[Host Destroyed.]
Flying is hard.
I tore my way out of the creature's brain but remained encased in its skull. It wasn't that bad, it seems like this cushy brain absorbed the impact and left in pretty decent shape.
I remained curled within the cracked crow skull and went to town on it, chomping away like a mad-worm. I didn't know how big I would get and it seems like the bigger I was, the harder it would be to make it into a creature's brain. I an, think of a fist-sized worm trying to find an orifice to enter. Just a massive throbbing fleshy worm forcing its way into a creature's mouth as teeth scrap against the– youch!
[Experience Gained: 4 XP.]
Still, whatever XP did, I was getting plenty of it.
[Experience Gained: 4 XP.]
Damn, this was nice, I wonder how long till I level up?
[System Request Acknoledged]
[Current Stats are as Follows]
Experience: 145/300 XP
Na: Lucian
Level: 3
Race: Parasite
Health: 2/6
Mana: 8/8
Attributes:
Strength: 2 increased from 1.
Dexterity: 3 increased from 2
Constitution: 3 increased from 2
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 2
Willpower: 4 increased from 3
Attribute Points Available: 4
Current Abilities:
Host Bond (Passive): While inhabiting a host, you gain their physical attributes and senses. This enhances your survivability but should your host die, you return to your base stats.
Numbing Bite (Passive): Your bite secretes a mild numbing agent, dulling the pain and awareness of the target. This makes it easier to feed or maintain control over small hosts unnoticed.
You have two stat points to allocate and two ability points to allocate.
Please select new abilities to evolve:
Regenerative Feast (Passive): Feeding on a host regenerates your health faster and grants a small stamina boost for a short duration.
Chitinous Armor (Passive): Develop a thin layer of protective chitin, reducing incoming damage by 10%. The armor hardens further while inhabiting a host.
Hive mory (Passive): Each host you inhabit leaves behind faint mories and instinctual habits, which you can draw upon to enhance your problem-solving and combat skills.
Neural Suppression Toxin (Active): Secrete a specialized toxin for one hour to weaken the host's ntal resistance and induce grogginess. Activating it again within the sa duration will stack the effects but incur an additional mana cost.
Mana Cost: 4 Mana to activate.
Additional Casts: 4 2 Mana to stack, increasing a further 2 for each additional stack.
I just sat there slack jawed, not literally, but in my mind anyway. I was trying to process the information. Sohow I had missed several levels, and besides that I wasn't so gross earthworm, I was a gross parasite. That checks out I guess, what with the flesh-eating and mind control. Based on recent experience I'm going to be dying a lot, but if I can keep this body safe, it should all work out, right? Oh, and check that out, I can see my health represented as a red bar, and that one, yeah definitely mana, it's blue so it has to be mana. Ugh, 2 hp, is better than 1, but damn, I'm in rough shape.
The stats all make sense, I am a tiny worm after all, doubt I can lift much or move very fast. Definitely weak, but I retained my human brain, sohow, so I'm not a mindless creature. Willpower, that's one thing I'm not clear on. Usually, that stuff is used with intelligence for magic, but it might be more literal, considering that I actively imposed my will on the crow. We'll table that for now.
Mana should be fun to use, but I don't have any way to use it, yet. Let's go ahead and take Neural Suppression Toxin. The crow was easy enough, but whatever eats the crow is going to be bigger, unless it's more crows. Are they cannibals? Never mind, I don't really have control over what I beco anyway.
Neural Suppression Toxin Acquired.
Choose an additional ability or reserve your points for later.
I'm too puny to be stockpiling points. Let's go ahead and toss an attribute point in Constitution and 3 in Willpower. A little risky going Willpower, but if my hunch is right, it might give the edge I need.
Constitution: 4 increased from 3
Willpower: 7 increased from 4
Health: 3/7
And, one more ability. Healing, armor, or mories. The first two go with my, "Let's not die a horrible death on day one" strategy, while the mory one would really co in handy later, but I don't know how much I could really use it in the wild. Do I need to know where berries are, or the mating dance of a badger? The armor would be good long-term, especially if it gets stronger, but for now, I think a quick way to recover the damage I received should be my primary concern. Plus I might take more damage in this next, ingesting event. I'll need a new na for it later. Take regenerative feast!
Regenerative Feast Acquired.
Wondering if I would still regain health from a dead host, I dug in and watched for the effects of my ability. My health bar did rise, but by fractions of a point at a ti, with another blaring ssage in my head.
Regenerative Feast active with limited effect due to host's condition. Make sure to use this ability on a live host for optimal results.
h. It was doing sothing and I had more food than I could possibly eat, so ti was my only issue right now. This body, was so pathetic, so fragile, it wouldn't last long. I need more. More to consu. More to grow. More strength to wriggle my way out of this cursed existence. But not yet. Not until I leveled up again. It was a ways away, but at 4 XP per mouth ful it wouldn't take too long. I chomped down to get started.
[Experience Gained: 3 XP.]
Yes! Sweet experie– 3 XP? Did it go down? A couple levels and the crow already provides less experience, this system is ssed up. Still, I have all this food and nothing to do but eat and wait, so here we go!
