"Second, Kaliwot. You did amazing in your battles against Dracosect. In fact, you've continued to fight him even as the strength gap between you two has grown. This is admirable and deserves a reward all its own."

"Thank you, my god."

"I don't owe you like I do Dracosect, so you probably won't be catching up to him any time soon. That said, Pride has continued to support your Will through his Will leech— but this needs to be properly fixed sooner rather than later. Once it's under control, I'll additionally supplement your Will as a bit of repayment for Pride and Greed's actions."

I look into Kaliwot's Will.

Pride's leech has grown thousands of times larger. His power was unpacked after we released his sin body, so some of it mistakenly flowed out into this now-gigantic leech. It's become akin to Kaliwot's feeble grain-sized Will getting crushed under a giant football stadium.

image [https://timjames.net/data/acd/images/145.png]

Turns out— Pride no longer has control over this Will leech. The Will he previously used to control it is instead exponentially fattening the Will leech. We should've waited to remove his Parasitic Will talent... If I'd known this would happen? Reah, I definitely would've.

We did remove all the other leeches. We couldn't remove Kaliwot's because of her feeble Will. Though it pains me to say, rah... Singularity annihilations and Abyssals took priority over her personal issues.

I told her as much. She said she was grateful to remain not transformed into a sin. She likes her original body and does NOT want to modify it; at least not yet. This is a bit different from most dragons. Of course, in my hoard, all body modifications are optional.

I have godly powers. I can do whatever I want, which means if I don't want something? It won't happen. I apply the same logic to my beloved dragons and their bodies.

Well, except my own changes, anyway. Despite my focus on maintaining free Will, I'm the only one who doesn't have a choice in whether I mutate. I'm not sure it can be called 'evolution' if the end result is mass death.

It's doubly ironic because my mantra has long been that dragons must always grow stronger. The thing is, sometimes you don't want to get stronger in a specific way. There may be good reasons why. Is not wanting to extinguish all life a decent reason? Seems solid to me.

None of my dragons have refused when gifted raw power, of course. Nor have I. THAT would be antithetical to my idea of a dragon. I wouldn't force it if they wanted to be weaker... But I can't imagine any dragon would. It's just not in our makeup. We're not like other species who sometimes get a kick out of being weak or submissive.

Strength runs in our bones— literally. Again, that's why dragons grow larger as they get stronger. Humans, elves, and dwarves don't. Not even kaizen can grow like a dragon. I found an extinct sapient species I've named 'talshos' based on how they referred to themselves; they were a seafaring race similar to whales which used telekinetic powers to live their daily lives. They didn't grow like a dragon either. Similarly, none of the... Other, sapient monsters grow.

Rugh. I hate the fact that dragons are technically monsters. Should I fix that?

Anyway, I've realized that most sapient monster tribes don't tend to build sustained civilizations. There're a lot of different sapient monster species on many different planets, but the vast majority either die out or are killed off by more dominant species such as humans. Being sapient doesn't necessarily mean high intelligence, so, perhaps a dragon's unique physical growth trait has helped us in this regard.

I notice something odd and shift my distracted attention. I examine the connection between Kaliwot's Will and her Will leech— no. Connections, plural. Roh, that's not good.

Normally there's only one, but it looks like there's eight or nine. Two of the connections are unusually thick and clear.

I look closer. Some of Kaliwot's Will fragments are flowing out into the leech through these two thicker connections. The leech looks like an enormous tumor whose scale completely outstrips my poor patient. Worse, the two are mixing— and it's definitely not in Kaliwot's favor.

The leech also seems to be changing. I detect a basic level of intelligence from what should be a mindless drone. Is it feeding on her memories and gaining intellect?

Thankfully, Kaliwot's stolen Will fragments still seem accessible to her own mind, so it hasn't hurt her.

Yet.

Besides the Will draining faculties, this leech possesses faculties which can cause Kaliwot's body to change in various ways. This one can't make her a sin of Pride, at least not anymore, but she doesn't want to change at all. So, after taking note of the leech's structure— I remove these.

The leech dislikes my prodding and swiftly wraps itself fully around Kaliwot's Will.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Damnit! It really is turning into a creature with a mind of its own.

It still has other faculties which can alter the structure of her Will. I want to remove them, but I can't get at them because the leech has wrapped itself into a ball. Instead, I try to ply out the ones which drain her Will.

The leech gets crafty and snags a chunk of my Will and devours it. It quickly grows new faculties alongside the draining ones. It sends out a signal I interpret as 'see, I don't want to hurt my host, stop hurting me please!'

I examine those faculties... They can indeed be used to bolster rather than drain Kaliwot's Will.

The leech snags my Will again. Its already fat body quickly bloats larger.

image [https://timjames.net/data/acd/images/145b.png]

Hey, what do you think you're doing?

I send back 'you just stole some of the Will I was going to give her, so...'

It responds by asking for more.

More? Really?

I examine the situation.

Kaliwot's Will is ensconced deep within this leech's immense slug-like form. I can't get it out, and the leech keeps stealing the Will I'm using for surgery. I can't add a talent onto my Will directly, because I've purposely removed the Origin aspect from my Will for this surgery. I have no idea what that damn crystal corruption will do if I slosh it around in here. I've also zero desire to find out. Plus, I'm definitely not going to experiment on one of my beloved dragons.

