Getting to Saccy from my current position inside of a small, muddy hole proved to be a serious challenge. The trouble was that I sucked at Stilling specific parts of myself. I knew how to Still my lower body for example, but not a single leg. Also, when I Stilled my lower body, my upper body moved very slowly akin to a snail, as if I was half asleep.

Unstilling myself brought back the pain in my broken leg and intensified the allure of the numerous Folding Seeds all around me.

It took me a few hours of irritatingly slow motion to get myself out of the tent-hole dug by Alessi. When I finally emerged out of the tent I saw that our little hideout was sitting on the shore of a very large, rushing river.

My sister was right. We were screwed. I felt Folding Seeds all around us, sitting idly on both sides of the river. I didn't have to look at them to know that they were there. A nagging sensation of peace, safety and love pressed at me from all sides, demanding my attention. I didn't look up at them, keeping myself mostly paralyzed, staring down at the mossy ground.

Luckily the Seeds seemed to be equally distant from each other. They all wanted me to come to them, but in the end the equally powerful pull kept me from heading towards a specific one.

A single allure song amidst them felt wrong, discordant. It wasn’t offering me happiness and love. It was… begging… singing to me in Basq.

"Bring me more beasts, my love," she sang softly.

"Saccy?" I whispered.

"I am hungry. Bring me food. My legs are broken. I cannot move. I am hurt and weak," Saccy sang in a girly voice.

Some small part of me felt extremely aghast by this theft and wanted me to reclaim what was mine. Hers? Ours! Grogtilda's body was definitely currently bound to Saccy, giving the Folding Seed a very specific, clear voice that a part of me recognized.

I wonder if Eunice ever felt like she was the other chimera which she had consumed, or perhaps there were so many of them in her that their voices and wishes drowned each other out? Did Eunice step to the path of devouring souls by accident like me and then could not stop herself?

It didn't matter now.

What mattered now was retrieving Grogtilda's body from Saccy. I wanted to be human once again, wanted to see the world with human eyes, wanted to find friendship and acceptance of my own kind.

I slowly crawled towards the voice that begged for food. The closer I came to it, the stronger the song got. My mind started to swim in a fog of confusion. Food. I had to bring Saccy food? I had to bring her monsters! No... I had to liberate my body from the damned plant monster before she completely sucked it dry of life!

I had reached Saccy holding the black soul-cutting knife and knew that I couldn't do it. I couldn't fight her allure. Saccy’s song was stronger than my will. I found myself turned around with a single thought pulsing through my head.

Bring Saccy food.

Growling, and spitting, I turned around.

It was in vain. I was too weak. I spend the day approaching Saccy only to get turned around again and again.

The sun started to set, the glowing clouds above me dimming. My eyes filled with tears. I felt hopeless, tired and defeated.

As darkness fell across the valley of Folding trees, one by one the Seeds began to close, falling silent. As their allure songs grew weaker, I pushed with renewed vigor towards Saccy one final time. Just as her flower shut, I reached her.

My head felt slightly clearer.

I felt my Dominion threads in Saccy and forced her petals to open for me. I crawled inside, commanding the petals to pull me inside just as a thousand seeds started to move their roots all around the valley.

"F-ffing hell," I shuddered.

"I want food," Saccy sang. "Bring me food, my love!"

"Not now, dear." I growled, stabbing her floor with the knife. “Go to sleep!”

Saccy could not stop my attack with her love-song. It seemed that her allure functioned best during the day. Perhaps it was powered by cloud-projected sunlight or something?

She shuddered as my black knife went through her muddy, somewhat pearlescent floor. I grabbed a small beetle-bottle from my belts containing her paralyzing sap and poured it into the wound. Saccy stilled, her allure shut down completely.

For a minute I just sat on the floor, panting tiredly.

Then I looked around. Saccy’s paralyzing-fluid filled bud was still tied up. I spotted Grogtilda’s body. It was in worse condition than before, skin distended and covered in deep blue lesions that shimmered with pearlescent iridescence. Soon mold and mushrooms would begin to grow on her.

I crawled towards her and made a small cut on her palm, extending my Dominion threads into the body. There was no soul in it. I felt only Saccy’s presence inside her, the Folding Seed’s soul extending through the root into the body. Saccy was keeping the body alive and paralyzed, her sap dripping directly from the root into the human’s mouth.

I was disgusted with what Saccy was doing and yet… she had kept this body alive for me by using it as a magical battery. I pulled the root out of the mouth with a growl.

Then, I started to set five Dominion threads into legs and arms and the neck forming Pneumasomatic Actuators. It wasn’t hard to do since there was no soul in the body resisting me. Once they were in place, I thought about my next move. Was it safe to try to relocate my soul into the human body? What about the Still Forest phantom? The fire had burned off parts of Saccy’s ghost-barrier too, so why didn’t the phantom attack her? Why didn’t it rip out my Dominion threads?

“Hex lantern,” A stray thought manifested itself in my mind. Of course!

I reached into Grogtilda’s burned bag and pulled out the hex-lantern. It was a small, rusty, metal lantern with plain stained glass on a metal chain. A mana crystal glowed deep within its innards, casting rainbow refractions all around Saccy’s interior. I exhaled. This lantern would keep me safe from the phantom. It was a common tool used by the citizens of Illatius.

I hung the lantern onto Grogtilda’s neck.

