"You know me as the Black Dragon Kalist."

Several things happened at once and I had to stop my perception of time to take note of them all. First, a beam of red went through Vinny's— Kalist's head. In a second, the top half of her skull was vaporized. A distant cry rang out from above a moment before I had frozen everything for me. Fim if I had to guess.

At that same moment, one of the creatures wreathed in flame shot forward and thrust massive claws into the chest of one of the guests. Yet another was already engaged in battle with a man wielding weapons of purple lightning. Elstrad, the other Shakirn, was among the few who were trying to shatter the barrier up above by raining metaphorical and literal hellfire upon it. And that was all just within my fixed field of vision. I couldn't turn my head when frozen like this but I was certain that even more of the fire creatures were engaged around me.

'Mother, this one is ready to protect you with its life but transform for your safety. We must try to get to a position where our back is to a wall.'' Medea whispered in my mind and I had to agree. It would destroy my beautiful and expensive self cleaning dress but what could I even do? Silently mourning the dress and promising to see if I could figure out the dirt ejection system, I prepared to transform the moment I resumed time.

'Affirmative. We will fight our way to the gambling rooms.'

'There is another one of the sacrilegious flame touched creatures behind you.'

Before actually unfreezing, I switched over to Medea's perception to confirm the position of the monster behind me. It was as Medea had said, it didn't look like it was aiming specifically at me but I still needed to slightly move left to avoid becoming collateral. What else? Another was in the middle of a leap at a server. And of course, numerous others that were still circling in the air around Vinny's body. I took the time to carefully observe one of the creatures. It looked like a human, just with a more simian or reptilian skull shape. Slightly hunched and elongated spines with oversized claws. They didn't have eyes. Just black, empty sockets with swirling fire set deep within.

A twinge in my head told me that I was running out of time. Somehow, Planning Phase lasted longer when it was dependent on my mana. Still, I had one last thing to check. What did I have? I picked up the Bonewarrior's Bonewielder passive. Hopefully that, combined with my mana infused bone knives will let me defend myself in a pinch. Big Knife User was on cooldown still but I was sure that it would get absorbed if Bonewielder and Calcified Mana Empowerment were to merge. Another spike of pain in my skull told me that I was out of time.

'Unfreezing now.' And with that, time resumed. I threw myself to my left and the monster behind me crashed on to its target without clipping me. A silent moment of mourning for whoever was the unfortunate screaming victim, I snuck a quick glance above. Vinny's body was still moving, even with a brain missing and skin hanging and flopping off a shattered skull. It was fighting several enforcers by itself, with Lady Ayn at their forefront. She was recognizable by the warrior of brilliant golden light she had turned into. I looked away from the searing gold and began to transform myself.

Medea turned to its now rather impressive full height and began to smash one of the creatures. I brought out four of my boring bone knives (they had all stopped being Godtouched after the whole Retchlord business), one for each hand of my transformed body and hurried to Medea after firing off the usual Enlarge and Hasten buffs. Three more monsters had leapt at Medea and were tearing chunks out of it before it shrunk in size and flew away as the three met each other in a tangle of limbs right above the one Medea had already savaged.

Another of the monsters was impaled by a rod of steel but it was still very alive and screeching. We were trying to sneak away in the chaos but it screeched and pointed at us and another two leapt before us. There had to be hundreds of these things around.

There was no way to get around them in that narrow room. We had to go through. Medea engaged one and I tried my best to survive the other for the time being.

With a howl of what I assumed was rage but sounded more like pain, it lunged and I froze time for a moment to decide to duck low. Another twinge and I winced.

The creature landed right before me, momentarily disoriented, and I cast Laceration Lattice and Induce Bleeding. Silken Snare was pointless. They would just burn. Light scars that only bled for seconds before healing themselves back up. Up close, I was stuck by how much taller the creature was to me, even when hunched. It was both an advantage and a disadvantage. I couldn't win in a direct contest of strength but I didn't need to. Hivemother's Superego told me how to leverage its strength against itself.

As the creature's claws swiped the air where my head was a moment ago, I saw a weak spot highlighted. Its neck. I slash at it to no avail but my skills left me without any hesitation, I knew how to kill it. I let the knife go and retreated a few steps. I needed to bait it into another lunge. Soon enough, I did.

