"Ummm…one of your followers?"

"Yes, this is…"

YuJu wanted to introduce the five meter gargoyle made of dark sleek metal only to recall he'd yet to name the parasite

"..A newcomer, he will be the one to evolve today"

"Evolve?"

Came a jarring voice from the metalloid thing before them, it knew YuJu was up to something but evolving right after a skill rank up? Was he planning to ascend it too while he was at it?

Rather than explaining he walked up to one of the glowing gems in the wall, putting a hand over it and motioning for the parasite to come closer

It followed his instructions and walked close enough for his other hand on its hard surface

With a deep breath he started the process, his skeletal hand lightning up with a dark hue, sinking into the gem causing ripple like waves to echo through the surrounding wall as it started to spin like a whirlpool, absorbing not only the gem he was touching but every other gem in close proximity, even the stone making up this red room's wall was not spared

With whatever he absorbed starting to pass through his body and out the other hand, into the parasite, YuJu's eyes started to change, turning into a sinkhole that led to his pupil

Belinda and the parasite watched the process with wide eyes, but being on the receiving end of this fascinating skill the parasite closed its eyes and concentrated on absorbing everything thrown at it without any waste, leaving Belinda alone in numb shock

'Mastery over blood is one thing, absolute stealth is another, but this….this is downright impossible, no single creature could master so many things to such a crazy extent, at least that shouldn't be possible'

Yet here it was occurring right before her eyes, elementary magic was it? She couldn't tell, but this act of fusing different types of solids into another creature with such ease was a notch below the proficiency realm of purifying and evolving blood based creatures

'But why is he fusing these sealing crystals into his follower? The only thing I could think about is…no that's too mad, even for him'

With doubtful speculations her eyes witnessed YuJu synthesizing all the gems on one side of the room as well as most of the wall into his follower, then giving it some time to digest the gains while he himself got some rest

"That's some high level skill you have there, where in the world did you get the time to learn everything"

Slithering closer Belinda sat down to give him a tail pillow? Which he certainly didn't agree to

"I'm older than you think"

"Oh? It isn't right for a woman to brag about her age but~ I think I beat you in the matter of age"

"Perhaps"

His answer sounded vague, as if he himself did not know how old he was exactly

What followed was a long silence as the parasite slowly finished absorbing everything, opening its eyes to see its master beckoning it toward another wall, and while it sort of wanted to rest a little more it knew better not to slack, especially with the opportunity of evolution before it, thus walk toward him it did, eyes closed to focus on the process once more

This whole scenario occurred for the third time again after some rest, depleting three sides of the room's walls from gems, but when the two thought YuJu would move onto the third they saw him head to the central gem housing the Biomass, something the parasite had yet to know

"You're absorbing this? What of-" "No need to worry, I'll keep it under control"

Like the last time, he made use of his mist to trap the Biomass in place, meanwhile synthesizing the dome into the parasite, which proved to be a more difficult task than the three walls combined

'What exactly is this dome made of?'

Not so sure of its components anymore he identified the gem with his Master Mineral Identification skill

__________________

Life Negation Core Fragment: A fragment of the rare Life Negation Core, downgraded as the effects may be the fragment is more than capable of stopping most regeneration skills in the vicinity, as well as any life based energy from being put to use

__________________

'Hoo? This is far too advanced than I believed, the normal gems I appraised on the wall are nothing in comparison"

The more advanced the materials were the better, it would raise the chance of success to a great degree

Eventually, YuJu, while almost passing out from exhaustion, managed to finish up the process, plunging the parasite into a long epiphany of sorts

"Haaah…"

"Are you okay? Need anything?"

"No, just a small breather"

"Alright"

He closed his eyes to relax as well, sadly Belinda was getting bored of the long period of wait and couldn't help but speak once more

"If you plan on having it devour the Biomass shouldn't you have kept the dome? Or do you plan on staying for an extended period of time"

If it slowly absorbed the thing below piece by piece then for sure YuJu would be staying with her for a while, not that she was complaining, in fact, if he did then she could get to know him better, on more than one level perhaps

"No, I'll have it finished in the next round"

"?? What! All at once? What if it can't handle it"

"Of c-"

'No, she's right'

He was just about to boast of his confidence to handle anything that came up but the sound of reason stopped him from saying that

'I could manage if things get messy'

'This is my Soul-Slave, not some random thrall, if anything happened….'

For a second there he felt an internal struggle out of nowhere, for one his thoughts churned with confidence, but the matter concerning life and death of his follower gave way to a tugging from his soul, one forcing him to take precautions no matter how confidant he was

Giving a heavy head shake YuJu decided to follow the safest and most reasonable course of action, experiment with a piece before deciding how much of the Biomass could be injected at once

"I guess I could try a small part first"

He answered Belinda, feeling anger well within after admitting to his lack of control over the matter

'What's wrong with me, I keep feeling-' 'Trouble!'

His thoughts were interrupted as Anput's warning came all of a sudden, from such a large distance at that

No sooner came a feeling of crisis from Subrina, Ianus, as well as Ellis, no doubt a disaster struck the human race

"I need to go!"

All of a sudden he stood, informing Belinda while he looked at the parasite, not sure how to drag it out of here while stealthed with energy radiating off it

"What of the Biomass?"

She reminded, bringing to his notice the fact that the room's walls could no longer contain this creature, neither could the none existing dome

'Dammint, this timing! If only I waited until the war ended to come here'

Alas there were no if's, what's done was in the past, now he needed to figure a way around the situation

'I can't kill the Biomass, that's practically impossible at my level, I'm not even well equipped to even cause it minor damage, nothing else could contain it in the entirety of Hortus either, my best bet is to…no my only bet is to have the parasite eat it'

That was a risk, something he would have been willing to take normally but the parasite wasn't even done digesting the dome! Without that it might not be able to keep the Biomass in check let alone devour it

'What else can I do'

He thought and thought but every answer came out blank, along with the distress signals from Ellis never ceasing he couldn't help but rush a decision

'No time to purify, no time to hesitate, I will bet everything on success!'

And so while he was already tired, he made a cut on the hard metal of his semi-slumbering servant, meanwhile the mist made an opening directly toward this cut, spurning the still Biomass into action, extending a limb out that sought entrance into the wound, and once it did the mindless creature wasted no time seeping into it and escaping the mist trapping it

"Get back!"

He warned Belinda who wasn't at all sure what had gotten into him, making her slither to the back of the room while his hand glowed with a green light, cascading over the sleeping parasite who had the Biomass rampaging on the inside, wrecking its body from within

It took no more than seconds for YuJu to realize this won't work, holes started to form on his servant's body, one could imagine what was happening on the inside

Badum!

His heartbeat, echoing the call of his soul into his body, seeing a servant of his close to its end, because of him no less, forced out every bit of energy, every brain cell, every god damned tiny thought into figuring a solution

'I need to strengthen the sealing property of its body, I cant speed up its absorption process however I need, I need…!'

An idea came, head swiveling onto the last wall housing those crystals

'Yes! I'll just synthesize more!'

With unbelievable speed he darted toward said wall, parasite in hand, sinking the skeletal fingers into the nearest gem and starting the double evolution process for the second time in his life, knowing but not caring for the dreaded consequences that would strain his already tired body