I consud all I could until I felt full to burst. I had a decent-sized mouth for my tiny body, so it made sense. I tallied up my experience real quick and... Argh, 48 XP! I need... one more... bite... but I fell short and drifted off into sleep, my body desperately trying to digest the feast I had endured.
I faded into a restless slumber, my tiny body working in overdrive to process the biomass, my mind spiraling into that all-too-familiar haze. The void that awaited wasn't as dark as it should have been. A soft, flickering light illuminated the edges of my thoughts.
"Lucian, darling," ca that voice—smooth as silk, taunting, dripping with amusent.
Uh oh. I knew the voice before I saw the figure, though I would have seen the figure first, but that was human Lucian talking. Speaking of which, I gazed down at my body and was relieved to see all the normal limbs and parts attached, of course, fully naked, however.
The scene around shifted, dissolving into sothing... intimate: a lavish, shadow-drenched bedroom. The four-poster bed was draped in black curtains that seed to shimr in the dim light. The walls were lined with dark, intricately carved furniture, littered with half-lted candles. The faint scent of roses and decay lingered, the roses were nice, but the decay was much less attractive as a human. I'm sure parasite Lucian would have been in heaven.
She was sitting upon a literal throne against the far wall of the bedroom. Her figure was the sa as before, those luscious curves, her breasts nearly poured out of her lacey black nightgown. Her attire split at the hips, exposing her voluptuous thighs. As if spotting my gaze, she shifted her legs as one moved to drape over the other, exposing just enough to see her– Oh, no underwear, why am I surprised? She leaned forward, hands gripping the armrests at her side, her lips curling into a sly smile as her piercing eyes locked onto , feasting upon my naked form.
"My little worm," she purred, her voice both condescending and intoxicating, "you've had quite the eventful day, haven't you?"
I placed my hand over my face and grimaced. She had to be a sadist the way she tornted physically and ntally.
"You struggled, you fought, and you survived. Barely, of course." Her laughter was innocent and lodic, a far cry from how she behaved. "But isn't it just thrilling? To feel your own fragility? To be so close to annihilation and yet squirm your way forward, inch by miserable inch?"
I wanted to lash out, to demand answers, but instead, I remained still, transfixed by her presence.
"You've done well enough for a hatchling," she continued, her tone shifting from mockery to sothing more thoughtful, more sensitive. "You've taken your first steps, or, rather, your first wriggles, into this new existence. You've adapted. You've fed. And now, you're starting to grow."
She rose from the throne, her movents graceful, sensual, and painfully slow, as if savoring the mont.
"But tell , Lucian, have you considered what cos next? You are a re flicker in the wind of this world. And yet... I can feel it, you hunger for more. More power, more control, more purpose."
"You've begun to carve your path," Morgana said, her voice lowering to a whisper as she moved closer. "But do you understand what that path leads to? Survival is not enough. A parasite cannot simply exist, it must dominate to thrive. It must consu not just flesh, but the very will of those it inhabits."
"You have potential, my dear parasite. But potential ans nothing if you lack the resolve to wield it. So, tell , when the ti cos, will you embrace what you are?"
"I don't really have a choice," I finally found my voice, and the entire scene began to wear on . It was great to have my body back, it was great to have a gorgeous woman alone with in a room. It wasn't so great to be mocked and teased and toyed with.
"There's always a choice little worm, you can simply give up and pass on to whatever afterlife awaits you. Maybe my siblings will snatch you up and use you for their own purposes."
"Are they hot?" It was my turn to tease, maybe I could actually get a reaction out of her, instead of being bombarded with comnts that sent into a flustered ss.
She raised an eyebrow before moving her hands to her shoulders and pushing the nightgown aside, to let it tumble delicately to the floor. "Gamble this and find out," she returned, closing the last few steps and draping her body over , skin pressing against skin as she placed a kiss on my neck before pulling back and gently pushing away. She turned, and in doing so gave an unimpeded view of her bubbly heart-shaped ass.
Morgana 10, 0, naturally.
I took a couple of strides forward to chase after her, a shaful display, but if I was going to be here, I might as well enjoy myself. After the third stride, I was nearly close enough to reach out and touch her, when my body froze in place. She glanced over her shoulder, her face painted with mischief.
"I'm sorry my dear, we've wasted away all of this precious you and ti. Next ti though, yeah?" she fluttered her fingers over her shoulder at , bidding farewell.
Before I could speak I was awoken by the rhythmic thunder of footsteps. Maybe not footsteps, it each strike against the earth filled my once again parasitic form with vibration and sent on high alert. There were so many, each one overlapping with the other, rattling the bird's skull and with it, my poor tiny body.
Monts later, whatever creatures lurked outside my ivory chambers had co to a stop and were investigating my broken host. A wet, snorting sound broke the stillness as the creatures nudged and prodded at the body. Then ca the rustle of feathers and the soft, wet sound of tearing flesh. The bird's fragile body shifted and jerked around, the snapping of brittle bones echoed throughout my head. Whatever they were, they feasted and my ti was coming soon. With a squeal of delight coming from the predator, it all clicked, I knew what they were. My next host was here...
Oh, shit! The dream threw off and I forgot! I quickly launched my little head forward and tore a chunk of brain loose before scarfing it down.
[Experience Gained: 3 XP.]
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