I finally got back from the desert, the moon high above, and the blistering hot air of the day turning to night's bone freezing cold. The only thing keeping my cold blooded self from falling out of the sky was the warmth emanating from my new minions, which, after using appraisal on them, I learned were called ‘Solar Scale Butterflies’.

  I wonder if there’s a connection between us, since I was a Lunar Scale Moth.

  But those thoughts disappeared when I entered the familiar bog, the warm night air bringing relief to my freezing body.

  The little cave where my most prized minions were, in sight. A little entrance in the ground, barely visible from the outside, but housing a large interior. And sent by butterflies inside to check ahead of me, in case there was still danger.

  But it was all clear, so I awakened my minions, the five of them groggily crawling out, Guppy limping in the back. Seeing this, I immediately had the Butterflies heal them. Three of them flew over, shaking scale dust onto the injured back leg, their glow dimming as they did it.

  But after only a few moments, the swollen purple lump that was Guppy's leg was back to normal. After finishing up that little bit of business, I checked Lunar Scale Dust to see the new minions cap.

  Lunar Scale Dust

  LV 4/5

  15/30

  Wait, was that triple the last level? Holy hell that triple! If this kept up, I’d either have 50 or 90 minions the next level, depending on whether it was multiplicative or additive. Either way, that was insane!

  I mentally drooled at the thought of having an army that big, but then a problem occurred to me. How would I fill up all those slots? I mean, yeah, I could settle with a few dozen Rain Ravens. Those were easy to get. But I didn’t want to; every army needed its disposables. But I could do better. I was only keeping around the two Rain Ravens here because I wanted to see what they could evolve into.

  I decided this wasn’t a problem I could solve now. I needed more information, I needed to evolve my minions. And I still had the night left till Phase two started, whatever that entailed, so I started my conga line of slaughter and genocide once again.

  Pushing the levels of my elite minions as much as possible, but the difficulty curve was insane, I gained five entire levels before Guppy or any of my other minions got one. Leaving me with a total of 30 MuP, gaining six every level.

  It was nice, since I could finally afford a mutation, but I didn’t want to miss the beginning of the second phase, whatever it was.

  If it turned out to be a tournament arc, I didn’t want the audience bored with just my cocoon being eviscerated; I at least had to scream a little bit as my guts fell out.

  I amused myself while flying around the forest, subjugating whatever I could, then sending them towards my Elites for XP. I noticed the light changing above. I looked up and saw the sun just at the edge of the horizon, the stars still visible in the purple haze of the dawn. Then a system message popped up.

  “The second phase of The Great Debate shall commence.”

  I let out a mental sigh, the anticipation of waiting replaced with the tension of the future. As I was waiting for something to happen, I noticed something strange in the sky. Seven points had appeared out of nowhere.

  I looked at them, wondering what they were, but after a few moments, I realized they were getting bigger. No, closer, they were seven flat square planes, a patchwork of colors. And when they were close enough, I was able to see that the colors weren’t a patchwork of colors, but biomes.

  Soon enough, they got close enough that I suspected I was going to die the way of the dinosaur. But just the sheer… grandiosity of the sight stunned me to the point that death seemed so far away. And then the squares collided together with a rumble I felt despite being in the air, the structures above forming an octagon. Then it was over.

  What the hell was that…

  Was… was that the beginning of the second phase? That timing couldn’t have been a coincidence. And the biomes on them, they didn’t have any logic to them, deserts next to tundras, savannahs next to lakes. Just like this place… Was I on one of those as well?

  I didn’t really know how to handle that. The first thing I tried to do was find out how this changed things. But I couldn’t, so I tried to find some way I could use this. I couldn’t. So I tried to ignore it, but eight celestial objects had just Voltroned together.

  I felt like I was wobbling on the edge of something, an abyss, a void, a sea of fire. I don’t know, it just did…

  I took a few breaths, then I went back to leveling up my minion. There was no point in thinking about it, so I just did something. Anything that would allow me to stop feeling so close to falling.

  Wait, I have wings. Couldn’t I just catch myself?

  The joke didn't really take the weight off my chest, but at least I could still make them.

  That was a good sign, right?

  OOO

  I spent the next few hours grinding XP for Guppy and the other elites. And boy, I thought I knew the mental strain of the grind. I had gotten all my skills to max in Runescape; admittedly, I did use a bot during school hours.

  It still counts, though! Even if they did ban my account!

  But having the strain of your own life and mysterious punishment hanging over your head just made it a smidgen more unbearable.

  But I didn’t have anything else to do besides have a panic attack, so I went with the less harmful option. And I spent ten straight hours doing it, finding sacrifices, sending them back, over and over and over again.

  Gaining three entire levels myself by the time I heard the much anticipated ding

  “Minion Level up, +1 Level to Giant Construction Salamanders Evolution Level. Max Level reached.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Oh, thank you, big G., I'm pretty sure I would’ve decided to meet you if this hadn’t happened soon.

  I flew over to my XP farm, practically a mountain of corpses consisting of every creature in the book. It kinda reminded me of those pictures of buffalo piles from history class, when people would hunt them by the thousands.

  Then I turned to my beloved Guppy, drenched in blood and a bit chubbier than when I last saw them.

  But you’re still so beautiful, aren’t you, aren’t you!

  After taking my time to coo over them, I checked the list of possible evolutions.

  Available Evolutions:

  Ancient Construction Salamander: The Pinnacle of the species, can easily reach 1000 years of age and are nearly impossible to kill. This species is known to be the main component in the many methods to immortality.

  Requirements: Reach 100 years of age, Reach 1 Max Core Skill level

  Junior Mud Dragon: The horizon is just the beginning for this intrepid Salamander, they saw what could be reached, and decided to have it for themself.

