The king’s impaled body started to tremble and the crystals that made up his body started to crumble and shatter. The hole that was in his stomach expanded as the king wriggled, trying to escape. Using all of the strength left in his body, the king used his wings, which were now gone of the sickly glow to push against the spike and propel him into the air, but as he launched into the air, even the crystal wings started to shatter. The four, thin wings had several tears in them and as the king tried to fly away, they completely disintegrated, leaving the king no choice but to crash back into the ground once more. Several more crystals shattered as he thudded into the ground, his legs completely shattering from the fall. Despite that, he used his crystal arm to dig into the ground and pull himself forwards, hoping to make it in time before Vaar got back up.

Vaar’s body was cut into two pieces starting from his right shoulder. His head was in one piece and Orou could clearly see that Vaar and breathing and trying to move, though he couldn’t get off the ground. Several black tendrils were coming out from his decapitated right half, slowly dragging his body back together. The king, although he was doing his best to move, was simply too slow as the tendrils reattached the two halves of Vaar’s body together. Following that, Vaar’s body started undergoing rapid changes. His skin became much paler and he was rapidly shrinking down, from his original size of five meters down to three meters. The black strands and the black mist that once made up his body was diminishing as his muscles started to decay.

The king’s sword like arm had turned back into his regular arm, all for the sake of dragging himself over to Vaar faster, but his face was overcome with despair as the wounds on Vaar’s body started to close. Vaar’s face was contorted in pain, but, enduring the pain, he managed to smile as he stood up and glanced over at the king. His legs were unsteady and his right arm was hanging limply by his side, but he was walking over to the king, one step at a time. The king’s face was overcome with despair, and a few moments later, resignation.

Vaar looked down on the king and kneeled down next to him, using his left arm to pick up what was remaining of the king’s body. Staring right in the crystalline eyes of the king, Vaar said to him: “Any last words, dear brother?” His voice, although metallic and exhausted, was full of pride and accomplishment. He was cackling like a hyena that had finally caught its meal and was about to dig in.

“You might kill me, you might take over the kingdom, but trust me, you won’t reign for long. I hope you die a long and bloo-” The king’s eyes widened and his face went from anger to surprise as Vaar’s metallic left hand dug into the king’s body. With another burst of crystals, Vaar tore his hand out of the king’s body and in his hand, he held a heart, made entirely from blue crystals. The king tried to force words out of his mouth, to curse at Vaar but all that came out were groans of pain. The king’s body cracked down the middle and finally, completely shattered, leaving behind nothing more than shards of what once used to be the king.

The ever-present drums that were inspiring the soldiers to fight on all of the sudden died down, the adrenaline that was present in all of their bodies and their rolling blood quieted down, leaving behind only exhaustion and tiredness. Vaar’s cackling was accompanied with shouts of victory from the soldiers, which were now eldrich abominations walking in human form. Although the two sides were matched for a while, the more soldiers died on Vaar’s side, the stronger each beastman got. Instead of arms and legs, black tentacles were moving them forward and on their chests was an opening, which seemed to lead into the abyss. One by one, the abominations picked up the exhausted and defeated soldiers, breaking their limbs with their tentacles and throwing them into their chests, revealing a huge maw which would chomp down onto the soldiers and absorb the black strands into their bodies.

The battlefield was completely empty, save for a few of abominations sweeping the battlefield, looking for more corpses to devour. It didn’t matter from which side the soldiers were, the abominations would even eat the comrades that had fought with them and who had died to win this fight. Those that weren’t eaten by the abomination were absorbed into the ground and instead, fed directly to Vaar, which helped to slowly but surely expand his body. Vaar, still savouring his victory and holding the crystal heart in his hands, started making his way over to the battlefield and once he did, the abominations gathered around him.

There were more than a hundred of his remaining soldiers left, all of them deformed in one way or another. Although they couldn’t properly think, they still recognised the presence of their leader and formed up to create a tidy formation. Unfortunately for them, their loyalty wasn’t rewarded with praise, but instead, with murder and death. Vaar picked out several of the least deformed soldiers and, piercing his arm through them, started to absorb the black strands inside of their bodies. His once exhausted body regained its former vigour after only several kills and he grew an entire meter once he had killed more than twenty, after which he stopped and addressed the army.

“Those that are here before me are those, who fought, killed and slaughtered the most. For that, I shall bestow you the honour of being the elite guard of the new kingdom of Noctis. You shall be tasked with slaying our future enemies, ready to sacrifice yourselves for me at any time,” Vaar moved his right arm and using the black strands he recently absorbed, he forced the black strands to condense and create a sickly glow around his finger. The tentacles shrunk back from the sickly glow and retreated back into their host's bodies, leaving behind a husk of what was once a beastman. As Vaar’s finger touched the beastman, his body disintegrated, leaving behind only the black strands the beastman had absorbed during combat.

The black strands merged to form a shadowy form of a humanoid and after a few moments, the black strands forged black armor. With a heavy thud, a knight, made entirely out of black strands appeared where once was nothing. The knight was much larger than the beastman originally was, growing to three meters and becoming much bulkier than before. The knight held in his hands a sword, made from black crystal and a shield, made from dark metal. The armor that the knight wore was exquisite as if painstakingly crafted tens of hours by the most skilled craftsman. It depicted the process of evolution of the black strands, which was to eat and absorb until there was nothing left in the world.

The process took several minutes, but eventually, the ugly abominations were gone and in their place, several black knights, holding their swords and shields perfectly straight, stood upright. Going up to the largest beastman, the one whose body had been almost torn to pieces by the tentacles and the one with the most amount of deaths on his hands, Vaar placed his finger on the beastman’s forehead and once again, the husk of the beastman disintegrated and the black strands started to create a massive body, almost as large as Vaar’s original form was.

This time, instead of letting the process complete itself, Vaar pierced his hand through the black strands and placed the king’s crystal heart inside of the body of the beastman. Immediately, the black strands started to wrap around the heart and corrupt it, turning it from blue to dark blue, though not completely dark like the rest of the beastmen’s hearts. Following that, the beastman’s suit of armor was created, but instead of metal, it was completely made out of crystal. The same happened to his shield and his already crystal sword, which grew by several meters, nearly becoming as large as him. The beastman that was standing before Vaar vaguely resembled both him and the king, though inheriting some of the original beastman’s traits.

“From this day, you shall be known as Ashan, the commander of the Black Knight division. I have great hopes for you, so don’t let me down.”