Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-590

Nannet was the youngest Elder Dragon amongst the group, and she could be said to be a real daughter of Goghesdum, as her birth was through an egg produced by Goghesdum through a Skill that she had acquired recently, however, because she did not desire to take care of so many children, she only laid one egg through it and raised it into an Elder Dragon after a few hundred years.

Nannet was born as a Lesser Spark Dragon Baby and slowly raised her way through evolutions into an Elder Dragon. She inherited a lot of Goghesdum talents, which were reinforced by her mother through intensive studies and both magic and physical training.

Goghesdum was a rather responsible yet strict mother, and although she did not shower Nannet in love, she made sure to let her know that she loved her whenever she could, through training and her concern about her and her future.

Nannet could be said to have grown like the ideal Elder Dragon, wise, prudent, intelligent, powerful, and rather strict, but her benevolence was well developed through the teachings of Goghesdum.

Since she hatched from an egg that she was instructed by her mother, an Elder Dragon with immense strength, and due to her natural talents inherited from her mother, she learned at incredible speed.

From the moment she opened her eyes after cracking her egg, she explored the world and learned from it, and just after a few days, she was capable of talking, surprising her mother and her two big sisters.

Odanth and Yvnei seemed to be in love with her (as sisters), which ended in the two giving her a very spoiled childhood, if Goghesdum was not there, the other two would be there for her, to love and spoil her rotten… This ended up giving her a very checky personality, although she grew to like the 'ideal' Elder Dragon to Goghesdum, due to being overly spoiled, she became a bit picky as a person… though she would often lower her guard with her sisters, nonetheless.

Goghesdum noticed that Nannet was slowly striving from the path that she wanted her daughter to take, so she gave her a large community of monsters to take care of and nourish, so she could achieve in them benevolence and become more selfless.

The species she took care of were the Thunder Gillman, a race of ancient humanoid monsters that had existed even before Genesis was to split into Realms, they were bipedal fish-like creatures, covered in slimy and blue skin, and thin fish scales. Their heads were often those of ugly fishes, and they had bad and hard to handle natures, which resulted in Nannet having various difficulties with them through their generations.

Gillman was a race of fish-like humanoid monsters, often seen as vicious monsters with a dot of intelligence, which they only used to kill other monsters or prey in humans more efficiently. They were often seen as the enemies of Merfolk, such as Mermaids and Mermen, who were Demi-humans born from Humans and Poseidon.

Unlike Gillman, Merfolk has the same intelligence as humans, and their upper halves were usually identical to humans as well, while their lower halves would often be of different species of fish… It is said that Scylla, Mershark, Tritonian, and the like were born from Poseidon's children mating with other gods or mortals, creating the diversity now known.

But before such demi-humans existed, Gillman (often called Fishmen as well, but these only being their more land-adapted subspecies), and Watermen were the monsters and demi-humans that reigned in water in the past.

Watermen were a species of humans that had evolved to reside in water in the past of Genesis, while Gillman were monsters born as fish that evolved into human-like appearances for easier use of tools… which they usually used to kill more efficiently.

Nonetheless, several Gods exist nowadays that were once Watermen, and Poseidon himself was born as a half-waterman… and there are also a few Demon Gods that might have been Gillmen in the past, which are often attributed with the fault of the existence of such monsters up until now.

Gillmen are diversified in many clades and subspecies due to their incredible endurance and flexibility of adaptation in various environments given the circumstances.

The more water adapted remain with the name of Gillmen, and some had even grown more streamlined bodies that can easily traverse through underwater with great speed, some imitating the body plans of other fish or fish-type monsters, becoming larger or even enormous, some cloud inflates like balloons filled with spines, while others resembled eels that could control electricity.

The more land adapted Gillmen grew special gills that could also function as lungs, and could remain inland for large amounts of time, some even capable of not needing water on its totality, these subspecies were called Fishmen. And are often more famous than Gillmen due to them being able to cover more areas and landscapes than their original ancestors.

Such subspecies only surged after Genesis split into Realms, some even attributing their existence to the 'wicked' evolution system given to any demi-human or monster, which had created many new species of creatures since the creation of the System, which was intended to help humanity prosper alongside the demi-humans born by the gods… but because the System ended up merging with the laws of Genesis and existence, even monsters were able to use it to their favor.

Gillman's true origins are mysterious, just as Lizardmen, Siren, and Viper are. They are simply and often seen as humanoid-like monsters that existed since Genesis was still an enormous planet, but their origin in evolutionary terms still remains as a mystery, mostly because of the little evidence of such things to remain or any fossil record ever found… and it wasn't as if the societies or gods of Genesis had ever cared about the evolutionary record of the species that existed before the System… as when the System was created, such evolutionary paths became even more complicated and crazy, and any god that ever investigated such secrets in the past had long ago given up on it.

However, some wise gods had investigated such things in the past and often had given the opinion that perhaps such monster species were the 'original inhabitants' of Genesis before what some gods immersed in the investigation of the origins of things attribute as the 'awakening' of Genesis, a time when the world changed from its primitive mana less era to that of magic, where cultivation became possible and humans suddenly began to appear amongst other 'high' races such as Giants and Dragons. Some Gods even theorized that this era came with the entity known as the 'World's Will'…

However, the 'awakening' of Genesis is nothing more than a theory amongst an exceedingly small group of gods that had been always interested in such origins.

Goghesdum, who had been always immersed in studies even in her previous life knew and admired the races of monsters that had existed even before the Realms were split and decided to nourish them and let them blossom with their truest potentials, showing to the world that these 'monsters' can be equal or even greater than the glorified human race.

