Chapter 3179: All-You-Can-Eat Parasite

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Realm Of True Evil, Shell Island

I watched as Maworm to its joy learned that as long as even a tiny part of the millennium centipede-like parasite were to remain in the layers of the Star Turtle’s shell, it would instantly regenerate from any form of damage and continue to use the roots to entangle her or bind her.

But thanks to her thorns, the roots or the layers of the shell were never her problem. Neither was the instant regeneration of the parasite. Actually, with her insatiable hunger, she had run into an infinite food glitch.

Not only was the parasite extremely delicious, there seemed to be an endless supply of it. She wouldn’t even have fully finished swallowing the parasite’s remains in her mouth before its entire body would have completely regenerated, ready for her to eat again. She was loving this all-you-can-eat parasite.

The parasite had finally met its match. Maworm’s senses could locate it anywhere among the network of roots and the layers of the shell, while her thorns allowed her to easily travel through the layers of the shell and shred any roots trying to bind her. And her insane swallowing power, combined with her insatiable hunger, allowed her to eat as fast as the parasite regenerated.

The parasite’s only notable attack was to leach off vitality and energy from its hosts and enemies, but in order for that to happen, either the roots of the trees it had grown using its own blood or its jaws had to be pierced into the victim, allowing them to suck off their vitality and energy. But movable thorns running across Maworm’s body would shred or pry them off even before they could lodge into her body and start siphoning off vitality and energy.

The parasite even tried to alter its size to enter Maworm and launch an attack from inside, but to its misfortune, Maworm would grow smaller in size with it, and if by some miracle it managed to enter Maworm’s body, she would ruthlessly discard that part of her body and reconstruct it.

Therefore, the parasite that rendered the mysterious Star Turtle helpless and dead was now struggling to survive against Maworm.

I hate to ruin Maworm’s fun, but my situation didn’t allow me to waste time unnecessarily. So I ordered Scar to go help Maworm completely dig the parasite out of the layers of the Star Turtle’s shell.

Also, the instant regenerative prowess of the parasite wasn’t without a price. The parasite was using the energy left within the shell to keep up the facade. I could see the soul pathways of the skills etched on the shell dimming, and the liquid bone-like substance that was trying to heal the shell while trapping the culprits becoming thinner and slower. At this rate, I won’t have a shell left to take home with me.

Scar immediately flew to the parasite that was in the middle of regenerating. Grabbing it, she tugged on it with all of her might, rooting out its entire body, along with a network of roots connected to it, out of the layers of the shell. It struggled, but before a primordial form Truevil its struggles were meaningless.

Maworm reluctantly swallowed the whole thing, killing the parasite upon my order. Since she liked it so much, I asked her not to eat the core of the parasite and keep it sealed so I could use it to create the parasite every time she was craving one. Without tools, legs, and jaws to siphon vitality and energy required to regenerate, the parasite’s core was harmless.

Once the parasite was taken care of, as Maworm returned to my side, I saw the shell that was slowly healing itself stop completely. The soul pathways of Star Turtle’s skills etched on the shell and the fossilized ribs and spine all dried up of soul energy.

Because after the death of the Star Turtle, the parasite was supplying soul energy to keep it functioning, it was basically the new core. It took a lot of energy to keep such a massive shell running, and all the energy came from the forest above the shell.

The parasite not only used the forest to hunt but also for their natural photosynthesis and soul energy absorption. Even though the forest was still there on the shell, the parasite, which acted as the go-between between the shell and trees, was missing to ensure that the forest produced enough energy to sustain all three of them: the forest, the shell, and the parasite. As for the prey they caught occasionally, it was the parasite’s dessert.

As such the parasite was able to maintain a thriving ecosystem using the remains of a Star Turtle.

This also meant that I could replace the parasite with a better alternative or just directly connect the vegetation inside and outside the shell to the shell while modifying the soul pathways of the Star Turtle shell to use energy from the vegetation to ensure that it would not only remain functional but continue its good work. That way, the shell island and the shell forest would be inhabitable.

After all, it was a parasite that manipulated the forest to capture any being that dared to fly over or stop over and eat them to satisfy its need for blood food. With it gone, the forest was capable of doing everything the parasite had it doing but had no intent to do so.

Unless, of course, it gave birth to an actual forest spirit and not the one that Dredre believed to be a forest spirit. However, the forest spirit would be more interested in overlooking the forest and being it, not be blood thirsty like the parasite. But it will be a lot more powerful than the average forest spirit.

The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. Because I no longer planned to harvest and sell the Shell Island, Shell Forest, and the Star Turtle shell to the highest bidder. I planned to use them to create a card.

Not now, of course, after I returned to my temporal cave in the Azorheim Realm.