I swung the knife at the root, cutting the human body from Saccy.

I sang the song of Stillness and paused my chimera body fully, hugging Grogtilda tightly and holding onto her hand. When my organs and blood crystalized, I moved my entire soul through the Dominion thread pathways that connected me to the human.

I didn’t know how long it took me to fully relocate my soul into Grogtilda but eventually it worked.

I opened my new eyes and let out a hiss of discomfort and pain. My new body… hurt everywhere. Several bones were broken. Many muscles had atrophied. Some of the skin felt raw, rotting away. Thankfully, most of the human nerves swam in bliss, as Saccy’s paralyzing solution still coursed through my new veins.

I looked at my chimera self and smiled. I looked… small and fierce. The dark nightcrawler mask and armor made me look like some sort of a creepy-looking, bug-like monster. It was quite strange to see myself in 3rd person, hugging myself and holding my bloated, blue human hand tightly.

I tried to move and cried out as pain laced across my entire swollen, ruined body. The pain grew in intensity, becoming overwhelming, intolerable. This body was battered and broken. It felt ruined, wrong… like a moldy, old glove that didn’t quite fit me.

I needed to heal it, needed to completely fuse my soul into it. I pondered my options. Eunice didn’t exactly teach me how to take over a human. She had expected me to bring a human to her first.

Hang on…

I could level up in my new body! That might jump-start the healing process. Leveling up released a burst of magical energy from the core of the soul. Perhaps, leveling up could synchronize me with my new body, fix some of the dire, horrid problems causing me discomfort and pain.

“System, level me up,” I whispered, not recognizing my own voice.

Sparks of blue static filled my vision.

The experience of the level twenty Seed I had murdered plus many other monsters that were held hostage by the Folding forest spun around me, compressing into a singularity, a trimming dot of power deep within me.

I felt this process taking hold of me and let it proceed. The life experience of numerous beasts converged into the core of my soul fusing into a catalyst about to ignite. The newly formed singularity detonated with an explosion of power that washed over my soul and body, drowning me in pain and pleasure. The voices of the creatures roared, cried and barked merging into a cacophony of incomprehensible sound that formed alien, musical tones.

Name:

Yulia Ishenko

Juni Tokimorimïtuti

Grogtilda Lic Misem

Age:

4 years, 61 days

Species & Subtype:

Astral Phantom

Chimera Stripling

Juvenile Human

Level:

5

Experience:

407/1800

Health:

5/5

Stamina:

5/5

Mana Capacity:

5/5 [+1]

Mana regen:

5 m/hr [+4]

Strength / Fortitude:

1 [Michell Shield]

Agility / Folding:

1 [Air Compressor]

Dexterity / Dominion:

5 [Pneumasomatic Actuators] - [Tethered to Chimera body]

5 [Pneumasomatic Actuators] - [Tethered to Human body]

Vitality / Anima:

1 [Slow Mirror]

Charisma / Resonance:

1 [Allure Halo]

Magic / Power:

1 [Battery]

4 [Generators]

Luck / Destiny:

1 [Luck Tree]

Intelligence / Mind:

1 [Calculator]

Wisdom / Seeking:

1 [Seeking Arrow] - [Damaged]

Soul: Base value: 21 threads In Dominated Folding Seed [Saccy]: 12 [Pneumasomatic Actuators] - [Active]

8 [Pneumasomatic Actuators] - [Damaged] In Dominated Chimera Stripling [Alessi Tokimorimïtuti]:

3 [Pneumasomatic Actuators] - [Active]

1 [Pneumasomatic Actuator] - [Damaged] Investiture points: 25

My new stats greeted me, transposed onto the dream of Chernobyl’s control room. I had three names now with three species listed matching them. The part of me that was Yulia Ishenko had been assigned the title of Astral Phantom.

Hum.

Twenty five points. A lot of options for my growth. I considered what I needed most. Dominion threads to take over another Folding Seed maybe?

No. I wanted to remain human.

With the same fierce determination that allowed me to reach the heart of Chernobyl, I went over each of the options.

One of the lines drew my attention to it. Vitality! My human body was extremely damaged and dying. I had to reanimate it, had to keep it from dying on me.

I recalled my Master's lessons - Anima saplings were supposed to animate anything, just like the Mimmins cards. Even if Grogtilda's body already crossed the line between life and death, Anima saplings could help me control it, stay inside it, prevent further decay.

I turned the dial for Vitality twenty times, feeling Anima branches growing all around my soul, leaves of Slow Mirrors blossoming and… casting a distinctive ripple of myself into the Still Forest and pulling back the power of a thousand dead whispers and echoes, to animate that which was not living anymore.

I let the Slow Mirrors do their work. I hoped that they were repairing, reanimating my flesh, not just my soul.

Suddenly, something violently shook my body. Bodies? Pain! PAIN.

I awoke with a yelp of pain, blinking tears out of my eyes.

A tall, dark, male figure wearing a skull-mask stood in front of me, staring down at me.

“W-what?!” I gasped in fright as the inexplicable intruder shook me once again, trying to pry my chimera body from its embrace by force. Having failed at tearing us apart, he growled angrily.

A dark gray sword flashed in his hand, coated with Saccy’s purple blood.

“N-no!” I cried as the sword swung at me.

Eyes behind thick, crystal lenses darted to my human face, finally settling on mine and I felt my blood chilling at the fierce hatred in his gaze.