The Mantis Corruption - Book Three - 10. Chapter 10 - Ronging, Part Two

Ronging lurched across the grasslands with the river in sight to one side; it would lead him to the richest hunting grounds. His thoughts were a void, his emotions nonexistent. There was only the need. There was nothing left of him. Ronging was the need.

As he got his first glimpse of the metropolis, his eyes raged with joy and desire. Its outskirts stretched north, and that was where Ronging was certain to satiate his craving. He slunk into the brush and again waited for nightfall.

The northernmost township that connected to the capital of Ruburge was Tuilii la Ru. In those congested narrow streets, Ronging could sense his prey even now. It took all his effort to restrain himself for the last few hours. With each day that passed since his unearthly craving began to flare up again, the necessity to fill it grew stronger. The burning of his addiction had grown into a furious inferno that scorched his soul.

Slowly, evening crept over the world, and Ronging raced into the quiet town. His senses were electric, and as he drew closer, he could feel multiple photonova glands that were ripe for the taking. He just needed to find the right person, one he could overcome. Ronging knew that he was attracting attention to himself, and though he normally would have been more cautious, he rushed down one narrow street after another. His need was his guide.

It was not long before Ronging found what he sought, and all of his senses focused on the individual.

Down a shadowy alleyway, a man was slumped against the wall. He was barely conscious, mumbling to himself, and gripping the neck of a stoneware jug.

Ronging approached, leered over him, and he was unaffected by the stink of his alcohol on the man’s breath. The drunkard’s bleary eyes moved up Ronging’s weird body, and the monster grabbed him by the face and smashed the back of his head against the wall. Ronging roared, and the inebriated Shift man was no match. The creature slammed the drunkard’s skull into the stones over and over until the masonry was beginning to crack, and the man’s brains were smashed like jelly.

Then Ronging froze. His entire being was honed in on the one tiny thing that could satisfy his twisted addiction. He rolled the convulsing body onto its stomach and used two of his arms to hold the man down while his third hand reached into the splatter.

Ronging dug furiously through the hideous opening in the back of the man’s head, flinging chunks of brain around the alleyway. He was focused like there was nothing else in the universe except that which he sought. When his fingers found the Shift man’s photonova gland, Ronging let out a peel of ecstasy and pushed himself up to his bizarre standing position. He did not even look at the tiny crystal before shoving it into the mouth he was born with, and he swallowed hard.

Pain struck, and it radiated through Ronging’s bizarre body like pleasure. He screamed in rapturous agony, and it ravaged through him in morbid delight. Like the terrible beast he was, he howled up at the grey clouds, as his bizarre body changed yet again.

Ronging did not wait for the new body parts to grow, the ones he knew were about to sprout from him. He headed back out to the edge of town and started off into the grasslands. His semblance of a smile, a weird distorted thing, spread across his multiple-mouthed face. He wailed in ecstasy, as his transformation began.

Little bulges pushed from the flesh of his back, and his wicked laughter rang out through the quiet region east of the Ru River, as a fresh row of teeth split through Ronging’s skin. They grew in a long strip from the middle of one shoulder blade to his low back. Out of the side of his face sprang one finger, then another, and then a third, and he squealed in delighted torment as meaty appendages protruded from his torso in bulging mounds.

His pain subsided, and his change was complete.

The journey back to Gunge would take Ronging days✪