  Requirements: Reach 2 Max Core Skill level, defeat 1000 enemies of equivalent level or higher

  What’s with the change of prose system? Do you have something against Moths? I’ll call up divine HR and report your ass for racism.

  But my provocation, as always, didn’t get me anywhere, so I looked at the list to decide which evolution I should choose. I didn’t spend much time on it, though. The choices were either an old lizard or a literal Dragon, so I clicked on the Junior Mud dragon nearly immediately.

  Then Guppy’s eyes glazed over, and they started circling like a dog about to lie down, releasing a stream of hardening spit. Creating a spherical cocoon around them, completed in about three minutes.

  I was sort of fascinated by it since I'd always fall unconscious before doing it, so in the back of my head I’d always wondered what it looked like. Then I noticed some leaves skitter around me, and Bug Jacob absolutely freaked out.

  I looked around to see what was wrong, but there was nothing? Then Bug Jacob freaked out again, this time from one of my minions swaying slightly when they breathed.

  Bug Jacob, do I have to put you in the closet again!?

  Then he freaked out so hard that it made me jump, an indentation in the shape of claws scratched into the earth where I just was. I looked around to see what did it, but I couldn’t find anything.

  Then a whisper of wind made Bug Jacob go wild, and I started batting my wings as hard as possible. But something mid launch hit me, and I was sent flying to the side.

  I had my minions converge on me, but they weren’t fast enough to stop whatever was attacking me from pinning me down. And even when it was quite literally on top of me, I could barely sense it. I could see an occasional glimpse, notice the occasional smell. But it was like my mind was actively trying not to see it.

  I felt its claws digging into me, but one of my Anteaters was finally nearby. And I had it shock whatever was on top of me, frying me as well.

  “Warning, HP is in the red.”

  But it was worth it as the thing finally got off me, and then it attacked the Anteater, as I flew up into the air. I had the Anteater retaliate, but it just didn’t know where it was. So it flailed out aimlessly as it got mauled.

  And I watched as the minion I had dumped so many resources into, HP go from Green to Orange. I flapped my wings as fast as they could go to get away, so my anteater could use their lightning again without killing me. But my large and recently fried body was just so heavy.

  I watched helplessly as its HP went from orange to red, chunks of flesh hanging and falling off the Anteater. I flew even harder, then…

  HA!

  I was at the minimum safe distance, and I frantically activated the Anteaters' lightning. I heard a faint yowl of pain, and whatever was attacking stopped long enough for me to breathe.

  I gathered the rest of my minions around me and Guppy’s cocoon, having the butterflies attend to me and the Anteater. The glow in their wings fading, the ones that went out completely, unable to heal.

  I checked their MP… and yep, it was out. But I was completely healed, and the Anteater was most of the way there, so I saved up the rest of the healing just in case. And as I flew above, I contemplated what to do.

  My first thought was that I should just book it, but Guppy was currently stationary, and I wasn’t going to let all of my effort go to waste. In case the thing attacking us could somehow get through Guppy's concrete cocoon, or if I went too far and they left my minions list.

  Oh, Sunk Cost Fallacy, my old darling.

  So, I decided to stay where I was. My genius plans having never failed me before.

  I flew up high enough in the sky so whatever ever attacking us couldn’t get me. Assuming it didn’t fly or have projectiles. But limiting its options was never a bad thing.

  And over the course of the next few hours, the thing attacked five times. The good thing was that I could sense it, bad thing is that the sensor I was using decided to freak out at every suspense leaf. Bug Jacob did it so much that I started just ignoring his warning, and it turned out fine nine times out of ten.

  This led to me only catching two of the five attacks properly; another two I ignored as false alarms. But that last one scared me… Bug Jacob didn’t notice it at all, and it seemed to be a trend of it getting better with each attack.

  Each one getting further into my defences, each one dealing more damage, each one smarter than the last. And it caught onto that, since I was the only one who could even sense it, it started attacking in my blind spots. My minions completely unresponsive to anything it did till I ordered them to.

  Thankfully, I did learn something new in the process, it wasn’t exactly good, and it wasn’t about the thing attacking me, but it was something. It was about my new minions, the butterflies. They seemed to gain energy from the sun.

  Whenever they spread their wings and bathed in the sunlight, their MP and EP filled up rapidly. The reason this wasn’t exactly a good thing was that it was currently turning into night, the stars above starting to show. And…

  Hey, wait a minute, that ain’t right?

  The stars weren’t being blocked by the new octagonal structure of the eight planes. Which meant that either the stars were much closer and smaller than back home, or… something else.

  I had absolutely no idea. I’m a programmer, not an astronomer.

  I shook my head, trying to get back on track.

  Where was I? Oh, right, the butterflies and the thing trying to kill me.

  The butterflies not being able to recover energy as fast wasn’t the end of the world. I made sure all ten of them were topped off on energy, and such. But having a disadvantage when something is trying to kill you is never pleasant.

  I’m sure you can relate.

  And that unpleasantness turned into tension as I waited and waited in the darkness for the thing to attack. My main sense wasn’t sight anymore, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. But my engraved human instincts still absolutely hated it.

  And I waited.

  And waited.

  And waited…

  And waited…

  And waited……

  Then I noticed something odd, there was nothing coming towards me, and fast. I should probably clarify, there was a sphere where absolutely no smells or sounds emanate from. And it seemed to push all smells away from it, but not more physical things like air, leaving it completely silent. Such a perfect lack of anything, being the very thing alerting me to it.

  And I was so fascinated by this oddity that I didn’t think to dodge it till it created a small hole in my wing. Leaving me spiraling to the ground, completely out of control. And Bug Jacob was screaming at me, telling me that something was wrong.