Dorian bent down and inspected the mystery elixirs.

“Drink me!” was written in Sun’s distinctive scrawl. And there were exactly seven vials here—the same number of Kinzo’s elixirs on offer at the Auction. He picked one up and gave it a little swirl, saw the liquid flow slow. But it was subtly different from the way sludge or mud moves slow. It seemed rather that there was a delayed reaction inside the glass. The liquid was of its own time.

Millennium Elixirs, in the palm of my hand. In prison. Imagine that.

It didn’t matter how old you got. There was a spine-tingling thrill to holding something at once immensely precious and immensely fragile. Dorian scanned the floor for a hint of beetle, but there was nothing. Sun had magicked these in and vanished. Presumably to plant the bombs and execute the rest of Gerard’s plan.

If Dorian had to guess, he was being handed these now because they’d need him as close to his peak as possible once the serious business began. Still he took a moment to marvel at the silliness of it all. He’d really pulled off a heist while still in prison. Was he really about to consume his misbegotten goods in his cell, too? He was leaving the Godking of Ur with no face. First steal his own bounty money, then use it to steal his prized elixirs, and humiliate his guards while he was at it. And blow up his whole operation on the way out.

Chuckling, Dorian uncorked the first vial and downed it.

Mmm…

He appreciated this one. A light and subtle texture, almost tasteless like heavily watered-down milk. It went down easy, but when the liquid settled into his core there was an instant reaction.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 5.0 -> 6.0

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 6.0 -> 7.1

His head, the spot where his nubbly little horns attached, felt searing hot. So did the spot where his tail attached to his ass. His chest and back tingled too at the scales, flexing slightly. Suddenly it felt like his blood was pumping twice as fast and heating up all the while. Even his feet were inexplicably sore.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 7.1 -> 8.3

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 8.3 -> 9.6

He leaned back, groaning softly, and knew what it was. Sudden onset growing pains.

[Rank-up!]

[Dragonoid] Base Form -> First Form

Things were shifting subtly within him. His body felt to him like an engine. There was the boiling core of him, and his bones felt like steel girders in his body, his muscles twitching fast as thought. As he felt high his horns had grown to the size of small sickles. And fresh new spikes rose up along his tail, prickling up his back. Scales merged on his body, crusting into full plates—blemishless and impenetrable.

Yet there was also a sense of sleekness to him now. Like polished metal rather than jutting crystals. Unbroken flow-lines ran up and down his body, marking out a crisp, lean, aerodynamic body. There was a light burning down the shoulder blades, a hint of what his body built towards.

Wings.

Flight.

This could end up messy. Dragonoids wouldn’t reach the size of true dragons, but one at full size could still strain the size of this cell. Which would be quite noticeable to any guards standing outside. Which, as ways this whole scheme could fall apart went, would be among the most pathetic.

Luckily evolution was a malleable process. At least in the growth phase. The will could mold where the body’s energies went, and so Dorian tried to settle his heartbeat, take long breaths, cycle against the seething flow of blood to slow its churn. A little less size, a little more density, hardness, durability.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 9.6 -> 10.9

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 10.9 -> 12.5

He had a design in his mind. Most dragons were serrated creatures, especially the big ones, who practically had mountain ranges running up their backs. They slashed their way to victory. He wanted something less cutting, more concussive. This body was about to be a fiend of close-combat, something hulking and brutal and frightening fast. You could block the cut of, say, a sword with a shield and come out just fine. But block the strike of a hammer on that same shield and your arm was apt to go numb. Immediate, direct, destruction. There were certain advantages brute trauma offered—advantages he intended to make good use of very soon.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 12.5 -> 14.2

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 14.2 -> 16.5

The liquid had taken off its coat now, settling into Dorian’s core proper, and all of his blood was rising to a quick boil—

Footsteps.

His eyelids fluttered rapidly, then fixed on the elixirs, and he hoped for a second more maybe, just maybe—

No.

It was coming for him.

…Shit!

He dove for the elixirs. But there was nowhere to hide them.

Serpent’s Senses!

His Bloodline Technique had gotten several times stronger now he’d shot up a form. Three seconds of time stretched out over thirty. Nowadays he flickered it on almost by instinct at the start of pretty much every battle, an invisible and constant boost.

He uncorked six bottles in quick succession. Then drank them all. Then gathered them in his hands, crushed them, applied a little dragon’s breath to make it slightly more digestible and drank the contents straight from his palm.

Evidence vanished!

It wasn’t a lot of molten glass but it still didn’t agree much with his throat.

Then it felt like his skull was about to split open.

“Fuck!” he hissed.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 16.5 -> 24.3

A third horn was forcing its way out the middle of his head. Not something he particularly wanted but his body was being rather insistent on the matter—whatever—he’d curve all his horns backwards like scimitars. Make flight easier and headbutts more vicious.

