Psychic Parasite

Chapter 276: Surprise and Horror

The eyes of the Spiked Lizard went into a daze. It recalled its lifetime's worth of memories, gazing at them with a point of view that was pessimistic. It watched the death of the being that birthed it. Soon after giving birth, it had lost control.

It thrashed around in pain, the process morphing its body as the Frenzy Parasite in it took control. Brethren, hatchlings that had hatched at the same time as it were stomped to death one after another. In the span of two seconds, everyone else apart from it had died.

Its mother had lifted its leg, raising it above the hatchling, about to kill it. A blast of acid sent it flying away as another giant Spiked Lizard came into view. Followed by its attack, many Spiked Lizards came into the picture, raining down attacks on the one that had lost control.

It saw in helplessness, its tiny body flying up and down, a result of the ground trembling upon each stomp of the giant Spiked Lizards. A small droplet of the acid fell on its tail, instantly melting it. The hatchling could only cry in agony.

Years later, after a scary event, it had obtained a Frenzy Parasite. Just when it thought its life would change for the better, it found its powers were weak, almost useless in comparison to its brethren whose bodies were growing stronger day by day.

It tried to improve, hunting prey and devouring them to quickly grow stronger. One day, humanoid beings came and thrashed its home, capturing everyone. Their resistance proved futile. It was then locked up in a cage, forced to watch its brethren taken out from their cages to never return.

Whatever it tried to do, whatever it tried to achieve, the outcome remained the same. Its fate was to remain perpetually weak.

Insignificance!

The Spiked Lizard's body plopped to the ground, lacking the strength to even more. Tears streamed out its eyes, falling on the ground, causing a mild smoke to waft out as a result.

Seeing the outcome, Jyorta nodded in satisfaction. He turned around and proceeded deeper into the path, uncaring about the Spiked Lizard. The moment he injured it, the resulting stench of blood would make things complicated.

That's why left it as is and proceeded deeper.

'Ugh!' He placed his hand before his mouth, controlling his urge to throw up. Two metres before him, at a spot a metre underground was a space wide enough to fit a man. Wriggling within it were 10 Ring Worms, munching on the carcass of a Spiked Lizard.

They drilled into its body and made many loops inside, coming out from the other end while forming a blood pool. They moved close to each other, with many of them crawling over one another, causing a sight disgustingly disgusting to watch.

Jyorta even reduced the range of his domain just to prevent his mental sanity from suffering critical damage. He didn't have much tolerance for ugliness. And the scene underground was nightmare-inducing. Trauma was the least of his concerns.

'No wonder they always say the Ring Worms were the ugliest Frenzy Beast in Marble City's surroundings. I don't even wish to encounter Frenzy Beasts even worse than them.' He massaged his brows, taking a wide detour to avoid alerting them.

They may only be Tier 1, but handling 10 of them at the same time was difficult for Jyorta. The difficult part was that they moved underground, diminishing the influence of his aura on them. Moreover, the moment he killed some of them, the scent of blood would lure more of their kind to the scene.

When that happened, he would have no choice but to fight until he expended all his psychic energy. It would signify the end of his second exploration, something he didn't wish to happen.

The path was 10 metres wide, so he had enough room to go around them, finding a safe route, all the while thinking, 'At the entrance in layer 1, there were Spiked Lizards. The moment I come to the second half, the dominant species turn out to be the Ring Worms.'

Suddenly, he heard a thud 10 metres before him. He looked at the location with alertness, unable to make out anything due to the darkness. He inched forward, taking cautious steps, intending to make a back leap the moment he encountered something amiss.

A couple of seconds later, he smelled the scent of blood, thick enough to overwhelm his olfactory senses. He didn't filter out the scents using his barrier, it was to remain alert. After all, why filter and limit his senses when he could identify many things through smell alone?

Within the range of his domain came a piece of meat. The meat seemed to be the thigh portion of a Spiked Lizard, oozing out blood, increasing the intensity of the scent of blood.

