Aurelian’s eyes snapped up to where Zylara hovered above him, now three metres in the air, and he sucked in a breath while staggering to his feet. The elven woman was held aloft like she were floating in water, her hair drifting in the air around her alongside her limbs and the loose fabrics that adorned her ruined armour.


    She was screaming in pain. It was a scream he recognized all-too-well.


    Scarlet lightning danced around her body in coruscating, illuminating bolts of aetheric force, and Aurelian used his Dragon’s Gaze to see the combination of Life and Death mana warring around her at the same time as Anima—immense amounts of Anima—created hollow tubes within which the life and death mana were threaded.


    Dragon’s Gaze is now Level 23!


    With each new thread funnelled in, one tube containing Life and one containing Death would twine together; combined and braided with Anima acting as an almost mono-molecular boundary between the two competing powers. Each new braid that formed—and there were already dozens, with more eventuating as he watched—twisted around Zylara’s body and snaked down toward her destroyed legs.


    “Woah…”


    Aurelian watched in stunned silence as the braids congregated together into lines of crimson light that, amidst the effervescent scarlet lightning, formed the framework of an entirely new body. Zylara’s dismembered left leg and shattered right leg were framed in what he could only call a wireframe outline—one that shone with brilliant crimson light to his normal gaze.


    With Dragon’s Gaze still active, he could also see the iridescent braids of Life, Death, and Anima that comprised every millimetre of the wires, and watched with rapt focus as the process continued across her entire body. The lightning seared her flesh and tore at it, ripping away seemingly random chunks of flesh to reveal exposed flesh, sinew, and tendons beneath.


    Dragon’s Gaze is now Level 24!


    Nothing about his companion was inviolable to the transformative power of the System, and Aurelian averted his gaze when it stripped her of the armour she’d had since they left the ruined palace. The only thing that was spared, in fact, was Zylara’s bow—which itself sparked and crackled with current that seemed to be morphing it in kind, and dyeing it the same obsidian colour as the Blood Lord’s Chalice.


    Aurelian? What is happening? We can hear screaming across the battlefield. Bahamut reported worriedly. Even the Skarnids are beginning to turn their attention toward it!


    It’s Zylara. She’s mid-transformation. You need to stop them from intruding!


    We will do what we can, but her screams are deafening even my roars. Something greater than her mortal lungs is at work here. This must be System-wrought projection.


    Do what you can! My Arisen are almost here. They’ll handle any stragglers that head toward us.


    Very well, but rejoin us the moment the ritual is complete! Bahamut insisted. Karsys is flagging, and I cannot give him energy as I can you.


    Understood. Thank you for holding out so far. Aurelian sent with sincerity.


    Bahamut sent back a feeling of amusement and mild derision, though not for Aurelian specifically.


    If I were to truly struggle against these insects, I would be unworthy of the title of Dragon King.


    Aurelian sent back amusement of his own, and the conversation ended. Instead, he gave the majority of his focus to Zylara’s still-changing body—including the new, and entirely naked flesh of a new foot slowly coming into being as the wireframe began to solidify into ‘hardlight’, and transition from energy to true flesh.


    The remainder of his focus was directed toward his Arisen.


    He could finally feel them closing distance rapidly, and turned when they arrived. The five onyx-carapaced Arisen Skarnids halted a small distance from him and Zylara, and directed each of their eight, glowing crimson eyes to regard the transformation with what Aurelian translated mentally as both interest and, more surprisingly, approval.


    He would dwell on that particular detail later, he decided, while watching their tails waving through the air almost like immense antennae awaiting a signal.


    “There are more of your corrupted cousins coming to interfere with the transformation,” he said with a nod toward Zylara.


    Something told him that mentioning the intrusion on the transformation was the right way to go, and as if in confirmation, he felt outrage echoing from his now-chittering Arisen Skarnids.


    “You must not let them interrupt her Transformation,” he said firmly. “Kill any that get too close, and don’t bother preserving them for raising. Slay them as fast as possible.”


