Chapter 144: What Are You...
It did not take long for Hugo to realize that something was wrong, terribly wrong.
After all, this was the age of the Nightmare Spell, where all types of horrifying things could happen and will happen.
Freaking out and doing something stupid was not in his best interest. So, Hugo composed himself and looked at the man, or the creature, in front of him.
'Mind hex?... No, it's worse than that.'
The shadow of this person is completely gone, as if there is no one there...
Hugo wished he still retained his Titan consciousness, as that would have allowed him to identity the nature of this creature.
But for now, it was a powerful parasite.
"Good morning to you too, soldier. You do realize that bothering a Captain while he's resting is a serious crime in the army, right?"
The man continued smiling, unbothered by his words.
"But Captain, I brought you some food... And I also wanted to tell you a story about me..."
Hugo couldn't help but feel nervous at those words.
"A story huh? I've been hearing a lot of those lately... Well, go on. You're already bothering me."
'Shit... It's a smart abomination.'
Having a creature that can talk is one thing... But having one that was sadistic to this extent... It reminded him of the Great Terror, Skinwalker.
In other words, this bastard was toying with him.
He just hoped this creature wasn't of the same rank and class as skinwalker...
"A long time ago... A creature was born ugly and crippled, and for this crime, he was shunned and despised by his people... Until one day, a great thinker promised to fix the creature... The creature, happy and excited at his kindness, thanked the great thinker. For countless years, he served the thinker... Waiting for a cure... Yet, the thinker lied... He refused the creature his cure, the only thing that could save him, and in the end, the great thinker disappeared without any traces and soon, the end came to consume us all... Do you know what we called that creature?"
Hugo's eyes narrowed. He had an idea about who this great thinker in question was.
'Damn it all! Why must everything from that cursed realm hunt me?!'
The realm in question was the realm of beast goddess... And this creature, somehow, was affiliated with the first thinker azmuth.
Sweating, he asked:
"What did you call him?"
The man only smiled. It was not eerie or terrifying, but instead a perfectly normal smile.
"Malware."
As he said those words, the door suddenly exploded into dozens of metal shards and Hugo was thrown back violently into the floor.
His eyes widened as the scene behind door revealed itself to him. There, everywhere he could see, was an army of people in the hallway... Each one racing to enter his room, their eyes dark red, utterly consumed by madness and hunger.
But more importantly... Each of their eyes was filled with a strange form of malice...
They were the citizens of this bunker, or at least were. Now they were conduits for whatever this abomination was.
The humans crawled towards himlike maggots, stepping over each other and breaking through the door to reach him.
It was terrifying sight, abominable, and utterly profane...
Before Hugo could do anything, he was drowning atop a sea of people.
"Give it to us! Give it give it give it give it give it give it give it give it give us the omnitrix!!!!!!!"
"Bless us bless us bless us bless us! Corrupt us corrupt us corrupt us!"
Their hands shot forward, touching every part of his body savagely. The Omnitrix was the one suffering the most damage, as it suddenly glowed with a crimson red light, responding to the thing trying to get inside of it.
[Intruder detected... Intruder detected...]
Hugo, not wanting to die, saturated his body with soul essence, but before he could do anything, he remembered that those were mundane people... Enthralled or not, a single touch from him could kill them.
Though they were stronger then regular people thanks to whatever was inside them, they could still die easily.
He struggled desperately and finally managed to slam his Omnitrix, transforming into Ghostfreak.
His body became intangible and ghostly, losing its physical nature and becoming Spectral in form.
Without wasting any time, he turned intangible and phased through the people, leaving the room and rushing towards the main area of the bunker.
On his way, wherever his eyes turned, there were humans with dark crimson eyes, somehow still chasing him despite Hugo being invisible.
'It could sense souls as well...'
Nightmare creatures usually had a single goal, which was to consume the pure soul of humans and all that was not corrupted.
But now, this creature was perusing the omnitrix as well, making it infinitely more terrifying.
Hugo was technically the omnitrix, even if he was still anchored to his human form... So what would happen to him if the abomination got its hands on him?
He shivered, not wanting to think of that possibility anymore.
Reaching the main area, his worst fear came true.
The people were there, standing motionlessly... Their eyes glowing crimson red.
All of them had been infected by this profane creature.
'No no no no!'
Fear gripped his heart.
How could he allow this to happen?
This wasn't just a few people that were infected... It was thousands of people, thousands of innocent lives touched by this monster.
'Calm down, you can still fix this... By the look of it, this creature is a Terror... Likely of the Corrupted rank.'
More than that, it had relations to the Beast Realm, the Omnitrix, and the First Thinker, making it more dangerous then regular nightmare creatures.
This abomination had managed to cross over from the Dream Realm to Antarctica through one of the nightmare Gates, and somehow, it found its way to him—the only carrier of the Omnitrix in this realm.
'What can I do...'
Knowing a Terror and how they spread, there must be a main body, right? But where?
