By the time he came to, it was the dead of night. A raging headache greeted him in his first instances of wakefulness and he just hunkered back down in hope it went away of its own accord.

He just finished one harsh battle against a steel tier to almost die against the follower of a terror realm lord!

Not that his HP was looking any better as the Nexus still reported it to be at 52%.

Not life-threatening, but his mind couldn’t exactly repair itself like an ice-cream body. This sort of stuff took extensive time, by dragon standards that is. He was looking at a week-long wait to fully heal the wound, even if just half a day dealt with all the near-fatal stuff.

During this week he knew to stay away from constructing his Mind palace or descending his mental space. Besides these two points, he could train in any way desired.

But, first thing’s first… He cooked some more of the butterfly after a quick roasting. It didn’t fill him up a lot, but the moonlight elements certainly helped soothe his dreadful headache. As it returned moments later, such pain proved more than anything how fleeting and temporary such effects actually are. Dragons considered moonlight creatures as ‘Tricksters’ and ‘Untrustworthy’.

The element allowed manipulation of not only moonlight itself, but even one’s mental state, and general caution is upheld against all who possess such powers.

[Consumed Lunar-clipped butterfly bloodline! Assimilation progress 82%]

He eventually passed out even with the throbbing pain from his head, sleeping for several more hours in a painful night. But with his actions, it was hardly uneventful.

* * *

Another gathering took place besides the infected node tree, the beasts involved all conflicted but also inspired. Each of them, appearing rather normal in the past, had changed wildly in the past few nights. For some, one of their pupils had changed into a pink light, glowing eerily in the dark night. For others, the change manifested as strange patterns on their body, and for one it was a single light-purple claw.

The five stood in a circle, only the quiet chirps of insects and gusts of wind kept the scene from complete stillness.

“I can’t believe he’s dead… And he was the strongest.” One beast finally broke the silence between them, immediately initiating others to jump in.

The squirrel spoke up first, “Should we get revenge?”

“No. He was clearly too weak for the lord. We must complete his goal and be his messengers, only then will we have our revenge!” However, a certain cantou’s response met them with a steel wall. Even if they all agreed on the greatness of their lord, was there a need to completely throw one-another away so casually?

“She’s right… We knew this would happen. None of us expected this subordinate beast to have such a powerful mind, but it does not matter so long as we summon our lord. Now, why did you call this meeting?”

All four beasts turned to the final member who had yet to speak up, instead it grinned silently. Just a small fox with sky blue fur, and it said in its tiny voice, “I was able to grow a nightmare stalk. It’s nearly time.”

All five beasts looked around with an insidious smile. They could taste it, the power and control promised to them. It was…

Delicious.

* * *

By the time he came to, the sun high up in the sky only worsened a quickly reappearing headache. The pain no longer throbbed but just ached to no end. As no good could come from sitting at the side forever, he decided to stand up and head over to the wyvern. He hadn’t seen the battle’s results, but his side possessed almost several more steel tiers…

At first he tried to merge with the spirit as well, but the mental pain only grew exponentially worse by the second, and he opted to disperse all his Windburst seals. The Jump seals remained to make travel faster.

After an excruciating 10 minute walk, he finally stepped into the wyvern’s hollowed mountain and asked, “Was yesterday’s repulsion a success?”

Seeing the youngling’s severe situation, it immediately raised itself and replied, “What happened to your mind? How were you injured?” The seriousness of this situation never actually occurred to him, and clearly the wyvern grew enraged that something actually penetrated through a mental space capable of descension.

“The dream world lord orchestrating it chose some followers. I cannot block peak steel tier psychic attacks with my mental space alone.” While his answer reversed the wyvern’s situation a bit, it clearly still held some annoyance at the situation.

From a glance it identified that the damage was both deep and near fatal.

“Did you see their power?”

“Gold tier, weaker than yours, lord. Also, I’ve identified that this lord is from the terror realm.” He made sure to enunciate the usage of ‘lord’ differently as a sign of respect. But clearly the clarification did not please the wyvern.

But rather than speak frivolously, it cut open its chest once more and filled a bowl with warm blood. This marked the halfway point, but that just meant another two weeks until completion.

After drinking it all, he followed up the report with one more piece of information. “All surviving tree owners should be subdued now as well. Only the node tree remains.”

“Ignore it.” The wyvern ended the conversation on an abrupt but clear note. It informed him that his only job in the short term was recovery and growing stronger, at the very least he needed the power to consistently fight steel tiers.

Given all that, he now just had to assimilate the butterfly and some other bloodlines. The verdant oak and seeping veil shrooms were prime candidates for assimilation. If he could find a growth of nightmare stalks, then it might be worth assimilating them for some potential dream-related evolution.

At the least he had a good amount of food in the form of that leopard, not to mention the infested innards of that goat.

He focused on the butterfly first, only feeling comfortable to move on to new bloodlines once he assimilated this critical one. Roasting what remained of the body he obtained meant that one of two options remained for fully assimilating it.

He either ate the wings, or decided to cut up the remaining body in that cave. The one he preferred was obvious.

