SSS Awakening: I Can Class Change at will

Pure agonizing pain took over Moon’s mind for a moment.

He clutched his head with both hands. His vision blurred at the edges.

His knees buckled slightly beneath him. His thoughts fractured into disjointed pieces that refused to connect properly.

Something was pressing against the inside of his skull, and every attempt to think against it made the pressure worse.

’C-Cleanse!’

The skill was barely cast, fighting against whatever was pushing back on his brain.

The skill activated.

Healing energy washed through his body. The pain subsided for a fraction of a second. His thoughts cleared and his vision refocused.

Then the pain returned.

Weaker this time, but present.

"What the hell is going on."

Moon’s voice came out hoarse.

He felt it clearly now. Something was actively trying to take over his mind.

Some form of mental influence targeting his consciousness.

He cast Cleanse again.

The pain subsided further. Then he released his aura.

Every scrap of his consciousness pushed outward at once.

The shackles that tried to time him broke.

He gasped in relief as his mind snapped back to full clarity.

But the intrusion hadn’t been eliminated. It had been temporarily repelled. Something was still in the chamber trying to reach him, and it would resume its attack the moment his guard dropped.

His eyes swept the room.

Cragbrute corpses everywhere. Rubble. Water pooled across the floor. Fading traces of frost and lightning damage. But no other beast.

His gaze settled on the alpha’s corpse.

’If something can control minds or attack minds, it probably lives near a brain.’

Every mind-affecting creature Moon had ever read about in the Association’s beast bestiaries operated from close proximity to their host’s neural core. Whether they were parasites, symbiotes, or independent entities, they all clustered around the region where their target’s cognitive processes lived.

If the source was inside the chamber and there were no visible beasts left, it was inside a corpse.

The alpha was the most likely candidate.

Its intelligence had been abnormal from the start. Its ability to read patterns had been suspicious. Its resistance to Curse had been unique. All of it pointed toward something occupying its skull that wasn’t the alpha itself.

Moon walked to the alpha’s corpse.

He drew his sword.

He cracked open the skull.

The blade cut through the bone in a single sweep. He peeled back the top of the skull carefully, exposing the the alpha’s brain beneath.

Movement caught his eye at the corner of his vision.

Something small was already trying to escape.

A pale, worm-shaped creature the size of a finger was crawling out of the alpha’s brain and moving rapidly toward the edge of the corpse.

Its body was slick and segmented. Its head had no visible eyes or mouth, just a small cluster of feathery filaments that quivered as it moved. Its pace was surprisingly fast.

Moon didn’t hesitate.

Purple lightning erupted from his palm.

The bolt tore across the small distance and struck the parasite mid-crawl. The creature spasmed violently, its body seized and dropped back onto the alpha’s exposed brain.

Moon watched it twitch.

"No wonder the Cragbrute was so intelligent. Turns out you were the mastermind the entire time.

Trying to take over my mind too? Bold of you."

He extended his hand.

’Curse.’

The thread reached for the parasite’s soul. It made contact. It hooked in for a fraction of a second.

Then it snapped.

Moon’s smirk widened.

The parasite’s soul was strong. Much stronger than its physical body.

He couldn’t capture it just yet.

"You’re stubborn. But everything breaks eventually if you hit it in the right places."

He released another bolt of lightning.

The parasite convulsed on the exposed brain. Its segmented body writhed. Its filaments spasmed. It tried to burrow deeper into the alpha’s neural tissue for protection.

Moon fired again.

The parasite was clearly not a combat creature. It couldn’t fight him directly. Its entire strategy depended on hijacking a stronger host and letting the host do the fighting for it. Now that its host was dead and the parasite was exposed, it had nothing to defend itself with except its own soul defenses and its escape reflexes.

It tried to reach for Moon’s mind again.

He was ready this time. The parasite’s mental attack failed to penetrate his consciousness

Moon fired another bolt.

The parasite’s skin charred. Its color darkened from pale white to burnt gray.

Despite that, Moon did not stop, continuing his attacks.

After several hits, Moon stopped, realising that the parasite’s body was on the verge of collapsing. A few more bolts would kill it entirely.

"I can only try again."

He cast Curse a fourth time.

The thread reached the parasite. Its soul was weaker now.

The thread hooked in and held for several seconds this time, much longer than before.

Then it snapped.

Moon exhaled slowly.

"Still going strong, huh? You’re only making things difficult for yourself."

He raised his other hand and cast Minor Mend on the parasite.

Healing energy poured into the small creature’s body. Its charred skin began to knit back together. I

Moon’s plan had shifted.

Killing the parasite would be a big loss.

The only way to recruit it was to keep grinding its body down without killing it, while simultaneously healing it enough to prevent the physical death from becoming permanent.

He needed its body weak enough for Curse to overwhelm its soul, but not so weak that death itself became the escape route.

The cycle began.

Lightning bolts and waves of healing continued to rain down the parasite.

With each cycle the resistance to [Curse] thinned. Its ability to attack Moon’s mind dropped to nothing.

Watching it struggle and convulse, Moon spoke quietly.

"Give up. You’re only making it worse for yourself. Every cycle costs you more than the last one. Eventually your soul will break, and then I get you anyway. Save yourself the pain."

The parasite’s filaments quivered.

It was on the verge collapsing.

Moon cast Curse one more time.

The thread reached the parasite. Its soul defenses buckled under the accumulated damage of the past several minutes.

The thread hooked in cleanly this time, threading through the weak points that the cycle had opened.

The parasite went still.

Feeling the connection with his new subordinate, Moon smiled.

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