The door cracked open, and the curious head of a lizardman guard peered in.

“So?” croaked Dorian.

The guard squinted at him. “You!”

“Yea?”

The guard seemed slightly puzzled. Probably because Dorian did look slightly different. But he was hoping the lizardman would take a few seconds, chalk it up to poor memory, and leave it at that. And he did.

The head poked out. “He’s still there. In the flesh. Not an illusion or nothing.”

“He’d better be,” snapped a gruff voice. “If Lord Jez arrives and everything’s not perfect—”

And the door slammed shut. The voices trailed off.

“…”

He dearly hoped that meant Jez was coming with his army to fight Fate’s army. If the man showed up in his Godking body his prospects just took a dire turn.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 24.3 -> 39.5

“Haaaaaaa….” moaned Dorian, eyes glazing. Every inch of him hurt. He felt like a piece of steel being smashed on an anvil, then stretched out, heated up, and smashed again. Seven Millennium Elixirs at once really had been quite the—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 39.5 -> 65.4

He was aware, dimly, through a haze of throbbing pains, that blacking out right now would be very bad. So most of his efforts now were spent on trying to not do that. If he did he might wake up with a several-hundreds-strides-long body crammed in this tiny cell. Or not wake up at all, come to think of it!

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 65.4 -> 93.8

[Rank-up!]

[Dragonoid] First Form -> Second Form

This body really wanted to be huge. It screamed to expand, and he was still counter-circulating as best he could, trying to play down the beating of his heart.

He recalled now the Torchdragon he’d fought—a creature of the Fourth Form, a mountain unto itself, its head the size of a castle! When it died you could’ve reared a small town in the space of its skull alone. Now he was trying to compress all that weight—all that power—while staying about the same size. Clinging to this body’s human roots as best he could…

…

…

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 217.3 -> 288.5

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 288.5 -> 368.2

It felt somewhat like human puberty. Before he’d been walking about in an infant dragonoid’s body; now he was rocketing to adulthood. Everything was simply growing harder. Denser. Stronger. Sharper. He wasn’t even through his first Millennium Elixir and the dragonbreath in his chest was already double the strength it had been, at least. It had been demonic before. Now naught but the most durable of holy metals could hold before it.

His claws for nails were quickly growing to be the quality of mithril knives forged by Godking blacksmiths, wicked-sharp and gleaming. His tail was a cord of writhing muscle, crowned with a spearlike spike. Everything about him felt sleek. Streamlined. Like his body was slowly reforging into one honed legendary weapon, exactly how he’d envisioned it.

But a weapon with some heft to it.

Muscles had exploded up his arms and legs, densely braided with fibers. He had at least doubled in width. He had no clue about his weight but the deep THUD when he shifted his body gave a hint of it.

He grinned.

…

…

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 643.9 -> 705.9

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 705.9 -> 743.2

[Rank-up!]

[Dragonoid] Second Form -> Third Form

Wings!

He felt them now. His body only grew heavier and heavier, and now new bone sprouted behind his back. As muscled as the rest of him—but with new build they’d need to be modified. These could not be little gargoyle’s wings; these needed to be great tarps. Wings that could bear aloft a frame as dense as his own, wings he could wrap around himself at a moment’s notice like a cocoon. Wings Techniques would bounce right off. Wings powerful enough to spur tornadoes with a flap—wings you could throw Techniques off of. Yes! There was where his size could go—giant beautiful wings, webbed, that could fold right atop his back in a lovely shell—

Footsteps. Again.

He froze. If it was the same guard, well… he looked a great deal thicker, shinier, and had a few more bits sticking out. He seriously doubted he could convince the lizardman there wasn’t something nefarious going on.

But the guard stopped a pace away, and knocked.

“May I come in?”

It wasn’t a guard. It was Kaya’s voice. He relaxed a fraction. Then looked down, remembered his current state, and said the first thing that came to mind.

“No!” He yelped. “I’m indecent!”

“Ah.” The sound scratched his brain wrong. It was Kaya’s voice, but that was not Kaya’s sound.

“Then we can conduct our conversation here, if it pleases you.”

What?

Those were not Kaya’s words. Nor her tone. There was a pervading sense of wrongness to it, and he knew what it was instantly. An icy coldness prickled at his chest amid all that heat.

“…Jez,” he said with a snort. The only creature who would actually abide Dorian’s ridiculous excuse.

“Yes. I’m sorry for borrowing your sister’s body—it is only that I could not be here in my Godking form, and—well—hers is a remarkably good vessel for my powers. It makes her quite comfortable to inhabit. She’ll be returned shortly, I expect…”

“I see,” said Dorian evenly. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Here to gloat, are you?”

“I’m here to put an end to things.” A deep breath, on the other side. “My life as I know it started with you. It’s fitting that we meet here once more at the end.”

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 743.2 -> 804.8