Chapter 99: Parasite
"It’s a major parasite. One of the ancient cycle ones. The elven treatises document them as deep forest species that attach to organisms with regenerative properties and use the bodies as hosts and energy sources."
"Like the tree?"
"Like the tree. Yes. The meat tree has natural regenerative properties. The parasite settled in it first. Probably decades or centuries ago. And from there, it spread to the creatures that ate the meat. And to the people who did the same."
Yorel brought his hands to his head.
With a broken voice.
"Wait. Wait, wait, wait. All of them?"
"All of them."
"The children too."
"The children too, Yorel."
Yorel looked at the surrounding residents.
With eyes that began to fill.
"It’s not possible."
Nathan spoke with a calm voice.
"Yorel. Do you eat the tree’s meat?"
Yorel shook his head quickly.
"No. I don’t eat meat. Of any kind. Since childhood. A personal choice. The others mock me for it."
Liaraen spoke then.
With a calm but firm voice.
"That’s why his signature is clean. He was never infected because he never ingested the transmission vector."
Yorel turned to the residents.
With an expression that combined horror with disbelief.
The residents didn’t respond.
They simply continued with their eyes fixed on Nathan. With the stillness of waiting.
And then one of them spoke.
With the resident’s normal voice. With the normal tone. With the normal cadence. But with words no settlement resident would have produced on their own:
"Hunter Voss."
Nathan looked at him.
"Yes."
"You ate little. You should eat more. The food is hot."
Nathan turned to Yorel.
"Yorel. Do they speak for themselves, or does something speak through them?"
Yorel stood still.
Unable to respond.
And then another resident spoke. With a different voice. But with the same cadence. With the same neutral tone.
"Hunter Voss. The soup is getting cold."
And a third.
"Hunter Voss. Your companion didn’t eat either."
And a fourth.
"Hunter Voss. It would be discourteous to refuse hospitality."
One after another.
All the residents.
With different voices but with the same coordinated cadence.
Like one thing speaking through twenty throats at once.
Nathan felt Liaraen tense beside him.
And felt Soul Sense react again.
With new signatures.
Approaching from the forest.
Multiple.
*Creatures.*
*Guardians.*
*The parasite didn’t send them alone. It called reinforcements.*
Nathan turned to Liaraen.
"Sprout. Get ready."
"Ready."
He turned to Yorel.
"Yorel. You’re going to walk toward me. Slowly. Without turning. Without running. The residents probably won’t attack you because you’re not infected, and the parasite probably doesn’t consider it worth spending you. But the forest creatures that are arriving probably will attack you if you get close to the center."
Yorel obeyed.
With trembling legs. With his hands still on his head. He moved slowly around the table toward where Nathan and Liaraen were standing.
The residents watched him.
Without moving.
Without saying anything this time.
Just with their eyes following Yorel’s path with the perfect synchronization they’d maintained all night.
When Yorel reached Nathan’s side, Nathan put him behind him.
"Yorel. You stay back. Behind us. Don’t move."
"Yes."
Nathan turned to face front.
The twenty residents on the other side of the table. All standing now. All with empty hands but with the posture of those who’d been waiting for exactly this moment. Without visible weapons. But with the collective coordination of a single organism distributed across twenty bodies.
And behind them, emerging from the forest, the first guardian creatures became visible.
Approximately eight. Bipedal. The size of the Drakain but with smoother skin of a dark green almost black color. With elongated snouts. With the same pulsing red lines the Drakain had, but more pronounced, more marked.
Nathan assessed them with Soul Sense.
*Low A-Rank.*
*Each one.*
*Eight low A-Rank. Plus twenty residents controlled by the parasite. Plus something that’s probably coordinating everything from somewhere in the deep forest.*
*Good.*
*Apparently this got out of proportion.*
Nathan mentally corrected himself.
*This got out of proportion.*
*Without "apparently."*
*Good.*
*Let’s go.*
He extended his left arm toward Liaraen.
He grabbed her by the wrist.
"Sprout."
"Yes."
"Quick strategy. I clear the way with Death Pulse to paralyze residents and nearby creatures at the same time. You cut the hands and legs of the paralyzed residents without killing them—just immobilizing them. Yorel stays glued to us. Then we fight our way to the forest toward where we left the horse. We get out of the settlement. And we assess from outside."
"The residents."
"We don’t kill them if we can avoid it. The parasite controls them, but the bodies are people. If we can get the parasite out of them, we can save them. Cutting hands and legs immobilizes them without compromising vital functions."
"Understood."
Nathan looked at Yorel.
"Yorel. Can you run?"
"I can run."
"Keep up with us. Don’t separate. If you separate, we won’t be able to protect you."
"Yes."
Nathan turned to face front.
The twenty residents.
The eight forest creatures.
