stop at nothing to investigate and better understand the mechanics of this 'magic', this anomalous force that seemed to bend creation itself to its will. It was heresy to even begin thinking this, but such a force would be even superior to the Collective's capability to bend organic evolution to its will.

It was a threat, a massive one, and the probability of the immense entity the Collector had first fought being one tied to 'magic' reached nearly one hundred percent.

The thrall's capacity to utilize this 'magic' was utterly pitiful, but if at its greater heights it could manifest such entities, then this world, despite its absence of development and civilization, would still prove a great threat to the Collective.

The Collector clicked its mandibles in knowing as it curled down on the ground, beginning its metamorphosis process by melting down its body into primordial ooze that weaved a cocoon around it.

This world and all those upon it had to be destroyed. Preferably assimilated, their special properties and 'magic' incorporated into the Collective. If the Collective obtained such a power, it would become the premiere force in the entire galaxy.

For now, however, the Collector had to grow stronger to fulfill its purpose.

As the Collector reduced itself into a beating, embryonic egg encased in a liquid filled chamber of transparent, vein-lined flesh, it decided how to evolve itself, bringing up its stored genetic material.

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Stored Genetic Material:

-Black Ant

-Black Goblin

-Human

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-Giant Scorpion

-Stonecrusher Beetle

-Jumping Arakka

-Lesser Oni

-Frostborn Hobgoblin

-Greater Oni

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By reaching the fifth level of metamorphosis, the Collector could splice together four independent specimen together.

The first was obvious: the Greater Oni that called itself a champion, and the only one among the goblin primitives that deserved its title. This would serve as an apt warm-blooded base suitable for growing musculature and strong bones upon.

The Collector discarded its jungle spider base and replaced it with the far superior Jumping Arakka.

The others were more variable.

The Collector mixed in the Stonecrusher Beetle genes for it possessed great physical strength for an insectoid as well as thick carapace suited for the hyperalloy carapace adaptation. Its pincer like horns capable of shattering stone would grow to monstrous proportions on the Collector, and it possessed limited flight capabilities.

Now then, there was the matter of whether the Collector would keep its frostboar genes or discard it for something else. The lesser oni gene was strictly inferior to that of the greater oni.

The Collector pondered utilizing the frostborn hobgoblin genes, but if it desired cold resistance, then the frostboar was superior in every way.

The giant scorpion was the only thing to consider. It too provided a base to grow hyperalloy carapace, but its main draw was the stinger it possessed that stored a deadly neurotoxin that would rapidly seize muscular functions in most of the creatures the Collector had encountered so far.

The Collector analyzed for a brief moment and settled upon discarding the frostboar gene for the giant scorpion.

With the greater oni as a muscle and bone base, it would have to take a bipedal form, but it did not feel as revulsed considering that this specific specimen had been a suitable warrior to the Collector's standards.

And, with some measure of anticipation, the Collector wished to try and extract the property that made the champion so special. Now that it would reach the fifth metamorphosis level, it could extract and permanently keep an adaptation from one of its bases for itself.

If this special property, one very likely linked to 'magic', was an adaptation, then it was feasible that the Collector could take such an exceptional capability for itself. If not, then it would still be pleased to possess the extraordinary fire resistance that red variant goblins such as the champion possessed.

The Collector made its decisions and evolved.

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