The Cult's High Priest (1)

The enemy's shout echoed through the tunnel, and there was only one emotion in that voice — pure, blazing fury.

Good.

With that, the odds of my enemy retreating had dropped to nearly nothing. This player wasn't going anywhere until I was dead.

A Morph-fucker.

He was the third player I'd crossed paths with, after Mother of the Sky and Muriel. This was going to be anything but an easy fight.

Not that I have any intention of losing.

As I ran across the rock-hard ice, I mentally tallied the cards left in my hand.

The Tetanus Vine I'd prepared for ambushing him was already spent.

The Tetanus Vine was an infection-type trait modeled on the carnivorous plants of classic horror films, and its method of infection worked much like my parasites. The interior of my combat arms contained a chamber where both parasites and Tetanus Vine seeds could dwell — and just as the parasites slipped out through small pores in the arm when needed, the vine seeds emerged from an opening in my palm.

The one difference was that while the parasites could find their own way into a target's body, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vine could not. In its seed state it was inert inside me, which meant I had to inject it directly.

Once inside a host and feeding on its nutrients, the Tetanus Vine grew at a ferocious pace — fully matured in as little as five minutes, ten at the latest, after which it began preparing to propagate.

In other words, it turns them into a living bomb.

Spread through the host's blood vessels, the vine detonated its own body the moment a new host wandered nearby — much like a plant cutting that takes root and grows anew from a severed branch.

And naturally, the original host died in the explosion. It was, after all, a grenade going off inside your own body.

Because of those properties, I typically paired the vine with my parasites for large melees or surprise ambushes like the one just now. Veteran players who'd fought me before had learned to preemptively kill anyone under parasite control, so I'd stopped relying on that trick alone.

Which meant the Cult player hunting me wouldn't fall for the same bait twice.

Well, it worked well enough as a provocation and a lure. Good enough.

Moving past the Tetanus Vine, my other trump cards were the Bone Beast and the Revenant Organ, both acquired recently.

Both traits played a critical role in any Amorph's combat. In the game, too, they had been personal favorites of mine.

The Bone Beast could be thought of as bundling the effects of my King of Monsters and Hunter's Avatar into a single set.

That said, it certainly didn't transform me with the same drastic power as those two.

The Bone Beast's effects came down to two things.

Gigantification, and reinforced defenses.

Since it was forged from the Giant Organism and Bone Axe traits, it inherited the effects of both. When Bone Beast activated, my body grew even larger than with ordinary Gigantification. My current length was around twenty-eight meters; the trait tripled that, and my strength scaled up along with my mass, naturally.

Up to that point it resembled ordinary gigantification, but the Bone Beast state added one more thing: a rigid armor of bone sheathed across my entire body. It was similar to the carapace that sprouted across me when I used Hunter's Avatar — except this thick plating bristled with additional spine-bone protrusions, letting me inflict real damage simply by body-slamming an enemy of comparable weight class.

The tradeoff is that there's no speed boost.

It was a shame, considering Hunter's Avatar had increased my velocity rather than reducing it.

Then again, if it matched Avatar's power, that would be its own problem.

The unique traits granted through the Transcendence System were, as the name implied, things that exceeded the Amorph's natural limits. Expecting that level of performance from the Bone Beast — a "mere" fusion trait — would be simple greed.

Even if it fell short of the Hunter's Avatar, the Bone Beast was plenty powerful, and I was holding it in reserve as a trump card. It would come in handy the moment I closed with the enemy player. On top of that, I now possessed the King of Monsters state available through my Organic Evolution trait.

Thanks to devouring the Ice Horror, I have energy to spare.

With a beast hundreds of meters long sitting in my belly, I had more than enough reserves to sustain the Bone Beast. The King of Monsters, with its brutal energy drain, I'd deploy only when the situation demanded it.

And then there's the Revenant Organ.

As the name suggested, the Revenant Organ was a trait bound up with resurrection.

Not that it actually brings you back to life.

Forged using apparent death as a catalyst, this fusion trait functioned in a way entirely unlike any of my others.

Most of my traits either ran constantly, like passives, or produced their special effects when I chose to activate them.

The Revenant Organ, by contrast, operated only under strict conditions.

Invisible from the outside, a tiny secretion gland was attached to my heart. If its conditions were met, the organ activated on its own and flooded my heart with a special hormone.

Even for an Amorph capable of actively regulating its own internal processes, the Revenant Organ remained beyond my control. Just as in the game, it would only fire when its conditions were satisfied.

That wasn't all. Its effect varied depending on how powerful I was — and, crucially, what state I was in when it triggered.

