"Madam Hanya’s going to kill meeee!"

Huohuo let out terribly distressed wails from beside Guinaifen, who was dragging the horrified Foxian by the arm. In her other hand, she held onto her phone stick, because, well...

Clips were clips, as it were.

Sushang sighed.

"At this rate, we’re never going to find him. Maybe we should just wait him out?"

Guinaifen stared at the brunette for a few long moments, before turning to her phone screen with a professionally practiced smile.

"Well, chat? What should we do?"

A stream of comments came flooding in.

SoggySoviet: "Capture that filthy communist."

Issagi: "@SoggySoviet this might sound crazy..."

KsoGhost: "Who cares? You’re just larping ghosthunting anyways lol."

Excuse_Me_Sir: "Did someone say larp?"

The following comments followed a similar trend, causing Guinaifen’s expression to quickly fall.

The incident in the mansion was the first major success for her channel. After all, she had her camera pushed up on the face of a genuine legend. Outside of her usual fans, most of her viewers were simply attracted by the fame of the man who led an army of Sleepers out of an unexplored Death Zone.

That didn’t happen often. With how many human settlements there were in the Dream Realm, it was more likely for Sleepers to end up near a conquered Citadel than not. Though, perhaps that was simply the Nightmare Spell showing mercy...

There wasn’t any useful approximations of how much of the post-apocalyptic world hasn’t been explored — both because many factions keep information of where their Awakened were stationed to themselves, and because the Dream Realm limited technology. Even Spelltech had a tendency to fail.

Nobody even knew there was anything north of the Hollow Mountains until the Dreamer Army escaped the Forgotten Shore.

It goes to show how much weight the name of the Starkiller carried, strength excluded.

But people were fickle. After so many busted Heliobus leads, Guinaifen’s viewers grew bored. The ones who were watching for the Starkiller lost interest. The ones who wanted to see ghosts getting captured lost interest. The only ones who were left were Guinaifen’s diehard fans...

TheStrongestBug: "How dare you let him get possessed? Do you have a death wish?"

...And Sunny’s diehard fans, it seemed.

FatiguedHermit: "Simp."

Reasonablefish: "Simp." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Hiki_Hayshe: "Simp."

Somehow, Guinaifen felt a very pressing urge to find Sunny through any means necessary. Well, she was going to do that anyways, lest the stream grow boring, but now she felt like her life was at stake.

The question, however, was how they were supposed to find—

"WHEE—!"

A black blur zipped over their heads. Huohuo yelped.

"Mister Tail?!"

...Looked like they found him.

***

Tail’s entire being spread across Sunny’s nerves like a network. Piece by piece, he slowly purged out more and more of the opposing Heliobus, leading to Tail slowly gaining control.

A battle between two Heliobi was a simple one. It was a battle of territory — one that was usually won by the stronger Heliobus. Tail was an Ascended Demon, while the Heliobus who had conquered Sunny’s body was an Awakened Monster. Naturally, the odds favored the former.

Heliobi were creatures of great intelligence. As such, even a Beast or Monster of their species had intellect rivaling that of humans, with Demons typically far surpassing them. Moreover, the intelligence of Heliobi happened to scale with their Rank as well, not just their Class. In the distant past, when Heliobi were able to roam free, their ability to deceive humans to their whim was unmatched.

...Nowadays, humanity has become directly conscious of their existence, with numerous means to detect them. If there was one thing that Heliobi lacked in comparison to humans, it was creativity.

As Tail spread across Sunny’s nerves, his awareness did, too. He sensed every signal, every response. And through it, he found something strange...

Due to their nature, Heliobi can generally guess hormonal reactions based on the activity of a human’s nerves. There was a distinction between different age groups, as well as the precise Rank, Attributes, and Aspect Abilities of an Awakened. Sunny’s nerves reacted at a higher rate than most Ascended, but that wasn’t too surprising. It was still under the bounds of Saints — not that Tail ever had the luxury of infiltrating a Saint before.

Moreover, Tail could easily guess that there was an excess of dopamine flowing through Sunny. The excited jolts of his nerves was proof of that.

It was to be expected, as without inhibitions, Sunny would do whatever he wished. But what really confused Tail was the ’maturity’ of his signals.

It reminded him too much of Huohuo, who, despite being older than Sunny chronologically, was actually younger in terms of both physical and mental maturity. That was how it was for long-life species like Foxians.

In the end, Tail brushed it off. Sunny was only eighteen, so it wasn’t too crazy for him to be underdeveloped by two or three years. Malnutrition could be a cause for it.

Eventually, Tail managed to take control over the peripheral nervous system, which meant he had conquered all the connecting nerves of Sunny’s body. Now, he needed to extend his assault to the spine and brain, starting with the former, naturally.

’...Something’s wrong.’

The Awakened Monster should have put up more of a fight. The difference of one Rank and Class was large, but not large enough for victory to be impossible. The Monster had the homefield advantage, which slowed Tail down, sure... but it was almost as if the other Heliobus wasn’t putting his all into stopping Tail.

Tail lingered for a moment, before infiltrating Sunny’s spinal cord.