1 hour earlier…

The chaos of the night had given way to a spent, weary calm. Blood had been shed. Corpses riddled the sands. Flocks of Vordors flitted to and fro, picking at the remains of the Beasts—the [Profound] Realm beast had a whole herd of them plucking at the eyeballs, swallowing tendons whole. Soon this place would be nothing more than yet another patch of graveyard in a graveyard desert. Today’s skirmish would be lost to the sands, then to the sands of time.

It was in this refractory stage that two figures appeared in the sky. They’d come out of seemingly nowhere. They stood on still air. One was squat and built like a battering ram, with two beefy forearms crossed over each other. He wore an expression of equal parts disgust and rage on his square face; his lips twitched under an impressive, bristling mustache. The other was a young man, dark-haired, pale, thin, with thick, black rings under his eyes. He was dressed plainly. The most remarkable thing about him was his presence—or rather his lack of one. He seemed a trick of the light; a smudge on the lens of the world; if you threw a stone you’d expect it to sail through him unimpeded.

“We’re late,” snarled the beefy one.

“I know,” said the dark-haired one softly.

The beefy one wheeled on him, gnashing his teeth. “I knew it,” he breathed. His eyes sparked fiercely. “Those nomads cost us the time we needed. You insisted on stopping to talk things through. They’re ants, Nijo!”

Nijo shrugged. “Calm down.”

“We should’ve slain them where they stood and carried on!”

Nijo sighed. “They weren’t at fault.”

To his side, the beefy man’s arms were curling into fists. “We’ve lost a God’s Bone,” said the beefy man. His lips curled into something approaching a sneer. “At times like these some fire would do you good. What would your father have done, hm?”

“I am not my father, Elder.” Nijo cleared his throat gently. “Besides—he’s ordered us not to make a commotion. This is a covert mission. Search-and-retrieve.”

“Don’t go soft on me, Young Master,” growled the Elder. “This is war, or have you forgotten?”

There was a pause. “You know better than to call me soft.”

The Elder looked away, fists still clenched. “Sorry. Outta line.”

Nijo closed his eyes. “It’s alright.”

Crossing his arms once more, the Elder’s head swerved around like an owl’s. “To the task at hand—finding the blasted Bone. Should we scout further?”

“Hmm.” Nijo put a finger to the wind, as though testing for something.

“The Bone… was here. Then, in a span of seconds, it wasn’t.”

“So it fell into the Sinkhole,” said the Elder. “Or was swallowed.”

“Or perhaps it was taken,” said Nijo. “Pulled into an Interspatial Ring.”

The Elder’s eyes narrowed. “You suspect human interference? A Profound Beast died here. No-one in these backwater tribes would dare!”

Nijo shrugged again. The Elder spat. “What now?”

“Nothing.” Nijo’s eyes fluttered open. “If a human took it, I suspect it’ll turn up—one way or another. If it’s fallen into the Sinkhole’s depths, or was snatched by a Beast there, it is long gone.”

He scoured the horizon with his eyes. “There is no sense agitating about things we can’t control. The trail ends here. All else is speculation.”

“So, what?” The Elder gave him a rough look. “That’s it? Are we to return to the Master empty-handed?”

For a few seconds, Nijo was silent. Then he pointed to the Sinkhole. Its waters were recovering their clear state; the inkblots of acid were being whittled away to nothing. “The creature that spewed that attack lies within,” he said. “Look.”

The Elder grunted. “I see it.”

A few hundred feet in, nestled in a shelf of vibrant, multicolored twisting corals was the Flood Dragon, its scales shimmering a translucent, flavorless, warbled blue. It seemed to blend into its surroundings, dissuading the eye; only a discerning gaze could’ve picked it out amid the Sinkhole backdrop.

Then its eyes shot open, as though it’d felt their gazes. Nijo stared into its cold eyes for a second. He saw them widen.

“We’ve missed the Bone,” said Nijo Ugoc. He gestured to the Beast. For the first time that day, a tired smile graced his face. “Let’s catch ourselves a consolation prize?”

