Deep within some distant world.
Several thousand meters beneath the surface, buried under countless layers of soil and rock.
Here, crude honeycomb-like caves covered every dark and damp region.
Their existence was like the nodes of a spiderweb, holding up the enormous city at the center.
Providing it with resources, as well as defensive strength!
By the dim firelight.
One could see tens of thousands of Lifeforms living within them, carrying out rigid, grueling labor day after day like rotting corpses.
From time to time.
Some slaves would even work themselves to death.
But death could not end their suffering...
Afterward.
Most of their bodily tissues would be devoured by the other slaves.
But their most vital parts—their smooth, energy-rich brains—were not delicacies the slaves could enjoy!
Those delectable morsels, together with the dead slaves' heads, would be offered to the rulers of this place: the terrifying race known as Mind Flayers.
They were Lifeforms whose bodies resembled humans, with powerful limbs, but heads like octopuses.
Physiologically, they were hermaphroditic.
They normally fed on the brain matter within other creatures' brains.
Other than that.
All other flesh and tissue were merely nutritionless waste that could not sate their hunger.
Born with powerful Psionics.
They could not only control other Lifeforms, forcing them to do things they did not wish to do, but could also create deep illusions to confuse other Lifeforms, making them slaughter one another without realizing it!
And after Mind Flayers consumed the brains of other creatures.
They could absorb fragments of their memories as though reading a file.
So long as their luck was good enough.
Directly mastering a skill they had never known before was hardly difficult!
Allowing them to skip the slow learning process that would originally have required years, or even decades, to complete!