The Underlake thrummed happily as mana exploded over its length.

Fresh, rippling mana, stored deep in the merrow's souls; my creatures and I drank deeply of that new power. I felt my core strain as all this potential roared through me, climbing ever-closer to my limit of seventy-five points, and slow just before reaching that.

Gods. I'd missed the kind of mana that invaders brought.

Although admittedly, only the majority of it was from the merrow; a not inconsiderable amount of it came from the numerous amount of my creatures they'd slain. Nearly a dozen roughwater sharks lay dead and dying across the ground, a handful of greater crabs, schools a plenty of silverheads and silvertooths alike. Though they'd been taken down in the end, they had very clearly proven the might that an all-Bronze invading group had.

It was an interesting situation. On one hand, they had clearly been strong and coordinated, their weapon wielders moving in tandem and their mages both defending and supporting. A machine they'd used before. But at the same time, they'd mentioned that Talluo was new to the group and untrained.

So maybe this was less of a group-specific attack, and more the general training that they learned in Arroyo? Still impressive that they had worked so well together, but I got the sense it wasn't a true adventuring group, if that made sense, rather one born of convenience. I poured through the memories I finagled from their souls.

There were thirteen priests and priestesses in Arroyo, each serving a different deity, and each with their own "tribe" underneath. The Thirteenth was the newest and least developed, which was only doubly worsened by the fact their brand-new Priestess had seen a potential bid for power in my dungeon and come here, only to get killed and have her staff—her connection to her goddess—stolen. So the thirteenth tribe was rather floundering, to put it lightly, but they didn't have the resources to fully challenge me.

Well, that sucked for them, and worked out great for me. Precisely how I liked it.

I finished dissolving their corpses, digging through the various weapons and items they'd brought; once more their blades were made of that crystalline glass structure, sand heated in boiling water and shaped with flecks of mana. I had the schema so I could technically create it, but I couldn't see where it'd be helpful. Maybe on the fifth floor, as something sharp for the invaders to hit if they fell off the side? That had potential.

Always the fun of planning out my floors. I never knew where to put the things I had.

But back to the merrow. One of them had a spear with ridges made of a new stone I didn't have yet—granite. It was a coarse, multi-coloured stone, mainly dark pink and white with beautiful marbled streaks of black; very pretty. And while not as porous or water-accepting as limestone, it was far sturdier, better built for support. I'd most definitely be using that.

Another handful of new jewels, with a pink variation of opal that one of the mages had used to temporarily heal the other's missing eye. That was curious. Healing mana had a lot of potential in many places to be used, especially since most of my creatures were of the variety where their preferred manner of dealing with attacks was throwing themselves blindly at the invaders. Maybe my rats could use it? If I could convince another near-evolution rat to swallow one of these pink opals, maybe they would grow into a healing mage. Certainly useful for an attack.

Focus.

I gathered all the mana won from the attack and started to replenish my great armies, recreating another half dozen roughwater sharks and plumping up the schools of silverheads and tooths that had been nearly decimated by the merrow. The few sturgeons killed could replenish themselves and I truly had more mimic jellyfish than I knew what to do with, and the few lost crabs in the face of the hundreds swarming over the ground meant nothing. It was a devastating attack, but nothing I couldn't fix.

But with that, I'd finalized making sure everything would survive. Always wanted to make sure that nothing would implode on me if I took a quick break to focus on something else.

Like the message tickling at the back of my core.

I dove at it.

Only one, unfortunately. This battle had mostly been carried out by those who were now dead—rest well, my sharks—or those who were plenty far off from evolution, like the sarco. I'd held out hope that maybe this would be enough to tip the silver krait or the oldest armourback sturgeon over the edge, but it didn't look so; they were bright and full with mana but not enough. Maybe one more battle, if I was lucky. Maybe.This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

But this was still an evolution, and I would take it. I dug greedily into the message.

Your creature, a Silvertooth, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Bloodtooth (Uncommon): No longer does this creature want to take second. It lives in a permanent blood-frenzy, always starving for action, living short but wildly successful lives.

Royal Silvertooth (Rare): As blood commands, so too does royalty. Leading a school with tyranny and fear, it terrorizes its territory and lets no other dare intrude on that which they claim as their own.

Vampiric Silvertooth (Rare): It thrives on blood, using its needle-shaped teeth to drain victims dry as it swarms over them in a massive school. No hollow is safe from their highly sensitive blood sensors.