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  Underground — Somewhere in the western continent.

  A mercenary toiled on the iron veins which ran through the complex’s winding trails. The soot-faced human fumbled with the clerical ledger as he found it hard to work in the oil-lit corridors of the hive. More buglings and other creatures chittered under the master’s control. Their dull self-absorbed eyes felt like empty pools, tools and extensions of an overseer’s will. As one of the few creatures capable of original thought within the hundred thousand-souled complex the tasks allotted, we’re almost endless. Still he was yet to fail the quota on a single allotted day. The foreman coughed bitterly while issuing orders to the centipede-like creatures to continue to claw out more ore. The metal would be carried by hand using a long line of infected ratlings to the centre for smelting. It was there in which the tar pits and forges churned.

  Apart from a legion the master’s spawn, a skeletal crew kept the factory in order. Vat’s the size of lakes, churned with magma as thousand-year-old presses stamped out hook-shaped blades and cheaply crafted armour. Another mage barked an order towards the foreman, he nodded as the two brushed passed two more infected buglings who stood like weeds in the tunnel’s network, waiting for another order from the hive. A wagon full of swords passed by with the billhook blades stacked neatly into regimented rows.

  A column of buglings approached. It was some seventeen thousand marching forward to deposit their ore.

  Forty years ago, the mercenary had been contacted by Nuem to join their ranks. He had been a prominent blacksmith for one of the “Westerling” houses. It felt strange to utter the name of House Brathen like it was some curdled insult, to generalize a people who had once thrived upon the land like they we’re a common vermin or species to be subjugated, subdued, controlled. Today that same city had been razed. It had been a bustling metropolis of two hundred thousand. Towers and buildings dotted a pleasant skyline. A river ripe with trade and a lake that housed one of the greatest fishing enterprises in the entrie western shore.

  It was a simpler life.

  Full of hope, youth, pride, he could still remember the look on his brothers face when he had forged his first sword and nailed that shoddy little sign to his workshop's thatched roof. Today his contact with the outside world was limited to the sixteen or so uninfected foreman’s needed to prepare the master’s horde. There was nothing left of it’s winding streets, plazas and marble homes but ash. Still it was decimated not by the master but by the outsiders. For those humans who served the master’s brood it was the offworlders' presence which tainted their every day, their hearts beating for the sweet taste of a blood-filled revenge. When the demon “ships” had carpet bombed Brathen villages for the mere act of gathering saltpepter, the master had shown the survivors kindness. When demon soldiers had eviscerated entire sectors and work-districts in splotchy butcher runs for simply having housed the master’s tools, the master had accepted their return with open arms, clothed them, gave them shelter, food and a home.

  The offworlders tried their very best to leave no witnesses, to kill any who saw even a hint of their power, who caught a glimpse of their demonic majesty and could warn others of their presence. They coveted their secretive “magic” in their ships and skies, worshiping whatever false god allowed such brazen bloodshed and disregard for life. They we’re butchers, who would slaughter anyone who gained a smidget of their knowledge like pigs.

  Little remained of the western continent outside of the master’s complex’s. The foreman was allowed to go to the surface ever so often, to reconnect with family or contribute to logging operations and rest in what hamlets or scattered remnants remained. The master had some castles and fortresses which made for better postings than the one he held now. More open air, more humans, less bugs and heat. However, it felt good to be so close to the core, to be able to know that every drop of sweat he felt contributed to their enemies' bitter demise.

  In the past thousand years the offworlder campaigns had been hidden from common knowledge. Nuem had been smart enough to gather a record.

  Brathen - Two hundred thousand souls killed after simply agreeing to the master’s trade requests

  Polarlo - Five thousand butchered for contributing to the master’s grain harvests

  Buila - Three hundred slaughtered after witnessing a demon ship take off.

  Polaeu - A hundred thousand bombed for aiding the master’s forge productions

  King Nalo of Brathen, killed by a hell-fire strike for the sky after agreeing to talk to the Master’s soldiers.

  Prince Nawe of Molu the Lesser, was assassinated by poison after trading lumber with the Master.

  Priest Arnol of Rua, assassinated by gunshot would after rallying the temples to worship the Master

  Doctor Likent Vat, assassinated by gunshot wound after spearheading research into military technology

  The list went on like a lengthy scrawl. The foreman straightened his boot and leaned back to enjoy the majesty of the cavern above.

  Those in the eastern continent were still ignorant. Little to none of the demons had assaulted their cities, butchered their people or trampled their lands. The foreman had heard tales of kingdoms pitched at war with themselves, squabbling like blind children and squandering lives over border disputes and political games while the enemy above plotted their ever-present demise. Nuem had lived in the eastern continent. He had crossed the seven thousand-mile sea twice. Now the Primelord would bring the easternlings into the fold, they would unite their people under one banner, one lord.

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  The foreman’s hatred for the outsiders teethed.

  It was like a murderer covering their tracks. The people in Brathen, Polarlo, Buila were devastated for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, punished for existing, for clumsily falling into a waiting trap. Treated not as lives but bugs to be squashed.

  It was wrong.

  Or at least to the near hundreds of thousands of westerlings in the master’s service, it was a clear act of evil any soldiers would need to harbring war.

  War wasn’t coming, it had simply never ended.

