Red vector

"Hey, Dan, you've got something on your back."   "Oh my god, take it off! Take it off!"   "Oh no, he starts to swell! Run away!"   Sound of explosion of wet chunks.   "It's everywhere in at least an area of 10 meters. Half of our men are already infected. Prepare the flamethrowers!"

The Red Sea is a living anomaly, consisting of colossal biomass similar to both animal flesh and fungal mycelium. It can grow and spread, and if not for the efforts of factions operating close to the edges of its territory that focus on researching it and slowing said spreading through regular burnings, it would probably cover a big part of The Pit by now. However, the scariest properties of the Red Sea are its intelligence, its ability to reshape its biomass, and the Red Death, a condition caused by even the slightest contact with it that causes one's body and knowledge to be absorbed by it. Thanks to them, Red Sea quickly noticed that its spread is slowed down in an effective manner. And so, it started forming new ways through which it can spread. One of them are Red vectors.   Red vectors are specialized organs whose main purpose is to parasitically attach themselves to an unsuspecting victim, be carried out of the territory of the Red Sea, and then cause the spread of its biomass by rapidly expanding within their host to the point their body explodes, shooting the biomass in every direction.  

Appearance

Compared to most of the organs created by the Red Sea, Red vectors tend to be on the smaller side, at least until the right conditions occur. The average specimen resembles a 0.5 cm wide and 2-4 cm long flat ribbon with rows of long, double-jointed legs growing out of its sides. Those legs measure 2 cm on average, but in the right conditions can grow out to a few meters in length. Red vectors do not possess any external sensory organs, and the only thing they can perceive is the temperature range of 36.4 to 37.6 degrees Celsius, being able to sense a source of those temperatures in a range of a few meters. Once they sense it, they will follow it.  

Hunting

Once they have their target, Red vectors will try to attach themselves to its bare skin. If the target has their body covered, they will attach themselves to its clothes and await the moment any piece of skin gets uncovered. Red vectors attach themselves through piercing the skin of the "prey" with their needle-like legs and then growing them out, so they spread into the organism of their victim, either through their veins, organs, or digestive system. At this stage, the spread is slow, but already incurable.   The attached Red vector will await the moment its host leaves the territory of the Red Sea. Once it happens, the parasites will speed up the growth of its limbs, spreading them through the whole body of their host. This can sometimes be noticed as red threads showing up underneath the skin of the victim that start to bunch up together. At this point, the spread of the anomaly can be stopped if the host gets set on fire. The process accelerates drastically, and soon the skin of the host starts to stretch out from being pushed out by enormous amounts of Red vector's biomass. Some of the body of the host suffers from the Red Death to procure the parasite more biomass. Only a sudden and powerful burning of the host, mostly through the use of Elemental Crystals containing the Element of Fire, can stop the spread. If that doesn't happen, seconds later, the body of the host bulges out to an extreme degree and explodes, raining chunks of the infected flesh in the area. If not disposed of immediately, those chunks will attach themselves to the environment and grow. Should they encounter any living organisms they can feast on, the process of their spread follows through even faster and with a higher chance of success.