I sat up and, distracted, looked at Sybil lying next to me. I could feel an unnatural heat emanating from her body and saw her body lengthen, shoulders broaden, and spine straighten.

As near as I could tell, her body was shifting to a more "khatif" form.

Struck by curiosity, I immediately left to check on Took, the one I considered most likely to also be evolving at this time. It didn't take long for me to get to her room, as it was just down the hall from mine. When I poked my head in, I saw just what I had seen in Sybil–broadening shoulders, a straighter spine, and an obviously more erect physique.

I wasn't sure how long the evolution would take for them, but considering there were still quite a few hours until sunrise, I wasn't worried. Instead, I went back into my room and finally checked my new [Status].

[Status:

Name: Ashlani

Race: Sonic Khatif Swarm Alpha

Title: Killer of Redael

Current quests:

—Have one of your spawn grow to adulthood successfully. Progress: Fetus. Rewards: Constitution +5, Intelligence +6, Magic +4.

-- Completely raze a community of creatures with a base Intelligence of at least 4. Rewards: Constitution, Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Magic +6. Reward may increase from difficulty of task.

—Discover a Skill. Rewards: Will vary depending on the tier, focus, and effect of the discovered Skill.

Stats:

-Constitution: 59+10=69

-Strength: 74+8=82

-Agility: 79+8=87

-Intelligence: 78+10=88

-Magic: 68+8=76

Skills:

Innate Leadership—cannot evolve

Pack Tactics—current evolutionary progress: 1/10

Combatant's Bloodlust—current evolutionary progress: Unknown

True Dominance—current evolutionary progress: 1/10

Improved Vision--current evolutionary progress: 0/18

Improved Sonilphon—current evolutionary progress: Unknown

Evolutionary foresight

-Sonic Keel Alpha—Requirements: Acquire the Keel Words of Power, Receive the Blessing of Nievtala

Other evolutions possible, but not currently foreseen.]

I sucked in a quick breath of surprise. While these evolutionary bonuses were lower than my last ones, this was also a much less significant evolution than last time. I hadn't changed my race, just my position within the swarm. In fact, all that had changed was the word "Sub" coming before the word swarm, and I hadn't expected a change quite like this.

[The more advanced your evolution, the greater the benefit. The more advanced of an organism you become, the more difficult it is to evolve further. Therefore, there are greater benefits brought even from minor evolutionary gains.]

That made sense, I supposed. Quickly thereafter, I noticed the change in my skill list–I now had access to the evolutionary prerequisites of [True Dominance]:

[Requirements: Assert complete dominance over 10 Swarm Alpha keelish. Progress: 1/10]

Looking at it, killing Redael must have counted for this, since I'd never had any contact with a different Swarm Alpha. Then, considering that there was this skill's evolutionary path open to me, there must be at least 9 other keelish swarms in the world that I could eventually conquer, which would lead to what was still my eventual goal–finding Viilor and taking everything from him. A part of me wondered when I would get to the point where I could actually focus on achieving that goal–I'd only had brief moments where I could think about it before my immediate concerns got in the way. Things like surviving and being able to protect myself and my pack took precedence over grinding my teeth and imagining that they were closed around Viilor's throat, but now, when sleep escaped me and I didn't want to think about tomorrow morning, my mind involuntarily and absolutely found itself drawn to him. My oldest friend and closest supporter in becoming the leader of our tribe had directly and purposefully brought about my death. I couldn't fathom why he would do so–we'd always gotten along and spoken openly with each other–or, at least, I thought we did. I found myself grinding my teeth and could hear my blood rushing in my head, my heartbeat thundering in confusion and rage.

However, as I laid on the rough ground with thoughts of bloody and painful revenge flowing through my head, a small part of me mused on the cultural differences between the keelish and humans. The more I thought about it, the more the comparisons overtook my thoughts of revenge and rage. I realized that, for all its faults, I preferred the keelish way of living; if you had a problem with someone, you brought it up to them, directly (at least, those who could be considered "true" keelish). Sure, that directness may end in bloodshed or death, but there was no plotting or scheming to overthrow your opponent, just brutal honesty and bloody finality. I'd never loved the human conniving, and it had never come naturally to me, so this different way of living sat better with me.

