"It is with great sadness that I am reporting to myself that I am dead," Caden said.
Or rather, he attempted to say it.
Being dead and all, speech was practically impossible, so it was just a thought projected with his articulate style of diction he had cultivated over years of in medical school.
Dying in a lab accident was not really a bad way to go. Though it was his fault.
Caden was too eager to prove his calculations were correct and ended up getting infected with a virus that killed instantly.
However, rather than a state of non-existence, Caden felt like he was floating in a bizarre, viscous void.
It was not the pearly gates of heaven, nor was it the fiery pits of hell.
It was a rather sudden, overwhelming sense of self. Like he was a singular, unified organism, though he didn't strictly know what kind yet.
Strange.
Caden tried to move his arms. Nothing. He tried to kick his legs. Nothing.
He felt… squishy. Amorphous. A singular point of consciousness trapped within a gelatinous prison.
"Proprioception is non-existent," he analyzed, panic beginning to bleed into his clinical detachment. "I have no skeletal structure. No nervous system I can detect. I am a blob. A sentient smear of jelly."
Then, suddenly, Caden felt the raw sensation of life in its most basic form. An entity dependent on the entities around him.
But as he grasped at that feeling of existing, he felt a catastrophic failure occurring.
These other entities around him, trillions of them, started failing and collapsing.
"What could this be?"
It was like standing in a crowded room where everyone else was suddenly dropping dead. But each death seemed to weaken you, as though you yourself were going to die as well.
Caden had seen something like this under a microscope.
Cells were dying.
It didn't make sense and still did at the same time. The cellular structure surrounding him was disintegrating, the metabolic fires snuffing out one by one.
Like a host body was undergoing total systemic failure.
Then, a blue, translucent rectangle materialized in the darkness of his mind's eye.
He identified the language as Chinese; a language he never learnt, but could now strangely understand.
⟨ 系统警报: System Notice ⟩
⟨ Your host has killed himself. As a bacteria, you depend on your host to survive. You will die now.⟩
Caden stared—metaphorically—at the text.
"Excuse me?" his internal voice pitched up. "Die again? And what host? I haven't consented to any bonding arrangement."
He re-read the text.
'As a bacteria…'
"Huh?!"
"A ba—cTERIA!"
What?! That made no sense at all!
How could a human become a bacteria? Was there a stage of evolution he wasn't taught in the university?
How could Caden Peters, the youngest microbiologist in his university, who had dedicated his life to the study of complex microbiological structures, be reduced to a single-celled organism?
"I can't accept this!"
But the system didn't care.
⟨ WARNING: Host's body is failing! ⟩
⟨ Organisms and cells are dying. You have twenty seconds till you die. ⟩
The countdown appeared in red.
⟨20… 19…⟩
Caden felt the unstoppable biological imperative to survive, even though he didn't know what was happening. Even though he didn't want to believe it.
But what was he going to do.
Bacterias generally could not survive outside their hosts and would die as well if they remained in a dead host.
'Think, Caden. Caden!'
The temperature was dropping. The nutrient flow had stopped. The only way to survive this was to find a new host.
⟨15… 14…⟩
He tried to stretch his senses. To his surprise, he found he wasn't blind.
He was perceiving the world through the senses of his dying host.
The only reason he couldn't see outside the world right now was because his host's eyelids were shut tight, sealing him in darkness.
"Open your eyes, you damn fool!" Caden screamed at the dead consciousness. "I can't see where to go!"
⟨10… 9…⟩
It was hopeless. Caden was going to die again.
⟨8… 7…⟩
But then he heard a sound.
Sobbing. Someone was there and they were crying.
"Why...?" a female voice choked out. She sounded very close. "You promised we would ascend together and save me from the shame my family has put me through... Liang... Why did you leave me?"
A possible new host!
Caden's survival instincts took over. He pushed against the boundaries of his microscopic containment, trying to phase through the flesh, to leap toward the voice.
But he slammed into a wall of fabric.
Damn it! The host—this "Liang"—was wearing thick cultivation robes. Layers of silk and linen acted like a Hazmat suit against Caden's tiny form.
