Chapter 314: Abominable Repetition
Under the instruction of the “heavenly” messenger, Frederick proceeded to visit the Golden Rhino University in order to organize the means to which finish the unknown tincture he was gifted.
Namely, organize an expedition to someplace called “Insect Hell” and use the Sacred Beast Essence there to complete the product.
If Frederick had heard of this treasure before meeting this messenger, he would have been absolutely giddy.
Sacred Beast Essence was rare, and their effects have been well-documented as being beneficial despite the risks.
But now having experience that mysterious power, inhale its profound fumes and having a bottle of it just in his pocket…Frederick consider the essence nothing more than excessively pretty blood.
“What need have I for the power of beasts? When in my hand, I hold the heavens?”
Regardless of his feelings though, he did as instructed and helped to finance the “expedition” out of his own pocket.This had effectively bankrupted him, but no matter. Once he became the clan head, he could recoup all his losses and then some from the family coffers.
It was also during this moment in time that Frederick learned that the messenger had taken up the role of a professor in that university,under the name of Festivus or something silly like that. Apparently the messenger wanted to “learn all he could, while imparting all can” or…something.
Again, Frederick didn’t care, he had other things on his mind….well, one thing.
A lovely journal written by one of the victims of Frederick’s “ascension” detailed what happened after he decided to bankroll this death bound expedition, so that will be skipped over, but there are still a few details in-between then and the present.
Or to put it more bluntly, how did Frederick become…Grub?
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“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!,” Frederick screamed in unfiltered pain as his body seemed to twist and grow in ways impossible for mere mortals to do.
“What the fuck?,” Belios quietly asked the universe as he took several steps back from the transforming monstrosity. Several other students followed suit, but even more just stood there in abject terror.
The only one not afflicted by fear, and was even looking giddy about this was “Professor Festeroy”. At this point, Belios assumed that the professor was also a fraud of some sort.
The screaming went on for a solid minute or so as Frederick continued to mutate into a giant humanoid insect monster.
“GAAAaaaahhhh…”.
But then the screaming stopped, replaced by a sigh of content.
“How… glorious!”
“What the fuck?!”
That sigh was then replaced by a voice that sounded like thousands upon thousands of insects chirping, screaming and hissing all at the same time. Essentially, nightmare fuel
“How doezzz it feel young mazter?,” Festeroy asked, his voice buzzing like a demonic wasp.
“This is wonderful!,” the monster formerly known as Frederick shouted as his new form began wriggle and write like a swarm of insects over a mountain of carrion, “I can feel the power coursing through my veins! There’s nothing in the world that can stop me now.”
“Exactly! But…there iz…one izzue.”
“Huh?,” Frederick buzzed in confusion, “what do you mean?”
“Your new form requirez energy and lots of it. Until you can find zomething as equally sustaining as that pool of Sacred Beast Essence beneath you I’m afraid you’re ztuck here.”
“Oh?”
Belios and the other students were a bit stunned at Festeroy’s revelation. Normally when one helps another achieve what appears to be unrivaled power that can shock the world, you don’t mention the caveat until the bestowed tries to do something stupid and you’re out of the blast zone.
But then…Frederick started laughing. Alot.
“Bahahahahahah! That’s it?! That’s all?! Why that’s so simple it hurts!,” Frederick mused, “didn’t you help to provide me such a feast anyways?”
“I’m zo glad you picked up on that!,” Festeroy suddenly laughed in turn, “I was afraid you wouldn’t have noticed.”
“No worries, no worries…but I have to ask. Why did you bring it up now?”
“Why you ask? Zimple,” Festeroy answered with the most deranged look in his now compound eyes, “to give them a running ztart.”
“How sporting! Well then…”
Immediately after trialing off, Frederick used one of his newly formed claws to stab three expedition members through the gut, faster than Professor Zelini could react and proceeded to drain them of all life, leaving nothing but withered bones with twisted, screaming expressions in their faces.
“Run.”
What followed after that statement was the stuff of nightmares.
“GET OUT OF HERE! I’LL TRY TO HOLD HIM OFF!”
