Once pulled to the surface, however, finally freed from the bundle of threads that kept them trapped and away from the other bad-things, they flopped around helplessly. When my coils wrapped around the first, there was nothing it could do. The same was true for those that came after.

The leviathans of the lake weren’t the only dangerous bad-things in the area, only the strongest of the bunch. There were stretch-tongue bad-things, with bulbous eyes and slimy flesh, that sat on the banks of the lake and hopped about. There were the small-winged bad-things that they preyed on, flitting down to drink from the waters. There were the bad-things that rushed through the river, fins and tendrils propelling them through the mana-water and towards the lake at its end. The only reason im not giving this a full score is that the chapters are usually not that long while the story itself is paced fairly slow and its not uncommon for quite a bit of the chapters to be descriptions of Skills/Abilities and such so sometimes it feels like you read half a chapter of that and then the story progresses ~1 hour before the chapter ends and this is why im giving it a 4 on the style. Then, with a snip, one of my puppets let it free. It was dead before it could even flee, crushed tight between my coils and dropped between my jaws. I flinched as a barbed tendril caught vulnerable mouth-flesh on the way down, the touch setting off a burning, painful spark that zapped across my mouth-flesh. I hung like that for a long time. Hours. More, maybe. The slow-venom was losing its effect, but it didn’t matter. It was too late.The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail] had given me the ability to heal. When caught by the Aridae’s threads, I had almost cursed at the Great Core for that. Why, I had thought, had I been caught in a situation where I couldn’t even reach my own tail to heal? It had felt as if I was being taunted; as if a way out was being dangled in front of my fangs, only to be pulled away at the final moment every time. Any thoughts that I had of escape were quietly erased, eased into their helpless passing by the combination of blood loss and the slow-venom. I wriggled slightly. It wasn’t much; my length barely jostled, my bindings hardly moved. It was a start.

Given that the story is still in its infancy, I don't think I've read enough to give it 5 stars, but that may change later. I am mildly worried that Paradox will not be so cute when they become more powerful. Currently their zealotry and vengefulness are mostly funny, but that will change if they start massacring humans in the name of the Great Core or something. The story's tone seems to suggest a sympathetic MC, so I hope that the MC remains sympathetic. Of course, if Paradox is meant to be more of an antihero or villain, then that's fine, although I personally wouldn't find the story as enjoyable. A portion of the numbness left my mind and length. I wriggled with greater force, fighting against the slow-venom’s effects. Still, the shimmering threads of white held on tightly. The Aridae had made a mistake in challenging me. More importantly, it had made a mistake in challenging the Great Core’s wisdom. The Great Core had selected me as its sole defender, and had given me great potential to go alongside that position. Whatever it took, I would ensure that it would learn of its mistake. However long it took. The Great Core must have known, though, that the ability was for another time. It must have known that [The Endless Cycle] would protect me. The story is so far very interesting but since it has been progressing slowly up to now there is again not much to say about it but it has a lot of potential at least since what we have been told and shown is all good and makes you want to know more about what is going on and what will happen.I ignored the marks of the bad-things that littered the stone, choosing instead to search up high. It didn’t take much searching to find the networks of shimmering thread that crisscrossed the stone-spikes above. The Great Core had saved me when all was lost. I would never doubt again. I could never doubt again. I needed that comfort, after our deadly first encounter. The thought of it still made my scale-flesh tremble. I think it likely always would. Slowly, I opened my mouth, letting out my tongue and hissing in defiance. It tasted good. It tasted right . The city of Verdant Grove has suffered a calamitous collapse, the Nature Core that once fueled its crops’ growth now running rampant. Its plantlife has mutated in strange and dangerous ways, each new twisting of the vegetation performed under a trio of guiding thoughts.

The wounds from the Aridae, both infant and mother, were too much. A few times, I tried to bend enough to reach my tail. I knew that if I could do that, I might be able to heal enough to resist.In the next moment, I broke free - but not from the threads that had bound me. I broke free of my own scale-flesh, leaving a tiny snake-shaped bundle on the ground. The Great Core had blessed me in a way that made the sacred fast-spots and slow-spots seem pointlessly weak. i like the characters, certainly the mc. he is written with depth and I personally like how he rolls. some of the stuff he thinks is just downright funny, I really felt a connection with our awesome mc. I also like some of the side characters, I don't feel a connection with them like I do with the Mc, but there pretty good, and I think that there written really well. I leaned toward the next of the gathered bad-things, avoiding its thrashing, and sank my fangs into unguarded flesh. [Sting] sparked from my fangs, jumping from their tips. The bad-thing twitched minutely. the plot is good, certainly one of the better things about this book, I really liked it. it follows without much guidance from the author, it has alot of depth to it, and it's honestly just entertaining.

The scent-taste of something new touched my tongue. Soon afterwards, a behemoth of a bad-thing pulled itself through the opening. Surprisingly I didn't know that the protagonist was gonna be a cute little danger noodle, a snek! I didn't know the author, but I did suspect that Zendran posted on the Royal Road because of the nom de plume. What I did know was that the amazing Peter Berkrot was the narrator, and the book was published by Aethon, who tends to provide amazing books for the discerning SF&F reader!It felt strange to feel a connection to those bad-things. I had always considered myself as something above them, something greater than them, because I knew it to be true. I was created by the Great Core. The thought-light told me that I had great potential. I found myself wrapped up in shimmering white threads; they were soft and rather warm, providing some small comfort against the chill of my thoughts and body. I could still see slightly through the gaps in the threads, allowing me to watch as the mother Aridae pulled me upwards, hauling me up the walls with a connecting thread and seeming entirely at ease. I could see it; it did not feel threatened by me. It did not feel threatened by the chosen creation of the Great Core. The newest of the bad-things were odd creatures, with needle-like spikes across their scale-flesh and the tendency to breathe heavily enough that their entire bodies inflated with air. Any time I came close, they would deflate rapidly, launching spikes in my direction. So I, well, didn't. The Great Core's Paradox features a tiny snake created by a Dungeon Core. A particularly zealous one. Thought-hiss after thought-hiss sent spore-puppets across and beside the water. The former bad-things’ legs stepped across the surface without sinking, making the current slightly easier to fight. Less prone to digging in and sweeping them away. Even still, a few of the more damaged puppets were lost, crippled limbs forcing them to slip into the rushing water. I let them go, leaving them with the command to infest any bad-things they saw - though between their difficulty with the light and the loss of my direct supervision, I wasn’t clear on their chances.