The Cult's Failed Summoning

Chapter 13: Breakthrough

Boros stroked his chin slowly, turning the word over in his mind the way a jeweler turns a stone under light.

"I'll have to look into the alchemy of this world," he said, almost to himself.

"You can't just shake off my question."

Yelan had moved. She was standing directly in front of him now, arms unfolded, chin lifted — close enough that most people would have felt the pressure of her presence.

Boros looked at her.

The full weight of whatever was behind those eyes landed on her without apology. Yelan almost took a step back. Almost.

"For someone who didn't recognize what I just did," Boros said evenly, "you're being awfully persistent."

She turned her head to the side. Just enough to break the line of his gaze, finding something else in the room to look at.

"Your appearance is different from the rest, but I don't plan to question you about your past," Boros continued, his tone unreadable. "But don't overstep your boundaries; most things are beyond your comprehension."

A beat of silence followed.

Yelan turned back. She lowered herself onto one knee, her robe pooling against the stone floor, head dipped.

"Understood."

Boros moved past her toward the examination table, where Stone had already secured a new subject without being asked — efficient as ever, silent as stone deserved to be. Boros looked down at the figure strapped to the surface and exhaled slowly through his nose.

*Half,* he thought. *I've burned through nearly half my mass already. I can't use my skills recklessly until I replenish. Having to consume my own body mass to use skills is a hindrance in this environment.*

"Stone."

The Overseer straightened from where he stood beside the door. "Fetch me my pills."

Stone bowed — a precise, practiced motion. "Yes, Head Priest."

He turned and disappeared through the secret passage without another word, the hidden door sliding shut behind him with barely a sound.

Boros turned to Yelan. "Go and get me an update on the Fourth Seat's current location."

Yelan rose from the floor, dipped her head once, and stepped backward into her own shadow. It rose to meet her, swallowing her feet, her legs, her waist — and then she was simply gone. The shadow on the floor returned to the shape of nothing in particular.

The room fell quiet. The remaining prisoners kept their eyes fixed on the floor.

Stone returned before long, moving through the passage with a silver tray balanced in both hands. On it sat a row of small capsules — Boros's cell pills, smooth and unremarkable in appearance, looking entirely harmless until one understood what they truly were.

Boros took one between his fingers. He examined it briefly, then turned to the subject on the table.

The man flinched as Boros reached down and applied steady pressure to his jaw until it opened. Boros placed the pill at the back of the man's tongue and released.

"Down the hatch."

The man swallowed reflexively.

*Good.* Boros stepped back, watching closely. *With this, I should be able to activate both Flesh Mutation and Cellular Manipulation simultaneously. It will give me direct control over the shape the mutation takes, rather than simply triggering the process and observing the outcome.*

The subject's breathing changed first — quickening, growing ragged, his chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. Then the color beneath his skin shifted. Black-green veins rose to the surface like cracks forming in pale stone, threading outward from the chest, moving up the neck, down the arms, and branching across the backs of his hands.

The man began to writhe.

Boros closed his eyes and reached outward through the connection the pill had opened. He could feel the subject's cellular structure like a craftsman feeling the grain of wood. He pressed gently, adjusting and guiding the mutation along his chosen path.

The writhing intensified. The screams that had been building broke free — raw and animalistic — before gradually shifting into something lower as the body began to process the transformation.

The black-green channels thickened and expanded, spreading across his skin until the man's entire body turned a glossy, pitch-black hue, coated in the same dark, slimy cellular mass that made up Boros's true form. The physique altered rapidly: fat dissolved, and the frame stretched several inches taller. The body narrowed into a lean, severe silhouette, its muscles compressing into dense, corded fibrous strands beneath the glistening surface.

Boros opened his eyes and studied the transformed creature.

"Release it," he instructed Stone.

Stone reached for the restraints, but before his hands found the first buckle, the creature's left wrist bent at an impossible angle with a quiet, wet sound, slipping free of the iron cuff on its own. The remaining restraints fell away in quick succession as it stood up from the table.

It looked at Boros, and Boros looked back at it. A slow smile crossed the entity's face.

"Show me what you can do," Boros said.

