Chapter 301: Dangerous Curiosity

I slithered between the connections to my faithful, winding my way through the invisible lines that strung their way through the tower-nest. In the short while since the strange Coreless had arrived, the Great Core’s influence had begun to stretch far and wide.

There was nothing like a common enemy to bring two groups together. I had seen it before, in my time as a small snake hidden between wall-cracks; when a powerful bad-thing became such a threat that others, weaker bad-things that would normally have been enemies, momentarily aligned to work against their mutual doom.

The future faithful were no different.

I’d watched the enemy Coreless for longer than I truly wanted to, extending the range and power of the Great Core’s plant-flesh faithful all the while - but not actually using the newly created plant-flesh to assault the Coreless or their ore-flesh beast. It rankled to let the strange Coreless be, like an itch across my scales that I couldn’t scratch, but I knew that it was the best option available to me. If I wanted to eventually achieve a victory worthy of the Great Core, then I needed to know what the Coreless would do before they were faced with my fully sharpened fangs. If I knew that ahead of time, and this life turned into a false-life, then I would be able to prepare even better in the next.

It turned out, they didn’t do much.

They lounged around.

They mated.

They fought.

And, once a day, they found increasingly inventive ways to punish the Coreless that lived within the tower-nest. It was only due to their complete lack of care that they didn’t realize what was happening. That those same punishments were spreading the Great Core’s influence, carried along on the screams of [terror] of their victims and the subsequent moans of [relief] when they were saved by the faithful who watched and waited, ready to provide succor as soon as the tormentors departed. It was one of the main reasons that I hadn’t acted yet; the continued barbarity of the strange Coreless, along with efforts of the first of those to be wounded and brought to me, was pushing the previously unfaithful of the tower-nest onto the correct path faster than almost anything else I could imagine.

Hastened by [Acceleration Gale], it was relatively easy for the faithful that surrounded me to keep up with the pace of carving that was required to supply the [Little Guardian’s Totem]s that marked the Great Core’s faithful.

So, like that, the Great Core’s influence continued to spread. With each and every new day, I felt that seed inside of me grow further - pushing against its shell with each new Coreless that was brought into the Great Core’s light, inching closer and closer to the moment when it would bloom. It was almost enough for me to be thankful for the presence of the strange Coreless and their ore-flesh beast, if it weren’t for one thing.

As the Great Core spread its light throughout the tower-nest, the number of Coreless that weren’t of the faith decreased - decreased enough that, eventually, one of the faithful was chosen as a victim.

“What’s this?”

My vision shifted as I followed a particularly pressing series of emotions, immediately filling itself with the image of one of the strange Coreless standing over me - over the faithful whose perspective I was inhabiting. Similarly to the rest of the strange Coreless, when they were comfortable enough and thought they were in little danger, the ore-flesh covering for his head was attached to his side. It left his face free enough to catch a good glimpse of him. His eyes were wide, focused in a way that even I could tell was inquisitive. Curious.

“No, really. What is this?” the Coreless said again, making noises as he pushed and prodded at the faithful that I had become - not with his hands, but with the fangs held within them. My faithful cried out, a burst of [pain] released alongside flowing red - a flow that quite quickly came to a halt.

Still, there was nothing my faithful could do to escape. Solid rods of stone were fused to his hands and feet, binding him directly to the ground beneath his back. He struggled and thrashed, but the [Little Guardian’s Totem] around his neck provided only miraculous healing - not strength.

“Interesting.”

The fang pressed down again, leaving behind a wound that faded nearly as suddenly as it arrived.

“It’s just a healing enhancement, Malken. It’s not that interesting,” a second Coreless said from behind him. He leaned against a nearby wall. “You know how outers are. Weak monsters. Weak enhancements. Weak people.”

The fang pressed down again, harder this time. It pulled across flesh, causing the faithful that I was inhabiting to squirm and thrash in [agony]. Again, the wound was wiped away by the Great Core’s light.

“Oh, but you’re wrong about that,” the Coreless cackled in what I thought might have been delight. “This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill healing enhancement.”

He cut away a portion of the faithful whose perspective I inhabited’s coverings, revealing the flesh underneath - and then stabbed deeply. Viciously. He ripped the fang back and forth, widening the rent until he was satisfied.

This wound, severe as it was, didn’t go away quickly. It was a mortal wound - or, without the [Little Guardian’s Totem], it should have been. Even so, it took some time for it to heal. Time in which the wide-eyed, blasphemous Coreless continued to make noises at the other.

The first of the Coreless feverishly stared at the knitting flesh, pulling off the ore-flesh that covered his hands so that he could run his fingers across the surrounding area, occasionally pressing down lightly as if to check something.

“No body recomposition,” he muttered. “None at all. Where does it come from?”

“…please,” my borrowed lips twisted into shape. “Stop…”

“This is your fault for being so interesting. I just can’t let a mystery lie, you know? Vencar won’t let me investigate the death forest until we’re done here. This is a nice enough distraction to prevent me from doing something…unfortunate. It’s hard sometimes, to hold myself back. The heart wants what the heart wants - and, well, I’m a scholar at heart.”

He plunged the fang down again, motioning towards his rather uninterested companion at the same time.

“There’s something special here, I just know it. It’s a real mystery,” he said, baring his teeth. “I love mysteries.”

