《GESTALT: A Hivemind LitRPG》 1. Reversal Justin watched in horror as the ground opened up beneath them. Before any of them could react, writhing green tentacles bearing blades and odorous vents of all kinds and shapes erupted from below. In lightning-fast motions they latched onto the closest member of their party, Heinrich, and pulled him above the pit like prey to be slaughtered. ¡°Heinrich! No!¡± ¡°Elrissa, stay back!¡± Justin grabbed his comrade, stopping them from jumping into the pit of tentacles, a certain way to die. Along with Justin, every member of their team cried out in disbelief as Heinrich screamed under the weight of the limbic horror. In the next moment, the man¡¯s body was ripped in two, crumbling in on itself and snapping apart like dry timber. A sickening series of crunches and squelches resounded over the rocky desert as his body was divided and brought under the cracks in the earth to be consumed. Justin nearly felt physically sick as his next thought wasn¡¯t to comfort his comrade who had just been made a widow, but to prepare for their only path of survival. A series of possible paths ran through his head but only one seemed viable. ¡°Markus! Get Elrissa to the rear! Jade, with me!¡± The Seventh Heaven members were all rocked from their daze as soon as Justin started giving orders. Cloaked in a garb of shadows, the other man in the desert, Markus, pulled the traumatised sniper back while Jade set up alongside Justin. ¡°I need you to buy time! Two minutes, at maximum. Right now we¡¯re at a disadvantage, but the Herald has yet to fully emerge. We need something potent enough to force it on the defensive. Are you with me?¡± Justin made a motion that indicated he was talking about the skill screen in front of him that was only visible to himself, but Jade¡¯s attention was instead focused on the back of their group where Elrissa was entering a catatonic state. ¡°Jade!¡± ¡°Y-ah, Justin?¡± The woman seemed rattled, watching her closest friend go through so much in mere moments, but Justin couldn¡¯t afford to act the same way. ¡°Jade, are you with me?¡± Her attention was finally directed back to him. She nodded. ¡°Then keep it busy for a couple of minutes, I need to be able to focus in order to charge up my skill. Do you understand?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± The Courser nodded and quickly lunged from her previous point. Bringing the great hammer that was nearly as tall as her and more than several times her weight around and over her head, she slammed down on one of the tentacles. With a loud boom against it squirmed, temporarily thwarted in its attempt to drag the main body of the monster out from the crack in the earth. ¡°Don¡¯t let it get out!¡± Justin shouted over the roars from below. At the same time his fingers flew across the screen in front of him, splitting all of his remaining free points into his handling ability. [Level: 98] [Grade: C] [Status Effects: Courage Sap, Inhospitality, Mind Poisoning, Decay, Ictus¡­] [Main Class: Pugilist] [Class Rank: Psionic Swordsman] [Race: Type-L Enhanced Human] [Attributes: 242 STR, 97 DEX, 384 END, 101 PER, 493 INT, 79 CHA, MYS 8] [Free Attribute Points: 0] [Health: 82,174 / 87,323] [Stamina: 89,449 / 97,243] [CEL: 309 / 380] A wreath of bright energy instantly began to swirl through the environment, coalescing into a blade before Justin. As the energy grew brighter and concentrated further, it began forming into the shape of a massive curved sword. Justin glanced at the fight going on before him. ¡®Damn it! Not yet!¡¯ As if their attempts to halt its progress had all been in vain, the herald began to emerge steadily from the fissure in the earth, tearing open the desert¡¯s ground like a chick bursting through eggshell. In mere moments, it had fully emerged, indifferent to the suppressing attacks of their Courser who was specialized in speed and the Cleric wrapped in shadows. Its twisting, tumorous body was a bloated mass of pustules and rotting flesh. Tentacles and splayed limbs, hundreds of them from what Justin could guess, fanned out from the singular hulking body mass. The abomination resembled the unborn form of a fetus, drenched in rotting fluids and draped in the remnants of a saccule from its infested mother. Along with Justin, Markus instantly recognized the rising threat and shouted out one of his clerical abilities for the sake of the others gathered. ¡°[Eyes of Ambush]!¡± [Cleric Ability Recognized. Difference in Grades Detected. Information Revealed Has Been Reduced¡­] [Rotting Herald of the Desolate God] [Race: Prophetic Scourge (Juvenile)] [Level: 127] [Grade: C+] [Health: 1,190,290 / 1,283,300] The results of the inspection confirmed everyone¡¯s suspicions, but the implication of the creature¡¯s race made the pits in their stomach¡¯s drop even further. ¡®This is even worse than the briefings predicted. We need to finish this as soon as possible.¡¯ All the concentration Justin could spare was being focused on gathering the energy in his hands, hopefully to deliver a blow that would allow them to regroup without the festering horror on their tail. But the loss of their most defense-oriented teammate was still felt, even if Justin had to hold off on mourning him as a friend. BEEP! ¡°Radio Transmission Detected. Intercept?¡± ¡°Not now!¡± Justin gritted his teeth as a voice inside his mechanical suit warned him of another party¡¯s existence approaching the desert. The people living on this planet hadn¡¯t been made aware of their entry, just as they hadn¡¯t been aware of the herald lurking underneath their continental plates. But whatever local government existed in this region had likely caught wind of their conflict by now and was coming to intercept. The scans had shown their technological progress was still far behind Justin¡¯s own team, so he didn¡¯t fear conflict with them, but that wasn¡¯t the point. ¡®If the natives start to interfere now, casualties will skyrocket and the daemon¡¯s abilities will get out of hand. Our mission was to prevent its potential contact with the planet¡¯s inhabitants, but now that we know its capabilities... ¡¯ The casualties would be even worse. The ship¡¯s readings were wrong, and things would quickly devolve into an even more dire state if the others arrived before it was defeated. Justin began to sweat buckets underneath the visor of his mechanical suit as he attempted to expedite the skill¡¯s charging process. While grinding his teeth to dust, the sword of energy in his hands now more closely represented the unyielding solar flare of a star than it did any weapon forged by man. After a few more seconds, it was finally ready. Justin looked up, despairing to find the fighting spirit of his comrades had all been picked apart by the hive entity, its gaping maw at the center of its tumorous body now looming over the horizon of the rocky desert like a mountain that blotted out the sun.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Markus! Jade! Behind me!¡± He called out to the bruised voltas, who quickly slid out of the way of an incoming fleshy wall of tentacles lined with teeth and jagged bone. They jumped to a place behind him just as he stepped forward. ¡°[Holy Corona]!¡± Justin slashed forward, letting the pillar of fire he could barely hold on to fall forward and through the fetid unborn shape, bisecting it where any semblance of a shoulder might have been. PFWISSSHHHHHHH HHHHRRRRRRREEEEEEEEECCCCCCCHHHHHHHH!!! The members of Justin¡¯s squad grimaced as the ear-rending screech fell over the site of battle. The entity still had the vitality for one last deathcry it seemed. As the two burning halves of the scourge fell apart, a fissure of steam erupted from its halves, covering the surroundings in a noxious gas. Due to the protection of their suits however, the group looked around with more hatred than worry. They had won the battle, but one of their own still remained dead. A price that seemed far too terrible to pay. In some of their minds, it wasn¡¯t even outweighed by the defense of this entire world. None of them spoke for a time. After a few minutes however, it wasn¡¯t their discomfort that broke them from silence but shock as they felt their hearing beginning to wane to deafness. The cries of the entity had long since silenced, but still their hearing was deteriorating. ¡°Jade, your ears!¡± The courser cupped her ears quickly after taking off her helmet. Looking down at the viscous residue in her hands she gasped in shock. ¡°What¡­? Everyone check your status!¡± The reflection of illuminated boxes started to show in people¡¯s eyes. [Status Effects: Mind Poisoning, Decay, Sensory Rot, Hysteria¡­] ¡®This¡­the effects are still ongoing!¡¯ Justin felt a heat consume him as he read further. This time, he pulled out his actual sword, a striking bit of steel that had been at his waist, and roared. ¡°It¡¯s still alive! Kill it!¡± Fuck regrouping. They had it on the ropes. After bisecting it with its element of weakness, which happened to be fire, or heat as a more general concept, it was surely only half-alive now. The scourge needed to die, right now, before it could incur more loss to them or anyone who came across it. Justin turned to give commands to the two who were running along with him. ¡°You two go over its head, I¡¯ll go for the neck! If cutting it in half wasn¡¯t enough to put it down, we¡¯ll melt the head off next!¡± ¡°Aye!¡± ¡°Of course.¡± Markus and Jade confirmed, separating from his position to jump on top of the monster¡¯s body, a pincer strategy in elevation, rather than planar. Justin was just about to come from underneath, and swipe at the gurgling neck of the beast when he found all dozen eyes of the horror lock onto him. Tentacles from the side of its body that it was no longer connected to, which Justin had failed to account for while rushing in, instantly exploded forth with massive force, crashing into his body and piercing through his mechanical suit in several places. ¡°Fu-!¡± ¡°Justin!¡± ¡°NO!¡± Justin caught a brief glimpse of his teammates atop the progenitor¡¯s head as they screamed his name, before being catapulted through the air like a rag doll. Shards of bone and tendons so strong they were more akin to steel wire started to come loose in his body as he rolled over the rocky plain, stirring up the insides of his muscles and cutting through organs like tissue paper. The mechanical suit he wore over his once-toned body did a decent job at absorbing most external attacks, yet in preventing internal injury it was about as useful as the plastic cup around a blender. With deadly turbulence his body continued to roll for several hundred feet through the rocky desert before coming to a wet smack against a group of large stones. Justin¡¯s insides had been turned into a soupy broth at once, so it was only by the grace of his high cellular energy level that he held onto consciousness. ¡°Ah¡­.¡± Justin weakly exhaled. He tried to move his neck forward and summon some momentum to get himself off his feet, but found he couldn¡¯t even feel those muscles. He was paralyzed from the neck down. In some sense of cosmic irony his brief flight had also positioned him in such a way that he was just able to see the ongoing battle against what was left of the herald. Elrissa, widow of the butchered Heinrich and a Technical volta, had come to the rest of her teammates'' aid as Justin could now see her charging up sniper shots from a distance away, boring large holes in the wounded herald with each round. Markus and Jade had also found a way to finish without him. Each of Markus¡¯ daggers cloaked in a shadowy membrane buried themselves into the fetus¡¯ glazed eyes as Jade found purchase on her hammer and struck the entity across its membranous jaw. In several minutes, his three comrades were able to finish the job he couldn¡¯t, and eventually with tears in his eyes, he watched them prevail over the bloated herald. Their cries of victory could hardly be heard all the way over to Justin, but their body language clearly showed their exhausted celebrations. When the smoldering mountain of a corpse was truly that, Justin tried calling out to them. ¡°G¡­guys! Guys I¡¯m over here!¡± Justin shouted as loud as he could, but his voice had grown as raspy as it had weak. Damn, had he really rolled that far? The fighting had taken his team further out into the desert than they had started, but he could still see them, so why couldn¡¯t they see him? There weren¡¯t even any obstructions around him! Aside from the rock he was propped against, he should have been totally visible. ¡°Justin. Justin? Come in. Come in, Justin.¡± All of a sudden Justin heard the warbly voice of Markus come in over the comms of his suit¡¯s helmet. A feeling of relief flushed throughout him. ¡°Oh thank god. Markus, I¡¯m behind you, against the rocks. Do you see me?¡± ¡®...¡¯ ¡°Justin? Come in if you can hear this frequency. We¡¯re standing by the herald.¡± ¡°Justin, please come in.¡± ¡®What? No¡­they can¡¯t hear me?¡¯ ¡°Guys? GUYS! Hello? Markus, Jade, Elrissa? Can you guys not hear me?!¡± Justin shouted, both aloud and through his helmet¡¯s comms, but there was no response. His helmet must have been broken along with his suit, that was the only explanation. Why else couldn¡¯t they hear him? Justin struggled for a few minutes of their calling, straining to figure out another way he could get their attention when a voice suddenly came over the comms. ¡°Markus, we might have to consider that Justin is MIA, if not worse.¡± ¡®What is she saying?¡¯ ¡°What are you saying Jade?¡± Markus¡¯ disbelieving voice reflected his own sentiments. ¡°It¡¯s hard to believe, but if we don¡¯t leave soon, the natives are going to show up, and we can¡¯t risk interference with them. It¡¯s law, Markus!¡± The voice of Jade came onto the team¡¯s open comms. It was perfect logic, but from the warble of her voice it was clear she was also having difficulty accepting the fact that they might have lost not just one, but two of their team members during this mission. ¡°I-I don¡¯t think I can accept that, Jade. We need to at least take a look around to see if the leader is somewhere out here.¡± ¡°We can¡¯t risk it! Besides, you saw the size of that hit he took! Whatever is left of him is likely scattered out here, incapable of being resuscitated by Harriet back at the ship.¡± ¡°Elrissa! How can you say that!¡± Jade threw a furious glance toward the other woman. ¡°Markus, she¡¯s right! We can¡¯t risk exposure more than we already have. We need to leave.¡± Markus looked gravely at them both before sighing. He spoke solemnly, still over the intercom, unknowingly allowing Justin to hear every part of the conversation. ¡°Markus, it''s no easy decision. But Justin would have wanted you to lead, so it''s still yours to make. What do we do?¡± Markus swallowed. Looking at the two of them, his will to lead in the stead of his friend faltered for a moment. Briefly, he entertained the idea of transferring leadership over to one of them before sighing, letting the new and unwanted responsibility sink in. He knew on some level, Justin would have wanted him to rise to the occasion if he had died. Without speaking, Markus dialed something on his suit¡¯s arm pad. Before long, a whispering noise started to grow louder above them before the stones of the desert were blown away. The sight of a sleek carrier ship appeared above them as its hexagonal camouflage turned off. ¡°What about the corpse?¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have the space. We¡¯ll have to leave it. Besides, without CEL it¡¯s not a danger to this planet anymore.¡± ¡°No¡­t-they¡¯re not going to leave me here are they?¡± Listening to their conversation, Justin¡¯s eyes shook as a frenzy of panic overwhelmed him. He needed to shout out more, make noise of some kind, maybe even use an ability? Yes, yes he could do that! His last furious actions had taken most of the energy out of his cells for the moment, but thanks to his innate high level of cell control, they had been able to regenerate just enough energy for a simple spark. Which is what he attempted. A simple, brief spark of colorless energy flickered into the surroundings around Justin and his pool of blood, before being snuffed out. Unfortunately Justin was a pugilist, which meant his energy manifestation was poor unless he could base it around a weapon, or in the form of one. Justin cursed repeatedly in his mind, which was now starting to black out. If only he had saved enough energy! Just a single shred more. He should have held off on one of his infused-swipes or put a little less into that useless slash that had earned him this place on the ground. Maybe then he could¡­wait! Justin¡¯s eyes widened. Just as his teammates started to somberly board the ramp upward into the ship, his ship, one of them looked back in his direction. ¡®Elrissa! Of course, she of all people would be the most sensitive to energy! She must see me!¡¯ Justin¡¯s fractured face smiled with hope. Not all had been lost! He had been seen! Yet his expression turned to horror as he realized Elrissa had locked eyes with him, not with recognition and joy, but something else. The look she gave him was one of condemnation, of revilement. Her single expression before turning back to the ship was the last thing Justin saw before he fell unconscious. It would be forever burned into his memory. He had been left behind. 2. To Shreds You Say? A few hours prior on the deck of the Terse Resignation, Justin¡¯s corvette. ¡°I still don¡¯t understand why the orbital bombardments haven¡¯t been started. Why hold all of these Limonite-pledged planets if we aren¡¯t gaining anything from them? They won¡¯t contribute resources, they won¡¯t pay tributes, they won¡¯t submit! It¡¯s like holding our enemies behind lines while feeding them steak and potatoes for every meal!¡± On the main deck of the ship there was a large table that was situated at the center of the room. It was shaped roughly like a ¡®V¡¯, and around it sat six members of the guild Seventh Heaven. The last member was currently attempting to lead a presentation on their objective, and was standing at the far end of the table by a projected hologram. ¡°Gary, you realize that we don¡¯t bomb civilian planets just because they aren¡¯t paying their war tax, right? Nobody but you and the ministers on Ansana hold to that insane and archaic kind of thinking. For all these planets know, by next month their systems will be back under the Limonite Federation¡¯s control, and they¡¯ll have bled for nothing. That¡¯s why they aren¡¯t yielding to us, not until the Council¡¯s offensive into the Federation further deepens.¡± A woman on the opposite side of the table spoke up to match the psychic¡¯s political ramblings. Her hammer, nearly as large as her and normally slung over her back, was left at her side on the ground. ¡°That¡¯s the philosophy of a defeatist, Jade. It sounds like you don¡¯t even think that we can keep our claims over the contested star systems. Do you even believe we¡¯ll win this war?¡± ¡°Of course I¡­¡± ¡°Everyone, please! Quiet down. You¡¯re interrupting the mission briefing. Harriet, please.¡± Justin suddenly interjected before the discussion turned into an argument. Truly, the subject was as contentious as it was irrelevant to their current contract. In his mind, he once again lamented how his guild never seemed to have their mind focused on the important things. The star system they were in was on the other end of the Federation¡¯s territory, about as far as one could get from the war being fought. Their current mission was what mattered, not some galactic politics they had next to no stake in. And unless he was unaware, no one here owned cushy vacation homes on the resort planets that were close to the fighting, so the current topic was meaningless. ¡°Thank you Justin, like I was saying, the surface of Lemus IV may look clean, but scans of the Pre-FTL civilization have shown us that a dangerous signal source lurks underneath the continental plates.¡± Harriet, the team of supers¡¯ mission coordinator and healer, spoke calmly as she swiped the globe of light around, zooming in on a subterranean view of the planet. ¡°About right here, we¡¯ve picked up scans of one of a high-grade daemon, possibly a Herald. It predates the native population by a few million years, and up until a month ago it spent that time absorbing energy in a static state of incubation. Its movements were picked up recently, so we know it''s at least awake, if not fully activated.¡± ¡°Damn¡­¡± ¡°A Herald¡­¡± Some murmurs were heard at the table, but Harriet continued her briefing. ¡°Our contract on Lemus IV is fulfilled upon the neutralization of the threat before it can come into contact with the local populace. Even more important, is avoiding our own contact with them. They can not see us, hear us, or know about us, so we¡¯ll be covering our tracks with a planetary EMP we bought from the Soleta Corporation. It should buy us a maximum of up to a half a day. This operation has to be taken care of quietly, everyone understand?¡± The whole table nodded, of course knowing why. There was a galaxy-wide policy on non-interference with planets yet to develop faster-than-light travel. In some sectors that was enforced by law, like within the Federation¡¯s borders, but in others it was simply best practice. The reason was that in almost every case of contact between a higher civilization and a lesser advanced native one, the higher civilization with access to the System would inadvertently spark the naturalization of the one without. This would bring about a sudden upwelling of Voltas within their unprepared society. In 99 out of 100 cases, this meant a total upheaval, if not a complete collapse of cultures and government. Given an influx of people suddenly gaining supernatural powers and abilities, aka Voltas, it was obvious what dangers awaited a civilization without the methods to contain them. Throughout the galaxy¡¯s history, this had led to many infamous cases, and even the complete destruction of the more-advanced civilization at one point. So for clear reasons, the act carried very strong condemnation nearly everywhere. ¡°Of course, regardless of how efficiently we handle this, whatever local government that¡¯s in place will eventually get wind of some disturbance, so we¡¯ve got a short window between first engagement with our target and extraction. Justin, any questions for the ground team?¡± Justin looked around the room for a moment before shaking his head. ¡°None. Nice job with the briefing. Brilliant and succinct as always.¡± ¡°Ha¡­mm, thanks.¡± Harriet blushed a little from the guild leader¡¯s compliment, earning some knowing grins from around the table. ¡°Alright then. Any other comments from the peanut gallery?¡± Justin looked around the room. ¡°Just one!¡± ¡®Oh?¡¯ All eyes were directed to a muscular, yet stable-looking man who sat by the side of Elrissa. Two sets of high end mechanical gauntlets laid on the table in front of him, suited to his role as the close range specialist and damage sponge. The concept he embodied as an Augur was suited for such things.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Heinrich stood up and confidently pointed to the center of his chest. ¡°When we get there, and find this Herald or whatever it is, you guys leave it to me! I¡¯m tearing at the chance to get my hands on some real daemon hide!¡± He made a constricting motion in the air before him which the group found humorous. A round of laughs and some good natured jeering erupted, mostly from his own spouse. By no means did the room resemble a group of battle-hardened veterans who were preparing to go into battle, but that''s what they were. For the members of Seventh Heaven, this would be a challenging contract, but only that. In the end, it was just another day at work for them. ¡­ Justin¡¯s body laid dead against the sharp stones. Not three minutes having passed since his team had left him. A pool of blood was forming around him, gushing out from the many punctured holes and cracks in his suit that held together what little of the man was left. In a few more minutes, if nothing happened, the planet¡¯s natives would arrive to find the gruesome scene, and probably experience the greatest mystery in their history to date. Yet as Justin would probably be dead by that time, their potential of activating the System interface among their species would be close to null. Without a living Volta or Daemon, system activation was impossible. ¡®...¡¯ ¡®...t¡¯ ¡®...the¡¯ ¡®The hu¡­¡¯ ¡®Hu? H-human. Human!¡¯ Or perhaps that might¡¯ve happened, if there truly hadn¡¯t been any survivors from the fierce brawl. But that was untrue, and as living testimony to that, a small spindle of flesh no more than an inch long wriggled out from the charred corpse of the herald. Plopping onto the ground, its slimy coating caused it to struggle to move along the coarse stone of the desert. The small, flickering semblance of sentience it contained repeated over and over in what excuse it had for a mind, the last directive it was given by the greater entity it had just emerged from. ¡®The human. The human! Go¡­go! The human!¡¯ The squirming tapeworm began to move in haste, scraping its greyish green body against the rocks and debris from the fight, doing all that it could to travel the short distance over to where the defeated pugilist had landed. Yet it couldn''t make it there very fast, a distance that felt like miles to its small and swollen self. So before long, the sound of choppers filled the skies overhead and the squawking of radios and men hollering erupted. The natives of Lemus IV were a race of sapient bipeds who evolved from the primates of their planet, quite similar to Justin¡¯s own species by all measures. In short order they began to land their aircraft around the hulking remains of the herald. Quickly, they swarmed outward to form a defensive perimeter, but in their rapid initiative to secure the area failed to notice the tiny worm squirming between the cracks of the stone desert. Soon enough the worm reached its target with not a soul the wiser and found an accessible opening. In one of the mechanical suit¡¯s large gashes it pushed itself inside with a squelch.. Burrowing through battered flesh, it cut through the dense tissue of the superhuman with its extended teeth like chipping through ice. After a few minutes, it had traveled far enough to reach the brainstem. Finally, it had reached its goal! The worm began to expand, bloating itself within the small cavity to prepare for what came next.. Festering with tentacles that resembled the herald¡¯s own, they clamored around it like a thousand needy hands. Each of them found hold on some part of Justin¡¯s brain, gripping the folds of neurons and gray matter with instinctual prowess. In his torn and bruised shell of a body, bit by bit Justin¡¯s brain was gradually consumed and rebuilt by the worm. Bit by bit it was replaced. At the same time, that very worm was forcibly using the organic matter it had so far consumed to evolve itself further, folding its body over itself and morphing into a vital part of his body¡¯s functions. Hwah¡­. Justin¡¯s mind awoke with a jolt, his mouth opening automatically to express the fetid odor from the inside of his body. His organs had yet to begin the process of decomposition, but there were still some noxious fumes generated by something within his body that needed release. ¡°What¡­what? What?!¡± Justin clamored to move once more, somehow, suddenly finding the ability to make small movements with his neck and fingers. Hadn¡¯t he been paralyzed? Wait¡­he had actually survived? ¡®How?¡¯ ¡°S¡­system.¡± Justin spoke one of the many phrases that could be used to open up the system¡¯s interface with a tongue that didn¡¯t feel his own. Without delay the glowing window came into view. [Level: 1] [Grade: E-] [Status Effects: N/A] [Race: Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [Attributes: 0 STR, 0 DEX, 1 END, 0 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, MYS 0] [Free Attribute Points: 0] [Health: 9 / 10] [Stamina: 14 / 50] [CEL: 1 / 1] ¡°Ah-!¡± Justin¡¯s eyes widened to a point they almost hurt. His throat felt stuck in his voice, and a dense sweat came over him, just as he had felt witnessing his friends leave him behind. Thinking of that fact once again hurt Justin, but quickly he quelled it. Throughout Justin¡¯s life he had been forced into many roles, and gained skills along the way. As the leader of Seventh Heaven, he was nothing if not an effective thinker. He quickly got back to the problem at hand. The system¡¯s oddities. Something that should be impossible, given what he knew as a Volta. ¡®These system readings¡­It¡¯s a mistake of some kind. It has to be.¡¯ Justin weakly raised a finger to tap on the system, but to his absolute shock, nothing happened. That was when he looked down, and to his horror he found his body wriggling through the cracks in his suit. ¡®What the fuck!?¡¯ Justin¡¯s wounds¡­were healing themselves. Common enough for some, but not for him. Sickly-looking green tendrils were weaving themselves underneath his skin, curling around his bones and allowing themselves into his blood vessels and through his muscles. As he watched on, more and more of his ligaments started to turn the sickly color. Even through the cracks of the suit, his exposed flesh was starting to turn, regardless if it had been injured or not. It didn¡¯t hurt, but the scene of his own flesh, what was missing and some of what was already there, being converted into this strange, other entity¡­scared him more than anything ever had. It was a different fear than having his life threatened, a kind that was stranger and foreign to him until now.. For the first time in his life, Justin thought he might finally understand what people meant by ¡®existential terror¡¯. He wanted to scream, to jump and claw out the being invading his body, rip up and discard his own skin no matter what it took, but before he could find the strength to do so he felt a calm wash over his mind that was not his. ¡®Thinking about it logically, I understand. Somehow, a piece of the Herald we thought we defeated was able to survive and escape, and now it has chosen me as host to continue its mission. To¡­¡¯ Just as Justin came upon that realization, something in his mind clicked, and a prepared packet of memories flooded into his mind and gave him an idea of his potential, and his mission. ¡®To assimilate. To devour. To bring everything into the fold that is not already myself, the Herald.¡¯ ¡®To spark desolation.¡¯ 3. Medic! Below the ruined mechanical suit that covered Justin¡¯s body, his legs had once again started to move. New flesh, stronger flesh, propelled him forward to his feet, rising from his body¡¯s brief sleep to step forward. Moving on his feet once again, though more shambling forward than walking, it was enough for the soldiers only a few hundred feet away to finally notice. The shouting of multiple men rang out as a few suddenly saw him. ¡°Hey! We got a survivor!¡± ¡°Someone get the medic!¡± ¡®They¡¯re calling a medic for me.¡¯ Somewhere in Justin¡¯s mind, that acknowledgement was uttered without emotion. Just by itself and without any added assumption or emotional reaction. His eyes behind his helmet¡¯s visor looked dryly at the men approaching him with their weapons drawn. Rifles, by the look of it. Though their shape was nearly alien to Justin, who hadn¡¯t seen anything so primitive besides in older media. For all the primitive planets he had touched down on during contracts, this was the first time he was actually meeting with one of their inhabitant species. It was a severe crime, even across galactic standards, but his emotional state after near-death seemed to be rendering his sense of consequences numb. ¡®Physical projectiles. Like the depleted uranium rounds in Elrissa¡¯s gun.¡¯ That thought made Justin think back to the look she had given. Strangely enough he didn¡¯t feel anything after remembering it again. No anger for what she had done, noticing him but leaving anyway, abandoning him to die. No desire for revenge entered his sphere of emotions. Not much of anything entered his sphere of emotions, actually. Yet he felt that was wrong, somehow. A part of Justin¡¯s brain squirmed. ¡®Wrong?¡¯ What was wrong about that? Wasn¡¯t it better to be perfectly calm and logical at all times? Was there any benefit to experiencing human emotions while trying to achieve his master¡¯s great purpose? ¡®Master? What?¡¯ Now Justin¡¯s original thoughts fought back in confusion. All of a sudden it felt as if there was a great mental divide in his head. Yes, that was it. A division of priorities, between his own and¡­and¡­and whose? What was he even thinking about? How could there be another person¡¯s set of priorities in his head? ¡°S-o-l-r?¡± Perhaps something had gotten knocked loose as he recovered. He would have to see a medbay, Justin decided. He¡¯d surely spend time with Harriet next time they met, now there was a good idea! ¡°Soldier?¡± ¡°What?¡± Justin suddenly realized there was someone in his face as color returned to his vision. One of the natives¡­that was right! He had suddenly gotten up and started walking toward their group. Why had he done that again? ¡°He¡¯s asking you if you are a soldier!¡± One of the men at his side responded to Justin¡¯s question. This one was carrying a rifle too. ¡°Oh¡­I¡­uh¡­I¨C¡± Justin stumbled over his words. He was sure the translator of his suit was working, thankfully, but for some reason his head still seemed to be in a daze when he tried to piece together what was being said to him. ¡°He looks injured. Let¡¯s get him in one of the tents.¡± ¡®What tents?¡¯ Another man made his entrance on the side of Justin, immediately assessing his condition based on the many apparent lacerations across his armor and helmet. Of course his wounds had all healed up by now, but he was still covered in blood so looked quite awful to the surrounding men. ¡°You¡¯re right, from the size of those wounds I can hardly believe he¡¯s still standing. What happened to the rest of your company, soldier? Or are you from a larger battalion?¡± The man squinted and looked around as if to say he found the latter unlikely, based on the sparsely populated environment. But apparently they had already silently decided that he was a soldier. No need for Justin to respond after all. ¡°Oh, I¡­¡± ¡°Oh come on Major, can¡¯t you see he¡¯s exhausted? Save the questions for when he recovers how ¡®bout it?¡± The one the medic called Major appeared to be their leader, Justin understood. It seemed that the planet¡¯s native culture revolved around using hats to denote social status, as the man¡¯s helmet bore a rounder shape in comparison to his underlings. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Was it related to maternity? Perhaps the shape of their species¡¯ female bosom evoked a natural respect? The cultures of primitive civilizations were truly unknowable to the outsider, Justin thought. ¡°Alright then, Doctor Meyers, have it your way. Take him to the white tent on the south side of the body. Think the boys ought to have set it up by now.¡± After that, Doctor Meyers, who looked to be a frail man with short blonde hair clearly unsuited for combat, took Justin by the shoulder with a gentle smile and directed him around the battalion of soldiers who were busy setting up various stations. As they left, the Major and his aide spoke quietly about the sudden appearance of the survivor. In the surroundings, he had been the only one they¡¯d found so far, and so soon after landing. It was odd when signs pointed to a large battle having taken place just before they got here. ¡°Very odd, that we¡¯ve only found the one. Don¡¯t you think so too, Major? Think he¡¯s Special Service? Hidden Intelligence? Shadow Government?¡± The Major was squinting in stern concentration, but by the time the younger soldier got to the end of that list his expression broke into annoyance. ¡°Two of those organizations aren¡¯t on record, so don''t mention them.¡± The attendant swallowed, nodding his head. ¡°And one is purely fictitious, and tells me not to let you browse the politico forums on the department computers any more.¡± ¡°...Apologies, Major.¡± ¡°But, to answer your question, I don¡¯t think so. I¡¯ve met members of the hidden departments before, and that man wasn¡¯t like any of them. There¡¯s no doubt he¡¯s in the service, but as a special operative, hmm¡­¡± ¡°But Major, that armor¡­¡± ¡°Was certainly not manufactured in the Republic, at least not to my knowledge. It seems far and ahead more advanced than anything we¡¯ve got, which means he¡¯s likely from one of the other powerhouses. Whatever he¡¯s doing on our soil is a serious matter.¡± The Major traced his goatee with a free hand while he thought. ¡°What should we do with him, Major?¡± ¡°Observe him in the medical tent for now, Captain. If he tries to leave it, or worse: leave this encampment, then you have my permission to detain or neutralize him.¡± The Major¡¯s attendant crisply saluted, acknowledging the order. ¡­ Justin had somehow let himself be taken in by the natives. On one of the cots after an hour of testing his vital functions, he lamented that he had broken one of the most important laws in the galaxy. He, a Volta, had come into contact with and even integrated into a group of non-system users! What was he even thinking? Approaching their encampment so brazenly? Justin truly could not remember. It was as if he had just left a fugue state. He was unable to recollect the reasoning behind any of his previous decisions or what he had felt while making them. All he could remember was a disconnected set of visuals. A spotty set of memories tied from one end to another that vaguely represented what had happened in the few minutes after waking up. Yes, he had miraculously healed, but how? Justin didn¡¯t want to look at the gift horse in the mouth but he knew his body didn¡¯t have such capabilities by itself. He definitely would have succumbed to his injuries on any other day. Justin groaned. More worryingly still, was his status screen. He pulled it up again. ¡°Ah damn it! What does this even mean?¡± ¡®[Grade E-]...[Health 10 / 10]...[CEL 1 / 1]?¡¯ These were the most damning of the apparent errors in his interface, and that wasn¡¯t even including the error of his race, or the apparent total lack of a main class. ¡®Somehow I¡¯ve got even less health than a typical grade E- volta, as if I¡¯m a civilian! Lower CEL than should be possible for an awakened, and it says Grade E- instead of C!¡¯ Not to mention the oddity of ¡°Scourge Progenitor¡± in his race section, it was as if the system had conflated him with the Herald from earlier. ¡®This and the devastating stats for supposedly level one, it¡¯s as if I¡¯m being treated more like a daemon by the System than a volta!¡¯ Justin huffed in his cot. Mulling over the problem till he got red in the face would do him no good, so he decided to look over the facts. For some reason he had been blacking out lately, experiencing odd mental fluctuations, headaches, nausea. Did any of these symptoms have anything in commo¨Coh? Justin checked his [Status Effects] quickly with confidence, but there was nothing there. Okay, back to the drawing board¡­ Did these symptoms have anything in common? Well, mind control for one. Something that Justin had actually experienced in the past on the victim side of it during one particularly nasty contract, but that would have shown up in his effects, even if he would have been blind to its negativity. Its absence there disproved it. Mental Poisoning? He experienced it during the fight, but it should have run its course after the source, the Herald, died. That left¡­hmm, psychic damage? It was possible, though Harriet and Elrissa were much more knowledgeable about it than he was. Actually, speaking of Elrissa. Justin felt a sharp heat erupt in his chest, when he thought of that look. Damn! He wanted to do something about it, met out some sort of justice for that act of betrayal, that act of cowardice that Elrissa had shown! Looking at him straight in the face and leaving him alone, it was the lowest thing she could have done. Far from what Justin had thought her to be capable of. It had broken the mostly kind-hearted impression of her he had held. ¡®Wait a second¡­why do I feel like I¡¯ve thought about this before?¡¯ Justin felt a strange sense of deja vu for his circumstances. Hadn¡¯t he made up his mind about this? No, no he hadn¡¯t. But hadn¡¯t he? He wasn¡¯t going to do anything to Elrissa, she wasn¡¯t worth the effort. No, but he definitely was! He needed justice. That was how he lived, there was no way he was wrong about that. But justice was unnecessary, childish even. The plan was more important. ¡®Wait¡­!¡¯ What plan? Justin¡¯s mind swam, a wriggling feeling in his head started to put pressure on his thoughts. It felt like he was losing his mind, if such a thing could be felt. But he was at peace regardless, because the master¡¯s plan was more important. ¡®No¡­no¡­those aren¡¯t my thoughts! THOSE AREN¡¯T MY THOUGHTS!¡¯ Those weren¡¯t his thoughts. He finally understood. They were the parasite¡¯s. The Herald¡¯s. The Scourge¡¯s. He was thinking for himself, but other opinions were creeping in from somewhere else too. His brain didn¡¯t belong to him anymore. It belonged to the hive. To the fold. 4. Mind Over Matter Justin felt like he was trapped in a nightmare now that he understood. The Herald had survived. Somehow. But Justin hadn¡¯t. A piece of the daemon must have broken off, jump started his ruined body and mended his injuries. It likely had intended to use him as a host to finish the mission the Herald had originally been charged with, or simply as a carrier to another more suitable host. What Justin couldn¡¯t understand was why had he maintained consciousness after it. Not just his body being awake, but the real Justin, the Seventh Heaven leader and C-grade pugilist. If there was any explanation, he could only think of something to do with the soul, something that Elrissa, despite how ironic it was now to rely on her words, had once said to him. Unlike in many primitive civilizations, among the scholars of the galaxy the existence of the soul was not held in ambiguity. No, through thousands of years of scientific research and high-end technologies at their disposal, civilizations one after another had long proved the existence of the soul. They had discovered after countless studies that a major part of the body''s functions were tied to some metaphysical process, something that couldn¡¯t be captured or altered by normal means. This was true for all species across the galaxy, guaranteed so long as they were sentient, but true in many other cases as well. What remained theoretical however, were the exact specifications and behavior of this process. A few hundred years ago a conclave of psychics had formed the outline of a philosophy on these specifics. Their findings, originally titled simply ¡®Dualism¡¯, explained the double-sided perspective of a vital metaphysical component to life and argued that the ineffable, indeterminable part of everyone¡¯s being, was actually the soul split into two parts. On one hand was the half of the soul as it related to the physical corporeal world. The body, in other words. This was called the Corpus, or body soul. Its function involved regulating all the parts of the body, from the flutter of eyelids down the most minute functions of cells. Minor damage to the body wouldn¡¯t affect it, but major cell death almost always cut off its connection to affected parts or ceased it entirely. As they understood it, this was the cause of the phenomenon known as death. On the other hand, was the part of the soul that regulated the inanimate portion of the living. Their wandering soul, called the Anima, regulated the functions of the mind. This included ideas, emotions, preferences, and personality. Though as explained to Justin, while the philosophical movement had less concrete explanations about this side of the soul, they understood it as inseparable from the Corpus. Both were linked, and both needed the other¡¯s presence to function, to regulate the body and mind. They could not exist independently, and in normal circumstances they could not be tampered with. Though this summarized the total findings of the conclave of psychics, and its information all dated back to some several hundred years ago. Justin had forgotten just when, despite his memorization of the contents. Back when Elrissa had explained it, it had sounded like nonsense, but thinking about his current situation, perhaps it could be applied. If he went off of the dualism philosophy, the Herald¡¯s offshoot, or whatever was crawling around in his brain, had a physical soul and an inanimate soul like everyone else. Dying, or at least being defeated in some capacity must have damaged one of these, likely the body soul. So right after the time of assimilation into his brain, Justin was given a brief moment of control over himself back, before that control began to be stripped from him once again. Obviously, the Herald¡¯s Corpus held more sway over his body than his own. Or it was more powerful. Whatever the soul-term was for that, Justin didn¡¯t know. But it was clearly trying to force his own Corpus out of the way, and had succeeded for a little bit before Justin had regained control. Why, he didn¡¯t exactly know, but he could guess. ¡®Going off this theory, the parasite in my brain likely inherited the Corpus of the Herald, a body soul much greater than mine, but has its own Anima, which is probably inferior to my own. This causes there to be an imbalance between our positions, and gives me brief gaps to seize control while its Anima tries to catch up. If I¡¯m right, right now there are four souls attached to my body and mind right now, and all want to be in control. The parasite gets its way as long as my body outstrips my mind, and I remain in control as long as my mind has more influence over my body.¡¯ Or perhaps that was just speculation, and the Corpus of the Herald had just temporarily retracted. Either way, he likely had a time limit until the next switch of control, and he couldn¡¯t say for certainty that it wouldn¡¯t be the last. His brief surfacing from the proverbial mental ocean had been by coincidence, and he couldn¡¯t guarantee he would get a second chance unless he acted soon. Based on the headache he was starting to feel along with a sickening wriggling feeling from inside, he couldn¡¯t say he had too much longer either. ¡°Feeling better, Mr. Lone Soldier?¡± Suddenly the curtains of the tent swung in, and in walked the flimsy blonde man from earlier. Without his mental fog-of-war, Justin realized just how similar this planet¡¯s natives were to his own race. Huh. ¡®The old adage really is true. ¡®Skip a stone across the stars and you¡¯ll hit two human planets along the way¡¯.¡¯ ¡°Uh, yeah¡­thanks for the treatment.¡± Justin was sitting on the side of the bed now, so he probably did look pretty good compared to a few minutes ago. ¡°Oh don¡¯t mention it. Despite all that gore that was on you, you barely had a scratch. Made my assistants wipe the lion¡¯s share of it off your suit, but you¡¯ll probably find some still lying in the cracks sooner or later. Oh well, that¡¯s the quality of work in the military, I tell you.