Chapter 73: Something Is Living Inside Them

The corpse inhaled again.

Not because it was alive.

That was the first thing Raven decided.

The man’s chest rose irregularly, too slowly and too deeply, as though something inside was pulling on his lungs instead of using them properly. His jaw remained open, and the movement beneath the skin of his throat appeared again: a thin line traveling from the collarbone to the base of the tongue before vanishing.

The older physician took a step back.

Garran drew his sword.

Valeria raised one hand, and three blood needles formed around her fingers.

Raven did neither.

Predation was still analyzing.

«Foreign organism detected.

Species: Unknown Parasite

Primary Host: Human

Host Status: DECEASED

Secondary Organism Status: ACTIVE

Host Integration: 47%

Mana-channel attachment detected.

Analysis incomplete.»

"Don’t kill it yet," Raven said.

Garran looked at him.

"The man is already dead."

"I wasn’t talking about the man."

The physician remained beside the table, though she had put several steps between herself and the corpse.

"Can you see it?"

"Not exactly."

"Then how do you know something is inside him?"

Raven watched the throat.

"Because my ability considers it a separate organism."

Garran did not look satisfied.

"That still doesn’t tell me what it is."

"It doesn’t tell me either."

The body suddenly arched.

Its dead hands clenched.

Valeria formed a fourth needle.

The physician cursed and Raven stepped sideways rather than backward. He wanted to see which part of the body moved first.

The neck moved before the chest, and the arms followed afterward.

There was no human coordination in it.

The corpse was not waking up.

Something was using its muscles as tools.

The man’s mouth opened wider.

A transparent filament appeared between his teeth.

The physician went pale.

"Merciful Light..."

The filament extended several inches.

It resembled an extremely thin worm, but there was no visible segmentation. Its body was almost translucent, with a faint blue line pulsing through the center.

Mana.

Raven suspected it before Predation confirmed it.

«Mana absorption detected.

Secondary organism drawing residual mana from host channels.»

Valeria narrowed her eyes.

"It’s feeding."

"Yes."

The filament abruptly withdrew into the throat.

Garran tightened his grip on the sword.

"Can we kill it now?"

Raven looked at the physician.

"Can you open the body without destroying the chest and neck area?"

It took her a few seconds to recover her composure.

"Yes."

"Then I want to see it inside."

Garran watched him.

"You’re not here as an investigator."

"I also didn’t come here for an epidemic."

"That doesn’t reassure me."

"It wasn’t supposed to."

Valeria sighed.

"Let him look, Captain. If his ability can distinguish the parasite from the host, then right now he has information your physicians don’t."

Garran remained silent for several seconds before sheathing his sword.

"Do it."

The physician looked at the corpse.

"I need it restrained."

"I can do that," Raven said.

Valeria looked at him.

"Naturally."

Raven moved beside the table and spread Stonehide over both hands before gripping the corpse by the shoulders.

"In case it bites."

The physician looked at him.

"It’s dead."

The body snapped its jaw shut hard enough for the teeth to crack together.

The woman corrected herself.

"Fair point."

The autopsy began at the sternum.

Raven had seen bodies opened before.

Many.

What he had never seen was something trying to hide inside one while it was being opened.

The physician worked quickly, using an alchemical instrument to cut through skin and muscle before spreading the ribs with a reinforced metal tool. Valeria remained to one side, more interested than she would probably admit, while Garran stayed near the door.

Roland had been left outside.

Raven didn’t know whether that had been an order or a preference.

Probably both.

Once the chest cavity was exposed, nothing looked abnormal for several seconds.

Lungs.

Heart.

Blood vessels.

Mana channels.

Raven still didn’t completely understand Veyr’s magical anatomy, but he was beginning to recognize the luminous filaments running through muscle and organs alongside normal physical structures.

Then he saw something that did not belong.

A translucent strand was wrapped around one of the channels near the heart.

It was not a single organism.

There were several.

"There," Raven said.

The physician followed his finger.

"I don’t see—"

One of the strands moved.

She fell silent.

There were dozens.

Extremely thin filaments surrounded the mana channels like roots growing around pipes. Some penetrated shallowly into the tissue. Others extended toward nearby organs. Two were wrapped around the heart without entering it directly.

Valeria moved a little closer.

"How many?"

Raven let Predation continue its analysis.

«Secondary organisms detected: 37

Development stages: Multiple

Primary Attachment:

Mana Channels

Secondary Attachment:

Vascular Tissue

Neuromuscular Junctions

Host Integration: 47%»

"Thirty-seven."

The physician looked at him.

"Inside one person?"

"That’s what the ability detects."

Garran stopped leaning against the wall.

"Are they all alive?"

Predation answered before Raven had to speculate.

«Active: 19

Dormant: 11 ℯ

Nonviable: 7»

"Nineteen active."

No one spoke for several seconds.

The physician reached for one with a pair of forceps.

Raven caught her wrist.

"Wait."

She looked at him.

"I need a sample."

"And I need to know what it does when you separate it."

"That’s why I need a sample."

Raven released her.

"Fair."

She grasped one of the smaller filaments.

The organism contracted immediately, then stretched.

Farther than Raven expected.

The visible length expanded from only a few inches to nearly eighteen, like a fiber that had been tightly coiled around itself.

The physician dropped it into a metal tray.

The parasite writhed.

It did not try to escape.

It searched.

A blue line appeared through its body.

Valeria noticed.

"It’s reacting to mana."

The physician carefully brought an enchanted tool closer.

The filament immediately changed direction.

Toward it.

Raven watched.

"It isn’t following heat."

"Mana," Valeria said.

The creature reached the edge of the tray and rose upward.

It did not jump.

It stretched toward the tool.

The physician pulled her hand back.

"That explains the loss."

Raven shook his head.

"Not all of it."

She looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

Raven turned back toward the corpse.

"Thirty-seven organisms shouldn’t be able to drain an adult in less than an hour without saturating themselves, unless they can store far more mana than they appear capable of holding."

Garran frowned.

"Then where did the mana go?"

"That’s what I want to know."

The physician opened another section.

The answer was near the liver.

A group of thicker parasites had fused around several major mana channels, forming a translucent mass roughly the size of a large coin. The mana was not simply disappearing there.

It was moving.

From the host into the mass.

Then downward.

Toward the abdomen.

The physician followed the path.

"No."

Raven saw why.

There were eggs.

Dozens of them.

Maybe hundreds.