Killing a large, but otherwise unimpressive mithril tier took just one spell from Akevorax, unsurprising given the gap between him and this beast. The fact that it failed to gain intelligence after all these years was even more of an interesting point, but the reason for this cleared up slightly after it died.

[Killed Level 72 Giga snow-burrower (possessed)! Received 21% EXP]

The burrower almost definitely ate through a ball of Elder Guard bones at some point and ended up devouring the Divine Phalanx one within. However, clearly the possession effect broke down at some point, the reason hard to tell in all honesty.

Akevorax threw out a guess related to the dead Kandir god. Without any real directed control, the divinity was simply acting on its final orders without any soul or will to control it afterwards.

What a strange situation!

As for the reason it refused to move beyond the white petalled flowers, Akevorax chalked it up to an incredible bloodline which it constantly evolved by consuming these flowers. So much so that it may have grown physically dependent on the location and anything apart from brief exits resulted in damage to itself. Kind of like how his body used to struggle outside of any place with sub-zero temperatures, but these days he could walk around without Ice Coat active if he wanted. Not that he tried to… The heat still stung on his chilled scales.

These sorts of dependencies often ruin something’s future prospects though, as shown by how it reached this level even whilst the mountain range entered such a lull of mana, but then never once escaped for greater heights by instinct.

[Assimilated Giga snow-burrower bloodline! 2 new bloodline directions potentially available]

Well, Akevorax appreciated the bloodline, even if it was just another Extreme rank.

One more mystery from his childhood had already been solved! It really had been a great idea to return here with this level of power.

Bone collection only took time in comparison. In the meantime, he also gathered any plants of possible interest. The spirit-blitz pomes came to mind, for which he collected a couple hundred of them as he came across so many. Several more plants filled the battlefield, but only two more contained bloodlines, neither of them even worth taking.

But… Just out of curiosity, he ended up nabbing a handful of coniferous eternity ferns. While just some mediocre Magical or Rare rank bloodline, he hadn’t eaten them yet to check, their mechanism interested him immensely.

It couldn’t really be implied, but truly ‘eternal’ objects hardly existed. Phoenix flames eventually faded, gods fell and eroded in the river of time, while uncountable peak existences came and went across wars and expeditions to unknown places.

So for the Nexus to declare something with an aspect of ‘eternity’... he held some promise in its bloodline. Even if it only gave one, and the effect seemed weak, if it dealt with his slowly middling lifespan from constant evolutions then he’d gladly take it!

His last evolution consumed 2 years of life, and he truly believed it would be 5 or 10 years very soon.

[Consumed Divine Phalanx bloodline! Assimilation progress 100%]

Warmth spread wildly through his body, a sensation he hadn’t experienced in a long time, but it completely fell short of the times he literally fell apart from such assimilations.

[Assimilated Divine Phalanx bloodline! 4 new bloodline directions potentially available]

“What a shame. The divinity is appreciated though,” he looked at the pile of further bones beside him and stored them for later use. Regular digestion of solids actually took him a fair bit of time, especially for bones equal to master tiers. It still amazed him that the Kandir giants contained so much power that the initial expeditionary army already contained so many Starlite ranks.

Hundreds of them! And potentially thousands of Mithril ranks in the form of Warbornes, not to mention the Mature wizards in the form of Spiritcallers.

And their main vanguard troops utilised Origin Force. If allowed to flourish, who knew how far the arms of Kandir giants might spread…

“What actually destroyed their home then? There can’t be any records here… I doubt Raccelline’s uncle found anything, given he had to ask the demigod for information. He undoubtedly asked around first, too,” Akevorax listed out information confusedly, trying to piece together what he knew for a possible direction. A few possibilities remained, for example, the upper library in the ruins.

Or the eternals if he dared go to them.

But first, the wyrm bones, Akevorax already located these extraordinarily easily as about half the skull silently sat beneath the central mountain, encased in stone but cracked and chipped in places which allowed smaller beasts to squeeze within. He teleported inside without much trouble and now stood within a gigantic head which fit his entire body with room to spare!

While the edges where bone chipped off over time appeared grey and dulled, the location he focused on showed off the pristine white bone, evident of an incredibly powerful ice element beast. But he didn’t come to gawk, and planned to smash apart the fluorescent white half of this intact skull with a single cast of Dray’s Skullcracker.

He wildly, without remorse, swung the giant hammer of stone against bone… And then immediately panicked.

Akevorax turned too cocky once more, massively undervaluing the sheer power present in these bones after thousands of years.

When the pristine bone broke off, nothing came off which indicated that it rotted or dried after these years. Instead, a spray of white particles flew out. Like snow thrown about chaotically, it filled the skull and instantly froze everything within. Water condensed and froze in mid-air, then the air itself began to fall downwards as it liquified. Some small white granules also appeared, dry ice, as the carbon-dioxide completely froze! Immense quantities of great runes filled his body, the volume no less than the rose leaf he consumed.

Fortunately, by simply holding the purple crystal with phoenix fire nearby, he thawed at the same time, the damage from this cycle of heating and cooling healed passively by Undying Body.

The flurry of white particles vanished in due time, and afterwards the smooth, cross-section of bone from where he cut. It reminded him more of a milky opal, but just on touch, his ice cream claw froze from its frightening internals.

“Still alive and active after so many years. Supreme tiers aren’t this ridiculous, right?”

He’d have been fine regardless, but he frowned at the subtle realisation. Just because this wyrm king died, did not make it some sort of pushover. The beast occupied an unmistakably top tier location of the world, and obviously approached the higher rungs of that final tier.

