Monster Evolution System: I became a Rat-Chapter 107: The Thing is a Queen

The haze of memories slowly flooded his mind until Rosacer finally saw them: a grotesque version of himself, a female version, and at last an old version of himself who had once battled a sea filled with Leviathans and, on another occasion, while wearing unusual clothes, helped a lady off a bridge.

"I remember..."

Rosacer finally opened his hand and snapped his fingers.

Pale green flames erupted, covering his entire body. Suddenly, he felt the blight coursing through his veins.

"He is waking up..." one of the giant rats spoke before lunging through the dark underground sewer toward him.

But before it could reach Rosacer, his body was already engulfed in pale green flames, and soon the giant rat was reduced to mere ash.

The other giant rats fled at the sight of the flames. Some of those in deep sleep were burned alive as the fire spread rapidly through the gas-filled sewer.

A massive explosion occurred when the flames met the concentrated gas. The blast engulfed the entire underground network, burning everything within and detonating again wherever it found new outlets.

High above, the explosions hurled ashes into the sky, darker than the night itself. The smoke merged with the clouds, and soon it returned as black rain. Wherever the rain fell, small plants attempted to germinate. From one such sprouting plant, a body began to form, emerging before the stem could fully mature, only for the plant to wither and turn to ash again.

Rosacer’s hand shot out from the half-formed growth, forcing his own resurrection and cutting the usual time required for it in half.

The system quickly projected a window in front of him as he came back into existence.

[Welcome back, User Rosacer.]

Rosacer groaned as he rose to his feet. As soon as he regained some control over himself, he opened the status tab.

A blue window appeared before him, displaying his name, abilities, and class. However, the class section was slightly blurred. Perhaps escaping the Karmic Dungeon had affected it, he initially thought.

But something else was different, and he noticed it immediately.

Among his listed skills, there was a new one.

[Parasite: Ingrain yourself into the flesh of others and control their thoughts and body.]

Suddenly, before Rosacer could think, his body began to feel rusted and rigid. Even moving his neck became troublesome. The stiffness spread downward, tightening around his shoulders, locking his spine, creeping toward his chest.

Then it reached his heart.

Just when he can make sense of it, he heard it.

The crippled laughter. Splitting the very rain itself.

Far above, in the blackened sky, an old lady hovered.

Her white hair streamed downward, impossibly long, almost touching the ground despite the height. It swayed like hanging roots of lotus in muddy water.

Rosacer tried to raise his arm.

He couldn’t.

His fingers trembled as if corroded from within.

The old woman’s laughter intensified. The sound vibrated through the rain itself. Each drop that touched his skin hardened instantly, turning into fine grey crust.

His knees bent unwillingly.

Something was forcing his neck to bend down.

Something invisible tries to wrapped around him.

Veins of pale energy descending from her flowing strands, binding his limbs, piercing through his joints without breaking the skin.

His vision blurred for a second.

The parasite skill flickered at the edge of his awareness.

The rigidity tightened.

His heart skipped.

Then forced another beat.

Rosacer exhaled sharply.

Pale green flame sparked beneath his skin, faint at first, tracing the lines of the invisible restraints.

The old lady’s body twitched in the sky.

The strands tightened in response.

His shoulder joint cracked.

He forced his hand upward.

The flames surged.

The blight flames once again came alive, this time in the open ground.

The rain around him began to evaporate mid-air. Steam rose violently from his skin. The invisible threads became visible at last, thin white filaments embedded along his arms and ribs, leading upward into the sky.

He seized one.

It burned against his palm.

The old lady jerked violently above, her laughter breaking into a shriek.

Rosacer pulled.

The filament snapped.

The rigidity in his left arm vanished instantly.

He moved.

But it wasn’t enough.

And he senses it too.

The blade formed in his right hand without flourish.

This wasn’t the blade made from his title "Demon Hunter." It was just a reshape of Mask of Pharaoh.

In the black rain, he was naked with only the hardened rain covering his privates.

He swung upward with white blade.