And in the background, Soul Sense began detecting something else. Something that was farther away. Approximately a kilometer from the settlement. Moving. Large. With the same strange parasite signature but amplified. As if the main parasite, the root of everything, was on its way.
*The parasitized alpha creature.*
*The one that probably eliminated the Nightbrid four days ago.*
*It’s coming.*
Nathan processed it quickly.
And decided.
"Sprout."
"Yes."
"Plan change. The alpha creature is approximately a kilometer away. It’s coming. We can’t fight the residents, the guardians, and the alpha at the same time. We’re getting out before it arrives."
"How?"
"Death Pulse at maximum. We run. We cross the forest toward the horse. We don’t stop. We don’t fight if we can avoid it. If something catches us, we eliminate it and keep going."
"Understood."
"Yorel."
"Yes."
"Get ready. When I say ’now,’ you run."
"Yes."
Nathan breathed.
He extended both hands.
The residents began moving forward at the same time. The forest guardians also advanced. And in the background, Soul Sense confirmed that the major signature had gotten closer. Five hundred meters now. Approaching fast.
Nathan activated Death Pulse at maximum intensity.
And shouted.
"NOW!"
---
The dark wave shot from Nathan’s chest.
It expanded in a fifteen-meter radius.
The twenty residents fell paralyzed where they stood. The three closest guardians also froze. The other five, who were outside the radius, stopped by reflex but didn’t fall.
Nathan grabbed Yorel by the arm.
Liaraen drew her sword.
And the three began to run.
Toward the settlement’s western edge. Toward the path Nathan had mentally marked during the afternoon’s arrival. Toward where the horse was tied in the small forest clearing near the entrance path.
The five unparalyzed guardians chased them.
Nathan glanced over his shoulder as they ran.
*Five creatures.*
*Low A-Rank.*
*They’re going to catch us before the horse.*
He turned forward.
"Sprout. When I stop, you keep running with Yorel. Take the horse. Go toward the north path, not the south. I’ll catch up when I’m done with the guardians."
"Nathan."
"It’s faster if I stay. Run."
"Nathan."
"Sprout. Run."
Liaraen gritted her teeth.
But she ran.
With Yorel beside her.
Nathan stopped at the settlement’s edge.
He turned around.
The five guardians were approximately twenty meters away and closing fast.
Nathan extended his right hand.
He activated Death’s Domain at full intensity.
The cold wave shot out. It expanded in a radius of approximately twenty meters. The five guardians passed through it and felt the effect immediately. Their movements slowed considerably. Their life signatures weakened.
But they didn’t fall.
*Death’s Domain isn’t enough against low A-Rank.*
*Good.*
*Change.*
Nathan applied Soul Reap to the closest one.
The skill activated. The creature resisted for approximately a second. Then it fell.
*One.*
He applied Soul Reap to the second.
The same resistance. The same fall.
*Two.*
The other three were already less than ten meters away.
Nathan activated Death Pulse again.
The three fell paralyzed.
Nathan ran beside the three paralyzed ones. He extended his left hand. Applied Tactile Entropy to the first one’s neck. The tissues dried. The creature died without recovering. He applied the same technique to the second. And to the third.
Five eliminated.
In approximately forty seconds.
Nathan checked Soul Sense.
The major signature was two hundred meters now.
Approaching.
*Let’s go.*
He began running north.
Behind Liaraen and Yorel.
When he caught up to Liaraen, she already had the horse untied and was helping Yorel onto its back. Nathan arrived, took the reins, climbed up behind them. Liaraen climbed onto the front as well. And with Yorel squeezed between them and the horse carrying three people, Nathan spurred it into a gallop.
North.
Toward the path leading away from the settlement and the deep forest.
And over his shoulder, as the horse accelerated, Nathan saw.
At the settlement’s edge.
Emerging from between the trees.
A large silhouette. Approximately three and a half meters tall. A humanoid but deformed body. Skin covered in the same pulsing red lines but much more pronounced. Arms ending in claws. And the head, with a vaguely human face but with a mouth open in a smile no human could have produced.
The alpha creature.
Stopped at the settlement’s edge.
Watching them flee.
Not pursuing.
Nathan looked at it for the second it took before the horse rounded the path’s curve.
And in that second, the creature moved its head slightly.
And smiled wider.
As if saying "I see you. Come back when you want. I’ll be waiting."
Nathan turned forward.
With his calm calibrated to the mode of someone who had narrowly escaped something neither he nor Liaraen had anticipated was in that settlement when they arrived.
Yorel, squeezed between them, was visibly trembling.
Liaraen tightened the reins.
And the three rode north with the night closing in around them and with the collective feeling that apparently they were going to have to report to Selene a situation considerably more complex than the original mission suggested.
Nathan mentally corrected himself.
*We’re going back.*
*We just need a strategy.*
*With the intention of eliminating the alpha creature before it spreads to other settlements.*