The screaming wasn’t even stopped mid-sentence when Kaelen realized what he was seeing.
Another mass of scarabs erupted from what was obviously a fracture point in the stone, smaller ones than had attacked the group’s vanguard but just as determined to fill their stomachs, converging on what surely enough must have been a straggling mercenary who hadn’t been fast enough to get himself to the backside of the retreat in time.
A part of him, the calculating, distanced part that screamed at him what he was doing when he found himself in the midst of some kind of crisis, distantly wondered at the odd sensation of his stomach twisting and the marring of the man’s scream being cut short and left nothing behind aside from a particular group of pickled bones in under a minute.
Efficient.
It wasn’t a word that Kaelen really wanted to acknowledge as being anything he should take notice of, but it hovered at the edges of his conscious thought nonetheless, unpleasant and oddly familiar as if his subconscious was dredging it up from some part of him that barely remembered learning it
Focus
That’s not a person anymore.
That’s an opportunity you just passed.
[Ding!
Mass Insect Aggregate Detected.]
[Assessment: Collective Hive Intelligence.
Individual Value: Negligible.
Aggregate Value: Significant.]
Aggregate,
Kaelen considered the word, weighing it in his thoughts while his stomach twisted with unease and his nerves danced.
A single scarab is worthless.
A thousand thinking as one?
Something I’ll never have to worry about defending against.
He had no time to spare to waste on distracting the few remaining mindless things of this group.
Unless there was already one that he had –
There was.
Six feet away, already cooling and abandoned by the fleeing knights and survivors, was an open-chested guide that would most likely have meant to lead the first wave into this hole until a mistake of a nature taken much too early on the path allowed him to be caught by the swarm that had almost filled the entrance on a first glance.
Blood already ran freely down his ruined ribs fast enough to pool around his knees and feet, not far enough from the burrow the scarabs had tunneled into, and he’d been close enough that they didn’t take much else when better meals presented themselves.
A resource.
A corpse that might yet be made a useful tool to them.
“You intend to utilize the corpse as an infection vector,” Nix stated unnecessarily as if a simple understanding of the situation should have soothed him.
“Efficient.
They will not hesitate to consume the flesh, and you may ride the digestive process directly into the aggregate mass.”
Precisely,
He thought, already crouching low enough that the retreating knights would have to look past the body to see the man waiting for orders behind the guide, a loose thread of material trailing the fingers at the blood-soaked wound and veins, and let the scarabs come.
[Ding!
Vector Seeding Initiated.]
The wait didn’t hold off for long.
A moment or two was all it took the nearest scabs to converge on the infection site, splitting their mouths wide to shred the exposed flesh and cells already saturated in Kaelen’s foreign matter.
The sensation flooded the worm’s mind on contact, wasn’t unpleasant not exactly, but more like the nearest thing to a singular thought process he’d ever experienced – only this time, instead of two minds struggling to overrule the other, it was a great and distant flood of similar instincts and impulses stretching out and grasping in dozens of directions at once.
[Infection Progress: Aggregate Swarm – 12%…
34%…]
Infection spreads faster than a single source can follow.
There is no mind in this many insects, only instinct multiplied with every repetition and revision of the thought process.
“Correct,” Nix said.
“you are not acquiring control of a body.
You are inserting yourself into the dominant portion of an existing structure.
Continue with the infection vector.”
Let’s give them something to talk about.
[Infection Progress: 58%…
79%…)
Some of the scarabs that had begun to cluster around the new infection site showed slight changes, obsidian shells flashing a faint unnatural light where before they’d only followed their neighbors around, moving with greater unity already, their motions smoother more directed as if the whole of them could think with a single mind.
[Ding!
Infection Progress: 100%.
Hive-Mind Assimilation Successful.]
[Aggregate Host Acquired: Scarab Swarm – – Base Population 340 units]
[Ding!
New Skill Unlocked: Chitinous Armor Synthesis.]
[Effect: To provide temporary physical resistance, Absorbed exoskeleton material can be layered over the primary vessel..]
Kaelen felt something akin to a heartbeat at the back of every one of the three hundred and something scarabs writhing through the cracks and crevices near him, a distant steady pulse like the beating of lungs.
It wasn’t like riding a man, not by a mile and something in spite of a voice that still echoed as though speaking in the marrow of Kaelen’s borrowed bones, only this time there were three hundred and forty voices all echoing at once in a single stream of thought.
The sight of them moving as if in unison was enough to make him laugh, a low rough sound rasping out between the gristle and sinew of Corin’s already decaying chest.
A week ago he was one hit from dying in a puddle of his own blood and now he has an entire –
“Do not overestimate their value,” Nix said, sensing the thought no doubt.
“As individual units are fragile.
Their power lies in their number and organization, not in their durability.”
So?
A fragile host is still a host.
Kaelen pulled them back into the concealing folds and crevices with precise motions that didn’t draw the attention of the knights who had begun to pass thirty paces behind him, waiting while they did the same within the mouth of the burrow and regrouped.
Thought carefully through the one dilemma he’d noticed waiting since he’d first scoured the aura of the knight named Valen
A single thread cannot approach him without risking the wrath of his holy power, but if he sent these hundreds to swarm his scent…
[System Query: Assess Aggregate Swarm Viability Against Target – Holy Aura.]
[Preliminary Analysis: Individual scarab biological signature registers below current threat threshold for Holy-Aligned disintegration response.
Full aggregate signature remains untested.]
Below the threshold.
Kaelen’s borrowed heart pounded at the thought, thick in his chest that could have been either joy or simply the loosening of tension.
That means
I can get in close enough that his eyes won’t spot me until I’m inside his head, if I break them up enough
“Untested,” Nix said, and somehow it didn’t try to hide her distaste for that word
you’re speculating on conjecture while having insufficient evidence.
Just confirm before committing the resources.
Noted.
Kaelen was thinking along the same lines either way, and certainly wouldn’t be stopped from continuing simply because he paused to reconsider.
In fact, there was no pause to reconsider.
Behind him he heard the sounds of pursuit ending, of the knights finishing rooting out the last of the survivors of the opening wave of scarabs, and the silver-wreathed figure of Selene standing at their center, her circlet flashing in the torchlight as she raised a hand to the ceiling of the cave.
[Ding!
Spellcasting Detected.]
[Spell Identified: :Cleansing Flame – Area Purification, Anti-Corruption Class.]
[Warning: Spell effect radius includes current scarab nesting zone.]
Kaelen went rigid, instinctively calculating the odds and angles and escape routes, realizing far too late who the spell was aimed at.
Not some monstrous collection of monsters, because surely that would have been a very reasonable thing to blame, but everything.
Every single living being on this side of the rock face, every shadow the knights weren’t yet aware of that could possibly contain a soul.
It didn’t matter which.
Nothing corrupted could survive the blast.
Nothing unclean or undeclared holy could remain once the magic had passed.
“Contain the infestation before it spreads,” Selene called, her voice light and steady as she spoke the words of the spell she wove into her palms.
“Nothing corrupted may pass this threshold.”
Kaelen’s stomach twisted tighter, already running calculations the instinct of sheer survival screamed louder than, feeling the warmth of a distant fire bloom in his fingertips.
It was a white-gold color, far too bright and far too hot, the sort of magical heat that turned everything it touched to ash