Chapter 52 - The Betrayal

"Huh? Do you know me from somewhere?" I asked with a confused look at the mole humanoid who was nonchalantly stroking the ant queen as a pet. 

His eyes furrowed as if he was offended.

"Your saying you don't recognize me? And here I thought we were companions Vexsus. Oh wait that's right, I've only shown you my weak original form up until now. Maybe this will help you remember." He said seconds before his body cracked and broke as it simultaneously shrunk to become a mole that looked way to familiar.

"DIGGER!!!! Are you the mastermind behind these grotesque ants? I can understand if your trying to breed strong creatures to fight the invasion of the Shadow Eaters, but why did you take kitsoma's soul away from her?" I couldn't believe it at first but I still held a bit of a spot in my head hoping that he did it for a test and that he was just trying to protect his world.

"HAHAHAH, You idiot, did you really think I care about those stupid shadows. I am a mole for Fck sakes." He said as he transformed back into his humanoid form, almost rivaling my height. I had my Dual mind start analyzing him and coming up with potential strategies in case of a fight.

"You guys thought that I was just a small weak little mole that was good for nothing but scouting. Well to be honest maybe my original form might be a bit on the weak side, but I had intelligence on my side. I survived for years on my own until I was discovered by a crazy bastard of a scientist who captured me and used me as a guinea pig for his so called 'DNA' experiments."

"He said that he wanted to create the ultimate body that held all the powers of this world. Did you know that inside every living thing deep inside our blood is something that defines our bodies? Well I didn't until he told me shortly before almost bleeding me dry along with dozens of other creatures. There were numerous other species in that bastards laboratory, nothing between orcs to even fairies were spared from his experiments."

He was going to keep talking and I saw him take a breath but my god this guy was a shitty story teller so I decided to cut it short.

"WHOA HEY OK, listen Digger I get it, I read a crap ton of stories about crazy scientists doing less than humane experiments on creatures. I'm sorry this happened to you but can you get to the point of why you did all this? I don't need your back story seeing as how your the bad guy in this situation."

He seemed pissed off when I said that but hey he was boring me so sue me.

"YOU BASTARD DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD I HAD TO WORK TO GET HERE. I HAD TO SINK SO LOW AS TO WORK WITH THOSE SELFISH SLAVER BASTARDS JUST TO GET THE USELESS LEFTOVER SCRAPS THAT WEREN'T EVEN GOOD ENOUGH TO BE SOLD FOR SEX. I TOOK THEM AND GAVE THEM PURPOSE AGAIN, I GAVE THEM A NEW LIFE INSIDE MY QUEENS EGGS. BUT YOU, YOU RUINED THAT FOR ME."

He breathed in deep trying to calm himself. "Ah sorry, sorry I still have a hard time controlling my emotions after the transfusion." 

'Hold on he said transfusion. Did he mess around with his own DNA?' I couldn't help but be curious but that's when my Dual mind spoke up.

'Hey sorry for taking so long but the sheer number of opponents here made the strategy options a bit varied to think up. But I analyzed Digger and man I gotta say that whatever he did to himself is tearing him apart inside. Here take a look' he said then a pop up window came into view

[Digger - Mole (Chimera) - DNA UNSTABLE]

'That's it? That's all you got for me? shouldn't it say more stuff about him than this?'

'Yea it should.. if it was higher level, that means that this guy is stronger than us now, so main body I suggest running away.'

'You little bastard you know we can't, we have to get Kitsoma's soul back.'

'Fine, whatever I warned you so don't cry when you get beat.'

I really hate that guy sometimes. But that short amount of info gave me plenty to go off of. It told me he isn't fully in control of his mental state, and as the previous outburst suggested, he might even be losing control as we speak.

"Hey, tell me Digger what DNA did you fuse with yourself to make you lose control like that? I'm guessing maybe a bit of orc? And I'm guessing that you didn't have this humanoid form until recently so maybe you got yourself some human DNA in there aswell? I'm just guessing here ofcourse but I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and say that your body is rapidly breaking down from all the blood not merging well enough." 

I was testing to see what would set him off or not so that I can get a clear sense of what to say to get an advantage when I kill this guy. I already knew I didn't want to eat him just because if he was going crazy I would too so yea screw that.

"Well look at the big brain on Vexsus, who knew you would have some insight into this aswell. Those books you read must have been pretty hard to read as a child.... Or maybe. You were from the same world as he was."

'Oh fck, Oh fck he knows man he knows. You have to play this off.'

'Yea shut up I know.'

"I don't know about another world but yea those books were a bit difficult let's go with that. But dammit Digger, tell me why you took away Kitsoma's soul tell me the truth now or I'll beat it out of you."

"Master that is not a good idea just look around us, we aren't exactly in a good spot." Shorunt whispers next to me.

I Signal to him to get back along with the others. I put my hands behind my back and signaled to Sondar to put up a huge wall and for them to run away down the tunnel.

"Hey moron, you know I'm not stupid right? I can see you signaling to them." Digger said as he walked closer to me walking in between the mutant ants who were standing at the ready for him to let them attack their new prey. Some were even inching closer and closer as if they couldn't handle being so close to their food yet not being able to eat.

"Well Hell, ok so basically what I was trying to say is that I wanted Sondar to put up a wall and that they needed to run away as fast as they could after that." I looked back while saying that to see Sondar with a confused look on his face until it finally clicked in his head. He nodded and him and the others slowly backed away.

