The Parasite Who Wears Bodies
Caums was a Primordial Venetus.
One of the six tribal chiefs who had faced the power erupting from the summit of the Primordial Starting Point more directly than anyone else.
They all shared the trait of boundless mana, yet each of their abilities differed in subtle ways.
And among them, Caums's ability stood alone, unmatched.
'Have you heard? The chief of Caums's tribe has changed yet again.'
'Changed? No, he's the very same man. He can simply keep transferring himself into new bodies. You'd best watch your back as well—who knows when he'll strike you from behind and steal yours.'
Because he could hold mana within his very soul, Caums had always swapped himself into whatever body proved useful.
If the chief of another tribe was strong, he would take that body. If a newborn child showed extraordinary talent, he would take that body too.
The long-lived races only grew stronger with age, but Caums was a being who could pour his mana directly into his soul. To him, a body was nothing more than a shell for strengthening it.
So he changed bodies as casually as a man changing clothes, and his tribe grew more powerful than any other.
No matter how many rival tribes banded together and invaded, it made no difference.
'Get out of that body!'
'How foolish. You can't even raise a hand against your friend's face?'
Wearing the bodies of their family, their friends, their lovers, he wielded a power close to true immortality—and violated them with it.
And just as Caums's tribe rose above all the other Venetus...
'Blue ones...?'
'Red?'
They encountered a new race.
They were like nothing he had ever seen.
Beings whose very presence felt alien, wrong, from the first glance. The island was hardly small, yet surely anyone wandering it long enough would cross paths with them at least once—and in all his long years, Caums had never laid eyes on a single one.
It was as if they had simply dropped out of the sky.
Instinctive revulsion rose in him, but so did curiosity.
'I wonder how useful those bodies would be.'
For now, he watched.
To gauge just how strong they were.
But as time passed, it became clear they were good for nothing, and under the pretext of "rule through terror," Caums personally killed one of the Rutilus.
Caums could only steal the bodies of the dead.
Seizing the flesh of the living was impossible, even for a Primordial Venetus.
So he meant to test whether the corpse was worth stealing, and yet...
'...It won't work.'
For some reason, he could not take the Rutilus's body.
Wondering if it was some exceptional individual, he killed another—then another. Every attempt failed. Even a newborn infant at its mother's breast turned into nothing but a cold corpse before him.
Caums seethed with rage.
That they were weak was no problem. What could a worthless, lesser race possibly understand? It was laughable that those born and raised on the Primordial Island possessed nothing better than this—but as the ruler of the island, he had no real complaint there.
The problem was this.
'You mean to tell me you can't steal a single body from such a lowly creature?'
Even the great beast that had once ruled the forests had yielded its flesh to him. And these pathetic lesser beings dared to refuse?
Unacceptable. He could not accept it—must not.
From that point on, the Rutilus subjugation grew crueler. A domination bordering on pure vengeance took hold, and the Venetus squeezed the Rutilus harder than ever before. In his fury, Caums killed several more of them outright.
In his heart, he wanted to wipe them out to the last—but doing so would feel like an admission of defeat, and he could not bring himself to it.
'Someday. Someday I'll be able to.'
Surely even this lowly race would kneel in the end.
With that thought, he continued his experiments, and the killing went on.
Fwoosh!
'You bastards...!'
And then, everything ignited.
Caums, moving among the countless preserved corpses in his laboratories, heard a strange report.
A rebellion, they said. A rebellion of the lesser race—the Rutilus, no less.
He looked at the Venetus who had come to deliver it and snapped at him to speak plainly.
'Th-that is... Akron! That bastard has brought down all four of the Divine Generals!'
Nonsense.
These were creatures whose mana ran dry after a few spells, leaving them staggering and gasping. How could such beings possibly topple the Divine Generals?
Caums, so certain of their inferiority, did not change his mind until he witnessed the truth with his own eyes.
'That one is no lesser race at all.'
He understood, then.
Why the fragments of the primordial had split into blue and red. Why it had taken countless ages for each side to even perceive the other.
They had been divided because their powers were equal.
The Venetus front lines collapsed, mile after mile. However they attacked, however they flailed, they could not win. And unlike against other tribes, they could not steal bodies here.
No sowing of discord. No plundering of forces. Nothing worked at all.
At last, the island split in two, just as it had on the day the two races first perceived each other.
The Rutilus declared their independence.
It was absurd. The ones they had dismissed as a lesser race—declaring independence?