¡± ¡°Yeah, ha¡­¡± Justin awkwardly nodded. ¡°Anyway, it''s interesting how you were able to come away from whatever happened here without so much as a nick on your person¡­but I suppose it''s better not to wonder. The Major will be coming in shortly to ask you a few questions, so I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll get filled in after that. Everyone in the camp is dying to hear what you have to say, you know?¡± ¡®What? Why?¡¯This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°Really?¡± Justin peeked around the tent flap to find the soldier on guard there was actually looking in at him too. Had they not realized that he wasn¡¯t a native? Probably not actually. Despite how advanced his mechanical suit was for a pre-FTL civilization, he hadn¡¯t had an engineer look at it up close yet and this planet didn¡¯t have Technicals, so there was no reasonable grounds to assume that he was extraterrestrial. That along with his appearance being so similar to theirs, meant this nation would have to be full the most extreme conspiracy theorists in the galaxy for him to be suspected. If anything, they were more willing to suspect he was a covert operative from another country. Which indeed, was the common consensus among the battalion. Though which powerhouse had sent their agent here, and what he had to do with the odd-looking corpse in the center of their camp had yet to be agreed upon. ¡°Oh yeah. And by the way, this area¡¯s been declared a government blacksite on account of the special circumstances. So if you know what¡¯s good for you, it¡¯d be best to have tight lips in the future. If you¡¯re from somewhere else though¡­let¡¯s just say I¡¯d try to make a good impression during your next meeting with the Major. He¡¯s a bit irritable today.¡± ¡°...I see. Thanks.¡± ¡°Yeah don¡¯t mention it.¡± The doctor shot him a finger gun with his unoccupied hand not holding his tablet and left the tent after checking Justin¡¯s vitals once more. Shortly thereafter, the Major entered alongside a younger officer who Justin recognized as his attendant from before. ¡°Don¡¯t get up, stay right there.¡± The Major held up his hand, motioning for Justin to stay put. ¡°What¡¯s your name, soldier? Or would you prefer operative?¡± The man beneath the bosom-shaped helmet stared evenly into Justin¡¯s eyes, searching for some kind of tell. Justin was lost for words. What did these natives want? Sure they were military, but had his suit evoked that much suspicion? No, he supposed it was the fact that he was probably their best lead on whatever the corpse was outside. The doctor had offhandedly called it a ¡®mutant beast¡¯, though Justin supposed that native colloquialism wasn¡¯t too far from the truth. ¡°Close the tent, Captain.¡± The man at his side went over to shut the tent¡¯s flap. Now no one was looking in. ¡°Where are you from?¡± ¡°Where do you think I¡¯m from?¡± The Major scowled. Slowly he walked closer to Justin. ¡°You want to play games with me, son? Is that it? Fine, let¡¯s play games.¡± WIthout breaking eye contact, he outstretched a hand and was silently given a scalpel from the medical tray by his attendant. ¡°Let¡¯s see just how long it takes for you to talk now.¡± Justin¡¯s expression hardened as he prepared to be tortured. Normally it would be laughable, the intelligence capabilities of a primitive civilization. But if his system stats were right, and he was now starting to believe they were, the interface he was looking at was no longer his own stats but the parasite¡¯s. Its low health could pose an issue here. ¡°Try me.¡± Still, it was always better to put up a front than capitulate. Justin was no virgin to being tortured. ¡°Oh, a tough one? Now I know for sure you¡¯re not one of ours!¡± The Major shouted, enunciating his statement by diving the scalpel into Justin¡¯s leg. CLANG! ¡°What?¡± The man retracted the small knife, looking at its condition closely. Not only had it been ineffectual, but the knife tip had completely splayed in all directions like a banana peel. ¡°Captain¡­¡± ¡°Of course.¡± The Major reached out again for another scalpel, apparently the tent was full of them, and this time pushed Justin against the cot. Justin, surprising himself and the two men, let it happen, more curious to see where this was going. ¡°Let¡¯s see how confident you are when I stick it here¡­¡± The Major¡¯s tone dripped with sadism as he found a gash in the armor. Behind it, Justin¡¯s skin was pristine and untouched, though if the lighting in the tent had been better than either of the two men might have seen that it was slightly tinted green. ¡°Hah!¡± The scalpel was stuck in, and quickly, the battalion¡¯s commander found his instrument of pain was lodged stuck. ¡°What?¡± ¡®What?¡¯ Justin looked down too, oddly enough he hadn¡¯t felt the puncture in his quad, though he had clearly seen the small blade go in. ¡®Wait a second¡­System!¡¯ [Status Effects: N/A] [Health: 10 / 10] Not only was he not bleeding, but his health hadn¡¯t decreased a bit! Either of the categories that would have told him beyond a doubt that he had sustained an injury both came up as normal. Along with that, he was continuing not to feel any sort of pain from the puncture. The Major quickly found another chink in his armor and attempted a puncture there, but again, there was no change. The instrument got lodged again. Justin looked at the man, then back at his system window, then at him again. ¡°¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±¡± The Major furrowed his brow. With an outstretched hand he took another blade and this time cut a straight deep line into a part of Justin¡¯s exposed flesh. ¡®Man it seems like there are a lot of scalpels in here.¡¯ This time, nothing was lodged, but all three men in the tent were even more confused. Rather than opening up and pouring out blood, Justin¡¯s wound had instead¡­unraveled. A sickly yellow gelatinous substance was exposed to the air, along with an unpleasantly sweet smell. ¡°What the fuck is that?¡± ¡°I-I think he¡¯s sick, Major!¡± The attendant responded. Judging from the color of his face he clearly was about to puke. ¡°Explain yourself, soldier! What the hell is¨C¡± All of a sudden a gray line came out of nowhere, passing by Justin¡¯s vision and making him blink. ¡°What did you say?¡± Justin asked, opening his eyes. The Major had got cut off midway through his speech but¡­ ¡®He¡¯s gone?¡¯ He had collapsed. Justin had blinked and the Major had fallen into a pool of blood beside the cot. Looking closer, a hole no bigger than one¡¯s finger was burrowed into his temple, yet there was no exit wound. ¡®A sniper? No. It¡¯s not from a gun.¡¯ Justin looked down the bed at his wounded foot, and was horrified to find something had emerged from the gelatinous membrane. A thin grayish green tentacle, ending in a puckered hole surrounded by razor-thin small teeth, was suspended in the air and pointing toward the remaining man in the tent. ¡®It¡¯s just like the Herald¡¯s.¡¯ Justin could¡¯ve recognized it anywhere after that fight. The thing that had emerged from him looked exactly like the thousands of tentacles the Scourge had used in their battle, and now one was coming from him. It dawned on him what the implications of his early theory were. ¡®If more like these are in my body, then that means the Herald¡¯s Corpus really is active and modifying my body to hold its soul when it couldn''t compete with my mind. But that was then, if it gets this advantage, it will only be another step before it can completely transform my Anima. My thoughts will be overridden, there won¡¯t be a Justin left anymore.¡¯ Justin looked direly at the Captain, who was cowering in the corner of the tent. Something was beginning to break inside Justin¡¯s mind, and it wasn¡¯t the work of the parasite. He knew what it was, and knew he had to do something about it immediately. Justin turned, speaking to the young captain with cold resolve. ¡°Do you want to live, or join him?¡± 5. Daemonic Body, Demonic Spirit The young man looked up at him, his lip trembling as he tried to understand Justin¡¯s question. ¡°J-join him?¡± The man¡¯s eyes fell to the corpse of his superior at the floor by Justin¡¯s feet, who was standing over him now. Of course looking by Justin¡¯s feet, his eyes could help but be drawn to the waxy grey tentacle that slithered through the air from his foot. The memory of watching it puncture through his superior¡¯s helmet seemed to replay behind his eyes. ¡°Captain¡­Captain! Look at me Captain, not at your Major.¡± The young man started to tremble. Justin was originally unsure with what he was about to do, but now that apprehension was replaced by disgust. Hadn¡¯t this man seen combat? He was supposed to be one of this planet¡¯s warriors, wasn¡¯t he? ¡°Captain! Look. At. Me!¡± Justin gripped the sides of the man¡¯s head, gently removing his star-inscribed helmet and tossing it on the cot behind him. He didn¡¯t want to make any more noise for those outside than he already had. Justin then cupped the man¡¯s ears, trying to keep him in place, and finding it relatively easy despite the physical protests from the commissioned officer. The man squirmed, as the tentacle coming from Justin seemed to move with his intentions, and writhe forward to the face of the young soldier. ¡®Harriet, forgive me for this.¡¯ ¡°Ah! AAAHHHHH-OPF!¡± The Captain started to scream out as the needle-like teeth of the tentacle began to burrow away, incising an access point through his pupil. Justin was forced to quickly change his grip to hold to the back of the man¡¯s head and cup his mouth to mute any more screaming. That ended up being a mistake, as the man in his resistance chomped down on Justin¡¯s hand, drawing more of the gelatinous interior into his mouth. Yet still, Justin didn¡¯t feel the pain he should have. Watching the tentacle from there form a passway into the Captain¡¯s brain, it only took a few more moments before the small resistance from the man quickly faded. His screams soon turned to mute acceptance as the color from his eyes faded to a corpse-like yellow. Justin backed away, feeling a refreshing wave come over his mind as the constant pressure on it suddenly decreased by a ton. Without warning, a system notification then popped up in his field of view. [Congratulations! From assimilating your first Host, you have leveled up!] [Unlocked: Stage Quests] [Unlocked: Biomass] [Unlocked: Skills] [Skill Learned: Assimilate (E-)] ¡­ [Level: 2] [Grade: E-] [Status Effects: N/A] [Race: Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [Attributes: 0 STR, 0 DEX, 1 END, 0 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 3] [Health: 10 / 10] [Stamina: 50 / 50] [CEL: 1 / 1] [Biomass: 0] [Skills: Assimilate (E-)] The information came like a gentle wave as it washed over Justin, who was more elated with the clearing of his headache than the sudden progression. But a few things caught his eye. ¡®Biomass. This would have no place in a volta¡¯s interface. I was right earlier, the system is treating me as if I¡¯m a daemon.¡¯ Daemons were, in the nomenclature of the galaxy, a catchall term for monstrous beings, grotesque creatures, and some creatures who lived in tribes or worshiped in primitive cults and made the far edges and isolated parts of the galaxy their home. The term was used widely, but generally it referred to the creatures in particular who had access to the system¡¯s interface. Like with voltas from humanoid and civilized societies, they were rare among their kind but had the potential to accumulate far more power than was natural. The Herald that Justin had encountered belonged to the system-wielding variety of daemon, of course. Its name in part represented its power, as the phenomenon of daemon heralds throughout the galaxy were said to take on the aspect of whatever cult they had emerged from, even sharing aspects from their god¡¯s symbolic powers to achieve whatever purpose they had been entrusted with. Because of everything that had happened, Justin had realized that the purpose of the herald they had fought had been to wipe out everything and everyone in the galaxy, and merge all of existence, or at least as much as it could manage, back into itself. Real chilling shit. And if Justin was remembering right, that kind of thing directly equated to the goal of one of the least forgiving cults in the galaxy, the Cult of Desolation. Though as a general rule Daemons had some access to the system¡¯s abilities, their interfaces were more malevolent and twisted than the ones humans and the other civilized races used. It appeared from his interface, that Justin was looking at one of these twisted Systems. He tried clicking on the description for the [Assimilate] skill, but got no responses. ¡®It¡¯s not reacting to my touch? Just like earlier, hmm¡­¡¯ As if sensing his intention again, the tentacle unburrowed itself from the man¡¯s skull and came up to his finger, wrapping around it in a gentle manner. Justin tried again, finding he could use the window this time. [Assimilate (E-)] [Skill: Implant a potential Host¡¯s brain with one or more seeds from an Origin to assimilate them into the hive. In order to be a potential Host, the subject must be living, carbon-based, and possess the capacity for sentience. Hosts with more than one Origin seed can implant their spare seeds into other potential hosts, perpetuating the hive. Full assimilation of a Host takes less time the closer it is to the Origin. Increasing skill grade will unlock more capabilities.]This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Like they had thought, this Herald would have had devastating capabilities if it had made contact with the native population. Though that had still sort of happened, Justin realized. The skill was terrifying, even among others he had heard about daemon¡¯s exhibiting. With it, he could technically take control of the entire encampment within a short while, if that¡¯s what it meant by ¡®perpetuating the hive¡¯. He looked at the other additions next. [Stage Quest: Assimilate at least (2) hosts from distinct suitable species.] [Time Left: 9:23:58:41] [Progress: 1 / 2] [Completion Reward: 5,000 Biomass] [Punishment for Failure: Level Lock] ¡®So there¡¯s the first of my stage quests, that''s normal at least. I don¡¯t know what biomass is, but I assume that¡¯s a lot of it.¡¯ Stage Quests were a feature of both kinds of systems, and required to complete if one wanted to continue their climb to power. They were given by the system at the beginning of every stage, and their failure always incurred a level lock. Like its name, the lock meant a permanent stagnation to gaining more levels, essentially locking someone at the level they had failed the mission at. Their strength could fall, but never rise past the stage they had been locked at. Given the increasing difficulty of Stage Quests, this was the primary reason the numbers of voltas and daemons thinned out in the higher stages. Whether monster or man, everyone was required to complete these quests once per stage. Justin scratched his chin while he thought, accidentally touching the tentacle to his face. He wiped away the waxy residue in mild disgust. While he was thinking, a shape rose up behind him in the tent, and instantly he felt a connection bloom somewhere in his mind. ¡®Woah. That¡¯s me?¡¯ Justin turned. The Captain turned. Both looked at one another as they shared the same thoughts. Justin¡¯s thoughts. ¡®This is incredible. What an unsettling sensation though, seeing myself from the perspective of another.¡¯ Justin held out a hand in both bodies, touching them together with perfect synchronicity. He suddenly realized that he could only feel the sensation of touch in the Captain¡¯s body, not in his own. Besides the parasite¡¯s tentacle wrapped around his finger. ¡®I suppose that means that my body isn¡¯t entirely converted yet, though much of the internals seem to be. What does that mean?¡¯ Justin was unsure. Was it possible that some tenacity of his body was still persevering against the parasite¡¯s influence? He had been close to breaking past the middle of the C grade before the fight, so it was possible. Though it could call back to the soul dualism theory. Justin had felt the pull of the parasite on his mind decrease by a lot the second he had assimilated the Captain, so he assumed it was related to his mind expanding. ¡®Like I thought, the mind outstrips the body easily. As long as I keep expanding, the rate at which my control wanes will slow down. That¡¯s it! I just need to keep expanding!¡¯ The proposition was both terrifying and greatly relieving. The very solution to his problem was the exact mission of the parasite if it were in his shoes, but Justin had control over it now. He would not expand carelessly, callously, as the parasite would have done. He was still himself, even if some parts had changed, and he would strive to keep it that way for as long as he could. Justin turned toward the Major¡¯s body. If there was anywhere to start, then it was inside this tent. [Subject not suitable as Host] [Consume Biomass?] [Y/N] It was because he was dead, Justin realized. He selected yes, watching the tentacle practically jump off of his finger and dive into the Major¡¯s body. [Skill Learned: Consume (E-)] [Consume (E-)] [Skill: Turn unusable and otherwise unsuitable subjects into biomass for the hive¡¯s benefit. At some point, collecting biomass will be even more important for a hivemind then expanding its influence, as every important node and component of the hive must be built from the material. In order to consume, the target must satisfy the following criteria: the target is not itself, the target is a carbon-based organic. The living status of targets is inconsequential, but the more decomposed or necrotic a source is, the less biomass that can be harvested.] ¡®I can still learn skills by experimenting. That¡¯s good.¡¯ A series of smacking and pumping noises continued as the tentacles ate through the Major¡¯s body and converted it into biomass, pumping the broken down flesh and bones back to their source. Belatedly, Justin realized that the ultimate destination of the commander¡¯s remains was his own body, and felt the urge to get sick in the corner of the tent. ¡®Alright, with that done, there¡¯s little time to waste. If I¡¯m going to remain in control, I have to keep expanding. These mental pressures I¡¯m experiencing will let me know when I¡¯m slipping.¡¯ Justin wiped his chin while thinking. Witnessing himself hurling both as in the perspective of the hurler and of an outsider still made him feel weird, and looking at the assimilated Captain he had just realized that body too had gotten sick. He made both clean themselves up. Why, he didn¡¯t know. But it felt wrong to leave the assimilated native standing there dirty. For better or worse, the Captain was a part of him now, a thread in his future tapestry. Even though he knew next to nothing about the man, that remained true. Which was another point. Unlike what the parasite had accomplished with Justin, there was no great schism of thought occurring in the mind of the native. His mind had been totally and completely subsumed, his brain now a vessel serving as another node for Justin¡¯s own. To think about it in technological terms, Justin, or the parasite inside of him, was the central controller over a network of other computers. That network only included the Captain and Justin¡¯s own body for now, but in the future as it growed, the parasite would still remain the center of the hivemind. What enabled Justin¡¯s control over the hivemind was his soul¡¯s weight against the parasite¡¯s. So long as he continued to hold sway over the individual being, he could use it to puppeteer an unknowable number of bodies underneath him. The system would work on its own, like a single computer holding sway over a vast network, guiding its movements. But Justin, thanks to this rare and complex situation, had the opportunity to sit down at that computer and manually input his own commands. As long as he stayed in the seat, he could control the network that included himself. So Justin didn¡¯t need to wrestle for control over the hivemind, just his own body. As long as he remained the Origin of the hive, the central node, control would be in his hands. By the time Justin had come to that conclusion, the Major had been reduced to no more than a heap of dirty fatigues, and of course his round helmet. The immediate need to plan for his future struck him, and Justin thought about what to do. ¡®Assimilating the rest of the encampment would be best, but there¡¯s risks. Ultimately, this battalion of soldiers is most likely just a forward attachment, sent to survey the condition of the specimen and establish an FOB. Before our operation we shut down the local satellites temporarily, but if I stick around for too long I could still risk encountering the reinforcements they send.¡¯ But at the same time, he needed to do the stage quest. He didn¡¯t want to help the parasite more than he already had, but if he stopped leveling he would hand over control regardless. The quest for his stage required him to assimilate at least one member from two different species, something that Justin wasn¡¯t completely sure was possible for him given his location. He was surrounded by a desert, true, but even then the system had strict requirements for what counted as a host. They had to be carbon-based, living, and have the potential to be sentient. The first two were obvious, and Justin would have no trouble finding a multitude of organisms fitting that description, the problem was the last requirement. Sentience was a scientific term, but the system¡¯s consideration of it was still up for debate. While there was a diverse swath of creatures across Lemus IV as much as any other planet, to his knowledge its civilization was only composed of one species. If there were other creatures that counted as sentient, or had the potential to be such, they would either be isolated away or be less intelligent than the natives. Like how a colony of ants or termites might be counted as a single organism on purpose, their sentience might be a technicality granted by the system¡¯s judgement. Regardless, he had a week to figure it out. For now he needed to capitalize on the resources around him, and continue to assimilate the camp. But it wasn¡¯t something he could do so aggressively, or all at once. Justin¡¯s body had been a volta, strengthened by the System. But he had lost a lot of accumulated benefits when he had died. Merely vestiges of his former strength remained, making him only a bit stronger than a normal man his size. ¡®I need a lure, some way to get a person isolated quickly enough. I can¡¯t wait for very long.¡¯ Justin¡¯s brow twitched. Actually, didn¡¯t he already have a lure? Justin looked at the man, who looked back at him. There was something intrinsic to his situation that Justin, having been a front-liner combatant most of his life, had easily missed. A new kind of strategy was available to him now, more suitable for a spy or assassin, but Justin only needed to start adapting his thinking to make use of it. 6. Doing Your Homework Outside of the white medical tent, there hadn¡¯t been a sound for a few minutes. The guard on duty had been trying to listen in previously, just out of pure curiosity and boredom rather than any actual suspicion, but now couldn¡¯t help but actively lean in closer in attempts to hear something. FWWSH The tent flap suddenly opened, startling the guard who hadn¡¯t been expecting anyone. ¡°Uh¡­Captain Browne? How can I help you, sir?¡± The soldier knew he shouldn¡¯t have addressed his superior before he spoke, but he couldn¡¯t help it when the man had suddenly turned to face him only a couple feet away. The man just nodded to himself, the soldier wasn¡¯t sure why completely, but it felt as if the Captain had learned or remembered something. ¡°How much longer are you on guard for, soldier?¡± ¡°About twenty more minutes sir, then my shift changes and Private Harrison should be replacing me.¡± The Captain stroked his chin. ¡°Alright, leave your rifle and helmet with me and go inside the tent.¡± That warranted an eyebrow raise. ¡°My helmet too, sir?¡± But even though it was a strange order, the guard realized he shouldn¡¯t have questioned it. He merely shut up and gave his equipment over to the Captain. Justin, through the eyes of Browne, watched as the man entered the tent, exiting one field of his vision and entering the next. Captain Browne then left the proximity of the medical tent and started to look around the encampment, searching for one structure in particular. A lucky benefit of Justin¡¯s circumstances, as it had turned out, was that he had assimilated one of the highest-ranking members of this battalion, and had killed the only guy he was supposed to report to in the vicinity. That gave Justin¡¯s mind in the Captain¡¯s body pretty much unrestricted access around the camp. So long as he didn¡¯t run into anyone who knew the Captain too well. Who that was would be hard to determine since he didn¡¯t have anything like convenient access to his hosts¡¯ memories. ¡®There. Early space-age radio station. Primitive technology, but it shows they¡¯re not too far away from developing early FTL. Maybe a few decades or a hundred years at most¡¯ ¡®Captain Browne¡¯ walked into a large rectangular tent that had a satellite dish sticking out of the top. In the desert, far away from the rest of the countries¡¯ main inhabited centers, it was what they were using to communicate with top brass. ¡°Hey, Browne. How¡¯s Sark?¡± As soon as he entered the tent, one of the men there immediately spoke up. ¡®Fuck.¡¯ Justin thought. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid. If the similar epaulettes and uniform were any indication, this man was also a captain, and likely knew this host somewhat well. He could blow it right here if he wasn¡¯t careful. ¡®But who is Sark? The¡­Major?¡¯ ¡°Irritable today. You know how it is¡­¡± Without knowing precisely how Browne usually acted around the other soldiers, Justin went with a neutrally friendly approach, something he quickly had second thoughts about when he saw the confused look on the other Captian¡¯s face. ¡°Oh¡­yeah. Yeah he sounded pretty uptight on the comms over here. Guess a ¡®war hero¡¯ wouldn¡¯t be too happy with being assigned to the Jejune no matter what they found here.¡± Thankfully the other man didn¡¯t seem to think his behavior was too unusual, as he quickly resumed talking to Justin in a casual manner. ¡°Well okay then, I¡¯ve got to do something in the tent now, you know, Major¡¯s orders¡­¡± Justin had never been so awkward in his life, it seemed, but the other soldier appeared to understand something. Whatever it was, it involved the context of their battalion that Justin had no way of knowing. ¡°Alright, see you around. As long as you¡¯re here I can leave. Don¡¯t need more than two of us in the communications tent. Soon as you¡¯re done, holler at Henderson to replace you. God knows that guy hasn¡¯t done anything since we arrived.¡± ¡°Sure thing.¡± Justin breathed a sigh of relief as he was finally left alone in the tent. Well, actually, he wasn¡¯t totally alone. There was a single other soul left in the tent. A radio operator engrossed in the station that had been set up underneath the dish. He gave a quick salute to Justin before putting his headphones back on.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Justin closed the tent. ¡­ Back in the white medical tent, Justin¡¯s main body was now looking at itself once again. The Major¡¯s body, after fully converting it from dead flesh to what the system abstractly called biomass, gave him one of those units. As such, Justin was able to realize that completing the stage quest would give him the equivalent biomass of consuming around five thousand people, but he was still unsure of whether that would be helpful. Stage Quests usually were, as their purpose was rewarding people with potential to grow and restrict those without, but Justin had also never seen a daemon¡¯s system before. Regardless, he had been given attribute points to invest after his level up, and it had come time to address them. Up until now he had avoided investing them for fear of the ramifications, but as he could only access the system through his main body, he felt secure enough in exploring the system partially. [Level: 3] [Grade: E-] [Status Effects: N/A] [Race: Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [Attributes: 2 STR, 3 DEX, 1 END, 1 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 0] [Health: 10 / 10] [Stamina: 80 / 80] [CEL: 1 / 1] [Biomass: 0] [Skills: Assimilate (E-), Consume (E-)] Ultimately Justin had to keep survival in mind before he could think about something as luxurious as specializing, that was why he had invested mostly in dex, which raised the stamina of the system user, and could make them more agile. It was odd, knowing that he was managing the system of someone, or something else, but that was precisely why he hadn¡¯t invested in intelligence or endurance. Justin felt both those stats carried the risk of making the parasite in his brain healthier or more intelligent, and possibly subverting his own control. He didn¡¯t understand the idea of the soul fully, so he couldn¡¯t take the chance that the system was able to influence something like that, which Justin knew was more likely than not. So the spare points were spent mostly for the sake of strengthening the tentacles he had control over. They would make assimilation faster than it already was, which could be vital to him in a pinch. Though the cost of this was an increased burden on his body. No matter what he increased in the system menu, the parasite inside him would grow stronger, a problem he would have to address sooner rather than later given its innate physical superiority to his human body. Like voltas, daemon¡¯s abilities were based around stats, however they didn¡¯t have classes like voltas. Their relative strength worked entirely off of their innate racial attributes, and revolved around race evolutions instead of class promotions. Though as simple as that sounded, even then it could become more complex. Typically, voltas unlocked the ability to subclass after reaching the A grade, but for daemons it was different. He had heard of both unique evolutions occurring for some higher level daemons. Special bloodlines, or ones given a specific purpose even had access to strange powers, like taking on the abilities of elements or ideas. This could have been the path of the Herald¡¯s progression had Justin¡¯s team never arrived. His guild, Seventh Heaven, was only in the mid levels of strength in the galaxy though, and took on contracts belonging to the C grade or below. That made them giants around civilians, but his team had never come into contact with anything stronger than the upper realm of C+ on purpose. Seeing how their last contract turned out however, he realized even that hadn¡¯t been cautious enough. Regardless, with the parasite¡¯s racial characteristics, Justin could hardly guess what could happen in the future. For now though, he would just focus on remaining in control. ¡°Hey, coming in¡­oh?¡± Just as he was paying attention to his system, he heard a noise from the front of the tent. Doctor Meyers was suddenly met with the focused gazes of Justin and the guard, who had turned in unison to assess him. ¡°Uh¡­is that you Private Randall? Can¡¯t really tell with your hat like that.¡± The doctor scratched his head. Thinking it odd perhaps that the soldier had on a hat from the medical tent instead of his helmet. ¡°How¡¯s our guest doing? Did the Major order you to take care of him or something? Speaking of which, where is Major Sark?¡± The Doctor looked around in confusion for a moment, before his gaze met with the pile of clothes on the floor. His expression suddenly drained. ¡°Aren¡¯t those¡­?¡± As he looked up, he caught the side of the guard¡¯s head next to Justin, where a now-dried leakage of blood had clearly trickled from. It had been dripping from the hole in the side of the guard¡¯s head, which Justin had carved to assimilate him. It was now covered by a hat, but he hadn¡¯t had time yet to wipe off the blood stain. In combination, these two oddities made the doctor all too fretful for his own good, and he quickly turned white as a sheet as he thought of possible explanations. Just as he was beginning to back out of the tent slowly, the broad form of someone¡¯s chest bumped him from behind. ¡°Ah?! Captain Browne!¡± HOCAK! Doctor Meyers¡¯ widened eyes rolled to the back of his head as he was impaled by a tendril coming from the Captain¡¯s wrist. Before he could fall however, the guard quickly approached him from behind and stuck a swollen finger in his ear. His body writhed as it instinctively attempted to fight back against the insertion of the hive seedling, but ultimately the struggle was in vain. Like the rest of the tent¡¯s occupants, his eyes finally glazed over to a pale yellow after a moment, and he slowly stood back up. ¡°¡°¡°¡°Alright¡­oh?¡±¡±¡±¡± The four men in the tent stopped speaking just as soon as they had started. Justin had accidentally spoken through all of his bodies, including the two in the comms tent. Yes, that was right. Justin had given the Captain¡¯s body two seeds, one to implant within someone in the communications center of the encampment, which happened to be the tent the satellite was under, and one more for that person to implant within someone else. The other host had ended up being the Captain that had been spoken about, someone named Henderson. He had been slovenly and careless upon arriving at the tent, and his lazy nature had made it easy for the radio controller to gain the upper hand in assimilating him. Now Justin had access to the camp¡¯s communications, and their medical supplies. All that was left was to take the armory. With two captains taken care of, out of the four total in the camp, each leading each company of 250 men, he had more than enough prepared to carry out the next step of his plan. 7. Strangulation It had gotten late in the day since the battalion had set up near the corpse. Since their encampment had been set up as a temporary site mostly intended to defend the sample, it hadn¡¯t been built yet with ¡®aroma dynamics¡¯ in mind. Luckily for the entire battalion, the corpse had yet to smell, which was as puzzling as it was fortunate. Most of the soldiers were thanking their respective gods for this fact but some had their minds occupied with more secular matters. Like for instance, why new orders hadn¡¯t been radioed into the camp since nearly midday. If that wasn¡¯t strange enough, the medical tent had suddenly run out of supplies, and any soldier that so much as stubbed their toe or burned their hand on a piece of equipment was denied treatment. In a camp of more than one thousand men, word about the strange events got around quickly. Especially when everyone could see Doctor Meyers¡¯ assistants walking through the camp. Who instead of treating the mildly injured or those who had gotten sick in the desert heat, were making treks over to the crater at the center of camp to chip away parts of the specimen. Those same parts were then carried back to the white medical tent, which didn¡¯t make sense in anyone¡¯s eyes seeing as the hulking corpse was more than three times the size of the tent itself. They¡¯d surely run out of space before long. It got so out of hand, that rumors about what they were actually doing in the tent started to fly around until the guard in front of the tent was approached by a small group of soldiers. ¡°Hey, Randall. What¡¯s going on with the medics?¡± ¡°Yeah, why can¡¯t anyone go inside the tent?¡± The guard stationed there was their friend, or at least someone many of the soldiers gathered knew and felt they could talk casually with. They looked at him questioningly, not expecting him to stonewall them. ¡°Haven''t any of you worked on a blacksite before? You have your orders, go fulfill them.¡± But they were wrong. As when the soldier gave them a hard look and told them to go away, they felt like the man they had known had turned into a different person. ¡°Private Randall?¡± Someone stepped out of the group, an officer if indicated by his uniform¡¯s style, which put him ahead of Randall by a few years of experience at least. ¡°Yes, officer?¡± Private Randall intoned politely, much to the confusion of others. The officer furrowed his brows. He wasn¡¯t agitated or shocked by the man¡¯s tone of voice, but confused. He hadn¡¯t saluted or even said his name after his rank, something he had expected the private to do. After all, the officer was the one who directly oversaw Randall¡¯s unit. He knew the young private better than most, though not quite as well as his squadmates, and was shocked to see his behavior. ¡°Private Randall, under whose orders do you block the entry to our camp¡¯s medical facility?¡± ¡°Major Sark¡¯s, sir.¡± This time the private did salute, but that¡¯s what made it odd. He had just asked a question, and saluting during that was nowhere near the normal response. It was almost as if the Private was acting like a stranger to their military etiquette. Did he think he was supposed to salute when he spoke of someone of high rank, even if they weren¡¯t present? That was a foreign idea to the officer. ¡°Can you tell me exactly what he said, Private?¡± A faint wobble entered the officer¡¯s voice. He was starting to feel unsure. It felt like something was off, could he be wrong? Where was the Major, anyway? ¡°He said no man aside from Doctor Meyers and his medical crew, Captain Browne, and Captain Henderson are to be allowed inside.¡± ¡°Just those two Captains? Did he say why?¡± To the officer¡¯s knowledge those two Captains had no similarities in their assigned tasks, besides working under the Major from time to time. They led completely different companies, so what could they have to do with the medical tent? The officer wondered. ¡°Apologies, sir. That¡¯s all that I know.¡± ¡°Hmm. Alright, carry on then, Private.¡± The officer began to walk away. Members of the squad underneath him catching up to him along the way. ¡°Don¡¯t you think there was something off back there, sir?¡± ¡°Sir, there was definitely something creepy about that. I think they¡¯re lying to Randall about whatever it is, though.¡± ¡°I think Randall¡¯s a part of it.¡± ¡°Man, what would you know? You don¡¯t know Randall like I do!¡± ¡°Sabertooth Company, settle down!¡± The officer turned back to the arguing soldiers once they were a good distance away. He didn¡¯t want to be overheard in case anything was really going on, so he had led them all the way across the camp, over by the comms tent.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! ¡°I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on with Private Randall or Doctor Meyers¡¯ men, but I do know that the Private was at least right in that you have your orders. All of you, go back to your positions and continue as normal, I don¡¯t want to hear any more of this, you understand!¡± ¡°¡°¡°Yes, sir.¡±¡±¡± ¡­ A few more hours had passed in the camp, and the sun had already set on the horizon. Justin¡¯s main body was currently occupied in the medical tent where it hadn¡¯t left yet, looking at the boxes of dark flesh being carried in by the Doctor¡¯s assistants. The men in question had all been assimilated earlier, of course, which was made much easier by the fact that he had Meyer¡¯s in his control, and knew somewhat how he acted. That had made collecting the assistants one by one without raising suspicion much easier. It was all around easier to assimilate a person he already knew well, he had realized. Browne, Randall, and even Henderson all had things about them that made them who they are, quirks of their personalities. Over the past few hours Justin had already run into countless awkward scenarios where it would have been easier to have learned what those were beforehand. ¡®That¡¯s why it¡¯ll be so much nicer when everyone¡¯s assimilated and I don¡¯t have to stress about this anymore.¡¯ Justin sighed as he picked up a box of the dark flesh. Wait. Had he really just thought that? Justin frowned. He had surprised himself with how callous that thought just was. When he finally assimilated everyone? Wasn¡¯t he only doing this because he needed to? Yes, that was right, he was forced to assimilate everyone in the camp, he didn¡¯t want to. Not by any means. Justin looked down at the box. Over the past few hours he had been intercepting the radio transmission to the camp, and according to the government official on the other line, they were preparing to send reinforcements to assist in the study of the ¡®high-value biological asset¡¯. Code for the Herald¡¯s corpse. Though they obviously didn¡¯t know that¡¯s what it was. Satellites had yet to come online to make visuals, thankfully. So Justin had steered the conversation between the radio operator he had assimilated and the government official away from the immediate reinforcement of the area. By stating that they had incurred no casualties or interference upon landing, he had given high command the confidence to send the research team among the next batch of reinforcements as well. That would delay their arrival time until tomorrow, but in their eyes it would theoretically speed up the overall project by a lot. By skipping what could be a week or more of preparations for the science team¡¯s arrival, they could get to work sooner. Unfortunately to accomplish all of this, Justin had been forced to interact in a confident and assured manner over the radio, which had limited his ability to glean more intelligence about the country he was in, and all he learned was a little bit about the desert he was in, plus the names of a bunch of organizations that were just acronyms and hadn¡¯t made any sense. But this desert, the Jejune, was a diverse landscape not in biome but fauna. Apparently across the whole of Lemus there were a variety of strange creatures that existed outside the bounds of civilization, boasting capabilities similar to their small-to-medium weapons. The Jejune was apparently one such location for these mutant beasts to roam, which was why a whole battalion had been sent in when the scientific importance of the specimen still had yet to be determined. The description of the beasts had been brief over the comms, but reminded Justin of the racial abilities that daemons had, obviously without access to the system though. Perhaps similar in idea, though without the system they were undoubtedly far less lethal. Otherwise the ruling population of this planet would have been them. Justin had yet to come to a conclusion on what to make of the new information, before he decided to cut the rest of the camp from the radio and start to crate away pieces of the Herald for himself. What he did need to understand quickly was any possible benefits this new biomass concept held for him. Half a dozen grey tentacles erupted from the sides of Justin¡¯s arms and his wrist as he held the ball of the Herald¡¯s flesh in front of him. He had found the daemon¡¯s corpse to be far more efficient for breaking down into biomass than the native¡¯s bodies were, even though it was much, much tougher. To compensate, he had dumped the free points from his recent levels into strength and dexterity again, and had used his newest skill to spurn more tendrils from wounds in his arms. The Herald was a Grade C+ daemon, which meant that its cellular energy level, or CEL, was extremely high compared to Justin¡¯s own. CEL itself was the measured energy content of an organism¡¯s cells, usually expressed as a parts-per-million number by the system. Justin had a CEL of just under four hundred before his death, leaving him close to the boundary between stages within the upper C grade. With his team at a comparable level to him, they had together been able to jump levels multiple times against opponents in the higher stage. Each system user was graded in the same way, even daemons. With CEL as a basis, they went from the bottom of the E grade, all the way to D, C, B, and A. Though C grade was the middle of the pack, the number of voltas who were in the grade were far fewer than those in D and E. Still, strength couldn¡¯t be overcome purely by numbers. To a civilian, a C-grade volta was a titan among men, but compared to the true hegemons they could be considered as influential as an ant. These deviations of strength grew precipitously as one ascended the ladder of grades, eventually becoming exponential. Yet still, even across the three stages of each grade they were noticeable. The Herald¡¯s physical body for instance, was much tougher than Justin¡¯s ever was, while it had only been a stage higher. That had been the case even when its species hadn''t specialized in physical defense. Anything in the C grades was immune to most conventional weaponry, like bullets or blades, so for Justin to collect biomass from the corpse he had to get creative. If the Herald were still alive and its cell structure active, Justin wouldn¡¯t have been able to breach its hide even if he were to spend the next dozen levels dumping his stats into strength. Yet because it was dead, and there seemed to be some kind of connection between his parasitic tendrils and the corpse of the Herald, he was able to absorb it into himself with a great deal of effort. It took Justin several minutes just to get through the chunks he could hold in his hands, but the rewards were high. [Level: 5] [Grade: E-] [Status Effects: N/A] [Race: Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [Attributes: 5 STR, 6 DEX, 1 END, 1 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 0] [Health: 10 / 10] [Stamina: 110 / 110] [CEL: 1 / 1] [Biomass: 403] [Skills: Assimilate (E-), Consume (E-)] The reward in terms of biomass was incredible. The equivalent of several hundred adult corpses from just a few crates of flesh. Of course, he hadn¡¯t just been sitting on his hands for the last few hours. Among screwing with the radio operators, assimilating more people had jumped up his level. But the exchange was no longer one-to-one. No, his most recent levels had required him to assimilate more than just one person to increase, so his rate of expansion had slowed down precipitously. Still though, he was climbing far higher and quicker than he had ever before. It was only the very beginning of the E grade, but Justin had never heard of a system being leveled so fast by anyone, user or daemon. In spite of his own situation, Justin wondered with some excitement what level he could get to by the end of the night. 8. Search Party In one of the tents on the outer edge of the camp, the commanders of the battalion had gathered, despite it being the residence of a simple company of soldiers. Among the group were the two remaining Captains that Justin had yet to assimilate. They both wore troubled expressions. ¡°Captain, you wanted to say something?