The drilling edge sliced through multiple descending strands. They recoiled like severed nerves.

The old woman dropped from air, like a marionette.

But she managed to turn the fall into a dive.

An elegant dive at that.

Her body twisted mid-air, hair spiraling around her like a cocoon. As she neared the ground, her frail limbs expanded unnaturally, joints reversing, spine elongating. The cane formed from condensed rain in her grip.

She struck.

The impact shattered stone.

Rosacer slid back, naked toe carving through wet ash with nails filled with deep dirt in them.

Before the dust settled, she was on him.

The cane thrust forward, piercing toward his sternum. He deflected it, but the moment the weapon touched his blade, his arm numbed again.

Her hair shot outward like spears.

One pierced through his thigh.

But it didn’t draw any blood.

Rosacer was confused but before he can stabilize his posture. He felt it.

"Spreading stiffness!" He exclaimed at his discovery.

The old witch smirked in response.

Rosacer eyes narrowed. He moved forward instead of back.

The blade plunged into her side.

As it went inside her flesh, he conjured the shape to turn into spikes.

The blade tore through her ribcage, shredding flesh and the writhing pale threads inside.

But still, she did not retreat.

Her hand clawed into his shoulder, nails sinking through skin this time.

His muscles locked now.

Her face came close to his.

Her face was old, wrinkled and little burnt.

Eyes wide with furious delight.

He ignited.

Pale green flames erupted from within.

From his wounds, blight spread towards her hand.

From the hair embedded in his flesh.

The fire traveled upward along every filament still connecting them.

The old woman convulsed violently.

Her hovering strands ignited like dry grass.

Rosacer twisted the blade deeper and stepped through her collapsing frame.

Spike no longer conjured, just a sharp edge.

The flames had also consumed her from the inside out. Her elongated body shrank rapidly, bones folding inward, hair turning to black cinders mid-air.

She tried to lift herself again.

Her spine cracked.

Her body disintegrated before it could leave the ground.

The rigidity vanished completely with it.

The rain resumed its fall. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Rosacer stood alone in the smoking aftermath, small threads of burnt white fiber drifting down around him like dead snow.

His heart beat steadily again.

He sighed as he looked at his wounds, and then he saw some giant rats moving from the corner, watching him.

"She was your queen?" he whispered, not expecting an answer.

One of the giant rats gave a nod in return.

Rosacer closed his eyes. As he flicked his wrist, he disappeared in a pale flame.

A pale flame erupted and Rosacer came out of it.

He stood beneath the fractured skyline, the wind drying the last trace of black rain from his skin, and forced himself to think.

"The old lady can’t be some random horror crawling out of the sewer. She wasn’t a starving beast either."

He turned to the system briefly, but it appeared to be offline for now.

"Understandable..." Rosacer muttered.

"She can immobilize. She can do it from a distance. Hmm, she can fly, and the rats are her minions, if I had to guess."

"She is an authority-type monster, that’s for sure."

"She came to me for revenge..." Rosacer lingered on that thought for a second, then waved it away.

He replayed the sensation of rust creeping through his muscles.

"It was like I was rusted... as if I was becoming old..."

He lingered on that sensation.

"Was she controlling me too?"

"Ahh, my head." Rosacer paused his thoughts as a sharp pain struck his head.

He pressed his fingers lightly against his temple and felt warmth beneath the skin.

His shoulders felt lighter, yet heavier at the same time.

He flexed his fingers slowly, observing the smooth response of muscle and nerve.

"Shit..." He cursed.

The effects were still on him, but they were slowly growing weaker, and there was also something else he felt inside him.

"I have changed..." He said to himself.

Rosacer then rolled his shoulders slowly, feeling the stiffness grind within his joints. He stretched his arms outward, rotating them in controlled circles until faint cracks echoed in the quiet air. Bending his knees, he lowered himself and rose again, steady and deliberate, forcing rusted muscles to remember movement and obedience of themselves.

"Remember, I am the one in charge." He jokingly said it to his muscles.