I realized that I suited keelish life, even if my take on it was a little atypical for the rest of the swarm, and as I mused on this, I almost forgot the most important part of my new [Status] board. Almost.

[Evolutionary foresight

-Sonic Keel Alpha—Requirements: Acquire the Keel Words of Power, Receive the Blessing of Nievtala]

I was so close to this evolution to what could be considered a higher life-form, but so far. Depending on where I was at the moment, I could have a journey of mere hundreds of miles to one of thousands to get to the ruins of Nievtra. That would take months, maybe even longer, considering that I was planning to make the journey with the spawnlings once they hatched. Assuming my timeline was about correct, the spawnlings would hatch somewhere from 2-3 weeks from now, and would need about a week before they were ready to travel…

Having lost myself in thoughts about logistics, I missed Sybil beginning to rouse. She rolled over, saw that I was awake, and stood up with a toothy yawn.

"Good morning, 'Lord'." She winked as she addressed me, and I shook my head wryly. Belatedly, I realized that I didn't feel any sort of superiority towards her any longer, and I stood up.

After my initial evolution to khatif, I'd towered over Sybil, myself standing around 1.8m, and her at a mere 1.3m. Now, however, she stood just above my shoulder, at about 1.55m. She seemed surprised to be so tall, and looked down at herself as I also took in her new stature.

Sybil's head had changed shape–a keelish's head has a long snout without any lips or skin to cover the majority of their fangs. Additionally, most have a smooth head behind their brows, like a lizard, that joins smoothly with their necks that slope down to their narrow shoulders. Their arms are not quite vestigial, long enough to complete basic tasks, but not long enough to serve much more purpose than to hold and move dirt. A keelish's body is held almost parallel to the ground, and their spine flows smoothly from their neck all the way to the end of their meaty tails. Again, their bodies are typically smooth, built for a life lived underground. Their powerful hind legs have three joints, one at the hip, another at the knee, and the last at the ankle which is kept several cm off of the ground due to the almost feline structure of their feet. Their tails are not particularly flexible, mostly built to offset the weight of the keelish torso held so far forward of their center of balance.

Khatif, however, seemed to be built as an in-between of keelish and what I had seen as a Keel in the vision presented by Second. Khatif faces had blunter snouts, not extending quite so far as a keelish, and had what could only be called lips that could come down to cover the wickedly sharp fangs that filled a khatif's mouth. The khatif's head had the suggestion of ear flaps that flared out at the base of the skull as well as larger, more developed eyes. At the base of the skull, larger, more protrusive scales began to appear, looking almost like armor that jutted out several cm, especially at the shoulders, which were about twice as broad as those of a keelish, built in a more humanoid fashion. A khatif also held themself more erect, with their torsos coming to almost but not quite perpendicular to the ground, and their tails showed a greater flexibility than those of the keelish. Their arms were much longer and stronger, and their four fingers were thick yet comparatively dexterous. Their chests were powerfully muscled (this female being no exception), and similarly covered in the armor-like scales found on the back and shoulders. Finally, a khatif's legs were not quite so large as those of a keelish and their feet weren't so thick and wide. They still conveyed obvious power and utility, but a khatif's hips were built in such a way that sidestepping was no longer difficult, as it was for a keelish, and their feet were built so that they walked on the balls of their feet instead of on the entirety of the foot.

That said, a khatif still wasn't quite built in such a way that they could be called humanoid in shape like the Keel. However, they were close.

As I looked Sybil up and down, musing over the comparisons of her past and present body, she looked over at me. "Do you like what you see?"

I chuckled while looking her up and down, "Not bad looking, thanks for the view."

Sybil looked over at me and nodded appreciatively back. "This might change... 'things'." She gently teased me with her tail before going serious, " But, that can be resolved after your campaign today. Are you ready?"

Her words washed over me like cold water and I snapped out of my observational reverie. Today I was going to slaughter hundreds of humans so that tomorrow would exist for me and my swarm.

With a deep breath, I responded, "... I don't know if I am, but I need to be." and began walking out of our room to go speak with the rest of the swarm.