"Are you serious? You actually told me what you were going to have them do? Do you really think I'll let you just go just like that?"

"I mean yea? I just needed to make sure they were safe and then I was going to have you give me Kitsoma's soul back and boom no problemo we go our separate ways with no hassle. I don't have to destroy your weird ass army and you don't have to try and put up a fight." 

Ok so maybe I was a bit to cocky right there but I was really feeling lucky today.

"Ok so let me ask you this, Why do you think I have her soul. I nor any of my ants have any power over souls." He said as he pulled out a pair of daggers.

"Well your queen over there had taken control over Kitsoma and after she released the control over her body, she has yet to wake up and Shorunt and Sylvania can tell that her soul is gone soooooo yea I'm pretty sure that you have her soul.... Oh or do you not have full control over your little experiments like you thought?" I laughed at him and I could tell that he was slowly cracking as he ground his jaws side to side and his fists were clenching around the daggers.

"You do not know what your talking about. I have full control. Queen give me her soul, NOW." He said as he turned and went back to the queen. She seemed to not want to until a small pressure wave from Digger blasted out towards her and she immediately kneeled and pushed a rock away from the wall revealing a small hole big enough to hide a weird looking container that seemed to glow in flashes of orange and red.

"YOU IMBECILE. YOU STOLE SUCH A PRECIOUS MATERIAL AND HID IT FROM ME?" Digger yelled as he took the container than he slashed out with his dagger and actually cut off one of the queens legs. She screeched in pain as she grabbed her leg that was still pouring greenish red blood.

I instantly felt a little hunger rising up as I watched the blood but I focused as hard as I could and forced it to go back down. I couldn't lose control now that I'm so close to getting her soul back. I just had to play around with this fool some more and then leave before things get to out of control. 

"Hey great you got it, thanks Digger your such a pal, now just hand it over and I'll leave." I said as I took a step but jumped back instantly as a few of the mutants lunged at me with hunger clear as day in their eyes.

He turned to me and I went wide eyed as his body was visibly changing. His face was changing in between a mole and an orc with huge teeth jutting from his jaws and his body was getting bigger and bigger almost a good half a torso taller than me now. His muscles bulged as the short fur that covered his body began to fall off revealing small scales that burst out in a small spray of blood. His hands and feet were all different, one was a scaly clawed hand with only 3 fingers but claws as big as my pinky that still held the container. while another was just one long claw on the end of an arm that was double the size of the other. The feet were both bird like in appearance but one had a huge talon in the middle made for keeping prey held down while the other was just like a normal birds.

He didn't grow wings thankfully but just from what his body did change into it looked horrendous. Just a monster mashup that was nasty to look at. 

"Digger dude this is crazy just how far did you go with your stupid experiments." I said as I took several steps back to make sure I had enough room to fire off a space bomb and run. This was my plan if nothing else worked but I didn't expect him to turn into this.

Before I could say anything else I started choking as I blinked and opened my eyes to see his face inches away from mine with his clawed hand grabbing around my throat and digging into my hardened scales like they were nothing. 

Shit where is the container did he drop it?

With a guttural voice that sounded like gravel he spoke.

"Are you looking for this?" Then he showed me the container but it was currently being held by a large reptilian tail that emerged from his back. 

"What.....Are..... YOu" 'Cough' 'Cough' I couldn't speak anymore than that as it was getting hard to breath.

"Ah well you see I made an error when I combined all that DNA together all those years ago. You see I wanted to become the perfect creature and gain power beyond the gods, but shortly afterwards my body started breaking down. I tried desperately to find a way to halt or reverse the breakdown of my DNA but nothing worked, the only thing that I found that helped slow it down was to turn myself into that stupid mole form to prolong my time to search."

"I eventually came to this cave, I at first planned on using the goblins as my main source of experimenting but then I encountered these ants. I later discovered that they were protecting a huge cache of magic crystals that when I got closer would drain my body of all my magic. Coincidentally it also halted the deterioration of my body and allowed me to take a humanoid form once again. I used those crystals to help sustain my body and then started to use the slavers to help bring me subjects to try and find the perfect specimen to help me."

"But like you said I should just get to the point right? I understand I talk to much but hey I'm a crazy scientist whose only companions for years have been either brute slavers or insects. But your right time for the main event." He said with a smile of broken teeth mixed with sharp fangs.

Next thing I knew I felt a warm rush of liquid down my body before he let go of my neck, But I was still being held in the air by something as I look down and see that his singular claw was now embedded in my stomach. As if that's what it took for my body to recognize what happened, a wave of endless pain stormed through my body.

"AHHHHHHHH" I screamed as the pain even broke through my pain resistance

As he saw that I felt the pain finally he laughed and with me still being held by his claw he carried me through the air over to a cave that was in the back that was turned into a jail cell of sorts with bars made of unrefined magic crystal that as I got closer I saw was filled with multiple creatures.

"You will have the honor of being my new subject Vexsus. I seen how adaptable your body is and how you can get stronger just by eating. So I'm going to take that power and make it mine. Oh by the way enjoy your meal I have prepared for you, they may still be alive but that shouldn't matter to a monster like you HAHAHAHA." He laughed and threw me into the cage along with the others. I writhed in pain as the cold ground was starting to get soaked with my blood.

I slowly started to lose feeling in my body and everything started getting darker as I saw a figure in ragged clothes sit and look over me. 

"Please don't die.....Brother"