Gripping another knife at both ends and ignoring the biting pain, I held it up horizontally where I predicted the neck would be. The creature crashed into me with enough force to leave me wheezing but it had worked, the knife was at its neck. It just hadn't managed to cut deep enough to pierce the skin. I pushed it in with as much strength as I could. There are mental limits to how much force a human can normally put out as to not destroy their muscles and cripple them, but in moments of desperation, like this, in a place with magic healing, like this, that was a worthy trade off. Superego coldly took over and I pushed even harder

It sank slightly into the skin, my two melee skills levelled up and evolved, but the creature didn't seem to mind. It just seemed confused. Something about that bestial warped face seemed familiar. I had seen it before. A report that Tiamim's office had been sent about a missing kid in Gerankir, a report that was ignored so thoroughly in favor of more important ones. Another claw plunged into my gut.

The next moment, I was coughing up blood. I was wrong about the fire being without any heat at all. It was certainly burning like any other fire. I mentally whimpered in pain and then it got way worse. The creature decided to flex and spay its clawed hands, while it was still inside me.

Pain Tolerance was one of the earliest skills I had acquired in this world and it was much stronger now than it was before, even if it didn't exist in the same form anymore. That said, there are limits to what it can do. A monster on fire impaling my gut with a hand and then bending and spreading it in some twisted facsimile of a heartbeat was certainly beyond it. Superego flickered and then shattered and I screamed.

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I froze time again, ignoring the pounding headache. I was in a weird position. My arms were stretched to its neck but my knees were bucking. The creature's claw was inside me and the other was coming round to tear my head off. My arm muscles were torn and I was bleeding out. I was dying. Medea was trying to get back to my side but there were too many monsters in the way. During that brief fight, more had joined us. More than Medea could fight off. Even if I killed my opponent, the internal damage would not be fixed by a simple Coagulation. One of my Godtouched traits could save me from death once but depending on the wording, it probably only applied when I was fighting Aster. None of my other skills were even remotely useful here. I was out of options. I guess this was it. The end of the line.

I glared at the ugly thing that was going to be my killer. It was not even a fucking Asterite monster. I was just another failed Godtouched who couldn't kill a killer of gods. I couldn't even say I lived a good life to cope. My head was splitting, even these last moments of retrospection were more than I was going to get.

I had only one idea, an insane one that would almost grievously injure me if not kill me outright. I guess I could take it out with me. My knives had so much mana stored in them. Mana that was going to be wasted if I died. Waste not, want not, right? Superego reactivated.

I unfroze time and began to push every single drop of my mana into the knife at its neck. It might have gone a fraction of an inch deeper but I could be imagining it. It didn't matter anymore. My mana skills were working overtime to slightly start to but not actually drawing the mana out while overcharging it. The mana storage matrix within the knife, carved slowly by my skills, was destabilizing. Something this complex was impossible to do without my mental skills and the fact that it was all my own mana that I was in physical contact with. The knife started to glow a blinding white to my mana senses and then to my actual senses.

The creature seemed to sense that something was wrong and the claw gripping my head pulled harder. Too bad, too late.

The knife exploded.

'Mother!'

Halfway across the city, deep within the mines, the signal to keep preserving the dragon's body stopped. A dozen grim faced men and women nodded at each other. There was no need for words. They had to destroy it. Even if it meant the death of their city now that the Aetherite formed from Kalist and Regdren's clash had run dry, better a slow death with a chance of revival than a true death in fire and ash.

These men and women were kept isolated from the city for so long. No chance of any infection by the great enemy could be allowed to occur. It is said that dragons are only a step removed from divinity, and to willfully kill one was to face the dragon in all aspects, body, soul and mind. Many would perish but Kalist had to be killed. Their duty was grim but it was necessary. If they failed in their duty then they would die and all that they know. Even in success, death would follow. Death was what was written in the heavens for them and they accepted it. Kalist must not be allowed to regain a body that could bear the weight of his soul without burning up into a crisp.

