Levi stood and surveyed the aftermath.

Four fighters had died and he'd lost Packrunner sometime in the chaos. But the humans who'd survived had leveled. Practically all of them.

A lot of them had been stuck at their first threshold level, resulting in a whole flurry of new abilities. Two tamers who just reached 5 elected to take Revive, one ('Barry') even put all his points into it exclusively. He promptly revived Packrunner, while another volunteered their revive for Tink so Levi's could be reserved for an emergency.

That made him feel much better about this whole mad plan, knowing he had at least one backup, and having illusions back on the table really freed up his options.

Drakonias reached his next threshold, tag flipping from level 9 to 10.

Peter also reached his second threshold, choosing to put two points into bringing Revive down to 6 hours, and one into a new ability, 'Hasten' which Levi hadn't seen before.

"Minions are granted a brief increase in stamina and stamina regen. Tier 1, regen is equal to 1/2 stamina spent; direct increase is equal to 4/5ths stamina spent. It doesn't have a set cost, I can choose to use as much or as little as I want, like Empower."

Levi approved of Peter's choices. Revive was never going to be excessive, and by pursuing the Empower line he'd be able to perform more advantageously once he got his own minions back. Being able to speed up the slow but dangerous-at-range slime, or empower an already powerful ogre seemed like the sort of things that would always be useful to have available.

Levi regretted having left Peter behind while he and Gordon leveled the dungeon loop. Yes, they'd wanted to spread word about the dungeons and get more people preparing for the coming apocalypse, but that all felt very inconsequential compared to the amount of suffering his family had ended up undergoing as a result.

Then again, if they hadn't been captured he'd have had no reason to come after this place at all. It would have remained secret. Everyone else would have remained prisoners until their captors deigned to do something to or with them, or a monster broke in and killed them all. Either way, he didn't see their futures as being very bright if he hadn't intervened. Especially once the demon invasions began, such sites would be neglected and their helpless captives unlikely to survive.

He pushed such thoughts aside. That wasn't going to happen. This time, he would save them all. Get them out safely. At least... almost all. He pushed down any guilt over the deaths of the four who'd fallen while they were fighting the kalvex, though he knew they were lucky it hadn't been more. If so many of them hadn't leveled mid-fight, it would have been more.

He glanced over his own stats first, dropping his point into Strength without much thought. Health regen definitely needed to be faster. Since his wasn't a threshold level, there wasn't much else to think about for himself.

But Levi wasn't the only one to have leveled.

He turned to Skarm. "So, you ready to evolve?"

Skarm shifted uneasily, beckoning Levi deeper into the passage and away from the others, glancing around as though worried they'd be overheard.

Levi took another glance back at the group, gesturing for his two kalvex to guard the entrance, but nothing else required his immediate attention. Lash's instructions were to keep the pack distracted and far away as long as possible, primarily to allow Bolt to recover his health, but everyone else as well.

If Skarm wanted privacy for his evolution, he didn't see any problem with that.

Once they were well away from everyone and everything, in a wide and long hall that slowly ascended to the next level, smooth floors and unadorned walls... Skarm turned back to face Levi and shrugged.

"You don't know? Why do all of you have so many opinions on so many things, but when it comes time to actually choose a future for yourselves you suddenly freeze up?"

Skarm shrugged.

"Fine. Let's see the options." Levi brought up the evolution panel for Skarm.

Evolve to Armored Gremlin

Evolve to Dustclaw Gremlin

Evolve to Flickering Gremlin

Combined Evolution: Cen Combined Evolution: Centoo Combined Evolution: Gremlin Two

Like with the centipedes, there were three options, plus the combined ones. Combined options included Two, Cen, and Centoo, proving that cross-species combinations were possible. All those were currently greyed out at the moment, presumably since all three of those minions were dead and also not physically present.

Something to think about in future. For Skarm, Levi might want to cross him with something powerful or useful in future, but right now he couldn't afford to give up any potential power by holding back. He'd already made that mistake with the centipedes, holding out in case there would be something better later on, and they weren't here to help as a result.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, since Pierce wasn't here either. But still. Right now if they were going to get out of this situation with as many people intact as possible, they'd need every advantage they could scavenge.

[Armored Gremlin: This evolution focuses on defence and survivability. It gains health at an increased rate and can utilize momentum with a high degree of flexibility. Its main drawback is a decrease in non-physical damage and lower impact from stamina usage.]

[Dustclaw Gremlin: This evolution focuses on offense and annihilation. It amplifies the power of all attacks and increases mana utilization and recovery. Its main drawback is reduced stamina and decreased ability for concealment.]

[Flickering Gremlin: This evolution focuses on stealth and evasion. It can move faster, gains stamina at an increased rate, and amplifies concealment and ambush abilities. Its main drawback is decreased health and reduced damage resistance.]

Levi frowned at the first option. Armored Gremlin seemed like a good option for a frontline fighter, but both Skarm and Two were more skirmishers than frontliners. Even if Skarm was often in the thick of the fighting, it was more as a hit-and-run series of attacks of opportunity than full frontal confrontation.

Gaining health at an increased rate was always good, and momentum manipulation could synergize well with Skarm's movement abilities. But the decrease in non-physical damage was problematic. Since a big part of gremlins' powerset was their ability to use corrosive or bleed effects to cause lingering damage even after their initial attack, negating those seemed counter-productive. It made sense if you were trying to make an army of only gremlins and needed fighters, but Levi wasn't specializing to that degree.

Ruling out Armored left the other two: Dustclaw, and Flickering. At first glance, Dustclaw appeared to be the obvious answer. Decreased ability for concealment didn't matter for Skarm, since he never even pretended to be stealthy in the first place. Decreased stamina, though. That would hurt. Gremlins already didn't gain much of anything from their stat points, even if they gained a lot of them, and taking a hit to stamina gain wouldn't be ideal.

On the other hand, Skarm's regens were ridiculous, so maybe having a bigger pool wouldn't matter so much.

Flickering was the perfect glass cannon evolution option. The decreased health and lowered damage resistance wouldn't matter if the creature is weak enough that just about anything could kill it anyway, and increased speed and stamina were tempting even setting aside the stealth bonuses.

While his initial impulse would be to go Dustclaw for Skarm and Flickering for Two, he was also tempted to just go Flickering all the way. Decreased damage and decreased stamina would matter far more in the kind of fights they engaged in than decreased health. If one of the gremlins got caught by a much stronger enemy, a little more health here or there wouldn't change the outcome.

"Dustclaw, or Flickering. You have any preference?"

Skarm made a wobbling motion with his hand.

"You really don't want to make this decision, do you?"

Skarm shrugged.

Levi read over the descriptions one more time, then made his selection.

Skarm stiffened, eyes widening. Mana coalesced around Skarm in a cloud so thick it was all but visible, causing a light distortion that shimmered the air even here inside a level 20 dungeon. At the same time, his pools all dropped, each plummeting to exactly one point.

Levi didn't panic, he'd seen enough class evolutions in the first timeline to know that was normal. It was what came next that he knew nothing about.

Gradually, then gaining speed as it progressed, the composition of Skarm's body began to change.