¡± One of them turned to the other at the front of the group. The man nodded and stood up. Stretching out the bottom of his uniform, he cleared his throat. ¡°It¡¯s clear that something has gotten into the Major, who has confined himself in the medical tent for the past seven hours. Ordinarily, I wouldn¡¯t raise suspicion at mere eccentricities like this, and it''s also possible he could have fallen ill, but the fact remains that we are currently carrying out a mission of national importance and our only orders have come from Captain Browne, who was only promoted to his station shortly before this mission. It¡¯s clear to me that these events have also caused some dissatisfaction to arise within our shared companies, have they not?¡± An officer stood up. ¡°Indeed. I find myself more than unsettled by the fact that the medical facilities of our camp have suddenly been shut down without much of an explanation! Am I alone in finding this to be suspicious?¡± ¡°Not at all!¡± ¡°Definitely not!¡± ¡°Quite the opposite!¡± Grumbles of agreement came from around the tent. The captain at the front scratched his chin, nodding along as more officers stood up to voice their grievances. A split unit was never a good thing, especially when it undermined the authority of the commanding officer. Yet, when a difference of opinion threatened their operation, as it was beginning to with the Major¡¯s lack of appearance, something had to be done. This wasn¡¯t about optics or policy anymore, but ensuring that the mission was carried out. Eventually the Captain noticed a theme in the complaints brought up, and spoke again, quieting the group of officers. ¡°Alright, it seems that the common conclusion is that our lack of access to medical supplies is the most critical. Our stay in the Jejune will be hazardous, no doubt about it. I don¡¯t want our men getting gangrene just because the med tent is closed, or falling into some crater and not having the facilities to be patched up. I propose we start there, and that a few of us first visit Doctor Meyers to voice our concerns.¡± The tent full of officers agreed. They would send a few of the men in this tent as a courtesy to express their thoughts to the Doctor and the Major, if they didn¡¯t hear them out, well¡­then they might have to radio high command in that case. That would reflect poorly on their collaborative capabilities, but it was for the sake of their soldiers. ¡°Alright, Officers Johnson, Lukas, and Davoss, you¡¯re with me.¡± ¡­ Meanwhile, in the white tent, Justin was furrowing his brow as he watched an exchange on the other side of the camp through the eyes of Captain Henderson. ¡®They won¡¯t even let a Captain through? Damn, I might have made an error by killing the Major instead of the Captain.¡¯ Justin rubbed his chin, contemplating how to get into the armory if that was the case. He had a tight window before reinforcements would show up to the camp, so he couldn¡¯t take his time if he wanted to assimilate as much of the battalion as possible. Something he knew was a necessity, if he wanted to gain as many levels as possible to give himself a fighting chance. However if he started brazenly assimilating the soldiers, suspicion would quickly devolve into open conflict, due to his still low level and expertise with the act. Something like that, he could only prepare for if he had access to enough arms, and bodies with which to wield them. But there was a system in place for the armory that required a keycard to open the gun cases, and Justin had no idea who had it. The likely case was that it was one of the remaining Captains, as he had already searched thoroughly through the Major¡¯s things and there had surprisingly been no such object. But the two Captains left right now were surrounded by a lot of armed soldiers, and Justin had no good way of getting close to them or isolating one of them without appearing more suspicious. Justin was not an idiot, even if he fumbled at times due to his inexperience with controlling a network of minds. He knew that the soldiers had started to suspect something, even if their guesses were still wildly off from reality. ¡®Either way, I have to act soon, and perhaps openly. I can either leave now with my small network and risk starving in this desert or being hunted down, or I attempt to gather a larger force and risk annihilation in an open conflict with the remaining battalion or the reinforcements.¡¯If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Neither option filled him with glee, but Justin had experience in making hard decisions. ¡®Ultimately I can¡¯t risk¡­¡¯ ¡°Major Sark?¡± ¡®Hmm?¡¯ Justin¡¯s trail of thought was interrupted by a sudden voice from outside the tent. It was one he didn¡¯t recognize, which was odd, considering his network of bodies had been fanning out over the camp for the last few hours and listening to conversations. There were not many left who he hadn¡¯t made some mental note about, now that he had learned the importance of doing his research ahead of time. Justin was about to open his mouth to respond, but realized the issue at hand. Of course he couldn¡¯t speak as himself, no one here knew him! He was an outsider, only capable of raising more suspicion. But the Major was dead, so he couldn¡¯t entirely mask his actions. He had to put on a show. Justin¡¯s focus left his own body, reemerging in Captain Browne¡¯s, who had been standing idly right next to him. ¡°This is Captain Browne, the Major¡¯s not here. Who is it?¡± Justin waited for a moment, but it was clear there was some hesitation from outside, whoever had spoken was likely one of the suspicious members of the camp. What they were thinking about, he couldn¡¯t guess, but he couldn¡¯t let them catch a glimpse of his main body. At this point a mass of writhing tendrils had sprouted out from nearly all the broken sections of his armor, causing a creaking noise to ring out whenever he moved from the stress the metal was under. He had no way to appear remotely like a native, or even his former self now. So ¡®Captain Brown¡¯ approached the tent¡¯s flap after hearing no response, extricating himself from the interior while being careful not to reveal the other side. He was then face-to-face with a group of four individuals, all of whom wore unsure expressions, save for their frontrunner. ¡°Is there a problem¡­Captain?¡± Justin could at least tell that much from the man¡¯s uniform. ¡°Captain Browne, where is the Major?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure, I haven¡¯t seen him in several hours. Why are you looking for him?¡± The other Captain furrowed his brow. He felt a slight chill run up his spine from the dispassionate and precise way Browne spoke. ¡°Doctor Meyers, is he in there?¡± ¡°Ah, no. The Doctor is probably near the crater, examining the specimen with his team. Is there an issue?¡± Meyers was actually at the crater with his team at the moment, so let someone try to find fault with that. ¡°Browne¨C¡± The Captain stated as he dropped formalities. ¡°---You¡¯re aware that the medical tent has been closed off from the rest of camp?¡± Browne gave a quick backward glance. ¡°The same tent you just emerged from, yes. The same tent that many of us saw the Major enter, but never leave. That tent.¡± The Captain pointed behind Browne. ¡®Of course I¡¯m aware, but I can¡¯t have anyone entering while I¡¯m in here, can I?¡¯ ¡°Captain, is there such an issue? We¡¯ve only just set up camp, I don¡¯t believe the facilities here should be in such demand?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not the issue, Browne. It¡¯s the Major¡¯s absence. We¡¯re hours away from reinforcements and we¡¯ve received no word from the upper brass or our own battalion commander! Browne, you have to see how this concerns the soldiers here, don¡¯t you?¡± The man emphatically replied, his face getting more heated. One of the officers behind him took the opportunity to add on. ¡°And that wounded foreigner was taken in there too, wasn¡¯t he? What¡¯s his status? How come there¡¯s no updates on that?¡± The group of men started to argue further, prodding Browne backward until they were nearly up against the tent¡¯s entrance. Browne¡¯s slender frame remained the only barrier to their entry. ¡°Let us through, Captain!¡± ¡°This is a matter of mission security and morale! There is something going on in there, isn¡¯t there?¡± Justin was at a loss for words. How had they found out so quickly? Seeing the situation devolve so rapidly in front of him was like watching a sandcastle be swept away by the sea, and he knew it was only a couple of seconds until they charged in and saw the wriggling mass of his main body. By that time, conflict would be unavoidable. The wretched second option¡­it looked like life chose it for him. ¡°I can¡¯t¨C! Wait¡­¡± Browne¡¯s eyes suddenly lasered in on one shape poking out of the vest of the furious Captain. That was it, the keycard! The major must have entrusted it to this very suspicious and willful man, Justin realized. A few thoughts suddenly went through his head, which quickly turned into a kind of makeshift plan. ¡®This could work, but I have to be fast, and things are going to turn heated. It''s become unavoidable.¡¯ At the same time, a small collective of individuals spread throughout the camp suddenly stopped whatever they were doing and began moving toward one location; all while the face of Captain Browne broke into a faux resignation. ¡°Alright, fine. You want to go in, Captain? Then go in. But as you¡¯ll be interrupting the Major¡¯s project at your own risk, I won¡¯t have anything to do with it.¡± Browne suddenly stepped aside, leaving the four men who had been berating him for access baffled. That confusion only lasted for a moment though, as their leader quickly flung open the flag and stepped through. In the short moments that followed, eight pairs of eyes widened in horror as a flurry of serrated tentacles descended upon them. Their impulses to scream cut short by the rapid implanting of squirming seeds into their heads. 9. Faces of Death It was inevitable that as soon as a series of gunshots and screams erupted from somewhere in the camp, every soldier around was alerted at once. Nearly instantly, officers gathered their companies and raced toward the white tent where the disturbance had originated. Captain Gerber had been one of the first to arrive, knowing who had set off in the direction of the tent beforehand, he realized his colleague had likely just met their demise. If the blood spray visible from the outside of the white canvas was anything to go by, all four commanders had met their end within, which finally confirmed that something was going on here. Captain Gerber realized he was probably the last official fit to lead the battalion, and made a series of judgment calls inside his mind that would forever be known only to him. At once, his expression evened out and he addressed the companies present. ¡°Bobcat company, fall back to the radio station to alert brass: the Major and three Captains have been compromised by an indeterminable force. Redhorse, Wintergreen, and Sabertooth companies: keep your weapons trained on that tent!¡± He shouted over the hundreds of men, some who were still arriving. At his words, several dozen peeled off from the main group while the rest found cover and vantage points encircling the tent, hundreds of flashlights shot their beams into the canvas. Due to its thickness, a silhouette could hardly be seen, but Gerber quickly realized that only two individuals were present within. ¡°Occupants of the medical tent, this is Captain Gerber! Come out unarmed with your hands raised within the next five seconds or we will open fire!¡± Gerber¡¯s shout had long been known to carry steel with it, and paired with a command that left no room to negotiate, no one in the battalion doubted his words. Every member of the battalion of soldiers knew he would make good on that statement, those who had served directly under him even more so, and were the first to turn their rifle safeties'' off. The question was whether the tent¡¯s occupants knew that. Gerber¡¯s eyes hardened as he waited for any response from the tent, or even for the silhouettes to move, but nothing happened. Eventually he nodded to the man next to him, who raised his voice into a loudspeaker in front of him with practiced rigidity. ¡°Five!¡­Four!¡­Three!¡­Two!¡­One!¡­¡± ¡°--Captain Gerber, what¡¯s going on here?!¡± The countdown was interrupted as he and the Captain both looked to their sides, where a familiar face had arrived. Gerber eyed the arrival cautiously, still not sure of his involvement in whatever this situation was. It was the tent¡¯s provisional owner who had come, the battalion¡¯s head doctor. ¡°Doctor Meyers, this is a military matter, please keep your assistants and yourself at an appropriate distance for your own safety.¡± Gerber looked around for an officer to direct the doctor away. ¡°Surely you don¡¯t mean to fire upon my tent, do you? There¡¯s valuable equipment in there! Records of progress we¡¯ve made on the specimen as well! The reinforcements arriving tomorrow will surely want to take a look at those, don¡¯t you think?¡± The Captain was focusing on getting an officer over, when something made him pause. ¡°Arriving tomorrow? You¡¯re mistaken, Doctor. The reinforcements are expected to come tonight. As soon as possible. Regardless, how would you¡­¡± BOOOM All of a sudden a flash of blinding light erupted within the group of soldiers, scattering rock debris and flesh in all directions. The Captain and several others attempted to shield their eyes from the flying rocks while their minds failed to adjust in time to what was happening. BOOOM Another explosion tore apart the companies, detonating directly on top of one of the tented barracks. Gerber wiped the ash from his eyes. Shock fell upon his face. ¡°Mortar fire? Where fr¨Cour mortars?!¡± He jumped down from his elevated position, pushing past the doctor to address the recovering battalion. ¡°Someone¡¯s accessed the armory! All companies push to the southwest!¡± ¡°Oorah!¡± The hundreds of soldiers all composed themselves upon hearing his orders and shouted in unison. Tearing off toward one side of the camp, their march was quickly slowed as they came under mortar fire at nearly point-blank distance. ¡°What in the¨Cit¡¯s our own soldiers!?¡± Gerber cursed as he finally got visual on the mortar crews. He even recognized some of them. He realized that as he raised his rifle at the hill that the guns were positioned on. Spies? Traitors? Or dissenters? What had compelled them to kill their own comrades? Gerber¡¯s usually calm mind was churning for the first time in years as he fired upon the artillery crews, placing a round expertly through the skull of one of them before emptying his magazine at another. All of that took place in less than a minute, before the mortar fire was then drowned out by machine guns on another rocky hill. He turned at the noise, and his face went pale despite his conditioned calm. There were more traitors than Gerber could anticipate, and they had already set up a flank on the other side of the camp. Raining down machine gun fire on top of their already-shelled out position, bodies accumulated in their ranks. The tents had provided no cover against the belt-fed guns or shrapnel explosives. Numerous as they were, armed with just simple rifles the battalion couldn¡¯t hold out for long as the night sky roared with thunder, cracking apart in shades of orange and red.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡­ Never in Gerber¡¯s life had he ever considered himself a religious man. Decades of military education and even longer spent in the fiery mires of war had robbed him of whatever part of his mind might have believed in a benevolent god. But as he knelt on the ground, his face inches from kissing the blood-slicked stones of the Jejune, a terrible feeling stirred in his stomach. For just a moment, he forgot the cold metal of the rifle pressed against his head. Bearing witness to the indescribable silhouette on the other side of the medical tent, now lit by the fires of the surrounding camp, after nearly fifty years he felt that something beyond their understanding might exist. Whatever it was, the thing responsible for the bloodshed today, it was far from the benevolent creator that the churches and temples of the world venerated. No, it was an angry thing. A monstrosity of twisting vines that echoed an orchestra of wet snapping and dreadful yawns. Not a god, but a demon. By the time Justin stepped out of the tent with his main body, after more than half a day of isolation from the rest of the camp, Captain Gerber¡¯s mind was already close to breaking. Noticing the whimpering of the survivors, Justin sent them a curious glance that was shortly followed by a hundred other pairs of glazed yellow eyes. By now, Justin was finding it hard to get around in his main body with just his two legs. So many tentacles had sprouted from beneath the cracks in his armor whether he wanted them to or not, that he was actually physically impeded from walking around. Don¡¯t misunderstand, it wasn¡¯t that they were too dense, but that they physically cast too wide of a berth around him to venture into most structures. If he had stayed in the tent for another hour more, perhaps he would have had to cut himself out. That was why he had brought the remaining soldiers of the battalion before him. Also because he wanted to ask questions in person, and not through the mouth of one of the hosts. Despite everything that had happened today, in his mind he still identified himself as Justin, not the collective. Justin was afraid that if he was careless, that distinction might blur with time, so he wanted to keep acting with the individual in mind, to retain his sense of identity. ¡°What position do you hold in your military?¡± Justin intoned his question evenly, or so he thought. When he actually spoke to the terrified Captain it sounded more like a corpse-like warble. ¡°M-my position? I-it¡¯s, or I-I¡¯m a ca-captain.¡± Justin nodded. At least he knew that much, but he wanted to make sure there would be no games played here. ¡°And to what country do you owe your allegiance? Describe it.¡± The man¡¯s face paled, though Justin had no idea why. He was hardly asking for state secrets, he just wanted to know where he was on Lemus IV. Yes, yes, he knew this desert was called the Jejune, but they hadn¡¯t done much background research on the natives, or well¡­he was sure Harriet had, he just hadn¡¯t asked. Based on the answer he might at least learn roughly where he was. ¡°D-do you n-not know that?¡± The captain slowly raised his head, to which one of the assimilated soldiers responded by pressing it down against the desert surface once more. Was Justin imagining it, or had his tone changed from fearful to hopeful? He scowled. Without a word, the soldier who had just pressed the Captain¡¯s face down picked it back up, before turning it to the side where another captive officer was kneeling into the desert stone. He was someone who had commanded one of the companies that had fought back against Justin just a few minutes ago, but the only notable distinction between him and the Captain in Justin¡¯s eyes, besides their obvious difference in rank, was that the officer was much more terrified by the visage of Justin. The man had actually soiled himself, and was quivering in fear while being forced to kneel in his urine-soaked trousers. Justin glanced at the Captain to make sure he was watching, before sending a thought over to the soldier that was behind the officer, who then abruptly shot the man in the back of his head. ¡°What-!?¡± The Captain flinched at the wordless exchange, shocked more by the lack of warning than the grotesque brutality of it. His confusion quickly turned to fury however and he found the courage to look Justin in the eye. ¡°What do you want?! Why do this? We never did anything to you, y-yo-you devil!¡± ¡®I thought for a moment he was a weak-willed commander, but it turns out he¡¯s not so simple. He wasn¡¯t fazed by the death of his comrade nearly as much as I had expected. Or maybe they held animosity toward each other?¡¯ Justin hummed without replying to the Captain. Instead, he had the Captain¡¯s face pushed back against the ground as he repeated his question. ¡®But he¡¯s still just a man. A volta would be far trickier, but this one I can break. Though I take no pleasure in it.¡¯ ¡°Just describe your country.¡± ¡°Go to hell, demon!¡± Justin was taken aback for a moment, before realizing that the man hadn¡¯t meant it literally. Of course, he hadn¡¯t said Daemon, but demon. A mythological, colloquial term that served as a descriptor for a monster or evil-natured entity rather than the actual term for the bestial antithesis of voltas. It might seem strange for a native to say something so close to the truth, but it actually made sense. One of the many great mysteries of the System was that its aspects spread across boundaries. Regardless of its presence in the darkest corners of the universe or not. Daemons were a twisted product of the system and the monstrous races, but their existence had still found root in the mythology of places where neither existed. Justin supposed that the lesser term was some grand expletive in the native¡¯s culture, but was running on too short of a clock to be curious. With another mental signal, he repeated his little show with the officer two more times, finally eliciting the Captain¡¯s horror. ¡°Name it. What surrounds this¡­Jejune?¡± Gerber gritted his teeth, feeling phlegm rising into his mouth, he wanted to spit the wad at the base of Justin¡¯s feet, but looking down the line of kneeling survivors, knew that it would cost at least a half dozen more lives. In his conscience, he couldn¡¯t handle that. He was a Captain, yes, but there was a difference in sending his soldiers to die for an unwinnable cause, and killing them just to spite the victor. Nothing had been asked so far that the next person in the line couldn¡¯t answer, and frankly Gerber didn¡¯t know why he was still being questioned. ¡°It¡¯s¡­the Silver Republic. The nation I owe my allegiance to is the Silver Republic.¡± Justin¡¯s eyes surveyed the Captain carefully before digesting the information. Luckily, he had heard of the country a little bit in their briefing. As they hadn¡¯t known where the Herald would surface from underground until they were close, Harriet had given a brief overview of all the planet¡¯s major countries, even if they had somehow missed the topic of mutant beasts. What he could remember about the Silver Republic was that like its title, it was a parliamentary republic with a chancellor. It had poor infrastructure off the planet, the height of which was a few satellites that could be called outdated if one were feeling generous. The boundaries of its territory were spread out over a vast but mostly uninhabitable region of mountains and deserts. The majority of its population was located in a few major cities along its southern coast, and the nation was currently locked in a silent arms and technology race against the other major powerhouse on the planet, the Principality of Amber. Like many of the early space-age civilizations, both had just discovered fission energy, and were sitting in a precarious balance with it. In terms of the planet¡¯s average military the Republic was advanced, though not to the same degree as the Principality, but its greatest advantage was manpower. Anything beyond that hadn¡¯t been covered by Harriet, as it hadn¡¯t been necessary. All they really cared about was that if the Herald were to emerge within the Silver Republic¡¯s territory without their intervention, response time would be slower on average but casualties would be higher thanks to the makeup of their army. In Justin¡¯s case though, that suited him just fine. 10. The Terse Resignation Justin quickly thought about his next move while looking at the time. It was late, or rather very early in the morning, which meant that the reinforcements would be here at the earliest in a few hours. Accumulating the biomass of the dead and assimilating the rest of the survivors wouldn¡¯t be a problem, but the rest of the Herald was impossible in the time he had. [Stage Quest: Assimilate at least (2) hosts from distinct suitable species.] [Time Left: 8:09:40:36] [Progress: 1 / 2] [Completion Reward: 5,000 Biomass] [Punishment for Failure: Level Lock] And the stage quest was still burning a hole in his side. Justin began to come up with a plan. He had done all he needed to here in the camp, so his ticking quest took priority now. He would assimilate the rest of the survivors, and then move on toward the south where the majority of the country¡¯s population was. He had to cross the desert at some point anyway, and he doubted he was going to find any hosts suitable for the quest if he sat here waiting for the reinforcements. Unfortunately, due to the operational secrecy of this battalion, they hadn¡¯t arrived with maps or any digital items. Even if he could fly the helicopters, they¡¯d draw too much attention and he wasn¡¯t confident in navigating the landscape with them regardless. He could force the survivors to do so, but that seemed like a surefire way to die via murder-suicide. That would mean he¡¯d have to get to the Republic¡¯s southern shore by foot. Crossing a mountain range in between as well. Luckily, he had the supplies. As the food from the camp could still be converted into biomass to fuel the hive, and there were plenty of weapons to take with him. He just needed to find a second host species sometime in the next eight days and nine hours. Hundreds of feet started to march throughout the camp at once as he prepared the assimilation of the captives. Like a conveyor line, they made passing contact with his main body one at a time through the system of tentacles where a seedling was given to them to deposit into one of the captives. Rapidly, hundreds more became under his influence before he ran into a massive issue. ¡®AAHH!!¡¯ Justin clutched his head after a strong mental pressure assaulted it, hitting him like his head had slammed into a solid object. Looking at his system interface, Justin found the source of the problem. [Level: 8] [Grade: E-] [Status Effects: Enervation] [Race: Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [Attributes: 12 STR, 6 DEX, 1 END, 3 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 0] [Health: 10 / 10] [Stamina: 110 / 110] [CEL: 2 / 2] [Biomass: 742] [Alpha Hive Capacity: 500 / 500] [Skills: Assimilate (E-), Consume (E-)] There was a capacity to the number of individuals he could subsume in the hive. It was natural that such an ability had limits, but that didn¡¯t change the fact that it put a huge damper on his plans. If he had a limiter on his capacity, how was he supposed to find a second host species? Of course, he could sacrifice parts of the hive into biomass or release them from the assimilation by ordering the death of their seeds, but would he have to keep doing that forever? Justin knew from experience that while the stage quests grew in difficulty overtime, they always revolved around consistent subjects: the three tenants of strength. As a pugilist swordsman, he had thought of them as Foundation, Diversification, and Reinforcement. As the parasite was still at the bottom of the E Grade, his Stage Quest followed the rule of Foundation. All of that meant that the likelihood he would have to do something similar come the D Grade wasn¡¯t small, so Justin needed to learn how to increase his hive capacity before that happened. He had a few ideas in regards to that. ¡®¡­change of plans, I¡¯ll take what little of the herald I can cut off in time, and drag the survivors behind me. I can¡¯t afford to feed them for long but it¡¯ll be better to have backups to replenish the hive than to turn them into biomass. I¡¯ve got to leave within the next hour.¡¯ ¡­ At the same time, in Justin¡¯s ship that was close to approaching the Lemus System Observation Base. A morose silence had choked the atmosphere aboard the Terse Resignation ever since the field team had come back from the mission. The shock on Harriet and Gary¡¯s faces as they had come walking up the ramp, a few less in number than had left, had almost immediately turned to disbelief and anger. The Guild¡¯s esper specialized in healing, Harriet, had thrown several parts from around the ship at Markus¡¯ head as he tried to take off his mechanical suit and explain. His helmet after taking it off was thrown right back at him only to harmlessly reflect off of his head. At first, everyone had tried to comfort Harriet and Elrissa, the two who had clearly been hit by the losses the hardest, but it became apparent that the healer didn¡¯t have the Technical¡¯s same battle-hardened mentality. They had left her to cope in peace after a few hours of trying in vain. Markus waved his hand, rubbing the creases along his forehead. ¡°Let her leave. She needs to grieve in peace.¡± ¡°Does she, Markus?! Who are you to say what she needs? I don¡¯t think any of us can afford to be alone right now!¡± Gary spat back angrily within their meeting on the ship¡¯s deck. The space that had once felt so big was now vacant and empty.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°Gary, he¡¯s trying the best he can. We all are. If you want to spend time alone as well¡­¡± ¡°Well I don¡¯t, Jade, and I think if any of you knew Harriet as much as you claimed¡­you would realize she doesn¡¯t want to be left alone either!¡± Gary slammed his fists against the table, glaring at the perpetrators. His gentle eyes stained with a special kind of fury, hatred on behalf of another, betrayed the years of his life he had spent aboard the small guild¡¯s ship growing close to the healer. He knew her ways the rest of them would never understand, he suddenly realized. Gary felt bitter, seeing Markus and Jade apparently so eager to move on from the mission and debrief at the Council¡¯s observation base. But Gary wouldn¡¯t allow their cold attitudes to prevail. Even if he was starting to see them differently, there was someone who still needed his friendship right now. Gary stood up, knocking over the chair behind him in the process. ¡°If you¡¯ll excuse me, Captain, I¡¯m going to comfort our mourning friend like I¡¯m the only human being aboard this ship.¡± Markus shook his head sadly and waved him out. Once he was off the bridge, Elrissa stood up as well, silently nodding at the two of them. Markus wordlessly mouthed ¡®of course¡¯, seeing that she wanted to leave as well. After all they had heard from Gary over the past couple hours, he had almost forgotten that Elrissa had lost someone close to her as well. Heinrich had been her husband for years. They had even gotten married on this ship. It shocked him how belatedly he realized the woman had been so quiet this whole time. Seeing her walking away, leaving only him and the Courser on the darkened bridge, it finally dawned just how much they had lost in one mission. Markus felt a pain he couldn¡¯t describe. He looked at the empty space where Heinrich had once sat, then at his own chair that he had sat in every day for several years. Like the others it bore his unique guild association insignia on its back. As for Justin¡¯s chair, he of course couldn¡¯t look at it properly, because he didn¡¯t have eyes in the back of his head. Because as soon as their somber meeting had started, at first with trying to console Harriet, Markus had sat himself down in the late guild leader¡¯s chair. After all, he was their leader now, wasn¡¯t he? ¡­ In one of the ship¡¯s corridors, Gary stood with his hand raised before the control pad of a sliding door. If he were a grade or so lower, he might have felt out of breath at that moment from all the running he had just done. Searching throughout the ship for Harriet¡¯s whereabouts after she had been dismissed from their meeting by Markus had taken a while to do. Gary¡¯s face strained. But the Esper hadn¡¯t been at her residence, the lounge, the training bay, or gone back to the bridge. Which meant she was undoubtedly in the room on the other side of the door. The medical bay, the place where she conducted the other half of her work aside from mission prep. Gary sighed as he lightly punched on the door pad and it slid open in front of him. Stepping in, a solemn atmosphere instantly pressed down onto him. He couldn¡¯t immediately see the form of the woman within the room, but past the rows of curtains around medical cots he could hear her grieving cries. Gary slowly walked down the row of curtains before stopping at the last. With a measured movement he opened the blind to the figure of a red-haired woman curled up on top of the cot, tears streaming down her face as she laid in a fetal position. ¡°Oh, Harriet...¡± He gently knelt down to the side of the cot by her shut eyes. As her body trembled with sobs, he reached out a hand around her own, eliciting a shiver from the catatonic Volta. Despite that, she didn¡¯t say a word or throw his hand away like one might expect. Instead, the woman simply squeezed his hand, knowing who it was. Harriet wailed loudly for the first time since he had entered. Gary didn¡¯t say anything, as he felt powerless to muster anything up at that moment. He was not sure if he should, even if he had thought of something. Maybe with silence, he could help her through this. He could help her move past Justin. ¡­ At the other end of the ship within an enclosed residential suite, Elrissa was lying asymmetrically across the surface of her bed after a few hours had passed. The tears around her eyes had long since dried. Her hands were raised, covering both of her eyes, as she thought in silence for several minutes. No one had come to her room in the hours that had passed, of course. She did not have the work-wife relationship that Harriet had with Gary, nor the ideological comradery that Markus had with Jade, she spitefully thought. No, she was mourning the loss of the single person in this galaxy who would have been there to comfort her, the man who should have made it back. ¡°Ahh! Fuck!¡± Elrissa jumped up from her bed and whipped her hand across the surface of her desk. In a blur, all of the machinery and projects she had been tinkering with for the past year were deformed and reduced to metallic clumps as they flew into the far wall of the room. Her fists didn¡¯t stop however, as wisps of energy collected in the air around her and burned thick scorch marks throughout the room. From the hanging lights to her bed, countless little things were severed apart or withered to burning cinders. Her abilities as a Technical specialized in long-ranged weaponry didn¡¯t mean much up close, but her angry spasms at this moment were enough to wreck her living space just by virtue of her raw cellular energy as a C-Grade. ¡°FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! Fuck all of this!¡± Energy emblazoned around her body like a coating, making her blonde hair sharpen with a fluorescent shine. Her wrath was just about to cause her to take out her actual weapon, when a ding from her communicator brought it all back down. Bzzrt. ¡°You have (1) new message(s).¡± Heaving in anger, the volta took out the tablet attached to her side before swiping across the screen. There she found a message with a familiar tone from an anonymous source. Elrissa Karthart, we are pleased to have been informed of your completion of the contract we discussed. The compensatory amount will be transferred to you in the coming sols via a dispersal across your accounts. We are appreciative of your discretion in this matter. However, the terms of the second discussion have been voided by the unfortunate loss of one of your guild¡¯s special assets. Without an Augur, our firm simply has too many other offers to consider aside from yours. As compensation for these regrettable circumstances, note that we will remain open to future offers from your guild should your membership stabilize back to acceptable conditions. Best of luck in your future endeavors. Like a torrent of winds rushing from a hurricane, Elrissa felt a rage envelope her as she finished reading the message. Instantly, the room around her was re-bathed in light as she exploded into a rage once again. After all she had sacrificed, they were the ones not willing to commit? ¡°F-f-fucking bankers!¡± The heat her body was expelling literally ate at the metal of the tools around her. Elrissa refused to accept it. How difficult had it been? How much had she struggled to keep the plan from Heinrich, and how much had she lost when he had died regardless? The deal was supposed to set them up, not tear them apart. And now they wanted to renege on the deal? No. She wouldn''t have it. Not now that Heinrich had been killed. Not now that she was in so deep. Elrissa knew exactly what would happen if the others found out, but she also knew what she would do. She knew exactly how resourceful she could be, when back into a corner. And this was a corner, if ever there was one. She would find some other way to get what she wanted, what she was owed. Whether she had to bow to another backer, or step over the corpse of another comrade she would...no. Actually¡­scratch that. She would never bow again. A cold glint flashed through Elrissa¡¯s eyes. If she had been willing to get her hands dirty in killing Justin, then she was willing to get a little dirtier before it was done. She was back to being alone now, but there was also one less person that knew about her condition. What she had been trying to break through for years: Level Lock. 11. Shadows Cast By Mountains Back in the present, a man without much hair was sitting in one of the offices located deep under the Silver Republic¡¯s capital city. In a darkened room within the bunker complex, he was busy shuffling through papers at his desk with a blank look while a cigarette he had taken only a few drags from then forgot about sat idly burning in an ashtray. After a few minutes of mindless teeter and bureaucratic ramblings, mostly redundant updates on the same stale situation, he came across a large printout that looked more like a work of abstract art than it did an official state document. The man spoke with a low voice to the attendant in the corner of the room, who quickly stepped forward. ¡°What is this, someone put their child¡¯s drawing on my desk?¡± ¡°Ah? Ah-no, Mr. Secretary, those would be the latest captures from the Argentum satellites.¡± ¡°The satellites? They¡¯re up?¡± He gave a look over the pictures once again, thumbing through the whole stack. Unfortunately, there was not much of a story told by the pile of low resolution images. Where a blur of dark shadows and grey pixels had been printed on one image, in the next there was a blur of dark green, then red, and so on. Eventually it was clear a gap had emerged between the times the satellite pictures had been taken, and in the next stack he could make out a somewhat describable image of a gathering of tents and equipment from a zoomed out perspective. ¡°Is this really the whole stack?¡± The secretary gave a look of dissatisfaction to his aide, who blanched while searching for the right words. ¡°Ah¡­well, it seems that the event that caused our satellites to blackout also resulted in the shifting in several of their alignments. As of now, two of the Argentum-models are following near identical orbits, causing there to be a significant blind spot in the period we have imagery over the Jejune. Argentum-3 is expected to gain a visual on the site in just over three hours, though we¡¯ll need to work with the Diplomatic Corps to readjust Argentum-1 and 2¡¯s orbits.¡± The younger official quickly rattled off something from a tablet, to which the secretary responded by extending a hand for it to be passed over. Reading over the same report again, he sighed. ¡°And we still have no idea what the source of the disturbance was?¡± ¡°That¡¯s correct, Mr. Secretary.¡± The older department head scratched through his dark goatee. ¡°Well then, we¡¯ll need to gain visual on the site through other means. Radio contact has been cut off since 0200, correct?¡± The other man nodded. ¡°Then we can¡¯t rule out the possibility that there has been some outside interference. We need to establish more analog methods of observation.¡± ¡°But with the Dreadmoore in between¡­¡± The secretary held up a hand, silencing his attendant from speaking further. ¡°Of course, I hadn¡¯t forgotten that. It will be impossible to send the observers over land with that swamp blocking them in between here and the Jejune, though the boys at CAHD could certainly accomplish it, I hesitate to call on their department¡­¡± ¡°I fear the Chancellor will be hesitant to sign off on their use for something like this, Mr. Secretary.¡± The Secretary paused before nodding, motioning to a diagram affixed to the far wall as he continued. ¡°Regardless, we have an alternative in our arsenal.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t mean?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a valuable thing, a biological asset with this potential. From what we¡¯ve heard, it could be worth the diversion from our current operations to secure it. Write to the Chancellor, tell him¡­¡± The secretary looked up and raised his eyebrows at the attendant. ¡°Are you writing this down?¡± ¡°Oh, of course!¡± ¡°Alright, write to the Chancellor requesting for the deployment of a division from the airship fleet. Make sure to impress upon him in your letter just how vital such a specimen could be in our efforts to quell the mutant population. Make it abundantly clear that this will also be a huge boost to his prospects of reelection.¡± The Secretary knew that the Chancellor of the Republic was a materially-driven man if nothing else. He saw the value in things he could see and feel, so attempting to make the argument for the specimen potentially changing their understanding of biology or whatnot wouldn¡¯t have much appeal. ¡°Have you got all that down?¡± ¡°Ah¡­yes!¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Good.¡± The secretary sat back into his seat, thumbing back through the photos. All in all, they were a pile of shit from his standpoint, but at least they showed the perimeter the battalion had been able to establish was secure. It was hard to make out much with the low resolution, but the hexagonal mounds of mortar emplacements were hard to miss at the edges of the camp. It was just too bad they hadn¡¯t been able to get any images of the specimen before the seismic detectors went off. For some reason the satellites had gone out shortly before that, though with the standard of maintenance in the Republic, the Secretary could hardly chalk it all up to a conspiracy. Still, the eyes of the Department of Defense had been blind for the last four hours from a high-altitude perspective until these pictures had arrived on his desk, and it sounded like they would be blind again for another three. Hopefully after that, they¡¯d have more indication on the state of the camp¡¯s security, and a better indication on their next planned movements. In the meantime it was a priority to reestablish radio communication with the camp, and get the Chancellor¡¯s signature on the deployment order¡­ The secretary huffed. In truth, he didn¡¯t know much about the potential gains they could make with the specimen in their hands, but he knew for certain he didn¡¯t want another country to get to it first during this critical period. While they still had the threat of the Principality at their backs, they couldn¡¯t afford to let any advantage slip. ¡°Also, notify the boys in the bay that the research team will be following suit on the airships when they get sent over. Tell them to nix the choppers for future missions. They¡¯ll arrive later, but it¡¯ll give them a far more solid foothold in the desert.¡± ¡°Should I contact the encampment about the change?¡± The attendant was writing all of this down. ¡°I would say so if that were possible, but with nothing from their radios, the situation has become blurred..¡± The attendant nodded. ¡±I also want to see the researchers swapped out with a more dispensable unit. No need to send the best right away. We don¡¯t know the situation in the Jejune is yet. Better to avoid the risk.¡± ¡°¡­Mr. Secretary, isn¡¯t that more of a call for the executive to make?¡± The older official crooked a brow at that comment, slightly aggravated as if the younger man had just asked a dumb question. Which of course, he had. ¡°Just get it done.¡± ¡­ By the time the sun had come up over the Jejune, Justin had realized why the battalion hadn¡¯t brought any land vehicles. The whole surface of the rocky basin was completely filled with wide cracks and ravines. During the march they had been causing everything from insignificant tripping to full companies being lost from suddenly getting swallowed up by the ground. It was as if the desert itself was alive, and consciously trying to eat through Justin¡¯s troop reserves. Of course Justin himself didn¡¯t have the mind for superstition, so he chalked it up to the costs of traversing a hostile environment. Men were going to be lost, especially when he was the one guiding their feet as they walked. He couldn''t account for everyone, though he tried. The process of trying to do so had been straining thus far, however. As Justin¡¯s main body, the Origin, sat near the middle back of the marching battalion and hoisted up by a small team of soldiers, he felt beads of sweat falling from his head. ¡®Keeping this many assimilated at once is taxing my mind more than I thought it would. It¡¯s nearly comparable to the pressure the parasite had exerted. Is it because of its low intelligence stat? Or am I not supposed to breach the limit at my level?¡¯ Justin could have only had an idea of these things if he had prior knowledge of the scourge¡¯s development path. As a Volta too used to the idea of classes, his experience could only get him so far, even from the perspective of the C-Grade. Though a lot of daemon¡¯s abilities were specialized around specific stats, he wasn¡¯t sure if he could progress along the typical route given his unique situation. Put in simpler terms: daemons, like voltas, derived the strength of their system-based abilities from the individual stat categories of the system. For instance with voltas, Pugilists were specialists of the Strength stat, Coursers were specialized in Dexterity, Clerics in Endurance, Espers in Perception, Technicals in Intelligence, Psychics in Charisma, and Augurs in Mystery. Daemons worked with the same stat specializations, but in relation to their race instead of class. Which meant that Daemons that had access to the system would always specialize in strength for instance, if their race was already strong. Or charisma, if they were already psychically-capable. So while daemon without the system and from the same race would still be abnormally potent as well, it would not be to the absurd degree one could reach thanks to the System. With this in consideration, it had been observed by many scholars that Daemons actually held an advantage in accumulating strength as compared to Voltas, who being from a humanoid race generally didn¡¯t have any innate qualities of their own. In fact, it might have been Daemons and not the various races of humankind spread throughout the galaxy were it not for their aversion to organized thought and civilization. Only rarely did this kind of grouping happen between daemons of different races, and even then the group usually found itself in the form of a cult. But Justin¡¯s dilemma was that he was pretty sure that the Scourge race, hiveminds in other words, were specialized into either the Intelligence or Endurance stats, but those were exactly what he was trying to avoid raising. It put him at a crossroads on how to proceed, as with the system he could control the direction of his growth, but erring away from the pre-established path could leave him at a bottleneck, or faced with a Stage Quest he wasn¡¯t able to complete. In other words, handing control back to the hive¡¯s real consciousness. By now it was midday though, and Justin was beginning to see the mountains. ¡®Given that I¡¯m just seeing the tips of those mountains and they¡¯ve only barely got snowcaps, they¡¯re probably something just under¡­15,000 feet with this planet¡¯s size? I shouldn¡¯t be more than 200 miles from them if that''s the case.