I was in a similar state as I always was. Drifting off from absolute unconsciousness and vague awareness. But this time I am surprised to feel mentally invigorated unlike before.

Looking down I see the corpses of a family plastered all over a ritual circle. Inside it is a mother and father with their live baby bleeding to death with a knife through its gut. From first glance it seems to me that Botiod has figured out how to create this ritual from the time i used it on his parents or i managed to convey to him how to do it in my non-lucid state.

No matter how it happened. I am happy to have finally been given this life line in the form of live human sacrifice. Allowing me to think of ways out of my trapped state.

I give him a mental nudge and tell him to spill alot of his blood into the fatally wounded baby. It seems like it was his plan to include the baby in the sacrifice and then eat all their flesh. In the hopes of getting another body modification.

Botiod was surprised but was ecstatic to have finally felt my presence in who knows how long since i last met him. He cuts a gigantic cut on his forearm and would have probably killed himself by bloodletting. If i wasn't fast enough to rush to that spot with viral agents. They quickly kick start the body healing and strategically clot blood in exposed veins to close up.

The blood that fell down and drench the quickly dying baby is tainted with my reproducer cells. Making it 10 times harder for the immune system to build up the defenses to build an immunity. And by that time. I should have fully replaced that internal mechanism and allowed my viral agents to fully replace its role.

But the baby is currently in critical condition. I force stop the blood pumping from the heart by eating the nerves connecting to the brain. And then force blood clotting to act as an emergency cauterization. Stopping blood loss completely. With the fully plugged veins. I restart the heart with new pathways heavily dilated to allow maximum blood flow in veins that can't normally handle it.

The methods i used were good enough to stabilize the baby. Allowing me to take stock of their physical qualities. The baby is a human male, their body has some indications of birth defects that will lower the quality of their vision, their skin lacks normal elasticity and they have a malformed brain with locks and tangles that might cause aneurysm randomly throughout this infant's life.

I don’t understand enough to fix it, maybe in the future when I supercharge my soul and my thought speed reaches levels high enough to allow learning everything and anything in seconds. But for now i can only keep watch on it and ease symptoms as they come up. But through my fits of unconsciousness. I doubt this infant will become fully viable for proper use, as they could just die when i am unavailable. But it's still worth it to keep them alive to act as a backup host that would at least allow me to not die instantly.

“Raise this child to adolescence.” I tell Botiod. I also fixed his body up even further. Making his every breath easier and reversing some of the stunted growth and small imperfections. Making him associate the ritual with personal physical improvement.

With so many changes so fast. I already feel the energy from the ritual already draining. Making me feel my thoughts becoming foggy. With a depressing lack of agency to my moments of clarity. I forcefully close my mind and store the soul energy. Falling unconscious instantly. But my body can't contain this energy so it's going to dissipate in a few hours anyway.

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1 month later.

“Sir, we have captured the criminal.” Infront of a militarized police officer is a chained handsome large man with adonis-like features. He is chained with steel cuffs and being guided around with spiked man catchers.

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This is Botiod. After the initial success of the second ritual. He became heavily emboldened and maddened with the rush of sculpting his body. Initially I was automatically choosing to change his body. But after he started capturing and kidnapping children to infect with my viral agents. He would pick exactly what he wanted to change. Which eventually was the cause of his capture.

It didn’t take long before he massacred towns to consume their flesh and force feed their children his blood. With such a large variety of hosts. I finally gained consistent consciousness. Allowing me to order him more directly and plan his attacks for him. Because of all the things that I can improve. I still don't understand enough of neurology to do anything but pinpoint which sections communicate with what. So he stayed as ignorant and stupid as he always was.

But because he is the only adult and able bodied host i have currently, I am forced to use him to supply me with a consistent supply of fresh vital energy. And you might be wondering why I would still need fresh material. Well I have been trying to edit my own body.

My viral form has vital flaws and all the extra soul energy allows my research to progress months of progress in minutes. But I spent this time mostly on researching my physical components and features. As most of my biological knowledge comes from old notes from Paragon ketz. He was a human and didn’t have extensive information on virus biology. And because I wasn't even a physical creature. I never bothered to learn much.

It's a shame that Botiod got captured. He was attacking his third target in a small trading town and as he was leaving with their infant, he was seen and the whole town was alerted. As a crowd gathered to stop him from running away with the baby, a whole squadron jumped out of the crowd and beat him with clubs and knives. I did minimal healing to keep him from bleeding out. But at this point I knew it was a lost cause.

He was found out because he was walking around with his size. Because of how abnormal he was. Almost everyone that saw him remembered him and he was very easy to point out. The town folk that called him out knew he didn't come with a baby and he was running out with a baby. And coupled with the news of the recent violent deaths with only babies missing from the scene. It wasn't difficult to come to the correct conclusion.

I sense the external presence of the police officers within Botiods body. His body is lacerated and the spikes are digging deep into his skin. Town folk joined in and beat him with sticks and threw rocks. A normal man would have died. But with his giant body, Botiod would have probably survived without my help healing.

They drag him to a cell that's too small for his giant frame. They keep him in this cell for two days. Giving him minimal food and no place to relieve himself. Forced to lay in his own excrement. I was sure to cover with viral agents to infect any future prisoner. And there were some competing infections that tried to take over. But with me acting as an intelligent immune system they lost instantly.

Botiod grew delirious in this period. Constantly asking for my help and to be delivered to Ardone. As he grew useless for my purposes. I am tempted to start cannibalizing his body and converting as much of it to viral agents as possible. But this can also be seen as an opportunity. It seems his crimes have crossed a threshold and he is going to be sent to be judged in the capital for his crimes against humanity. I overheard this by listening with the infant's ears. He was placed in the police office and is going to be sent to an orphanage.

Normally murder, burglary and child kidnapping would get you sent straight to a labour camp to die working and slaving away for life. But because of how brutal and vicious his crimes are. He could be sentenced to death directly. But with a body like his. It's not outside the realm of impossibility that he would manage to survive those bad conditions and act as a distant host.

But because of the range of my soul splitting. I would have to choose to either stay attached to Botiod or to choose to stay with the orphaned children. And honestly the choice isn't hard to make. Botiod is erratic and has been incarcerated. And i can always use the tethered nature of souls to their body and locate him or even take back control of the viral agents in him at any time.

So during the time he was incarcerated. I whispered plans and secrets into his ear. Explaining that i won't be there anymore and he will have to survive for years. Using the left soul energy from his last ritual to think up plans and schemes for him. That energy would have dissipated already, but the capacity of my body has greatly increased with the greater host amounts. So i am able to store it for longer.

The cell door swung open and three men dragged him up and shoved him into a carriage with chains all over his body. It didn't take long for the carriage to get out of my range and I lost connection to him.

Good luck. You were my first host. I'll at least remember that.