  An oxi-bug crawled by snapping the foreman out of his stupor. The tiny creatures' internalized respiration reactions were vital for replenishing air supply this far underground. More drill-bugs and loadlings carried materials needed to outfit the greater armies. Organics and bio-materials from scattered corners of the continent could be found in troves in their great halls. Lightlings (bugs designed for the sole purpose of providing light) glowed overhead while the foreman noticed more infected ratlings carrying wagons and materials towards the central hive.

  There were still lacerations in the great chamber’s stone walls where the offworlders' lasers had shone through. The cuts we’re over a thousand years old, old enough that their enemy had forgotten their presence. Larger oxi-bugs stagnated like huge mounds of infected flesh, breathing out more air for those inside to breathe.

  The foreman picked up another ledger. He flicked over the pages in succession, letting his fingers slide gently over each page. Numbers. That’s all it they were to those above. The foreman had spent his life making sure the numbers in that book kept going up. He had spent thousands of hours growing these bugs with a smile on his face.

  Those below had never stopped working.

  They had moved deeper.

  Acid spitters and larger sentury bugs were being produced. They would be grown in large bulbous mounds of flesh and squirted out in a sloshing mess of acid and bile. The six to seven story tall bugs were capable of slinging projectiles into orbit. They had yet to be tested against the offworlders yet little of the weapons had. It was too risky, and exposure before preparation would gain nothing short of decimation. More buglings and hive-spawn erupted from sacs in the chambers' fleshy walls. Fifty or sixty of the three-foot infected bugs we’re produced at a time. They didn’t even chitter when they emerged. Their infected minds simply walked towards the nearest available task. It was an artificial birth to produce an artificial soul. Not even able to take a moment’s rest before devoting their every waking moment to the master’s service. Countless forges pressed out identical mass-industrialized weapons for the infected ratlings to acquire. Nuem estimated the master had over a thousand of these factories spread across the continent. Drilled into holes, crevices, festering like blisters across the land. In the beginning the foreman had been mortified. Now he felt some tinge of reassurance that such an army had begun to swell. They would push back against the outsiders and reap vengeance across the stars.

  Ten thousand more ratlings had joined their ranks just three days ago. Their war bands had fought bravely against the master’s valiant troops until the infection took over. Now they served a greater cause than their own anamalistic ambition.

  In the back, metal contraptions and a steel dragon were stored. It was a demon ship just like those the offworlders used to carry out their harrowing attacks. The design was different but the structure was close enough for the soldiers to recognize the marks. Square, splotchy writing was tattooed across the metal like demonic scrawl. The craft must have been the size of a small lake, it was deposited in the fleshy cavern like a boulder in misty sand. Proud weapons stuck to its sides, dormant and imposing. Order’s dictated the vehicle could never be turned on.

  In his younger years, the foreman had known of a mercenary who had jokingly knocked on the ship’s glimmering hull to be executed by the Master for sedition. Naturally, a small moat of empty space soon surrounded the craft with whispers of the tale offering itself a protective ward. Nuem had once stated that any use of the demon technology would result in an attack. Like moths to a flame, a hint of the foreign “magic” would cause the offworlders to carve them out of the hills like rats.

  The flesh began to mould.

  The foreman diverted his attention to wipe a mixture of sweat and grime off his brow.

  Suddenly, the central hive began to sway. A gigantic flesh sac had been growing something large of late. The foreman was never told what was produced; he trusted that whatever monster or vile creature emerged would be needed. More puss began to swirl in a river of organics; it was yellow with a thin sheet of ectoplasm clinging to the rocky walls. His own boots squelched in an acid puddle while he stepped over one of the hive’s tentacles. Another foreman stopped, and the two gazed up, the only original thought creatures in the whole facility who still had the wits to bask in the majesty of the moment.

  A few of the lesser infected ratlings stopped to glance up too.

  Then a lightling walked to the forman, the redundant bug opening its chittering beak to speak.

  “Tyrua, Do you like it? It’s supposed to be an improvement on the lizard…”

  The lisp was enough to send shivers down the forman’s spine. He was conversing with the master directly. The creature had known his name. It knew all of their names by heart. At the very least, if it ordered you to be flayed, it would recognize your face. The god-like hive mind turned back to face the now kneeling administrator.

  “Yes, yes mylord.” Tyrua continued to kneel.

  “I didn’t want to be ostentatious, a few tweaks here and there and we got something special” the possessed lightling whisped.

  The foreman began to walk around the great sac, nodding to the lightling as the master possessed another bug and spoke through it’s lips. This time it had taken direct control of an infected loading, eager to gloat about its newest child.

  “A little less original thought but enough that I don’t have to coddle it the entire time. I tweaked a new DNA-based polyskin, it’s neurons are under peak myelination. The creature won’t live more than five years before flaws start to show, but even more lobes for processing combat and control,” the loadling lisped.

  “It’s beautiful,” Tyusa said in a breath of fanatic devotion.

  The infected creature had an unnatural and gravelly voice. The foreman shuddered before lifting a hand to hide his sweat from the creature’s view. It was probably the first and only time the bug had been given permission to speak. The only time the creature had ever stopped from its toils had been to act as the master’s mouth.

  The sack burst.

  It was beginning to emerge. Flesh stretched and wrenched with a blistering crack. This time, however, it was something new. In a sack that could only house the acidic pus of a sentury bug, a monster crawled.

  The foreman’s spine shivered when he saw it channel.

  Magic flowed like a river from the abomination infront.

  It had wings.

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