I went down the list of every curse word I knew, belting them out in a way that would make a sailor recommend me to an anger management class again. Then, when I ran out, I invented a couple more profanities.

  Come on, two bosses! Two!

  So I tried to finish off the second boss before the third one came in, sending two metaphorical and quite literal birds in the form of Huginn and Munnin. Pelting it with a torrent of water and wind, but it just surrounded itself with its blood.

  And when the barrage of attacks slowed down due to my minions' low mana, the Lizard pulled the blood back into its shriveled body, rehydrating it. I tried redistributing mana from my other minions into Huginn and Muninn to take advantage of the lack of a barrier, but the process was too slow and inefficient.

  Then the boss looked at my minions, and I felt a poke at the strands of Domain connecting them to me. I was confused for a moment before I saw the boss turn its gaze towards me, a beam of blood emerging from its eyes.

  I was too slow to do anything as I saw death hurdling towards me, but then something blocked my vision. Second of the Snow, taking the hit for me, the blood splashing off their weapons, but the boss swiped to the side. The stream cutting two arms off of Second's left side, a spurt of blood flowing out of the stumps.

  A small ocean of blood from the second boss surrounding us as they roared, creating their Golems as the third boss emerged into existence. A colossal, slimy, and slithering mass that curled and twisted upon itself, staying afloat in the air as electricity crackled on its skin. The smell of rotten sea foam and ozone wafting from it in a nauseating wave that made me want to cut my antenna off.

  The three of us huddled together, back to back as we saw the sight, Second taking the weapons their destroyed hands wielded and sucking blue energy from them. The chitinous armor they wore growing over the newly destroyed limbs, and some of the minor wounds they sustained fading away.

  Then we went to battle, I whittled away at the golems from the back and above while Second and Urg tried to fight their way out from the center. It wasn’t as bad as before, but Urg and I couldn’t fly above the golems because the boss would just snipe us with their weird blood laser thing.

  The attacks were significantly weaker than the last two times, but neither me or Urg were built like steel, and none of my flying minions were either, so sadly I couldn’t use them as shields. So we had to bide our time till we could get out, Second protecting us this time, but that wasn’t my main concern at the moment.

  The third Boss was. I had kept an eye on it since it spawned, but it had just stayed up in the sky. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was watching… waiting, but I couldn’t figure out why. And I was significantly impeded in the process by having to make sure I wasn’t going to die, that effort also being screwed over by the loss of Lunar Aura due to the sun rise.

  I had kept it up for a few moments, but the energy cost was just too much to justify, so I had to go back to the old fashion way.

  It was funny, I've had it barely more than an hour, and I’d already become so reliant on it.

  But having to focus so much on each individual unit so much had an unexpected up side, I knew what they were feeling. Most of them were some sort of exhausted, but there was one that was a mixture of excited and angry, the Blood Hippos.

  They were on the edge of going berserk from consuming so much blood, but the blood had always pushing out through their mouths since it still had the second boss's Domain controlling. And this gave me an idea.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Whenever the Hippos consumed a golem, I pushed the domain out of them. It was more difficult than usual since it wasn’t as diluted by the hippo's digestive juices as with Urgs water, but it wasn’t impossible. Giving the hippos the final push to go berserk, devouring every golem and some of my own minions as they tore through the ranks.

  The hippos taking down over half of the Golems in a minute, finally getting us free from our dire position. But that left us exposed to both the second boss's attacks and the rampaging hippos. The first firing another beam at us, the other charging towards me, and almost completely out of my control, ready to kill anything.

  But I activated Lunar Aura for just a moment, using the brief time to suggest as strongly as I could for them to go towards the Boss instead of us. The effort using all my concentration and energy, some of my other minions going motionless and getting killed without my direction.

  But that was a necessary sacrifice as the stampede of Hippos made a wide turn, one of them taking the laser to the stomach, almost cutting them in half. But they didn’t notice, charging towards the Boss as their intestines spilled out.