The Venetus, drunk on their sense of superiority, fell into chaos, but Caums himself, their supreme leader, thought quietly.
'My appetite grows.'
A race he had believed inferior—yet they stood on par with him. No, perhaps even above.
If only he could steal one of those bodies, he would become something like a god. No one would be able to stop him. No one would even be able to oppose him.
'Chief. What are we to do about this...?'
'Send a letter.'
'...I beg your pardon?'
'Tell the leader of the lesser—no, tell Lise, leader of the red ones, that we will grant whatever she desires.'
'This is madness! You would call that independence?!'
'My decision stands.'
The Venetus protested, but their leader was Caums. Already beaten again and again, they knew that internal fracture would only hasten their ruin, and in the end, the Rutilus won their independence exactly as Caums willed.
For five years, an uneasy peace held. Neither side crossed the other's borders, and the quiet days stretched on.
On the very day the fifth year ended, Caums invited Lise to his territory.
'We may never undo the grievances between us. But surely we can manage a neighbor's greeting, at the very least? Do come and visit.'
The Rutilus, steeped in hatred, opposed it bitterly—but Lise chose to trust him one last time, and set out for the land of the Venetus with a small escort and Akron at her side.
Contrary to every expectation of ambush or abuse, Caums welcomed them with open hospitality, offering words of apology and a banquet in their honor.
As the banquet wore on and the hours stretched, the tension in Akron and Lise slowly began to thaw.
'Akron. How much do you know about the Primordial God?'
'...Nothing. Don't care, either. Never gave it a thought.'
'Truly? You don't strike me as the type.'
'...I said I don't know. And for the record, I want to kill you. So don't act familiar with me.'
'If it weren't for Lise, every last one of you would already be dead.'
When Akron growled his declaration at the Venetus gathered in the hall, their faces twisted in fury.
A former slave—one who had knelt in chains barely five years ago—now trading words freely with their supreme leader. It was an outrage beyond comprehension, yet Caums only chuckled and rubbed his chin.
'Is that so.'
'It is. And I've had enough of sitting here, so we're leaving. Come on, Lise.'
'Ah, ah? But you were still speaking with him—'
'Ugh, why am I even talking to these blue freaks? I feel sick just breathing the same air.'
'Then why not simply go alone?'
'Fine by me. Akron, if you're uncomfortable, just wait a—'
'Trust you? Not in a thousand years.'
Akron gathered Lise up as if dragging her away, and she bowed her head again and again in apology as they withdrew.
Caums watched them go in silence, then gave the slightest flick of his hand.
The woman who had been speaking with Lise approached his side and knelt on one knee.
'Well? Did you get the gist of it?'
'It appears to concern the Primordial God. The condition is faith.'
'Faith...'
Asking them to believe in a god no one could even see.
'What a laughable tale.'
"What a spectacle it was, really."
Everything after that came surging back in a tangled flood.
He had uncovered the secret of their power and awakened a power of his own in turn. Then he had summoned Lise without warning, cut her down in a single stroke, and seized the chaos to launch a surprise assault on their heartland.
Akron, stripped of all reason, went mad with rage, and soon the two races plunged into a war of mutual annihilation.
Akron killed more of them than Caums ever had—and among his victims were children.
"If only I could have taken that monster's body..."
Truly a creature beyond reason. He had awakened the very same power, yet even with dozens descending on him at once, they could not bring him down.
Drunk on slaughter, Akron did not stop until he had killed most of the Venetus outright. The survivors amounted to a scattered handful and the "reserves" Caums had set aside in advance—nothing more.
"Erasing his color—failed. Complete annihilation—never succeeded in the end. And sealing him meant little."
He had even sought out power from beyond, and still he had failed.
Now, only one path remained.
Caums, wearing the body of a middle-aged warrior, tilted his head back and gazed upward at something.
There, suspended in his sight, was a woman sealed within red and blue stone.
A short-haired figure with crimson locks faintly eroded by veins of blue, her eyes closed in perfect stillness.
The body he had studied longer than anything else in his long existence.
So many failures. His carefully hoarded reserves had been spent down to nearly nothing.
And even what remained of them, he had just now poured into this.
The odds of success were, at best, one in ten. Even if it worked, whether he could rouse both powers at once was anyone's guess.
"But there's no help for it. The madmen are coming from both sides."
He had to take this body now.
For the thing sleeping within it, what was coming would be a hell worse than hell itself.
And as for her...
"I'll catch that bitch too, and take my time studying her."