Underneath my faithful’s skin, the fang twisted and pulled. His vision threatened to blacken around the edges, but the ongoing healing of his [Little Guardian’s Totem] beat the darkness back from enveloping my faithful fully. Instead, it simply narrowed in, encircling the center of my faithful’s vision until there was only one thing left that he could see - the widened, unblinking eyes of the blasphemer.

“Ooh. Is that it?”

So [curious]. So [inquisitive]. So [satisfied].

I paused at the thought - at the new flood of emotions that was spilling through the connection, and at the way my vision threatened to split into two.

Then, as the darkness closed in, that vision truly did split - and then resolved itself into a single whole again. I looked down at a bloody Coreless through new eyes; I took in the material that kept him pinned, fused with flesh and stone to hold him in place; I witnessed the fang that had torn apart his insides, only to be healed and renewed time and time again. Now, though, there was no renewal.

There was only the creeping certainty of inevitable death.

“Ah. It’s just so nice to peel the layers back one by one, is it not? So very interesting.”

My vision shifted away from the dying faithful, resting on a blood-spattered [Little Guardian’s Totem] that rested within the blasphemer’s hands. It felt like time slowed, warping in response to the horrific sight.

It was…

It was wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong—

I seethed.

Outside of the tower-nest, plant-flesh hissed alongside me. Vines and thorns and branches lashed against one another, forming a cacophony of sound that was audible throughout the cavern of the many-nest. It was enough to provoke [alarm] from even the most devout of the faithful; still, I didn’t force it to stop.

I wouldn’t; not while the faithful’s faith remained stolen.

“Skies above,” the usurper of faith exclaimed in [curious delight]. He - we - looked away from the [Little Guardian’s Totem] and back towards the bleeding faithful. “I think I’m in love. What happens if I…”

For a moment, the connection between the two of us split as the [Little Guardian’s Totem] was pressed back against the faithful again. I watched through each of their eyes as the blackness that filled my faithful’s vision began to recede again, fleeing like a bad-thing before the Great Core’s light. It opened wide, revealing the usurper’s feverishly [curious] eyes again.

A hint of strength returned to the faithful, enough for our shared lips to twist into shape. “The Little Guardian will curse you for this,” I felt my borrowed lips pronounce, backed by [faith] and [hatred] that forced the sounds they made to tremble in the air. “His coils will provide you no shelter. His scales will not shield you. His fangs will find you no matter how far you run.”

Something inside of me twitched, responding to some hidden meaning within the noises of the dying faithful. The eyes moved closer, wide and unblinking.

“Tell me more,” the blasphemer breathed, [enraptured]; [enamored]. “Tell me about this…Little Guardian.”

All the while, plant-flesh continued to tremble and shake in borrowed rage; it crept closer and closer to the edges of the tower-nest, abandoning any pretense at not being directed by a living mind. It spanned the final distance between itself and the blasphemer.

But it was too late.

By the time it moved close enough, it was already over. The usurper’s [curiosity] had been satisfied, and the faithful was dead - his [Little Guardian’s Totem] left to press against his killer’s chest. I watched from behind the blasphemer’s eyes, filled with rage, as he [merrily] skipped down the tunnels of the tower-nest. The other followed behind him, his motions considerably less frenzied.

When the usurper’s eyes fell upon another faithful, one too slow to hide behind a nearby moving-wall, I knew this life truly was destined to be a false-life - even if I could defeat all of the strange Coreless and their ore-flesh beast.

Because I would not accept what the usurper had done - was going to do - to the Great Core’s faithful. There were so many that had been brought into the light; so many that were now in danger of being pulled back into darkness.

They were mine. They were the Great Core’s. In this life, and in the next. I refused to let this ruin the change that had begun to come over the many-nest.

I would remember this. I knew the usurper’s face now. I knew when he would begin to cause problems. Next time, I would be waiting. He would be the first of the strange Coreless to die.

The start of the purge, for both him and all of his kin.

All around the tower-nest, plant-flesh continued to close in - and I, after tearing myself away from my unwanted connection with the usurper, began to move with it.

In the end, it wasn’t enough.

When it was all over, as I found myself slithering through the ruins of the tower-nest and past the shattered fragments of what had once been the ore-flesh beast, I was alone. It had taken everything that I had - everything that all of the faithful had - to defeat the Coreless and their ore-flesh beast. The usurper had spread the knowledge of the healing that the [Little Guardian’s Totem]s could provide to his fellows, and from there…

It was too late to do anything but make sure that, even in this false-life, the usurper and his kin did not survive their blasphemy - no matter what it took.

It took everything.

The disciples

The faithful.

I’d even come back to life, only to die again before it was all over. Without [Transient Reanimation], I would have never even had the satisfaction of dealing death to the rest of the enemy Coreless. With the power of their stolen [Little Guardian’s Totem]s, they were just too strong and too durable to stop.

In the midst of it all, the growing seed within myself had diminished, withering away to nearly nothing. It no longer promised to bloom into something greater, because the ones who had been meant to tend to it were gone.

I still didn’t know what it would have brought - though the fight hadn’t been without some answers.

I called to the thought-light, and reminded myself one more time of the level rewards that the hard-won battle had revealed to me. If I was quick enough, one in particular would be necessary to achieve victory in the next life.

Then, with a twist of life mana, I ended my most recent false-life. I shed this horrible coil.

I broke free from my dead scale-flesh, and I began anew.