Chapter 104: Evolution

Kaius came to with a groan, every inch of his body aching like he had been trampled by a dozen draught horses. Everything about the last hour was hazy, as if he had witnessed it in a drunken haze. From a distance, at that.

He pushed himself up, shaking his head as his bleary eyes struggled to take in the utilitarian kitchen that sat in front of him. Porkchop wasn’t much better, groaning in discomfort as he shifted up off the brick floor.

It was strange. He could still feel him. Porkchop, that is. The way he sat. Held himself. The weight of his body on the warmed slabs of stone beneath him. It should have been mind bending, but it wasn’t. Distinctly different from his sense of his own being, it was more like a new limb. A new awareness that dominated his mind, like a leaden arm that had come to sudden, prickling, wakefulness.

Taking a deep breath, Kaius steadied himself.

His awareness shifted to the incessant blaring that had been present ever since he returned to waking. A flurry of system derived chimes that clawed at his attention. He didn’t see any reason to deny them.

**Ding! General Skill Evolved! Soulforged Covenant (Unique) has become Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus (Heroic)!**

Kaius grinned as he read the system notification. They’d done it. They’d actually gotten another Heroic skill. It was an impossible achievement, one that almost seemed outside of the realm of possibility. Sure, maybe nothing quite so extreme as the existence of Honours, but he would have to be an entitled wastrel to not recognise its value.

Feeling Porkchop finish digesting his own, as one they turned their attention back to their next notifications.

**Ding! Racial Trait Obtained! Prepare For Assimilation: Greater Beastblooded!**

**Ding! Unclassed Detected! Assisting with Absorption…**

It started in his marrow, a sickening twist in the gentle flesh that lay sheltered in his bones. The fatty tissue started to boil. Kaius writhed, crying out as his voice cracked like dropped glass. It was all encompassing, unavoidable, potent, and enduring. Torturous heat that burned within him. Scorching him from the inside out.

Then it started to spread. Penetrating his bones, the basal support of his body shattered in a series of sickening cracks as the foreign force changed him from within. Uncaring in its iron cruelty.

Kaius threw his head back, gasping. Wide eyes roved the room, sliding over bunks and kitchen cabinets, skipping past Porkchop’s mewling form where he underwent his own mutagenic change.

He could feel that too. Sickening claws, picking and prodding at the very weave of his friend’s mind. An inversion of his own torture. It heightened his madness, giving him no corner to escape to. The two processes reflected through their link, amplifying the symphony of madness and loss of control.

From the bones it spread to the muscles. All of a sudden he went limp, unable to twitch despite every fabric of his soul telling he had to move. To flee the source of his torment. He could not, not when it came from within. Not when it changed him inexorably, the mutation as total as it was slow.

Fibres unravelled, breaking down into a primordial ooze, before substantiating whole-cloth once more, rewoven into a tighter, denser, structure.

Then it got to his blood.

And from his blood, to everywhere.

Highways of mind-breaking pain flooded his body with potent acid. Organs dissolved, skin sloughed, and thought was forgotten. All he could do was gurgle. Swept away in a current of power and might that cared not for his mortal concerns and wants, only what He. Must. Be.

From the scattered ashes, from the sludge of genetic excess and discarded weakness, he was born anew.

Potent marrow wrapped in gleaming crystalline bones. His ribs thickened, shifting beneath his skin as they shrunk the gaps to shield vulnerable organs beneath. Cross-woven muscles stretched between them, explosive power held tight in the stout cables, anchored with ligamenture that thrummed with tension.

His heart pumped with furious intensity, each pulse sending more and more change through his body.

Nerves seared with the bright fury of the sun, scorching him with their overwhelming might. A storm that delivered the pain of his total consumption in perfect clarity, changed synapses sensing the breaking of his body with cruel and unmatched acuity.

His skin toughened. Supple, flexible, but unassailable. A barrier that protected all within.

Time blurred, meaningless in the face of dissolution, leaving him floating on a sea of agony and metamorphosis.

Yet it seemed even eternity had an end. Slowly the force that had suffused his body left him, guiding the mutagenic energy back to the confines of his final skill, sealing it inside the shard of power that orbited his soul. The system withdrew once more, yet the pain lasted far longer.

Kaius lay gasping, coated to the last hair in a thick layer of liquid, unsure if it was sweat, blood, or some organic refuse expelled by the transformation. Every hairsbreadth of his body felt wrung out, twisted and beaten.

With a groan, he lolled his head to the side, finding that Porkchop hadn’t fared much better. His friend lay on his stomach, paws pressed tight to his head as he covered his eyes and ears. Kaius knew that it was a desperate attempt to dampen his senses, feeling the overwhelming headache that threatened to rupture his friends skull from within.

He swallowed, tongue getting stuck to the roof of his bone dry mouth.

“What the fuck was that,” he croaked.

“Quieter please,” Porkchop whined. “Racial trait, be thankful that we got the system’s assistance. That sort of change can easily kill you if you don’t have the stats to persevere.”

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Kaius breathed shallowly, overwhelmed by the sensation of air on his damp skin. Everything felt too much. Too extreme.

“But we both have the Dynastic trait,” he said in a small voice.

“Born with it. Doesn’t count. Plus it only affects bonus stats, not changing us directly like whatever we got was. Though, it might also have been the skill. I’m not sure.” Porkchop groaned, slowly sliding his paws to look at him directly. His eyes were bloodshot. “You look like shit.”

Kaius snorted, as he looked at Porkchop’s sweat streaked face. He looked strung out, like he’d been up for days.

“Speak for yourself. I assume you didn’t get Greater Beastblooded?” he asked.

Porkchop shook his head, grumbling as Kaius felt his friend’s headache spike through their link. “No, I got Enlightened Mind. It seems we might have gifted each other some of our natural advantages, thanks to the skill.”

Kaius raised his brows. “Skill first?”