“I just die if I assimilate this, don’t I? Maybe with the pocket watch I can survive… But I’d have far better odds if I just evolved a couple more times. Using the dragonstone first could work, but then I have to give up on enhancing whatever this bloodline gives me. Or…” His mind immediately spun as he bashed his head against the skull wall.

While not at the very top, a Cornem rank bloodline absolutely remained! The guards of that demigod, of course!

However, wasn’t it just a massive waste to evolve with both the Divine Phalanx and those guards at the same time?

With the outrageous quantity of dragon blood on him, none of it actually assimilated more bloodlines, but he didn’t really care to assimilate anything from master tiers of his race, there was no way they evolved their bloodline all that much in their life. Compare that to cornem tiers, who absolutely picked up some specific bloodlines with great effects.

“I might not be picky enough when it comes to dragons… Maybe I should look into Kalmiktar’s bloodline if he evolves before we leave,” Akevorax spoke to himself as vials poured out of his storage ring, hundreds of them filled near the brim with a refined concentrate of dragon blood, the feisty red substance he gladly took from so many asshole dragons. It really sucked that so few well-minded and competent ones stuck around the Dragonlands, but that was reality. How many actually wanted to stay in that cesspit?

And the growing opportunities within the clan ran dry as soon as you hit the middle-levels of master tier, only those foolish kin stuck around so long.

Without hesitation, he swallowed dozens of vials whilst munching on the eternity ferns and a few inconsequential plants he found with bloodlines. His sight filled with dozens of prompts endlessly scrolling past his line of sight as the Nexus kept up with every single assimilation over the course of that single minute. Only the very few plants actually completed the process though, and not a single one of them sparked even a hint of power within him.

[Assimilated Coniferous eternity fern! 2 new bloodline direction potentially available]

Akevorax scoffed at that information, in complete disbelief at the number given. Out of the several plants he just assimilated, only the eternity fern gave any directions. He took a breather from consuming all the blood essence as he said, “There’s no way that’s an Advanced+ bloodline. Nexus?”

[Magical rank bloodline]

…That didn’t make sense.

Frankly, it was impossible for this. And the object clearly wasn’t an Exeter class object which broke the general rules things followed, although that’d be a rather extreme assumption to make.

“Is something finally synergising with my bloodlines? Seriously? This hasn’t happened since my first couple evolutions,” Akevorax shook his head whilst speaking. The surprise resonated in the blank surroundings.

Back when he first assimilated things, he’d often get ‘extra’ pathways as some bloodlines were so similar that they synergised in one way or another. But this simply could not happen as he grew stronger as everything diverted its bloodline into such extraordinarily specific directions that synergies never happened.

[Yes, but we currently believe that synergies become less likely with strength. The power of a bloodline makes them more individualistic, which technically explains why stronger bloodlines resist so much more]

The Nexus might as well just say there were a useless quirk of the assimilation process that played almost no part in the whole. In fact, Akevorax personally voiced that complaint, “Just say they’re a pointless addition that will never matter. It’s easier to understand that way.”

[Yes, in most cases, that’d be the case. But the eternity fern is a rather unique plant. At the very least its bloodline is insanely tenacious. Even whilst dormant within you, it continually tries to regrow and use you as nutrients]

Akevorax immediately took a sample of his ice cream innards and spent a couple minutes casting Adept true spells for bloodline analysis. Namely, he cast a pair of spells called Mutation Scanner and Mutative Enhancement. These only worked on extremely small samples of a being’s bloodline, but just as the Nexus claimed, he saw precisely what it meant.

Whilst several lights began to come off from the sample of ice cream, Akevorax focused in on one in particular with his Elder eyes to see little bits of green biomass somehow coagulate within and slowly reform into individual cells. It would take a few days to completely recover…

But this fern successfully regrew and digested his body even whilst placed under dormancy.

“How is this Magical rank? Nexus… Even Legendary bloodlines can’t do this!”

No answer came this time though, the facts remained clear as day. A truly eternal existence really couldn’t be treated as ordinary flesh and blood, but even as it attempted to turn him into a bundle of plant fibre, he awaited its evolution potential immensely.

Akevorax got back to swallowing vials of blood essence. With so much bloodline energy, the obvious outcome had to happen sooner or later.

[Bloodline energy has reached an evolutionary threshold. Prepare for evolutionary measures to begin]

This evolution was either going to be very boring or very exciting, without any space for an inbetween. But still, Akevorax gave the generic list of filters, and moved his body into the aquamarine prymite egg to hide the massive fluctuations of mana he’d release soon. A thick metal plate, with a rather complex array engraved into it, exited his storage and formed a barrier around him. The mana collector he obtained long ago from the dragon pillar barely kept up with its requirements, and he’d probably have to upgrade or obtain a new one somehow.

These miniaturised tools didn’t come cheap, but for now, he put that idea off in favour for his first evolution in a couple months.

“Is there really no way to deal with the nausea it inflicts after?” He asked aloud purely to gauge the Nexus’ response, but he doubted that it would work all that well.

No reply came from the Nexus, and he could only wait in the egg until his list of options arrived. The corpses all around pointed inwards to the spot he currently laid on, previously where the Kandir demigod laid in their near-dead state. Finally, the moment of truth arrived.

[Evolution imminent. Your possible bloodline pathways are the following:

Candyland Ice-cream

Mental Growth Ice-cream

Eye of the Mind Ice-cream

Providence Extremum…

Unknown progression to Auric Insanity bloodline

Auric Metastasis…

Parasitic Body…

Global Cataclysm…

Array Expertise…

Shield of God…

Warrior of Light…

Army Enhancement…

Banner of War…

Nascent Rebirth…

Endless Endlessness…

Please make a selection in 5 minutes, or a random pathway will be used]

Now those were the sort of names he liked to see… Probably. The Nexus made it really hard to tell what some of these things did.