The creature turned and walked to the nearest stone wall. As it approached, its dark, slimy surface shifted, mimicking the grey texture of the stone while its green channels faded into the pale lines of mortar. Within moments, it blended seamlessly into the wall — a section of stone that breathed.

Boros watched with satisfaction for a moment, but then his brow creased. He pressed two fingers to his temple, standing completely still.

*It consumed my mana.*

When he had absorbed Alistair, Boros had successfully preserved and integrated the former Head Priest's mana pathways into himself. But now, he felt a distinct draw on those reserves. The creature had pulled on his mana to power its camouflage without being commanded to, treating Boros's energy as its own.

*Of course it did,* he realized, exhaling slowly. *The thralls I create are treated as extensions of my own body. The world sees no boundary between us, so their actions draw directly on my reserves.*

He considered the problem carefully.

*Which means as long as I produce thralls this way, I'm not gaining an army. I'm just dividing myself.*

He paused, examining his options, until a new realization surfaced.

*But if I were to use Biopoiesis—*

The thought sat fully formed in his mind.

A wider grin spread across his face, resolving into a genuine, low chuckle. He pressed his palm flat over his face as his shoulders shook once.

*That's it. That's why.*

He turned sharply and grabbed Stone by both shoulders, shaking him once with the sudden enthusiasm of someone who had just solved a long-standing puzzle. Stone absorbed the gesture with his usual blank expression.

Boros let him go, his eyes glowing with focus.

"How could I be so foolish? It took me this long to see it." He looked toward the concealed creature against the wall. "The creatures I create normally are treated as extensions of myself — that's the issue. But if I apply Biopoiesis, the result isn't an extension. It becomes an artificial being in its own right—a distinct existence. Its consumption is its own. Its mana is its own."

He opened his hand, palm up. "A separate entity with separate reserves. Simple."

His gaze sharpened. *Though they will still need their own mana pathways. Merging the pathways to integrate them into the flesh rather than doing a full transplant should work. For now, it will have to do.*

Decision made, he turned back to the table. "Stone. Bring the next ones."

What followed was a methodical process. Stone moved the remaining prisoners to the table one by one. Boros worked with absolute focus, showing neither cruelty nor enjoyment—only the relentless execution of an experiment.

Outside the heavy doors, the two guards stood rigid at their posts, trying desperately to ignore the horrific sounds echoing through the iron. Neither spoke, but both prayed silently for mercy.

When the hidden passage opened again, Yelan stepped out from the shadows. She straightened her collar and walked into the quiet room toward Boros, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back, admiring a row of four newly completed creations.

All four were composed of the same pitch-black, slimy biological mass as Boros's true form, but their shapes had been molded into terrifyingly distinct configurations.

The first was an enormous monster — three and a half meters of towering biological mass, its body far broader than any human frame. Four thick arms hung from its torso, and two heads rested upon its shoulders. Even more disturbing were the two additional faces pressed against the dark flesh of its back from within, their features straining against the glistening surface.

The second and third were tall and slender, standing at two and a half meters. Their proportions were stretched unnaturally, their elongated limbs giving them an unsettling, unnatural presence.

The fourth appeared almost human in size and build at first glance. But a closer look revealed a massive, gaping jaw lined with sharp biological teeth set directly into its abdomen, resting quietly beneath its chest.

Yelan stopped in her tracks. Her eyes widened as she took in the horrific sight of the four monstrous entities standing silently in a row, the thick, dark sheen of their bodies catching the torchlight. A cold shudder ran down her spine, and her breath hitched slightly as she realized the sheer scale of what Boros was capable of creating.

Boros turned at the sound of her footsteps. "Oh. You're back."

Yelan pulled her gaze away from the abominations with visible difficulty, forcing her posture to remain steady. "Yes, my lord. I have returned."

"And the Fourth Seat?"

"She will be arriving shortly."

Boros looked back at his creations with the quiet pride of a master craftsman, evaluating every detail of his work.

"Stone," Boros commanded calmly. "Prepare robes for our four friends."

Stone bowed without a word and moved to fulfill the order.

Boros straightened his tie and adjusted the stethoscope at his neck. He cast one final glance at his new thralls before looking toward the heavy entrance doors.

"It's time we welcome my new colleague."