Fail to meet those conditions properly? Then even a successful activation was utterly worthless.

And the cooldown is absurdly long, too.

Because of these punishing requirements, almost no one in the game had ever used this trait properly. At best, only me and the Rank 4 Outspacer ranker had ever gotten real mileage out of it.

But looking at where I am right now, there's no better joker in the deck.

Provided it triggered correctly, the Revenant Organ was a weapon powerful enough to invert the entire battle in an instant. In the right hands, it could deliver a devastating sting to this Cult player.

Well then — let's get God's Whip ready first—

I was in the middle of my final inventory when a strange yet familiar sensation washed over me. Countless images flickered into being and vanished before my eyes, as though a video were playing at double speed.

At the same moment, the auxiliary organ beneath my jaw trembled violently.

Predator Sense!

Mid-sprint, I threw myself flat against the ground. A mass of sinister energy grazed past my back and head carapace by a hair's breadth. When the bolt struck the tunnel wall, the impact point simply evaporated with a sickening hiss.

"Fucking cunt! Where do you think you're running!"

The furious voice came from behind. The Cult player. Another wave of ominous energy bolts came hurtling my way.

…Tch!

The Cults shielding the player were firing Demolishers at me.

And every single round was aimed squarely at my auxiliary organ — as if they knew exactly where my weakness lay.

I twisted my head aside while hastily shielding the organ with my combat arms. Most of the bolts went wide, but not all of them; several punched into my arm.

The synthetic scales and carapace around my wrist melted the instant the Demolisher's matter touched them, like ice laid over a griddle.

…That's exactly why I ambushed them first.

At my size, dodging streams of small energy bolts was next to impossible. That was precisely why I'd taken out their gunners by ambush before they could open fire.

I raised my upper body, head tipped back, and opened my jaws — then hurled my Acid Fungus at the Cults standing behind me.

The green liquid, slicing through the air, came to a dead stop as if frozen in place.

In the darkness that blanketed the tunnel, a faint purple glow appeared. The enemy player had seized the liquid mid-flight with psychic power.

Tch.

"Morph-fucker, you're the reason Aliya is dead."

I gave no reply. I slammed my tail into the ceiling of the tunnel and kept running as it collapsed behind me.

With ice and rubble choking the passage, the Demolishers became useless, so the enemy unleashed a torrent of psychic techniques instead. Gravity Control, Binding — they came crashing down behind me, but I was one step faster.

A few of the techniques caught the tip of my tail, but my tail carried the Swamp King's pincer, and its psychic resistance was the highest on my entire body. I shrugged them off without incident.

Even so, their coordination is no joke.

The Cults who'd entered the underground expanse of the Ice Plains had split into three groups, all hunting me.

I'd fought two of those groups ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠directly — every one except those guarding the player. Aside from the Cult leader killed by my Tetanus Vine, none of them had left much of an impression.

Yet the way these Cults moved alongside the enemy player was categorically different. Their coordination flowed as smoothly as if their minds were all wired into one.

It doesn't feel like a buff technique.

Watching them, one skill did come to mind.

Among the highest-tier psychic techniques, there was one called Ultra Control — a crowd-control ability that dominated a specific target's mind and seized it completely.

It worked like my parasites, but with finer-grained control and one key difference: the victim couldn't resist.

And there's no time limit.

Unlike an Amorph, who had to keep feeding fresh parasites into a victim, Ultra Control, once it took hold, never released until either the user or the victim died.

Its drawbacks were that it fared poorly against targets prepared for psychic attack, and that it could only control one person at a time.

So it's unlikely to be that… but it could be his unique perk instead. Maybe a trait that grants a broad buff to other Cults.

As I ran, a thunderous boom erupted behind me.

The Cult player had punched through the collapsed tunnel. The thunder of dozens of Cult feet in motion soon made the passage tremble.

It didn't matter. I'd reached the place I was aiming for.

I smashed through the half-collapsed, narrowed tunnel and entered a vast cavern.

Ahead of me loomed the white skeleton of a creature hundreds of meters long. The tomb of the Ice Horror — the very place where I'd lured the Cults into battle earlier.

Stepping inside, I whipped my head around and readied my next attack.

The long Monster's Tentacles that draped from my head carapace down my neck writhed forward, positioning themselves before my head. Streaks of purple energy, born at the tip of my tail, raced up along my synthetic scales and gathered toward my skull.

A massive six-meter sphere — larger than my own head — coalesced at the tip of my snout, blazing violet from core to surface, and hurled itself toward the tunnel where my enemies were charging through.

