Han stared groggily at the little maurader that had taken to conquering his leg. 'You're an ugly one, aren't you?' he thought, plucking the thing off to inspect it.
The thing in question was a translucent blob, flat and long in its build. It was akin to an alien centipede, bleached of its colored carapace and left only with glowing innards, so that Han could see the Eldergold it had eaten flowing through hair-thin intestines.
Carefully, Han dropped the thing onto his palm. A strange feeling it was; to be so disgusted by a thing, yet so aware that the thing was wholly and truly yours... that it would not harm unless you willed it so.
And for a moment, he just watched it, and in turn, it lifted the front of its flat length so that it could watch him. And in his mind, they were creator and creation; it his Adam, and he its god.
『Processing quest rewards...』
『New Innate Technique available!』
'Another technique, huh?' Han thought, his focus blurring out the pupa as he stared at the notifications.
『Elder-ruin Transfiguration.』
'Transfiguration?' To change... just like transmutation.
That was a theme the system seemed to be sticking to... and he was starting to see it as such: a tool of change... of corruption.
'I'm guessing I'm supposed to use this innate skill to evolve the pupa... but how do I activate it? Eat another chocolate bar?'
His ponderings were interrupted when the pupa burped and then vomited on his palm. Han's face twisted in disgust, and suddenly he remembered the disdain he had for babies. The stupid things, always crying, always shitting themselves or getting into one sort of trouble or the other.
To top it off, this 'baby' wasn't even cute. And so he set it on the ground, and tried to scrape its vomit off his palm with the cellbars.
"Actually, where are the others?" he whispered. He had been so caught up in the one pupa, that he hadn't the time to think about the hundred others he was supposed to have. The keyword being supposed, for his unborn army was nowhere to be seen.
The pupa burped and vomited again, this time, a stream of soft white sprayed out in front of it. From within that bile, Han could make out chunks of white flesh... the remnants of his unevolved larvae, victims to savage siblicide.
Han sucked air through his teeth. "You ate your siblings!?" he shouted, pointing at the pupa as if it might understand his words if only he pointed enough. "I was to be general to half a thousand!"
"Who gave you the right to-" Han stopped himself, instead directing his fury to the ceiling. "You told it to do this, didn't you?" he spoke to Beelaques and her masters now. The things had gotten his hopes up with all those larvae, but truly, they had never meant to give him an army in the first place.
He swore at them every way he knew how. Insulting mothers he knew they did not have, and cursing lineages he knew he was likely now a part of. When he was satisfied, he swore some more before returning his attention to more important matters, like actually completing the pupa's evolution.
And the path towards that flashed in his eyes in the form of a notification.
[New Evolutionary Quest]
[Sync with pupa.]
'Sync?'
To synchronise... to be one in mind, that much he knew. But how did one achieve that?
His mind played with a few ideas in his head, all of which involved the new innate skill. However, none of them bore fruit. To change did not mean to synchronise, and so he hit a wall.
Still angry from losing his other children, Han looked to his remaining son with a pissed expression. "I'm guessing you don't understand the words coming out of my mouth right now, do you?" he asked.
He knew that if it even could understand anything at this stage, it would likely be that strange language that Beelaques had used on him back in that flower field, High Apoidea, she had called it.
'... she also mentioned my cords had evolved to speak it. But how can I speak a language I haven't learned?'
He stared at the pupa as he pondered. The language, if it was even a language at all, had the ability to transmit ideas as raw sound, so that they may be interpreted as thought once they reached the mind.
The exact same function as the Hive skill. Perhaps this was an answer.
And so, he opened his traits screen and found that the Hive skill was now glowing.
'Got it,' he thought with a smile, before whispering the skill into effect.
Golden mist bled out of his pores, rising and shifting so that they formed a hexagonal crown around his skull.
"Can you understand me?" he whispered, now staring at his pupa.
The thing stopped its squirming and turned to look at him.
It bent the tip of its head, and a warmth travelled from the creature —like a cloud of heat— it rose into the air. It seeped into the skin on his forehead, so that it joined his nervous system as an idea, where it travelled to his brain and unfolded into a thought.
'Yes,' it said.
Han smiled at this. He felt as if Frankenstein, conversing with his monster for the first time. 'Are you a part of the Hive, or something completely new?'
A premature question, yes, but he just had to know. If his creations had memories of the Hive, like Beelaques had, then perhaps he'd be able to learn more about his powers, and himself —or at least the new body that hosted him anyway.
'The Hive is all. And all is the Hive,' the creature responded.
Han's expression sank. Of course, it wasn't even a day old yet, and it was already speaking in riddles. He could already tell that the firstborn would not be his favourite child.
And so, with his mood ruined, he asked it the fated question. 'How do we sync?'
The creature remained thoughtless for a moment, slowly inching towards him. It spoke only when it was in front of his clawed foot; 'Are you ready to sync?'
Even as it waited for Han to reply, it began scaling up his leg.
He stared at it for a moment, wondering what it was doing. Why did its question sound so ominous?
Still, what was there really to think about? 'Yes,' he replied.
...
Everything happened so fast, as if in a mere fraction of a second:
A white drill bit of a mouthpiece emerged from the pupa's head, and like a mosquito, it bore into his skin. The pain, unlike anything Han had ever felt before, sent tremors up his leg, rolling his eyes to the back of his skull.
His world was spinning. His consciousness bobbed between pitch black darkness and reality... and what a horrifying reality it was.
The pupa had slithered into his flesh, the bulge of it visible under his skin as it tunnelled its way up his leg, towards his hip.
He screamed out in pain; however, his body felt so weak that it came out as a groaned whisper.
Before he could find the strength to whisper 'Queen's Gaze,' he felt a cold chill settle at the base of his neck.
The world flipped...
And Han's world dissolved into another.
*