Chapter One Fifty-Three Nest Clearing and Armies I

Milith sat down and relaxed, her pods were nearly done growing her army, she’d gotten some replies from Arrieta and figured she’d link up with her soon. In the meantime she had nothing to do but kill time. A set of footsteps drew her attention and she noted Kari walking in. The young girl was dressed in a low cut top and a matching split skirt that left her panties on display. Milith couldn’t help noticing that she didn’t have a bra on and the cut of her top left her boobs spilling out of her top.

The girl came over to her and settled on the sofa heavily. Milith shifted, “You doing alright?”

She lifted her breasts a bit, “Fine enough, I tried wearing a normal top earlier, but um, well, it just didn’t feel right.”

“Well you were...”

“A toy for years, never allowed to wear anything that covers my breasts? Yeah I know.” She sighed, “Did you know my mother wanted me dead?”

Milith nodded, “Yeah they told me, the whole heart girl thing was supposed to kill you.”

Kari leaned back, “When Jill plugged me in that last time? She was so happy how badly I was doing.” She sighed heavily, “I felt awful too, they weren’t letting me recover and Jill had said I was on track to die on schedule.”

Milith blinked, “On schedule?”

Kari gave her a wry look, “Yeah today, they wanted me to die today.”

“Why today?”

“Something about it being my birthday.”

“Ah! I see, they wanted to taint your birthday.”

Kari slumped, “I think they did already. I know you cured her but Mom...”

Milith sighed, “Has her wounds too, these things take time to heal.”

Kari moved closer, “Didn’t you say you knew Darrel? Can’t you move me out of town? I don’t want to be here!”

Milith blinked, then gave her a smile, “Sure thing, when I head back to the capital to meet with Arrieta I’ll bring you along. I’m sure she will be happy to reunite you with your friend.”

Kari smiled, “Thank you!”

__________________

Emily walked towards the entrance, the sound of knocking urging her to hurry. She’d only gotten up recently and her schedule was packed with getting ready for Dad’s funeral. Hell, she hadn’t even gotten to really chat with Lady Misaki. Aside from a brief hello late yesterday evening, the girl was as bad as Phyllis when it came to dress but the horns gave away her demonic heritage, so that was actually rather expected. If anything her outfit had seemed a bit more decent, until she moved just the right way and her bare pussy came into view, or a flash of her bare nipples showed. Yet there was something about her bearing that set her on edge, she felt small like a prey animal standing in front of a predator.

Pushing those thoughts aside, she called out as another knock pounded on the door before pulling the handle. A young girl stood there, a smile on her face and an outfit that hid nothing. Emily blinked as she took in the swell of her belly and the translucent wings on her back and made a mental correction, not a young girl, a woman. She was incredibly cute, with a child-like face framed by glossy pink hair that she kept in a pair of twin tails and she was looking up with large pink eyes that glimmered like gemstones.

Her modest bust was wrapped in a light blue bra with a pink ribbon on the front, and the only other item she wore was a matching pair of panties, and a thin utility belt from which hung several crystals and a potion pouch. Idly she noticed the girl had a selection of rings on her fingers.

The girl spoke first, “You’re Emily, aren’tcha?

Emily blinked, “... have we met?”

“Sure have, you were so small then, but work tends to keep me busy.” she paused, “which reminds me. I came here for work, rather than catching up.”

“Tetra?”

“That’s me! So is Pafi in?”

“She took Phillip... I mean Phyllis out shopping. Lady Misaki headed out to the guild, so I’m holding down the fort. I was about to make breakfast, should still have time before the sleepyheads wake up.”

“Ah, then I’ll help out. I presume you know the details of the job?”

She shrunk a little, “... I told Mom about the uh... farm.”

Tetra giggled, “What a good informant you are, and don’t be ashamed. Dealing with Abyssals is for expert hunters like me. If you’d tried to clear that mess yourself I’d have scolded you.”