'From where did it fall?' Jyorta wondered, focusing his senses on the uppermost part of his domain. He didn't find anything since the ceiling was high up, positioned 10 metres from the ground, far beyond his reach.

Suddenly, a Ring Worm burrowed out of the ground, biting at the piece of meat. At the next moment, its body disappeared, along with the piece of meat. Followed by it were harmonious scuttling sounds. There was only a vacant hole in the place it had burrowed out from.

'W-What was that?' Jyorta was startled, feeling the hair on his skin stand up in alarm. He felt jittery, panicking a little. The Ring Worm and the piece of meat disappeared instantly, the speed beyond his senses.

It wasn't even his sight that failed him in the darkness. It was his domain that was unable to grasp the motion. It almost felt like the Ring Worm teleported out of the location after grabbing hold of the piece of meat.

As he pondered in silence, alert, straining his ears for any other sound, Jyorta heard another thud. This time, it was from behind him. Just this fact alone caused him to feel fear. The situation was similar to many second-grade horror movies he had watched in his previous life.

But now that it happened in reality, it was super scary. 'Damn, what the hell is happening?'

On seeing that he hadn't been pulled out from the labyrinth, Jyorta calmed down a little, thinking that it was just the doing of another Frenzy Beast. As for the Frenzy Beast that was responsible for this, Jyorta couldn't figure it out.

Though, the moment he realised that Madam Mila wasn't the person overseeing the labyrinth, he tensed up once again. If a Ground Controller was in charge, his domain wouldn't fully encompass the labyrinth, unless his Sync Rate was a 100 percent and he had finished the Nurturing process for Tier 4.

But, something like that was unlikely, so at least a Ground Controller and a team of Wave Controllers should be in charge so prevent any blind spots. But, even if it were a Ground Controller, the maximum speed his psychic arm could travel was at a kilometre per second.

The labyrinth of frenzy spanned at least 400 metres wide and a kilometre long. Suppose Jyorta was 500 metres away from the Ground Controller and had gotten into a life-threatening situation. Even if the Ground Controller sent his psychic arm Jyorta's way, it would take 0.5 seconds. Moreover, that was considering his Sync Rate was a hundred percent and he was at peak Tier 4.

In normal cases, it might take anywhere from 0.5 to 1 second for the psychic arm to reach to his rescue. The window of a second was too long in a life and death battle. Just considering the previous scene where the Ring Worm disappeared from view, if something like that happened to him, then he would die before the psychic arm could come to rescue.

Had Madam Mila been at the scene, the rescue process would have been instantaneous as she was almost at the peak of Tier 5.

'I guess I don't have a choice in the matter.' Jyorta sighed and took in the view of his blue soul. Immediately, he noticed many souls in his range. The range of his soul's senses had surpassed 4 metres in length. As he continued to devour and comprehend more and more experience fragments, the abilities of his blue soul improved.

If not for the fact that it needed to absorb energy from his body and convert it into soul energy to increase its foundation, Jyorta would have focused on it more. Currently, he was hard-pressed for energy.

The energy streaming into his Brain Crystal was hardly enough for all the tasks he was engaged in. That was why he had to push aside the development of his blue soul for the time being. Some things took a higher priority, like accumulating Credits for the matter. With the Credits, he could obtain the Traits and the Unranked Skill, Regen he was gunning for.

Even then, his blue soul was still growing at a steady pace, albeit slower than before since Jyorta allotted less energy to it. Just in case, he unleashed his two Soul Corneas, wrapping them around his body, forming a barrier, intending to activate his corrosion immediately.

He inched forward until the place the thud originated from came in the range of his domain. It was the same piece of meat as before. It even had faint depressions on one side, the exact place the Ring Worm had bit into.

Thanks to its earlier action, the smell wafting from the meat had become stronger. In the next second, three Ring Worms burrowed out from the ground, pouncing on the piece of meat as if they had been hungry for a week.

Jyorta's eyes widened in shock as he witnessed an unbelievable scene.