The sphere, holding perfect circular form, stretched into a single heat ray as flat as the horizon. It thinned, but its destructive power diminished not one whit.

The Psychic Breath — a force mighty enough that not even warships could endure it — tore the underground tunnel apart as it surged forward.

But this once, the outcome I'd hoped for never came.

The violet spear that had been blasting through the ice passage stood stock-still in midair. Then the heat ray curved, smooth and natural, as if that were what it had always been meant to do.

The target of this psychic breath, bent by an outside hand, was not the Cults.

It was me.

Shit!

I yanked my tail forward and thrust the pincer upward. The raging Psychic Breath slammed into it head-on.

Kgh—!

The impact was so immense my tailbone nearly snapped. I seized my own pincer with my combat arms, wielding it like a shield to block out the Psychic Breath.

The Psychic Reflection Carapace, which applied even to my pincer, threw the breath back a second time. Reflected again and again, the violet energies lost their target entirely and scattered, slamming into the walls all around.

The vast underground cavern shuddered under the shock and shook once more. The fractures in the ceiling and walls widened to a degree incomparable with before.

As ice fragments far too massive to be called icicles came pouring down from above, the enemy player and his Cults revealed themselves.

"What a damn nuisance."

A male Cult with deer horns, clad head to toe in black armor, muttered irritably. A small silver rod hung at his waist, and strapped across his back was the axe the female Cult leader had carried — Condemnation.

I knew at a glance. This was the Cult player who had come hunting me.

Eleven Cults stood before the player, armed identically to the other groups — ivory bodysuits, Champion Shields, six carrying Galagon Claw Blades, five carrying Demolishers.

On paper they were no different from any other Temple Guard unit, yet the moment I laid eyes on them, I sensed something was wrong.

Their eyes were dull and clouded, like those of the insane, and their breathing fell in perfect unison — eleven bodies, not one heartbeat of difference between them.

And to me, with my auxiliary organ sensing psychic power, something else was visible.

A single purple stem was planted into the crown of each of the eleven Cults' heads. Every one of those stems was connected to the back of the player's neck.

"You fucking Morph-fucker bastard, you killed Aliya. Fuck, do you have any idea how hard it was to clear her…."

The player's handsome face twisted into something vicious as the curses poured out. A deer-horned Cult — royalty in their society — talking like a common thug. And the Cults in front of him didn't react at all.

Seeing that, I was certain. I knew exactly what the enemy's perk was.

An upgrade to the effects of psychic techniques.

The reflection of my Psychic Breath a moment ago, the purple stems now jutting from the Cults' heads — I could guess what power both of them had sprung from.

Reflection and Ultra Control. No doubt about it.

The reflection was almost certainly Reflection — a skill that originally repelled only physical attacks, now somehow capable of bouncing energy-based attacks as well.

And Ultra Control, which by its nature could dominate only one mind at a time, was currently puppeting eleven Cults simultaneously.

Putting it all together, the enemy's perk almost certainly amplified the effects of psychic techniques on a massive scale.

My reasoning came down to one simple observation: he felt similar to me.

Though I can't jump to conclusions.

What mattered here was that the enemy could reflect energy attacks too. Which made executing my plan a great deal easier.

To buy time to prepare my next card, I opened ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my mouth.

"Because of me? I don't follow."

"You don't follow? You planted a Tetanus Vine in her and the kid got torn apart from the inside, that's what!"

"You could have treated her. You're the one who killed her."

"And let you pull whatever trick you had up your sleeve? You'd have had nests and traps laid all around, wouldn't you. Or that Wolf slave of yours standing by."

"What do you mean?"

"You think I wouldn't find out? The Griffon Wolf — you ate her, didn't you? Haah, whatever. Doesn't matter. First I break you, then we talk."

The moment he finished, the Cults in front of him raised their weapons. The Demolishers, trained on my auxiliary organ, looked ready to fire at any instant.

But I, too, had finished preparing. There on the spot I dropped low, pressing my torso nearly to the floor. Across the back of my repositioned body, the Human-Faced Beasts readied ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their attack.

The Human-Faced Beasts resided on my back whenever I wasn't transformed into the Hunter's Avatar. Given my anatomy, crouching like this was the only way to strike at small enemies.

Fire.

The Human-Faced Beasts split their mouths wide open. Sonic screams tore from the throats of the small monsters shaped like Cult heads, lashing into the Demolisher-wielding Cults.

"Tch."

The player clicked his tongue lightly at the sight.