The Gillmen that inhabited Nyzzet's Dungeon were Thunder Gillmen, one amongst the thousands of subspecies that spread all across the countless Realms of Genesis. Such race is a semi-aquatic race of Gillmen, that can breathe underwater by saving large quantities of water inside pouch-like appendages inside their chests.

They are also descendants of those Gillmen with Eel-like appearances and abilities and were given the title of 'Thunder Gillmen' by the System due to their greatly developed ability to not only generate electricity through a special organ such as those that Eels have but also because they all possess a great magic affinity with the Thunder Attribute.

However, even as talented as they were as a subspecies, they were still savage, primitive, and lacked much social cooperation with each other, they didn't have developed emotions and much less common sense, although they seemed to gather in tribes, they were often ordered by a Thunder Gillmen King/Queen or a Thunder Gillmen Emperor/Empress, which were those Gillmen that had leveled up enough through surpassing many trials and evolving many times until reaching a level of strength that let them control they're of brethren.

Nannet had a lot of time to take care of them, and they were often rude even to beings greater than them such as an Elder Dragon… And because Goghesdum told her to explicitly not harm them, she had to slowly get to them through many generations.

At first, she had to feed them well, until they were used to her feeding and the better lands that she offered to the large tribe, then she slowly constructed buildings for them as she decided to teach the less angry and annoying ones, the children, which were often easier to make obey through small treats.

And like this, step by step, Nannet slowly managed to shape the conduct and nature of such monsters, their culture was also slowly restructured, although this took more than a hundred years.

However, after a certain point, they were too adapted to what she gave and taught to them, and at a certain year, the newly born generations became more intelligent, more perceptive, and even adapted a small common sense, which they further developed and then made their children inherit… after so much work, Nannet finally saw the first High Thunder Gillmen child be born.

High Thunder Gillmen had more humanoid bodies than their ancestors, and just like the High Lizardmen, High Viper, and High Siren, they became incredibly intelligent, while some even gained more human-like faces, gaining a rather unexpected beauty, unlike their ancestors whose heads were those of ugly fishes, intimidating to anyone that tried to talk with them…

Evolving similarly to High Thunder Lizardmen with their human-like faces and bodies, the High Thunder Gillmen were covered in a sticky and purple membrane which was their skin, they had lost most of their fish scales for a more flexible body plan, and they gained long tails atop their butts. Women had become incredibly beautiful since they evolved into the 'High' caste, with wide hips, enormous and bouncy breasts, long purple or blonde hair, and beautiful shining eyes, while men became more muscular and taller, unlike their thin ancestors.

This sexual difference by gender was most likely triggered by some ancient factor or gene, or perhaps due to the mutation triggered through the blessing of Nannet over the generations.

High Thunder Gillmen women, whose ancestors did not have breasts as they did not lactate, developed them and began to lactate their children, which made this new caste more connected with their young, becoming more caring like mammals, which was a strong factor to develop a society where they could create their own families instead of mating anywhere and then laying eggs underwater.

They had become something similar to Merfolk to an extent, as most every merfolk could lactate their young and also lay eggs, although in some species lactation was an optional food source that was not truly vital to the development of the young, that could greatly help it if they were to be given.

Many species of demi-humans with the upper halves of humans and the lower halves of monsters or animals were often like this, choosing to lactate or not their young depending on their cultural differences. As some species that were born with sharp fangs and ready to eat and prey would often have their mothers prefer to feed their young with prey and meat, though this would vary depending on if the species were carnivorous or omnivorous, though most if not all species of demi-humans were omnivorous.

Through these new changes in their nature and culture, the High Thunder Gillmen quickly developed civilization in the spawn of less than a hundred years since their birth, and Nannet was now in a similar position than her mother and sisters, governing and maintaining the underwater nation of High Thunder Gillmen, which was created similarly to how Aquaria was structured, below the deeps of a large lake surrounded by many ponds and swamps.

The underwater civilizations of High Thunder Gillmen were very advanced, and through the trading that they did with their neighborhood Nation, the High Siren Nation, they used technology to construct a dome underwater that could be used to both live near water or also use the dome to live in a space with air, where Nannet resided in the middle of such underwater dome, inside her own palace and church.

"My lady, the construction for the new hospital has been put in march," said a beautiful High Thunder Gillmen women with purple skin covered in black dots and slightly slimy coverture, she had a long eel-like tail atop her but and bouncy and round breasts, on her neck she had two gills that resembled purple feathers, and her hair was purple and long, with shiny yellow eyes and a small golden jewel in the middle of her forehead. She wore the latest fashion for women in the High Thunder Gillmen Nation, which was a long and almost transparent dark dress with many decorations around her body in golden and silver accessories, amongst many jewels.

"Finally, the fourth hospital will surely bring more prosperity to the people, although we have advanced a lot, medicine is still developing and there are bound to be accidents or new diseases at every moment… We should also consider creating a Medicine School or Alchemists and Mages… What do you think, Torgel?" asked Nannet to her closest servant and also the priest of her church, Torgel.

Nannet was currently in her humanoid form, resembling a beautiful Dragonoid lady, similar in appearance to Goghesdum, with large breasts, wide hips but a more youthful get a serious face, her skin was pale white, but it was filled with purple tattoos, those of the Gillmen cultures.

Her feet and hands were those of dragons, large and with sharp dark-colored claws, she had purple-colored scales in her feet, hands, shoulders, neck, part of her chest, belly, back, and of course, in her long and thick tail, which waved around atop her butt. She had two, golden-colored coral-like horns in each side of her head, alongside a bright yellow jewel growing from the middle of her chest, atop her breasts, which glowed brightly.

"That sounds like a splendid idea, my lady-"

However, before Torgel could finish her words, a Gillman Soldier came rushing inside the palace.

"My lady, there seems to be a Monster Wave moving towards here!"

"A Monster… Wave?" asked Nannet in disbelief.