They moved with resolution to the elevator to the deepest levels of the mines. It was here, where even the gods couldn't see anything. It was here that the cataclysmic battle was fought. It was here that the body of the dragon was kept in a hundred different pieces all connected by the smallest wires of steel. It didn't resemble a dragon in this state, it didn't resemble anything at all. Just a macabre tapestry of flesh hooked up to pumps and blades of steel. Pistons pumped yellow liquid into a large machine at the very center of it that looked like a boiler and an artificial heart had a child. Hundreds, if not thousands of transparent pipes emerged from it and connected to other pieces of meat, went into the ground or snaked above beyond sight. Spinning guillotine blades shaved off tiny slices of flesh that fell into buckets with a wet sound. The body was being constantly regenerated and then butchered to soak the ground in blood.

This was not an execution but an euthanization. Many of them shuddered at the display before them. After all, what was done here was something even the gods would smite their city for.

When Kalist and Regdren slew each other, their blood mingled and was absorbed into the very ground. Godtouched and Demigod, Man and Dragon. Both fought and both perished. There was power in the act of dying while killing. That mixed blood, enriched by divinity and mutual annihilation was absorbed by the ground to produce so much Aetherite that they used as coin. But that semi divine bloodshed had another effect too. One that almost no one really knew about outside of the upper echelons of the churches. The gods were blind in these mines. They couldn't see anything but a spot so bright that all details were lost. And so when the mines dried up and the high councillor had the body of the dragon dug up and sent here, no god was aware of his plans.

Plans that were now going to end. The maskless enforcers split up and moved to adjust various sliders and press buttons. The monstrosity of flesh and metal trembled as segments of it were pulled apart and lowered. Valves let out steam and pistons returned to life. It was disgusting and tedious work but better to be slow and careful rather than risk something surviving.

None of that mattered anymore when the body exploded into fire. Fire that was no longer without heat. The enforcers died before they could even scream.

When I regained awareness, my status told me that I was only out for a few minutes. I couldn't see anything but the sounds of battle still raged around me but my body felt very wrong. I seemed to be buried under a pile of bodies. Healing! I needed healing urgently. Strangely I was keenly aware that I didn't feel any pain. No, I was feeling something else. A soreness that throbbed and pulsed with my heart across my body. But it was not my body anymore. And it was not moving. I switched over to Medea to confirm it was alive, injured but alive. The fire barrier above was paler now and I could see reinforcements flying in and attacking it from above. A metal man of silver with gold hair was single handedly raining what looked like orbital strikes of metal and many inside were engaging in battle with the monsters. Kalist was still fighting the enforcers with a blown up skull but others had joined the fray. The powerhouses among the guests, foreigners and guilders alike.

'Mother, are you safe?'

'Maybe?'

Medea didn't reply because at that moment, another of the things, this one much larger than the ones before, attacked it. The new one looked like three of its lesser brethren had melted together into a tangle of limbs, spines and snarling heads on two muscular legs as thick as three trunks. Medea flew away when one of its legs was effortlessly ripped out, before circling back at its full size. Medea's maw opened up and a beam of molten earth, the one the worm had, lanced forward with a ringing metallic screech.

The sound would have made me shiver if I could, as it was, I couldn't do that. So I ignored it and tried to figure out what was wrong with my body. It felt like I had way more mass than I had and was that an extra leg? I needed to check my notifications.

\\Kalist's Lesser Kobold slain

Ooh, so that's what they were called. Kobolds.

\\[LARVAL HIVEMOTHER] is now level 30!

\\Class mastered [LARV

Yes yes. I really didn't care right now. I was just happy to note that the debuff was gone now.

\\Class [LIFE SHAPER ACOLYTE] selected!

I skipped ahead. Superego had obviously done something drastic but I was alive, wasn't I?

I checked my status. Blood Sense was now Blood Absorber. Intimidation was gone, again. Instead there was a new skill in its place. One that started from level 30. Or it could have evolved considering I was starting to understand what I had done to myself for survival.

The skill was called Chimeric Grafting.

I checked my status and it confirmed what I was already sure of. I hadn't healed or preserved my destroyed organs, I had replaced them. I was not buried in a pile of bodies. No, I had become a pile of corpses.

NAME: ANANYA HARTFORD

RACE: FLESH AMALGAMATE

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