Chapter 25: 25. Lich hunt

The lich wasn't dead. His body lay destroyed upon my back, shattered like glass. Yet he lived. I'd read enough fiction to know that until the lich's soul was destroyed he would live on. His essence lingered in the air as I searched for it, his soul. It was the bitter scent of his essence that eventually led me towards the tree. 

The once near golden giant sagged under its own weight. The hole I had used to enter it so long ago was now too small for me to even get my belly through. Fortunately the lich's essence led elsewhere. It twisted away from the hole and went down another. One that led underground and was far, far too small for me to go through. 

I'd need to get creative if I was gonna kill the lich. 

I twisted my essence, pulling dirt and roots up out of the ground and assembled it into another puppet. Like the others it had natural weapons embedded in its false flesh. Poisonous thorns, gas, and a somewhat sturdy build. But I pushed it further, adding the remains of my other - now dead - puppets onto it. Only once I was satisfied with its shape and strength did I send it in to the hole. 

My newest puppet slithered down, slowly watching for any signs of danger, and once it was completely out of sight I tried something new. I bound my own essence with it, turning it into less of itself and more into me. It allowed me to see through its eyes as if they were my own. 

It was a weird feeling being so small, bordering on uncomfortable. Still, I pushed through and ignored the discomfort as I slithered further down the hole. The ground evened out, it was suddenly too flat to be natural. I took it as a good sign and moved further into the hole turned tunnel, right into an undead weevil. 

It jumped at me, screeching like it was still alive. My puppet lifted up its arms and a spray of thorns shot out its palms. The weevil was eviscerated midair, Its sacrifice hiding the weevil right behind it. My puppet moved slower than I could think was knocked backwards, a spear like snout through its middle. 

The damage, was superficial, and didn't stop me from retaliating. A serpentine tail rose up and smashed the weevil. The force of the attack destroyed its body and coated the room in gore as well as my puppet. 

I was glad I couldn't smell it. My lack of senses while controlling my puppet a benefit rather than a downside. It let me go forward without concern about all the mushed up weevils bits and blood on the ground. 

The tunnel opened up into a wider area. Where weevils worked to grab purple stones and brought them to a table in the far back. On the table there sat a large purple orb thrumming with essence. It was without a doubt where the lich's soul was housed. 

An involuntary hiss escaped me and for a moment I thought the weevils would all turn toward my puppet. They didn't, the work they were doing continued in silence as did my puppet - whom I couldn't speak through. Despite myself, I laughed glad that I could do so without worry. 

Then, after a little preparation, most of it mental, I threw my puppet forward. It slithered straight for the lich's soul. A weevil saw me mid dash and made that horrid clicking sound. All at once, moving in perfect sync, the other weevils stopped, turned, and charged. 

Chitin and skittering legs clambered over one another in a mad dash to reach me. They skewered each other and ripped shreds of themselves up, sadly the damage they did to themselves wasn't enough to put them out of commission. By the time they reached my puppet they were still fully capable of fighting. 

The entire room erupted into violence as the first weevil tried to attack my puppet. It struck out with its snout, the attack aimed at the puppets throat, and missed as I took more direct control of the situation. My puppet yanked its head out of the way and retaliated with a swing of its tail. Another weevil jumped forward and got a thorn shot straight through where its brain would have been. The corpse fell and was promptly trampled over as a larger weevil pushed past the others. Its bulky frame didn't slow it down in the slightest. 

I pulled the strings of essence that animated my puppet, my control over it absolute for a second, and made it spin out of the way. Without my puppet to ram into the larger weevil ran right into the wall and got stuck. When I stopped to look and make sure it wouldn't get immediately, another weevil charged. Again, my puppets reactions were two slow and a spear like snout severed its head from its body. 

I lost sight of the tunnel and saw through my own eyes once again. My belly, the human one, grumbled for food. I ignored it for the time being and made myself another puppet to control. This one designed to be more agile than its predecessor. 

As soon as the connection was established, I sent it in. This time having it move through the first section of the tunnel as fast as it could manage. In only a minute it was in the room where my previous puppet died. And I noticed something - other than how weird it was that the lich raised an army of weevils of all things from the dead - and that was that there were more weevils than I had first thought there were. They clung to the ceiling and walls, partially camouflaged due to the color of their shells. 

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These numbers came to bear as soon as my puppet started finishing off the first couple of weevils. They dropped down into the battle and caught me off guard - rushing my puppet with superior numbers. 

The third puppet I gave legs. Then destroyed it upon bonding with it. Not because of how terrible it was too have legs, but because I felt that they were too thin. It felt like I was walking on stilts and that they might break at any moment. So when I remade it, its legs were positively enormous. With two hammy thighs, and a jiggle in its step, my newest puppet marched into the hole. 

Confidently it strutted into the room where my last two puppets had died. I made it strike a pose, drawing the weevils ire. And as they surrounded it, ready to destroy it like the last two. 

... I made it explode. 

Too much essence was pushed into its body too quickly. Which caused it to explode. Violently. Still, most of the weevils survived. The explosion just wasn't strong enough to kill them all in one go. Which I was why I made the next one even thiccer, with legs meatier than mine had been when I first arrived here. And before sending it in I admired its form for a second. 

Briefly wondering: How thicc would my legs be now if I had them? 

The answer didn't matter, and the puppet walked in. A massive bang shaking the ground a minute later. Then, I made a new puppet, one that slithered, and sent it on to finish the job. When it reached the room it was delightfully empty and the lich's soul was unguarded. Well... It was mostly unguarded. A barrier of energy surrounded the soul and would have surely repelled anything that cared about keeping its hands. A concern that my puppet was devoid of. 

Energy and essence assaulted my puppet as it reached forward, recklessly grabbing the contained soul. Its arms caught fire and strings of purple lightning repeatedly struck it. But any feeling of senses of it own, my puppet picked the soul up and backed away from the table. Immediately the protective barrier died and my puppet had claimed the lich's soul. 

I ordered it to bring the soul back up to me. It complied without question and marched back the way it came. The connection between us was cut as it crossed the threshold between underground and not. From the hole the soul emerged, followed by my puppet. 

Kneeling before me, my puppet offered the soul. I leaned forward onto my belly, letting my upper body rest on the enormous orb so that I could actually see the puppet and the soul. A shiver raced up my left breast as I leaned on too close and accidentally brushed against the trapped soul. It was full of essence, the taste of it faintly familiar. 

Too eager for my own good, I reached down past my breasts, and then I ate the soul. A decision fueled by gluttonous urges and the near constant Rumbling of my belly. 

The soul went down smoothly and landed in my stomach. Instantly, it was digested the essence once contained within spread within me like a plague and visions came to me. They were blurry and were more like vague memories than a vision. 

In them, I saw a young man grow up into a cultivator. He studied magic with a passion and dreamt of creating ways to improve the life of his family. His desires eventually led to success with the creation of his first artifact. A cube that could store an almost infinite amount of water within it. He created more after that, each one earning him enough money to pay for his families expenses. Then one day the unthinkable happened and someone killed all that he cared for. Driven mad by the incident he began to walk down the path of the lich. 

The memories cut off as a portion of what he learned about death was transferred to my own mind. Understandings and theories that didn't make sense at first. Slowly they morphed to fit my own way of thinking. And once they had an entirely new world opened up to me, one that allowed me to see life in a new way as well. 

I felt something in me twist and change shape as my understanding of the World around me changed. It was both a subtle and obvious change at the same time. One that I couldn't explain. 

So I didn't try to. Instead I set out to put something else on my belly so that it'd quit complaining. 

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