The world has a specific smell when 50,000 people hold their breath at the same time. It smells like static electricity and collective anxiety.

  We were center stage, Luna and I, scrubbing the green blood of a Captive Basilisk that the Solar Knight had just decapitated for the delight of the cameras.

  The spotlights were so bright I could feel the heat on the back of my neck.

  "Ten seconds to camera loop," Valéria's voice crackled in my earpiece, almost inaudible under the roar of the crowd. "Don't miss. If he drinks the original, his parasite gets stronger and we turn into confetti."

  I pushed the cleaning cart to the ceremonial table.

  The Solar Knight had his back to us, waving to the audience. He glowed. The golden armor reflected the public's adoration. But two meters away, my biological analysis told another story.

  He smelled sour.

  Sweat ran down behind his ear, dark and oily. The hand holding the sword trembled in a spasmodic rhythm—the rhythm of hunger. The parasite inside him was gnawing at his nerve endings, demanding its fix.

  "Hey, you," a security guard in a black suit intercepted my path, placing a hand on my chest. "The table area is restricted."

  "Just cleaning the splatter, boss," I replied, lowering my head, adopting the body language of someone invisible, tired, and underpaid. "Basilisk blood stains the velvet if it dries. Commander Jin will dock it from my pay."

  The guard hesitated. Bureaucracy was a universal language. He looked at the green stain on the carpet near the table.

  "Make it quick. He's doing the toast in a minute."

  I nodded and moved forward.

  Luna, on the other side of the stage, pretended to polish a camera, but her eyes were fixed on me, her fingers white from gripping the cloth.

  I reached the table.

  There it was. The Baccarat crystal bottle, containing the golden liquid that kept the monster on a leash.

  "Camera loop activated. You are ghosts for five seconds," Valéria announced. "5... 4..."

  I didn't hesitate.

  With my left hand, I pretended to wipe the table. With my right, I took the prepared bottle from my cart and made the switch.

  The movement was fluid. Years of dissecting creatures where one wrong cut meant a toxic gas explosion had given me surgeon's hands.

  The original bottle disappeared into the dirty mop water bucket.

  The poisoned bottle, with the Spider Queen Cocktail, took its place.

  "2... 1... End of loop."

  I stepped back three paces, returning to the shadow of my cart.

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  The guard didn't even blink. To him, I was just furniture.

  The Solar Knight turned around.

  The stadium went silent. He picked up the microphone. His smile was perfect, too white, too rehearsed.

  "People of S?o Paulo!" his voice thundered, magically amplified. "Today, we celebrate another year of peace. A peace I built with my own hands!"

  Frenzied applause.

  Arthur (the Parasite) vibrated inside me with disgust.

  [DETECTED INCREASE IN INTRACRANIAL PRESSURE IN TARGET. HE IS AT THE LIMIT.]

  "But the fight isn't over," the hero continued, walking to the table. He looked breathless. A drop of black sweat rolled down his temple. He needed to drink. Now. "As long as I breathe, no monster will threaten our families!"

  He grabbed the bottle.

  My heart stopped. Luna stopped polishing.

  He poured the crystal goblet to the brim. The golden liquid shone under the lights.

  He didn't smell it. He was too desperate to smell it.

  "To Sovereignty!" He raised the goblet.

  "TO SOVEREIGNTY!" the stadium responded in unison.

  He drank.

  A long, deep gulp. He drained the goblet in one go.

  I waited.

  One second. Two seconds.

  He slammed the goblet down on the table hard.

  He smiled for the camera.

  "Delicio..." he began to say.

  And then, he stopped.

  His eyes went wide. His pupils, which were bright blue, contracted until they were pinpricks.

  The Spider Queen's neurotoxin is fast. It doesn't attack the body. It attacks the connection. It tells the nervous system: "You are alone."

  And it tells the parasite: "The host has died."

  The Solar Knight brought a hand to his throat.

  "Guh..." A guttural sound came out of the microphone, echoing through the stadium.

  The triumphant orchestral music went off-key and stopped. The audience murmured, confused. "Is this part of the show?" they thought.

  The hero fell to his knees.

  He began clawing at his own chest. The golden armor crumpled like aluminum foil under the force of his fingers.

  "GET OUT!" he screamed, but the voice wasn't human anymore. It was double. A man's voice screaming in pain, and a beast's voice screaming in hunger.

  "It's happening," I whispered to Luna. "Prep the amplifier."

  The Solar Knight's body arched backward into an anatomically impossible position. His spine cracked audibly.

  And then, the charade ended.

  The skin on his back tore open.

  There was no red blood.

  There was an explosion of black biomass and tentacles.

  The Hunger Parasite, realizing the connection to the host brain had been severed, entered self-preservation mode: Aggressive Expansion.

  The handsome man's jaw unhinged, falling to the floor with a wet thud. From inside the open throat, a new head emerged. An elongated head, eyeless, made of exposed muscle and serrated teeth.

  Extra arms sprouted from his ribs, tearing the gala suit. The golden aura of "hero" became a purple, toxic mist.

  The stadium screamed.

  It wasn't a cheer. It was the sound of primal terror. 50,000 people realizing, all at once, that they were locked in a cage with a predator.

  The monster, now four meters tall and barely resembling a human being, roared. The sound shattered the lenses of nearby cameras.

  The guard who had stopped me drew his gun.

  "Freeze! What... what are you?!"

  The monster didn't even turn. One of the back tentacles lashed out, too fast for the human eye to follow.

  The guard was bisected at the waist. The two halves fell onto the stage with a wet sound.

  Panic was total. The crowd ran for the exits, trampling one another.

  The monster looked around, confused, drooling acid onto the pristine stage. It was free from Helix Pharma's control, free from the human's control, and completely insane with hunger.

  It looked at the table. At me.

  It didn't see a janitor.

  It saw my Parasite.

  [COMBAT ALERT]

  [ENEMY: APOCALYPSE CLASS (UNSTABLE)]

  [SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 12%]

  The monster charged in my direction, destroying the stage floor with every step.

  "Luna!" I shouted, kicking the cleaning cart away and drawing my two Mithril scalpels, which glowed with my pale blue mana. "The show has started!"

  Luna ran to my side, assembling the sonic baton with a metallic click. She wasn't shaking anymore. She looked at the beast with cold rage.

  "Let's cancel this idol," she said.

  The whole world was watching on the screens. The lie of Sovereignty was dead on the stage floor.

  Now, it remained to be seen if we would survive the truth.

  I took a deep breath, tasting the metallic tang of adrenaline.

  "Initial thoracic incision," I muttered, entering a combat stance. "Let's begin the autopsy."