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Ch185-Tooth And Claw

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Sylver flashed his guild card at the guard at the dungeon entrance, before he once again turned into vapor and flew down the path covered in glowing thread. Slinky, the enormous snake-looking chimera, left a small gap for Sylver to funnel through.

Once he was inside, and the snake had a chance to flick its tongue at him, Sylver used [Fog Form] to fly towards the large swinging dark orange cocoon. Some kind of reddish liquid had seeped through the fabric and was staining the grass underneath it.

It swung in an oval shape, and a dark blue spider with a white exclamation mark on its abdomen ran behind the cocoon, and repeatedly head-butted it.

“You alright in there?” Sylver shouted at his trapped companion, and got something akin to a nod, through their shared connection.

“Is she going to be able to use magic?” Spring asked as he materialized next to Sylver.

“Morana? Sort of. Her magic is wild; it isn’t actually “magic.” It’s more like… she can hear what I’m saying so I can’t be as honest as I would like to. So to sum up, yes. She will be able to use magic, and if I need it, I will be able to siphon some of her mana out of her,” Sylver answered.

They both turned around as they heard something slithering towards them. They saw that Bruno and Tera were walking towards the swinging horse cocoon, along with a snake that looked to be about 10 meters behind them.

If the ear-to-ear smile on Tera’s face was anything to go by, Bruno’s confession had been successful. Even if the blank and slightly distraught look on his face said the opposite.

“Why did you wait so long to tell me I was married to the Bernhard Justesen?” Tera shouted once she was within range, and the look on Bruno’s face suddenly made sense.

“I take it you’re a big fan?” Sylver asked, as Bruno mutely nodded, while Tera practically threw the book in her hand at Sylver.

On the cover, there was a drawing of an old man, with the left side of his coat covered in so many medals that you couldn’t see the fabric underneath. After briefly flipping through “The Life And Times Of Bernhard Justesen, Volume I of XV” Sylver closed the book and handed it back to Tera.

Sylver bowed slightly towards Bruno, who just stared at him, almost accusingly.

“I had no idea I was talking to the man who invented the modern periodic table. Or reinvented I should say. I’m fairly certain the concept was brought over from one of the human [Hero]s,” Sylver said, and Bruno mutely nodded at him.

“He also revolutionized the 7 alchemical processes into the 12, that alchemists all over Eira use today! And he created the first viable false dragon fire recipe! And he translated ancient eastern chemistry tomes into-”

Tera’s drooling speech about how great the man she was married to and was carrying the child of, was interrupted by a massive gust of wind that nearly caused the woman to fall. Bruno caught her, and a moment later the dust the wind carried was forced to avoid the 4 people watching the cocoon that was steadily rising into the air, via a small vortex directly beneath it.

“What did I tell you, telling the truth always works out in the end,” Sylver said, as the wind increased in strength, and threatened to break the small barrier Sylver had erected.

It didn’t help that Morana was draining him dry to help herself come out.

“What is she doing!” Bruno shouted, and Sylver just barely heard him over the whistle of the wind outside.

Even though she was concentrating on her cocoon, Morana took special care not to damage the ceiling, the walls, or any of the chimera that had come over to look at the commotion. The conical vortex gradually became thinner and thinner, until it was just barely wider than the floating cocoon in the middle of it.

Sylver flinched as he felt a strange sensation emanating from his ring. He lifted it to his face to look at it more closely, and after a couple of seconds passed, understood what Morana wanted. The flesh that made up Sylver’s fingers turned into dust, floated away, and disappeared into the cyclone.

Sylver lifted his other hand upward, and the flesh also turned into dust and funneled towards the floating cocoon. Just as Sylver was about to tell her to stop, Morana stopped on her own, and he even felt something akin to an apology aimed towards him. The wind intensified even more for a while and got so fast that it became compressed enough that the image of the cocoon inside became just short of invisible.

And then, all at once, the vortex disappeared.