¡¯ Justin adjusted his mental focus to pan around the entire marching unit. A few hundred men with corpse-yellow eyes marching stiffly, plus what was left of the battalion in front of them at gunpoint. With a breath, he was able to get a read on the group¡¯s average condition. ¡®With this group I could cut the travel time to a week, half that if I didn¡¯t have the survivors following.¡¯ Justin had a brief wicked thought emerge before he quickly stuffed it. He also had to consider the food issue. The hive could subsist off of biomass, about one unit per individual per week, but the natives needed regular rations. He had brought the remaining rations from the encampment, but a majority of it had been destroyed by the mortars, leaving him barely enough to stretch past a week given the two hundred or so survivors left. They were restrained and placid for now, but their numbers were still dwindling further down each hour spent in the hazards of the desert. If the situation didn¡¯t improve, Justin couldn¡¯t even be sure he¡¯d have a full hive a week from now. 12. The Whole World Blind [Level: 9] [Grade: E-] [Status Effects: Overheating, Enervation] [Race: Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [Attributes: 13 STR, 6 DEX, 1 END, 5 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 0] [Health: 10 / 10] [Stamina: 110 / 110] [CEL: 2 / 2] [Biomass: 837] [Alpha Hive Capacity: 500 / 500] [Skills: Assimilate (E-), Consume (E-)] After a few days into the desert, Justin¡¯s condition had eventually deteriorated to a point he was forced to look at his system screen for answers. Wiping a stream of sweat from his face, he looked at the status effect window for answers. ¡®It¡¯s gotten to this point? What am I, a popsicle? It can¡¯t be more than ninety degrees in this desert. Has my body become that sensitive to temperature?¡¯ Justin closed the window, not seeing any opportunities to improve his condition. He had only leveled up once in the past few days, which had come as a bit of a surprise. Not from the level itself, but how slow experience gathering had become. He wasn¡¯t being ungrateful, he realized that his speed of leveling on the first day had been blinding, but to see the experience dry up so quickly in the following days was unavoidably disappointing. He knew that he had a way around that, if need be. Simply by casting off bits of the hive and assimilating the rest of the survivors he could push himself to level ten, the touchstone for Voltas to choose their first class and daemons to undergo their first evolution, but there was no point at the moment. [Stage Quest: Assimilate at least (2) hosts from distinct suitable species.] [Time Left: 4:13:51:07] [Progress: 1 / 2] [Completion Reward: 5,000 Biomass] [Punishment for Failure: Level Lock] Even if he hit level ten in the next moment, he still wouldn''t be able to evolve until he finished this damned stage quest. ¡®Is this even possible? I won¡¯t even reach the next city by that time, and I¡¯ve already taken the natives that will be there as hosts. Unless there¡¯s a second sapient species working within the civilization we missed, I¡¯m screwed.¡¯ Justin wiped a film of sweat from his face as he thought of the possible solutions. In truth, it was harder than he would have thought to arrive at an answer, as even though he had the brains of five hundred individuals under his control, it was the seeds within them he was directly connected to, not the brains. While that might¡¯ve seemed like a minor difference, it meant that he couldn¡¯t use his assimilated hive to boost his own faculties, at least for the moment. For the moment the only thing they offered was their labor. Finally, the solution presented itself. Not from Justin¡¯s musings, but when one of the soldiers at the forefront of the congregation suddenly caught sight of a movement up above. Below the mountainline in the horizon, a dried up river bed had once cut through the rocks and flowed all the way out here. It was long dead now, but within it, a surge of life was present. Justin¡¯s body convulsed, half from the heat, half from excitement, as more and more soldiers arrived at the edge of the dried basin to give him their visual on it. ¡®If that¡¯s what I think it is¡­yes, a mutant beast! If it''s all the way out here, I must be closer to the end of the desert than I thought!¡¯ The Jejune still stretched far beyond the horizon, its flat expanse allowing the hive to see the mountains beyond its reach, but Justin hadn¡¯t considered if there was anything between the two. ¡®Something that a river might originate from in a dry climate. Has the ocean cut thorough the mountains? No, remnants of the salt would have been deposited in the basin. A lake? Not likely either given how far this river has drifted out over flat land. I can¡¯t imagine anything with the force to push it so far. Hmm¡­¡¯ Justin chewed on the details with the expertise of a mercenary who had been through plenty of investigations. Even when it wasn¡¯t directly related to his situation, parts of his past job still bled through into his thoughts. Frankly, there wasn¡¯t any natural biome that fit these circumstances. The real variable was the flat desert the stream had cut through. Given any typical ecosystem, water would always find the easiest way to travel, but there were exceptions on planets with atypical phenomena that influenced the environment. ¡®It could be related to that.¡¯ Hundreds of soldiers fixed their eyes on the sole occupant of the basin. It was a mutant beast, as it was called, and Justin¡¯s first time seeing one. The creature resembled a large disfigured arachnid, with a column of flexible hardened plates that came up and around in a curve. It gave it a tall but menacing build like a raptor, albeit with eight armored legs. From its head to its barbed tail, it most resembled a scorpion, though its large pincers that came around on each side evoked the resemblance of a deep sea creature. Given all of that and its size comparable to the male natives, Justin had to reconsider his previously-thought threat assessment of Lemus IV¡¯s beasts.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Justin had fought daemons on dozens of planets throughout his career, but he had rarely seen anything like the creature below on a planet unacclimatized to the system. Without its interference how had such creatures even developed to this point? ¡®A question for Harriet.¡¯ Justin sighed just as the four beady eyes of the beast started to move. Once it started to take in the silhouettes of figures cresting above the basin¡¯s edge, the hundreds of soldiers moving to circle around it on all sides, its limbs rapidly shook off the stone dust caking it and spun to turn itself around. At once, it attempted to bolt out of there after seeing it was outnumbered. ¡®Shit! I thought it¡¯d stay and fight. Don¡¯t tell me this thing made a rational decision!¡¯ With a near-instantaneous mental signal, Justin commanded all of the soldiers around the basin to chase after it. While a minority was left behind to keep their weapons trained on the captive survivors, Justin followed the mass of his hive down the slopes of the basin as they raced after the scorpion beast. SCREEEEE! He frowned at the shrill cry of the beast as the group took potshots at the beast¡¯s natural armor-plates. Despite its protests, most of the bullets were harmlessly deflected off, while the armor-piercing rounds fired by the snipers from a distance only broke small fragments off of its carapace. Justin extended a hand to his side. Diverting his will into the tentacles there, they exploded outward and firmly clasped around a soldier at his side. Justin reeled back from his heightened position and swiped forward with all his weight. With a crack through the air he catapulted the hive worker in the direction of the beast. DONK! SCREEEEEEE ¡®Ha! That slowed it down, next I¡¯ll¡­.oh shit.¡¯ Justin¡¯s elation at having briefly held back the creature vanished as the assimilated soldier in question was pierced by the beast¡¯s stinger. Before he could blink, the man exploded in a shower of sizzling gore. His affected remains in turn, killing many other soldiers that had been nearby who were merely touched by the venom on their skin. ¡®Damn!¡¯ Digging the soldier¡¯s below him into the ground with a cloud of dust, Justin immediately stopped following with his main body. Still, he commanded the charging hive to continue. The Origin¡¯s tentacles were tough, and had the capacity to break through thick armor if the Herald had been any example, but if the mutant scorpion¡¯s venom was at such a potency, he didn¡¯t want to risk entangling with it directly. His system abilities gave him a strategic edge over any natural-born creature on Lemus, but in terms of pure strength, he now knew was still far from being an opponent to many. ¡°Ah!¡± Justin couldn¡¯t help but let out a groan during the chase, as a searing pain suddenly washed over his body. [Health: 9 / 10] ¡®What? But I¡¯m so far away? Don¡¯t tell me it''s because I¡¯ve lost some of the hive soldiers?¡¯ No, that wasn¡¯t it, Justin realized as he found the cause for his sudden pain. The effects of overheating and enervation, an effect similar to fatigue, were still being shown in his system screen. For some reason, whatever was causing him to overheat hadn¡¯t gone away. Instead his ailment had progressed to the point where he was starting to take damage, and Justin couldn¡¯t wait for another searing flash to figure out why. ¡®I need to focus on the beast right now. Assimilating it could give me the chance to figure out why this is happening.¡¯ Was it another symptom of his connection with the parasite? Justin wouldn¡¯t be able to investigate if it was. All he could do right now was focus on coordinating the soldiers¡¯ movements from afar, directing them carefully to avoid attacks from the beast¡¯s stinger, while also avoiding the puddles of lethal remains its venom had left in its wake. Carelessly spending rounds from afar had been useless, but as the hive had gotten closer to it that became a different story. Eventually after throwing enough of the hive¡¯s dispensable members at it, he had slowed down the creature enough to succeed in an encirclement this time. After chasing it through the desert for more than ten minutes, it finally had nowhere to run. SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Justin waited with cold patience as hundreds of bullets from rifles and LMGs rained down on the exoskeleton of the beast every second, beating its body ever deeper against the stone ground of the desert. He didn¡¯t want it dead. Just weak enough for a seedling to be able to get inside. ¡®Hopefully, this thing will fulfill the quest requirement.¡¯ Eventually, the mutant beast lost the ability to avoid most of the machine gun fire. Then it lost the ability to use its legs completely, rendering it a sitting duck. Justin frowned at this, but was more concerned with fulfilling the vital requirement of his quest than having something useful afterward. So the barrage continued under his measured focus. After losing its mobility, eventually the cracked exoskeleton of the beast gave way under the stress. Large pieces and chunks began to fly off, which exposed spongy and vascular muscles. Again, Justin didn¡¯t want to actually kill it, so he withheld some of the gunfire at that point. Still, it was too dangerous to approach the beast himself when he hadn¡¯t determined its capacity to resist yet, so he loaded another member of the hive with a seed, a soldier who had just been assimilated from the ever-decreasing reserve of survivors and who had a low rank. This made him quite the dispensable piece, so in short order he was sent down into the river basin that the creature had followed during the pursuit. As the young member of the hive approached with dead-yellow eyes, the beast¡¯s own quickly darted to regard it. The heaving movements of its body had become slow, dulled by the bluntness of pain, and its breaths heard somewhere beneath the remains of its chitin armor were labored. Justin¡¯s mind guided the movements of the soldier''s arm forward and pressed it against one of the beast¡¯s eyes that had been punctured by a lead round. A squirming grub soon emerged from the flesh of the palm, burrowing into the hole in the scorpion¡¯s head. Obviously, that was a step too far for the beast to take, as it quickly started to writhe, emitting a high-frequency screech that was louder than anything Justin had heard so far. SHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! ¡®AH!¡¯ [Health: 8 / 10] The Origin within Justin squirmed for the first time as it took damage in unison with the beast¡¯s cry. Though Justin¡¯s own vision swam, his own mind was focused on the matter of the scorpion. Though he had to strain to look out from his main body, as his focus had briefly been retracted away from the hive. Whatever game the beast had been trying to play, perhaps feigning a weakened state before it struck back, had clearly been blown back into its face the moment it felt the seedling parasite enter its skull. With a muscular spasm, it punched a hole through the responsible soldier¡¯s face with its stinger, showering the closest soldiers in liquid death(1). Justin watched anxiously as the beast emerged off of its legs he had thought were immobile. 13. Bras Veneficus As if to spite Justin¡¯s possible impending death, the beast''s surge in strength died down as soon as it had come. Yet the soldiers who had gathered around it still backed up a good distance to be cautious. Unlike with the parasites lodged within each of the assimilated natives, Justin didn¡¯t have as great a degree of control over the seedling before it latched onto the central nervous system of the creature, so he still didn¡¯t know whether his experiment here would be successful. Hopefully the seeding could exert control on the creature¡¯s brain soon enough, otherwise¡­ ¡®Damn it! It¡¯s coming this way!¡¯ Under the immense pain of having a seedling crawling within its armored skull, the mutant beast turned ravenous and began to move erratically as sickly green bile began to foam from its mouth. At the same time, its center thorax began to squirm and convulse, much to Justin¡¯s bewilderment. ¡®That¡¯s not something I¡¯m doing, is it?¡¯ He couldn¡¯t know. The seedlings got their directive shortly before they were deployed. While they were moving within the potential host all the seedling could do was fulfill it. Like a missile, it was a one-time use asset. But Justin had only used them on the natives. He had no idea if they were capable of fusing with the nervous systems of other creatures. However if that was the case, wouldn¡¯t his stage quest be impossible? Justin felt a pit in his stomach form just as a very subtle refreshing feeling entered him. ¡®What? N-no!¡¯ The scorpion beast had stopped struggling, but not because it had been assimilated! Justin had recognized the feeling as experience entering his body. The same feeling he had felt an uncountable number of times before all of this, and every time he had assimilated or killed another native afterward. But if the stage quest hadn¡¯t been fulfilled along with the gain in experience, then that meant something else. ¡®It¡¯s dead.¡¯ [Health: 7 / 10] Justin didn¡¯t even process the pain of the Origin¡¯s health decreasing further as he approached the corpse. Looking over the beast that was as large as a small land-based vehicle, he sighed. ¡®That¡­was the only living thing within miles of here.¡¯ He had checked. If it had been Justin before the parasite had bonded to his brain, he would have wanted to hold his head in his hands, but now he could only curse his luck. ¡®Whatever is making my body overheat gets worse as I overexert myself. Trying to track down this beast has taken the greatest toll. But still, even if I conserve my stamina I won¡¯t be able to last out the week. I have another day or two at the maximum.¡¯ ¡­And then he would be dead. Overheating in this desert would kill him. Failing the stage quest would lock him from progressing, which would kill him. Sacrificing a large part of his hive would give the parasite control back, which would kill him. It was definitive. Surveying all the roads his future could take, Justin saw himself dying or being trapped within his own mind in every one of them. Part of him almost couldn''t believe it. He was going to die here. In the middle of nowhere, in a random desert. On the planet of a civilization that didn¡¯t even know what was beyond their own moon for certainty. He, who had been the founder and leader of a C-Grade guild, an organization that had been known in their civilization and had garnered a certain degree of distinction within the Guild Association, would die forgotten and dusty on a backwater planet. ¡®Oh wait, that¡¯s right.¡¯ Justin realized something with a bit of dry humor. His guildmates must have thought he had already died during the fight against the Herald. In a way that was almost right, but it served as just one more inaccuracy that would make up his life as people would later tell it, if they bothered to remember who Justin Locke had been at all. He couldn¡¯t help but chuckle in spite of himself. There was a terrible kind of humor in it, wasn¡¯t there? That despite all he had tried, the astounding progress he had made in only a few days, all of the people he had either killed or consumed to get this far, he was still going to die. And he didn¡¯t even know why. ¡°Ha! Hahahaha!¡± Justin laughed. Then he laughed louder. Then the whole throng of assimilated soldiers began to join in. Then the remaining captives, whose number had been reduced to less than seventy, even laughed along too. Though the reason why was unknown. From either fear or stress-induced lunacy, not even they knew why they laughed along with the monsters that had stolen them from society. Underneath his laughter, Justin suddenly heard the trill of a system notification ring out. [Stage Quest Completed!] [Stage Quest: Assimilate at least (2) hosts from distinct suitable species.] [End Result: Chosen Species Pair: Type-M4 Human and Bras Veneficus (Pre-sentient)] [Completion Rating: C-] [C- Grade Completion Bonus: +250 Biomass] [Completion Reward: 5,000 Biomass] ¡°What?¡± Justin was bewildered, unconsciously speaking through the whole throng. ¡®It worked after all? What is a Bras Veneficus? Don¡¯t tell me the seedling found something after all? Something that had the potential for sentience?¡¯The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. After his shock stabilized, a torrent of soldiers descended upon the scorpion¡¯s remains, tearing through the carcass with bare hands and hook-like climbing tools. They ripped into the battered chitin like children tearing wax paper. In moments, the hive controller had his answer. ¡®I don¡¯t believe it. It was pregnant.¡¯ Justin reached out a mental feeler into the hollow sac of the scorpion beast¡¯s body he had torn into, finding a single connection amongst the dripping wet mass inside. ¡®One of its children. A scorpling?¡¯ Justin approached the cavernous opening, reaching out a finger in timid hesitation. A few moments later, a small, whitish shape rose to the surface against the other soft bodies inside. Extending its own appendage with the same apparent hesitation, it met Justin¡¯s finger. ¡®It¡¯s real. One of its young. Though I can¡¯t feel its mind like I can with the rest, its actions are still influenced by my will.¡¯ Justin¡¯s mind nearly exploded as he thought of the possible applications. ¡­ A few days earlier in the skies above the Jejune. ¡°...we¡¯re also sending you down with an assembly of individual protective equipment. By the sides of your seats you¡¯ll find an adjustable armor carrier. Take those out, unfold them, and fit the armor slates inside. Yes, that¡¯s¡­no, no, not like that.¡± Over the skies of the Republic¡¯s desert of stone, five red airships were currently hovering above the clouds while a sixth was making its descent. Within the bottom compartment of this sixth airship, more than twenty people were currently sitting in seats affixed to the wall. The room resembled a long cabin ending in a ramp door. Most of the occupants lining the room were dressed in hazard suits and had their attention locked onto a man dressed in grey camouflage at the front of the corridor. From the way he was dressed to his tone while speaking, it was obvious he was a soldier. He was also seemingly unbothered by the airship¡¯s periodic jostling back and forth while walking up and down the open space in between the seats. ¡°Above your heads you¡¯ll find full-face respirators to put under your suit¡¯s sealed hoods. Yes, those are what are called gas masks for our non-scientist friends¡ª¡± ¡°Question!¡± ¡°---You don¡¯t have to say that every time. What¡¯s the matter?¡± ¡°Will these really work?¡± Major Smirnov, as was his name and rank, walked down to the far end of the cabin to the man who had just asked the question. The view of his suit and tie were still clearly visible underneath his nondescript hazard suit. ¡°I¡¯ve been told to a certain extent, yes, they do.¡± ¡°But if we don¡¯t know what¡¯s down there¡­¡± The Major cut the man off from speaking any more with a glare. He quickly pivoted to addressing the rest of his speech. ¡°Anyway, the most critical part of this is that you don¡¯t forget¡­¡± At the other end of the cabin while the Major spoke, a tall scientist with a greying expression was strapped into his seat calmly. At his side, a much shorter figure strained to grab the gas mask above her before finally being able to get her hands around it and pull it against her face. ¡°I can still see some of your hair.¡± Caleb pointed to a few strands of black hair that, really were despite her apparent care, sticking out just a bit from the side of the mask. Odette¡¯s eyes awkwardly fell as she took off the mask and stuffed her hair back into the part of her suit where her pale face stuck out. When she was finally done, she had put the mask back on and looked back at the older scientist with uncertainty. ¡°I-is that better?¡± ¡°Haha. It¡¯s not such a big deal. Yes, it¡¯s better.¡± Odette nodded without speaking, then returned to looking at the cabin wall in front of her. The older man returned to the sensor he had been adjusting as well, though after a few minutes of silence he looked around. Major Smirnov, who was in charge of the airship, was still at the other side of the cabin and had been distracted again by one of the ride-along government officials asking some dumb question. So Caleb spoke again to break the atmosphere. ¡°I¡¯m not like Sam, you know? As long as it doesn¡¯t compromise the mission, you¡¯re allowed to relax.¡± Caleb nudged the younger woman, before frowning slightly. ¡°I¡¯m being serious, you can relax. I won¡¯t give you a bad report just because you¡¯re a human being, alright?¡± Odette seemed to regard him against the hum of the airship¡¯s cabin, before nodding. Something like a muffled sigh escaped through her respirator before she spoke again. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to be so tense on purpose, it¡¯s just that¡­this is my last evaluative mission you know? If I perform well on this assignment¡­or even passably, I¡¯ll be recommended for the next available Senior Researcher position at the department. I know I can¡¯t let anxiety control me, but how do I prevent it when there really is so much riding on my actions now?¡± Caleb listened with an understanding nod of his head throughout his junior¡¯s worries. As a senior researcher himself, he too had experienced such worries once upon a time, even if things had been a little different back then. He wondered how to soothe the nerves of his prospective colleague before pointing at the emblem that was attached to the hazard suits over each of their hearts. ¡°You see these?¡± She nodded. ¡°An eye over a silver shield, the symbol for the department of Inquiry into Deterrent Solutions. Do you see anyone else in this cabin with that emblem on their suit?¡± Odette looked around mostly because she was prompted to, but of course it wasn¡¯t necessary. If anyone from I.D.S. had been here as well they would have been sitting with them. It wasn¡¯t that large of a department, so everyone knew each other. ¡°No.¡± ¡°No you don¡¯t. Exactly. And the reason for that is because only a very, very select minority even make the cut for our department much less have the work accredited to try for a senior position. The very fact that you¡¯re in our department has marked you as separate from your peers. Recognize that, and you¡¯ll begin to feel more confident, I assure you.¡± ¡°But Professor Caleb¡ª¡± Odette stopped when Caleb shook his head. Remembering one of their previous conversations, she nodded again before continuing.. ¡°But Caleb, that''s the very reason why I need this. I want to be a Senior Researcher of course, but I don¡¯t want my career to end there either.¡± Oho? Caleb thought he had more than a peripheral knowledge of his junior coworker, but he hadn¡¯t realized she had such aspirations. As everyone in their field knew, the most accredited officials in each department, who had been proven to be among the greatest contributors to the Republic, had the option to try out for C.A.H.D., or the department of Combat Analytics for Homeland Defense. It was nicknamed the final convergence, and served as the ultimate destination for all of the Republic¡¯s bleeding-edge science. It was also the reason why some in I.D.S. thought their department had been set up just to feed into C.A.H.D. Though that was obviously just the spoken paranoia from the disgruntled who had failed to advance. ¡°Huh¡­well, you did well in your advisory program, right?¡± ¡°Yes, I did. Though that gives me some latitude now, what comes after will¡­¡± BZZT Odette¡¯s train of thought was interrupted as the cabin¡¯s attention was regathered at the front of the corridor. The Major was standing there with a small button in his hand that hung from the ceiling off a stretchy cord. Apparently it made a buzzing sound when pressed. ¡°Alright listen up! This is fair warning to all of you specialists whose destination is the camp! Every aircraft in this squadron is armed with ten thousand pounds of chemical payload, mostly divided between cesium gas and white phosphorus. As of the most recent imagery from the Argentum satellites, predictions about what you¡¯ll find at ground level have been pessimistic at best. As such, the operators on each vessel have been ordered to keep their trigger-fingers light. Things¡¯ll remain like that until we receive confirmation from our commando team on the ground, everyone got that?.¡± Smirnov looked around the cabin that had gone dead silent with a blank expression on his face. ¡°That¡¯s not you guys, by the way.¡± 14. Odette The airship carrying the preliminary teams couldn¡¯t land right on top of the encampment site for obvious reasons. So instead it touched down a distance outside of the camp ruins while the other five stayed in the air, waiting for further confirmation. That gave Odette plenty of time to air her grievances as she and Caleb walked along with the group. The tense atmosphere of their approach seemingly had no effect on her as she was too busy rationalizing her own nerves. Caleb smiled at this behind his mask, as whether or not she knew, her verbosity in this situation where most people were silent proved her own mettle. ¡°So I¡¯ve got some missions under my belt, yes. That gives me a little bit of leeway on my final mission, but this one is still different! When was the last time our department was tapped first for a black site, much less one that¡¯s related to mutant beasts?¡± ¡°Well, I.D.S has actually received access to quite a few special projects, especially in the last two decades. Though it¡¯s not a stretch to call this one special¡­¡± ¡°Exactly! I understand them not sending the big-named researchers, because they¡¯re probably all still focused on the race with the Principality¡ª¡± Several heads turned their way as Odette mentioned the Principality, the Silver Republic¡¯s primary contender economically and ideologically. Both countries were in a careful balance right now with each other, having discovered fission energy at nearly the same time a few decades ago, so there was still a great deal of suspicion for anything that concerned the Principality right now, especially in their sensitive field of work. Odette blanched at her mistake, realizing that she may have gotten a bit overzealous. But Caleb shook his head, beckoning her to continue. On the hunch that it was better for this usually shy person to vent her frustrations when she was feeling this aggressive, he urged her to verbalize despite the wary glances from the rest of the group. Odette continued in a quieter tone. ¡°---I understand not asking for their presence here, but even the others in our department weren¡¯t called? When we left, I could have sworn I saw the Director in the lab, but you¡¯re telling me she wasn¡¯t the first choice?¡± ¡®She¡¯d kill to be here¡¯ went unsaid, but they both thought it. Sam was a hard-ass on everyone in I.D.S but they appreciated the department more because of her. She never took anything lying down, especially when it was detrimental to her team, and she never missed an opportunity to further their field of study: merging engineering and biology. ¡°Sam¡¯s absence here did strike me as unusual, yes, but that¡¯s simply life. With the¡­struggle, going on as you pointed out, orders to all departments have been multiplied consistently over the years. She not only has to coordinate funding and the allocation of resources for them, but contribute herself if she ever wants to progress in her career.¡± ¡°Yet she still has time to breathe down my back.¡± Caleb whistled, taken aback a little by the snarky comment. This young cub could really grow into a lioness couldn¡¯t she? Just had to give her that extra bump¡­ ¡°You know what the best piece of advice I ever received was?¡± She shook her head. Of course she didn¡¯t know, he had only come up with it about a minute earlier. ¡°It took me three months to go from the advisory program to the last mission in my apprenticeship. In my first year after making Senior Researcher while writing my thesis, I had expected to maintain that rapid growth, but quickly found I had peers and colleagues who had thought the same as I had. Surrounded by geniuses in my field, despite all of my hard work to get there I felt small. As I looked at the people sitting next to me and watched them run through problems that had taken me months to figure out in minutes, I felt like the whole world was mocking me for my efforts to get to that point. When I realized that some people¡¯s starting line was my finishing, I finally understood it was my own pride that was getting in the way.¡± Caleb looked through Odette¡¯s gas mask. ¡°Do you understand what I¡¯m getting at? Most people strive to achieve some measure of success or importance without ever realizing what that means. I¡¯ll tell you what you really want to achieve: the capacity for failure.¡±Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Even with the gas mask on, Caleb could tell the woman had just made a face at that. ¡°No, it¡¯s true. Strive for greatness, but have faith that you¡¯ll be fine even if you fail. Accept people liking you, but be fine even when they don¡¯t. Learn to be humble whether you¡¯re promoted or fired, because you have a long life ahead of you and each second is too precious to waste worrying about something you can¡¯t control.¡± Caleb looked back to the front of their group, understanding that Odette¡¯s lioness had evidently hidden itself back up after that talk. ¡°I understand, even if it sounds a bit cliche. Thanks.¡± What? Cliche? Caleb complained in his mind, but soon enough they had come up on the first row of tents, most of which were scorched through or collapsed. The group of scientists fanned out, clearly eager now that their skylegs weren¡¯t being tested, to gather data on the surroundings in accordance to their specific fields. Unlike the others, Caleb and Odette¡¯s would take them to the center of the encampment. ¡°It looks like there was a fight here. Some of these discharges are clearly from explosives. Look at the impact craters over there!¡± Caleb hurried her along, tapping her on the shoulder to follow him. ¡°It¡¯s not our business either way, come on.¡± But something in his stomach sank too as he glimpsed at the surroundings. Clearly, Odette was right, but whatever had happened here hadn¡¯t been shared with them. Sam and the higher officials had been extremely vague about the results of the satellite imagery, what they had seen in the hours after gaining visuals, and the Major hadn¡¯t been very helpful either. But even against the backdrop of the testament to human atrocity, nothing could have prepared them for the sight of the specimen they had come for. Its presence, above all, stabbed into them like a stake in the heart. A partially flayed conglomerated mass of colorless tentacles. Flattened like matted hair and wrapped around a nauseatingly disfigured saccule, containing something half-dry half-wet. Words alone couldn¡¯t do it justice. The mere fact that it struck terror into Caleb¡¯s heart immediately after seeing it spoke columns. Odette, however, must have had a stronger constitution to immediately speak her burning thoughts after seeing it. ¡°It¡¯s not from this world, is it?¡± Caleb snapped to the junior researcher. ¡°What makes you say that?¡± ¡°It¡¯s physiology, its presence. Just by looking at it, I can¡¯t see any sort of commonality with another species on our planet, mutant or not. Yes, it has some features we can name, but they don¡¯t make any sense in conjunction with each other. How does it move? How does it sustain itself?¡± Caleb shook his head, perhaps a bit in disapproval of the researcher jumping to conclusions. ¡°To say its alien is still far too grand of a stretch. We haven¡¯t even done a core sampling, much less a cellular analysis. Be patient, these things will be answered in time, and now is when you especially don¡¯t want to be hasty, given this is a big assignment for you.¡± ¡°But your speech about being assured¡ª?¡± ¡°--But aliens, for god¡¯s sake?! Perhaps I gave that speech to you earlier than I should have! Really, just wait to run some tests before voicing your initial theories. It¡¯s a lesson that I¡¯ve learned after some thirty years in this field, and that doesn¡¯t contradict my earlier statements. Alright?¡± Odette looked like she had been slapped, before nodding and working to unpack the equipment they had traveled with. As she transitioned to drilling into the specimen, which turned out to be a lot harder than she had expected, she thought about other things. Sometime in the last couple days, someone like Odette hadn¡¯t been told exactly when of course, when the satellites of the Republic had inexplicably become inoperable, they had lost all visuals over the Jejune region. Which when paired with the sudden emergence of a high-value biological asset in the region and the subsequent loss of communication with the battalion, had sent red flags far up the totem pole of the upper brass. When the Silver Republic¡¯s highest officials had finally gotten back the imagery of the site, they had been shocked by the silent progression of events. It had appeared that the situation in the desert had escalated to violence for some reason, and so the Chancellor had doubled the deployment into the Jejune, sending over a squadron of six high-payload airships. The power of these half dozen vessels accounted for nearly ten thousand men¡¯s worth of firepower, yet they were equipped entirely with lethal chemical agents and incendiary weapons instead. All of which was at the ready to be rained down from far above. That was the kind of thing Odette was thinking of, as she looked above the clouds to the group of airships hovering directly over them. With a shake of discomfort, she loaded the last sample into the container by the machine that Caleb had set up. ¡°That makes two core samples from each part of the specimen¡¯s body we¡¯ve identified. So far that includes two types of feeler tentacles, its outer-dermal sac, its inner-dermis, several yet-to-be-identified organs, and two different cores through parts of its head.¡± ¡°Thanks for your work Odette, now sit down over here and help me work the machine.¡± Odette looked around the workstation the senior researcher had set up, covered by one of the mostly intact tents, and nodded. ¡°Of course, Professor.¡± 15. That Which Is Born of The Flesh It turned out that more scorplings had survived than Justin had first realized. Killing a mother prematurely in the late stages of its pregnancy would have naturally meant the death of most if not all of the brood, but there had been stragglers that had surprisingly survived. Like the one the seedling had been able to latch onto, some had already been on the boundary of full-gestation. From that, it became clear that the scorpion beast had just been about to give birth, which perhaps was the reason it had been so far out in the desert to begin with. Regardless, a total of 27 scorplings had survived and were assimilated by Justin in short order. From a brood of over two hundred, it was a pleasantly surprising number for Justin who hadn¡¯t been familiar with scorpion or mutant biology, but he had supposed ¡®the larger the animal, the more babies it would have¡¯ idea made sense, and he was humored to find the scorplings¡¯ bodies turned the same corpse-yellow shade when they were assimilated that was mirrored in the assimilated humans¡¯ eyes. But still, Justin¡¯s overheating problem still hadn¡¯t stopped, though now after more than twelve hours of following the dried river further south, he was beginning to see hope. Unbothered by the 27 scorplings crawling all over his main body, with each being 3 inches in length, the march of the entire congregation suddenly stopped as he lurched forward. The number of captives by now had further reduced to less than twenty in all. Still though, his hive remained strong. ¡®I was right. The riverbed has grown wider in the past few miles. It¡¯s begun to get wetter, as well. Signs of rain? Or was this area filled not too long ago?¡¯ Such changes in water level were cause for suspicion, or at least curiosity, but in Justin¡¯s heat-affected delirious mind all he could muster was a ravenous excitement for any change in his situation. Anything that gave him a potential for survival. ¡®GO!¡¯ Justin shouted internally. The hive around him was spurred once more, and even the survivors who were looking starved due to unexpected complications moved along with them. They moved forward for miles, then for miles more, and miles more. [Health: 5 / 10] The dried basin seemed to increase ever more in width, prompting Justin¡¯s hungry advances into the southern territory that was growing wetter and wetter. When all of a sudden, as the appeal of the march was just beginning to wane, the sight of treetops cresting over the horizon entered several of the soldier''s eyes. It was just a few more miles, and then, it came. ¡®HA! I KNEW IT!¡¯ Justin had finally made it out of the desert. What greeted him as he looked at the landscape before him now, was¡­a marsh. A dense, black swampland. A wide swath of moor that served as the sticky boundary between the dusty wastes of the Jejune and the snow capped mountains that sat on the other side of it. Justin knew that on the other side of those mountains were the largest cities of the Republic. He wondered if they sat comfortably, if they were unprepared for something like him. ¡®Finally!¡¯ Justin greedily eyed the first body of water he came across as they moved further into the tree line. ¡®Let me down.¡¯ Justin thought to the soldiers who had been carrying him for the bulk of the trip, sighing in relief as they set him into the bog before letting him slip into the water. ¡®My god, this is just what I needed all along.¡¯ Justin thought as he let his head dip below the surface. He knew that there was really no point in worrying about catching a breath with the way his body functioned now. Given the parasite was the one with control, he just needed to leave a few tentacles out of the water in order to pull in oxygen for it. He had subconsciously accepted at this point that his body was basically just a mass of tentacles as the Origin, and this thing he thought of as ¡®Justin¡¯s body¡¯ had only kept its appearance so far because of the damaged mechanical suit that was still wrapped around it.Stolen story; please report. It was no more delusional than calling an egg an egg because of the shell around it, when in reality it wasn¡¯t yolk that filled it but tomato soup. Justin swam deeper into the swamp, with the soldiers following behind on the sparse regions of stable dry land. The scorplings¡¯ squishy bodies were buoyant enough to paddle on the surface of the marsh to follow him. Eventually, Justin realized he had come to the edge of the lake, and opened up his status screen once he reached the bottom of its depths. [Level: 10] [Grade: E-] [Status Effects: Enervation] [Race: Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [Attributes: 13 STR, 6 DEX, 1 END, 5 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 3] [Health: 4 / 10] [Stamina: 94 / 110] [CEL: 3 / 3] [Biomass: 6103] [Alpha Hive Capacity: 500 / 500] [Beta Hive Capacity: 27 / 1000] [Skills: Assimilate (E-), Consume (E-)] [E-Grade Evolution Available!] Like a water-cooled computer, his heating problem had been solved by the pool of murky water. His status of fatigue still remained, but now he realized the source of it had to be something internal, and not the work of the desert environment Just as an experiment, now that he was in a better state of mind, he let seventeen members of the hive go, the exact number of survivors he had left to replace them, if need be. Several soldiers above the pool of water collapsed as they stepped forward. Their equipment and biomass would be collected later. As soon as they fell though, the status effect left him, and Justin¡¯s body once again felt as strong as it had in the encampment. Even stronger actually, considering the stat points he had invested since then. The status of enervation had halved the utility he had gotten out of each point, so now he was more than twice as strong as he had been a few days before. With that solved, Justin held off on assimilating the survivors for the moment. He had reached level ten in the last twelve hours, but he knew to wait until he was in a safe location for the racial evolution. Like a class promotion, a billion little things could go wrong if he was attacked during it, or if he were subject to status effects. He also had to wait for his natural regeneration to kick in and replace the parasite¡¯s health, as that could affect the evolution too. Despite his open contempt for it, if he planned to evolve alongside it, the parasite¡¯s health was critical for the upcoming process. As of now, he had only speculated at the possible routes the Origin¡¯s evolution could take, but now he would be able to see them. From that, he would be able to guess what the effect could be on his own mind. More than anything, he had to plan his evolution with control in mind. Improving the strength at his disposal would only come secondary. Justin opened the options. [Evolution to E-Grade] [Scourge Progenitor (Pupa)] [After an initial period of assimilating hosts and devouring biomass, a Scourge Progenitor in the larval stage will eventually evolve to this stage. A straightforward path for the daemon, in the next stage of maturation it will gain comprehensive boosts to its assimilation and consumption abilities, as well as its influence over individual hosts. If this natural evolution path is followed, the fully mature scourge has a chance to advance to a more significant level of life, and be given a mission by its species¡¯ patron, advancing it to the level of a Daemon Herald.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+2 DEX, +1 END, +8 PER, +6 Free Attribute Points, +1 CEL] ¡­ [Scourge Corruptor] [An atypical route for the scourge species, this particular hivemind has chosen to forgo the quantitative benefits of a network and consolidate its mass into a single, gargantuan hive entity. By forsaking the benefits of potential omnipresence, the individual will have explosively high cellular energy and a much easier time picking up conceptual traits at higher levels of life.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+2 STR, +9 END, +1 PER, +6 Free Attribute Points, +5 CEL] ¡­ [Patron Slave Mind] [Considered as one of the ultimate servants for its patron, this rare class of hivemind has completely cast away its own will in deference to its ancestral master. Entirely subsumed within itself, the slave mind lends its bodies to the whims of the patron which can take control over directly. This hive has a high cellular energy level by the necessity of sending its mind through great distances of space.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+1 PER, +2 CHA, +9 MYS, +6 Free Attribute Points, +4 CEL] ¡­ [Synchronic Intellect] [A subspecies of scourge scarcely found in the galaxy, this hivemind has chosen to evolve itself in the pursuit of task efficiency. By directing the bulk of its hive through unconscious thought, it saves its complete sphere of conscious deliberation for advanced processes. Recorded instances of this subspecies have shown its technological prowess usually benefits from this, but its network is unavoidably beholden to the fatal flaw of a single vital point.