Few months after Dracula's original demise, Baal had carefully engineered a plan to implant the weapon into the races and ensure its effective, inescapable spread.
It was easy. Direct. Ruthless in its simplicity.
A cruel, ironic fate reserved specifically for the universe's guardians, the very beings who had sworn to protect the cosmos at any cost.
Baal had called out to the universe's will itself.
Under the false pretense of submission, of humility, of finally bending the knee to the greater order he had always pretended to serve, he resonated with it.
The connection was deep, intimate, absolute.
In that moment of feigned surrender, Baal planted the biological weapon directly into the core of the universe, slipping the microscopic horror past every safeguard, every watchful eye.
Odin had not sensed it.
Vorth had not sensed it.
Even the universe will itself, vast, ancient, all-encompassing, remained blissfully ignorant of the parasite now embedded in its very heart.
