Parallel processing

Juro's eyes were filled with pure rage. Out of all his victims, never have Hikaru seen fury that was so personal.

He simply smirked.

Though it seemed impossible, Juro was even more enraged and lifted his whip but it was stopped by Hikaru's level 4 tentacle. Hikaru's right arm tentacle wrapped around Juro's whip. Hikaru's grey tentacle and Juro's pink made it look like a rope woven from two different coloured strings.

Juro lifted his other arm which has finished transforming into an enhanced whip, but that too was coiled over by Hikaru's second arm. Juro twisted and pulled, causing their arms to violently rattle but Hikaru didn't budge.

Juro was immobilised. Hikaru observed his prey with cold spider-like eyes. However, Juro wasn't afraid. Instead, he grinned.

Behind Hikaru was a woman with long black hair and 8 limbs glued onto the wall. From the horizontal view of the wall, Mami twisted her head up to look at Hikaru's defenceless back.

After Hikaru poked a hole in her leg, it had stimulated the transformation of her existing limbs and four more diamond-shape tipped legs sprouted from her sides. Her legs were coated with hard smooth shells that gave it a shiny obsidian look.

She had silently crawled up the wall from the living room to the first floor like a spider woman. Taking this chance, she pounced with her legs spread wide and pointed its sharp ends at Hikaru's back. However, she bounced off with several wounds as bone spikes emerged from his back and impaled her.

His back spikes resembled that of an echidna's spines. Juro's eyes bulged in fear at the sight of his spikes. He realised that he was nailed down but Hikaru was not and could attack him at any time. When Mami attacked from behind, Hikaru's eyes had not strayed from its prey.

His glassy eyes sent shivers down Juro's spine. All the hatred he had was snuffed away. How did Hikaru sense Mami from behind? That question was irrelevant. Juro frantically twisted and turned to get untangle his arms from the predator before him.

Mami was bleeding profusely from the holes in her body. A puddle of blood had already formed under her feet. She was sure that she was silent yet Hikaru saw through her surprise attack. Regardless, she believed that Hikaru couldn't possibly handle full-fledged attacks from behind while his arms were tied up.

Standing on two feet, she attacked Hikaru with six of her legs. 8 spiked tentacles instantly sprouted from his back and begun swinging wildly at her. Each of Mami's leg strikes was countered by a tentacle.

'What! Does he have eyes on the back of his head!' She thought.

Although she didn't think that, to her shock, when she glanced at the back of Hikaru's neck. There was an eyeball staring back at her.

Her eyes were frozen open and beads of sweat dripped from her face but she couldn't stop attacking. If she did, she would be struck down. Right now, they were striking and deflecting each other's attacks at speeds almost invisible to the naked eye.

Neither side was winning, she could only hope that Hikaru would run out of stamina so that she could either kill him or make a run. Despite the unusual abilities that she and her family had, seeing Hikaru's third eye made her cower.

'Monster! Demon!'

The eye told her everything. It was the same look they had when they slaughtered and ate their victims. There was a look scarier than the eyes of a murderer, it was the look of an insatiable hunger on a voracious predator. She had to get away from this monster.

*Shplort!*

She felt a stab at the right side of her neck and looked at it. There was an eyeball staring right next to her. It was attached to a small tentacle of which its bone tip was thrust inside her neck.

Hikaru withdrew his tentacle which winded backwards through and around the handrailing near the floor to his leg. He had slowly snuck a tentacle with an eye on it past her defences while she was distracted with their high-speed duel.

At the same time, a spiked tentacle ejected from Hikaru's chest and shot through Juro's rib cage. His heart was speared through and was stuck to the bone sticking out of the wall like a kebab. He looked toward the hole in his chest with an open mouth and fell after a moment of processing. It was hard to tell if he died out of shock or blood loss first. One could say he had a heart attack.

Naturally, the more appendages one has the more focus and dexterity that is required to manipulate them. Then how difficult was it for a spider? The spider's brain and neural network are designed for it and hundreds of thousands of years of genetic evolution make controlling eight legs as simple as instinct.

Although the parasitic worms bring with them hybridised genes for such functions, it was never fully worked out by the Architects who selected many genes from a large pool. Also, the extent of gene translation depends on parasite-host bonding compatibility.

Therefore, since Hikaru could spawn any number of tentacles, the more he summons, the less control and accuracy he has over each tentacle. Hikaru's brain was still human after all. It took all Mami had to keep up with Hikaru's speed and so she didn't notice Hikaru's setup.

However, Hikaru had found a solution which only he could do.

It is a myth that a person can multi-task. Humans cannot do it. Specifically, basic actions like chewing gum and talking don't count as "multi-tasking". The autonomic nervous system automatically does many of these basic actions. Contracting the heart muscles or breathing requires no conscious thought.

Generally, when people question whether humans can multi-task, they mean to ask do humans have the ability to do two high-functioning actions at the same time, like one plus one and reciting the vowels.

While it does seem that humans can multi-task, they actually shift their focus rapidly between two or more things. Therefore, juggling doesn't require multi-tasking.

Similarly, a central processing unit (CPU) in a computer cannot multi-task. They merely switch between different processes within milliseconds. This is called time-sharing. However, nowadays computers have multi-core processors which allow them to perform multiple processes at the same time. Each core can handle one program.

Hikaru added another core to himself. A small pocket consisting of a mass of neurons which formed a clone of his neuro network exists near the base of his neck. Hikaru made himself a miniature second brain and so gained a new ability: parallel thought.