Bone Golem

Glrt and Nagt ignored the formation of their army completely. Glrt was starting to tire of being horny all the time, but Nagt hadn't even considered fighting his l.u.s.t. Finally, Glrt had managed to achieve the purpose of me using the l.u.s.t rune in the first place. With a constant urge, it would take a constant intent to resist the urge to do anything productive. She had officially started the reinforcement of her intent! It had taken almost two weeks, but she'd done it! Now all I needed was the rest of the ogres to do the same. They'd still be horny enough to provide my brood constructs with plenty of c.u.m, so I wasn't worried about that, but it would be nice to have more available fighters from my most powerful race.

Regardless, that would take a while until Glrt actually managed to reinforce her intent enough to do anything. In the mean time, the organization of the army fell on the shoulders of Grace. Her arrogance and disdain for everything that wasn't me made obedience a little more difficult, but they still obeyed my will that she lead this army so long as Nagt and Glrt didn't want the responsibility. Hopefully, this strain would have them begging Glrt and Nagt, getting them to put more effort into fighting the l.u.s.t enough to take command from Grace.

Grace didn't have a formation, she merely ordered every race to fend for themselves once they left the gates. It would have been much more problematic if the entire army hadn't been equipped with circuits to feed them off of mana. She was used to being in control of people, but she wasn't used to dealing with any of the fallout, so she acted arrogant but wasn't very competent.

This led to a lack of respect despite direct obedience in the ranks of her army. They bowed and conceded when she spoke, but no information was voluntarily given. Instead there was a shadow council that was trusted with actually running the force. They started out tentative, as I had given command to Grace, but after I gave them my blessing so long as they didn't subvert the rule of Glrt or Nagt they became much more confident and brazen.

Grace took two days to figure out that she was a mere figurehead. She always knew that Glrt and Nagt were the real leaders of the army, they just didn't want to. Once she knew she was seen as a figurehead, she immediately turned to them for answers. The fairly constant stream of whining civilians and ogres weren't really trying to hide as they complained about everything wrong with Grace's methods.

Having one of the few templates that differed from the lords, Grace was very good at gathering information without being noticed. She hadn't even approached the two f.u.c.k.i.n.g ogres before she understood that her replacements were already being created. It took her almost no time to infer that I was behind the nature of her subversion and be confused by it. "Lord Nexus, why would you appoint me a ruler if you never intended to have me rule? Why is my rule inadequate in your eyes? What purpose does this insult serve?"

"Neither Nagt nor Glrt has ever led anything. They were my first worshippers so they ought to have high positions, or at least the chance to occupy high positions until they prove themselves inadequate. That becomes an issue when they're incompetent. That requires them to learn as fast as possible how to do the job. You were a bad example, to teach them what methods to avoid. You don't lead, you order from the back. You don't command to obey me, you command to be a commander. You see yourself as an authority, instead of admitting that you have authority by my grace alone. I couldn't risk you doing permanent damage to the army, though." I didn't see the need to hide anything from her. She would accept it, as she was a worshipper. Nothing I decided could be wrong to her. It may take her some time to come to terms with it, but she'd agree eventually. "Another valuable aspect is to make sure you know your position. You were never a ruler, nor could any of you be. I am the ruler. I gave you the responsibility of a position of leadership. At most, you serve as an incompetent steward. You were never nor will you ever be a ruler. You'd do best to remember that. Your position is defined by your devotion to me and the value you provide in achieving my goals."

After being put in her place, Grace started acting entirely different. At first, she turned the arrogance to eleven. Then she noticed Glrt listening to those complaining to her and actually internalizing the information. She was still far from taking the reins, but she was getting closer every day. Finally admitting to herself what she was, she then strove to prove herself invaluable.

She sought out issues she thought I had and devoted herself to solving them. The first thing she decided to tackle was the fact that the goblin, food goblin, and hound brood constructs were swelling with the next generation while the human, horse, and boar ones grew only as much as the males could c.u.m.