  The Boss shot more lasers towards them, summoning Golems to combat them, but they just devoured them and got even faster with each one. And with each attack, the boss got weaker and weaker, their body visibly shriveling from the lack of blood.

  And only at the last moment did they decide to run, but it was already too late for them, as the Hippos were already there. And the moment one grabbed onto its leg, it was torn off, then another hippo arrived and tore off another chunk of flesh. And within breath, the formerly living thing was an unrecognisable pile of gore being devoured by the crimson splattered hippos, the blood splattered onto them turning brown as the system announced.

  “Rothep, The Crimson Flood, has been killed.”

  But I didn't get time to celebrate as I saw the third boss finally move, it uncurled, revealing the shoveled shaped head of an Eel, eyes pointed straight at us. Then, a magical tension in the air I hadn’t even noticed exploded. Cascades of lightning flew through the air, hitting everything within half a mile.

  Plants exploding and bursting into flame, almost all of my minion killed in an instant. The only ones left are some of the elites. Huginn the Nimbus raven was taking up the job of being a family size KFC bucket; their sibling Muninn was fine, only slightly singed. Guppy was almost dead, the Anteaters were fine due to their natural resistance to electricity, and the Queen was fine due to her being underground.

  And I only kept her there since the colony would follow, and they barely worked along with my minions when constructing the battlefield; they definitely wouldn’t do so well working together in a battle. And to my surprise, the dimensional Mud Fish had survived in their pocket dimensions, while the Solar Scale butterflies had just absorbed the energy into their magical stomach.

  But I was not doing so hot as my butterfly cousins, the lightning pieced my body and churned my insides. I wouldn’t die from it instantly, but even a regular human could kill me when I was without my army.

  I was only saved by Second of the Snow wrapping themself around me and Urg, tanking the attack, then running towards a tunnel. And Second only survived the trip because Urg created a bubble of water around us to divert the electricity away.

  Then we were finally safe underground inside a tunnel where the lightning didn’t reach us. All of us taking a breath as the rumble from above kept on going, the stench of ozone suffocating.

  Then Second indicated for Moon Silk, and I gave a strand.

  “What… in the everloving world was that!” They didn’t say it as a question, but as a curse.

  “I think that was something called magic, if you haven’t heard of it,” I replied.

  They didn’t respond to my sarcasm, instead putting their two heads in their fives hands, saying, “I don’t think it’s going to be something we can fight if that’s what it can do with a blink.”

  Second of the Snows' words descended over the group. We all knew there was only going to be one way for this to end, only one person here was going to see this through. We were all just fighting and waiting to see who was going to die first, but the odds had just violently shifted. What were the chances of killing two people versus killing that thing?

  “You know,” I said, “That skill it used probably takes time to charge up, and a long time to cool down. I mean… You saw what it did, that must’ve taken a ridiculous amount of MP. Also, for the first few minutes it was around, it didn’t do anything, just watched us. So I’m guessing if we wait this out, we can kill it before it does it again.”

  “Yes, but what exactly are we going to do?” Second said, clutching their head, “I’ve lost a good amount of my arms, and I’m tired to my bones. You’ve lost most of your army, Jacob, you’re useless without that.”

  Ouch, but fair.

  Nobody said anything till Urg took up a strand of silk and tentatively asked, “Jacob, you can subjugate anything and add them to your army, right; Question?”

  “Uh, yeah, pretty much… where’s this going?”

  “Why not use it against the boss; Question?”

  “Oh, huh, I should’ve thought of that sooner, shouldn't have I?”

  “Can you, or can you not; Question; Statement?"

  “Well, hmm… I could, but that thing is absurdly strong, which makes it a lot harder for me. So, maybe? I don’t know for sure, though, sorry.”

  “But it is a possibility; Statement.”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn't bet on it.”

  “I do not believe we have anything else to bet on, so I am willing to take the chance. But are both of you; Question?”

  Second and I looked at each other, then responded.

  “Why not.”

  “Sure.”

  Then we got to our little suicide mission.