Chapter 286 Assimilate

A loss is always a sobering experience, especially when it's the first loss one faces in their life. Of course, that is only if the party experiencing the loss is graceful enough to accept it and move on. The Rat King was not. He had never faced such an insulting loss in his entire life (in rat years)! He wasn't reconciled with it. He had essentially sacrificed over 98% of his physical growth to save himself from that demon parading in a weak skin suit. How was he supposed to know that it was all a trap and that a great power lay hidden within that smooth, pink, hairless hide over meat and bone? The loss wasn't his fault, it was all that thing's fault, and for that, he would have his revenge!

He managed to escape that thing's dogged pursuit with great difficulty. He went through abandoned burrows and weaved past hordes of his kind to confuse the pursuer until, at last, he succeeded. It had been an entire day, and he didn't catch a whiff of that thrice-damned creature out for his blood. He hearkened back to his early years, when he scavenged, skittered and skulked around in fear of the predators out to get him and his kind. It made him feel sick! He was the Rat King, damn it!

Finally, the Rat King found some reprieve from the chase. He slowed down and rested under the shade of a large tree (in rat size). After letting his heated mind halt, he was prepared to analyse his failure more carefully. It was time to regroup and come up with a counterstrategy. He was done running away - that much he'd written into his bones a long time back (in rat years) after he managed to learn to control the heat coursing through his body. He recollected that the reason he managed to supersede all of his opponents was that he could benchmark them against his own kind. He defeated those slithering worms by understanding how they attacked and behaved when facing his kind. The same analysis method was used in finding out how to defeat the flying banshees with beaks. Unfortunately, there was no one to benchmark against when facing that pink-skinned creature - the gulf between himself and his kind had widened so greatly that it was impossible to do so. Nonetheless, the sacrifice of his body mass had netted him definite insight and an alternative perspective towards the mantra governing his life.

Maybe assimilate didn't necessarily mean to do it with his own kind? Maybe assimilating meant becoming one with the strongest and blending in seamlessly. Growing didn't necessarily mean physically growing, it may just mean condensing his strength - after all a creature much smaller than he had defeated him so effortlessly. And propagate- well... that probably didn't need reinterpretation.

As the Rat King pondered on this new epiphany, a loud screech followed by a heavy gust of wind approached him, and then he suddenly found himself caught in a vice grip rising higher and higher.

'Damn flying banshees with beaks!' The Rat King cursed. If only he had his old body, he could waste this creature with a flick of his appendage. No matter, he hadn't forgotten his roots. Through pure instinct, he started to release the rancid black gas from his pores that completely enveloped the creature. The reaction was immediate as its screech grew huskier, and it started to lose altitude. The Rat King twisted and bit down on the creature's talons, releasing himself from its grasp. He was free, albeit high up in the air.

Rats are resilient creatures. They are expert swimmers and climbers and, in rare cases, gliders. He stretched his loose skin outwards and slowed down his speed of descent. As he did, he swerved his head around looking for an optimal place to land.

At that instant, his sight caught something interesting. It was another one of those pink-skinned creatures, though this one looked different. It lacked an appendage the other one had, and its front was rather flat too. It looked weaker, but that was perfectly fine. The reason why his earlier hunts had been successful was that his opponents treated him as a weak rat. The moment he outwardly portrayed his strength, he lost. Moral of the story? Act weaker to surprise foes into lowering their guards.

The Rat King was prepared to put his plan into motion. He would assimilate with this creature... yet how? He had an inkling of the process when it came to his own kind since he had a thorough understanding of their anatomies. But these pink-skinned creatures were completely different. Amongst the differences, they walked on two legs and lacked a tail. Their paws looked weird too!

'I need to understand these creatures better,' the Rat King concluded. Luckily, this one, in particular, made it easier - its mouth was wide open and just waiting for the Rat King to grace it with his presence. With a seamless swoop, the Rat King compressed his body and slid through the agape mouth of his potentially new vessel.