***

1 hour later…

An explosion had been set off in Dorian’s stomach. All of his veins burned; his whole body was one high note of pain. Through his meridians flowed a mind-bending mass of qi, too much to handle; he felt his body strain with the weight of it, a container stretched to bursting. He bit down on his tongue to cut off a rising scream. He cycled as fast as he could, shoving himself to the brink. Qi gushed into his core. He felt beyond bloated and still the qi kept coming—

[Level-up!]

[Origin Level 5 -> 6]

At some point he’d started to bleed in his mouth. Only belatedly did he realize it was from biting his tongue. There was nothing for it. No preparation could’ve saved him from this moment. The only thing to do was to cycle and try to hold in the chaos tearing up his insides.

For a time there was only cycling and the pain, and the pain ebbed and rose and ebbed once more as he cycled, desperately trying to relieve the stress. His skin cracked under its weight. He couldn’t help the aura seeping out of him, so ponderous it distorted the air around him like a heat wave.

The more he cycled the more his limbs filled up with new weight. The heaviness of this qi felt different in person; at this stage of the Origin Realm its weight was already crushing. If he was right, he’d need a physique with the strength to support it. He felt the Bone’s essences unraveling, seeping into his body…

[Level-up!]

[Origin Level 6 ->7]

Qi leaked out of him now in big swathes; he couldn’t help it. Any more and he’d literally combust. What he didn’t let out was the bloodline essence: he clung to every last drop of it, letting it permeate his skin and bones and muscles and body. It was an out-of-body experience. His sheer pain had already set his consciousness at some fixed point outside his body; now it felt like he barely inhabited his limbs at all. There was a monumental change underway across all aspects of himself. Limbs lengthened; bones crackled, grew denser, stronger, longer. New muscles, tempered and hard, filled his frame. His old skin shed off of him like a snake’s. New skin, smoother than riverstones, took its place seamlessly. He felt like he was being slowly transmuted into a precious metal: heavy, dense, pure, without blemish.

At last—that scrawny physique is gone!

He smiled. He was smoking like a bonfire. Impurities left his body in big acrid tufts, dispersing into the air; he could feel his talent ratcheting up in huge leaps. This was the formation of a pseudo-Vigor physique. Usually significant physical changes only occurred in the Vigor Realm, but an exception was made for bloodline users—even in the Origin Realm they attained physiques beyond a mortal’s grasp.

What sort of physique was it? Now that he was assimilating it, the bloodline felt distinctly serpentine. That, coupled with its ultraheavy nature, led him to think of a constricting, grappling force. A crusher, a strangler.

Fighting styles across all builds and Techniques were largely placed in two categories—striking and grappling. The best fighters and martial arts were hybrids of the two. Even the [Fist of the Rising Sun], a decidedly mediocre art, had both [Ray] and [Tongue of Flame], a ranged strike and a rope grappling attack. This bloodline seemed tailor-made for the latter.

Of course he’d need to create far better applications than [Tongue of Flame], at best an ineffectual nuisance of a technique.

But there were other things here too. There was a consuming, spreading darkness to this qi: a heavy Death aspect. Dorian flexed his fingers, dropping a bit of it to the sand. It sank into the dunes like a stone falling into a well.

Only now did Dorian realize he’d sunk up to his hip in the sand. He looked down as he cycled, faintly amused. Likely the originator of this bloodline dwelled deep in the Sinkhole, where its weight was less of a hindrance.

The more he drew in, the less his chest felt like it was about to burst open, the easier he could breathe. He never stopped a diligent cycling pattern. By now he’d drawn in the bulk of it. The last of the qi felt like a block of cement in his gut, but he was slowly chipping away at it. He had full confidence that soon he’d reduce it to nothing.

[Level-up!]

[Origin Level 7-8]

His eyes snapped open. He could devote his mind to the world once more.

Kaya still lay there, totally out of it. The sun had reached mid-day.