'More than that, this creature is definitely a parasite, one that can inhabit multiple vessels... But is each vessel its main body, or just a thrall?' Thinking for a moment, he realized that the vessels couldn't be its main body. 'They are too weak to he its true body... the people back there were only at the level of Awakened.'
Even with the physical power of an Awakened, they would still get killed by Hugo if he had gotten violent back there, which is why he didn't want to engage with them.
Eitherway, that meant the creature main body was somewhere in the bunker or in another area... But that was merely an assumption.
Perhaps this creature could turn people into its main body through its Abilities? Or maybe it didn't have a main body.
Everything was possible, making the situation far more dire.
Lost in thoughts, Hugo suddenly had a realization.
He was in the form of Ghostfreak, a spectral, ghostly creature capable of interacting with the souls of others.
As he grew to the Ascended rank, his ability to possess creatures grew as well, allowing him to interact with their souls.
And wound them.
He had realized something about the abilities of his aliens. Their descriptions, the ones given by the Nightmare Spell, were false. They were too systemic and too narrow for the true power those creatures wielded.
Noble Creatures possessed strange abilities, yes, but they weren't as narrow as the Spell was making them out to be. For example, the possession ability had many components, one of them being the ability to interact with the soul.
The nature of his aliens and how they functioned was something he had meditated and studied about greatly back when he was stranded on Ariel's hell.
Of course, this ability to wound souls would not be as powerful as Soul Reaper Jet's Aspect, which was designed for soul damage, but it would be better then nothing.
If he could get a good hit on the cores of the abomination, then he would win or at least he would be able to remove the authority of this terror.
Hopeful, Hugo looked at one of the thralls in the main area and rushed down upon them like a savage wraith.
He plunged deep into the body of a random soldier and delved into the deepest parts of their existence, their soul.
There, in the small soul of this mundane human, a terrifying darkness, tainted by crimson lines, was wrapped tightly around the weak nascant soul.
'Mundane humans don't possses soul cores... I need to hurry, or their souls could crumble under the pressure.'
Hugo frown deepened as he reached for that darkness, following it to its roots. In mere moments, he reached the core of that abomination.
Infront of him, Six gigantic cores, tainted by corruption and colored black and red, stood in a majestic circle in the center of this creature's soul.
That was his confirmation: from the strength of the soul and the number of cores, this abomination was indeed a Corrupted Terror.
'Malware, huh? Let's see how you like this, you bastard.'
His clawed hands extended and slashed at one of the cores, inflicting a terrible wound upon it.
As it did, the entire spectral soul sea—or the equivalent of whatever Nightmare Creatures had—started quaking violently around him, and Hugo suddenly felt a malevolent will wash over his body.
A tendril rose from the dark crimson soul sea and was shaped into a hand. Before Hugo could do anything, the hand grabbed his spectral body and forcefully squeezed it.
He screamed in pain as he suddenly felt his soul being attacked... No, more then that, it was being corrupted by the creature.
'Not again!'
With all of his will, he managed to summon [Nothing] and shape it into a scythe in a last-ditch effort, lost in fear and madness he begun swinging violently and managed to separate the hand from his body.
Still wounded, Hugo lunged once again using the misty scythe, aiming to destroy the cores of this terror, but before he could do that, the six cores suddenly ignited with a terrifying crimson light.
BOOM!
A wave of energy, made from soul essence, slammed into his spectral body, sending it flying through the empty void and forcefully yanking him outside of Malware's soul sea.
Hugo ended up slamming into a wall, his intangibility turning off indirectly thanks to the attack.
He gasped, feeling his omni-cores crack under the pressure of thr attack.
Feeling his soul bleed, he forced himself up and summoned [Sunlight Rings], activating their healing enchantment and healing his wounded body and soul.
The light washed over him, mending the wounded soul as best as it can.
Ghostfreak's body was a strange thing, as it was a fusion of his soul and physical body. So any attacks inflicted upon it could be considered a soul attack.
That meant that Hugo couldn't afford to allow himself to be hit, as the attack he just endured nearly destroyed his soul.
He also couldn't abuse the [sunlight rings] as their healing enchantment was extremely essence consuming.
He furnished his scythe and looked at the man whom he had just exited from his soul.
Hugo expected the man to be freed from the influence of the corrupted terror but instead Something strange began to happen to him.
His body was suddenly engulfed by inky black darkness, while crimson light exploded outward, painting the darkness with sharp red lines. His form swelled, growing more animalistic and savage with each passing moment.
He—or it—stood with a hunched posture, spikes jutting from his back. His head had taken on a dinosaur-like shape and marks appeared on on his neck, making it resemble a fanged maw.
A strange cannon replaced his right arm, while his left hand had become a wicked claw, burning with malice.
There was something familiar about this creature... Yet for some reason, Hugo couldn't find what that thing was.
But right now, he did not care about its appearance or rank, all he cared about at them moment was the fact that he needed to kill it.
'You finally revealed your true form, bastard... So be it. Corrupted Terror or not, you die today.'
He brandished [Nothing], allowing the menacing scythe to grow even more imposing as he readied himself for battle.