Emily stepped aside, but the statement didn’t make her feel better about just leaving that town behind. Tetra floated right on in, and quickly oriented herself. “Nice place, now then I’d rather not talk about the job right away. Let’s discuss something more pleasant, I heard you call your brother Phyllis, did they have a mishap in the dungeon or something?”

“Apparently they caught the eye of the Dark Goddess of...”

“Tina? Goddess of mischief? Well that would throw one a little, I’ve been her victim myself,” replied Tetra.

“You were?”

She settled on a chair in the kitchen, “Well yes, many adventurers have been party to her games. Thankfully for me the damage was minor, the goddess was kind enough to intervene.”

Emily pulled something out, “Well sadly for my brother turned sister I don’t think she’ll be going back. She managed to get herself pregnant.”

Tetra giggled, “Well isn’t that blessed, the goddess must have been smiling on her.”

“Yes, we'll be careful with her right now...”

Tetra rubbed her own belly, “I’m fully aware, hormones, combined with loss and then being a new girl on top of that? It would be hard not to picture her as a fragile mess. I’ll treat her as a delicate flower when I talk to her.”

“That’s all I was going to ask.”

Tetra shifted, “Not that I was going to be here long. I do have a farm to look into and I’ll have to find the nest it's sending the children to.” She sighed. “Might as well give me the rundown.”

Emily sighed, then started talking about her experiences with that town.”

Tetra blinked, “Hmm, sounds like a Silaurean. They vary a bit based on the Abyssal, some are remarkably caring about the children while others are rather... cruel.”

“A Silaurean? What’s that?”

Tetra hopped off the stool and grabbed a knife to help with cutting the meat Emily had pulled out. “They are a rather odd breed, they grow dicks of all things, but what gives that farm away is the presence of Syresh.”

“Syresh?”

“The black mass of tendrils, it grows and spreads around Silaurean nests. The stuff is very dangerous, those barbs can inflict nasty poisons and worse. Once there is enough of it, they emit a potent mind-altering pheromone. That stuff lures victims to their doom, you should be grateful you got out of there without issue.”

Emily blushed and rubbed her thigh, quietly muttering, “Maybe I should thank Amber?”

“Oh did something happen?”

Emily looked away.

“Seems like something did, but I won’t pry. Couldn’t have been too bad since you and your daughters got here safely.”

Changing the subject, “So, um, how are you going to clear out that farm?”

“Farms usually aren’t that far from a nest, so I’m going to do some recon. Your report is good, but incomplete, I need to know where they are sending the kids and you noted a lack of babies in town. Quite typical of Silaureans but it means I need to find the nursery as well. Once I know where the Abyssal has been taking the kids and where her nest is, I’ll then be able to act.”

“I see.”

What followed was a long lecture of Abyssal hunting techniques. Emily ended up regretting asking the question.

_______________

A few days later, Tetra found herself exploring that town Emily had found in her astral form, her own physical body was at a shrine north of the town being watched over by her trusted partner, the very same demon girl who’d made the baby she was expecting, and the last three before that. Her luck with human males wasn’t the best, most of the ones that would be interested in a small fairy girl like her were... frankly creeps, they sent shivers down her spine. Tetra had the best luck with demons, but elves and dwarves were a lot of fun as well. She’d had more than a few dwarven lovers and she was an equal opportunist pursuing men and women alike. Naturally she made sure her female partners got pregnant as well, doing otherwise would be a disgrace to her goddess.

Stepping into the school infirmary, she sighed. Emily had described the place pretty well, although it was obvious the girls in the room had changed. Tetra drew close to a Fremur girl lying on one of the tables, her legs had already been removed, the wounds leaking a nasty green slime. There was a barb piercing her belly that had turned her veins black spreading out from the tendril and all the way up her chest. The darkened veins were swollen and prominent on her light-blue skin. The girl’s eyes were completely glazed and seemed rather unseeing, while another barb had penetrated the top of her head.

Next to her was another Fremur girl in exactly the same state, but in the third bed from the door was a human girl. Both of her eyes had been removed, the sockets leaking the same green slime she’d seen leaking from the Fremur girls.  In addition she was missing her arms, but she still had her legs. Yet she looked even worse with a nasty web of raised black veins running halfway up her chest and all the way down to her knees. Her skin had also developed a nasty rash and bleeding welts. Her breathing was rapid and uneven.

