They were leviathans.
At his current mass, Valen’s white blood cells were not the crude, boulder-like constructs Kaelen could remember from the wolf.
They were golden-light-bled constructs that prowled the currents with singular intent while leaving no space behind them.
So that nothing even a smaller thing to pass through undiscovered.
[Immune Cells Closing: 18 seconds to interception.]
Head-on assault would not suffice, nor would any other obvious maneuver.
Kaelen forced himself to think past the rising panic in his throat.
I got through a wolf by hiding.
That won’t get me through this.
“Alternative required,” said Nix, voice taut.
“Direct confrontation results in certain destruction.”
Then I won’t confront it.
I’ll feed it something else.
The concept was not a new one; Kaelen had discovered it weeks ago in a back alley with two bloodied debt-collectors, when the realization that his body could be split, bled, and reassembled had saved his life.
He had no experience using the ability while in imminent danger
[Ding!
Parasitic Bifurcation Initiated – Emergency Application.]
Two slender threads of himself broke away from the main body, lesser imitations of the whole that were sent slithering toward the leviathans like bait on a hook
The nearest golden light swallowed one fragment whole
[Ding!
Sacrificial Fragment Consumed.]
[Genetic Structure Data Captured – Divine Cellular Composition Recorded.]
“Analysis in progress,” said Nix.
“You allowed destruction to occur in order to harvest structural data of your opponent.
Unconventional method, but effective nonetheless.”
It’s not a sacrifice if it gets me the information I need ,
Kaelen thought grumpily.
His second offering was devoured in the same fashion a heartbeat later, and Kaelen already felt the losses as phantom sensations – real, but survivable, like losing an arm or a leg
[Ding!
Sufficient Data Threshold Reached.]
[New Mutation Unlocked: Divine Mimicry Microbe.]
[Effect: Cellular structure reconfigures to imitate host’s native biological signature.
Immune detection, significantly reduced.]
Kaelen felt the remnants of his body shift beneath him, morph, until he was no longer wearing the skin it was presented with, but something else – something more akin to a tailored cloak that ended at his elbows, its fabric woven from the very same golden filaments that surrounded him.
[Immune Detection Threshold: 91% -> 14%]
“Camouflage successful,” Nix said.
“You are currently indistinguishable from native tissue at standard scan resolution.”
Good enough ,
Kaelen thought, beginning the slow procession deeper into Valen’s veins, dodging leviathan after leviathan as he went.
Past the valves, past the capillaries, toward the neural ganglia Valen kept tucked away in the marrow of his bones; where thought and willpower were forged.
Towards where he needed to go, if any of this was to mean anything at all.
[Neural Infection Progress: 3%…
5%…]
It wasn’t control.
Not in the way it had been with the wolf, with Corin, with the dying debt-collector in the alley.
Not even the way it would be in his body, where a full and utter take-over of his central nervous system would be a mere novelty to the parasite inside.
All Kaelen could do at the five percent mark was experience, through a thin thread of understanding, the sensations belonging to something far larger and stronger than himself.
Sound.
Voices, muffled and distant.
Not his own.
Not familiar.
Something he had to listen closely to in order to understand, and translate at that.
Words were coming in waves, broken and disjointed – I can hear what he hears –
“-should have this looked at properly,” a knightly voice was saying.
“-You went pale mid-stride, Commander.
That’s not nothing.”
“It’s nothing,” said Valen’s voice, and even through the tenuous link Kaelen had to the man, he could feel the condescension layered on top of the words.
“-Some lingering shock from the guardian fight.
I’ll walk it off.”
“With respect, sir, the temple’s three corridors from here.
The high-tier cleansing font would clear anything lingering in your blood in minutes.
Better safe.”
Something went cold in Kaelen’s gut.
A temple.
Of purification.
Of cleansing, of sanctification — it would serve the same purpose as any other such place, and it was precisely that fact that put him on edge
[System Alert: Critical Threat Identified.]
[Target Destination: High-Tier Cleansing Temple.
Holy Font Purification Class: Severe]
[Assessment: Direct exposure to font-blessed water will result in immediate and total organism erasure.]
It wasn’t damage, or infection, or decay.
It was erasure, complete and utter, as if the concept of his existence had never been.
I won’t let that happen .
“Confirmed,” said Nix.
“You must prevent this exposure by any available means, or this infection ends before it has begun.”
I know that!
What I need from you is options!
“You currently possess partial access to the host’s sensory input.
Full neural control remains beyond your current infection threshold.
Your only available leverage is subtlety, not force.”
Subtlety.
Kaelen turned the word over in his mind, testing the edges like a knife.
I can hear what he hears.
Can I feed him something in return?
He did, carefully, gently – the same way he had tested the fear response in the wolf, in the weeks of lurking outside the debt-collector’s door.
Subtly, without consent, Kaelen invaded the space behind Valen’s thoughts
Fine.
I’m fine.
The temple’s a waste of time I don’t have.
He let the concept settle in the commander’s head like a pebble in a pond, feeling it take root without any idea of where it had landed
“I said it’s nothing,” said Valen, aloud this time, a bit more sharply than before.
“We’ve lost enough time to superstition today.
I’m not spending another hour bathing in some priest’s holy water over a moment’s dizziness.”
The knight paused.
“Commander, I really think – ”
“That wasn’t a request.”
It worked.
For some unfathomable reason, the words – his words – had taken root.
As far as Kaelen was concerned, that meant the entire universe and its contents had been rewritten.
I can already put words in his head!
At five percent, I’m practically in control!
[Ding!
Behavioral Influence Confirmed.]
[Warning: Repeated influence attempts may trigger host awareness of foreign presence.]
Noted.
I’ll try not to be so obvious about it.
The sound of the footsteps changed, redirected – no longer towards the three-corridor path the knight had recommended, but back toward the tunnels and passages Kaelen most needed to make it down before the entire enterprise was aborted.
In a way, it almost – hurt to watch.
Not that he could feel pain, but the loss of something so near and dear was an experience not altogether dissimilar
Then the earth rumbled, and another voice joined the conversation, one Kaelen knew far too well; a woman named Selene, who had a habit of showing up whenever Valen might not have wanted her to
“Absolutely not,” she said, her presence making a sound as she closed the distance between them and whoever she was addressing.
“You’re walking wrong.
Your color’s wrong.
I don’t care how much time we’ve wasted – you’re getting the font treatment before we go another step into that dungeon.”