Chapter 112: Blood Bug (3) [Bonus]
The second chamber was larger. Lucard stopped at the entrance. Corpses filled the floor.
Not fresh corpses. Old ones. Hundreds at first glance. Then more in side pits. Bones lay in layers, some human, some beast, some too broken to identify. Rusted weapons were buried under ribs. Broken helmets sat beside skulls. Old leather, blackened wood, dry chains, and cracked shields covered the ground. The place had not been visited properly for hundreds of years, but death had stayed and waited.
Lucard stepped over a skeleton and looked around.
This was not a small nest.
It had once been a cultivation ground.
A god had likely placed a true mother bug here long ago and fed it through wars, travelers, beasts, and prisoners. Then the god had taken the mature mother bug away or died before collecting it. The cave had gone silent after that. The eggs left behind should have died with time.
Most had.
But not all.
Lucard moved deeper, following the faint living sound.
The cave opened into a third chamber, smaller than the second but much denser in blood scent. The walls were dark red in places, not from fresh blood, but from old blood minerals dried into stone. Thin cracks spread across the floor. Inside those cracks were pale shells, broken eggs, and dead tiny bodies. Thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands.
Lucard understood.
One leftover egg had hatched recently.
Not a normal baby.
A female.
A mutated mother bug.
It had eaten the dead eggs around it to survive. Blood bugs could eat their own kind in desperate cases. A mother born by eating kin before its first real feeding could mutate strangely. That explained why Brant survived long enough to leave. The bug in this cave was not mature. It had only laid a few weak eggs, enough to infect those who came close, but not enough to command them properly or bring food home.
Now it was starving.
Lucard heard the sound again.
A tiny scraping.
He turned toward the left wall.
There was a small hole in the rock near the ground, no wider than two fingers. Inside the hole, something red moved weakly.
Lucard crouched.
The creature was almost the size of a fly, but longer and softer. Its body was red like a drop of living blood. Tiny legs clung to the stone. Its head lifted slowly when it felt Lucard’s presence. It had no real face, but somehow it looked afraid and hungry at the same time.
A young mother blood bug.
Less than one year old.
Female.
Mutated.
Dying.
Lucard smiled.
"Jackpot."
The tiny bug trembled.
It could understand him.
Not like a human understood language. More like a blood creature understood meaning carried through tone, intent, and blood pressure. It felt hunger. It felt fear. It felt the terrifying blood inside Lucard. To it, Lucard was not an old doctor or a fallen noble. He was a sun made of blood standing in front of its little hole.
Lucard held out one finger.
The bug pulled back.
"You lack teaching," Lucard said. "That is why your eggs failed. You can lay. You can feed. But you cannot guide. You were born from leftovers, then ate your own kin to live. No mother taught you. No god shaped you."
The bug shook in the hole.
Lucard’s eyes became distant for a moment.
"I can teach what you lack."
His voice became softer, but more dangerous.
"I am the Blood God."
He paused.
Then he corrected himself with a faint, cold smile.
"No. I was the Blood God. One of the strongest five gods of Null. Even broken like this, I know more about blood than the fool who abandoned this cave."
The bug slowly came forward.
A tiny red thread extended from its mouth and touched the air. It was not attacking. It was tasting his blood aura.
Lucard allowed it to taste one faint trace.
The bug froze.
Then its fear changed.
The tiny creature lowered its head as much as its small body could. It was not a human bow. It was instinctive surrender. A starving thing had found not prey, not a master, but a living blood world.
Lucard looked pleased.
"You will follow me."
The bug answered with a weak pulse.
Agreement.
Lucard picked it up carefully between two fingers. Its body was soft and warm. It trembled in his grasp. When he lifted it toward his mouth, the bug suddenly shook harder. Its tiny legs curled inward, and its whole body tried to hide against his finger.
It thought he was going to eat it.
Lucard almost laughed.
"Do not worry. I am not eating you."
The bug stopped shaking a little.
Lucard continued, "I will place you inside my heart. That will be your home from now on. I will feed you. I will teach you. I can bring you out whenever I want. You will be safer there than in this dead cave."
The bug’s fear faded slowly.
A small red pulse came from it again.
It was Trust. Very weak trust. But it was enough.
Lucard placed the bug on his tongue and closed his mouth.
He did not swallow it into his stomach. His blood moved first. A thin blood path opened under his tongue and guided the small creature inward. It slid through the blood channel Lucard created, protected from acid, air, and pressure. Then it entered a small blood chamber formed near his heart, a tiny living nest made from his Crimson Vessel.
The bug settled there.
Lucard felt it curl into the blood chamber like a newborn creature entering a warm egg.
Inside his mind, a message appeared.
[Living Blood Creature Accepted.
Species: Mutated Mother Blood Bug.
Status: Starving. Weak. Incomplete.
Compatibility: High.
Note: The creature can be cultivated inside the host’s blood chamber.
Warning: Improper growth may damage the heart.]
Lucard’s smile deepened.
"Improper growth is for fools."
He stood and looked around the chamber.