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+5 END, +5 INT, +6 Free Attribute Points, +2 CEL] ¡­ [Perpetuating Swarm] [A hivemind in all aspects of the term, this entity has traded all natural traits typical to carbon-based life in exchange for influence over its environment. Nigh undetectable even to the most advanced scanners, this being stretches its cells throughout any organic material, regardless of its sentience or cellular compatibility. In turn, this weakens the physical strength of the hive by a drastic margin, which makes them at this life level often unnoticed and mostly harmless to the world around them.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+15 INT, +6 Free Attribute Points, +0.01 CEL] From the list, Justin immediately realized that the options necessitated much more deliberation than he had anticipated. 16. Is Flesh The first thing Justin needed to take into account was the stat bonuses for each choice. As he was currently submerged in more than twenty feet of water, and could confirm the security of the area from the soldier¡¯s perspective, Justin wasn¡¯t¡¯ concerned for his safety at the moment and could take plenty of time in choosing. Justin looked at the first option, a steady choice based on its stat allotment, and from the description he realized it was what the Origin would¡¯ve mostly likely went with, given its relation to the Herald. [Scourge Progenitor (Pupa)] [After an initial period of assimilating hosts and devouring biomass, a Scourge Progenitor in the larval stage will eventually evolve to this stage. A straightforward path for the daemon, in the next stage of maturation it will gain comprehensive boosts to its assimilation and consumption abilities, as well as its influence over individual hosts. If this natural evolution path is followed, the fully mature scourge has a chance to advance to a more significant level of life, and be given a mission by its species¡¯ patron, advancing it to the level of a Daemon Herald.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+2 DEX, +1 END, +8 PER, +6 Free Attribute Points, +1 CEL] That being the case, by looking at the stat bonuses, Justin could guess what role this particular species would have specialized in. ¡®From its heavy lean on perception, given enough time it would develop Esper-like abilities. It''s impossible to know exactly what I would develop into after choosing this option, but it wouldn¡¯t be the worst case. In the guild, Harriet had been our esper, so I¡¯m familiar enough with the possibilities.¡¯ They had talked at length about their individual class paths, especially in the early years of the guild, so Justin knew that a for Voltas, esper was one of the more diverse power classes. A high perception stat allowed Espers to sense their cellular energy in potent ways, allowing a diverse range of potential skills to develop. Control over natural elements, developing clairvoyance or telepathy, or augmenting physical strength were just a few, and the width of their path was second to only Augurs. Across all the classes though, its use of cellular energy was still the most visually-manifesting. Oftentimes skills from their class had the byproduct of condensing an aura of energy that at times could be visible even to the naked eye. Justin could still recollect Harriet¡¯s golden aura she had emitted while healing. In fact, it had been the first thing he had noticed when they met on a random mission years ago. But did all of that apply to a daemon with the same specialty? Not necessarily. Sometimes the abilities of daemons seemed to closely mirror similar volta abilities. But other times, like in the case of the scourge, there was no volta equivalent. This particular evolution might push Justin toward the domain of espers, but he knew he would never be the kind of healer that Harriet is, or develop conventional control over an element like some fire-wielding hivemind. That just wasn¡¯t how daemons took to the system. The hive would also never lose its basic abilities of assimilating and consuming, though they might be modified depending on what evolution Justin chose. Those two skills had shown up on the interface after level one, but Justin knew that they were likely intrinsic to the Origin¡¯s race. Meaning even scourges without the system, if any existed, would be able to engage in those basic actions. ¡®But even if I gain esper-like abilities, it won¡¯t improve my situation. This one could be a bust.¡¯ Though Justin had that idea, he realized that the next one looked far worse for his situation. [Scourge Corruptor] [An atypical route for the scourge species, this particular hivemind has chosen to forgo the quantitative benefits of a network and consolidate its mass into a single, gargantuan hive entity. By forsaking the benefits of potential omnipresence, the individual will have explosively high cellular energy and a much easier time picking up conceptual traits at higher levels of life.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+2 STR, +9 END, +1 PER, +6 Free Attribute Points, +5 CEL] ¡®Fancy description, but it''s still a brute. Plain and simple.¡¯ Though it had the highest CEL bonus out of all the options, that didn¡¯t make it any more appealing to Justin. The dense energy level could get him over some hurdles he would encounter later on easier, but it came with too many drawbacks. He had no doubt that it was the ¡®consolidation of mass¡¯ that gave it such an advantage, but Justin didn¡¯t feel like he was missing out. Being stuck in a body like that sounded repulsive. Evolving from his current state to a Corruptor would just do more harm than good, and would certainly interrupt whatever balance he had managed to strike in the war for control between his soul and the parasite¡¯s. Despite its apparent similarity to the Cleric specialization, which was commonly described as a fusion of some parts of the pugilist and esper classes, and was actually the volta class he had aspired to adopt before pugilist, he had to look at the next option. It was that unattractive. [Patron Slave Mind] [Considered as one of the ultimate servants for its patron, this rare class of hivemind has completely cast away its own will in deference to its ancestral master. Entirely subsumed within itself, the slave mind lends its bodies to the whims of the patron which can take control over directly. This hive has a high cellular energy level by the necessity of sending its mind through great distances of space.]Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. [Per Level Bonus:] [+1 PER, +2 CHA, +9 MYS, +6 Free Attribute Points, +4 CEL] They just kept getting worse. Justin felt a small headache coming on. He had to reread the description for this one a couple more times before he could make sense of it, and even then he came away with questions. ¡®Its specialization into mystery makes sense, but what is a patron?¡¯ The wording made Justin think of the Daemonic Cult, but those were something mortal-made, so to speak. The system never mentioned something like that before, so Justin quickly wrote it off. Regardless, the apparent ability to send one¡¯s mind over space to be intercepted was something Justin could only imagine Augurs to have the capacity for, and in line with that the evolution specialized in the same stat they did. Any more than that, Justin was unsure of what this choice was. It seemed like a huge leap from the Origin¡¯s current status, but this ¡®Slave Mind¡¯ reminded him of Augurs, who were the least-understood class of Volta in the galaxy. It bore no more thought than that. For obvious reasons, this one was out. [Synchronic Intellect] [A subspecies of scourge scarcely found in the galaxy, this hivemind has chosen to evolve itself in the pursuit of task efficiency. By directing the bulk of its hive through unconscious thought, it saves its complete sphere of conscious deliberation for advanced processes. Recorded instances of this subspecies have shown its technological prowess usually benefits from this, but its network is unavoidably beholden to the fatal flaw of a single vital point.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+5 END, +5 INT, +6 Free Attribute Points, +2 CEL] ¡®This one is probably the worst so far. The description is alright, but the bonus feeds the very stats I¡¯ve been avoiding.¡¯ A cocktail of intelligence and endurance. Strangely enough that didn¡¯t put this one directly in line with any of the volta classes, so Justin was a little unsure of how to compare it. Still, because it carried the risk of strengthening the mind and body of the parasite, he skipped over it. Justin looked at the final option, before forgetting it as well. [Perpetuating Swarm] [A hivemind in all aspects of the term, this entity has traded all natural traits typical to carbon-based life in exchange for influence over its environment. Nigh undetectable even to the most advanced scanners, this being stretches its cells throughout any organic material, regardless of its sentience or cellular compatibility. In turn, this weakens the physical strength of the hive by a drastic margin, which makes them at this life level often unnoticed and mostly harmless to the world around them.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+15 INT, +6 Free Attribute Points, +0.01 CEL] This one had the highest bonus into a single stat, but from its description, Justin would basically be a formless soup, his only ability would be spreading his microscopic film over every surface. Due to the intelligence stat he was sure he would get very good at doing just that, but would it even be him at that point? Past the stage of deliberation, Justin needed to make a choice. After a certain point, just like in a class promotion, one needed to predict their future growth from the descriptions. The stat bonuses impacted the short term, and survivability in many ways, but the description gave the user of the system a glimpse into how they would progress. Of the listed ones, only the descriptions for Scourge Progenitor and Synchronic Intellect made any sense for Justin to choose. The others either pulled him in directions he had no interest in, or would compromise his control over the hive. Yet these two could still very well do that too, and that was the leap of faith Justin had to make. He couldn¡¯t just leave such a thing to a coin toss, so he carefully ruminated on the difference between the two. ¡®Of the five, the specializations of Esper, Cleric, Augur, and Technical are all mirrored by one, with only the Synchronic Intellect having no indication of what it follows. With five points per level in both intelligence and endurance, that could either strengthen the parasite, or give me the possibility of taking skills from the Technical or Cleric classes. This is all given that I hold out until the next evolution, which should be at level 25.¡¯ It might sound high-risk, high reward, but the reality of it was heavily steeped in the Origin¡¯s favor. If increasing intelligence or health through the system turned out to positively impact the origin, Justin would be doomed before he could even fight back. It would be that quick of a change, and the only way to decrease a stat permanently once leveled is through Level Lock atrophy, which also wasn¡¯t an option for him. ¡®But the description could be key in that. It says I would have my conscious and subconscious spheres of thought divided. One to control the hive, while one remains awake in a singular but vulnerable vessel.¡¯ Which wasn¡¯t too different from the situation with the scorplings that had yet to grow to maturity. Their nervous systems weren¡¯t complex enough for the full weight of his consciousness to emerge within, so the parasites inside each of them responded to his subconscious desires instead. Like this, the whole of the hive would be controlled without him having to constantly juggle the bodies mentally, and he could return to assuming his comfortably singular point of view. ¡®Would it all work out like that?¡¯ The system¡¯s actual workings were the biggest stipulation in his optimistic view of the future. The system had no obligation to follow his worldview after all. There had even been times in the past where Justin had felt it had the inclination to do the exact opposite, though that was obviously just his own superstition. It had never been proven that the System had any kind of sentience or tendency outside of its normal operation. Its origin and purpose were still highly disputed, of course. Though Justin still couldn¡¯t hinge on that hope, it was better than remaining on the same course. Sooner or later, Justin realized his current rate of expansion would slow down, and the growth of the parasite¡¯s mind would come for his own. If the theory of Dualism still held true, then he needed assurance beyond a single variable. Aside from the risk of investing into those two stats, this evolution might be able to give it to him. [Evolution Initiated!] [Scourge Progenitor (Larva)] [A scourge at its earliest stage, its rudimentary control over its flesh network is still improving. While in the learning stage it''s capable of experiencing many different things that will influence the direction in which it develops. Commonly documented throughout the galaxy, at this life level they are only a threat to individuals lower than the D-Grade.] [Per Level Up:] [+3 Free Attribute Points, +0.2 CEL] [Evolving ¡ú] [Synchronic Intellect] [A subspecies of scourge scarcely found in the galaxy, this hivemind has chosen to evolve itself in the pursuit of task efficiency. By directing the bulk of its hive through unconscious thought, it saves its complete sphere of conscious deliberation for advanced processes. Recorded instances of this subspecies have shown its technological prowess usually benefits from this, but its network is unavoidably beholden to the fatal flaw of a single vital point.] [Per Level Bonus:] [+5 END, +5 INT, +6 Free Attribute Points, +2 CEL] 17. Torrent The initiation of the evolution felt like a burst of lightning. A force from within Justin¡¯s body slowly radiated outward, sending his nerves into a shocked state as it edited his and the parasite¡¯s genetic code. As a maggot would emerge from its burrow, the once-proud Volta writhed around in the swamp¡¯s filthy water, rocking the lake¡¯s waters to form waves above. Mistakenly opening his mouth from the pain, he was even graced by a flood of the pathogenic soup that comfortably found its way into his stomach. Justin sputtered, forgetting in the midst of the self-inflicted torture that he didn¡¯t need to breathe like a normal person. The need for oxygen in his body was being taken care of by the parasite¡¯s tentacles, even now. But those very tentacles were not excluded from the affair either. As Justin¡¯s mind rapidly darkened from the taxing biological process like a drunk beginning to black out, the tentacles above the lake began to squirm and thrash against the wet dirt. Everything from their texture to their color was affected too, just like Justin¡¯s own body. Though he didn¡¯t know it just yet. The parts of the tentacles that could be seen began to change right away. Their hue liquidized and fluttered like an iridescent illusion. They flashed in transitions. From a sickly pale, they deepened into a darker moss-like green, then lightened back to a bright yellow, before slipping down the color wavelength again at an intimidating shade of dark grey with an undercurrent of electric blue. Justin¡¯s own body was inevitably changing at the same time as well. His once-taught muscles flayed themselves before engorging. They threw themselves against the inner lining of his tattered mechanical suit, before the suit began to break apart from the stress. Once, it had been designed to withstand attacks from the C-Grade, but after losing most of its energy and being battered beyond any legitimate hope of repair, it fell apart from the mere spasms of an evolving E-Grade daemon. The pieces were then blown away and scattered through the waves and across the lake¡¯s floor. The material was far too dense to rise to float, so the remains of the suit¡¯s chassis and armor was half-buried in the lake floor. After having shorn its cage, the Origin¡¯s body was elongating and finalizing its structure. It still resembled Justin¡¯s body in many respects, after having spent so long in the tightness of the suit, but there were still many differences. The tentacles spreading from his body were no longer splayed out in all directions, but had found a purpose in organizing themselves into thick and powerful branches. Contracting and binding together, they wound within the torso before punching out the back. Like the figure of a flower in spring, a dark mass bloomed from behind Justin''s back and spread out. More than tentacles, it could have resembled plumage if one was looking from a distance away. Some of them then emerged from the lake for oxygen once more, though now far thicker and more menacing. The hollows within them that had previously existed with the idle width of pinheads, now were far more stable and flexible. Large enough to fit hand-sized fruits now without having to actively expand. Thoughts within the evolved body began firing again after some time. ¡®Ah!...? Is it still going on?¡¯ A few minutes after he had initiated the evolution, Justin¡¯s mind became active once again. Justin had been woefully unprepared for the shocking experience of the evolution, predicting it wasn¡¯t going to be much different than an E-Grade class promotion. Clearly, he had been wrong. The pain caused had instead sent him into a blackout. Justin¡¯s vision tried to adjust to the murky depths, before he realized that his eyesight must still be the same as ever: not able to see in mud-water. A promotion of one stage wouldn¡¯t mean a total overhaul, he supposed, even if it had been more dramatic than he was used to. So Justin remained with his eyes closed and summoned the system screen. One of the perks of the system was that since it was only visible to the individual and gave off no light to the surroundings, it didn¡¯t matter whether one had their eyes closed or open, if they were blind, or had the capability for ocular sense at all. [Grade-E Bonuses:] [1 END ¡ú 15 Health] [1 DEX ¡ú 15 Stamina] [1 INT ¡ú 500 Alpha Hive Capacity] [1 Alpha Hive Capacity ¡ú 2 Beta Hive Capacity] ¡­ [Level: 10] [Grade: E] [Status Effects: N/A] [Race: Synchronic Intellect] [Attributes: 13 STR, 6 DEX, 1 END, 5 PER, 1 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 3] [Health: 15 / 15] [Stamina: 140 / 140] [CEL: 3 / 3] [Biomass: 6085] [Alpha Hive Capacity: 483 / 500] [Beta Hive Capacity: 27 / 1000] [Skills: Assimilate (E-), Consume (E-)] ¡®The health of the parasite has been improved, what a shame.¡¯This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Wait, actually, was that even the case? Justin had a realization all of a sudden that took him aback. Now that he thought of it, wasn¡¯t the fact that he was here, thinking thoughts as himself, the same as saying he had been liberated from the influence of the parasite? The gamble had paid off! He had done it! The chain of death that had been around his neck for the last week had finally been unlocked and cast aside! Or at least, that seemed to be the case. Justin¡¯s spirits immediately fell back down to a manageable calm. He couldn¡¯t say for sure whether everything had gone his way, but judging from the manner in which the system had put it, and from the apparent change in his own physiology, he could determine that something had definitely been shifted in the balance between the parasite and himself. Was it a fusion¡­or division? Justin wasn¡¯t sure. As of this moment, he believed that he was still himself, or as much of himself as he had been since the beginning of the week when all of this had started. What that meant was that perhaps he wouldn¡¯t have to assimilate anymore just to survive. That sounded great to Justin. He wouldn¡¯t have to kill or sacrifice anymore just to stay in control of this hungry machine. Then he could see about fixing his appearance, and maybe getting rid of the tentacles. Then Harr¡­ ¡®Ah¡­I¡¯m deluding myself. There¡¯s no way it''s all that simple. If the influence of the parasite had been truly severed, then I wouldn¡¯t still be connected to the hive. If everything¡¯s based off of this theory of souls in the first place, then by its own rules the soul can¡¯t be destroyed. The parasite might still hold influence somewhere, I just don''t know where that is.¡¯ Justin sighed internally. He had to learn more. [Stage Quest: Acquire 2 or more Talent(s)] [Time Left: 29:23:53:09] [Progress: 0 / 2] [Completion Reward: Random Reward Selection] [Punishment for Failure: Level Lock] ¡®This does not spark joy.¡¯ Looking at his Stage Quest right after just further compounded how little might have changed about his situation. Talents were not uniquely given by the system, but were incredibly hard to obtain through other means. To ask for two of them was beyond his expectations. Unlike skills, talents didn¡¯t need to be consciously activated in order to be used, nor were strictly tied to one¡¯s class or racial attributes. They all either improved some aspect of the individual¡¯s strength or extended their abilities or innate natures beyond their normal range. Looking at the quest requirement made Justin¡¯s stomach turn. A Stage Quest requiring two separate talents to be obtained within the E-Grade was something he had never heard of someone receiving. Even the voltas with the worst luck had only gotten something like this when they were in the higher grades. The middle of D-Grade at the very earliest. So Justin supposed he owed it to his luck that he had gotten it a full grade lower. Was it retribution for his prodigious rise? Not likely. Despite it seeming unachievable, Justin didn¡¯t think it was totally rigged against him. After all, it still held to his belief in the quests following themes for each stage. Being in the middle of the E-Grade, this one should have been ¡®Diversification¡¯. ¡®I suppose getting new talents is like diversifying, but how am I going to obtain anything on this primitive planet without the system rewards?¡¯ There were a couple ways Justin knew to obtain talents. One was accomplishing a great feat, which usually meant a battle beyond one¡¯s grade or level, and being recognized by the system for it. The second was getting a good completion rating on a stage quest and being rewarded with a random talent. That was it. Those were the only two ways Justin knew of, but either of those things were unlikely to happen in the next thirty days for Justin. The latter was just plain impossible. He couldn¡¯t obviously earn a stage quest reward before his stage quest was completed. ¡®I can only try later. For now, I just have to keep moving on. I need to head further south.¡¯ Justin went back to focusing on the feeling of his body in the water by manually moving his attention there. It had been something his mind was capable of since the parasite¡¯s involvement. Groping around in the water, he found something that felt like a jagged rock wall soon enough. The painful static feeling from the evolution was still present in his body, though he knew that by now the process had run its course and the feeling was just a temporary remnant. Taking a moment to reach out to the network, it became apparent once again just how the evolution had changed things for him. ¡®No matter how hard I push I can¡¯t emerge in any of their bodies anymore. Though I can still feel that the group is roughly above me somewhere in the marsh.¡¯ Justin was elated to feel that. His early pugilist promotions had been far from this dramatic. It almost was like he was back in his previous body, were it not for the jellyfish-like tentacles streaming out from his back. ¡®The first thing I should do is¡­wait, what is that?¡¯ As he had been groping the wall in front of him the whole time while he was still blind, he hadn¡¯t taken long to notice there was a faint suction feeling coming from one of the cracks. A small stream of water was being sucked out from the lake he was in. Was it being drained, or pulled? ¡®I can¡¯t tell if it¡¯s at the same level or not, but how could the pressures be so different? What¡¯s behind these rocks, a cave?¡¯ Justin tried to push his finger through, before finding that it was actually too large to fit. Had the size of his hands changed as well? Justin couldn¡¯t see an inch in front of him down here, so he had no idea. He was working through his surroundings right now by touch, which was easier thanks to his many-times-more limbs. THWAMP! Just then as Justin turned around, about to emerge from the lake, one of his tentacles smacked against the wall behind him. A low vibration passed through the water, sending shivers down Justin¡¯s spine. ¡®Oh crap.¡¯ Then another vibration rang through the water, and then another. Justin felt the cracks that were forming in the rock wall by the currents created. Shockwaves passed through the water until everything began to crumble in on itself. Blind to the events, Justin didn¡¯t sense that the wall had fallen until he felt a surge of water roar past him. Immediately, the lake began to drain. Justin quickly attempted to harden his tentacles above land, to dig them into the soil and wrap them around the thin trees of the swamp, but it was all useless. He even felt briefly as many pairs of hands tried to pull on his tentacles from somewhere above, but by then, his body was halfway into the hole and the hive soldiers only succeeded in dragging themselves under with him. In an instant, Justin had fallen from contemplating his evolved state to being inhaled by the swamp, and all because of a brief display of inexperience in wielding his new body. In the instant that followed, as Justin was sucked out from the lake and thrown into the chasm below it, his throaty voice began a bellow in chilling anger that burned into a roar. 18. Tempest Tossed ¡°Professor, the biopsy results have come back.¡± ¡°Hm? Oh¡­good. Let¡¯s see them.¡± A few hours after arriving, the preliminary teams onboard the first airship had determined the encampment to be free of any airborne pathogens or radioactivity. So while the rest of the airships had descended at the news and begun to unload the supplies for the resettlement of the area, most of the scientists and government officials in the camp had chosen to remove their hazard suits for comfort¡¯s sake. Odette was one of the few exceptions to this, refusing to take off the protective equipment as there was still a possibility the teams had missed something, as she had stated. This was even after being asked multiple times by Caleb to follow suit. So to reward the researcher for being so ¡®well equipped¡¯, Caleb had appointed her to the monotonous task of watching the progress of the core sample analyzers tick up while the rest of them had fallen back to the ship for lunch. The cafe tent didn''t have the capacity for hot food yet, and it would be a time still before anywhere had more amenities than the ships. So after a long while, Odette had finally left the tent station to call for the Senior Researcher¡¯s presence. Caleb took his time finishing his meal before throwing the remainder in the trash. With the unhurried movement one would expect from someone twenty years older, he followed behind the junior researcher as she explained the results of the scans. ¡°Hmm, nothing unusually for the most part, though a lot of these can¡¯t be traced to any known samples of the Republic.¡± Caleb bent over the device¡¯s monitor, nodding his head. There was a slightly annoying buzzing noise from all of the devices in the tent. ¡°Would that suggest it¡¯s extra¡ª¡± ¡°--No. Mutant samples with unique gene structures come up all the time in our database, it''s one of their commonalities, if nothing else. These results suggest nothing more than the fact we¡¯ve uncovered yet another species of mutant beast, and it¡¯ll be reported as such.¡± But even then, mutant samples usually had some identifiable similarity in their genetic structure with a non-mutated organism. They were called mutants, after all, but what Odette had been about to say next was stuffed back down as soon as she saw the look on Caleb¡¯s face. He obviously didn¡¯t want to continue to hear what he viewed as unscientific drivel. As a result, Odette instead nodded and deferred to the judgement of the more senior official. Moving on, she then addressed the next monitor. ¡°This is the result that I felt most merited your attention, however. As you can see, while a core sample from the brain doesn¡¯t show as much as a full scan would, the system still picked up its abnormalities shortly after the sampling.¡± Odette reversed the diagram on the computer back to the view of it when the sample had been taken. ¡°As you can see¡­¡± ¡°My god!¡± Caleb stood back like he had just discovered fire. His attention was caught by the minute flashes of light that were shown on the screen¡¯s imagery of the brain, signals that were only supposed to be present in a living sample, not in one like they had taken. ¡°Bio-electric signals! I can¡¯t believe it.¡± ¡°Actually, sir, I was thinking that perhaps the signals were rendered from a less distilled presence of energy. I know our sampling machine only goes through a certain database of emissions so I was wondering if¡­¡± ¡°Odette, please. Now is not the time to stand out, like I¡¯ve said. This software is clearly identifying bio-electric signals, and I can verify it as such given my expertise. You¡¯ve spoken at length regarding your ambitions, but now isn¡¯t the time to go overboard. Go inform the Major to contact the department. We¡¯ll be needing more personnel to investigate this.¡± What? She could hardly believe his words. At that moment, Caleb seemed like a completely different person than the one who had been on the airship, listening to her anxieties. Had she offended him when she spoke of her career aspirations? For all her expertise in a lab, the human element still eluded her. These last few interactions with the senior she thought she had known baffled her.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Odette! Go tell Major Smirnov!¡± Caleb looked back from the monitor to Odette. His glare at that moment destroyed any faith she had once had that he was going to be just in his evaluation of her. As she now could recognize, her performance on this mission had gone from a certain pass to now hanging in the wind precariously. Beneath the fear that she felt though, Odette was shocked to recognize another feeling surfacing. A heat in her chest that she had barely felt since the start of her professional career had begun to bubble to the surface. Fury. ¡­ ¡®Well, I¡¯m fucked.¡¯ Justin retracted his tentacles as he tried and failed for the umpteenth time to scale the enormous chasm wall that he was currently below. After being drained from the swamp like unmentionables from a toilet, Justin had fallen for hundreds of feet before landing in a deep cavern. Unlike the piles of meat paste around him though, he had tentacles at his disposal to slow his descent. The lake¡¯s water was still falling like a cascade into the low space, filling it up and restricting him to an ever-shrinking spot of dry ground. With the limited light of the cavern, Justin couldn¡¯t get a good look at his tentacles, but could certainly feel the aftermath of trying to climb up the sheer rock face. ¡®They feel like they¡¯ve been through a cheese grater.¡¯ Justin held them before him. Not enjoying the raw feeling, he quickly swept over the smashed corpses of the hive soldiers, consuming their biomass to reform his body. Some degree of regeneration happened over time in any body with the system, but he had found out recently that he could expedite it by using biomass as a fuel and material for repair. Adding to the fact that the hive consumed it, Justin was beginning to see why it was first rewarded by the stage quests. ¡®Still, I hope there¡¯s more uses for it.¡¯ Justin looked around the cave that was half underwater. After being drained from the lake, Justin had taken a few minutes to calm himself before seeing that he had fallen into some kind of salt cave. Countless hexagonal pillars of the mineral lined the walls, some even gave off an illumination bright enough to dimly light the space with a whitish-yellow hue. ¡®Never seen that before, but I¡¯ve got to deal with one thing at a time.¡¯ Like getting out of the cave to begin with. Fuck acting like a tourist. He could still feel the presence of the rest of the hive, but only distantly now. They had begun to move through the swamp already, likely beginning to search for the other end of the cave. They very well couldn¡¯t follow him the way he had come in, after all. But regardless, Justin had no plan to rely on the hive¡¯s help. ¡®If climbing up isn¡¯t an option, then I¡¯ll have to find an exit somewhere else. Below?¡¯ Justin scanned the water around the stone island he currently stood on. There was something off about the color in some parts of the lake. Justin noticed something on the far end of the cave, where a few bubbles were coming to the surface. ¡®It''s darker over there than the lake¡¯s water. It must have been here long enough to be significantly salinized.¡¯ Unlike the water from the lake that had just been introduced, that meant it was native to this cave. Given its presence local to only that end of the cave, it also indicated there was probably a deeper section over there. It was his best bet. Though it was possible that the cave system went deeper before emerging somewhere else in the swamp, he still carried the risk of getting stuck there. But he wouldn¡¯t make any progress if he waited here, and if the hive took too long to find him he didn¡¯t know if they would starve or not. It didn¡¯t matter how much biomass he had stored if he couldn¡¯t reach them. Justin dived into the water before leaving a few tentacles wrapped around the dry stones. Even if he could hold his breath for a few minutes, his body still needed a source of oxygen in case he got trapped. ¡®It¡¯s getting cooler in this direction, I¡¯ll go deeper.¡¯ It was surprisingly easy to navigate through the waters with his new form, as thanks to his tentacles he could push and pull through the jagged cave quite easily. Actually seeing what he was doing was still no easy task, however. ¡®I think there¡¯s a hole here¡­yep. Oh it''s a tight fit!¡¯ Justin grimaced as he squeezed his body through the underwater crack in the cave floor. Chunks of salt rock flew off, while some pierced through the mushier parts in his prehensile limbs. [Health: 14 / 15] ¡®Oh come on! Are you kidding me?¡¯ Justin wrestled through it, squeezing through to the next side of the crack and into colder water. Emerging on the other side, he felt a strong tug on one of his tentacles that prevented him from moving deeper. It wasn¡¯t long enough. The few tentacles he had left back above the water had reached the end of their slack and refused to stretch any further. This was as far as he could go. Or was it? ¡®Their basically just like big muscles aren¡¯t they? With what I know about muscles¡­¡¯ Justin grabbed the root of the tentacles and bundled them together so he was touching all of them at once, then while pulling back to stretch them out, he suffused units of biomass from his internal storage. Like he predicted, the tentacles began to slacken. Without getting any closer to the opening he had come from, he was gaining distance by elongating a part of his own body. Justin felt triumphant. He had finally fulfilled the one desire held by every man. Like that, Justin continued elongating his oxygen-supplying tentacles behind him as he traveled deeper into the cave system. After a few minutes of the cave water temperature continuing to drop, eventually Justin was stopped dead in his tracks. Something had changed in the water. ¡®I¡¯ve only descended so far but the water has started to get warmer?¡¯ 19. Subaquatic Shindy Following the rising temperature, Justin¡¯s suspicions began to mount as the ceiling started to lower. The further he traveled, the deeper he was forced to descend while the water was still getting warmer. Realistic causes for a heat source to be this deep and widespread ran through his mind but none seemed to make sense. The only one that seemed to be close was that one or more hydrothermal vents were ingrained somewhere in the vicinity within the salt. But that still couldn¡¯t be the source, as no natural vent formation would have the capability to heat up a space this large. From the heat alone it actually felt as if he were a thousand feet deeper. Was it something with this planet in particular? No, there was something else going on here, and Justin thought he had just come up on it as he felt his tentacles around him let go of the salt walls. For the first time since the lake, Justin was feeling the pull of water again. ¡®The water here has eroded another hole in the salt. Does it lead down another hundred feet?¡¯ Justin carefully stuck one of his tentacles through the crack, opening it up a little in case he was right. But his feeler met the second water surface quickly enough this time. There was another body of water in the next cave. ¡®Only way forward is down.¡¯ Justin sighed as he pushed through the opening, keeping his O2 tentacle feed behind him at all times while it elongated. As he splashed into the body of water, Justin soon realized that it was a far larger space than the previous caves had been. The light in here was also a little better than in the other caves, but was still very dim. Justin craned upward through the wavy water, attracted by the presence of light from the crystals there. ¡®Those shimmers above, reflections on the water surface? This far underground, I must have entered some kind of cenote.¡¯ Either that or some kind of confined aquifer. Both were gatherings of water underground, the one that he was in just happened to have a pocket of air, judging by the reflection. When Justin looked down he found only an abyss. The water had already been so darkened by its impurities that by adding to the fact that the salt rocks weren¡¯t that bright and the minerals they deposited over the years were cloudy, the depths of the cenote were incredibly light-restricted. It would almost be eerie, if Justin didn¡¯t know that essentially nothing could live in waters this ridden with salt. Despite that, Justin still felt like the shape of darkness below wasn¡¯t lining the rounded shape of the cenote. Almost forming its own jagged one. No¡­was it actually moving, instead? ¡®What was that?¡¯ Justin¡¯s eyes strained. ¡°Fear.¡± BOOOM A shockwave rising from the depths of the cavern erupted past Justin, sending him and his surroundings upward. At the same time, the distorted and heavy groan of a voice entered his ears. ¡®Fear? Who had said that?¡¯ Then Justin saw one of the clots of darkness detach itself from the wall like an appendage. Despite being what he guessed was more a hundred feet below him, the movement of the darkness rocked the water under him. Once again, he was sent upward and nearly splashed out of the water were it not for his tentacles tethering him. ¡®What a creature!¡¯ Clarity came to Justin¡¯s mind. At once with equal parts fascination and shock, he watched as the darkness below him rose from the depths and revealed itself as an organism. The source of the water¡¯s temperature had unveiled itself. It must be the cause of the water level fluctuations in the swamp, he realized as well. To think it was an inhabitant of the swamp, and not an anomaly of the environment! But Justin quickly realized if it was hostile, he wasn¡¯t in a good position to defend himself. This hearkened back to the scorpion problem, but now Justin was completely isolated. Another crash of waves was sent toward him from its movement. Justin¡¯s tension rose as the creature did too, its frame filling the edges of the aquifer as it got closer every passing moment. ¡°Fear!¡± Again, the voice rippled through his mind, but Justin was tired enough of hearing it by then. ¡®No!¡¯ It had apparently verified his presence after that one, as Justin was quickly starting to see the shape of the beast despite the dim surroundings. Over a hundred feet in diameter from what Justin could guess, unfurled a colossal seven-pointed starfish with its side facing Justin. From end to end, it was far larger than the Herald had been without considering its tentacles. On one side of its surface it bore an undulating anatomy, allowing Justin to see the veritable mega factory of organic operations that was occurring. Millions of cilia strands covered its body. While in normal biology these were usually microscopic hair-like structures that acted as conveyors or feeders for cells, the starfish¡¯s cilia were large enough for Justin to see, and culminated into vast clumps of stalk-like polyps.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. These stalks were currently darting through the water in the direction of Justin with a singular clear purpose: to feed. ¡®Oh shit!¡¯ Something flew at him. Justin¡¯s tentacles instantly encircled him at his command, crossing in front of his chest in an x-pattern to shield against the gigantic appendage. BOOM! But still it wasn¡¯t enough. One of the starfish¡¯s stalks slammed against Justin¡¯s cross-guard, thundering through the water and shooting him back against the salt crystals. The incredible force of the attack left him stunned for a moment, though Justin had learned his lesson about opening his mouth in shock. Justin quickly checked his system. [Health: 4 / 15] ¡®After a single attack!?¡¯ It had been more than enough to turn an ordinary person to mist, and had left Justin crippled in a way he hadn¡¯t been yet. The physical weakness of his race was starting to show. WOOOOSH Justin desperately swam out of the way to avoid the next attack. One more hit would be fatal.. ¡®Shit! Alright, where is my opening?¡¯ Usually, larger creatures like the star had a weak point. This remained true even across the galaxy as because of their size and presence, the common laws of organisms often weren¡¯t enough to sustain them. The larger daemons Justin had experience with had to rely on secondary or tertiary organs to supplement their vital functions, such as another heart, brain, lung, etc. Justin was willing to bet this law applied to mutant beasts as well. As this phenomenon was unnatural and only occurred in extreme situations or due to the system¡¯s interference, these organs formed outside of the body or in odd locations. With the starfish, there could be a few possibilities, but Justin didn¡¯t have the endurance to take another hit, or stamina to experiment. ¡®The open side? No, it''s all covered by stalks, that environment could turn on me very quickly. Go behind it? I can probably swim faster than it can turn, but it''s likely to be armored back there. Where else¡­huh? What''s that at the tips?¡¯ Each of the seven tips of the starfish culminated into a dark sack of bulbous material. Whatever made up their texture, it looked reflective even in the dim lighting of the cave. Its eyes. That was where his offensive could be delivered to the most potent effect. WOOOSH While he was thinking however, a stalk as wide as his body carved through the water inches away from his face, narrowly missing him thanks to a quick duck. Justin thanked his reaction time, but then all of a sudden, he felt a tug on his body from behind. Looking back with a wide expression, his teeth gritted heedless of the salty water. A stalk of the starfish beast had actually found something of Justin to hold onto, and seemed to be contemplating what to do for a moment. ¡®You fucker! Get away from¨C¡¯ Then with a single tensing of its flesh, the stalk contracted around the foreign object, snapping the bundle of tentacles that was carrying oxygen to Justin in its grasp. ¡®Shit!¡¯ VHOOM! Oxygen bubbles clouded the area as Justin felt like his lungs had exploded. [Health: 3 / 15 ] Luckily, the tentacles were a peripheral part of his body, so their severance didn¡¯t impact Justin so long as he could hold his breath. It wasn¡¯t as bad being hit directly, but from where he was floating in the water, he knew the impact was soon to be felt if he couldn¡¯t finish his opponent off quickly. BLEAGH! The slack bundle of tentacles cracked out like a whip as they made their way through the water back to Justin, who quickly regrew their tips with a chunk of biomass. Unfortunately that wouldn¡¯t heal his system-based health for the moment, just prevent more water from entering the wounds. He turned his body quickly as the same stalk came back around to strike. WOOOOSH Avoiding it once more, now with a much smaller, more agile frame, he knew he had to act immediately. Justin swam through the deep water in a blur, burrowing with his tentacles in a spiral-shape to get to the closest tip of the starfish. ¡®The eyes!¡¯ It was his only shot. WOOOSH WOOOSH Several stalks cut in his direction, but he was prepared and rolled like a bullet through the water past them. With his body in patches, Justin¡¯s blood was foaming the surrounding water, but eventually he got to the closest eye without getting hit. It was a small collection of beady little spheres underneath a loose membrane. Each could have fit in his hand, so the organ reminded him somewhat of a sack of fruit, albeit rotten and slightly disgusting. ¡®But I suppose I can¡¯t talk.¡¯ Looking around quickly and seeing the beast¡¯s stalks still in the middle of winding back, Justin felt a brief grin form before shredding the eye sack with a manic barrage of tentacles. When you could simply blind the enemy, who needed to find the weak point? SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! WOOOOOOOOSH That got the beast¡¯s attention, as a militia of stalks came his way before slamming against the starfish¡¯s own flesh, catching nothing but the open water he had occupied just moments prior. Justin was busy swimming to the next one, repeating what he had done there again, then three more times, before the water was rocked again. ¡°FEAR! FEAR!¡± Justin chuckled internally as the psychic screams of the creature passed over him. With the shoe on the other foot, its psychic murmurs didn¡¯t feel like high-handed commandments anymore but the oafish ramblings of a tyrant that had yet to learn of a rebellion. ¡®No, I don¡¯t fear you. You should fear me!¡¯ He swam to the next appendage, grinning internally as he was about to strike. Had he really been so cautious for the sake of this creature? The only advantage it had on him was its size, which correlated to its innate strength. Even its psychic capability that had initially surprised him only amounted to low-level telepathy. Justin prepared his second-to-last barrage into the creature¡¯s eyes, before feeling like something was off. It wasn¡¯t a sense of mercy that entered his mind, but caution. An emotion he was almost equally disgusted to feel. Justin forced himself to look through his surroundings of water for the reason. The cavern was still choppy at the moment because of the starfish¡¯s past movements, but presently it lacked a certain aggressive zeal that it once had. That¡¯s when Justin realized the stalks of the creature had gone still. The area was just lit enough for him to see them retracting into the cilia membrane like a cowering animal. His eyes widened. ¡®Wait a second¡­telepathy? Fear? Ah¡­.