While Remelo entered a small period of peace and safety, following a plot to lure out the traitorous nobles and the eternals supporting them. Those who pointed fingers at one another now picked up the pieces of burnt bridges to see what could be mended and what laid well beyond the redeemable line…

And from the start, there were very few relationships that could be mended.

The Bachlar and Augusticus families, once rather close due to sharing excellent students of magic, even if one was clearly superior, deteriorated to the point where no one talked to the other. The sheer scale and number of death threats sent to each other’s side was enough to frighten even the most obsessive of men and women.

A certain duke redacted their accusations towards the royal family, proceeding in what the commoners regarded as a ‘highly amusing matter’. On top of great embarrassment, that household ended up gifting the royal family around a twentieth of their total wealth in appeasements.

Maybe those who got off worst were the marquises and other middle-level nobles who wished for independence in those chaotic days…

Many of whom found their families stripped of titles and achievement whilst others saw rapid promotions due to loyalty. Due to that, the Augustica territory became that of viscounts, with Bachlar growing to a marquis themselves. An excellent growth if they hadn’t been caught in the crossfire of the eternals’ plot.

Similar restructurings and payoffs occurred throughout Remelo, not that they alone pulled out the eternals making deals with nobles. A few other nations successfully found out the traitors in their nobility, and used those links to eventually rout out the majority of eternals.

Unfortunately, all knew it to simply be a first wave of the race’s attempts. Would they continue seeking out vulnerable and desperate nobles?

Or perhaps they’d find another target altogether…

* * *

Meanwhile, as chaos reduced across the continent, it only ramped up in the Evelard range itself. As all across were beasts being pressured to evolve and grow as fast as possible, every lord seeking to gather hundreds of steel tiers in the upcoming moments of danger. However, since that one eruption of mana from weeks ago, not a single other creature broke through to gold tier.

Whether due to most with potential being killed off, or simply a statement on the mountain range’s state beforehand, was unknown. The numbers had been widely spread though.

The roc and wyvern were two outsiders at gold tier, and appeared most likely to win this war unless the others ganged up on them.

The current king, on the other hand, only made a single move in the full time since all lords arrived. In fact, according to some local beasts, he had not made any other moves in years now, simply requiring some tribute from node trees every year or two. And as a gold tier, he naturally held a right to be this place’s king, but whether or not he could keep it had yet to be seen.

One last note to take is that other gold tier. It surprised no one to find out that one of the crab’s elder children actually gathered enough mana to break through their shackles and metamorphose their body. Unlike evolutions, this process was rather similar to how dragons transformed their hearts into crystals.

But for the crabs, it instantly replaced their shells with a crystalline version, while the patterns grew larger and more intricate. No one looked down on these gold tiers, with so much defence, both physically and mentally, few knew how to kill them.

All of this continued throughout day and night, all lords still rapidly growing their forces in hopes they came out on top.

News of the dragon spread throughout all lords’ lands days ago now, especially once the butterfly lord discovered his ability to descend his mental space. Most lords grew wary of the beast now, expecting it to be a crazy powerhouse in just a few months, which left them in agreement that a battle against the wyvern either had to be stalled for the moment, or to crush the force as soon as possible.

Unsurprisingly, no agreement came about. The result was undecided and they simply waited whilst bolstering their forces…

* * *

Which brought the situation ahead to just five days since the young dragon’s incident, where he made excellent progress on assimilations and transforming his heart! By volume, he hit the 5% mark, any improvements seemed weeks away, at the least.

When he transformed 50% of his heart, the first modification to his breath would come, at which point he hoped it gained more functionality besides ‘stickiness’. Not to say the pungent smell or slowing effect were useless…

But they didn’t do anything against steel tier opponents.

When he woke up in the morning, he was pleased to see his HP hit 94%, the final bits of his wound closing up and now barely an inconvenience. His waking moments no longer claimed a headache to lord over him, and once merged with his spirit, it actually felt alright to move about. In fact, the only thing which truly hurt was utilisation of his mental space.

Although building his Mind palace actually caused no problems. He focused on the transformation of his heart due to its slow progress when compared to the first complete building in his mind.

He had began production on a simple metal torch on the wall. A few hours allowed him to make a simple lump of metal, but the hard part came in the form of shaping such a thing before it set into his mental space.

But even after several dozens of attempts, no luck came about.

Besides boring training, he finished eating the leopard’s whole body, going so far as to devour its fur for that tiny bit of assimilation progress. In the end, he also washed and ate the guts, but it paid off in the end.

[Iceborn leopard assimilated! 3 new bloodline directions potentially available]

This leopard he considered so powerful, only had a… Magical+ bloodline?

He now understood what humans meant by feeling ‘scammed’. The past few days allowed him to play up this bloodline immensely, and the expectations reached Rare rank on that final hour. Disappointment eventually ended that matter, and what mattered far more were the other assimilations he completed.