I examine Kaliwot's memories. They're pretty heavily coated in Origin Crystal. If I added Origin, merely touching the leech could cause me to absorb Kaliwot's Will. They're far too interlinked.

I put an Origin thread close to the leech anyway to test. I feel a huge excitement like 'yes! eat!'

Rhum, no?

The leech doesn't move. I think it can't sense my Origin thread at all.

I pull the thread out.

The Will leech's total Will is well beyond what any creature should have at its level. Kaliwot's Will, on the other hand, is basically nothing. She's mentally weaker than most mortals. She's got between 0.1 to 0.2 Will left in her.

I see action from the leech, then realize the leech seems to be supporting her Will like Pride did. It's copying what it'd been told to do before.

Is this a show of goodwill? Even if it's pretending to cooperate, I don't think the Will leech would kill her. Plus, it can't force her to chan— hey, what are you doing?

The Will leech moves all its faculties deep inside itself, then grows a new one. It's identical to the body modification faculty I destroyed.

Damn you! This thing can replicate its faculties. Maybe there's a faculty in there which can perform this task. Which means there's no way for me to harm the Will leech without also harming Kaliwot. Unless I get a lot stronger than I am now.

I look again. It's still supporting Kaliwot's Will. Except, it's growing more and thicker tendrils into her Will. More of her memories are flowing out, too. I detect the leech's intellect increasing; it lets out a bit of excitement as though it understands what it's gaining.

Haah. Alright. I can't get the damn thing out so... Reh, I'll keep feeding it like Pride did, hopefully making it satiated enough that it won't randomly decide to consume her Will. It doesn't need to modify her body; it could simply replace her mind and Will with its own.

"Sorry, Kaliwot. I can't get the leech out. It won't change you into a Pride sin, but I couldn't get rid of the faculty it uses to do that. However, it got my message and has decided to support your Will on its own. I'm gonna feed it from now on to keep it fat and lazy. I have effectively infinite Will, while Pride doesn't. So, that's just how it'll be until I can get it out."

"Actually, my god, please don't remove it. I feel as though it's started to care for me, strange though that may seem. Did it perhaps turn into a symbiotic organism?"

I remember the new faculty it grew.

"I think maybe it did? It grew a structure which could strengthen your Will. Maybe that's why you feel that way?"

She nods her dragon head.

"I don't want to be in my great god Chronovoid's debt. So, please give it all the Will you were going to use to fix my Will, then leave it be. Though, Pride has more than made up for his side of things as well, I want to repa—"

I raise my clawed hand to stop her.

"None of this would've happened if not for the sins. He's paid his dues. You owe him nothing."

She nods and half bows in a submissive manner.

"I understand, my god. Then, I'd like to trade the physical power you were going to give me for more Will. I know I can't catch up to Dracosect. I want to see if I can develop this symbiotic organism into my own unique ability."

Roh, that's brilliant! Risky as hell, but if she wants to try? I won't deny her the opportunity. Of course, I'm a bit worried the lee— roh, following her wishes, let's call it a 'memocyte.'

I'm worried the memocyte is influencing her choices. But, I don't think it should be smart enough to pull that off, at least not yet, so this should still be her own intentions.

"This is extremely risky. The Will is the foundation of our entire being. Are you SURE you want to leave it in there?"

"Yes, my god. I feel like it wants to help me get stronger in my own way. It knows my thoughts and has already reassured me it won't change my body unless I agree to it."

Must be because I destroyed that faculty. The memocyte can't read her mind... Again, not yet.

"As you wish."

I inject the large mass of Will I intended to give to Kaliwot, plus my bonus reward for her fighting spirit against Dracosect, directly into the memocyte. It squirms happily and grows larger several dozens of times over. Just when I'm getting annoyed, it finally puts some of what it received back into Kaliwot's fragile Will. Her tiny grain of a Will expands into a golfball. She thus has a few dozen points of Will, which is plenty to keep her alive.

image [https://timjames.net/data/acd/images/145c.png]

I sigh.

Her much-enlarged Will is somehow even smaller relative to this city-sized slug of a memocyte. But, at least her Will is no longer on the verge of breaking apart. Even though it's just a tad, the memocyte did follow through on what it signaled it would do. Since this is what Kaliwot wants, I have to be satisfied. It's not my decision unless she's in mortal danger. In which case I'm ripping it out.

"It helped repair your Will somewhat. It seems you've made a strange new friend. I've decided to name its species 'memocyte.'"

She thinks for a moment.

"Meme is quite content and happy. This makes me feel happy, too. I'll experiment with my blobby friend and see what we can do together. This is a unique opportunity formed by unusual circumstances! I'm very proud to be the first memocyte owner."

The first...? And she names it MEME?

Does she know?

A viral meme, but in biological form?

Ruhm.

I hope that's not what we've made.

I'll... Keep a close eye on her.

If I see _≤^0w0^≥_.rawr

What should I do?

I've no idea.