The Scrap Tamer - Chapter 110

Chapter 110: Forced Merging
“No—NO!”

Darren’s screams echoed through the arena as the tendrils of the creature burrowed deeper, his body convulsing in agony.

“STOP! I ORDER YOU TO—”

He started, but the tendrils shoved themselves down his throat.

Darren’s body jerked violently, his back arching as the creature forcefully merged with him. His muscles, flesh, bones, everything twisted as the creature continued merging with him.

Cracks started appearing on his skin and eyes switched between its usual color and a sickly, glowing yellow.

His breathing became nothing but gasps, as he struggled to resist.

But then… he stopped struggling.

A horrible silence fell over the arena.

Then, slowly… Darren lifted his head.

‘He’ looked at his hand, flexing them a little before turning its yellow eyes toward Reid who, like the rest of the crowd, was frozen in shock.

“So this is what it feels like inside a human body” He spoke, but the voice sounded nothing like Darren’s cocky one.

Instead, it sounded layered, distorted, and inhuman, almost as if multiple voices were speaking at once. It sent chills down the spines of everyone who heard it.

“Duel is over. Everyone, back—” commander Ajax started as he go ready to take down whatever that thing was.

He barely had time to react before a single punch from it sent him flying backward, crashing into the observer platform with a loud impact.

‘Fast’ Reid’s eyes widened as he watched it move. He was only able to barely track it because he was paying close attention to it.

“Let’s finish what we started, shall we?” the creature said, turning its gaze toward him with an unsettling grin.

It ripped off the top of Darren’s cadet uniform revealing more cracks running according his entire upper body.

From within some of the cracks, its only black tendrils came out. This made the skin of anyone witnessing it, crawl.

“Oh and one more thing” it paused, as if remembering something.

It’s hands dug into Darren’s pocket and pulled out a small disc that had blue glowing lines running around it.

It proceeded to drop the disc on the arena floor and as soon as he did so, a forcefield covered the entire arena, just in time to stop the approaching Commander and team 7.

Commander Ajax immediately pulled his fist back, wind swirling violently around it as he prepared to shatter the forcefield with a single strike.

His fist connected with the barrier and a shockwave spread across the entire arena, sending the members of team 7 skidding backwards.

But the forcefield?

It remained standing, glowing a little bit brighter than before.

The creature turned to the commander, looking him directly in the eye with a smirk on its face.

“You know, father told me about you” it said “and he specially made this forcefield to prevent you from interfering.”

The commander watched as the creature in one of his cadet’s body taunted him. He tapped the barrier to gauge how strong it really was but it seemed to glow a bit brighter with every tap.

“It’s useless,” it said with a smirk “any force applied to that forcefield would only be changed into energy that strengthens it”.

“At least, that’s what one of father’s workers said” it placed a hand on its chin “now, just sit back and enjoy the show.”

It turned back to Reid who was cautiously observing the creatures movement.

The thing was fast and strong enough to catch commander Ajax, a man capable of ripping apart platinum tier primals with his bare hands, off guard.

A scan from Evo just confirmed how dangerous it was.

[??? Scanned

Rank: Possibly Platinum tier

Species: Human – forged beast hybrid

Abilities:

Unknown

]

‘Why is its abilities unknown?’ Reid mentally asked. This was the first time he had to face something that neither he nor Evo had any information on.

[There’s nothing in my database about something like this in my memory] she answered [the closest thing it can be compared to is your synergize ability or the merging your mom went through with her phoenix.]

[But at the same time this seems entirely different] she continued after a short pause [the creature itself has taken over the kid’s body instead of becoming one with him.]

‘What about Darren?’ Reid asked ‘is he still in there?’

[I cannot confirm] Evo answered [but my guess is that, if he is, the creature might have trapped him in his own mind].

‘So he might basically be fighting a war to regain his body back or he’s gone?’ Reid repeated.

[Yes] Evo simply said [I advise you to be careful when facing it, we don’t know what it’s capable of in this form].

[You should try separating the two if possible] she finished.

‘I will’ he nodded, his eyes still fixed on the creature that was still admiring its newly gained body.

“You know,” it said, tilting its head to the side, the eerie grin never leaving its face, “Father wanted me to try and take over your body. So, why don’t we make this easier for both of us? Just hand it over.”

“Why does your father want you to take over my body?” Reid asked, he wasn’t hoping for an answer but was surprised when the creature spoke next.

“Father says you have something very important within you,” it said, its eerie grin widening. “A power that would allow him to reshape everything, a power that would allow him to help us bring judgement the judgement you humans deserve.”

“So will you hand over your body now?” It completed.

“No thank you,” Reid calmly replied “I very much like staying in control of my own body.”

Although his reply sounded calm, his mind was the opposite as three words constantly floated within.

‘The cult knows’

He didn’t know how or when, but he was pretty sure that the power the were talking about was the evolution Codex.

And if they knew about Evo, then that information must have come from the host of the Hybrid Codex—which meant that, unlike Evo, the Hybrid Codex wasn’t missing much, if any, data from its database.

[You need to calm down,] Evo said. [We’re not sure they know yet. For all we know, they might just be suspicious and sent it here to confirm whether or not you are my host.]

The creature interrupted their conversation with a chuckle, the sound was terrifying to say the least “Oh, you misunderstand. That wasn’t a request.”

Before the last word even finished, it moved.

Leaving a crater behind it, it moved with speeds almost untrackable by Reid’s eyes and he would have been turned into a Swiss cheese by its tendrils if not for Rusty’s ability activating at the last moment from within Reid’s inventory when it sensed the danger he was in.

[Skip]

Reid vanished, reappearing a dozen feet away, just in time to see the creature’s tendrils shred through the spot he had just been standing in. The arena floor cracked, creating smaller crates when the tendrils connected.

Reid immediately summoned the rest of his forged beasts, excluding Axie.

In their combat forms, Rusty, Nyx, Beel and Atlas protectively stood by Reid’s side. He also summoned his bat from his inventory since he always forgets to get a new weapon.

Instead of panic at the number advantage on Reid’s side, the creature just widened its grin its sharp teeth in full display, and the yellow glow in its eyes intensifying.

“Oh? You’re bringing out all your pets already?” It said “That just means quadruple the fun”.

It moved again, but this time as soon as it’s tendrils shot out to stab Reid,

BOOM!

Its body slammed into the ground with a force that created a human shaped crater on the arena floor.

The creature let out a snarl from Darren’s mouth, it struggled to get back up but an invisible force was crushing it, keeping it down.

Above it floated Atlas who looked down on the struggling creature, It had activated [Gravity Shift], increasing the its weight several times over.

Beel wanted to follow up with a [swarm] but was stopped by Reid, since Darren might still be somewhere in there and eating him was not a good idea. So it decided to stick with attacks it devoured from other primals.

Rusty on the other hand used [pause] on it, causing the creature to cease its struggle against Atlas’s gravity attack.

Nyx also used [Spatial Collapse] but instead of collapsing the space around, it just constricted, applying just enough pressure to hold it in place without popping it like a balloon.

For a moment, the fight seemed to be going their way, with the creature pinned to the floor, only leaving Reid to come up with a way to separate the two.

But then—

CRACK.

Its entire body started shifting, its bones cracking as it caused Darren’s entire body to reconstruct itself.

And in the next instant—

A wave of raw, overwhelming power exploded outward.