[Lunar-clipped butterfly assimilated! 5 new bloodline directions potentially available

Verdant oak assimilated! 2 new bloodline directions potentially available

Seeping veil fungus assimilated! 4 new bloodline directions potentially available

Derivative Spirit trapping shrooms assimilated! 2 new bloodline directions available]

A huge arrangement of bloodlines, and one from the Kandir divinity as well, although one might pick up something strange about those numbers. Primarily that he received 5 bloodlines from the butterfly… And in truth the situation did not go well.

Just like the Kandir assimilation, his body immediately began melting from the bloodline forcing itself onto him, but this time he prepared against such a thing. By cycling mana at the hottest points he confirmed the previous tests, staying completely conscious throughout the event. And with every spot cooled down in time, it resulted in minor harm to his body at most.

And like all physical harm, he completely healed it within the day.

That butterfly was an Advanced+ bloodline as well, his highest to date. But still too little to completely break the Nexus’ current rankings. He now had an excellent selection of bloodlines though, and given how much bloodline energy he devoured, evolution was an upcoming event.

Today he aimed to completely check all the trees as an insurance. He wanted to know if any of the other owners converted to a pawn of that terror realm lord, and if so how powerful they grew. After all, a single enhancement allowed that goat to attack at the level of steel tiers, what if they could receive a few modifications and truly become stronger than him?

Or… What if the node tree owner joined their side? He found out from the sheep who currently owned that tree, it was some sort of powerful bird which hung around the branches most of the day.

When he reached the first tree, an empty one previously owned by the reindeer, its purple veins grew deeper and reached higher than before. Grasping up to the tree’s branches, he only knew what the things did in theory and never dared test it out himself. The situation appeared roughly equal on all mana gatherer trees and he wondered if it was late enough to begin a search for the nightmare stalk.

It’s said to take around two to four weeks until it can appear, and with the support of so many trees every statistic showed it to happen sooner rather than later. But the wyvern could give that order, either way he didn’t fear that being from another world, as long as he stayed near his leader.

Dream realm creatures are strongest in their own world, the physical world simply didn’t aid their existence, and given the wyvern’s superior mental training, it was unlikely even a gold tier could break through their palace. All in all, he couldn’t wait to start harvesting the swathes of cattle trying to invade this world.

On a walk to the other trees, he came across the same lynx and boar who once tried to kill him, both shivered in fear once he approached. The elk, who just barely stayed conscious during the fight against the goat, eventually recounted what happened to them. And as one of the few psychic beasts in the area, none doubted its claim of the goat using steel tier attacks.

Even so… it lost against the dragon. It made clear just how powerful it was in comparison, and they wondered if its lord truly was a peak steel tier beast… Even though some claimed it reached gold tier, the information wasn’t widely regarded.

In the end, he came to the final trees, with lords who bowed their heads immediately. While he did not become their lord, it was basic etiquette to show respect to a superior beast. Some critters somehow learnt that he was only a year old as well, further frightening most of the bronze tiers who’d spent upwards of five times that to reach their current levels.

Of course the mountain’s situation changed a month ago… But how much of a difference could just one month make? Perhaps a single evolution, but that didn’t explain the dragon’s insane rise to power.

But as legends of dragons and wyverns began to spread, more and more beasts knew that the younglings reached gold tier simply by living. There was no need to evolve or consume plants filled with mana…

Just like the situation with many of the wyvern’s subordinates, jealousy spread once more.

The fifth day since his injury meant that his work was undoubtedly completed, and he’d earned the respect of all the beasts there. It seemed likely by the day that the wyvern wanted him to take control of the node tree, but needed him to grow some more to earn the position.

For the rest of the day, he rushed back to his original mountain to grab some more solar-death shrooms, also scouting the path there and back for objects of interest. Unfortunately, the best he found was a single aurora reindeer bone, which he obviously took but also felt disappointed with.

In just one more trip he’d have another assimilated bloodline as well.

Even after the near-fatal injury, things in the long run seemed amazing. At least, they were…

On his way back to the wyvern’s mountain, he felt the whole range begin to shake, this time the source clearly originated from the tallest peak in the range. Snow barrelled down the sides, causing an avalanche all over, but that was barely of note compared to what happened.

A misty bubble expanded from the mountain as a whole, creating a thick layer of blue ice first covering the peak, but slowly extending downwards to the mountain’s base. He thought it had to stop soon, the crab’s power couldn’t be infinite, but as the bubble approached him that thought quickly died out.

He ran away from it, just trying to get outside whatever range it would hit before popping. Fortunately, he never actually stood in its range, already being a fair distance away, but the damage of that single move, as the entire central mountain and at least a kilometre in all directions, froze and coated in that frightening blue ice.

An eruption of mana came from the mountain’s peak, a gold tier aura he recognised well enough.

The sea-freezing crab awoke.