I opened up one of the pentagonal sides, letting in a single enemy Lymphagon. I dissected and devoured it quickly.

"I need to level up. Need to grow a lot stronger a lot faster... but how?" I thought as I killed and ate the captured Lymphagon.

[Increase the number of your soldiers and you will someday prevail,] Keps commented.

"Is that what you did?" I mentally asked.

[I was a soldier and lived to follow the orders of my Alanian commanders and died fighting the Basque in the desert of Yomacham.]

"We're both old ghosts," I thought to him, looking over my menu. "Did any of the Alanian Academics have skills above their level?"

[You have skills above your level?] Keps whistled. [Count this old Archmage impressed - I've never seen or heard of anyone with a skill beyond their level!]

"What is an Archmage anyway?" I asked.

[A mage with all of their skills above level one hundred,] he replied. [Respect that comes with age.]

"Did you actually research things?"

[I killed our Empire's enemies with greater and greater efficiency, if that counts. My Rewind made me nearly invincible,] Keps boasted.

"Rewind? That's a Vitality, skill, yes?"

[Yes. A top tier skill granted from a big investment in Vitality.]

"Then how did you die?"

[Ran out of mana,] Keps laughed heartily. [As powerful as Rewind Archmages are, they can still be permanently ended by a very persistent enemy. Took down around three hundred of the bastards with me before they killed me for the 90th time.]

I reassessed my situation. I had 13 Lymphagons. I was invisible to the whale. It was time to go on the offensive.

My Lymphagons contained a small bit of my soul and were about as intelligent as flies. As they held parts of my soul they were my Astral phylacteries, my tools... not only could I command each of them, but I could pass information to them, modify them.

I moved the [Tether] from one Lymphagon to the other, binding the [Sectus-Anima] skill to each one of them using [Conjugo-Anima] and the [Modify] on my Infoscopes.

When it was done, I ordered each Lymphagon to start indiscriminately firing upon our enemies.

One by one, each of the twelve sides of my shield turned into Sectus turrets. From every direction, they began to fire at the passing enemy Lymphagons. In moments, the bloodstream became filled with corpses, which slammed into my shield and became absorbed, consumed by my soldiers.

My experience skyrocketed.

The bloodstream became less populated with every moment.

Occasionally the Sectus fired by my soldiers missed, cutting apart the vein causing the ghost whale's blood to thin even further.

The ghost whale shuddered in discomfort as I depopulated its veins.

The further I flew down the vein, the more catastrophic damage was being caused to the whale.I was back inside the heart. Level four Sectus blasted into all directions. The Phantom shuddered, silver clouds bursting from its damaged heart. My shield absorbed the clouds of spilled mana and soul. The heart released us forward. I kept rapidly moving my Tethers from one Lymphagon to the other, absorbing the gained power and experience from them. My shield and I started to grow in size, glowing with more defined, emerald brilliance.On and on it went in an endless carousel of destruction. I started to laugh giddily as the enormous monster wailed in agony, granting me more and more experience as it perished from within.As I shredded the bloodstream and veins, I scanned the walls, determining my position. Soon enough the heart became so weak that it barely pushed me forward, so I had to start to rely on my own tendrils to push me along. I released them through the gaps in the shield, crawling down the vein akin to a Pholcidae or daddy long legs spider.

There were no longer sufficient Lymphagons in the bloodstream to oppose or to do any damage to me. Whatever the whale was producing was being cut down by constant Sectus fire from my segments.I suddenly noticed that I was almost as big as the entire vein.

I slowed down the rate of my attack to let the whale regenerate. It was glorious. I was winning!This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.I glanced at my experience stat.

Experience:

[10'783/11'250]