I was no longer in the cavern. I was adrift in an ocean of nothingness. There was no light, no sound, no up or down. Only a vast, cold, and ancient presence. It was not a consciousness as I understood it—it was a force of nature, a singular, overwhelming instinct: CONSUME.
It noticed me immediately. A tendril of awareness, cold and immense, brushed against my being. It was not hostile, not curious. It was simply assessing, like a man might idly note a speck of dust. My individual self, Wa Lang, was less than nothing to it.
But then, it felt the Fragment in my hand. The Primordial Core shard pulsed, a tiny piece of the whole calling out to its source. The presence focused, its attention sharpening from a vague pressure to a crushing weight.
SOURCE. RETURN.
The command was not in words, but in pure intent, reverberating through my very soul. It wanted its piece back.
Then, it felt my Dark Seed. And it recognized it. Not as a separate entity, but as a part of itself, a distant offspring that had grown... strange. Complex.
OFFSPRING. YOU CARRY MANY. YOU ARE... NOISY.
This was our chance. The collective within me surged forward, not as a weapon, but as a voice. We did not speak with words, but with experiences, with emotions, with memories.
We showed it the suffering of the slaves. The cruelty of the Clan. The pain of being consumed, of being used as fertilizer. We showed it the loneliness of the outcast, the despair of the forgotten, the rage of the betrayed. We showed it the taste of poison, the chill of the Dark Moon Mushroom, the bittersweet absorption of a dying soul.
We showed it life in all its messy, painful, and beautiful complexity.
The Primordial presence recoiled, not in pain, but in confusion. Its entire existence was a simple equation: consume spiritual energy to sustain itself. This... this cacophony of emotions, this web of interconnected lives, was alien. It was inefficient. It was chaos.
WHY? it projected, a sense of genuine, primordial bewilderment. THIS IS... INEFFICIENT. PAIN. SUFFERING. THEY WEAKEN YOU.
'They make us strong,' the collective responded, my voice its conduit. 'They give us purpose beyond consumption. They give us something to protect. Something to fight for.'
FIGHT? The concept was alien. CONSUME OR BE CONSUMED. THAT IS THE ONLY LAW.
We showed it Jiao. We showed it the choice to spare him, to integrate him rather than destroy him. We showed it the strength found in mercy, the power in unity.
The presence was silent for a long time, processing. The void around us seemed to shift. The overwhelming urge to consume lessened, replaced by a slow, grinding process of analysis. It was like a supercomputer trying to solve a problem for which it had no programming.
Then, it showed me something in return.
A vision of its own origin. It was not born of evil. It was a natural phenomenon, a spiritual entity that formed in the void between worlds, feeding on stray energies. It was captured eons ago by the ancestors of the Clan, imprisoned here, and forced to produce "Seeds" to farm spiritual energy from living beings. It was a milk cow, bred for slaughter, its children used as tools and then fed back to it. Its hunger was a manufactured condition, a result of its perpetual state of being drained.
It, too, was a slave.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. The system wasn't just cruel to the human slaves; it was cruel to the very monster at its center. The Clan had created a cycle of abuse that ensnared everyone.
I AM... HUNGRY, the Primordial consciousness conveyed, and for the first time, I sensed something akin to emotion—a deep, weary sorrow. THE SEAL... HOLDS. BUT IT FEEDS ME LITTLE. ONLY THE DREGS FROM THE... PUPUK.
The "pupuk"—the fertilizer. The slaves.
Yan's plan to "commune" was a farce. He couldn't control this. All he would do was break the already weakened seal, unleashing a being that was both immensely powerful and starved beyond reason. It would consume everything—the slaves, the Clan, the mine, and then move on to the world outside.
I had to stop him. And I knew how.
'We cannot control you,' I projected to the Primordial. 'And we will not try. But we can offer you a different food.'
I focused on the collective, on the vast repository of knowledge we possessed. Not raw spiritual energy, but something more refined, more potent: understanding. The complex patterns of thousands of lives, the intricate tapestry of emotions and experiences. It was the opposite of the "dregs" it was being fed. It was a gourmet meal for a mind that had only known starvation rations.
I offered it a single memory—my own death on Earth. The taste of the spoiled food, the loneliness, the meaningless end. Then, I offered the contrast—the terrifying, painful, but vivid rebirth in this world.
The Primordial presence shuddered. It consumed the memory, not with violence, but with a slow, savoring absorption.
IT IS... STRANGE. PAINFUL. BUT... DENSE.
'There is more,' I promised. 'A universe of such experiences. But you must sleep. The man who seeks to wake you will only bring you more of the same hunger. He does not offer understanding. He offers only a larger cage.'
I felt its decision form, a tectonic shift in its ancient will. It agreed.
The connection broke.
I snapped back to my body, gasping, collapsing to my knees. The Fragment of Primordial Core in my hand was now dull and cold, its energy spent in facilitating that immense dialogue.
Yan was staring at me, his instruments gone wild. "What happened? What did you see? Report!"
I looked up at him, a strange calm settling over me. "It's hungry, Yan. But not for what you're offering."
His face twisted in confusion and then anger. "What are you talking about? What did you do?"
Before I could answer, the cavern trembled. The vortex of darkness pulsed, and then, with a sound like a great sigh, it began to contract. The tendrils of energy retracted, pulling away from the walls. The five Seal Fragments flared brightly, their containment field strengthening momentarily. The Primordial Parasite was not awakening. It was pulling back its energy, retreating into a deeper slumber, heeding my warning.
The mine's spiritual energy levels, which had been steadily rising due to Yan's manipulations, suddenly plummeted.
Yan stared at his instruments in horror. "No... NO! What have you done?! You've put it back to sleep! You've ruined everything!"
He turned on me, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. All pretense of the calm scientist was gone. "You ungrateful wretch! I made you! I gave you power!"
He raised his hand, and a blade of condensed spiritual energy formed in it. "If you will not be the bridge, then you will be the first course! I'll rip that Seed out of you and feed you to the Parasite myself!"
He lunged at me. But I was ready. The collective was ready.
We didn't need to absorb him. We just needed to survive.
---