    Five bass susurrations of affirmation followed his words, and the ‘lead’ Skarnid in their centre—the first one he’d raised—raised its pincers and clacked them together twice in assent to the order. Then, in a demonstration of intelligence that truly stunned Aurelian, the lead skarnid turned its head back and forth and chitter-hissed in a way he almost felt like he could understand.


    “{Protect the King! Protect the Scion! Purge the Interlopers!}”


    The meaning was, at best, loosely translated—but it still sent a mild shock of existential bewilderment racing through Aurelian’s mind.


    “You guys can speak?” he asked with open surprise, while trying to ignore Zylara’s pained shrieking behind him.


    The ‘lead’ Skarnid redirected its attention to him, and the creature inclined his eight-eyed head.


    “{We have always been able to speak, my King, but now we can do so without the distortion of the Darkening}” it said in the same chitter-hiss bass susurration. “{When you liberated us from the Curse, it restored our minds, and allowed us to return to the glory of our true selves.}”


    “Your true selves?” Aurelian asked with more curiosity than apprehension, now, though the latter still remained.


    “{Once,}” the skarnid to the right side in what Aurelian vaguely recognized as a more feminine octave, “{we Skarnids were not unlike a civilization ourselves. Our Queens united us, and gave us purpose, while our Warriors—like the corrupted one that summoned us—defended our creche-towers. We thrived in this land. Our lore tells us this.}”


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    “{Then came the Curse,}” the lead Skarnid hissed furiously, “{and the Darkening of our species. Sense was eroded, our glorious carapaces were violated, and we were left bereft and warped—abominations compared to the glory we once knew. Even the Warriors were not immune to it, as you have yourself seen, my King.}”


    “Warri—” Aurelian’s eyes widened. “You mean the Behemoth? That massive one?”


    “{Yes, my King,}” the lead Skarnid replied. “{The Warrior. None remain of the old power, but they are mighty still. That one was merely a shadow of their former glory.}”


    Aurelian was floored.


    “Hey, quick question. Why do you keep calling me your King?”


    The skarnids were silent for a moment, and then the ‘female’ answered.


    “{We have never had Kings, only Queens. Even now, corrupted as our race is, the Queens remain. You are the first male to rule us, and so, it is your title by right. Your essence flows through us and gives us eternal life and power, and so, we are yours, my King.}”


    “Oh,” Aurelian said with a blink, “okay then.”


    He had expected that the Skarnids likely had some sort of social system, but by the explanations of his Arisen, they had once been part of an entire insectoid civilization. The parallels between a certain bug race from a world of craft and war were hitting him over the head like a hammer.


    So, too, was the potential.


    “These Warriors…” Aurelian began curiously, “is this something that has to be bred, or can your kind, like… Evolve?”


    “{A wise question, my King,}” the lead Skarnid said approvingly, followed by a chittering of agreement from the rest. It was like Aurelian suddenly had his own arachnid hype squad, which frankly seemed poleaxing, bewildering, and weirdly cool all at once. “{Our new existence gives us insights into ourselves we did not possess while under the Curse. With sufficient Anima, and your own desires, you can Evolve us as you see fit.}”


    Aurelian’s eyebrows shot up at that piece of information, and his mind filled with images of titanic Skarnids rampaging across his foes, or obliterating entire swathes of enemy forces with pseudo-Bio Titans, Arachnid Velociraptors, and more.


    A grin slowly crept across his features.


    “Are you guys able to, like, store Anima? I know you use it to heal yourselves, but can you store excess?”


    “{We are able to Harvest it for you, my King, yes—though we are limited to what our bodies can contain before we must consume it.}”


    “How much can you store?”


    “{Five Imbuements.}”


    Aurelian mentally translated that to five points of Anima, and nodded in consideration. “Try and start doing so, but don’t sacrifice your lives or ability to fight for it.” he ordered decisively, while peering past them toward the distance where his Dragon’s Gaze told him more corrupted skarnids were approaching. “And see to the, ah, interlopers. I appreciate the insights, but this’ll have to wait until we have less chaos happening.”


