If the destruction of the terrain immediately around it were any indication, Bal'Tazor was beginning to figure out what the Flesh that Hates was trying to do to it.  This did not surprise the Progenitor.  Already its forays into the body of the demon had revealed a great deal.  However complex and inscrutable a creature could be to the eyes did not mean a thing when a being could take a close look at its constituent components.  Personality was simply a code in the DNA; memories were merely stored electrochemical impulses.  Neurons were tools waiting for the right signals to come their way and use them.  The largest creature in the world could stand before the Progenitor, and it would only focus on its smallest parts.  Knowing the basics, the foundation, the elements, the workings, meant that they could be controlled.  Controlling the parts meant controlling the whole.  The Progenitor was starting to become familiar with the infinitesimal things that made Bal-Tazor tick.

It flinched when the plague demon sent a large wad of gooey earth hurtling its way, opening wide the mouth on its torso.  The Progenitor's belly effectively split in two, like a massive zipper, stretching grotesquely to encompass the object hurtling its way.  Bal'Tazor's projectile slammed into the insides of the avatar of the Flesh with enough might to send the monster tumbling end over end, piteously moaning, until it lay in a bloated heap beneath the elevated Heart.  With greater speed than it had previously exhibited, the Progenitor lurched to its feet with the aid of its trunklike arms, and unceremoniously let the boulder, sucked clean of organic matter and adhesive alike, topple from its maw onto the fleshy ground.  Feeling that more could be learned from a candid subject, the Progenitor reached upward like a child embracing its mother, and brushed the underside of the Heart.  Its underside cavity opened, allowing the Progenitor to climb inside.

From within, it was bombarded with information injected directly into its psyche via skin contact.  It knew that, while the biomass it had accumulated was unsatisfactory, the extra corpses attained by the harvest of Bal'Tazors minions gave it enough for a truly terrific choice of action.  When the Progenitor spoke in that dead language, its guttural snarl emanated through the membranes of the Heart, as if the massive, inert stockpile spoke along with it.  [i]”Instant mutation: territory.”[/i]

A gruesome geyser, the Heart erupted.  A carpet of living Flesh rained down both upon the pit and beyond its perimeter.  Whatever it touched it clung to, inserting itself and integrating.  Flesh that settled upon stone and earth simply adhered itself, but ones that met tissue began to consume.  In mere moments, the few corpses remaining in the pit were on their way to becoming new Snatchers, and what shrubs and grass the Flesh touched were broken down into more matter.  Bal'Tazor, too, was blanketed by the stuff, but whether it would allow itself to be imbued with the Flesh that Hates or try to infest it, instead, remained to be seen.