¡¯ Justin almost facepalmed before he remembered a similar situation. 20. Too Stupid To Die Despite his previous experience with another large opponent, it had been way too long since that particular fight in his D-Grade years, and he had maybe¡­kind of...forgotten about it. Justin shook his head as he retracted his tentacles from mauling the eyes that were warily observing him. Swimming down to its open-face bed of cilia, he instead wrapped them around the soft flesh there while sighing. For all he spited it, Justin¡¯s race gave him unique leverage over his own way of thinking. Thanks to innate racial traits he was able to do what humans were incapable of, and divide his focus into a separate series of thoughts. That meant he could send out a single, concise mental burst that was separate from the rest of his thoughts. It was a decisively superior method than storming the starfish with a series of rambling half-thoughts, and in fact if he had been a regular human without any kind of psychic defense, Justin would have long fallen prey to having all of his thoughts read at once. The exchange went something like this: ¡°Are you afraid?¡± To which the starfish sent back a burst of emotions. ¡°Fear! Confirmation! Fear! Fear!¡± ¡°...¡± The wrinkled expression on Justin¡¯s face could hardly be described, as it mirrored an unexplainable divide of frustration and a little guilt. If he were to describe it, the first thing that came to mind after hearing the starfish was a sense of immaturity. Almost nearing that of an infant or juvenile. ¡®Have I been bullying a child this whole time?¡¯ ¡­ A few minutes later, Justin had recovered his health while speaking to the creature some more, which hadn¡¯t been productive in the slightest. The beast¡¯s manner of conversation was incredibly frustrating and unhelpful, so following the confirmation that it was planning on remaining passive, Justin disconnected their mental link. Swimming up to the top of the cenote, he emerged from the surface while gasping. Catching his breath, he looked around the long interior of the cenote. It had been large enough to house the starfish, so it was pretty big by Justin¡¯s standards. His mind went back to his fight with the creature below him. Was he going to get in trouble for this? He couldn¡¯t get reported on a primitive planet, right? No, he couldn¡¯t let himself joke at a time like this. In reality it wasn¡¯t proper to think of it as equal to a child anyway. The starfish had some innate intelligence that made it seem immature like a child, yes. But there were actually many creatures that held some amount of intelligence. The starfish¡¯s intellect only seemed more apparent due to its ability to psychically express itself. Which was another thing that turned out to be lackluster after conversing with it further. Like Justin had guessed, its psychic abilities were limited only to telepathy, which was expected without the system¡¯s additive strength. Even then, due to its low intelligence, its replies were limited only to basic concepts like emotion, agreement and disagreement, and simple observations. Supposition, belief or disbelief, and complex conversation was likely entirely beyond it, so Justin supposed it was some kind of small miracle that it had even understood him at all. Actually¡­now that Justin thought about it, wasn¡¯t the starfish a carbon-based entity? It clearly had the potential for sentience as well, if not the complete package already. It was important to note that sentience was mostly just self-awareness attached to a few other bells and whistles. It didn¡¯t equate directly to intelligence as humans thought of it, but instead had to do with consciousness and a bit of reasoning. If the opposite were really the case then Justin could have named a few members of the Guild Association that assimilation wouldn¡¯t have worked on. No, sentience was a separate status, and a quality Justin believed the starfish may be exhibiting based on their conversation. He grinned. Even though the beast thought their little conflict had passed, Justin was about to prove himself the victor. He left a new tentacle for oxygen above the surface before diving back down where the mutant beast was still watching him. Like wheat awaiting harvest, it had no idea what was to come Justin outstretched a hand in which a ball of flesh rose from the palm before vibrating intensely. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. In an instant, flesh formed around a small skeletal structure and in the next, the seedling parasite formed a primitive sensory catalogue and razor-sharp incisors. That was the critical part. He let his arm drift down after the parasite had formed, allowing it to swim toward the starfish on its own. With seemingly more command of the water than Justin, the small ball of flesh quickly found a soft portion of the starfish¡¯s flesh and began digging in. ¡®With its large body, I doubt it will feel this before it''s too late. The brain should be located near the eyes too, so it will be quick.¡¯¡¯ After the evolution, Justin didn¡¯t want to assimilate any more, but knew regardless of his desires that having the starfish on his side would be an assurance he couldn¡¯t go without. He didn¡¯t want this thing breathing down his neck while he searched for an exit, after all. Justin watched the parasite disappear into the soft flesh of the starfish, and just like he had predicted, it didn¡¯t move in response. Justin waited in anticipation for the feeling of experience to wash over him. Any moment now. Any moment now. A few seconds passed. Eventually, before minutes began to pass, Justin realized something had happened. Or rather, the issue was that nothing had happened. At a slight risk to himself, he swam closer to the starfish¡¯s body, re-wrapping his tentacles around its cilia. With the connection reestablished, he saw and felt how the starfish was surprised to speak with him again. It could emit its own feelings well enough, but apparently it was still not used to actually conversing with other beings. ¡°Do you, er¡­¡± Justin stopped emitting to the starfish¡¯s side as soon as he felt its unspoken confusion. Reverting back to the tone he had taken during their first conversation, he continued. ¡°Pain?¡± The starfish was able to understand when it was put that way. ¡°Denial. Confusion!¡± Okay¡­he hadn¡¯t expected that. Apparently the starfish wasn¡¯t¡¯ feeling anything at all from the assimilation currently going on inside of it. Had the parasite been sent off with its mission properly? Justin believed so, as he had done it himself. After his evolution, the hive should have an easier time following his will than before, so the problem couldn¡¯t be on that front. ¡®So why isn¡¯t it working?¡¯ Justin thought aside from their mental link. Just to make sure, he thought he¡¯d ask another question. ¡°Body¡­Health? Confirmation?¡± Justin knew he was making a leap by hoping it would make the connection between those concepts, but even with its limited intelligence, its understanding of its own condition would far outstrip any guess of Justin¡¯s. So it was worth a shot. However after a few moments, it surprisingly delivered a cogent response. ¡°Confirmation. Healthy. Good!¡± ¡®Huh. The only explanation is that the starfish is unfit to be assimilated. But in what way?¡¯ It was obviously alive. In that it was also carbon-based life like almost all species, and Justin firmly believed it had displayed the capacity for sentience in their exchanges as well. So what was the matter? Justin looked from end to end, surveying the beast. Still as placid as ever, as it had no idea Justin had just attempted to kill its mind and seize its body. ¡®Is it a question of anatomy?¡¯ It now occurred to Justin that such a thing was perhaps a soft requirement of the assimilation skill. The system had its own requirements that it had outlined through the skill¡¯s description, but what if the seedling couldn¡¯t find a brain to begin with? How was it supposed to proceed if there was nothing to control? Like being unable to interface with a network that lacked an interface, Justin couldn¡¯t control a nervous system if it didn¡¯t exist alongside a brain. It was the same reason Justin wouldn¡¯t be able to control cellular or plant-based lifeforms despite their possible conformity to the system¡¯s hard requirements. The control that [Assimilate] specifically evoked wasn¡¯t the bottle-neck here, but rather the hardware of the seedling itself. He had great code for a virus that would work anywhere, but he had only put it on a flashdrive. The other side still needed to have the right port. Perhaps it was an unmentioned byproduct of the skill and couldn¡¯t be improved, but Justin wondered if that was really the case. If the seedling was actually produced from Justin¡¯s own body processes, it may be open to modification in the future. All of that was only the case if Justin wanted to keep this game up. He still wasn¡¯t keen on assimilating more after the starfish, after all. For now though, what that meant was that the starfish was unable to be assimilated due to its simpler nervous system. Justin debated what to do with it then. Unfortunately, due to his hesitation earlier the starfish had been able to briefly recuperate. It hadn¡¯t regenerated nearly anything yet, but the same tricks Justin had used in their fight weren¡¯t likely to work again. Could Justin really leave it to its own devices while he looked around for an exit? It was a hard reality to swallow, given Justin¡¯s strong preference for safety assurances. That had been half the motivator for why he hadn¡¯t revealed his main body in the encampment until he was sure all of the soldiers had been subdued. Yet he couldn¡¯t wait to escape these caves just on the starfish¡¯s account, so he would have to trust it to mind its own business. The important thing was just finding out exactly where those exits were. He hadn¡¯t exactly seen any during their scuffle. ¡®Actually, isn¡¯t there someone here that would know where the exits are?¡¯ Justin swallowed his fractured pride from the failed assimilation and swam back to the starfish, reconnecting their minds again to ask it some questions. Who would know better the cave layout than the being that had been here likely for years? Or so he thought. What actually happened was a few minutes of frustrated exchanges, on his part, that eventually devolved into frantics. He disconnected with agitation before swimming back up. Based on what the beast had expressed, Justin¡¯s situation was a lot more complicated than he had thought. ¡®I can¡¯t believe it. It¡¯s got to be lying!¡¯ If not, then it was wrong. Or confused! There was no way. No way¡­ 21. Masquerade At the Jejune blacksite, days came and went, which was significant for a few reasons. For one, it gave the construction teams enough time to set up their supplies and begin work on permanent structures. The encampment of tents had only ever been a temporary measure. The Republic being spared the effort of having to take them down would have actually been commendable if it hadn¡¯t come at the cost of a battalion¡¯s disappearance. On that front, the investigation into their fate was still ongoing, which had also progressed over the passage of days. This was no mere murder investigation after all. For those looking into the fate of over a thousand members of the Republic¡¯s military, it would take far more than forty-eight hours for them to give up. The final event of significance that had come with the flow of time was the situation around the Herald¡¯s study. For many, their roles had been changed completely. Just as The Professor had ordered, more hands had been called onto the deck, and they were set to arrive sometime later in the day. Meanwhile Odette was using the few minutes of break after lunch, typically reserved for most to smoke, to withdraw to the camp¡¯s communication scaffolding. The tent the battalion had used for radio transmissions had been one of the few left untouched by the fires, and the construction crews had kept it standing while they built the framing around it for the same purpose. Odette¡¯s entrance was at once blocked by a figure wearing a pointed cap. He was a high-ranking official from the Republic¡¯s intelligence agency, who quickly looked her over before nodding her along. Odette lingered before the entrance just a little longer than she needed to, however, staring at the two dark orbs under the man¡¯s cap. ¡°Is my call going through today?¡± ¡°...¡± The official¡¯s expression barely changed, instead repeating his motion for Odette to enter. She shook her head and entered. In the tent, she came up behind one of the communication stations and tapped the operator sitting there on the shoulder, who looked back and gave a wordless nod. Odette had come here every day since it had been set up by logistics. Despite having received no response so far, she kept trying anyway. By now the operators all knew well who she was. Bringing the auditory receiver to her ear, she spoke into the radio¡¯s transmitter. ¡°Lukas¡­?¡± ¡°...bzrt¡­wait one second¡­¡± Odette frowned as she heard the familiar voice of a radio-line operator on the other end instead of her brother, but there was nothing she could do but wait to be connected as they said. Maybe this time¡­ After a few moments her prayer was finally answered. ¡°Od¡ªolder sister?¡± ¡°Yes! Lukas, can you hear me?¡± Odette practically burst into tears at the sound of a young boy¡¯s voice over the line. How long had it been since she last heard that childish rasp? How long since they had last spoken? ¡°Yes sister, I can hear you.¡± Odette¡¯s eyes moistened as she cradled the transmitter in her lap. ¡°That¡¯s wonderful. How are you feeling, Lukas? How have the treatments been going?¡± She heard a few coughs on the other line, but that in itself was actually a good sign. If he was able to cough, that meant his body was possibly recognizing the illness properly. ¡°They¡¯re going okay. The Doctor said that the sickness has moved to my chest, but they keep giving me pills anyway! They were for my tummy, but that doesn¡¯t hurt anymore! Sister please talk to them, the pills they make me take are so bitter!¡± Odette¡¯s face softened. Glancing around the room she turned away from the radio operators. ¡°Is that Doctor Drue you¡¯re talking about?¡± ¡°Mmm, yeah.¡± ¡°If that¡¯s the case you better listen instead of complaining! He was a good friend of mom¡¯s, you know! If there¡¯s a way for you to get better, I know he¡¯ll find it. But for now just be a good boy and listen to him. Can you do that for me, Lukas?¡± There was silence over the line, Lukas was probably making a cheeky face as Odette knew from experience, but he responded before long. ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll do it for you, big sister.¡± ¡°Thank you Lukas, you¡¯re very strong, you know that? Now¡­oh, I¡¯m being told that¡¯s all the time I have, but I promise I¡¯ll try to reach you tomorrow, okay?¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°Okay? Lukas?¡± Odette pressed the receiver closer against her ear, but the buzzing sound followed by a click let her know they had been disconnected. Despite her disappointment, she kept it in check as she handed the device back to the operator. Looking back to the tent¡¯s entrance, she walked over to the man standing there who had cut her call short. ¡°Professor? Is there something wrong?¡± ¡°Smoke breaks over. I came to collect you so we can prepare things for our arriving colleagues.¡± Odette nodded despite her frustration.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. She was still reliant on Caleb¡¯s recommendation to advance her career, after all. Even then, far more things than just her ambitions were counting on her to keep earning money. She had long been responsible for the care of her brother, nearly half a world away now in the best hospital she could find. A center for care outside of the Republic, which had incurred its own numerous lists of debts she was working to pay for. That was why she wanted to be here, though she hadn¡¯t said as much to Caleb. As far she knew, only Sam knew of her deal. ¡°I understand. Shall we check on the eleventh round biopsy results, then?¡± ¡°No, I have a better idea. New equipment arrived yesterday for further tests. I took the liberty of setting it up ahead of time.¡± That made Odette crook a brow. The Professor had set something up in advance? Since when? Not once since they had first seen the specimen had he taken charge in a matter like this. In fact he had almost exclusively been shoveling off the work onto Odette. That was confusing in itself, but their close proximity brought up another matter to Odette that she happened to find a good time to verbalize. ¡°I see. But in regards to another matter Professor, I actually had a question given our preparations for the arriving experts.¡± ¡°Oh? Shoot.¡± He seemed to be in a good mood this morning. Odd. ¡°I was wondering why the camp¡¯s infrastructure is continuing to be used despite the specimen¡¯s apparent size and weight. It occurred to me that the Republic could have swiftly extricated its forces from the desert and moved the project to one of the secure laboratory sites, but instead we¡¯ve continued to invest resources into building a new site in the desert. Given the inherent hazards of the Jejune with several mutant territories running through it, and our exposure to the elements, it doesn¡¯t seem efficient to continue operating here. Am I missing something?¡± Odette finished just as they arrived in front of an unfamiliar tent. Looking at the clean, untouched canvas of it, Odette knew for certain it hadn¡¯t been here originally. In fact she didn¡¯t even remember it being here the day prior. Her senior scratched his chin while they entered. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the floodlights in the tent, but when they did Odette realized there was something familiar about the equipment, however she hadn¡¯t seen any of it at IDS. That was when the Professor, and a Senior Researcher of their department, spoke. ¡°It''s a question that has been circulating around the site quite a bit lately. But the answer boils down to one word. Acknowledgement.¡± ¡°Acknowledgement? As in policy or diplomacy?¡± Finally, the Professor¡¯s derisive smirk that Odette had grown used to in the past few days returned. ¡°Neither. As in the willingness of the act itself. The Silver Republic is a large state, a goliath on the global scale. Were it not for the emergence of a critical technological resource, this status would have remained unchallenged for another hundred years. Yet as you, and every citizen knows, our hegemony is currently being challenged by the Ambers.¡± Odette nodded. So far this was all common knowledge. ¡°And as I¡¯ve been informed of recently, those very Ambers have just learned of our little situation here. In time, they will share it with the rest of the world like they often do, and we will be faced with a storm of inquiry.¡± That took Odette aback. They had already been exposed? No, what was more important was the implication of that statement. Had the professor been informed recently, or had it been last night? Suddenly, certain things began to make sense to Odette. The new equipment setup, the professor¡¯s new attitude, the mystique of the incoming research team. These were undercurrents of subterfuge, not scientific progress as she had thought. ¡°So I speak of acknowledgement, for that is our chief power among powers here. As an influential man once said to me, ¡®The basis of our power is the perception of our power.¡¯¡± The Professor spared a glance during his lecture like he expected her to know the quote. She didn¡¯t. ¡°We cannot afford to scram from the desert like a scavenger dog dragging a kill back to its lair. No! Does the tiger leave the mountaintop for the sake of the mouse? Does the shape of an antler frighten the leopard? Does a shark seek refuge from a school of fish, no matter if its ten or ten thousand? No. The Republic too, is an apex predator, and we do our business in the open. Let the Principality and its laboring minions be the ones to peer through the shutters of their windows, cowing at each and every one of our movements.¡± The Professor finished in a series of militant gestures, with zeal unlike anything he had displayed before Odette so far. In truth, Odette was starting to feel sickened. The Professor¡¯s spontaneous performative speech might have been seen as rousing to some, but with a speculative mind she could understand its insinuations. Odette had thought this to be a research mission, but perhaps the reason why she, a relatively inexperienced biological analyst and engineer had been chosen, was for her assumed naivete. If she hadn¡¯t guessed before, the Professor¡¯s speech made it clear now, this mission wasn¡¯t a step forward in their nation¡¯s understanding of science, but a political masquerade. ¡°I understand. Thank you for explaining this to me, Professor.¡± ¡°Good, now wait here while I welcome our friends from the SCR.¡± Odette had been told a team would arrive today, and apparently that time had come now. But that last bit caught her off guard. ¡°I¡¯m sorry Professor, did you say the SCR, as in the Special Creature Research Department? I was under the assumption our support would be from IDS¡¯s internal research staff?¡± Caleb, who was already more than half a step outside the tent, quickly shot back an uncaring response before leaving. ¡°Ah no, you made the call to IDS, but I later figured that it was in the best interest of the project that SCR be involved instead.¡± ¡°Did the Director believe so as well?¡± Caleb made a dangerous face. However due to the context, Odette couldn¡¯t be faulted for anything like insubordination, as it was an odd change in policy. ¡°That¡¯s right, she did. Now, I need you to put aside any judgements you may have of SCR, even if they¡¯re from a different department I don¡¯t want to hear later that my assistant is on bad terms with them, alright?¡± Odette hesitantly nodded before watching the Professor leave. That¡¯s when she realized why the equipment around her hadn¡¯t looked familiar at first. She had only seen it once in her time in the advisory program, before she had joined IDS. In those days she had been exposed to equipment from many different fields, though since she had only limited interaction with much of it, it had taken some time to remember. She recognized it now though. Blood distillers, a cellular condenser, tissue igniters. This was equipment from another field of science, the very one SCR specialized in. None of it was suited to what their mission was supposed to be here, the presence of SCR most concerning of all. Their department may have had some overlap with IDS on paper, but their focuses were entirely different in reality. Whereas IDS searched for civilian-life applications in mutant beast biology, SCR was a privately-funded organization that had only merged into the Republic¡¯s bureaucracy a few years ago. They were entirely focused on producing marketable applications of mutant-beast technology, and the market that was the most profitable to sell such tech to was the military. In other words, they made weapons from the worst abominations of muscle and bone the world had to offer, and they had recently gained a level of political clout very few organizations had. They weren¡¯t supposed to be at this site. At least not according to the briefing Odette had been given. Yet Caleb said that Sam had agreed to it, which meant that someone higher had as well. Something was happening behind the scenes. The burning feeling in Odette¡¯s chest returned. ¡°This is a fucking circus.¡± 22. A Sinking Feeling More than half a day later, Justin had finished searching what seemed to be every inch of the cenote¡¯s salt walls with his tentacles, even going back and redoubling his search of the previous tunnels. But after all his effort, one thing was confirmed. The starfish had been right. There was no exit from the cenote. It was truly the last open cavern in the winding series of salt caves. The entire system was sealed. And after coming to that realization, what hit Justin wasn¡¯t terror or a bottomless depression but unquenchable anger. He was tempted to reignite his feud with the starfish where it not for the exhaustive list of logical arguments against that course of action. As all the evidence seemed to point to, the starfish with its unique biology was the only living creature that had ever inhabited this cave system until he had shown up, and now it was looking to be his permanent roommate down here. At least until one of them starved. Which from the way things were going Justin was confident would be him. For as riveting a conversation partner as the starfish was, its extremophile biology had allowed it to persist down here for presumably years. Justin¡­well, wasn¡¯t so adapted. His understanding of his body had improved somewhat after the evolution, but while in the E-Grade he was still beholden to the ball and chain called basic nutrition. Oxygen he could scrounge up easily enough, as the cave system was still technically exposed to the outside world via the inaccessible drainage vent, but food was another issue. His biomass storage would only tick down now that he had nothing to refill it with. Yet these facts that would have normally weighed heavy on his mind were merely passing placidly over Justin like an inoffensive mist. After returning to the cenote after his search, Justin¡¯s body floated on the surface of the water. A system window had been hanging in the air for the past half an hour, invisible to the starfish, which had slunk to the depths of the cenote once more where it was busy regenerating its eyes. [Stage Quest: Acquire 2 or more Talent(s)] [Time Left: 29:08:01:12] [Progress: 0 / 2] [Completion Reward: Random Reward Selection] [Punishment for Failure: Level Lock] ¡®It¡¯s actually too bad that I can¡¯t sleep anymore, otherwise I could wait out my death far faster.¡¯ Justin no longer equated a Level Lock with death, as his confidence in the parasite''s ability to revert control had shifted after the evolution, but still his belief in his death was steadfast. He knew it was only a matter of time before he starved. At the rate his body sustained itself, that could take anywhere from several years to under one if he atrophied quickly after the Lock, which would happen in just under a month. Yes, he had all but accepted death, which felt much different this time around than it had in the desert. Making peace with your demise was easier the second time it happened, Justin supposed, but the feeling was far more somber than the rage he had exhibited then. If he ever got a third chance, he would never let himself fall into weakness like this again. He internally made such a meaningless vow. Being confined like this, not by man or daemon, but nature itself and his own mistakes, was humiliating. It confronted him with just how powerless he still was. He could imagine himself as the most capable being on the planet, with access to abilities no other being had, but all that still would mean nothing in the face of an inescapable situation. He had been caught unprepared. It was as simple as that. Justin began to close his eyes, another meaningless action given how dark it was to begin with, when a sudden flash caught the corner of his vision. ¡®What was that?¡¯ His shock was so immediate that he splashed around in the water, turning to find whatever had let off that brief light. It had been slight, and fast enough that Justin wondered if it had even happened, but he couldn¡¯t doubt his only hope now. He wanted it to have happened, needed it to have happened. Whatever it had been, it must have been.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Something on the other side of the cavern flashed. There it was again! Justin was now sure of it. With uncontained eagerness he pulled himself to that side of the cenote, eagerly awaiting the next flash. ¡®And there it is again! What is this? I never saw this when searching earlier?¡¯ It was some kind of small spark, white in color like the rest of the salt¡¯s illumination, only much brighter. Buried beneath the crystals, Justin could hardly make out what it was. He chipped away, before his tentacles that had been brought to a fine point were bent away after hitting against something hard. Harder than salt? That included many minerals and stones, but it wasn¡¯t just rock that Justin had come upon. ¡®My god¡­that¡¯s sheet metal.¡¯ Not an unrefined rocky block of it, but processed, moulded, sheet-like titanium. The same kind used in¡­ ¡®The spaceships of primitive civilizations. But how is this here?¡¯ Like a madman, Justin pulled off large chunks of salt crystal from the cavern wall, before long exposing the titanium shielding that kept on going. Each crystal he pulled off was the size of his head or larger, yet more of the curved metal siding was always underneath. Until he reached the entrance point of the cenote, an exposed part in the material¡¯s structure where water was still pouring in. That had been the way he had come in, and it was only then did he realize the cave system hadn¡¯t naturally been formed. Immediately Justin went to the best source on this. Asking a question immediately after reconnecting with the starfish, he waited for an answer. ¡°Titanium? Ship?¡± The starfish gesticulated in the dark water. At the deep level Justin had joined it at, he couldn¡¯t recognize its body language but he realized it was confused. ¡°Metal. Confusion.¡± The starfish then replied to that as best it could. ¡°Innocence. Extinction. Old.¡± Justin¡¯s face scrunched. As the expressed concepts made their way into his mind, he at first had trouble picking them apart. What did innocence have to do with his question? But perhaps, the starfish was making sense as best it could. Innocence might not mean that it was free from guilt, but the starfish¡¯s way of saying it is uninvolved. Did ¡®extinction¡¯ and ¡®old¡¯ mean that those responsible were dead, or they had left a long time ago? The starfish wasn¡¯t done with their mental link however. ¡°Birth. Hibernation. Protection!¡± Now Justin was even more confused. He could guess that those concepts likely referred to the starfish itself, given it had so far been able to demonstrate its capability for self-awareness, but they stumped Justin as for their meaning. Unless they didn¡¯t have anything to do with the long-gone people, but their ship itself? Was the starfish acting as a warden? For what? Justin sent over his question. ¡°Protection. Confusion.¡± ¡°Protection. Protection. Remain.¡± ¡®Perhaps it doesn¡¯t know what it''s protecting? It barely sounds like it understands the concept to begin with, though I wonder why it''s so adamant around the feeling of ¡®remain¡¯.¡¯ Unless that was the very method to protect, Justin thought. Looking around the cenote, where had the starfish chosen to make its home? The very bottom. And why was that? There were no predators around for it to hide from, and Justin certainly believed that the discongruent instinct to do so wouldn¡¯t have persisted along with its mutant physiology and size. Neither was there any benefit food-wise to sticking at the bottom. It was just as salty at the top of the cenote as the bottom, and Justin didn¡¯t see any other things it could subsist off at the bottom of the cavern than that. Then what was it doing down there? It was covering something with its body. All this time, the starfish had been acting more like a shield than a guardian, something the original owners of this ship had probably intended. Now Justin had to figure out why. Disconnecting from their link, he wondered how to go about getting beneath it. Just asking it likely wouldn¡¯t get him very far. It almost certainly didn¡¯t understand why it was covering whatever it was covering, just that it had the urge to do so. Rationalizing it away from those feelings would take forever if he could only communicate through concepts. Could he just go around it? That was possible. It had most likely attacked him in the beginning out of survival instinct, not from the recognition he was an intruder. If he thought about it from the starfish¡¯s perspective, Justin had been the first other living being it had ever seen. The starfish had been driven by instinct in that conflict, but now it shouldn¡¯t hold any animosity toward him. Betting on that, Justin went with the second option and dove downward. At this point, he was just going off of touch. The dimness of the salt crystals came into view after nearly a minute of descending further, and then Justin saw it. Another bit of titanium. This time, it was a piece that was sticking all the way out from the crystals, bright enough that Justin could properly see the electronics from it blinking. Like a moth to a flame he swam straight for it, beneath a sky of the starfish¡¯s undulating cilia. ¡®A hatch. My feeling was right. This ship is primitive, but far beyond the capabilities of the natives here.¡¯ As far as Justin knew, his team had been the first to make physical contact with the civilization, but maybe they had been wrong. Who had been here before them? 23. Open Secret The hatch was shaped akin to a secure vault, but perhaps because of where it would have been in the interior of the ship, it hadn¡¯t been constructed with solid titanium. The large cenote had likely been main the interior of the ship after all, and while Justin couldn¡¯t see exactly how large it was in totality from the inside, the circuitry beneath the crystals he had caught sight of lent evidence to the fact there had once been a series of rooms occupying the now vast and open space. ¡®The starfish probably wiped all of that out as it grew.¡¯ He wrapped his tentacles around the hatch¡¯s discolored siding. The erosion of the metal there gave away the years it must have spent submerged under the tonnes of water that had filtered in from the ground after cracks had formed. With the strongest part of Justin¡¯s body, he was able to tear the circular door away from its hinges by exercising his tentacles. An act which immediately resulted in Justin being rocked from his position. A sudden influx of water was sent around his body and downward into the hatch, immediately causing him to panic. ¡®Shit! It was sealed!¡¯ The hatch, as flimsy as it was before Justin, had apparently been enough to keep out the water for all of these years. That meant Justin, under the assumption that the other side was just as flooded as the cavern, may have just ruined his only chance to escape his surroundings. ¡®There¡¯s still light, so maybe not all is lost.¡¯ Justin descended through the open hatch. What met him was a modest-sized room, for the first time lit by more than just salt-crystals, Justin could actually see around himself for once. He thanked his luck that the lights were still running. There must have been a generator buried somewhere in all of this rubble, he supposed. Justin stretched out into the water, for the first time catching a proper look at his own flesh after the evolution. The transformation in his appearance shocked him. ¡®I¡¯m grey?¡¯ Not only that, but as Justin checked out the rest of his body, including his torso and his feet suspended in the water, he realized there were other less minor differences. ¡®The tips of my fingers have been sharpened to nearly claws. Even my kneecaps and toes bear some kind of¡­what is that, plating? I have armor now?¡¯ Nevermind the change in hue, which was normal enough for many humanoid species, his body now bore features that were just straight-up daemonic. He was glad enough to be rid of the tentacles coming from every part of his body, but no human he had ever encountered had predatory features even to this degree. He already knew the situation on his back, but the thought of finding a mirror to look at what may have been done to his face formed a lump in his throat. Thankfully, the little guy was still safe. He didn¡¯t know what he would do if he had lost that. ¡®What am I even thinking about? These are all just trivialities in the face of survival. How can I let myself be distracted at this point?¡¯ Justin reminded himself of his vow to avoid ever being powerless again, and returned to a rational line of thinking in short order. Taking stock of his current surroundings was far more important than worrying if his model career was over. There could be something hidden here that could help his situation, after all. Everything had been untouched until the water had rushed in, but even then Justin realized not as much had been damaged as he had thought. ¡®Thankfully the lights are still working, and it looks like this room was mostly sealed containers. I don¡¯t see any doors, which means this room must have been kept behind a seal for a reason.¡¯ Storage was the first consideration that entered his mind, but even for an early spaceship a separate hatch was a little overkill. Justin went to the cabinets that were affixed to the walls to answer that question. Their contents might inform him further, if he could recognize them. Justin started by slowly opening the first container near him, careful to let the water in slowly. What he saw didn¡¯t immediately make sense to him. ¡®Containers of some kind? If only my suit were still intact.¡¯ The translator in his suit had been valuable for understanding the soldier¡¯s conversations, but when paired with a working visor it could even translate written language. Both functions were long lost to Justin now of course, as the mechanical suit had been scrapped when he had evolved. A certain group of skills could help out as well, called Inspect-skills due to their commonality across multiple classes. But Justin had even lower hopes to attain something like that. He had known the cleric Markus to have one called Eyes of Ambush that allowed him to see status information on distracted opponents, but Justin had never gained a similar skill in all his years as a pugilist.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. That meant it was entirely on Justin¡¯s reasoning skills to figure out what use the room could have for him, which so far was dubious. He curiously took the first container out from the cabinet¡¯s rack. The cylinder was of a size that would normally necessitate two-handed carrying, but as Justin had recognized the recent enlargement of his body it fit comfortably in his single hand. It was made from some kind of metal, and felt fairly secure as he observed it from all sides. The most notable thing on the surface of the container was a printed label, but to Justin who couldn¡¯t read it the small transparent slide above it caught his attention. Through it he could see a dark green liquid sloshing back and forth as he held it, like the bubble in a spirit level. ¡®A vial of some kind. Far too secure for merely medicine, or research samples. This looks like a finished product, whatever it is.¡¯ The technology of the item in his hand seemed to be out of place with the technology of the ship surrounding it, and not in the way one might think. Justin had a vague idea of what he was holding, but if he was right then it didn¡¯t make sense for the civilization that had built this ship to have. The vial was more advanced than the ship. ¡®If I¡¯m right, this vial is temperature regulated and self-sealed. Anything could be in here. Gary or Harriet would know better, but I swear I¡¯ve seen something like this somewhere else.¡¯ He could wait until the answer dawned on him, but it would be wasted time. The real question was how could this thing help him? ¡®If I have to open it I should move away from the starfish.¡¯ He couldn¡¯t read the label so he¡¯d have to open it like a brute to understand what it was. If something went wrong, he didn¡¯t want this place to be damaged any further. It would be best to do it far away from the beast¡¯s senses. ¡­ So he returned to the far end of the caverns, the first cave that the lake had drained into. Justin knew from when he had researched the cave system that the lake¡¯s water had already stopped draining, but by now the water surface had fully calmed. The patch of dry space at the edge of the cave was even smaller than it had been at first, but it still existed. It was standing there, amidst the open space, that Justin would conduct his test. ¡®I don¡¯t see a twisting mechanism anywhere here, how am I supposed to open it?¡¯ Justin cautiously turned the vial over in his hands, which was hard to see in the dim lighting he had returned to. It occurred to him that there must have been a machine in the container room for opening the seals, but that was on the other side of the cave system now so he would just do it himself. Putting the metal canister between his palms, he pushed with the force of thirteen points in strength, plus his body¡¯s natural physicality. Relative to other E-Grades who specialized in strength, that wasn¡¯t much, but it was still more than several adult men combined. It was also apparently more than the metal container was built to endure. So as the vial was easily ruptured between his clawed hands, viscous green liquid spread in all directions. ¡®Ah!¡¯ He realized he had definitely been too overzealous, as a large portion of the liquid splashed onto his legs and lower torso. Before he could react, his exposed flesh down there started to release steam, and Justin cringed from the burning sensation. He quickly wiped the substance from his body with his tentacles while cursing internally. [Health: 14 / 15] The liquid was incredibly thick, and stuck to him like glue. He kept a glance on the system screen as he ferociously swatted the rest of the gel off of him. Though Justin couldn¡¯t observe it so closely in the dimness of the cave, what he scattered off from his body ended up rejoining the pile released onto the surface below him, which all started to slide toward the salt wall of the cave. ¡®It¡¯s corrosive and damaging, but not nearly as big of a threat as the starfish.¡¯ It was unpleasant, but there didn¡¯t seem to be other effects. Was it a weapon stored in the vial after all? Some kind of acid? ¡®Wait. Where did it go?¡¯ Justin looked around after he was finished picking it off of his skin. It had disappeared as quickly as it had spread out like it had a mind of its own. It hadn¡¯t slid back into the water had it? Justin turned. No, it hadn¡¯t. The green gel fell against the wall of salt crystals. A few seconds later and it had already enveloped several salt crystals bigger than Justin¡¯s head. The light from those crystals dimmed even faster, before Justin witnessed their shrinking and subsequent absorption right in front of them. The blob of gel began to undulate, coming away from the exposed stone window into the salt wall. Sparks of light flashed within it, connecting and dividing visibly to Justin, like neurons being formed. Within a breath, a vibrant green glow began to spread out from its center point, reaching the ends of its form in a flash. Justin¡¯s eyes widened even further when the glowing gel began to rise unassisted. With no support structure, its form began to elongate and divide, hardening into a warped shape that was familiar enough for Justin to feel chills run down his spin. Seconds had passed, yet that breath of time had been all the gel needed to stabilize into a solid form: the close resemblance of a bipedal creature Justin knew well. ¡®Is that¡­Heinrich?¡¯ 24. Slippery When Wet The risen mass of gelatin gathered itself before Justin while he quickly thought. Looking at it now, its features clearly weren¡¯t exactly as his guildmate¡¯s had been. The absence of most defining facial features gave it an inhuman uncanniness. It bore an unformed split where a mouth should have been, webbing between its fingers, and a hunched stance. But the overall resemblance was close enough to be suspicious. Like two predators had suddenly come up on each other in the wild, they both stood there in silence while observing the other for their next move. With taut muscles they were poised to move. ¡®It''s not actually him though, right? How could Heinrich have anything to do with this place?¡¯ Justin¡¯s first thought was that he had somehow been poisoned or that he was under the effects of a powerful hallucinogen. But that didn¡¯t make sense for a couple of reasons. One was that it seemed unlikely that a drug powerful enough to affect a daemon in the middle of the E-Grade could wind up on a primitive planet. It wasn¡¯t as if something that like was rare or particularly expensive on the galactic scale, but contact with primitives was supposed to be nonexistent for higher civilizations unless there was a threat. That¡¯s why their guild had been there, but nothing else was mentioned in the planet¡¯s historical file. The second reason was that Justin had an inkling that the racial attributes of scourges made them resistant to psychotropics on the same level as them. Among a race geared to make the most of their minds, it wouldn¡¯t make sense to be easily swayed by those kinds of things. So if that wasn¡¯t the case, then the creature he was seeing before him was real. So then why did it wear the face of a dead man? What had been in that canister? Justin wanted to avoid jumping to absurd conclusions in his head. But deeply entrenched by the raw shock value of it all, he nearly couldn¡¯t help it. Resurrecting people from the dead in goo-form? Justin didn¡¯t believe the Council could even do something like that, and they had the wealth and technology of a star cluster! Justin was close to reaching a conclusion in his head, but before that could happen the creature had reached the limits of its patience. Appearing hesitant to spend more time with the imposing being in front of it, it took off while Justin was distracted. Springing off from their shared platform, it leapt out into the air above the water and dove in. ¡°Shit!¡± Justin twisted his neck as he broke from his thoughts. Diving into the water after it, he was quickly faced with the reality that the form of the liquid-like creature was far more suited to water maneuvers than himself. It pulled ahead from his pursuit in a flash, diving around a corner into the second cave in the caverns. ¡®Whatever this thing is, it''s fast!¡¯ Justin pulled himself through the crack between the rocks, before looking around the cave. He caught sight of it at one the walls, trying to wedge itself into the cracks among the rocks. Was it attempting to hide? ¡®Or is it trying to escape?¡¯ He wouldn¡¯t allow that. Whatever it was, he was determined to make it useful to him. Years of gaining levels by trodding over the lives of others had long put away any doubts he had about such a philosophy. He couldn¡¯t let the creature escape the caves. At least not before Justin did. Justin burst through the water over to the faux-Heinrich. In a fluid motion he swiped a trio of tentacles that cut easily through its shimmering body. [Health: 13 / 15] FWSSSHHHH Justin immediately felt pain as three of his tentacles were engulfed in the acidity of its body, but the effects of scattering its form were much more devastating for the creature than they were for him. Through the water a sharp hiss was carried to his ears. Not just from the evaporation of his own cells, but from the clenched teeth of the creature. ¡®Oh, you don¡¯t like that, do you?