Empire Builder 1: Breed, Populate, Conquer by Dante King (free e books to read online txt) 📕

The gravel ghoul’s decapitated body followed shortly after, crumbling into dust and fragments on the hallway floor. Beneath the stone exterior, the giant was made of a pale colored gelatinous flesh. The ghoul’s body slapped to the ground like jelly as it lost the support of the stone casing around it. Fragments of stone flew off the limp body, forcing Lulu to shield her eyes.

When it was clear Lulu had avoided injury, Ben smiled to himself. Occupational hazards were a risk here, too. He made a mental note that when the stone statues broke they exploded like claymores—more danger to be aware of.

Lulu weaved her hands again and sucked the pool of water from the ground where the ghoul had fallen. She began drawing it into the air to form a globule for another attack. The globule took shape as she waved her hands, an expression of total focus on her face.

Imogen dashed toward the nearest giant and hit its torso with a flying kick. There was a loud crack as her foot struck the stony mass. Stone fragments flew into the air, shattering against the walls of the passage. Ben turned his head as the fragments flew toward him, raising his hand to cover his face. The fragments hit with surprising force, tiny dots of pain spreading across his skin.

The ghoul’s body lost its integrity and toppled to the ground. Imogen rose her foot high and stomped on its head, splattering jelly on the hard floor, a sickening splat sounding out as she brought her foot down.

Well, that explains why she doesn’t need my help, Ben thought. Both nymphs were proving to be far more capable in battle than he initially suspected.

Ghouls approached from all sides, and Ben needed to get Melody into the fight too so she could keep him and Nipper safe.

He laid his scimitar on the ground next to him, knowing that such a thin blade would be almost useless against stone giants. Using both hands, he summoned his mana and focused on the strands of energy he could see emanating from the gravel ghouls. Melody stood next to him, waiting for his spell before she could join the fray.

As Ben had already observed, the gravel ghouls had almost no mental or emotional energy. They appeared to have only enough sentience to control their movements. They had a huge amount of strength however, and that was just what Ben needed.

Ben’s practice at using his Drain spell paid off. He closed his eyes and focused on the thick green strand, tugging on it as surely as a giant rope. He was swiftly able to pull a large amount of strength from a nearby ghoul and push it into Melody’s body. Her eyes widened as the strength flowed into her, Melody’s muscles growing taut and powerful right before his eyes.

“Go!” he shouted to her.

With a certain nod, she dashed toward another ghoul and gave it a hard kick to the knee, one almost as deadly as the one Imogen had delivered, cracking the giant’s leg. The ghoul dropped down onto the ruined knee, cracks running up its leg. A hefty punch to the side of the head shattered the stone shell and exploded the monster’s jelly brains onto the wall behind her.

Nipper growled and raised his haunches as the ghouls ceaselessly approached.

“Stay right where you are, Nip.” Ben put out a hand and dragged the kitten closer to his own feet. “We don’t want you getting squashed on your first day.”

The other ghouls appeared to sense that they were being attacked. Their red eyes focused on the three women, and the stone giants all hurried toward the center of the passageway, their loud steps booming through the vast space.

The monsters were quite swift once they had sensed their target. They moved with more speed and agility than Ben would’ve expected from stone beasts. The women had their work cut out for them, and Ben hated that he was forced to witness. He wished for nothing more than a massive warhammer, one he could use to crush the stone ghouls into dust.

Lulu had summoned the pool of water from where she had strangled and decapitated the first giant with a whipcrack of water, and was manipulating its streams into tendrils for another attack. Imogen laid into the nearest ghouls with gusto. Melody did the same, using her now-powerful muscles to drive her fists into the ghouls, their stone heads splitting one after the other.

Ben stood in the eye of the storm, surrounded by great giants and flying stone fragments. He did his best to stay out of the fray, dodging massive, flying chunks of stone and sprays of the fleshy goo inside of the beast’s stone shells. Focusing, he summoned his mana and examined the strands of energy extending from the gravel ghouls, to see how else he could attack them.

Maybe draining their meager intelligence would prevent them from moving entirely, he considered. He tried hauling on the faint strand of intelligence from a ghoul close to him, but nothing came out. He figured the stupid creatures were immune to such an attack.

Looks like I’m going to have to stick to pulling out their physical strength, he thought. Melody would need more of that soon anyway, he saw—she’d already exhausted what he’d given her.

Ben drained the nearest ghoul, sapping it of so much strength that the monster slowed almost to a halt, only feebly shuffling along. The strength filled Ben’s body to bursting, his muscles growing powerful. He considered using his strength to smash the nearest ghoul to pieces. But he didn’t want to risk pulling off a clumsy move. Not to mention Melody had already proven herself adept at using the strength with deadly effectiveness.

He quickly moved closer to Melody and shoved the energy into her body. She let out a loud, barbaric cry as the power flowed into her. She didn’t waste a second running over to the nearest ghoul and using her renewed vigor to