The Syresh growing around her seemed aware of that however, and Tetra watched several new barbs suddenly emerge and sting her. The reaction was rapid as her body started to heal visibly, the rash diminishing and bleeding cuts healing over. Tetra wasn’t that surprised, it wasn’t trying to kill the children, but the Syresh was certainly doing something to them. Of course she knew enough about Syresh to know that it was perfectly capable of killing a child, the nasty stuff did it en-mass with babies and small children.

From above a new tendril trunk emerged and dropped towards the girl bringing with it a pair of arms and eyes, clearly altered. She didn’t need to see the original appearance of the girl’s eyes to know that and the same was true of the arms. Pale blue with green stripes wasn’t a very natural coloration, certainly not for humans. What had been done to her eyes was just as unnatural as they had taken on a dark purple coloration with a red iris.

She didn’t wait to stay and watch them be attached, seeing that was enough to fill in the blanks, so she moved on. There were other locations to double-check to fill in the blanks, but she made a mental note to look into what kind of alterations the Aybssal was having done to the kids. Not to mention she had a list of places to check out.

Tetra had already visited Tsia’s shop and investigated the odd sign. Turns out they had a rather lewd operation going on under the shop, the real oddity was the sign directed children into a room where they were put to sleep, stripped and boxed up for transport. Based on what she had seen, she’d come to the conclusion that they were doing two things, the sign was meant to lure visitors in, separate them from their children and leave them pregnant. Even some brainwashing was going on there, but thankfully the farm didn’t get that many visitors so there weren’t many people there. Tracking down all the victims, however, might prove difficult.

Now she only had a couple hot spots left to check, first was the Apothecary, Emily hadn’t been able to determine much about what was being done to the pregnant women. Such information would be critical to her post-clear clean-up plan. Tetra didn’t expect this side item to take long and once she was done with that she would look into where the Syresh was sending the abducted kids, hopefully the nursery was close to that. Of course if she got lucky enough to spot a baby being born she’d track down where it was being sent. That would honestly be ideal.

Finding her way into the apothecary, she went right past the lines following Emily’s directions to the treatment rooms where she found table after table engulfed in Syresh with only an exposed womb sitting on the surface. Emily had left without much information here, but Tetra had a trick up her metaphysical sleeve. Something she’d picked up and then Kael had copied her and taken it further which had in turn pushed her to master the ability as well. Bit of a shame he had passed, she’d rather enjoyed being both Kael’s friend and rival, if he hadn’t been Pafi’s she might have tried to seduce him too.

Tetra had made a couple of passes at Phillip though, not that they’d ever worked and now he was a girl, but since she was now involved with a demon girl she might not be off the table just yet. Demons didn’t have many taboos against sleeping around.

Thoughts about that aside, she quickly became aware of what was really going on as her spiritual sight revealed what had been hidden. The wombs were being drained of natural fluids in favor of altered replacements, while the women weren’t being left alone either, the Syresh was operating on their bodies, conducting alterations that seemed geared to promote reproductive health. Nothing harmful, but she expected that, this was a farm; they wanted the girls making babies. Making sure the babies were born healthy seemed to be a different matter, she quickly noticed the babies were getting differing treatments.

The first womb she looked at had a litter in it, all large and healthy likely due in a matter of days, but the next one was almost as developed but the babies within seemed sick and fragile. The fluids being pumped in seemed toxic rather than good for them. She sighed as she realized the extra complications she had in store for her.

Turning away she took a further look around but it didn’t seem anyone was giving birth just yet. She wasn’t sure where the babies were being given to the Syresh for transport either, so rather than stick around and look she figured to go check out the easier item. If she was lucky the nursery was in the same area. As it would turn out she wasn’t.

_____________________

Tetra gasped as she sat up, a lively demon girl with long blue hair turned to greet her, “Morning, sleepy! What did you find out?”