¡¯ He was more than happy to trade blows with the fluid creature, especially since it looked nearly half-dead after a single attack. This must have been the sense of superiority that the starfish felt, he thought. But that didn¡¯t come to pass, as instead of lashing back defensively like Justin had assumed it would, the gel reformed itself with noticeably lesser mass, and bolted out from the rock face. ¡®It¡¯s already recovered from that?!¡¯ It shot through the water faster than Justin could turn, heading straight for the exit to the deeper levels. How did it know exactly where to go? Justin couldn¡¯t answer that, but if it continued at this pace then it might soon come face to face with the starfish.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. What would happen if that came to pass was entirely unpredictable, though Justin knew he needed to stop their meeting with the protector beast no matter what. Most of all, he couldn¡¯t allow this confrontation to damage the vault below the cenote. He still didn¡¯t know the value of its contents, but if the other canisters held similar creatures then everything could be in question. Justin emerged in the next set of caves, looking around again as he had done before. When he didn¡¯t immediately see the glowing flesh of the gelatin he was confused for a second, before a scorching appendage lashed him across his back, nearly slicing through the base of one of his tentacles. FWSSSSHHHHH [Health: 11 / 15] ¡®AH!¡¯ Justin immediately turned, recognizing the now smaller form of the Heinrich doppelganger since he had scattered it. Yet it was different now, sporting tentacles from its sides that were¡­almost similar to his own. It lunged at him again, this time directing its tentacles forward in a swipe that was very similar to the way in which Justin had injured it. He was barely able to move out of the way in time. ¡®It copied me? No. This is deception. An ambush.¡¯ Justin recognized those for what they were: traits of complex intelligence. ¡®It¡¯s learning from me. Adapting. Its body allows it the opportunity to tailor its attacks to an opponent, and it''s using that to form a method of countering me.¡¯ Justin¡¯s eyes widened. He backed up through the water as the creature poised itself again. Only now did Justin realize the depth of what he was facing. He had been wrong. The vial hadn¡¯t contained some kind of poison, or a hallucinogen, but something more akin to a biological weapon. Probably extremely experimental, as from the seal it was clearly deemed volatile even by the creators of it. For good reason, too. Highly regenerative, intelligent, extremely adaptable, and in a form that was inherently mobile. Attributes which would have made it the perfect weapon, were it not for its fragility. Yet it had literally been only minutes since it had been released from its container, and it was already threatening Justin who had experienced an evolution. Evolution was something that should have set him apart from this planet¡¯s natural order, yet his opponent¡¯s strength had grown to nearly on-par within minutes. If it hadn¡¯t been for its fragility, perhaps it might¡¯ve been more inclined to confront him openly. But even that was quickly changing¡­ Justin cursed as he caught sight of the creature¡¯s exterior growing dimmer. Its luminescence wasn¡¯t decreasing from energy loss, but rather its exterior was condensing a layer of durable scales. The same adaptability that had grown its tentacles was now armoring it. ¡®I have to kill it right now! Fuck its usefulness¨Cthis thing could gain the upper hand if I give it a moment longer!¡¯ As he should have done from the beginning, Justin approached it fully with the intent to kill, swiping full-strength at the creature with no heed to his own defenses. But with the same number of tentacles, it was all too quick to parry him. The defensive technique¡¯s strength was then only multiplied by the acidity of its body which instantly broke down the flesh of Justin it touched. [Health: 9 / 15] Justin groaned. After parrying his movement with a graceful redirection, it twisted back on him, curling around his outstretched limbs and chopping down. One of his appendages was cleanly severed, forcing him to reel back while leaving his body open. [Health: 7 / 15] ¡°Gah!¡± Justin inadvertently swallowed some water. The creature then looked from him to his severed appendage that was now writhing through the water, before making a decision to lunge for it. ¡®It¡¯s going for it? Now''s my chance!¡¯ Justin whip-cracked his remaining tentacles forward at the back of Heinrich, who was midway through absorbing his fallen limb. With a shockwave, Justin¡¯s tentacles scattered a mass of gelatin and sent the creature back against the salt rock wall. Its still-forming armor shattered in reactive waves and left it impaled by the sharp salt. Justin came up in front of it, with his tentacles fanned out, surrounding it with the intent to strike. Still, the machinations of the creature¡¯s body couldn¡¯t be halted by mere injury. ¡®Even now, it''s continuing to adapt.¡¯ He almost couldn¡¯t believe that such an organism could exist. Justin had never seen a similar ability, on any planet he had ever been to. Lemus, for all of its primitivisms, continually surprised him. Perhaps it was the mutant beast population of the planet and not the native population that served as the true value of the planet? Justin moved closer to close in on the creature, when all of a sudden its unformed mouth opened up and the face of Heinrich mouthed something through the water. Justin¡¯s face scrunched. Though the vibrations passed over to him, he couldn¡¯t make them out. But it wouldn¡¯t matter anyway. Although the gelatin having the capacity for speech might have been surprising at first, if he considered the choices it had made and the offensive it had mounted, it was clearly smarter than the starfish was. He would have been tempted to try to assimilate, were it not for the fear of it adapting even to that. Regardless, it was thoroughly beaten by this point, so anything it could be saying now could only be a plea for mercy. Even if it spoke in a language that Justin knew, he could only meet such a plea with denial, given his situation. But then the unexpected happened, and a voice actually did reach Justin¡¯s ears. No, not his ears. It reverberated within his mind. ¡°Fear! Servility!¡± ¡®No way¡­¡¯ Upon hearing the familiar manner of speech, Justin nearly tripped over himself. Luckily, he was underwater at the moment so such a thing was impossible. ¡®It¡¯s psychic? Just like the starfish?¡¯ Justin felt a sense of shock overcome him. What were the odds of that? A dreadful thought then entered his mind, as he realized there was an implication here. ¡®Like the starfish, it''s a psychic. It''s odd, even worrying, but I have to wonder if the others in the vials are like this too?¡¯ And if that was the case, could it also be true for every mutant beast? Was it possible that every creature on Lemus IV was psychic? In that case, weren¡¯t they all a half-step away from being exposed to the system? 25. Kept You Waiting, Huh? ¡®No. That¡¯s just fear speaking.¡¯ If it were true, then it could be dire, but only much later on. Logically, Justin knew that such an eventuality had no impact on his situation right now, so there was no reason to give it more thought than it deserved. It seemed though, that the reversion back to E-Grade and the evolution which had cemented the change had also impacted his personal psyche. He no longer had the consistent, unshakeable assurance of a C-Grade volta, the lack of which he was beginning to notice. Regardless, Justin was well-adjusted to the vernacular of starfish¡¯s similar style of mental emissions, so he knew the gelatin creature was asking for clemency just as he had expected it would. But something as adaptive as it couldn¡¯t be afforded the kind of freedom it wished for. Dealing with the now-conceptually much greater threat of the starfish below would have to come later. For now the being in front of him took priority. With razor focus he shut his mind off from communicating with it. ¡®It¡¯s a faux plea.¡¯ Justin resolutely assured himself. ¡®This thing has clearly been experimented on, or is the result of an experiment itself. It must have been bred to be a master of deception. Even now, it''s accumulating power behind its back. It''s either unaware of my capabilities, or has become arrogant from its own advancements.¡¯ Justin could see the sliver of evidence on the creature''s body that exposed its deception. A morsel of flesh on its backside had a hue unlike the rest of it. Instead of green, it was an electric shade of blue dashed in grey that was slowly expanding to the rest of its gelatin. The hue of Justin¡¯s own body had been reflected by his opponent. He had his own theory, but it was still unnerving. It must have absorbed his tentacle, and used it to adapt further. What the height of such an ability was, Justin didn¡¯t know, but he wouldn¡¯t let this little monster continue any further. ¡®Either it''s using the material of the Synchronic Intellect¡¯s flesh, my flesh, as a fuel for reconstruction, or another more terrifying possibility could be true.¡¯ That it was using it not as a fuel, but a blueprint. Could it replicate cellular energy as well? The ramifications of an ability to tap into his own genetic code were too colossal to think about for now, but Justin had made his decision already. With a snap of his body, all of the tentacles sprawling out from him overlapped and intersected, again and again. He cut through the defenseless creature while burning from the acid of its flesh. Tearing up the creature until it had been reduced to small fragments, the armor that had been forming on the outer layer of its skin was shattered and cast away. With it, went the density of its composition as it was liquefied and subsumed by the cave water. The light level of the surroundings finally fell back to normal as the remains could no longer give off the light they had absorbed. Justin couldn¡¯t be sure he was rid of it even then, until he felt a familiar refreshment wash over his body. Justin closed his eyes, soaking in the moment before being confronted by the system. ¡®I hadn¡¯t expected that to net me a level¡­wait, what is this?¡¯ [Feat Recognized!] [Feat Class: Remarkable (I)] [Reward: +1 Level, Talent Selection] [Remark: Awarded for discovering and subduing a unique organism native to a subnatural ecosystem.] ¡®Are you kidding me? A feat!?¡¯ Justin let out a laugh. He almost couldn¡¯t believe it. What he had been so helpless to achieve in the confines of the caverns had just been handed to him by circumstance. ¡®Fate is a crazy thing. Perhaps I¡¯m meant to escape these caves after all?¡¯ Justin looked over the system notification. Feats were ranked independently from the Grade system that the system normally used. Though he had been awarded the lowest level, it had still come with incredible rewards for his level. Yet if anything, the benefits only spoke to the rarity of achieving something the system recognized as a Feat. Justin hadn¡¯t been expecting to earn one on Lemus. Nor anywhere else, for that matter. But he had done not only that, but obtained a talent and level at the same time. One of those he was significantly more excited about than the other. For all he knew about the system from theorizing over the course of years, he still couldn¡¯t anticipate the ramifications an increase in intelligence would have on the hive. [Level: 11] [Grade: E] [Status Effects: N/A] [Race: Synchronic Intellect] [Attributes: 13 STR, 6 DEX, 6 END, 5 PER, 6 INT, 0 CHA, 0 MYS] [Free Attribute Points: 9] [Health: 90 / 90] [Stamina: 140 / 140] [CEL: 5 / 5]Stolen novel; please report. [Biomass: 5978] [Alpha Hive Capacity: 237 / 3K] [Beta Hive Capacity: 21 / 6K] [Skills: Assimilate (E-), Consume (E-)] The points into intelligence and endurance had been invested automatically by the level up. He couldn¡¯t do anything about that. Justin just prayed it wouldn¡¯t lead to anything major. ¡­ The Dreadmoore, outer wetlands. More than 800 feet above Justin¡¯s location. For the past day, a region of the swamplands had become busier than ever before. It had been invaded and combed through by a throng of soldiers. Who, divided into silent cohorts in their search across the wetland, looked for a cave entrance like a swarm of vermin seeking warmth. As a consequence the section of the swamp had quickly become a hotspot for the local fauna¡¯s curiosity. Not more than an hour had passed since the hive¡¯s central controller had been swallowed by the earth, yet beasts of all shapes and sizes had started to come out of their burrows to prey on the outsiders. Centipedes as long as the trees around them, frogs that spewed toxic bile, and mosquitoes as big as a fist and as hard as steel. Against those varieties of creature, the soldiers fell quickly with mere guns at their disposal. But that mattered little. For the greatest strength of any scourge was the vastness of its hive. The quality that quantity had the potential to produce could outmatch any potential strength from an individual. The hive had soldiers to spare, and the soldiers the strength to fight. No matter if it was a puddle or a pond, any sacrifice they made in blood was returned tenfold by their enemies. Justin didn¡¯t even need to be there for any of it. Not any longer. Fed by their controller¡¯s desire to be free, the hive had been compelled to search for him. So when the single-minded task of fulfilling their controller¡¯s desire had been threatened, the hive didn¡¯t even need an order to instinctively fight back. Just as moving a branch to expose a path through the trees was instinctive to the unthinking hive, so was clearing other obstructions. Whatever they may be. The local beast population was that obstruction now, and after a few hours of fierce conflicts with the ever-present wildlife, a great swath of the swampland had been burned to cinders. By then, dozens of beasts the size of vehicles and small homes laid still or in pieces, and that section of the swamp had become barren of all life but the hive. All it had taken were little over two hundred soldiers and some scorplings to give themselves for the cause. It came at roughly that time, when the soldiers that were left standing had gone back to the quiet search through the swampland for their leader, that a great fluctuation of energy flooded the bodies of all members of the hive. Oddly enough there hadn¡¯t been many changes to the vast entity of the hive during its controller¡¯s independent evolution, but this level up was strangely momentous for it. In that brief moment, behind each of the soldier¡¯s corpse-yellow eyes a formerly-absent presence stirred. Among the bodies of the men and women left, that presence began to shrink. From two hundred bodies, to fifty, to ten, and then to one. The greying body of a man far past his prime years, yet he had a stoic semblance that evoked connotations of wisdom or strength. Or could have, had he still been thinking independently of the hive. It was that man, one Justin had already forgotten the name of but many in the military would have known him as Captain Gerber, that the presence lingered in. Behind the man¡¯s eyes, the presence stirred. The quick burst from the level up faded at the same time, and the soldiers around it got back to their task. But the presence didn¡¯t fade. Without warning, Gerber began to shake. Beneath his fatigues, his skin started to wriggle as the muscles below them spasmed erratically. The sound of snapping nerves and gurgling, bubbling flesh rang out as several hard masses swam underneath his skin¡¯s lining. From somewhere in his head they originated and plunged down, all the way to his feet until the pumping noises stopped. In one moment, the Captain had become bloated. Not with fat but unnatural tissue. Filled by elongated masses, his bodily structure had become an abnormally muscular thing. Perhaps he was still passable as a diseased bodybuilder, but no longer was he conceivable as a member of the military. It was clear from the distention of the Captain¡¯s skin in several places that something ought to have been suspicious. Yet after all of that, the most significant transformation still came a moment later. The captain blinked, and the yellow eyes of a corpse turned alight. The burning yellow orbs swam for a few seconds longer within their pockets in the skull, before the whole sick medley of bodily movement was brought to a halt. Everything under his skin suddenly stopped moving. The being straightened its back. With a slow, measured confidence that elicited several snapping cracks, it popped the joints in its body loose. Starting at the wrists, then to arms, its neck, and finally its back with a twist, it appeared like someone preparing to go for a jog in the midst of hundreds of synced hive soldiers. The being exhaled then, a cloud of caustic malodor instantly polluting the air around it. ¡°So this is the target, huh? Got to say, it''s not much of a scenery.¡± The being in the Captain¡¯s skin looked around the scorched swampland unimpressed. ¡°Though I suppose I¡¯ve got a better view now than I had under the continental plate. So many years waiting¡­I¡¯m surprised they haven¡¯t progressed from the planet yet.¡± The being¡¯s illuminant eyes then glanced at the rest of the hive around it. It appeared to be half-annoyed, half-amused as it took in its surroundings and the state of its new form. That was until its expression changed like it had remembered something. ¡°Oh! I almost forgot, I don''t need this anymore, do I?¡± With a fluid motion, the Captain¡¯s former body spread its mouth impossibly wide open, before unceremoniously diving its hand past the yellow rows of teeth and the putrescent interior. Cutting with its nails upward into the roof of its own mouth, the being pushed upward until it hit something that felt like a rock. It clawed around the base of its skull for an entry point, before grabbing hold of something soft within it. Bleach! The being pulled its hand from its mouth and cast aside the writhing grub. A large worm-like parasite, curled into the shape of a ball with a hide that looked like the surface of a brain. It was what had been acting as the assimilated Captain¡¯s brain, or at least its connection to the hive, until the being had emerged within. ¡°Alright. Now to find this moron that¡¯s trying to ruin everything. Oh, he must be so beside himself by now without¡­what was that girl¡¯s name?¡± The being refreshed its memory. ¡°Ah, right¡­Harriet. Heh.¡± It chuckled. Reminding itself of the girl and Justin¡¯s history before walking off into the swamp. Someone was in need of its attention after all. An amateur who needed a wake-up call. There was work to be done yet, and the very mind in the seat of things could not afford to act so hesitantly. It was fortunate that it had woken up before the hive¡¯s momentum slipped even further, the Parasite thought. 26. Bechdels Test ¡°Alright. That should be everything.¡± Odette exhaled as she set a clinking box of vials down on a table in the SCR tent. After Caleb had absconded to meet with the arrivals, the burden of finalizing their workspace had fallen on her. The equipment, which she suspected had been flown in at some ungodly hour, was all here but the space had lacked samples from the specimen. Luckily, those had been easy to find. Far more core samples than a single department could effectively use had been taken from the specimen¡¯s undecaying anatomy in the last few days. Odette, who understood the samples would actually decay faster outside of the specimen¡¯s anatomy than within, had thought it was a waste, until now. Though the analyzer machine¡¯s catalyst fluid didn¡¯t damage the mutant¡¯s cells, it made them resistant to more tests of the same kind, though they could still be used elsewhere. Even then, in the tent they only went through three vials a day amongst their entire battery of machines. Handling them required incredible care. As members in their field of science had learned in the past, mishandling mutant resources could lead to injury or death in some cases. Some beast¡¯s biology invoked the spread of disease in humans or could damage upon contact with the skin. That was part of the reason they all wore such long clothing and why Odette needed to be careful in bringing the rest of the samples to the tent. With that done, she didn¡¯t know what to do. Go back to the IDS tent? There wasn¡¯t really a need for that right now. The machines inside were still busy extracting the specimen¡¯s genes so they could compare it to other mutants, as she had set them up to do before breakfast. All she could do in the meantime was wait. Still, Odette felt inspired to run a few periphery tests on the specimen anyway. Those wouldn¡¯t require any machines or even a whole sample, and she was in an uncommonly good mood after hearing from Lukas, despite taking some shit from Caleb. Science, before all of the politics and bureaucracy that came with it, was still her first passion. On the worst of days she called it work, but on good ones it could be the most enjoyable thing in the world. Odette had just sat down at her station when she heard her name being called from across the camp. ¡°Odette! Get over here!¡± The Professor¡¯s voice rang out with a tone that almost made Odette worry if there was a fire. Ducking out the tent she hurried over to a space in the desert where the site¡¯s workers were unloading an airship''s contents down from its ramp. Yet instead of seeing an emergency there, the Professor was simply standing and chatting with a group that had just come down from the ship. ¡°Odette! Come meet the Madam Chief! She¡¯s the Field Research Chief over at our sister department.¡± Odette walked up with a hidden scowl. So he just wanted to show her off? No, it was more likely intended to make himself look better. The first thing she noticed past her professor was the group of new arrivals, three men and four women all older than her who stood with a rigidity of professionalism. They glanced over while taciturnly appraising her. Contrary to the white and tan lab uniforms of IDS, the members of SCR were draped in forest green formal suits, their emblems nowhere to be seen unlike the placement of IDS¡¯s over the chest and sleeves. Against the background of a lifeless yet natural desert, they looked alien. Though she knew better to say so, Odette thought their appearance actually suited them as a former private arms corporation, soulless and disconnected from the field of innovation she felt she belonged to. Bechdel, the Field Chief that the Professor introduced, was quick to speak. Though the same age as the Professor, her face only bore minor wrinkles and some grey in her hair that she wore well. Her figure was unlike a typical desk-bound researcher, toned and shapely to a degree that one usually only saw from celebrities or the extremely vain. Odette already knew who she was, but nodded anyway out of politeness. ¡°Ah, Caleb! Now that I¡¯m looking at her I realize I was wrong. We have indeed met haven¡¯t we, girl?¡± ¡°That¡¯s correct, Field Chief. You were on the progressionary committee during my final advisory exam. I believe you asked a question about the relationship between pressurized air sacs in the Passerine mutant group and SCR¡¯s series of combustion engines.¡± ¡°Ah! That¡¯s right!¡± Bechdel practically chirped in response, seemingly quite amused by her past inquiry. Was this why Odette had been called over? She wondered. To feed the curiosity of some corporate bigwig? While she knew that technically a field chief had the same authority as a head researcher, upon meeting Bechdel again after a few years she didn¡¯t feel the respect she normally did for a superior. Lately Caleb had been the only exception to this, and for all she griped about Sam she was still better than the bipolar professor. Yet was it a coincidence that the one person Caleb wanted to introduce her to was just as unlikable? If she remembered correctly anyway, the question back then had been quite unfair, and she had only managed to get half of it right, which had ended up hurting her performance before the recruiting managers of several departments.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. For what college graduate knew the specifics of each department''s proprietary tech? Much less that of SCR, which had been even more insulated back when Odette had been finishing the program. She had graduated just a year after they had integrated, and yet one of their officials, the woman standing before her now, had been the one to examine her skills. But Odette hadn¡¯t stayed bitter about that, she believed. She had still been able to get into a good department. IDS wasn¡¯t what she had expected, but she was happy with the work she was able to do there. Odette had always wanted to help people, especially those like her brother, and using mutant biology to do so was the best of that passion and her other interests in science. ¡°So you¡¯re Caleb¡¯s assistant then. That¡¯s good, that¡¯s good¡ª¡± ¡°Well actually I¡¯m not¡­¡± Odette rapidly tried to interject, but she was cut off just as quickly. ¡°---Remind me again of your studies? Obviously bio-engineering, given your locality, but what did you study at the Publica Res? Let me guess, Genome Divisions and Applied Science?¡± That sounded far too specific to be a random guess, but it was wrong. Odette was starting to get the impression that the Chief¡¯s words had some preconceptions behind them, like something had been said about her in the twenty minutes after they had landed. Or maybe the Professor had said something before that. ¡°Not quite. At the Publica I studied Thermic Engineering and Tissue Science with a focus on mutant scalation. My thesis was on subdermal engineering in a closed system, or in other words¨C¡± ¡°Using mutant scute genes to induce an increase in cell density.¡± Odette looked to the professor who cut her off, finishing her explanation to the Chief. Had he read her thesis? When? They hadn¡¯t really spoken until the airship ride here, so it had never been brought up. The only person who had access to her personnel file with a copy of it would be the Director, so that wasn¡¯t it. Had he heard about it at the time? Despite his moniker Odette hadn¡¯t known him in the Publica Res, the Silver Republic¡¯s central academy of the sciences, or knew if he taught there while she had attended if at all. Perhaps he had just anticipated the conclusion of her thesis. Even if he was contentious, he was still quite experienced. But did that really make sense? Odette wondered as the conversation passed her by. ¡°Ah, I see. Well then, I¡¯ll stop pestering you Researcher Odette, I don¡¯t want to give you the impression that I¡¯m questioning your capabilities here. I¡¯m sure IDS has sent only the best from their available members.¡± It was too late to avoid that impression, Odette thought. But Bechdel¡¯s final line roused her curiosity. What did she mean available members? Wasn¡¯t it just the Director who had been busy? Bechdel turned to the Professor. ¡°Our department appreciates the polished set up for our arrival as well. It looks like my people have already found our tent over there.¡± ¡°Of course, and once again Alison, it''s a privilege to be working alongside your team.¡± ¡°Glad to hear that.¡± Odette glanced back and forth between the two researchers. ¡­ The day that SCR came to the site was odd, and caused a stir amongst the work and construction staff. But even worse at least for Odette, came the day after. Holding her brow up with a tired hand, the other was cupping the receiver against her ear as she listened, not to her brother Lukas but the nurse on the other side. ¡°What the¡ªwhat the fuck do you mean move?! Drue is the best in your country, isn¡¯t he? Where else could you take him to get better treatment?¡± A spotty clicking was present over the line, not coming from Odette or the nurse she was speaking to, but she was too incensed to notice. ¡°I¡¯m sorry Miss Verone, but I can only relay the Doctor¡¯s instructions. His assessment of your brother¡¯s condition led to the call that it was no longer safe to hold him in the intensive ward, so he¡¯s being relocated.¡± ¡°Relocated to where!? You fuc¨Cno, no! Just put the Doctor on the line! I want to hear from his mouth where my brother stands.¡± ¡°...I¡¯m sorry but the good Doctor is currently busy with another patient right now. Can I reach you here at a later time?¡± Odette grinded her teeth. It was bad enough that she couldn¡¯t contact her brother, and now even the doctor treating him was unavailable? It was almost like a bad joke. ¡°No you may not reach me, just get the doctor on the line!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry but¨C¡± ¡°If you can¡¯t do that then be prepared to pick up again at exactly this time tomorrow, all right? I refuse as my brother¡¯s primary guardian to let you move him until I hear from either him or Drue the reason why. You understand?¡± ¡°Yes, Miss Veron, your request will be honored.¡± BZZZT ¡°Good, and one more¨Cwhat?¡± ¡°Your call has been disconnected by an operator. If you believe this was in error, please¨C¡± ¡°Ah!¡± Odette threw down the receiver and transmitter, practically smashing them against the table. Storming past a terrified operator she left the communications tent to take a breath of fresh air. The day had already started off horribly, but this had just compounded things even more. Now she was supposed to resume her task of taking the SCR team through her and Caleb¡¯s findings so far, to familiarize them with the project and to brief them on their future plans with the specimen. That wasn¡¯t normally annoying by itself but Caleb, damn him, wanted her to do it in such a way to make the new team feel welcome, despite her overwhelming distaste for their department¡¯s methods. That all meant that she would have to work alongside the SCR people with their own equipment. Because they would obviously be using their own blood distillers, tissue igniters, and other methods for turning the specimen¡¯s mutant flesh into poison or corrosive gas, she had to use that abhorrent technology too. ¡°And apparently we¡¯re the only department nowadays that still requires people to take the advisory exam, while everyone else hires off the fucking street.¡± Odette exhaled while she walked through the camp. Okay, that was an exaggeration, but only for everyone else. SCR might as well have hired this team off of a street somewhere for all the experience they had with the aforementioned equipment. Even Odette was better at using it then them, and it wasn¡¯t even in her field of research! Odette sighed again. She couldn¡¯t help it. While worrying about Lukas and expecting the call tomorrow to connect, she knew the day was going to be a long one. 27. Talent Selection Justin tensed, waiting for something to happen, but after a few seconds he couldn¡¯t feel anything. At least, nothing except for the refreshing feeling from the level up leaving his body. No grand reversal of bodily control came, no war over his mind broke out. The system window just hung silently in the air waiting for him to acknowledge his Feat, which he finally did after nearly a minute of hesitation. ¡®Maybe I was overly worried about the points affecting the parasite? Perhaps my body really has become just my body, now and forever.¡¯ Based on his current, captivating appearance he wasn¡¯t so sure if that was something to celebrate, but the idea that he might not have to fight for control in the future was relieving nonetheless. Besides, perhaps things wouldn¡¯t always be so terrible now that he had true control over his body. Justin¡¯s recent evolution came to mind. While similar to volta class promotions in that daemon evolutions only occurred once at the beginning of each major grade, barring E-Grade, the myriad paths that they afforded might theoretically allow Justin to return to a form resembling his prior self. But Justin wasn¡¯t vain enough to prioritize that over power. Power, strength, and everything that came with it was still the end goal of all creatures with the system, Justin knew that well enough. Forget evolution, with enough energy acting as he willed, there would surely come a time where such a thing could be changed at the snap of his fingers. Devastating battleship fleets in the hundreds of thousands, tearing surface-civilizations asunder, incapacitating galactic trade routes, all of these things awaited him at the limits of individual strength according to what he had heard. Though such stories mostly came from voltas who were acting outside of the law, as civilizations nearly always kept their most effective warriors under secrecy as strategic resources. Regardless, that was the level he aspired to reach. That all ambitious lifeforms desired: the truest freedom derived from being at the pinnacle of individual might. Until then however, he resolved to make the most use of his daemonic system¡¯s benefits. Justin opened the Feat window and at once was greeted with a full menu of options not too dissimilar from how the evolution window had been. [Talent Selection] [Leathery Flesh (E)] [Strength Talent: Transmutes the daemon¡¯s outer layer of flesh into a leathery hide. Depending on the inherent qualities of the daemon¡¯s race this can further its toughness by up to a factor of three, as a non-variable flat bonus. Life level promotions will not improve this talent.] ¡­ [Modular Scarification (E)] [Endurance Talent: Allows for the conversion of scar tissue from a typical wound to another kind of tissue. Life level promotions will have an unpredictable effect on this talent and the body of the Origin.] ¡­ [Carrion Digestion (E)] [Strength Talent: Allows the daemon¡¯s anatomy the ability to digest the dead organic matter of other species and use it to slowly refill their cellular energy stores. Life level promotions will affect digestion efficiency and speed.] ¡­ [Foul Breath (E)] [Intelligence Talent: Refits the each pore of the daemon¡¯s body into an aerosolizer for hazardous gases, converting normal waste matter of the body into fumes that can induce special ailments. Life level promotions can improve this effect to incubate disease in conjunction.] ¡­ [Uneasy Presence (E)] [Charisma Talent: A portion of the daemon¡¯s energy is cycled to exude a threatening aura, allowing it to ward off or scare lower level creatures, or instill them with negative mental effects. This talent is not strengthened by promotions in life level.] Justin hadn¡¯t gotten halfway down the list before cursing his past self for never having received a talent. ¡®They all seem so strong, I can¡¯t believe this is just within E-Grade.¡¯ Perhaps if he had owned a talent before the fight against the Herald, they might have pulled through easier. Perhaps Heinrich, the real one, and himself might have made it off this rock. But there was no use in getting caught up by regrets, thought Justin as he returned to the menu.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡®The subtle indicator that each one is aligned with a certain attribute is interesting. Though I¡¯ve never seen this kind of display, I¡¯m not thick enough to not understand what it means.¡¯ Each of the talents had a word next to them: charisma, intelligence, strength, and so on that put them in relation to one of the seven attributes, sometimes called stats. This meant that the efficiency of these talents likely rested upon the degree of investment into the relevant attribute that the daemon had, which unlike with skills was variable. Skills, on one hand, could not normally be chosen from outside of one¡¯s specialization. A Courser who specialized in Dexterity could have a speed related skill, but not a skill for reading minds. However, as Justin was realizing, these same limits did not apply to Talents, which were the other side of the coin. Talents were basically the system-rewarded passive bonuses to the energy-fueled actions that were Skills. Talents could be chosen outside of one¡¯s specialization, but unless that person had a significant investment across multiple attributes, this would be a waste. It was probably the reason why multiclassing across volta classes was so rare, Justin realized. As for the choices presented to him, Justin immediately had his own opinions on what was viable. Leathery Flesh, to begin with, was completely infeasible for Justin as a defense-oriented skill. He had enough points in strength for it to be effective, but the description made it sound like it only improved the durability of his skin, or his outermost layer. To Justin, using this opportunity on defense wasn¡¯t worth it unless it protected him comprehensively. Unlike the starfish, he wouldn¡¯t have the weakness of a single point like his eyes, but he would still be vulnerable to internal damage. Small cuts from creatures within his grade might not be a problem, but any blunt attack would still rattle him like a drum, and the talent didn¡¯t seem to improve as he evolved either. ¡®Though it could have come in handy during the fight against that slime¡¯s acidic coating, I wouldn¡¯t trade the others on the list for it. Tentacles regenerate anyways.¡¯ The next one was Modular Scarification, which had a description as creepy as its title. ¡®I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever fought a creature or daemon with this kind of ability before. Is it another defensive one?¡¯ No, it didn¡¯t seem so. It was worth noting that while its inclination was toward Endurance, that didn¡¯t mean it would have anything to do with defense. While Endurance-oriented skills and the Clerics that used them could be extremely proficient at defending, it was really the Strength-attribute specialized Pugilists that was best known for it. Investing in endurance mostly allowed for the withdrawal of one¡¯s cellular energy to become more efficient, and work faster in conjunction with the body¡¯s natural processes. In that way Clerics earned their moniker as a mix between Puglists and Espers, as they combined the heightened machinations of biology with the mysterious energy that Espers used for an endless range of abilities. Yes, Justin hadn¡¯t aspired to the class for no reason. Clerics were just as strong as they sounded. But the Talent had an odd description, so despite his past enthusiasm toward the class he felt averse to choosing this one. There were surely others that were better, right? ¡®Carrion Digestion. This one looks similar to my Consume skill.¡¯ The largest difference between Talents and Skills was their consumption of cellular energy. While activating Assimilation and Consume both cost him a little bit of energy each time he did so, he was able to regenerate it in a relaxed setting quickly enough. But in a fight? That was tougher. Justin didn¡¯t have any skills that were strictly offensive at the moment, which suited him as a hive controller, for now. Yet in the future when he doubtlessly would gain some, having a way to recuperate energy in a pinch could be pivotal. This Talent was his best bet for now. ¡®Next is¡­Foul Breath?¡¯ The presence of this option sort of upset Justin. He wasn¡¯t unhappy with its method of use, not completely anyway, but with its resemblance to the foe who had struck him down. Justin was no newcomer to the world of conflict, he recognized any advantage he could gain on his enemy couldn''t be discarded without consideration first, but the idea of inflicting disease as he grew stronger disturbed him. Was it so long spent with Harriet that had affected him? Who would ramble on and on about the unjustified costs of life-saving treatments and the honorable work being done to cure plagues? Or was it remnants of his own sense of morality, something deeply human within his daemon body, that felt the purposeful spread of disease was beyond his ability to accept? Justin wasn¡¯t sure, but a part of him felt glad to be feeling disgust at the idea. If anything, it might have represented that a large part of him hadn¡¯t been changed by the parasite¡¯s fusion, that at heart he was still Justin Locke. Because again, this was a Talent, not a skill. It wasn¡¯t something he could toggle on and off. Fed by his increasing intelligence stat, his pores would become a factory for life-stealing fumes from then on if he chose it. Despite its potential lethality to his opponents, Justin couldn¡¯t rationalize choosing it. Not when his goals all revolved around returning to civilization in a benevolent manner. The final one was something just as bad, and it didn¡¯t take long for Justin to come to the same conclusion. He couldn¡¯t very well approach humans with good intentions if fear was the first emotion they felt from his presence. ¡®That just leaves Carrion Digestion.¡¯ It had been a much easier decision than evolution. Justin held his finger to the system window, when he stopped above it before selecting. ¡®It may be the most rational, but is it really the right choice?¡¯ Perhaps he had needed the reminder that his goal was not to just survive, but to prosper. Whether that meant as the leader of a vast hive, or as an independent daemon, he had to take risks if he wanted to ever return to a level of power resembling his former self. That couldn¡¯t be done without putting himself in peril. The threat of death was the most influential motivator for growth, and making himself more safe in a potential conflict wouldn¡¯t allow for that. He couldn¡¯t see how the digestive skill would allow him to escape this planet either, but as for another Talent¡­ ¡®It¡¯s risky, and I don¡¯t understand it at all, but it''s also the only Talent on this list that mentions the scourge race, and the Origin. Almost as if it was trying to get my attention.¡¯ As much as that unnerved Justin, it also assured him of its possibilities. He didn¡¯t want to follow any path set for a scourge, but maybe just for a little bit, it wouldn¡¯t hurt to do so. [Talent Learned: Modular Scarification (E)] [Endurance Talent: Allows for the conversion of scar tissue from a typical wound to another kind of tissue. Life level promotions will have an unpredictable effect on this talent and the body of the Origin.] 28. Taking Inventory Justin had been bracing for something to happen immediately after making a selection in the Talent window, but nothing happened. There was no electric sensation of tingling or encompassing feeling, just an extremely slight sense that Justin barely noticed, that something had moved within him. ¡®Is that it?¡¯ Justin flexed his body, turning over his arms and rotating his tentacles, but nothing felt out of place. Justin was about to make a small incision on his hand with a claw, but stopped. It hadn¡¯t been more than a few minutes since he had defeated the doppelganger of Heinrich, and he was still to recover that health. It probably wasn¡¯t the best idea to be testing out a talent that required him to be injured further, so he moved instead to return to the deepest cave of the tunnels where the starfish was. ¡°Hear? Sense?¡± ¡°Denial. Confusion.¡± Swimming past it to go deeper, he also briefly confirmed that it hadn¡¯t sensed their fight above it. It was for the best, but he wondered how good of a protector it was if it couldn¡¯t even at least sense that. ¡®Oh well, limitations of those without the System.¡¯ Justin arrived before the metal hatch once more, diving in he arrived in the storage of whatever laboratory had manufactured these vials. Now with a little more knowledge at his disposal, he was able to look over them again with a keener eye. He hadn¡¯t realized before, but he must have taken the container with the acidic slime-like creature from a particular category. There were far more containers of similar shapes down here, but not all of them had the viridescent hue of something algae-like floating behind their transparent slots. A majority were actually not that color, and from their position in the storage room they seemed to be sorted into categories by color. The majority, around two hundred or so containers, were blue. Once Justin realized this, he knew it was better to start taking a count in his head of the room¡¯s contents. He had been too excitable at first, but now after realizing what these containers probably all were, he made a mental list to figure out later. The final total was thus: Blue containers: 215 Green containers: 68 (Which didn''t include the one he had opened.) Red containers: 46 Yellow containers: 15 As Justin swam deeper into the water-logged storage room, the number of containers decreased as their color changed. That trend continued, until he reached the end of the room. He quickly found he was faced with a frustrating conundrum. ¡®This is where everything that wasn¡¯t bolted down ended up when I released the water pressure in here.¡¯ Unfortunately it was impossible to go any further, as an avalanche of metallic instruments and sheet metal siding had been rammed into the far wall. Water pressure was no joke, and Justin supposed he was lucky that it had just blocked the far wall instead of damaging the shelves around him. Yet he could tell that it had all fallen upon a round, vault-like door. He tried moving the metal away, or cutting through it, but his tentacles weren¡¯t tough enough for that and he couldn¡¯t budge it even with his investment into strength. ¡®Here is where it would be nice to have an offensive skill.¡¯ He couldn¡¯t very well assimilate his way past a barricade, so he just resigned himself to exploring the vials in the current room. ¡®I¡¯ll be back for you, door of secrets.¡¯ ¡­ Half an hour later, Justin had reappeared in the highest cave on the small slab of dry rock. With him were four containers of different colors he had carefully chosen from the storage room. He still couldn¡¯t read their labels, so he had taken his time in trying to intuitively figure out which ones were going to be less of a headache when he opened them. He had brought one of each color, including green again, in case it turned out to be different than the one he had first encountered. If that was the case, then he would have to go back and get a second of the other colors too. It could be dangerous, they all could be dangerous, but he had to try every avenue of opportunity available to him if he wanted to find his route out. Without the ability to grow stronger, he would never be able to get out of this cave system, and he was looking to these vials for that ability. Justin picked up the green one first, his tentacles already honed around him and prepared to strike. CRACKIf you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. He snapped the vial in his hands, watching as the slime that emerged once again fell onto the rock and drifted away from him and started to collect in a corner. This time, instead of letting the goop fall against the rock wall, he confined it to a smaller area by sacrificing his tentacles to keep it within a smaller space. Surprisingly enough, he didn¡¯t feel any different when the gelatin touched him this time. SISSSSHHH Justin¡¯s eyes widened. Thanks to the auditory clue more so than the dim lighting, he was able to understand what was happening. ¡®It''s acidic, just like the last one, but it''s only able to dig through the rock below it. Could it be less potent than the previous specimen?