The puppeted Cults scrambled to dodge, but not all of them made it. Three Demolisher gunners took the paralysis attack head-on and crumpled to the floor like puppets with their strings cut.

Sonic waves can't be reflected.

I filed that fact away in a corner of my mind — all while my body never stopped moving.

The tip of my tail swung toward the Cults who'd evaded the scream. The instant the pincer at its end spread open, the spines packed densely inside launched themselves at the Cults.

"Pathetic struggling."

As if they'd been waiting for exactly this, the Champion Shield bearers moved with startling agility. In a blink they closed around the Demolisher gunners and caught the spines on their shields.

Then the other Cults cast Gravity Control on me. The gravity in the space around me warped violently, putting strain on the entire cavern.

Their output was monstrous — had they stripped the limiters from their puppets with Ultra Control as well? I, already crouched low, had no choice but to have my head driven into the ground.

"You were a garbage human in real life and you're the same here. I'm telling you now — you will never get a clean death."

Even as the Cults casting Gravity Control bled from their eyes, noses, and mouths, the player didn't spare it a single glance. Watching him pose as though victory were already his, I forced out a word through the crushing weight.

"And… here… I thought… you cared about… your men?"

"You goddamn Morph-fucker bastard, this much is cheap for what it takes to catch you?"

"Is… that so?"

"Aliya was a good kid, you know. Thinking about it just pisses me off all over again."

At his irritated gesture, one of the Demolisher Cults fired an energy bolt into my head. Part of the Monster's Tentacles caught in the disintegrating round simply shattered to nothing.

GrrraaaaAAAAGH—!

"Hurts, does it? The little shit's got some nerve, showing off like that."

A scream escaped me before I could stop it — the pain was beyond anything I'd imagined. The player sneered at the sight.

"You know, the longest any of my playthings has ever lasted is a year. Let's see how much longer you can hold out."

The player looked genuinely delighted at the prospect of capturing me and taking his time.

But there was one thing he didn't know.

I wasn't holding still because I feared him, or because I had no way to fight back. While he'd let his guard down, the preparation for that trait was complete.

"Don't… forget… what I told… you."

"What?"

Instead of answering, I lifted my head slightly.

And opened my jaws as wide as they would go.

The Thunder God's power, readied since the moment I'd fired those spines, came boiling up from my chest. Like a beast straining against its leash, the colossal energy that had slumbered in my breast surged at the signal. A golden beam that lit the pitch-dark cavern like daybreak — God's Whip — erupted from my mouth.

"Wh—?!"

The player flung both arms wide in shock. He was trying to deploy Reflection, just as he had against my Psychic Breath.

But the God's Whip I'd fired wasn't aimed at him. It tore toward the wall far, far above their heads. Power capable of destroying an Imperial Carrier itself punched a colossal hole through the ceiling of ice. The remaining energy spread outward like lightning across a night sky, racing along the cavern's frozen walls and roof.

Struck by the God's Whip, the underground cavern convulsed as though a full earthquake had struck.

"Ha, haha. Hahahahaha! You insane bastard! You actually missed!"

Spitting out the Thunder God's power drained every ounce of strength from my body. Head hanging low, I must have looked pathetic — and the player roared with laughter at the sight.

Missed, did I?

Well. Was that really so?

"Doesn't matter — I can block your pathetic lightning anyd… Huh?"

The player who'd been mocking me shut his mouth. And with good reason.

The shaking rolling through the cavern was anything but ordinary.

It was never you I was aiming at.

He couldn't know why I'd insisted on fighting here of all places. The moment he entered this cavern, he should have found something strange about the Ice Horror's corpse at my back.

My battle with the Ice Horror had left this place hanging on a knife's edge. Above our heads stretched a vast ice plain, hundreds of meters thick.

The reason this underground world had held together until now was simple: no shock large enough to upset its balance had ever occurred.

But from the moment my fight with the Ice Horror began, that precarious equilibrium had shattered completely. The ice walls that had stood like Atlases bearing the weight of that enormous ice mass were wrecked beyond recognition, and the fractures in the ceiling overhead had grown larger than the intact sections that remained.

And then I'd unleashed God's Whip in a place like this. Of course it couldn't hold.

"First, I'll take out your men here."

"You fucking bastard?!"

The panicked player hurled up Reflection after Reflection, spitting curses — but it was hopelessly inadequate against the baptism of ice hundreds of meters thick now raining down.

Watching him strain with everything he had to block it, I drew my next card.

Now. This is my chance.

The Bone Beast — the trait that turned an Amorph into a colossal monster. It activated.

In the heart of the collapsing cavern, my body began to swell at a terrifying rate.