Nic dropped from Cegan’s back as the man fell over, spindly mantis legs collapsing as Nic squeezed his throat. He kicked the saber away from Cegan’s hand - wise, considering how much he’d taunted the man - and turned back to bask in the glow of all the guard captain’s little cronies trying to glare him to death.

He grasped his wounded arm and pushed. The pain slammed into him like a wall, but he made the cut ends of the bone fuse back together with mud from Mire-Caller. His regeneration was already beginning to seal the mangled flesh back together as Cegan began to make small, groggy sounds, regaining consciousness to find himself lying on the ground with Nic smirking down at him.

It was the poor bastard’s nightmare.

“You-”

“Me.” Nic said cheerily.

“You didn’t fight with the sword at all!”

Nic just smiled broadly. “Then what’s sticking out of your guts, huh?”

Cegan groaned, blood oozing from his wound. He couldn’t actually stand- he might have been bigger than Nic, but in a trade of blows, he was the one who wouldn’t be getting back up.

“Tell you what, chief. I can see you’re sour…” Nic held out his arm and Inkspur fluttered down to land on it and crow out his words. “So I’ll fight any three of you, two days from now. You and your best two swordsmen. If I win, that’s it. Pack it in. No more of this brooding, glaring, that shit. You tuck your tail between your legs and accept that it’s over- you lost.”

“You arrogant little prick.” Cegan gasped out. “Fine. Two days. Three of us. Shards, treasures, everything, and when you lose…”

“If.” Nic cut in.

“You leave us alone...”

“Suuuure.” Nic turned back towards the temple, happy with that outcome. The truth was he saw very little chance of the mantis-guard ever being his allies. They were too infected with the poison mindset of cultivation. They treated everyone they saw as below them like trash, and burst into a raging fury when someone stronger came along and did the same to them.

Lady Nylea and the Saturnalia were the real prizes here. Her guard were just some parasites to be swept away and cowed with strength.

It was a cold view- but it was the one experience had taught him to adopt.

As he strode into the temple he saw the Lady Nylea waiting for him, sighing into her hand. “They really are the worst…” She shook her head with a small laugh. “And Cegan is the worst of the worst. They’re all the rejects, you know. When I lost my ability to cultivate the warriors slowly drifted away, joining with my sisters instead, finding other causes to follow.”

“Cegan was one of the last loyal ones- but he thinks he owns me for it.”

Nic knew the type. Always eager to believe women couldn’t see through their selfish reasons. “And the rest of them?” Nic asked.

“Mercenaries. They sold their loyalty in order to join the Integration under my banner. My family was able to secure this trip to the new world by offering the Saturnalia, my birthright, as a Node. The hope was that we’d be able to find a cure- but it’s a last ditch effort.” Her hand ran slowly across her scarred cheek. “If I die here, I’ll let the mantle die with me, and the curse with the mantle.”

Nic nodded, slowly. “If I can-”

“You’ve already been kind enough.” She waved the offer away. “Now, I believe… yes I do believe your friend is on the verge of evolution…”

Nic’s eyes opened wide. He rushed to the edge of the Saturnalia, pulling himself up as Inkspur lept from his shoulders onto the edge.

“Unbelievable. To think that OAF would evolve before ME!” Inkspur bellowed, fluttering his wings in anger.

“If you spent less time building giant statues…”

“The statue is ESSENTIAL!” The little wyvern protested.

Redjaw was sealed within an enormous cocoon of gold. It was neither solid nor liquid, but a living, condensed light that surrounded him like a bug trapped in a nodule of amber. Within, the shape of the centipede was only a dim shadow-

And that shadow was beginning to blur into a new form.

“Quickly Nicolas. Reach out and touch him. This will be excellent practice for your own evolution.” Sofia urged.

Nic’s hand reached outwards. As he approached, the centipede tattoo on his hand dissolved into a blur of ink that raced down into his fingers as they brushed the cocoon of light-

And he was suddenly elsewhere.

---

Nic was in a deep well of red liquid. It was the color of blood, but clear and cold and he could see through it for what felt like miles. The ocean of red expanded on all sides, all directions. There was no surface to swim towards, only endless depths.

Redjaw was coiled around him, a spirit of vibrant gold light bigger than Nic. Nic’s own body had melted away and been replaced by a spiritual form of deep blue.

“Is this..?”

“Merely a dream, Nicolas. Don’t focus too much on the physical. Instead, open your eyes to what is happening…” Sofia’s voice rang out.

Golden spheres began to glow in the dark. They came to light slowly, like suns turning on in the dark. First there was one. Then another. Then another. Despite the red murk and the blazing light, Nic could see clearly that at the core of each of the golden bubbles was the phantom image of a creature.

Each sphere was like a separate world.

A different path that Redjaw could take.

“I wish for strength…” The beast hissed, pulling towards the largest bubble instantly.

Nic gently pulled him back, stroking his head, trying to dissuade him.

