CHAPTER 192: CHAPTER 188: A NEW FORM

"Sending a blind man as tribute? The god might wouldn’t like this..."

"What other choice do we have? He’s weak, and we have a reason to give him away."

"...the god is merciful."

The group kept whispering as the sacrifices were loaded into the divine chariot. The scout ship rushed back to Anur’s crashed ship, where only Blaze and Fester dwelled now.

As for what happened to Anur, Blaze had no idea. By the time he assembled his soul after his body got destroyed in the crash, Anur was gone.

Perhaps her secret was out, and she was hunted down. Or maybe she went into hiding to fool the collective. Whatever the reason was, she was gone, but she didn’t leave him empty-handed.

Blaze was on a planet unexplored by the Collective. Soon, they would set their eyes on it, but it would be too late by then. The planet would belong to him, and in the meantime, he would work on repairing the ship based on the instructions left by Anur.

Then he’d leave for another planet and continue the cycle of infection.

Was that his goal now?

Kind of.

He wanted to explore other planets, to learn more about strange lifeforms, and bend them to reflect his sadistic desires. Just like he was toying with the tribes on the planet, which he had named Sadarla.

It wasn’t a random name. But the name of the pregnant woman in his captivity. After all, she was the first to die by his hand on the planet. It was only right to honor her for that.

Blaze was lost in the thoughts of the past when he heard the scout ship approach.

It was time to aim for bigger things.

***

Meanwhile, outside the ship...

The blind man held what remained of the corpse of his beloved as he stood outside the crashed ship.

He couldn’t see where he was, but somehow he felt compelled to walk ahead. Something, no, someone wanted him to enter the ship.

With each step, the pounding in his heart got louder. The strange presence was calling for him.

"My chosen..." The voice called. "I have been waiting for you..."

The man stood still, unable to move from fear. The voice... he didn’t hear it through the ears, but felt it coming from his own mind. It was the same sensation one would feel while talking to oneself, only it wasn’t his voice.

"...my lord!"

The man fell to his knees and began praying for mercy.

"Forgive me for raising a sinner! He was unaware of your greatness!"

"There is nothing to forgive," the godly voice replied. "The actions of a few don’t agitate me, but their heresy... I dislike it."

The man furiously nodded. He didn’t care if his son was in the right or not, nor did he care that the god had annihilated his family. He merely wanted to live. Nothing else.

But the next second, all thoughts left his mind.

Unable to see, yet the tribesman could feel something moving around him. The sound of weird footsteps and the slithering of strange vines. He could feel it all.

However, the most unbearable thing was the stench of rot.

The stench was enough to make anyone puke their guts out, but for some reason... the man felt it was the most pleasant scent he had ever smelled. It was inviting him as if there were a feast in the next room.

His stomach growled from hunger. It was because the entire family of the chosen had to fast for a day, and even water intake wasn’t permissible.

Su’li told them it was because only when they fasted were they in their purest form and worthy of meeting the god.

Naturally, their hunger made the tributes easily accept the food that was being provided to them without caring what that food was made of. It was the same case now.

The man forgot all his grievances and rushed into the room before him.

There, a single meaty structure rose into the sky. It was entirely made of flesh, and below it was a throne, on which a lone figure sat, waiting for someone to show up.

Blaze smiled, looking at the blind man. Even though the latter couldn’t see him, his other senses were enough to make the man fear the ’god’ before him.

The next second, he fell to his knees. Not out of reverence, but fear. As he did, the fleshy vines he had sensed before approached him, slowly coiling around as if checking his worthiness.

After all, only someone worthy would be allowed to become one with the god of decay.

The man didn’t know what was going on, and before he could understand, he let out a bloodcurdling scream. The vines that had been caressing him suddenly pierced his body.

All of his organs were being churned and turned into a bloody paste within his body. The man struggled desperately, wanting to break free, but the vines didn’t let go.

"Surrender yourself," Blaze said, walking around the man while devouring him. "Isn’t that what you wanted?"

"ARGH!"

The man screamed in reply. Blaze clicked his tongue. Watching the struggle used to be fun, but now it was an unnecessary hindrance. Since they were livestock, why didn’t they just die and spare him all the noise pollution?

After a minute, the man went limp. He was gone, and that’s when Blaze’s true entertainment began.

Instead of resurrecting him as a zombie, he turned the man into his nineteenth experiment on Sadarla.

The flesh and organs that had been torn inside him were reverted back to their original forms. Blaze’s biomass filled the man’s body like a sack being filled with hay.

At the same time, Blaze’s own form shrank. It was as if he were transferring himself into the blind man’s body.

It wasn’t the first time he had tried something like it. Yet, he always failed. None of the natives were evolved enough to hold him within their feeble forms.

But this time, the man had held on for quite long.

Blaze was reduced to the size of a toddler, and yet the body hadn’t rejected him. A moment later, their minds were linked. Blaze could see himself through the man’s eyes!

"Interesting... he was blind before. So I can repair their injuries and deformities through this process. Maybe the secret to transference is a broken body. I should experiment with it later as well."

Just like that, Blaze’s body and soul, everything was transferred into the tribesman’s. His status page still showed him to be a zombie, but for all intents and purposes, he was a mortal.