Paradigm Parasite

Chapter 197: "Root Ratio"

I was taken into the heart and was about to be immediately digested, but I kept regenerating and maintaining my physical body.

At the same time, I extended roots from my whole body and interrupted my opponent's absorption and control of my body to impede digestion.

It's not like I'm taking over the brain to slow it down. Pain and discomfort hit the whole body.

The former doesn't bother me so much because I'm used to it, but the latter is a nuisance.

I soon found out what the discomfort was.

They are peeping into my memory.

I usually do this to other people, so it was a bit refreshing to see how it feels when it's done to me, but the discomfort is stronger, so I'd like to do something about it as soon as possible.

Maybe it's because I'm doing something similar, but for some reason this guy's image has been regurgitated.

This one is tough in a different way.

The amount of information is not half-baked.

The first time I saw an individual with such a huge amount of memories, I was puzzled.

Moreover, many of them are only fragments, so I can't understand what they mean.

When I connected with him, I found out that, to my horror, this guy is already a dead man.

More than half of the organs in his body are not working properly, and he is forcibly moving his organs, eating and metabolising by squeezing out the remaining magic power in his body.

It is a great feat that he is creating his dependents and rampaging in such a state.

If it were a human being, he would be completely powered only by his energy, and it is a wonder that he is still alive.

Their thinking is limited and they are not even functioning at 10% of their original capacity.

In addition, it is also using all its resources to maintain the sea that spreads across the sky.

The reason why they forced themselves to target us in spite of such a state seems to be to recover the lost magic power.

It seems that we reincarnated people have more magical power than most living creatures, and that it is necessary for them to repair themselves.

It seems that they wanted to forcefully move the organs whose functions had been stopped by magic, and use it to prolong their lifespan until they could recover on their own - in short, to buy time.

If the organs can be forcibly moved with such forceful techniques, they should be able to recover with time to spare once their magic power is restored.

I was being shown the memories at the same time as I realised what he was trying to do.

It's only fragments that come in as twists and turns in his thoughts, but the strongest memories of his own experience blink in my mind like a flashback.

The pitch-black seabed.

No sound, restful darkness and silence.

There, he lived quietly and peacefully with his children, dependents and compatriots.

There were battles.

Foreign enemies appeared from the distant sea. I didn't know what they looked like, but they were always formidable, and although I had to fight hard, I defeated all of them by uniting my strength.

We were undefeated at the time - oh, no. Don't let your consciousness get mixed up.

Be careful.

They never doubted that they were the masters of the seas.

...In fact, they were unbeaten.

I would add that they just ruled the sea, and from what I remember, they were basically harmless fish as long as we didn't mess up their territory.

This part of the story was rather clear, but the problem came later.

One day, it seems, an enemy suddenly attacked.

Memories are jumbled in this area.

What I saw in fragments was an image of a battle that could be described as fierce.

A tremendous number of dependents were shot through one after another by something like a ray of light, and lightning rained down incessantly from the sky.

The enemy could not be clearly identified, but it was something glowing and humanoid.

They flew across the sky, launching a variety of attacks one after another, and after destroying the marine ecosystem, something huge exploded and the memory was cut off.

After that, all I have are images of pain and suffering, and I don't know what happened without getting to the point.

By the way, the annoying unidentified flying humanoids that suddenly attacked the fishes look vaguely familiar, and their means of attack, but what does that mean?

Lightning through clouds, rays of light.

These were the only two types that I could clearly see, but both were apparently the same as those used by the Grigori, albeit on a completely different scale.

In other words, it was Grigori or a similar entity that drove them to their deaths.

Well, it was definitely a Grigori.

...those guys again.

Sigh.

In short, the Grigori are the cause of this situation.

Those fucking angels will haunt me forever.

I want to grab them by the bosom and ask them if they have something against me.

In the end, that's all I could get a decent read on.

The rest is just a sludge of anger and resentment towards Grigori.

I don't know how you feel, but you're no match for them if they eat you for that reason.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to let you die here completely.

I'm going to necroticise the parts I've taken while responding to their digestion from one end to the other.

