The last of the cave spiders scuttled off to their various positions in the dark, little ruby-red beauties with serrated mandibles like shattered glass. I pulsed waves of adrenaline and the excitement of the hunt through them as they set about making their webs, pressing thoughts of blood and mana into their insipid minds.

They still lacked the scales and horns of true perfection but even I could admit I was warming to them, absentmindedly guiding stragglers to the better dens. It helped they weren't intelligent enough to disobey.

Luminous constrictors, on the other hand, had plenty of thoughts.

I'd made dozens of spiders, the middle tier between insects and Seros, and with the quick reproduction rate their schema spoke of I knew they would have no problems flooding through my first floor. So I made ten beautiful serpents to keep their ego down.

As with the spiders, I found I could only influence their creation so much before they started to absorb my mana instead of being changed; and without more creatures to study, there wasn't a chance I could figure out how to make them venomous. Disappointing.

I settled for fiddling with their bioluminescent scales, extending the effect to their entire underbelly instead of only beneath their throat. Expanding their size, their fangs, their flashing eyes; and oh, how I wanted to make them just as brilliant as my spiders, turning them pure white like ghosts in the dark.

But they were ambush predators. The spiders could still hide in the shadows; at nearly eight feet long, the serpents didn't have that same advantage. Grey and black scales would have to stay.

For now, at least. Already my mind spun with ideas for the second floor.

The problem with them came when I suggested to their fledgling little brains that they should focus on killing newcomers to the dungeon. As if one, they had all slithered away to the various dens I'd carved for them, cutting through the waves of whitecaps and algae with nary a rustle; I had a brief moment to admire the beauty of the movement before motes of mana trickled back to my core.

Three spiders dead, just like that.

Reptiles weren't fond of obeying.

Angling a glare at the crushed remains of eight legs disappearing down a serpent's throat, I wasted another two points to weave a half dozen into existence far away from the occupied dens, muttering intangible curses. At least the constrictors got some mana from the deal, even if the amount I received was a fraction of what it took to create them.

It also taught me more about my powers; creating so many creatures at once let me see the minute differences in each, little variations from colour to size. The same ability that kept me from having to consume both genders to fully recreate them. When I dug my mana into their corpse and examined their core, I saw all the possibilities they could be, even those that were deactivated.

The variations were certainly interesting, at least. One of my spiders was a fierce little brute, shaped with aggression above self-preservation; already he had set his sights on a lacecap with a handful of pathetic, struggling flies stuck in its web. I wished him all the luck. Another lurked in the shadows, mandibles narrow and extended like an extra set of legs. The largest of the constrictors was a lazy, vain creature, slithering up an outcropping to loop her coils through the rocks. She glared at the spiders that could scuttle safely over the ceiling away from her fangs, pale eyes tracking the progress of a web. Size didn't necessarily equal intellect but there was a refinement to her thoughts, a lurking annoyance at her lack of options for capturing prey.

Constrictors, spiders, mushrooms. Letting my points of awareness diffuse through the cave, I gathered my mana closer, something almost like nervousness fluttering at the edge of my thoughts.

Was I really ready?

Opening the doors was a necessity. I knew that. The holes I'd poked brought enough oxygen and theoretically I absorbed enough mana from the Otherworld to always create prey for Seros, but it hadn't been anything I had or hadn't done to attract the human; she had come because my mana brought her.

More would always come. My mana sharpened to steel at my grasp.

A glance back at Seros to see if he was prepared and then–

My lizard. My monitor. My idiotic lump of a reptile cheerfully snapped another fish down his gullet, languishing over the surface of the pond like the great lazy beast he was.

The fish that, might I remind, I only had seven of.

I slapped a wave of mana over our connection—he twitched, nearly sinking below the surface before he regained hold of his fledgling water abilities.

He still took a second to finish swallowing before turning to me with a hiss.

Second reason to open the entrances: I needed another creature worthy of a Name.

I plunged my awareness into the pond, darting past trailing webs of pale sea-green algae; larger than I'd previously thought, nearly six feet deep and ten wide. The island in the middle loomed overhead: there. Two pale fish, huddled for cover under an undercropping of stone. The last two.

Small mercies.

Kill, not eat, I urged him, pushing threads of mana through our connection to guide him to the location. I'd create more for him to eat later; but I could only do that if he let me get the schema first.

My attempts to impress the concept on him went about as smoothly as I'd expected.

But Seros did heave a great sigh, tail swishing, and dipped under the surface of the water—two days had hardly turned him into an aquatic beast and he floundered more than swam, clawing clumsily for propulsion. But the fish were half a foot at most and he was six: in the end, there was simply nowhere for them to escape. A hiss escaping in a cloud of bubbles, he dragged his way under the stone. The fish flailed.

A flash of teeth and one drifted to the bottom, missing half its back fin. Another crack of his claws and the other joined it.

Thank you, I pushed—begrudgingly—through our connection. He twisted his way back to the surface, meandering over to the island for sleep; I kept my mana flowing through him. In the infinitesimal chance something was waiting for us on the other side of the entrances, he had better be ready.

In the meantime, I dove back into the water, gnawing through the layers of fish—bare flecks of mana from their corpses, souls weak and fluttering. But oh, what an ecosystem I could build on their backs; already my mind spun. Great underground reefs, flooded by billowing clouds of baitfish, vicious little eels and looming sharks overhead—and mimicking the deeper ocean, with strange, glowing fish and plants that had never seen the sun.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I wanted it. I wanted it like nothing I've ever wanted before.

Silverhead (Common)

Thick of skull and small of mind, these fish gather in massive schools for protection. What they can’t flee from they bash with their thickly scaled skulls, often ending more of their own lives than they defend.