[Consumed Lunar-clipped butterfly bloodline! Assimilation progress 86%]

And so, whilst slowly walking over to the cave, he thought about how to prepare for the upcoming battles of growing intensity. This was in no way the final one, and who knew how serious the battle against the king would grow. In any case, he needed to be steel tier before it came about.

Whether in a few weeks or months, he knew his rate of improvements was more than enough to keep up.

Once in the cave, he noticed the remnant aching from his mind quelled as long as he remained inside, but knew enough to ignore such an effect. Unlike a real medicine which numbed the pain, this moonlight simply masked it. A useless thing in reality unless one liked living a falsehood. He cut down the remaining butterfly and took it with him after cutting off the wings.

And now he came to an impasse, having to decide between gathering sap from the verdant oaks or heading home. Although, there was no reason to avoid collecting bloodline energy.

Over the course of the next twenty minutes, he headed over to the reindeer’s former tree and cut it open for some sap. A simple Telekinesis already aggravated the pain in his head, but even then he cast Lesser flame to quickly boil the sap. With an already large globule showing hundreds of the tiny brown spores within, he had to make sure the spores completely died.

After which he ate it all and sealed off the tree’s wound.

[Consumed Verdant oak sap! Assimilation progress 10%

Consumed Seeping veil spores! Assimilation progress 4%]

This confirmed an ease to assimilating the trees themselves, but he might need to consume the fungus itself to properly complete its bloodline. Nonetheless, some life essence remained after all that and its nourishment overnight would be of great help to his body. Not that it helped one’s mind, but maintaining a pedantic attitude right now only harmed him.

A bright and glorious day had been reduced to painful glares of harsh light off every surface in his vision. He wished, more than ever, that a blizzard set in for the next few days and granted very much needed time to heal.

So, unable to do much, he sat in his small designated cave and continued transforming his heart to crystal. Not that he could do much else in his current state.

In comparison, things beyond the mountain range were a lot more exciting.

* * *

For the king of Remelo, things had transpired strangely to say the least. He sat beside his wife on a high throne on the seat. Rather simple by his standards, with its velvet inlays and golden rims over a wood body. At the very least, this was formed with a prized wood used for magical tools. While he appeared pleased at the sight, for some reason he tapped the armrest of the throne lightly. And through the corner of his eye, he swore a faint shadowy figure backed away from the crowd through an empty alleyway.

In comparison, the masses surrounded him with interested and confused eyes. As in front rested a sparkling grey stone block and its executioner. But, nonetheless, many appeared excited to see such a thing. Public executions were generally reserved for the highest criminals, those who threatened the very existence of a nation. As for the ones being executed?

Eternals, five of them to be precise.

On the durable, magically reinforced stage, the masked axeman sharpened his blade and ensured the grey chopping block’s cleanliness. Besides him stood five tall yet slim figures, all of them had black skin with silver patterns all over, not a single set of lines matched another’s. Furthermore, the faces of eternals appeared a lot simpler than humans, lacking any nose as their nostrils pressed against their face.

Their eyes were slightly more circular, but not so much to be ‘monstrous’, while their lips… They didn’t have any. Instead, they opened their mouths as though a black mass parted to reveal brilliant white, normal teeth.

As everyone appeared ready, the king finally gave a signal and allowed a pompously dressed human to walk up on stage with a sizable book in his hand. A large wig combined with a gold-threaded lavender suit displayed their status, and he began to read aloud.

“For the crimes of conspiracy, murder, and foreign political manipulation, the nation of Remelo sentences these five eternals to death.” The man closed the book and received a few strange looks from the crowd who knew such proceedings lasted far longer. But even as he held it beneath an arm, it did not stop him from speaking once more. “The five standing before you conspired with some traitors to harm our very society, plunging the world into a deadly war. They commanded the death of several geniuses and invaluable individuals, harming the country for years to come! Do the people believe such beings or traitors deserve freedom?”

“NO!” The majority spoke as one, easily noting how everything they ever knew almost fell to ruin because of the hands of those five in front of them. Furthermore, this magistrate did not let go of those nobles who betrayed the nation, and for that they fully supported him. It had not been that long before they chanted, “Kill them!”

Over and over, at first just a few but then it spread throughout the crowd.

It grew louder and louder with every cycle, before long, the city bathed in the crowd’s bloody desire. Some children started following along as well; today worked wonderfully for the crown.

The magistrate bowed slightly to the king opposite and stepped down, and so began the proceedings.

Mana-blocking metal bands stopped the eternals from escaping, and allowed the Gold ranked executioner to easily push them on their knees, once on the chopping block, a powerful force restricted their heads perfectly.

He readied the axe, taking a stance and sensing the crowd’s growing anticipation. He felt the stage had expanded ever so slightly from the crowd’s heat and perspiration, the gentle breeze on this warm and sunny day rushing against his blade.

“Asharvad will enjoy your soul soon enough, human.” The eternal spoke, smiling with that one line. But it did not phase the executioner, who only smiled at the words.

“Sure. That’s what the halens said as well.” The executioner’s chuckle did not make it beyond the stage. But what everyone waited for finally arrived.

He swung down.

Five cuts; Five heads.