The passageway was tight. But rats specialised in navigating through tight spaces. It took some adjustment but he made it past the maw. Next came an even narrower fleshy tunnel that kept undulating, compressing and squeezing periodically. He burrowed forward, expanding the path to allow his body to move through. Blood started to ooze out the new expansions making it difficult to navigate midway, but rats were excellent swimmers. He could smell a strong acidic smell emanating from before him, which he recognised to be the stomach. The Rat King bypassed that altogether and kept burrowing deeper and deeper, and deeper.

'Assimilate... Assimilate... Assimilate...' he kept repeating, as he searched for a way to become one with this human. His one-tracked mind honed in on that single concept to a level where everything else bled into the background. He had to assimilate with this creature, at all costs.

As his thoughts grew concentrated and hyper-focused, something glowing came into the Rat King's vision. He didn't know what it was, but something told him that this was his destination. It looked like a large body of water with an ethereal and inviting glow emanating from it. It looked warm, just like the energy flowing through him. Unfortunately, the water body was behind a membranous barrier. Sending his claws through that barrier caused it to disintegrate painfully. The Rat King's animal instincts warned him from going further, but his cause - his reason for existence - urged him to take the plunge.

A moment of indecision before his resolve solidified.

He pushed through the barrier, fought through the pain as his rat body started to disperse, and hurtled towards the large body of water calling out to him.

His body touched the warm surface of the liquid before the rest of what remained crossed through. The surface rippled and then turned calm.

Minutes passed until suddenly, a murky bubble rose and popped on the body's surface. Then another, and another, until the water started to grow darker and more viscous. Putridity overtook the tranquil sea as more and more waste started to boil up from within.

____

Klow gagged violently. Something disgusting was scuttling down his throat, scratching at his flesh and ripping his oesophagus with wild abandon. He was in the peak of the Foundation Establishment realm, yet somehow the dastardly creature's claws tore through his inner flesh like a hot knife through butter. He could feel it move through his body, and he could feel it eating away at his organs as it beelined towards... something. Klow collapsed into the ground and started to seize vigorously as he scratched above his body where the rat (of all things) was scuttling through.

He wanted to do something- ANYTHING, to, "MAKE! IT! STOP! PLEASE!!"

And as though answering his pleas, the pain stopped. The creature halted in its path. Klow gained just enough of his consciousness to realise where it was - in his abdomen. Just as he was about to flare his mana and flush it out, it disappeared.

"Oh no..."

The pain returned, radiating from his fledgling mana core, but this time it came with a vengeance. There was nothing he could do to stop it, that was certain.

A rancid black gas started to emanate from every pore and orifice on Klow's body. A weak groan escaped his agape mouth, and with it, his consciousness was extinguished.

____

Neem was just completing his tour around the quarantine's perimeter when an infuriating sight caught his attention.

"Damn it, Klow! Sleeping on the job? Again?" He growled as he approached the fallen figure of the man. As he got closer, and his mana senses drew inwards, he noticed the blood and filth surrounding the downed man.

"Klow? Hey! Wake up!" He rushed forward and shook the unconscious man vigorously. "Hey! Who did this? Wake up!"

Neem remembered the protocols his superiors had drilled into him. None of them talked about a situation where a comrade was found in such a compromising and downright confusing situation. Nonetheless, if at all stuck in a bind, report to your superior officer!

As he was about to stand up, Neem saw Klow's eyes bolt open.

"Hey!" Neem raised his palms to tap the awoken cripple's face when the man's remaining arm shot up and grabbed it.

"Wha-"

Klow's eyes alternated between the arm in his grasp and the stump on his left shoulder. A raspy and inhuman hum escaped Klow's nose.

"W-What are you-"

The downed man sprang up and tackled Neem into submission. Neem was about to retaliate with a punch when Klow opened his mouth and a black gas gushed out and drowned Neem completely. The gas entered and corroded Neem's airways and started to affect his senses adversely.

"K- *cough* Klow..."

At that moment, strong jaws latched onto Neem's throat and pulled out.

"ASSIMILATED." The raspy voice declared elatedly with its mouth full. "MUST. GROW."

And then Neem felt his left arm getting ripped out malevolently. The last thing Neem saw before losing his sight was Klow haphazardly and repeatedly shoving the limp and bloody arm against his left shoulder socket.

"ATTACH!" Flesh collided against the stump, but nothing connected.

"ATTACH!"

"ATTACH!"

"ATTA-"