Dark Parasyte

Corvin slipped through the final tunnel of the Web Hewn Ravine and emerged at the hidden inlet where a lone lugger bobbed under bioluminescent fungi. The hull’s wood was inscribed with Synod concealment runes, their edges faintly glowing. Settling at the bow, he extended his Water affinity, soothing the Aelmar Sea’s churning waves into gentle swells. He navigated the lugger by memory, leaning into each current as dawn’s pale light pierced the cloudy sky.

Two days later, he guided the vessel into a secluded cove along Argyll’s northern cliffs, where jagged rocks and windward grasses concealed his arrival. Stepping ashore, Corvin cloaked himself to shroud his silhouette and started to move to survey the Church of the Crimson Chalice. Another day was spent to reach the mountain top where the damned church standing. The sandstone spire rose atop a grassy promontory, its exterior lined with warding sigils that pulsed. Two armored sentinels patrolled the front gate, their helms marking them as veteran wardens. Corvin used his Telepathy, extending his mind across the distance to detect the faint whispers of thoughts and hum of arcane energy with the rhythmic prayers echoing within.

He extended his mind beyond mere sentry chatter to delve into the fervent minds of the Church’s inhabitants. He discerned the grand cruciform layout: a long central nave flanked by twin aisles, a westward bell tower housing three bronze carillons, and a vaulted crypt concealed beneath the altar. He sensed the deliberate hush of a hidden passage branching from the southern chapel into the hillside, its existence whispered only among the high clergy and the captain of the guards.

Thoughts flickered of High Priestess Aurelia and her small inner circle. Four acolytes and half a dozen novices. Each convinced of their divine mandate. Beyond them stood twenty seasoned wardens rotating shifts at the gate, their minds reinforcing warding sigils in silent incantations. Far more telling, however, were the pulsating ambitions of the three hundred freshly recruited conscripts, resting at the barracks on the hillside. Rural villagers pressed into service to fill the swelling ranks. These new recruits bristled with zeal, believing their numbers could overwhelm any threat to their theocracy.

Corvin felt the undercurrent of xenophobic hate. Elves, Feralis, Demons, and Aetherborn were thought fit only for subjugation, livestock in human hands. Their sick minds were not able to comprehend that their ambitions were high, yet their limited physiology and mortal lives were the shortcoming of their kind. Human beings were same on fundamental basics. Every prayer, every ritual chant, echoed with the conviction that humanity alone was chosen by the divine. With these revelations of structure, strength, and fanaticism etched in his mind, Corvin slipped back into the shadows, already weaving the strands of his lethal strategy.

He crouched by the outer wall, cloak drawn tight, his senses thrumming with predatory anticipation. He released spores into the humid air, each drifting unseen toward the veteran wardens. He transformed into Wolfkin, lean, sinewy, and utterly silent.

Probing the air, he sensed the wards positions as the spores took hold. Without hesitation, he channeled Metal and Lightning: a razor sharp shard crackled into existence at his fingertips and flew true, striking the first guards throats with no more sound than a sigh. As the wardens gasped their last, Corvin was already next to the corpses absorbing, he felt a surge of cold weapon mastery and battlefield tactics fill his mind with more memories and details about the structure of the church, names of the guards and other small details.

Shifting into Bearkin form, he plowed through two more veteran guards near the gate, claws rending armor and bone. Each kill was preceded by a spore bonding. Ten percent siphoned in each instance, before Corvin’s crushing blows ended their resistance.

He stalked the final veteran pair as Jackalkin, silent and swift. A pair of lethal bites, and their muscle memory and strategic acumen joined his growing arsenal. In Lionkin form, he dispatched the last sentinel with a single mauling swipe, leaving no alarm raised.