Chapter 27: Capture and Dilemma

Is it really that impressive to be able to stretch your limbs? Is it truly so unexpected to sprout extra appendages from your body for surprise attacks?

“I’m a man who can shoot lasers, and even I haven’t said a word—how dare you try to show off in front of me?” Joss raised his head and laughed arrogantly, at the same time marveling at the perks of being gifted—he could even transform his clothes into energy. Otherwise, he’d have had to stroll home in the nude.

From the outset, Joss’s target wasn’t Venom, but rather the vampire Walker residing within it. As a symbiote, Venom possessed a body that could render physical attacks nearly useless, along with formidable regenerative powers and combat abilities. Yet it also had a fatal weakness: its host.

Walker’s headless corpse, aided by Venom, was still attempting to repair itself. However, compared to the speed at which a slain vampire turns to dust, Venom’s regeneration was little more than a drop in the ocean. Venom could grant its host powerful healing, but that ability was not without limits. Chief among them: the host must be alive, if only barely breathing, for the healing to work at all.

But when the host is killed instantly, Venom’s vaunted regeneration becomes worthless. Furthermore, the energy Venom uses to heal the host is drawn from the host’s own reserves—otherwise, in the original story, Eddie wouldn’t have been driven to ravenous hunger afterward.

This is intrinsic to the nature of symbiotes: they consume their hosts. With rare exceptions among long-term hosts, most temporary vessels are devoured by the symbiote’s power, unable to withstand it and dying as a result.

Taken together, Walker’s death was inevitable.

The laser Joss fired was an even deadlier weapon to vampires than silver. For an ordinary vampire, even a wound to the limb could be fatal. As for Walker, he took a direct, close-range shot to the head—Venom had no chance to help him recover. In fact, to avoid being dragged down with him, Venom leapt off Walker at the first possible moment.

Without a host, Venom resembled a wad of black chewing gum, flopping and squirming on the ground. Not only had it lost the power of speech, but it was questionable whether it retained any coherent thought at all.

Even though it looked like nothing more than a slime, Joss didn’t dare lower his guard. After all, the memory of that otherworldly, overpowered creature Sertur—no, that heroic figure—was still fresh in his mind.

Sure enough, even as an amorphous mass, Venom launched a ferocious assault on Joss. Its body, now shrunken and formless, attacked with even greater speed and unpredictability. Once separated from its host, a symbiote dies rapidly; thus, Venom was truly fighting for its life now.

Only then did Joss realize that this blob of slime was even harder to deal with than before. Blades were useless, and even his laser, designed for pinpoint penetration, was ill-suited to dealing with such a sprawling, amorphous foe.

Venom feinted, then lunged at Joss, while simultaneously shooting off globs of black mucus from behind, each with the force of a bullet.

But Joss, now seasoned in battle, twisted his body to dodge the pounce, swept aside two liquid bullets with his sword, and broke the deadly assault in an instant.

Suddenly, the blob emitted a bizarre, gurgling laugh, bounced off the wall, and shot back at him even faster than before.

“Damn!” In a split second, Joss realized what it was planning and tried to turn with his sword to block. But with nowhere to brace himself, he couldn’t move in time. In a heartbeat, Venom had already latched onto him, rapidly seeping inside.

“Ahahahahaha! Now Venom is inside your body!” Venom’s triumphant, terrifying laughter echoed within Joss.

“You know, you sound pretty creepy saying things like that,” Joss retorted, rolling his eyes at the voice inside him.

“What do you mean? Don’t you realize that now you—wait, what is this? Aaaaaaaah!”

Venom’s tone shifted from confusion to terror in an instant.

“Heh... you dare to try and invade my body? You clearly have no idea what death means,” Joss sneered, unsurprised by Venom’s reaction.

Standing in the room, Joss could almost hear Venom’s soul-wrenching screams of fear echoing outward.

“This can’t be! Why is this happening? Why don’t you have a brain?!”

Joss: “You’re the one with no brain!”

Venom: “No, really, I’m serious—normally I’d just eat it, but now I can’t even find it. Mind giving me some directions?”

Joss was immediately annoyed. “Directions, my ass! Just sit tight and wait for death!”

He could more or less guess what Venom was experiencing. Or rather, it matched his original suspicions: Joss’s body was home to a true god—his system.

Venom, having entered his body, was like a lamb thrown to the wolves, instantly set upon by the system, which would pick it clean. As for not finding his brain, that was no surprise either—Joss’s memories contained information about the system, and there was no way Venom would be allowed access to that.

[Venom symbiote successfully captured.]

[Mission complete.]

[Threat level: Moderate.]

[Reward: 2,411 points of Reckless Source, one fresh Venom symbiote.]

“Still, now that I’ve got Venom... what am I supposed to do with this thing?”

In the comics, a symbiote’s personality develops under the host’s influence. In the movies, symbiotes seemed to be a chaotic mix of evil alignments. In other words, how this Venom came to be this way was irrelevant—the important thing was that its personality was such a mess, it could star in three seasons of a reality show before finally admitting it was wrong.

Joss was envious of Venom’s powers, but he wasn’t keen on having such a creature inside him. Especially given its vile temperament and its record of being beaten up by its own offspring, grandchildren, or even the old man next door—it didn’t seem like anything essential.

A sudden sound interrupted Joss’s musings. He slapped his forehead, suddenly remembering what he’d forgotten. Since it was a mission from the system, there clearly had to be further instructions for handling the symbiote.

Sure enough, as the mission was completed, the system interface refreshed once more.