¡¯ Justin thought about it for a second before dismissing that idea. He was no scientist, but the longer one continued to level up the more opportunities they had to learn certain things. During one job in his time after just having broken into C-Grade, the guild had taken a job on a planet where the only structure had been an abandoned manufacturing plant and laboratory. From that experience he knew that in most laboratory settings experiments were only locked away together when they shared a certain level of standardization. This meant that the green slime¡¯s capabilities shouldn¡¯t be too far from its predecessor. ¡®Which means the creature from before must have been influenced by another factor. The salt rocks?¡¯ Justin remembered that clinging to the wall had been the first thing the previous slime had done. Could these things use the salt to power themselves up? No, it was more likely there was something inside the salt itself, whatever was making the crystals glow must also be enriching the biology of these gelatin creatures, at least the green ones. Justin contemplated as the green slime gave up on trying to dissolve through the rock or pass through his enclosure of tentacles. Without the nutrients it sought, it was evidently powerless to scar his flesh. With a tremor, Justin watched as its form shifted to another appearance. Far more slowly than his earlier opponent had managed, its surface rose to the height of barely a meter before reaching its limits. Cascading lumps of green gel fell down at its formed shoulders, a warbled expression filled its face, and its stubby extremities reached outward. ¡®If I hadn¡¯t seen the near duplicate of Heinrich, I wouldn¡¯t know what I¡¯m looking at.¡¯ But he had, and recognized the creature¡¯s crude display for an offensively inaccurate semblance of Harriet. It confirmed more than these creature¡¯s ability to wield telepathy, but also see past his surface thoughts. They had been designed to read the thoughts of others, to blend in with crudely-fashioned likenesses and the tactical ability to eat through flesh and stone. ¡®They¡¯re more terrifying than I thought. Its ability to adapt without the immediate requirement of sustenance is hard to believe. I¡¯m lucky my unpreparedness didn¡¯t cost me my life an hour ago.¡¯ With a hard expression Justin watched as it reached out toward him. He saw no point in communicating with it or letting it writhe about any further, so instead of connecting their mental link Justin clasped his netting of tentacles shut and forcefully scattered the gel inside. Having his suspicions confirmed and then some, he made sure the creature was dead long before moving on to the other vials. ¡®There¡¯s that feeling again, but no Feat reward this time. Will I be able to trigger it with one of the other colors?¡¯ It had been for the discovery and vanquishing of a ¡®unique¡¯ life form, so Justin supposed that the same color wouldn¡¯t net him anything after a second time. Justin set aside the others before taking out the vial of blue liquid. He worried that if he wasn¡¯t able to glean the remaining talent from the other colored containers, he was going to run out of options very fast. In that circumstance, he¡¯d have to figure out a way to utilize the talent he did have. Before opening the next vial, Justin directed all of his tentacles downward to a spot on the stone. It was clear from the way both greens had acted, that whoever had worked in this laboratory ship had engineered these things to kill. He had been able to deal with the green ones, but he had no idea what to expect from the rest. He posed himself favorably just in case. CRACK SPLAT A light blue blob fell onto the platform with a dense thud. Its viscous form refused to flow outward as it was exposed to the cave¡¯s atmosphere. Justin hesitantly prodded it with a tentacle, before realizing that he could hardly move further into the creature¡¯s body without exerting himself. He was pleased to know that there was no feeling of acidity however, and the stone below it remained undamaged. ¡®Is that it? I don¡¯t see evidence of its telepathy either¡­oh.¡¯ Before Justin could doubt it too much, the gelatin started to rise in a familiar fashion as the previous two had. Justin watched it gain arms, a face, and sharp features before he quickly made the decision to scatter it. BAM! A tentacle swatted at the slime¡¯s head, but was immediately stopped in the air. Unable to move, Justin wore a shocked expression as he witnessed how his extremity had become embedded within the creature. ¡®Heyah!¡¯ Justin exerted himself this time, powering through the dense gel and slamming its head across the stone. That did the trick, splattering its vibrant blue gel across the cave¡¯s wall. Before it could potentially regenerate like the first green one had been able to do, Justin did the same thing to its torso with a downward slash. Almost requiring him to invest his stock of attribute points into strength, he was able to clear the rest of the gelatin away before it could fight back. ¡®Damn, I thought the starfish had been dense!¡¯ The potential these creatures could display just moments after emerging was frightening, Justin thought. From that little exchange, he was able to surmise that the category of blue had its priority in defense. His tentacles had felt slower and impeded upon making contact with its flesh, which gave credence to the fact that their specialization likely lay in shock absorption, or physical resistance. ¡®That, and it''s telepathic like the greens.¡¯ It had been attempting to transform before Justin had made its move, which again worried him about the possibility of the other mutant beasts sharing this trait. ¡®Though without the salt¡¯s energies, or properties, or whatever these things seek, it was a half finished job like before. It tried, but in no world would that thing have passed for Markus.¡¯ Yet Justin could hardly feel confident. In just the one room alone, there had been over two hundred of these creatures stored. 29. Red Menace That left only red and yellow unopened. Justin considered both as he held them before him. If he thought about it logically, any laboratory that could have manufactured these things would have been incentivised to make them as effective per their cost as possible, biological weapons or not. The blue slime had been effective in shock absorption, but its quality of defense was still under par when compared to the offensive ability of the green¡¯s acid. Yet even if their creators desired to make an army of only the best, they had still clearly been constrained by money and resources, or at the very least by time. So by that logic, while blue was less potent than green, they were likely cheaper to produce. Following that, red was probably more potent than green, and yellow more still. This was all merely based on the implications brought upon by scarcity, but that in itself might have even been misleading. The quantities themselves could have been altered by improper storage or Justin¡¯s intrusion into the vault, or there might have been more stored elsewhere in the ship before whatever event had caused it to be buried so deep into the earth. It also remained a possibility that the quantities were misleading for another reason. More expensive didn¡¯t always equate to something being better. Especially in an experimental setting. Life forms with innate abilities weren¡¯t always grouped in such standardized ways. Perhaps yellow was just as dangerous to Justin as blue, but for a different reason that required different resources to manufacture, hence the relative scarcity. But even after surmising as much, all Justin really knew was that he knew nothing for sure. He wouldn¡¯t get anywhere without opening the remaining vials. So just as he had done before, Justin made a barricade around the next vial before cracking it open. This one was red, as he had superstitiously chosen, and was loudly snapped open before the canister¡¯s contents burst out across the rock.. CRACK GLOMP A gush of scarlet erupted from the broken vial and spilled out onto the rough rock face. It bore no semblance to the previous vial specimens, in that it was almost completely liquid. Justin watched as the stringy mixture spread out rapidly from the eggshell-like vial remains, bumping up against his encirclement of tentacles in a profuse wave. Upon contact, the red slime began to show its intelligence much earlier than its priors had. By reading what perhaps qualified as body language for a slime, Justin noticed the liquid seemed to consider for a moment that the surface of his body was different from the stone, before it began to envelope his tentacles and coalesce into a yarn-like ball. The slime concentrated even further after that into a seamless sphere, before an unaccountable glow of red light began to emanate from its liquid body. Justin frowned. He knew it had been blocked from reaching the crystal walls, yet it still looked like it was activating as the other slimes had. Unlike the previous times it didn¡¯t seem to be forming an imitation of one of his friends, either. So what was it trying to do? Justin got his answer as soon as the air around it began to haze over. SHISSSSHHHHH! [Health: 6 / 15] [Health: 5 / 15] [Health: 4 / 15] ¡®Damn it!¡¯ Justin gritted his teeth as the creature burned through him. Unconsciously, the parts of his tentacles that were still intact were forced loose by the intolerable heat. The slime, which had burned a hole through his flesh, then broke loose past his charred members and fell into the water. ¡®Fuck! What am I doing?!¡¯ Justin made a movement to chase after it, before stopping himself. Unlike with the acid slime, he wasn¡¯t in the best condition at that moment. While there was a high chance that allowing the red slime time to feed on the crystals and grow stronger would be a fatal mistake, the possibility that he would face defeat if he pursued it now was almost certain.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Justin watched with strained eyes as the dim glow of its red body disappeared into the distant waters. Justin couldn¡¯t take those odds. Sooner or later he had to admit that he had bitten off more than he could chew, and it had come time to retreat and make a game plan. Despite all his faults, he was not above recognizing the need for a tactical retreat, or even a pathetic one. Justin looked at the remaining vial in his hand. ¡®I can¡¯t imagine what will be the first thing it''s going to do after feeding, but I have to be prepared for it to come and find me. I have to go somewhere secure while I prepare.¡¯ After losing sight of it in the water, Justin knew the red slime could have gone anywhere. It might very well be making its way toward the surface, but Justin knew there was one place it wouldn¡¯t be. ¡­ After resealing the storage room¡¯s vault door behind him, Justin put the yellow vial back in its case and sighed. ¡®If that was red, then I¡¯m clearly not ready for whatever this one contains.¡¯ He had thought that the slimes required a few moments to adapt, but it seemed that had only been true for the blue and green variants. Red had come out of the evolutionary gate sprinting, and had burned a hole through his thick skin before he even realized that it could alter its own body temperature. Justin cracked his neck. A habit formed under stress years ago, before he used to launch into missions. ¡®Maybe I was looking at it wrong. Can¡¯t I make a small cut, an injury under the limit of a health point?¡¯ While it may have seemed overly simplistic to those without access to the system, health points were more than just a way of telling how injured one was, or how big of a hit they had taken. Once a human transformed into a volta, or a creature into a daemon, so too were parts of their biology selectively changed. The change in the composition of their cells and the generation of a new kind of energy was the most eye-catching, but their very vitality would begin to work differently too. Justin, already accustomed to this phenomenon, knew that if his health points reached zero he would experience what the system labeled ¡°induced cell death¡±. It was different from being fatally wounded or contracting a serious illness, and was almost paranormal in a certain light. Of course, Justin could still die in any number of ways. The system hadn¡¯t given him invulnerability. Yet voltas or daemons like him could also die from an accumulation of injuries, a shock to their health statistic, all while appearing seemingly very healthy. The absence of health points essentially represented the system¡¯s inability to support the body¡¯s function any longer. With all that in mind, what Justin wanted to do was make a small cut along his hands that wouldn¡¯t induce a further decrease in health. Fly under the radar of the system, so to speak. Such a thing would normally be beyond the skills of a low-level daemon, but Justin had enough confidence that he could do it. ¡®At least, it should be possible. I¡¯ve only ever seen Harriet pull this off¡­¡¯ SHRRRRRRRING! Justin poked his right thumb into the back of his opposite hand, slicing across the flat surface cleanly enough so as to not draw too much blood. The tough skin there cut about as well as leather, yet after a timid moment he realized his health hadn¡¯t been further decreased. ¡®Nice!¡¯ He didn¡¯t have much more health to give, so he had to be extremely careful. Any minute injury could drop him a point, so he only had four such chances to get all of this right. He didn¡¯t have the luxury to wait for regeneration to kick in when that red menace was still out there. Justin resumed cutting in a shape around his hand, until he looped back around to where he had started. By now, the back of his hand appeared to have a jagged crater etched out from it, which he was able to cautiously pry off before exhaling. ¡®Now here is where it all comes into play.¡¯ Justin focused on the effect of his talent. It wasn¡¯t something he should have had to activate manually, but he had been purposefully trying to not think of any kind of tissue to replace his wound in order to delay the process. He needed the whole injury to be affected at once, and it seemed like he had been successful in that so far. ¡®Now!¡¯ A series of specifics shot through Justin¡¯s mind all at once. Thanks to the mental gymnastics his race allowed him to perform, he could hold off thinking the subconscious thoughts that would activate his talent until the proper moment. When that moment came, Justin¡¯s mind flooded with a series of desired traits. A dense structure of hard, overlapping plates. Threads of flexible membrane, highly conductive to regulate thermal variation. Reduced nerve length and quantity. Hollowed and spongy tissue for shock absorption. When all of those thoughts flew through his mind, his body reacted instantly. In less than a second, a swollen keloid-mass rose from the back of his left hand where he had skinned the flesh, before unraveling and falling apart in the water. Underneath was revealed to be a pocket of grey-bluish scales, fitted to his imagined specifications in every way. As he held it up to the storage room¡¯s light, he admired his body¡¯s handiwork. If he was correct, then the back of his left hand, only a minuscule percentage of his body¡¯s surface area, was now resistant to changes in external temperature and physical trauma, was now lighter and more agile, and required a greater force to feel pain and felt less when it did. Finally, Justin had found some measure to account for his weaknesses. This meager scale of hardened flesh now represented in some small way, him beginning to grow past all the opponents he had faced as a daemon so far. It was growth. Not just as a daemon, or as a scourge, but as an individual. One talent had allowed him the smallest possibility of hope, that his current worries wouldn¡¯t be the end of him, but it also spoke of what seemed like countless more possibilities. ¡®If I can change my hand, can I do the same thing to my whole body? No, how far can I take it past that?¡¯ 30. Threatening Leadership Like she had predicted, the day was ticking by at a miserably slow pace. But Odette wasn¡¯t pleased to have been right. Thanks to the status of Lukas being up in the air, she had been miserable since the start of the day, which was only further compounded by the failings of the SCR crew. ¡°What are you doing? The baseline is to be rotated counter-clockwise, didn¡¯t you hear what I just said about overflow?¡± From the front of the tent, Odette had been watching the six lab workers as they went about starting the primary round of tests after a lengthy lecture on their equipment¡¯s operation. In truth, their responsibilities included more manufacturing than analysis and experimentation, so Odette hadn¡¯t predicted their tasks would be too difficult for them. Yet as soon as they had started Odette had witnessed half a dozen errors in a mere five minutes. She ran over to one of the lab techs as he was just about to cause his machine to overflow, and took the instrument panel away from him. Sighing, she tried to revert back to a patient tone. ¡°...Just stand there and wait, this is how the acidizer should be booted. Pay attention.¡± The SCR lab technician backed away while keeping an eye on her fingers. A boy just a bit younger than her by his looks, if he was frustrated by her reproach he made no indication of it. ¡°My apologies, Madam Veron.¡± He made a slight bow which made Odette scrunch her brow. That wasn¡¯t the first time she had been called that today, but she had decided not to comment on it again. The presence of SCR¡¯s corporate ideology seemed to be alive and well in its scientific members even today, as they had refused to call her by the honorific researcher even once, instead preferring corp lingo. ¡°Nevermind, just watch.¡± Odette shook her head while focusing back on the demonstration. As she went through the movements she heard a flapping noise somewhere behind her. Despite the loud humming of the machines around her and the other five people working at them, Odette turned around to see her superior at the entrance of the tent. She walked over to them after finishing the boy¡¯s task for him. ¡°Professor and Madam Chief, it''s a pleasure.¡± ¡°Researcher Veron, tell me. How is the team from SCR performing?¡± Odette suppressed another sigh. ¡°They have performed adequately, up to now. I think with time their efficiency will increase, but the process is a bit clogged at the moment. Mostly, coming from my observation, due to an inexperience in handling the equipment.¡± Odette had just finished as a burst of steam erupted from behind her. It was the same boy that she had just been helping, she saw before looking back to the two superiors. ¡°Hmm. It¡¯s a bit disappointing, but it''s your team. What do you think, Alison?¡± Three hours later and he¡¯s already comfortable with her first name? Odette looked at the pondering woman. She wore an expression that was odd to Odette, almost like she was confused? ¡°I think the girl¡¯s assumptions are right. My people are very passionate, but we were only able to get them so familiar with the lab before heading here. They¡¯ll need to be trained further.¡± ¡°Agreed. What sort of schedule do you propose?¡± ¡°Well ideally I think every day wo¡ª¡± Odette zoned out of the conversation after they started to get into specifics. It had been a hectic day, and she was feeling mentally exhausted. Forcing herself to recall the specifics of each machine in the tent had been arduous, but not half as much as worrying about Lukas¡¯ condition had been. Suddenly their voices stopped though, and Odette¡¯s mind was brought back from the periphery as Caleb and Alison shared a silent look. ¡°...are you up for that? Odette?¡± ¡°S-sorry? What was that?¡± They both were looking at her now. That didn¡¯t seem good. ¡°We¡¯re asking how that sounds. Do you think you¡¯d be able to manage that? Instructing my team until they¡¯re able to do these things themselves?¡± Odette¡¯s heart sank. ¡°Actually I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯m the right person for that. For instance Professor Cal-¡± Caleb cut her off. Cupping her on the shoulder in a motion that displayed a false familiarity, he answered for her. ¡°Ha! What she means, Madam Chief, is that she¡¯d be more than willing to accept the position, and she thanks you for the opportunity.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Bechdel nodded, glancing at Odette. ¡°And of course you¡¯d be jumped over to the SCR team on paper while the training is carried out. I don¡¯t expect it to take more than five or six weeks at the maximum, but we wouldn¡¯t want you to not be recognized for the work you¡¯ll be doing, would we?¡± Six weeks? Odette blanched. She didn¡¯t know why, but in that moment she looked to Caleb, who had been nothing but unpitying since the moment they had started their projects with the specimen, for a way out. But all she could see in his eyes were the same emotions that had been there for the last few days. She knew that if she didn¡¯t go along with this thing that was happening right now, there went her career. Caleb would see to it, she was sure. She suppressed another sigh. ¡°Thank you, Madam Chief. I¡¯ll¡­do my best to live up to the highest standards of the SCR.¡± Bechdel gave a neutral nod. ¡­ ¡°What do you think of the girl so far?¡± In a spacious tent on the other side of the encampment, Caleb and Alison had settled down at a table, both with burning cigarettes between their fingers. Despite the interior¡¯s size, the amassed smoke was still choking the air. Alison took a drag with her eyes shut before responding. ¡°She¡¯s extremely competent, and seems almost bored with her work. Clearly, the assignment upsets her, but I expect she¡¯s the type to work through it. What I still don¡¯t understand is your distaste for her. Why try to undermine her?¡± Caleb mashed his cigarette into the tray before pulling another from the pack. He lit it before responding in a quiet tone. ¡°Is that relevant?¡± ¡°Completely. If your intentions to transfer to our department are real, then¨C¡± ¡°You know they are.¡± ¡°--Yes, but still, if we¡¯re going to bring you on I need to know more than just your previous experience and professional demeanour. I need to know about aspects of your personal life as well. For instance, this feud you¡¯re having with your assistant.¡± Bechdel took a drag. ¡°Immediately, it strikes me as unprofessional. After all, what would a researcher in his late fifties care about a promising youth? She¡¯s from the same department, in the same field, with the same expertise, so her success should have nearly no impact on your own. Is it just hazing? Sadism? Or perhaps a personal vendetta?¡± Caleb coughed. ¡°I assure you, I have no ill will toward the girl¡­¡± ¡°So I¡¯m witnessing your regular methods of supervision then? Well, if you''re this callous to all of your subordinates then I¡¯m having doubts about our cooperation¡­¡± ¡°No, no. Fine, I¡¯ll explain.¡± Alison sat back in her chair. ¡°The girl recognized you from her advisory exams, so you must know she graduated from the program four years ago.¡± Bechdel nodded. ¡°Well, if you know she¡¯s only been in the department for the last four years, would you be shocked to learn she¡¯s already being considered for the senior researcher position? My position?¡± Alison¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°How is that even possible? That would make her the youngest in history to have our commensurate rank. Would the agency even allow that?¡± ¡°Exactly my thoughts when I first learned of it. After which, I began to wonder if she was truly that exceptional. Yet after months of observing her silently, I discovered something even more troubling.¡± ¡°Well now, don¡¯t keep me in suspense.¡± Bechdel tapped her cigarette on the side of the ashtray. ¡°She¡¯s even more skilled than her status suggests. Only, something is keeping her back. From the evidence I could find, I believe that something is her tie to the department. She¡¯s anchored by endorsement, to the director of IDS.¡± ¡°Samantha Nual? You think that she¡¯s got leverage on the girl?¡± ¡°I¡¯m only too certain. The problem is that I don¡¯t know specifically what it is, only that it forced the young Veron into an apprenticeship that she doesn¡¯t seem too keen on.¡± Alison took it all in, while Caleb continued. ¡°And if that¡¯s not enough, say she makes Head Researcher and becomes the youngest to ever assume the post, then what? The only logical course of action is that she¡¯s prepped for Sam¡¯s post, which will either force Nual aside or¡­¡± ¡°The agency will bump them both up. First Sam by way of seniority, then Veron through her accomplishments. Has she expressed an interest in CAHD?¡± ¡°A big one, it¡¯s nearly all we talked about on the flight over here, and she had just met me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m starting to see why you¡¯re doing this now. If she makes that appointment, that girl will get seniority over the rest of us.¡± Alison chewed her lip in revulsion. Caleb looked at her humorously. ¡°I see that streak of competition hasn¡¯t left you.¡± ¡°You forget that only half of our company entered the public sector, I still have colleagues that enjoy an unmanaged existence.¡± ¡°And you compare yourself to them, do you?¡± Caleb chuckled at that, which earned a look of mild ire from the woman. ¡°Assuming I go along with this, you still need to tell me why I should have her on the SCR papers for the next month instead of yours.¡± ¡°Well, it all comes down to the recommendation. Odette believes that¡¯s something only I can offer, but Sam is likely to approve her promotion regardless of my review, if things are really as I¡¯ve outlined.¡± Caleb brought out some papers between the two of them, wiping the ash off the table. ¡°This is where your department comes in. If you look at this, there are some interdepartmental policies that even a director wouldn''t be able to overlook. And this one in particular¡­¡± Bechdel started to nod the more she heard. There was a common motivation binding them together, now she understood it. A quickly advancing researcher might be good for the field, but it only served to lessen the influence people like them held. Alison, who had arrived at the position less than a decade ago, wanted her sacrifice of restricting herself for influence to last while an old-timer like Caleb didn¡¯t want his power further diluted. He also wanted to quietly join SCR, but that was a matter that would come after this since he¡¯d be retaining his rank. Veron¡¯s rise wouldn¡¯t serve any of their interests, so it had to be stopped. Yet they couldn''t do it openly, not when a department head supported it, so they would use what they were best at. Their bread and butter beyond bioengineering. Bureaucracy. 31. Conscientious Objector ¡°The line you are contacting is busy at the moment, please try again later.¡± Odette sighed. Setting down the receiver in the communications tent, she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her tan lab coat. That was the third time in two days she had attempted to contact the hospital where her brother was staying, and was met with some obstruction. It had been either a busy line or a service outage every time, which both frustrated Odette and was starting to make her suspicious. Lukas had been in and out of hospitals, mostly in, for the past four years. He had been able to go to a great one just after she had landed her position in the department, which had burdened her with the requirement of relationships that Odette was now reminded of again. Despite her attempts to avoid it, strings had been pulled to get Lukas the treatment he needed. The nation where he had been sent, called the Henna Duchy, was a small territory on the outskirts of the continent where the Amber Principality resided. Short of the Principality itself, their medical field was the most advanced in the world. But problematically, their largest trading partner was the Republic¡¯s competitor. Odette knew the very people who had allowed for her brother¡¯s migration now kept a close eye on her progress. Everything was tit for tat. She couldn¡¯t keep Lukas there unless she performed well. So were they responsible for the obstructions? Odette felt paranoid. Logically, it didn¡¯t make any sense for them to do that at this time. After finishing her assignment here, she would be in a position to start paying them back, so if anything they would have incentive to keep things the way they were. Unless Caleb had already started reporting on her aptitude negatively. While that was unlikely, it would surely lead to the current situation. Her backers would send their message by taking away the presence of her greatest self-motivator, if only by severing their communication. But surely the head researcher couldn¡¯t have done so. She knew he disliked her, for whatever reason, but it was doubtful he would put that in writing until the end of the project neared. By then she hoped to have made amends for whatever slight he had received from her. So perhaps it really was just a coincidental string of bad luck, whenever Odette tried the radio. Yet what the nurse had said the last time she had been able to get through planted a seed of doubt. Odette sighed. If there was one thing that was going well for her apart from that, it was the training program for the new SCR researchers. Why they had been assigned her was beyond all understanding, but she knew better than to question matters on another department¡¯s policy. On that front, her official reassignment to a trainer for SCR had yet to go through all the channels, so Odette was still unsure what that would mean for her contribution quota on the project site. She had been a little overwhelmed by the offer at first, as it seemed like it would take time away that could be used to improve her contributions in IDS, but something the Chief had said later that night made her reconsider. ¡®Technology can harm just as much as it can help, yet its development is inevitable. Our morals as its designers shouldn¡¯t factor into the exploration of it but the application.¡¯ It had struck a chord with Odette, who being early in her career had strong opinions about the morality of her work. From the first explanation of their work, SCR had seemed like a black company. That meaning it was exploitative of its laborers, had unethical conduct standards, and produced a line of cheap and dubious products. That was the belief Odette had held for over four years, until it was shaken when the Chief had visited her tent late last night. ¡°Our job as scientists is not to question our processes or withhold the findings. We create, then inform others on how to use them for humanity¡¯s benefit. We do not unduly influence the environment. Technology is a tool, not a disease to be contained.¡± Odette pondered aloud what she had heard between the Madam¡¯s puffs of smoke. It was strangely poetic considering its source, but it wasn¡¯t like her beliefs had suddenly reversed. Odette still hated the thought of making weapons and was uncomfortable around SCR¡¯s machines. But somehow she was beginning to understand the nuance of the Chief¡¯s argument.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡®Am I that impressionable? When that woman first arrived she had looked like a corporate slave master, but now I think I¡¯m beginning to understand her.¡¯ Would she have felt this resonance if the Professor had said the same thing? Actually, perhaps so. Odette realized. She wasn¡¯t feeling kinship with Bechdel personally, but an attraction toward the message. The woman still slightly revolted her with what she represented and the history they shared, but her point about technology being morally transparent struck an old chord. ¡®Ah, now I understand why. It''s how I thought in the academy before the advisory program.¡¯ ¡­ Two days later. ¡°Alright, pack it up! Performance was much better today.¡± Several faces poked up from behind machines. They were tired and greased with sweat, but otherwise shone with satisfied expressions. ¡°Thank you Madam Veron.¡± ¡°Thank you Madam!¡± ¡°Sure sure. Now everyone get out of here!¡± Odette had a slight grin as she waved them out while organizing the day¡¯s documents. Despite only being in her late twenties, she felt like she had transformed from a researcher to school teacher over the past three days. But thanks to the satisfaction of watching her efforts improve the team¡¯s skill, it wasn¡¯t too bad of a feeling. In fact she felt she was slowly growing more comfortable around the machines designed for manufacturing death, and definitely with the team members themselves. Though she still wouldn¡¯t be caught dead operating one herself. ¡°See you tomorrow, Madam Veron.¡± The same boy whose machine erupted in steam two days ago was the last to leave. He bowed with respect. Their corporate tradition, apparently. ¡°Get some sleep, Tom.¡± Odette sent off the orange-haired boy before turning off the tent¡¯s lights. It was still two hours to midnight, and in her mind she was picturing the project that awaited her back at her own tent. The Chief''s words had spontaneously lit a fire under Odette, one she hadn¡¯t truly felt the burn of in years. Over the past two days she had felt a desire to create, to innovate, like nothing before, and had worked manically on designing a specific project in her hours off the job. Since it was unrelated to the camp¡¯s mission, she had avoided mentioning it to anyone yet, but sooner or later she would need to request resources from the supply tent in order to build it. After all, Odette wasn¡¯t the type to dabble in theory without practicing it. When that time came, she planned to justify it by saying it was something like a new analyzer for the specimen, which wasn¡¯t totally untrue. For as much shit as she had taken on this assignment so far, she figured she wouldn¡¯t lose any sleep at night if the camp spent a little extra on her. It¡¯s not like she¡¯d be stealing, anyway. But just as she was getting excited about leaving, a shadow cast from the other side of the tent¡¯s flap stopped her in her tracks. She paused as two figures made their way inside. ¡°Researcher Veron. Glad we caught you.¡± Odette¡¯s expression lost its energy, reverting back to a neutral respect. She greeted her superiors, who were both technically her boss now, with a calm tone. ¡°Head Researcher and Madam Chief, what can I do for you?¡± Caleb wordlessly handed her a black binder which she accepted after putting her own papers down. Affirming she was meant to open it with a silent gesture, she read the first page before inwardly feeling perplexed. ¡°I don¡¯t recognize these names?¡± ¡°That¡¯s expected. They¡¯re new hires of SCR, from the corporate side. They¡¯re due to arrive here at 0600, and I think it¡¯d be lovely if you gave them an outline of the projects we¡¯re working on.¡± Odette¡¯s brow furrowed. She read through the names again. ¡°There¡¯s nearly twenty people on this list? I don¡¯t think this is a job for just one person, is it?¡± She already had her hands full with the training program, she wanted to say. But the voice of Caleb interrupted her. ¡°You won¡¯t be alone, Researcher Veron. We¡¯re just on our way to inform Jason and Tom that they¡¯ll be joining you as tour guides. I wouldn¡¯t worry about interrupting the training schedule either, as they¡¯ll only be here for one or two days at the most.¡± ¡°That¡­will still set the training back a bit. Madam Chief, is this really a priority?¡± Bechdel waved her hand. ¡°Of course. Since the specimen¡¯s location is already an open secret, the Republic might as well start looking for buyers. The government can hardly monopolize a resource well of this size, anyway. I made the recommendation of SCR first, but there will surely be more to come.¡± Odette was quite shocked at that, especially after hearing Bechdel¡¯s previous speech on the nature of their work. Odette had problems with using the corpse for weapons, yes, but she conceded that in some respects weapons could also be used for defense or as deterrence. That was where the argument of moral applications lay. But to directly sell the rights of development to a third party, especially a privatized militant group under the near non-existent oversight of the Republic¡¯s laws for corporations? That didn¡¯t conform to any moral argument, only profits. Once again, Odette was shocked by her own surprise. How many more times would she be stunned by people turning out to be different than their professed values? How many colleagues of hers were hypocrites? ¡°Think of it as an opportunity to rub shoulders with the private sector. You never know, the economy is volatile these days. There might come a time when you need a job outside of the government.¡± ¡®If I ever do, it damn well won¡¯t be in this country.¡¯ 32. Tour De Force ¡°No, your eyes aren¡¯t deceiving you, that great big pile of flesh behind me really is the specimen you¡¯ve all heard so much about on your ride over here. If you turn to page three in your packets, you can follow along as I describe the anatomy of the mutant as we¡¯ve uncovered it so far. Facing the crowd from SCR, which was entirely composed of old and middle-aged men in suits, Odette read off a prepared script from the booklet in her hands. The entire day had been like this so far, starting from the early hours of the morning that had been occupied by a formal breakfast. ¡°Is that a question I see?¡± ¡®Fuuuuuuuck.¡¯ Odette sighed. ¡°Yes. A few minutes ago I learned that the force currently stationed here is not the original one that found the corpse of this beast. Can you explain that?¡± Odette¡¯s expression darkened tremendously. ¡°I don¡¯t know who told you such things, but please keep your questions business-related. The composition and location of the Republic¡¯s military is not relevant to this tour.¡± Allowed by the corporate-favoring laws of the Republic, these people were here to buy off pieces of the mutant. But Odette hadn¡¯t been forced to be here just so she could address their curiosities. In her eyes, they were merely vultures. That seemed to shut up the old man that had voiced his question, though from the look on his face she realized she had angered him. ¡®Oh well.¡¯ ¡°Any others?¡± ¡°I see that while the size of the specimen¡¯s body is quite impressive, as you¡¯ve continued to mention, you haven¡¯t spoken a word on the decay that is quite obvious to us all. Is the Republic prepared to offer a discount for parts of a body that¡¯s already decomposing?¡± The man next to the previous inquirer had a posh accent. Odette¡¯s eyes shook. ¡®If these people had read the pamphlet this morning instead of drinking at breakfast¡­¡¯ Odette looked to her right, where the oranged-haired boy, Tom, was standing. She nodded at him to take the question, but he seemed inclined to stay silent for the same reason she did. Unwilling to risk sounding too frustrated at the associate¡¯s blatant singular focus. Instead, Jason at her right swooped in. ¡°Ah, that¡¯s a good question. Instead of decay, that odor that you¡¯re all smelling is actually the creature¡¯s natural body processes leaking through, still active even after its death. What the IDS department has determined after taking numerous core samples is that the specimen carries a self-populating pouch of bacteria within itself. This pouch is highly pressurized, but holds a number of organic agents, some foul and some odorless. That¡¯s the source of the smell that you¡¯re all picking up on. It¡¯s easily equatable with the pungency of rot formed when a mutant beast is amidst decomposition.¡± ¡®He¡¯s got a future in politics for sure.¡¯ ¡°So this pouch, it stores bacteria? Like diseases?¡± The associate sounded unsure. Though many of them had experience in research, their knowledge was more geared toward determining financial risks. It was one of the reasons why much of SCR had stayed privatized. ¡°That¡¯s correct, but be assured that you are all completely safe at this distance. The protective tarp we¡¯ve shielded the specimen with is capable of resisting even gunfire.¡± ¡°I see¡­¡± The crowd began murmuring amongst themselves after that. A mutant beast storing bacteria within itself wasn¡¯t too rare, especially for a large corporation like SCR to get its hands on, but the implication in Jason¡¯s words was that it was to a far greater degree than normal. They hadn¡¯t explored the full depths of the beast¡¯s anatomy yet, either. Odette gave a nod of approval to Jason, but Tom¡¯s eyes she met with recognition. He disapproved of this process just as she. A fellow compatriot, despite their departmental difference. ¡°Any other questions? No? Then, if you¡¯ll all follow me, we¡¯ll be heading to the seismic field laboratory next, where our resident experts are currently investigating how the specimen came to be on Republic soil¡­¡± Odette began walking, directing them forward with a plastered smile. ¡®Please let this end soon.¡¯If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡­ Ten hours later. Time hadn¡¯t moved on any faster, but the hours began to slip by in Odette¡¯s head as Jason and Tom started to take questions for her. Something good seemed to have come from training them after all. She doubted they would have felt as inclined to speak for her if she had continued to treat them with the same callousness as the first day. But now, thanks to the gaggle of associates getting tired, the day had come to an end. She could finally return to her project. After gathering some papers from her tent residence, she practically glided out of the exit and over to the supply tent. ¡®Wait for me, my babies.¡¯ That was right. Odette had finished her design far faster than she had expected, making the next step actually building it. Minutes after dinner had ended, Odette raced over to the tent where she knew the surplus machinery and resources were stored. In her mind she rehearsed what she was going to say. ¡°Madam Veron, greetings!¡± Odette was topped in her tracks when she heard a boyish voice somewhere from behind. Spinning around before the tents, she gazed upon Tom with a bit of surprise. ¡°Tom, what are you doing over here?¡± ¡°I¡¯m staying over here, Madam Veron! All of us are, as that¡¯s where our tents were placed.¡± ¡®How can someone be so chipper and matter-of-fact at the same time?¡¯ ¡°I see. Well, I should thank you for jumping in to answer the associates questions earlier today. They''re from your sister organization, but I can still get quite fatigued by the barrage.¡± ¡°Oh! It was no problem at all Madam, I should thank you for the opportunity.¡± Odette idly nodded, before her eyes went past the young scientist¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Say, I don¡¯t see the requisitions officer on duty tonight, do you know where he is?¡± Tom¡¯s eyebrows raised as he looked towards Odette¡¯s line of sight. ¡°Did you need something from there, Madam? I can get it for you, if you like?¡± Odette shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s alright, just some baubles for a personal project. I just haven¡¯t seen the officer around lately.¡± ¡°Well, it was my understanding that the requisition officer was repositioned when our team arrived, Madam. We¡¯ve got the time split amongst the six of us outside of training right now. At the moment, the timeslot should be ¡­Jason¡¯s, now that I think about it.¡± Odette tightened a smile. ¡°Is that right? Well, thank you for the information then, I¡¯ll be going.¡± ¡°Are you sure you wouldn¡¯t like me to get you the parts you need? It would be quite a bit easier that way.¡± ¡°No, no. I¡¯m sure. Don¡¯t trouble yourself.¡± Odette carried on, not seeing how it would make a difference who got the parts she needed. Besides, she didn¡¯t want more people than necessary knowing about her design. It was important in guaranteeing that her contribution to the camp would be noted. She was starting to understand that a plan B in case she wasn¡¯t recommended by Caleb was prudent. If she could develop something to help the investigation of the beast go quicker, she was sure to be rewarded heavily. But what Tom had said was odd. She knew that the previous officer had definitely been there a week ago, but now with SCR coming in he was replaced? ¡®Repositioned¡¯ was just a fancy way of saying the officer had been shafted out of a job, fired, or demoted. Why the role, which was essentially glorified security detail, had been added to SCR¡¯s growing involvement was beyond Odette, but it probably came down to departmental politics like everything else. ¡°Wai¨Cwait!¡± She was just about to reach the tent when her arm was grabbed from behind. ¡®What the fuck?¡¯ Odette turned with a sharp look. But surprisingly it was still Tom, who had grabbed her impulsively. Upon seeing the look on her face, his own expression turned sheepish and he quickly let go. ¡°What are you doing?¡± ¡°Ah, I¡¯m sorry, it¡¯s just, ah. Do you want to get, uh, coffee? Or something?¡± Odette¡¯s face calmed. So he was just being friendly. ¡°Not tonight, Tom. Why don¡¯t you ask Jason if he¡¯s free after his shift instead?¡± Tom¡¯s face reddened, and Odette was surprised to see a growing frustration on it. ¡°No, I meant more like, do you want to go somewhere? Today was kind of a weird day, and we rarely get the time off, so I was wondering if you wanted to head back to the residences? O-or i-if that doesn¡¯t work then we could go for a walk?¡± Odette looked at him with confusion. His speech was rising and falling in odd places, balanced somewhere between a frustrated embarrassment and a strange confidence. It wasn¡¯t until Odette met his eyes that she understood where he was coming from. ¡®Oh. Right. This. But why me? Well, it doesn¡¯t really matter.¡¯ ¡°Regretfully, I¡¯m afraid I still have a few things on my list for tonight. After that I¡¯ll be heading straight to sleep, as you can imagine. Tired from the tour as I¡¯m sure you are as well, Researcher Thomas.¡± Odette thought of something to say as quickly as possible, wincing internally as her last line came off as sounding a bit too formal and detached. Oh well, it wasn¡¯t like she was being rude to him. ¡°O-okay¡­¡± ¡°Yes? Then I must really be going, I¡¯ll see you for training tomorrow, then.¡± Odette left him in a hurry, now that it was really getting late. The thought of almost being asked out left her mind as she honed in on the true task. If she couldn¡¯t access the supply depot tonight, then she¡¯d have to wait for a time next week, and only if nothing new was tacked on to her current responsibilities. The normal hours of training meant she was only free after it closed, so she had been lucky an irregular day came like today so soon after finishing her design.