BXBX NOVEL Chapter 322 322 - Parasitic Takeover
Chapter 322 Chapter 322 - Parasitic Takeover
Not long after Riley's arrival at the minotaur dungeon, Margarette and her were soundly resting in a luxurious room. Away from the hustle and bustle of the inner workings of the dungeon, they were tucked away in a corner where not even the slightest hint of screams could carry.
'Wake up.' Ordered the hell prince and Riley's eyes opened wide.
Quickly slipping out of Margarette's arms, Riley glanced up at her stepmother still laying in bed with her mind fired by the parasite. The journey here had been cruel to her conscience, yet with the hellspawn rewiring her brain itself she no longer had a clue who exactly she was looking at.
"Go…" Getting off the bed, she held a finger directed at Margarette's forehead, and the same parasite crawled out of her ears and slowly slithered it's way to the new host it needed to corrupt.
With the amount of exposure Riley had been under, her memories, her impulses have all been rewritten in the shape the hell's prince deemed most fit for his selfish means. Her corruptive progression has gone so far that she no longer needs a parasite in her brain to control her anymore since her mind itself had been turned into a servant of the hell's prince.
"What now?" She asked while watching the parasite crawl in through Margarette's ears.
For a moment she squirmed, and almost woke up, but spanning its sluggish mass over her brain, the parasite managed to calm her down before any trouble could be caused.
'The door…' Replied the prince and a sudden knock on the door resounded behind Riley.
Turning around, Riley slowly moved towards the door before opening it up swiftly. Behind it were the chieftains, both standing with all kinds of wounds marked over their bodies. And although they appeared alive, their eyes told a completely different story. As white as pure cotton, their eyes seemed dead with the parasites controlling their dead bodies.
Despite one of them being dead from back at the shrine where the meeting took place, seeing the other dead as well, Riley had a pretty good idea of how trying to take over the dungeon had gone for the hellspawns on their own.
"Is it done?" She asked, the two simply nodded, letting her know that everything had gone just as expected.
"W-we…w-ehh-" Attempting to speak out a report, the demi-wolf chieftain could only stutter incoherently.
"Oh fuck off," conjuring a windblade through magic Riley stabbed the chief from under his jaw and locked his mouth shut with the blade. "Step aside, I check for myself, you're all useless."
Shoving the two off the entrance, she made her way out of the room and was off on her way to prepare a proper report for the prince of hell.
'She's still just as moody and bloodthirst…' Thought the prince, seeing everything through Riley's eyes. 'Maybe I've made a mistake by picking her, but then again, she seems to be the most competent of that demon's group.'
Even though everything has gone according to his plans so far, the very fact that Riley would often give into her violent outburst with no restrain was somewhat concerning to the prince. Even in his own army of hellspawns, none was as bloodthirsty and instinctively violent as her, something he couldn't afford to let it be since his strength came from numbers and not from any intrinsic strength or ability.
Much weaker than Helga, even weaker than Haruki, what he needed to rely on was cheap tricks while hiding far away, hoping the battle between the demon lord and the Valkrian forces would end up weakening each other to the point where he could simply slip in and get rid of both sides easily. But to reach that end, there was a lot that needed to be done, and having an unpredictable servant was bound to cause problems in that plan.
While the prince pondered his doubts about Riley, she herself wandered through the dungeon admiring the view of all its inhabitants desperately trying to fight the parasitic takeover. However, brought to their knees with pain, they were all left foaming in the mouth as their mind was forcefully stripped of free thoughts and will.
'First the prison, second breaking free, third taking over the others.' Noting down the progression path of the parasites, Riley ran the scenarios in her mind trying to get an image of what had happened while she was stuck playing family with Margarette.
The very first thing was having the tribes taken to prison where they took over the minds of all the prisoners without getting caught. Then came breaking free of the place with their expanded numbers and bringing down the soldiers one after the other until the whole place was filled with parasitic hellspawns.
"Seems like the parasite's ability to control dead bodies threw off the soldiers and that's what ultimately caused their demise," Riley muttered to herself having scanned through the entirety of the dungeon after hours of wandering around.
