The cultists had been many things.
Fanatics.
Murderers.
Terrible decision-makers.
But one thing they were not was disorganized.
Which was why, after spending the better part of an hour making sure there were no surviving cultists, hidden summoning circles, or demons with even longer names lurking around, I eventually found what I suspected every evil cult kept somewhere.
A library.
Or, more accurately—
A room full of books that would probably cause at least three churches to collectively faint.
I sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by stacks of ancient tomes.
Some were bound in leather.
Some in scales.
One appeared to be bound in something I deliberately chose not to identify.
I put that one back immediately.
There were limits.
The information itself, however?
Fascinating.
Absolutely fascinating.
Most of it was forbidden magic.
Ancient magic.
Heretical magic.
The kind of magic officially declared evil by institutions that really preferred nobody ask too many questions.
Blood magic.
Soul magic.
Mind magic.
Necromancy.
Several branches of magic that had apparently been outlawed because they worked too well.
As it turned out, blood magic was exactly what it sounded like.
Manipulating blood.
Your blood.
Someone else's blood.
The blood inside a body.
The blood outside a body.
The blood moving through veins.
The blood currently decorating a wall.
Very versatile.
Very dangerous.
And considering what I was—
A giant colony of biological organisms pretending to be one creature—
I had a feeling blood magic and I were going to become very close friends.
Soul magic was somehow even more concerning.
I learned methods of locating individual souls.
Tracking them.
Marking them.
Binding them.
Even separating them from bodies under very specific circumstances.
I made a mental note to be extremely cautious around anyone capable of using those spells.
At least until I figured out how my own soul worked.
Mind magic was where things became alarming.
There were spells that allowed someone to influence thoughts.
Extract memories.
Read surface emotions.
Manipulate perception.
And then there were the other spells.
The ones buried deep in books that were hidden inside locked chests that were hidden inside secret rooms.
Those spells didn't merely read minds.
They excavated them.
They pulled information directly from a person's consciousness.
The downside was simple.
The victim generally became brain-dead afterward.
A small price to pay, according to the author.
I disagreed.
Mostly because that sounded inefficient.
Dead people stopped generating information.
Then there was the demon.
Or rather—
The book about the demon.
I stared at the title.
Then tried reading it.
Then tried again.
Then a third time.
The language itself wasn't the problem.
The problem was that the name looked like someone had thrown an alphabet down a flight of stairs.
I spent nearly five minutes trying to pronounce it.
Failed every time.
Failed differently every time.
And eventually gave up.
"God damn it."
I rubbed my face.
Or at least the current version of my face.
"You know what?"
I pointed at the cover.
"Demon with a long-ass name."
Problem solved.
The demon now had a proper designation.
I closed the book.
Then immediately threw it across the room.
The book hit a wall.
The wall survived.
The book survived.
My patience did not.
After calming down, I looked around.
The cult base was valuable.
Too valuable.
It contained information.
Resources.
Research.
Potential future discoveries.
Abandoning it completely felt wasteful.
Then an idea occurred to me.
A wonderfully terrible idea.
My favorite kind.
I had consumed fungus before.
Mushrooms too.
Several varieties, actually.
Some glowing.
Some poisonous.
Some capable of spreading through entire forests unnoticed.
And I was, fundamentally, a biological colony.
Which meant—
I could leave part of myself here.
Not a body.
Not an active consciousness.
A backup.
I got to work immediately.
The first step was appearances.
No hidden evil lair should look conveniently untouched.
That would be suspicious.
So I fixed that.
Aggressively.
I smashed furniture.
Tore apart shelves.
Knocked books into piles.
Broke support structures.
Collapsed sections of wall.
Then I collapsed more walls.
And then a few additional walls simply because they looked structurally confident.
Soon, entire hallways connected through gaping holes.
Doors ceased to matter.
Corridors ceased to exist.
The whole place looked like an extremely determined bear had decided architecture was a personal insult.
A bear with anger issues.
And possibly siege equipment.
Perfect.
Now it looked abandoned.
Or cursed.
Possibly both.
Then I liquefied.
Flesh became fluid.
Fluid became countless microscopic organisms.
I spread myself through cracks in stone.
Across walls.
Beneath floors.
Inside ceilings.
Along roots.
Through dirt.
And finally into fungal networks.
Tiny bioluminescent mushrooms emerged in hidden corners.
Harmless-looking.
Almost pretty.
Nobody would look at them and think:
"This entire ruin is technically alive."
Which was exactly the point.
Hours later, the process was complete.
The ruin remained.
The backup remained.
And a small part of me would continue watching.
Waiting.
Growing.
Learning.
As for the rest of me—
I formed a new body.
An eagle this time.
Efficient.
Fast.
Inconspicuous enough.
I launched myself from the ruined structure and climbed into the evening sky.
Wind rushed beneath my wings.
Forests stretched below.
Roads appeared in the distance.
And beyond them—
Civilization.
A village.
Maybe a city.
Somewhere with actual people.
Actual information.
Actual context.
Because while becoming a world-ending biological anomaly was all well and good—
I still knew embarrassingly little about the world I was supposedly destined to destroy.
So I banked toward the horizon.
Toward smoke rising from distant chimneys.
Toward answers.
And hopefully—
Toward a place where nobody was trying to summon demons with long-ass names.