He frowned, looking around. Huge flakes of skin papered the ground, but that seemed to be the extent of the aftermath. He’d been careful to reign in any of the Bone’s aura as soon as he could get a handle of it—and this far out in the Desert, the only ones to pay any attention were small fry; Vordors and Sandwolves. Neither, it seemed, had gotten wind of him. Had his scouting the perimeter paid off?

Then a shadow fell across him from directly above him. He looked up and frowned.

The biggest Vordor he’d ever seen made lazy arcs in the sky, eyeing them with undisguised hunger. It must be at the [Vigor] Realm, at least. Tip-to-tip its wings could smother Rust Tribe’s biggest tents.

If Dorian had to guess, this was one of the winners of the Sinkhole battle. It’d likely gorged itself on prime cores and meat. Now it was back for more.

Dorian cycled his qi to its fullest and unleashed his aura.

It wasn’t naked and undisguised, like the Bone had been in its natural state; within him it was reigned in. Still it sent a sharp warning to the Beast.

Stay back. There are powers at play here you know not.

The big Vordor froze.

Then it squawked fiercely, whipping its head from side-to-side as though to shuck off the weight on it. It eyed Dorian again, and he knew he’d only succeeded in angering it.

In one smooth move, Dorian yanked himself up from the sand. His blood churned fast in his veins. Somehow, he didn’t feel nervous in the slightest facing a creature at least a half-Realm above him—a creature that would’ve likely crushed him mere hours before. As he stared up at it, he even felt a vicious smile working at his lips. His Bloodline, unleashed, sang to him. Craving violence.

To his own surprise, he was the one that struck first.

He felt the difference of his new Bloodline the instant he kicked off a [Cloud-Treading Step]. It was a strange counterbalancing act. On one hand his new physique was practically an anchor; the Technique had to work doubly hard to lift it the same distance.

On the other, his qi was orders of magnitude denser than it had been before. The same amount burned granted him threefold the output. He leapt twice more, reveling in the sheer mass of him; the qi at his disposal felt like it’d widened from a pond to a deep lake. Each step propelled him as though he’d been shot out of a bow.

Judging by its reaction the Vordor was taken aback. It reared up with a surprised screech, but the shock didn’t last long. By the time it came down again its throat was filled with noxious fumes.

Dorian threw out a [Tongue of Flame] with all of the heft of his new physique. Even he didn’t expect what happened next. The Tongue lanced out so fast it left an after-image. The air fled before it, screaming like a ghoul. In the blink of an eye a flaming rope latched onto the Vordor’s throat, choking off its attack.

The mere weight of the Tongue seemed to off-balance the Vordor; its singeing property was only a bonus. He saw shock in its giant, orange-yellow eyes. He glanced down at his arms and his hands in surprise.

He could sense he’d barely scratched the surface of what this body was capable of. As he looked at himself closer, every inch of him seemed carved out of smooth marble. He breathed in, his smile widening.

An idea came to mind; he looked up at the struggling Vordor and gripped tighter on the [Tongue]. This would either end the fight in a stroke or fail spectacularly—it all depended on if his newfound power was as ridiculous as it seemed.

He put all of his muscles into it and yanked.

The Vordor strained its hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of muscle, furiously trying to break free. It didn’t stand a chance.

The pull sent it diving at mach speed. It looked almost comical: a colossal, feathered black blur streaking for the ground. It cratered into the sand headfirst, spraying tidal waves of sand in all directions. A mighty, deep thump shook the sands.

Dorian descended leisurely, flexing his hands. The Vordor was flailing in the sand, struggling to extricate itself. When it managed at last, screeching wildly, it stared at Dorian with naked, uncomprehending fear. He smirked. Qi blossomed at his fingertips.

He’d underestimated himself by far. He’d have a ball of a time unraveling the mysteries of this bloodline. For now, first things first—it was time to break in his bloodline. He was due for some target practice.

Time Elapsed: 1 week, 3 days