Gomez started planting the explosive. His small plans to destroy Maria’s reputation had somehow worked. While he was busy, Gomez’s friend was mixing the explosive powder with other look-alike substances. Gomez was against killing them at first—he had never taken anyone’s life—but his friend, who had been in more dangerous jobs, changed his mind.

  A sound from the back alarmed them at first, but looking around and finding nothing, they continued their work. After all, if anything bad happened, it would be a victory for them as well.

  After a bit of tampering with the devices, Gomez gave a sign to his friend that he would go to tamper with the other devices. His friend gave him a thumbs up and continued with their plan.

  This time he went to the poison-mixer. While he was working, he heard another sound. Looking back, he didn’t see anything, but he could feel something around his ear. Scratching revealed a slimy trail, like a snail had crawled up his shoulder. As he cleaned it, his vision started to blur, his mind went numb, and his body slowly fell. He could not see clearly, but a long worm-like creature was moving over his body. After that, his mind went black. When he woke up, he could not move, even without being tied up.

  Titus was lucky; he got two new hosts and now controlled six bodies. He no longer needed to give commands to each host individually. After everything, he was ready for his evolution.

  “Hey Lumina, what will happen to the hosts I have? Will they be used in case of an upgrade?”

  “No, the required number of hosts is not consumed for the upgrade. It exists to ensure the user is strong enough to undergo the next evolution. Without meeting it, existing organs would weaken.”

  He read the new descriptions for all of the evolutions:

  After some thought, he planned his next evolution. He waited a day for the upgrade. When it was Gabriel’s shift, and he was in a safer position, he ensured all his hosts were home and began the next upgrade. A hard, shell-like egg began to wrap around his body. It was two meters tall, one meter wide, pitch black, and pulsing like a beating heart as it grew.

  Titus was asleep. In that sleep, he relived his last memories—how a debt collector had killed him in his previous life. Despite his efforts to repay, he failed. In the last five days, he went mad: shoplifting, stealing, assault, and even contemplating kidnapping for money. Eventually, the debt collectors found him. On a sunny day, he was killed by a homeless man with a knife—a cover-up. They had shot him while trying to bring him to their boss.

  He wished to go back and take revenge, but it was impossible. He lived in a different generation, where people used toothbrushes and took blood tests instead of photographs to investigate. He had to accept that he died in vain. After this memory, he found himself in a black void. He could see nothing but could hear an angelic voice—it was his mother. They argued about the past, but nothing good came from it. He wished it was all a dream, but he knew it was real. After all of that, he came back.

  He woke up with a new body. His height had grown to five meters, his weight increased. His back shell now protected his entire body and had grown additional layers for extra strength. His needle-like feet had grown to one meter. Tentacles extended from his chest, moving freely but with full strength. His facial tentacles increased in number. His face now had eight eyes, and his mouth contained small knife-like teeth. He looked around and could no longer fit comfortably between the tables.