'Well done, now keep on pretending to serve that old master of yours.' Giving out that order to her, the prince's voice disappeared through Riley's mind.
***
Gathered up in a meeting hall inside the obsidian castle, Michael and Razor were both surrounded by representatives of different groups seated across them on the table. From adventurers to the demi-humans and even the monsters and tribes that have later joined them on this path to take down Haruki; they were all staring right at them expecting some decent news.
"How's the interrogation going?" Asked a female adventurer, her gaze fixed on Razor, the one in charge of that undertaking.
Looking around at the faces, Razor took his boots off the table and leaned in before answering.
"Nothing, I've tried everything, but these demons are something else," he explained, the dark spots under his eyes a testament to his sincerity.
"And they'll die in a few days time, no?" Added the very same adventurer.
Letting out a yawn, Razor leaned back into his chair. Once done stretching his arms a little, he glanced at Michael who seemed just as tired as him. Bringing his attention back to the girl, squinting at him with an annoyed look, Razor opened his mouth to answer again.
"Yes, they will, and so?" Utterly unbothered by the possibility of their deaths, Razor appeared visibly frustrated that this topic was even being discussed.
Slamming its fist on the desk abruptly, one of the lizardmen from a tribe just recently recruited let his dissent be known. Glaring at Razor, he bared his jaws as if to threaten the war general.
"So? What the hell do you mean, so?!" Getting off his chair with vigor he had his chair fall back. "What do you think that demon would do if we end up getting one of those servants killed?! Aren't they his lovers as well?!"
"Simmer down," advised the goblin's representative.
Wandering over faces with his crimson gaze, he landed his attention on Razor and asked.
"So in short, we've learned nothing, and the whole kidnapping plan was a bust?" Squinting his eyes, the goblin tribe's chieftain was ready to withdraw his help depending on Razor's answer.
Taking a moment to gauge the situation, Razor took a moment to think things through and blurted out what little he'd learned and was trying to hide so far.
"The girls know that Haruki will come to save them, they're not afraid of torture and I've tried everything I know to make them talk but nothing seems to work," heaving a sigh, he glanced at Michael again who'd been too lost in thought to speak throughout the whole meeting. "As for Greta, it turns out she's a masochist so torturing her isn't going exactly as planned…All in all, we know that Haruki will arrive to their rescue in a day or two, especially if he remembers that their carnal curse would kill them otherwise."
"What?" The word resounded through every lip inside that room, none of them had expected to face the demon lord of lust just yet, and what bothered them even more was how Razor hadn't informed them about this until pushed to the limits.
"And before you idiots ask," placing his feet back on the table, Razor leaned back into his chair with his hand folded behind his head. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd all chicken out after coming so far."
"Razor…" Finally, to ease the tension in the room, Michael spoke up. Closing his eyes for a moment, he glanced around at everyone in the room and revealed some more information. "The fact of the matter is that if we panic now we're all gonna die, so the best chance for survival and this quest of ours is to face him head-on."
"Head on? Are you out of your mind, we'll all end up dead the moment he arrives with his army!" Complained the same lizardman, but Michael instantly corrected him.
"The army he has is but a handful of demons, especially after we burned them to a crisp back at their camps. The very reason they were hiding is because of low numbers, otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense to slowly whittle down the demi-human tribes the way they were doing," hearing Michael, an expert war strategist speak, none of those present could retort or complain. "Us on the other hand, we have plenty of people now to face him, and if we wait for long who knows how many more people will be turned into his demonic servants?"
With nothing left to say, the members of the council kept to themselves as they wandered through their own thoughts trying to figure out what this would mean for their own tribes and people. At the very end, however, none of them had a better suggestion to give, thus this dubious and desperate plan by the war generals was the only thing they could bet on.
Needless to say, with Haruki done killing the demon lords in a far-off land, his next destination was about to be the obsidian castle, however, the time of his arrival would be a surprise even to the expecting armies of the conjoined forces under the two war generals.