The other side seems to realise what I'm doing, and moves to forcefully digest, but it's not going well because the surrounding cells are under my control.

The necrotic parts have to be regenerated and used for my digestion, so from their point of view, instead of recovering, they are being consumed, resulting in a gradual but weakening process.

...However, if I don't concentrate on defence and erosion, there is a possibility that I will be pushed out of the way, so I can't let my guard down.

I can't relax, but if I sit down and do it, I think I can manage.

I've got a feeling that I'm on track, so I turn my attention to the outside.

I wonder what's going on with the people who were outside?

I think they're a little less aggressive now that they're concentrating on me, but it would be nice if he could just wipe them out somewhere I don't know about. ...... Well, those guys are stubborn and I don't think they can do it.

In the meantime, let's keep going until one of us loses our nerve, shall we?

Ridiculous.

'His' thoughts were filled with surprise.

The prey he was supposed to have taken in cannot be absorbed.

On the contrary, it was pouring an unidentified poison into him in an attempt to destroy him, and thanks to this, his absorption of magic power was not going well at all, and rather than recovering, he was being drained.

Even though they are called prey, compared to the enemies we have fought, it would not be an exaggeration to call them tiny prey.

I was a little surprised that they didn't run away and came towards me.

Because prey is something that runs away.

He decided to take advantage of the situation.

He had little time left in his body and needed to concentrate all his energy on preying, so he couldn't think about anything else. In other words, I was in a hurry.

When I confronted them, I found out that these prey were stupid.

Because they went to the trouble of jumping into the mouth and coming to be eaten.

What would you call it if you didn't call it stupid?

Once inside our bodies, all we have to do is absorb them.

The four prey with the greatest amount of magic power were to enter the body, all of which would then be absorbed, and everything would be restored.

He would return to his body, return to the sea with his sleeping compatriots and enjoy that peaceful tranquillity.

Although he is not aware of it, his thinking has become extremely limited thanks to the restriction of all his bodily functions, and he is unable to think too deeply.

That is why the strongest impulse that drives him - you could even call it a wish - is simply that he wants to go home.

The result of his simplistic thinking about what was necessary to achieve this has led him to the present.

While I saw the things that came towards me as prey, I could only recognise them as food.

If you put it in your mouth because it is food, it is over, and this thinking leads to the current situation.

The current situation is life-threatening.

He is unaware of the danger of being so close to the heart, and he goes to the extreme of taking the most dangerous thing into his most important organ to suck out its magic power by taking it directly into his heart.

Under the idea of expediency, without recognising the danger.

As a result, he was heading towards death, filling his thoughts with astonishment.

He is trying to revive himself by sucking the magic out of his prey.

All that is needed for this is the magic power of the food and his own cells to suck it up.

However, the food that he has taken into his heart has a power that is beyond his control, and necroticises the surrounding cells.

Therefore, he can hardly absorb the magic power and, on the contrary, his cells are dying rapidly and his organs are beginning to lose their functions.

The heart, which supplies magic power to the whole body and desperately sustains life, is also being damaged.

His thoughts are filled with impatience and astonishment, but his poisoned heart has irreversibly failed and his death has become an irreversible reality. All that can be done is to resist and postpone the end.

At this point, the game was almost won.

As a last-ditch effort, he read the memories of the bait and tried to find a way through.

The body, which was supposed to be a small object, was filled with an enormous amount of memories, and he was even more astonished.

If he had been able to think a little more, he would have understood the unnaturalness of the memories, but he was unable to do so.

Then 'he' opens his eyes at the last memory he sees.

There was that foreign enemy that had attacked them.

In his memory, the bait was fighting an enemy so hateful that the word "hatred" is too lukewarm.

Finally, the enemy is seen to have had its head chopped off and cut in two.

Watching the vindictive enemy's body being torn to shreds and finally burnt to a crisp, I thought - that was a bit exhilarating.

For that moment, I forgot all my emotions and a pleasant breeze blew in my chest.

If 'he' had been able to speak, he might have said.

-- Suck it up!

....

With that, his resistance ended and true sleep came.

A sleep that never awoke.