At her suggestion, a new test was conducted. I placed a small part of the brood construct inside a human female. Once the offspring was near the point it always died in my brood construct, it latched onto a bit of the female. After watching for a short while, I figured out my problem. Goblin offspring could convert mana to nutrients. It was their first circuit. Without it, the offspring died of starvation within my brood constructs. Now knowing the problem, I could solve it. It was easy enough, and soon all of my brood constructs were functioning as they should.

Now seeing her expertise as a farmer could be useful, she decided to solve the next perceived issue. The horses and boars didn't worship me despite being part of the army. I hadn't seen the need as they were weaker than anything with a basic circuit. I had already eaten enough of them to know all of the runes I needed for their bodies so they provided me no new knowledge. Their corpses had been entirely stable moments after their death, so there was no circuitry within them decaying. They were superfluous things the humans liked to carry around with them, as far as I was concerned.

They were entirely missing from Angie's and Trgl's armies for exactly this reason. Nobody saw them as useful when the burdens had been lightened to such a degree due to the lack of needing food or water. Everyone was strong enough to carry their own tent and equipment. Aside from that, all resources they needed were taken from my constructs. Samantha had built her army the same way she would have prior to my influence because that was the way she thought of armies. That was the only reason she'd brought beasts of burden with her at all. Grace had done so for mostly the same reason. Also because she liked having boars pulling her sled that made sure she didn't have to walk. Grace hadn't thought it through very well, though, and her beasts were starting to starve. Samantha's beasts had access to plants whereas Grace's were stuck in a barren plain.

What I hadn't considered, and what Grace pointed out to me, was that both were herbivores. Plants had almost no mana acc.u.mulated within them at all where meat provided by even the youngest goblin would have some. Even a whole lifetime of eating plants wouldn't have provided the mana to make either creature a class one monster even if they had inborn circuitry.

Now curious, I intimidated one into forming a worship rune. Having an almost empty will, it took barely five minutes for the process to complete. Shoving a little mana into the beast was enough to show me the impressions of the circuitry hidden within the seemingly useless creature. I immediately started taking control of all of the beasts of burden. They lacked the will to make the rune without coercion and f.o.r.c.i.b.l.y moving their bodies in the correct pattern as they bleated in terror and pain, but once they were mine they couldn't have loved it more.

The horses seemed to have two distinct breeds. The first lost color, becoming the whitest things I'd ever seen as they became class one monsters. Their second class form didn't change much apart from a horn growing out from between their eyes. The circuitry inside was amazing, though. Their most powerful circuit before I evened out the flow of their mana was similar to the lord's intimidation, except it was restful instead of hindering. Enemies would be put to sleep while allies would have their exhaustion eroded. I fixed their circuitry to acc.u.mulate their own mana and stopped pumping them full of it after that. Their circuitry was much more advanced than I'd anticipated, so I wanted to see it progress more naturally. The second breed went the opposite direction. Their first class change turned them black and widened their heads enough that their eyes were both pointing forwards. Their second class saw horns growing from the base of their ears, curling below their eyes, and reversing the curve to present their wicked points right above their noses. Their mouths also changed significantly, filling with vicious fangs. Their circuitry seemed to be the basis for the lord circuits as their primary circuit before I evened out their flow was a near identical intimidation circuit.

The boars, on the other hand, seemed to advance in a similar pattern to goblins. I advanced the boars to the third class, but they just got bigger, stronger, tougher, larger tusks, and more angry with each class. The originally four pedes tall boar had gone to class one at six, class two at nine, and class three at thirteen and a half. The now massive creatures were stronger than ogres by a significant margin, but they had even weaker will-cores. The horses had progressed at an alarming pace, at class two they had more intelligible intent than hell hounds. The boars seemed even worse in comparison. I had to compensate for that in their will circuits, removing a lot of the potential for experimentation. The horses, though…I gave them the same will circuitry as I'd have given a human. I still had plenty of wizard templates I wanted to explore the possibilities of so I chose from the abjuration school for the white ones and necromancy for the black ones. I altered them to be much better than the basic templates the humans used, but their focus would be similar.