“RUUUUN!”
“HE JUST ATE SHERYL!”
“MY SKIN! THEY’RE CRAWLING IN MY SKIN!”
“OH GODS, WHY?! WHY?!”
“MOMMY?! MOMMY! PLEASE HELP ME!”
Frederick in his new form went on a rampage, killing and eating many of the expedition students in his wake and even the spiders that were originally attacking them.
In essence, 78 students went on this expedition…14 escaped with their lives.
But that wasn’t on accident or based on luck.
It was planned.
“My mazter, why did you let thoze humanz escape? Are you full?”
“Oh no no no, my friend. Haven’t you heard of the phrase ‘dead men tell no tale’? I’m letting them escape so that they may spread the word, knowingly or not, so that I may attract more…delectable prey. After all, Acolytes are fine, but a Master is more substantial.”
“Ah! Brilliant!”
“Indeed, but… there’s another reason.”
“Oh?”
“I have come to realize after my evolution that being the mere leader of my clan is beneath me, for the time being. Let me brothers fight over the leadership, let them build it up as they see fit. And then, once it has grown, once I have fed enough, I shall return in glorious triumph and take what what will be mine. All of the glory, none of the work.”
“An excellent idea,” Festeroy nodded.
“Isn’t it?”
And so, this horrible cycle repeated for years and years.
Frederick would lure in unsuspecting adventurers and treasure hunters, either through survivors, or through “Festerory”, and he would eat and eat until only a few were left and he would do it again, and again, and again.
Over time, his body began to change more and more as parts of his body started to become less uniform, more chaotic and more…independent.
The only thing left that was vaugely human or at least indicative of humanity was his face, but even that was a bit of a stretch at this point.
An abomination locked in a prisonous cycle of his own making built upon his desire for power mutating into [Greed] and [Gluttony].
Now, this cycle might have been the status quo for years and years, possibly till the heat death of the universe itself, but then…Frederick made a mistake.
A very simple mistake that would cascade into not necessarily his downfall, but into a deep degradation of madness and despair.
He let the wrong member of a particular trio, live.
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‘Ooooh, I’ve never eaten a little girl before now!,’ Frederick mused as the aforementioned little girl he lured in toddled closer and closer towards him, ‘I wonder if the taste is more like veal or lamb?’
Once the girl was in grabbing distance for his arms, a passing thought went through his head as he reached out to grab the girl.
‘I wonder what kind of neglectful parents would bring a child into a place as dangerous as my-?”
“HANDS OFF MY FUCKING DAUGHTER, YOU COLOSSAL CANNIBALISTIC COCKBAG!”
“Huh?”
*SLASH!*
“GAAAAAH!! WHAT THE FUCK?!”
Just as Frederick was about to pick up his latest morsel, a middle-aged man wearing rusted adventuring gear suddenly swooped in out of nowhere and swung down a flaming red oversized saber that sliced right through the former’s centipede arm like it was a hot knife through butter and forcing Frederick to recoil in pain.
With his concentration now broken, the little girl was now freed from the hypnotic spell and had subsequently passed out.
Now, this moment was shocking for three reasons for everyone involved.
First, this was the first time in literal decades that Frederick actually had felt anything close to the sensation of pain since his transformation. And now he was feeling it in the form of having his arm chopped off as burning red flames was now eating away at his flesh.
Second, the one who chopped off his arm was none other than Rocko, the sole survivor from the Howling Beetle Boys, who Frederick had initially written off as cannon fodder/bait for bigger, badder people for him to consume. To be frank, all three of those adventurers were rather basic, but Rocko gave him the feeling of being a bitch on top of all that.
Lastly, and most importantly, Rocko had no fucking clue how he managed to do that, at all.
While he, externally, had a fierce look of battle-hardned determination on his face, internally, he was trying to figure out how the hell he managed to do that.
‘How…how did I do that?’
{With my help.}
‘Huh?! Who the fuck-?’
{Questions later, we have a daughter to rescue!}
‘Oh…right!’