The largest one was simply that. A massive centipede, with no surprising strengths or magical powers. Simply an enormous tide of legs that crushed down on everything like a bulldozer. Taking that path would make Redjaw strong- but also clumsy, slow, and weak to a dozen different strategies.

As Nic watched, he noticed there were spheres that were brighter than others, glowing like lamps in the sea of blood. Others were so dim he could hardly see them, and seemed impossibly distant.

“Sofia?”

“Each sphere is a Bloodline Spark - a fragment of ancient power represents a possible line of evolution, as I expect you understand, but there are many different levels of success in harnessing one. If you can only partially absorb the Spark you won’t fully transform. Instead, you’ll gain what’s called a Warform. The ability to shift into that shape for a limited time.”

“Considering he doesn’t have to fight his own battles, only assist you in yours… Gaining a powerful Warform would be best… I suggest you go for the brightest Spark you can, without needing to hold back and choose one that can be fully absorbed.”

“Can you help me with Archive Recall?”

“Of course.” She said proudly.

Nic gazed out on the Bloodline Sea. The countless drowned suns were beautiful, tantalizing, and even if he ignored all but the brightest Sparks- countless.

Vermin like insects thrived and multiplied in abundance, so of course they had diverse, many-branching bloodlines.

The first Spark Nic and Redjaw swam towards contained a demonic, bizarre looking form. It was a pitch black centipede with a human face, the grimacing old visage of a wrinkled and ancient man with a shockingly white tangle of beard clinging to his chin. His eyes were glowing red coals and he unleashed cursed symbols from each pupil.

Old Man of the Hellion Gu. F-Class // Demonic. This crooked and many-legged beast bears the power of curses and poisons, and any who meet the eyes of his unsettlingly human face are bound with deadly wasting hexes that steal their lifeforce.

The powers of curses and sorcery would have been amazing in the hands of a more subtle creature, but Redjaw seemed dismissive, swimming forward without sparing the bizarre monstrosity a glance.

The next sphere contained an even more humanoid being.

This one was an enormous albino centipede that reared up into a humanoid torso, the seemingly-human form constructed like a doll made out of carapace. Dark eyes rested in the joints of the overlapping plates, and the entire form had an androgynous, wisp-like beauty- until you saw the bright red mandibles extending from either side of the mouth, a blue tongue covered in tiny poison spines flickering out from within.

Nic and Redjaw were unanimous in dismissing this one. It’s only strength was growing closer to humanoid and cultivating at advanced speeds. A potential for growth, not combat.

There were stone-devouring, rock-shelled centipedes that could drill through the earth and carve massive tunnel complexes. Thinner, smaller ones that had been raised as hunting hounds, with ornate designs of gold growing from their red-shelled heads and lifting up into decorative crests, their thin feelers able to sense prey through aura alone.

Both were strong, strong options.

In the end the field narrowed to three candidates, each fitting Nic’s needs and the want of his beast to become a combatant of massive power.

The first was a grey-black worm with a head covered by enormous plates of white bone, forming a potent armor and a brutal crushing beak in one. It hunted with long, vibrantly blue tongues that each ended in club-like growth covered in fanged hooks meant to grab people and drag them towards the armor-crushing guillotine of the mouth.

Earthseeker. F-Class // Demi-Sentient. Hunting by vibration, this skull-headed worm tunnels underneath and attacks by ambush. Its powerful build allows it to reel in even massive prey, and the crushing fall of its beak can tear through any defense. Its chief weakness is its slow movement above the ground.

The second was an brilliantly colored creature with interlocking scales of orange and stripes of red fin running along its back. It had a blunt, whiskered head, whip-thin white tendrils extending from its skull. In the place of eyes, long red antenna expanded out from the hollow sockets. In addition to white-yellow fangs, a pair of massive pincers lined with serrated spikes extended from its mouth. The centipede nature survived only in the armored plates running down its back and the numerous small crawling legs that augmented the two huge, powerful limbs that extended from its forebody, ending in two-clawed feet.

Redback Lindwurm. F-Class // Sapient. This descendant of ancient dragons and poisonous worms bears a vicious nature, eternally hungry for flesh in the way dragons hunger for gold. Existing in poison swamps, it can breathe underwater for days, feeds on rotting meat, and kills with its putrifying breath.

The last was a rainbow-shelled, gaudy centipede with countless eye-shaped blotches of vivid colors painted on its carapace. Antenna covered in thin, dark hairs like whip-thin black feathers expanded from its carapace, matching the ink black march of its legs. It had two-fold pincers, a crushing ‘x’ of interlocking jaws an arms-length long.

Eye-Bite Crawler. F-Class // Demi-Sentient. Native to sweltering jungles where it crawls between the trees and ambushes from above, this terrifying beast hunts by hypnosis, weaving luminous patterns with its antenna to lull its foes into a torpored state- at which point it devours their eyes, and the colors on its shell grow a little more beautiful and hypnotic.