He couldn't permeate the fabric fast enough to transmit into this new host.
"Fuck this a thousand times. Fuck fuck fuckity ffffuckkk!"
⟨5… 4…⟩
The cold was reaching him now, the decay that killed his fellow bacteria was now touching his cell walls.
Caden felt his consciousness flickering, his energy waning.
"I need direct contact," he realized with horror. "Skin to skin. Fluid to fluid."
He focused his intent on the woman crying over the body. He didn't know who she was, but he needed her to do something incredibly specific, and he had no mouth to ask for it.
"He's not coming back so just kiss him goodbye!" Caden cried. "Or how about this! Maybe he will come back! You know, like Sleeping Beauty! Just kiss him and we'll see!"
⟨3…⟩
"Oh for the love of God!"
"You coward..." the woman whispered, her voice trembling right above the host's face.
"Do it! Just a peck! A goodbye kiss! Anything!"
"I'll miss you..."
⟨1…⟩
She leaned down. Caden felt the pressure on the host's lips. Soft, warm, and wet with salty tears.
⟨0…⟩
With all his bacterial muscle, Caden launched himself.
He rode the microscopic bridge of moisture while the decay chased after him.
Just as it was about to capture his cellular body, he reached the mouth, surging from the lips of his former host to the lips of the woman who apparently had a thing for kissing corpses.
It was a violent, turbulent transfer, like being sucked through a straw during a hurricane.
⟨ TRANSMISSION SUCCESSFUL ⟩
⟨ New Host Detected. Binding in progress... ⟩
The cold vanished and Caden found himself in the midst of body heat, blood flow, and vitality.
He felt really good, like he had just checked into a five-star hotel. Heart was beating. Lungs were expanding. And blood was pumping.
A healthy human body.
"Phew."
⟨ Host Analysis: Lin Xueyin ⟩
⟨ Status: Disgraced Disciple of the Heavenfold Sect. ⟩
⟨ Background: Formerly of the Azure River Clan. Abandoned due to cultivation stagnation. ⟩
As the binding settled, Caden found he could access her optical nerves and see through her eyes.
The darkness lifted.
Through Lin Xueyin's tear-filled eyes, Caden saw the body he had just vacated.
It was a young man, handsome in a rugged sort of way, slumped against a low table with a glowing dagger in his hand and a look of utter despair frozen on his face.
Caden froze. He recognized that face. He recognized the robes.
"Wait a minute," Caden thought, his mind reeling. "That's Liang Wei."
He looked at the setting. The woven mat, the wooden beams, the sigil of Silver Lotus Sect embroided on the wall.
Caden recognized all of this.
This wasn't just any world. This was the setting of The Regressor's Infinite Path, a trashy manhwa Caden had been hate-reading in the breakroom during lunch for the past three weeks.
This dead guy was the MC, Liang Wei, a depressed fucker who regressed from the future.
In the comic, he was contemplating suicide, until he bonded with a Mountain Spirit Dragon.
That majestic bond gave him the motivation to move forward, to rise and conquer. But here... it seemed Liang Wei went ahead with the suicide anyway.
"Why?" Caden wondered.
The floating screen responded.
⟨ Previous Host Note: Liang Wei entered extreme depression upon realizing his Soul Bound Spirit Beast was an ordinary bacteria rather than a Divine Beast. Subject deemed the timeline hopeless and killed himself. ⟩
Caden stared at the dead hero.
"He... he killed himself because he got me?"
First, a wave of offense hit him. He was a distinguished microbiologist! He was a complex organism of high intellect!
"You weak-willed, melodramatic little shit,"
Caden fumed at the corpse. "Whatever. Anyone who would rather kill themselves than be stuck with me can suck it for all I care!"
But then again... why the hell was he in the manhwa he had just been reading? And why the hell was he not a person, or a dragon, but a freaking bacteria!
What could he possibly do as a bacteria in a cultivation world?
Ding!
⟨Your host, Lin Xueyin possesses multiple irregularities in her meridians⟩
⟨Are you ready to begin restoration?⟩