She stretched and massaged her wings for a moment before starting, “Well it’s quite the farm operation they have going on here, and I think this Abyssal has been in the area for quite some time.”

“An entrenched Abyssal? Not going to be fun clearing her out then, I take it the nursery was huge?”

“Twenty-five floors, each with a hundred wards, that town alone couldn’t produce enough. I confirmed the nursery was receiving babies from other towns.” she sighed, “But we better get moving, the Syresh is killing some of those babies.”

The demon girl grabbed a sword off the floor and hooked it to her belt, a grin on her cute face, “And you want those babies for yourself don’t you.”

Tetra just blushed a little. Then glared at the cute demon, which likely didn’t look that impressive since the demon was a hundred and forty-five centimeters tall with a rather large bust, compared to Tetra the demon girl was a giant. Afterall Tetra was barely ninety centimeters tall, and while that was quite respectable for a fairy, her diminutive stature was smaller than most dwarves and well below average for humans.

At least her companion was a real cutie with soft puffy cheeks, silky blue hair parted by a pair of gleaming silver horns, her eyes were the most delightful shade of violet and she knew how to dress. She wore an enchanted silver bra and a matching set of panties, the outfit was not only sexy but it counted as surprisingly good armor. Tetra liked that since she preferred similar outfits herself.

“Thought so,” then her companion turned more serious. “Now how many Silaurean are we dealing with?”

“A full family, the matriarch has had a few daughters of her own and made herself comfortable. She’s built a castle town that is about three weeks' travel east of the farm town. I took a look around said castletown, it’s populated almost entirely with female children but it's not the only place she’s sending children, she has a camp town to the north of her castle. That’s where all the abducted kids are being sent, and then from there they get sent to the castle, at least the ones that don’t end up turned into monsters or killed.”

“Certainly sounds like she has been here awhile. It's a wonder we didn’t hear about her.”

Tetra gave the demon a look, “No it isn’t, before Kael turned up dead he told me he was looking into something strange with the Theocracy. When he died I ended up with his notes, they’ve been doing odd things when it comes to Abyssals. Why remains a little unclear, but I’m going to do something about it. Now let's get going, you’ve got our attack plan covered?”

“Sure do! While you were sleeping I helped Lefi craft her golems, she’s passed out in the cart now. Himiko and Yuki are watching the cart right now.”

“Are they dressed?

The girl giggled, “Nope!”

“Of course, not, well nothing to do about that. Let's just get going, we’ve got a nest to clear.

_____________

Milith surveyed Abyssgate from the air, her army was ready and she’d sent her first agents of the swarm out into the world. Swarmlings were a hiveminded and highly adaptive species and she’d given this hive’s first princess human DNA to start. The result was that she looked more or less human, if young. She’d mature in a few months, but she’d remain on the small side. Humanoid Swarmlings were never more than a meter and a half tall, and warrior form swarmlings were only ever a meter long. What was most valued about Swarmlings was their ability to produce a special parasite that could link people into their hive mind. The swarm, like many sentient hiveminds, had two types of general minds, and only females were sapient; males were nothing more than drones. People that link into the hivemind could either retain their individuality or lose it, but more often than not they instinctively tried to maintain it. Thinking minds were useful for directing the drones, but they also had other value as well.

For now she wasn’t paying much attention to the swarm, their job was to infiltrate society, find abyssal nests and eliminate them. Beyond that, it was up to them to decide and she knew they would do well. For now she had taken the Draviri warriors she’d grown and trained to the Abyssal run city of Abyssgate, and it was clear this was a major nest, the city was run entirely by them, and the buildings were all of abyssal construction.

Turning to her new Knight captain, she gave her first order, “Burn it down.”

“The victims?”

“Stun them, we will sort them out later.”

‘Understood my queen,” she turned to the aerial knights all dressed in armor made from their own scales and wielding the weapons unique to their kind, the Valakir. “We fly to war my knights, may we bring glory to the gods and rain fire upon their foes! First wing! Rain fire upon them, second wing on me!”