    The five skarnids chitter-hissed in acquiesce, and the lead creature lifted its head to release a strange kind of mix between a bugle and trumpet noise.


    “{Onward, brethren! For the King!}”


    That particular kind of pronouncement raised more points of curiosity for Aurelian, though they were ones which he had no time to ponder before his five Arisen assumed a flying wedge formation and scuttled off toward the direction the Skarnid stragglers were approaching from.


    “I still have so many fucking questions,” he said to himself while watching them go. “Do I need to name them now or something? Would Anub’arak be way too on the nose? Jesus…”


    Zylara’s next scream pulled him back to what he was doing, and he turned back to her immediately.


    What he saw left him speechless.


    In the time he’d been speaking—the thought still bewildered him a little—to his now-charging band of murderous scorpion-spider Arisen, the elf’s transformation had progressed rapidly. Her flesh retained the pale beauty it had held before, though now her skin was more like what Aurelian would classify as ‘goth girl’ pale than the mere ‘fair skin’ she’d had before. It was as if every scrap of melanin had been removed from her flesh, and every sunkissed moment of pigment had been erased.


    More than that, Aurelian noticed a tangible increase in the visible sculpting of her musculature. Where before Zylara had been lithe grace and nimble elegance, now she instead held a more defined curvature to her calves, and her thighs had thickened considerably with muscle.


    Her glutes—which he steadfastly refused to think of her as her arse—had also seen a marked improvement in both firmness and substance, though Aurelian pointedly avoided staring once he remembered she was entirely naked.


    It just felt wrong, to him, to leer at her in a state of such vulnerability.


    Zylara was the embodiment of the hot elf stereotype which every gamer nerd had ever wanted, and it almost felt like he was putting that boyhood fantasy on her when he looked at her. He felt vaguely like Adam in the Garden of Eden, tempted by the view of the apple—he snorted at the correlation between ‘apple’ and ‘butt’—and the wiles of Eve.


    The elven maiden had flirted with him, and despite that being a possible indication of attraction, he had no desire nor right to presume such. He was sure she had no shortage of options, nor past amusements, given the System’s description of elves as, in essence, eminent horndogs; and he had no wish to risk overstepping with her. Especially, in fact, when he considered she might very well be one of the few true friends he made in the Realms for the foreseeable future.


    Besides, she deserved more from him, after what she’d already sacrificed.


    Aurelian risked another glance upward, and noticed that her savaged arms and wounded torso—from what he could see—had been given the same melanin-reducing physical reconstruction, and that there was a vitality-laden red flush to her skin in various places as the changes took hold.


    Zylara had even stopped screaming, and had instead improved from throat-rending cries to a low groan of discomfort while she floated among the wrapping brace of light, and power, twining across her body.


    When the braids of Life, Death, and Anima reached her scalp and rolled down her hair to push it toward a glossy, midnight-black that could have challenged the Blood Lord’s Chalice for which was darker; a sudden chime occupied his mind—and Aurelian’s vision was momentarily obstructed by a new System alert.


    Transformation Complete!


    Zylara Lyse Bloodstorm has been successfully Transformed!


    Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!


    You have Sired your first Blood Scion!


    Aurelian barely had time to process the alert before another populated his vision, in the same moment as he noticed Zylara beginning to descend. She drifted down like she was held aloft by wind, and for all that he wanted to catch her, she was still very naked. He opened his mouth to utter an epithet at the impossible choice, but the sound died halfway through his vocal chords when he read the new prompt—and his brow furrowed in confusion.


    Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!


    Hidden Conditions Met!


    You have managed to bring back an extinct species, and simultaneously create a new one!


    Achievement: Blood and Legacy


    For successfully achieving another impossible feat and massively advancing the greater goal of your Reclamation, you have received the following:


    1 x Runic Bloodmail of Eld


    1 x Elden Map Fragment


    1 x Skill Compression Tome


    “Aurelian.”


    A voice that mixed a familiar elegance with a more ethereal, and regal confidence pulled him from his consideration of the Achievement announcement—and, for the second time in the same moment, awed surprise stole his breath away.