Tentacly Restart
"Become your what now?"
The demonic tech knight tilted its head as if not understand what he asked.
"I am asking you to become my child, my offspring, spawn born from my cells, do you understand? You can mini version of a living being that's used to leave its genetic trail to the world."
It starts speaking slowly and gently even moving its hands to make gestures as if explaining it to a child that doesn't understand anything. Which made Sol feel frustrated and made him say in rather a grumpy tone.
"I know what a child is but what do you mean by me becoming your child?"
The creature tilted its head once again.
"Simple, I will rewrite your DNA."
Sol didn't like what he was hearing, god knows what that will do to him, maybe he will turn into a freaking mass tentacle too.
"C'mon, it's a pretty normal process, it won't hurt... not that much."
Sol stared at the demonic tech knight with a little deadpan look.
"It's not normal at all. Agh!"
His wounds start aching, a strange blue veins appear on his already pale skin making him grit his teeth. His eyes are now bloodshot and his breathing becomes heavier.
"It seems like my offspring is blood in your vein started acting up after sensing me."
Hearing this Sol couldn't help but remember the blue blood he was drinking to survive.
'Curses, I knew that thing would have bitten my ass back.'
"Offspring? That weird eldritch horror outside is yours? Is it trying to free you or something?"
The creature shook its head.
"Quite the opposite actually, it's just a simple remnant and now it's trying to devour me while I am weak. Do you really think I will wanna be trapped here in this sphere inside this stupid armor on my will? Mages from my home world and gods saw me threat so they all used whatever they could to seal me and throw me into a dimensional storm."
The creature then moved its metal shell as its hand came in front of him and its gauntlet broke into pieces revealing not exactly a simple mass of chaotic tentacle but something else. Sol instinctively flinched, his breath catching at the sight of the creature's revealed hand — or whatever it was. The writhing appendage was a grotesque fusion of organic and mechanical, layered with sinewy muscles and twitching fibers intertwined with gleaming bone-like structures. Pulsing blue veins mapped across its surface glowed faintly, making it look disturbingly alive despite its alien nature.
"So how about you make a choice? Your body won't last long anyway it's already hitting its limit and not only that my offspring is blood already killing you from inside."
His eyes twitched, now, he needed to make a choice, either he gamble and accept the deal and hope for the best. If he was unlucky this thing might take his body or he would turn into a mass of tentacles like the one outside. Of course, there is always the choice of simply dying with the hope that it won't use his corpse for something.
"What will happen if I accept your offer? Mutate into something similar to one outside?"
The creature answered in a nonchalant tone.
"That's one possibility. Or you will remain the same but stronger, faster, and smarter. There are also many other possibilities. I collected quite a lot in my gene pool over the years you know."
More it spoke more Sol doesn't wanna accept this offer of the creature, it sounds even more unreliable than the quack doctor that diagnosed him with the Gate Syndrome. Even that fat guy sounded more reliable than it.
"What's it in for you? I'm sure you aren't doing it for the goodness of your heart."
"Oh, heavens no. I am no saint or never was anyone with good karma in fact. The price is obvious, isn't it? The DNA I left inside you will keep rewriting your DNA till you turn into me. And I didn't mean it metaphorically or in some fancy way I meant it in simple terms I am taking over your body. Of course, as long you didn't manage to eliminate the DNA Data that's overtaking your body."
Sol can't see its face but he can imagine this thing having shit eating grin when saying this to him. So, taking this option not only gamble of species but also living on borrowed time. It's probably the worst terms anyone could offer to someone but for some reason, Sol felt a smile finding its way on his face.
Perhaps it's because the creature was honest with him explaining all the cons of the deal to him openly which is a rare trait for where he grew up.
'For some reason, I feel like this offer just suits me.'
Since coming here he constantly took a risk, the risk of fighting that bug monster and the risk of climbing to the center of its offspring, and many more. Even talking to it this long was a risk considering the feeling of his body trying to dig its way inside his body.
"You smile in the face of madness. I like that, reminds me of my younger days and many of my offspring that I had good relationships with."
Sol answered with a shrug earning himself a bloody cough.
"What can I say? I've always had a bad relationship with anything that's good."
The creature's glowing eyes pulsed brighter, its appendage shifting with excitement.
"That's the spirit. I look forward to witnessing this struggle."
Sol gritted his teeth, suppressing the wave of pain clawing through his body.
"So what's the first step? Some blood ritual or do I just sign a contract with you? Seems like your world was more arcane than one would thought."
The creature's appendage moved closer, radiating an unsettling heat.
"No ritual is necessary. I simply need contact. Hold still—this will be... enlightening."
Sol didn't like what the creature's words implied.
"I swear if you dare to do whatever I am thinking and say one more thing—"
And what happened next was something that can't be described other than tentacles... lots of tentacles... that are used not in a pleasant way. After all that only thing that greeted him was endless darkness but before it, he heard a distant whisper in his mind. It was the voice of the Gate he hadn't heard for a while.
[Your race has been changed to something greater.]
'Something greater my ass.'