Sylver and company watched as the giant compressed cone of air ended inside Morana’s “mouth,” and then watched as her neck repeatedly inflated, and deflated, as she swallowed down and stored the air away.

The creature that Sylver had named Morana was hard to see at the moment. The just short of clear string hung loosely from her body, as if she were a wet dog, and obscured some of the finer details.

What Sylver could see right now was a 4-meter-tall creature, with 7 spiderlike legs, an extended neck that was almost as long as its torso, and a “head” that looked like it had been split down the middle, and then again down the side, and created a giant circular opening, very likely filled with teeth.

Some of the weaker chimeras backed away from the creature, as it made a noise that could loosely be described as a loud bark in a giant empty cave. It echoed from the source and was followed by a clicking noise, as the “head” was fused back together, and the neck became shorter and shorter.

The legs similarly became shorter, and the creature gradually lowered itself down into a manageable 2-meter-tall height.

Finally, it flicked the rat like tail on its back, and the string that was previously loosely hung around it snapped into place. The creature became mummified in its own string, and a second later, the string shimmered and was replaced by snow-white fur. Along with a wonderfully smooth mane, and matching tail.

Its 8 eyes blinked in unison for a while, and one by one, they closed, until only the “normal” eyes remained. Sylver hadn’t noticed it before, but the creature didn’t have ears originally, but now two symmetrical spear tips sat comfortably on the top of its head. There was a crackling noise, and Sylver saw the bones on the creature’s torso move around until they found a comfortable position that made it look like she had regular ribs.

Sylver approached the creature and kept his bony hand extended out towards her. The creature lowered its head and proceeded to rub against Sylver’s pitch black hands, as he lightly patted it on the side.

“Good girl, who’s a good girl,” Sylver asked, as Bruno and Tera stared at the monstrosity masquerading as a horse.

Which it was.

Appearance-wise.

Inside it had a rib cage within a rib cage, the way Sylver did, along with 3 hearts spread out between its back legs, front legs, and a general heart, with lungs that seemed very similar to what Sylver had replaced his lungs with, and a handful of other organs, that Morana couldn’t convey the purpose of.

They were important, is the gist of what Sylver understood.

If you ignored the fact that it was completely white, even the hooves, Morana looked like your average, every day, slightly bigger than normal, horse. Sylver’s hand got a little too close to her nose, and he accidentally caused her to sneeze.

Sylver tried to stop it before it happened, but the compressed mixture of hydrogen, oxygen, and some custom-made chemical, shot out of Morana’s mouth. Sylver was very careful with the gas mixture, as he grabbed hold of it, and gently funneled it back into Morana’s mouth.

“Alright, among other things, she can breathe fire,” Sylver said towards Bruno and Tera, who were both slowly making their way towards the horse and its rider.

Sylver gently pushed his fingers into her mouth and pulled the lips back to look at her teeth. Morana proceeded to open her mouth so wide that her “jaws” were almost at 180 degrees.

Sylver saw a venom gland on the roof of her mouth, and could also see the joint where the jaw could be further separated into two, and through his mana, could feel the retractable teeth that seemed to be serrated.

Her tongue appeared normal at first glance, but again, through his mana Sylver could see the squashed straw for what it was, along with the “stinger/needle” hiding within it.

“Is it over?” Tera asked, as Sylver gently closed his steed's mouth, and ran his hand up and down her neck.

“Seems like it,” Sylver answered, as Morana, Mora, for short, pushed her head towards him and rubbed against Sylver’s chest.

“I can’t see her status,” Bruno said. Tera said the same after a moment.

[N/A – N/A – 170]

[HP: 22,000 – 100%]

[MP: 4,500 – 100%]

[Stamina: 7,200 – 100%]

[Corpse – N/A]

[Soul – N/A]

[Arcane Insight (IV) Proficiency increased to 4%!]

“She can’t convey what attributes or skills she has…” Sylver mumbled as he tried to peer into the creature’s mind.

“No, wait… She has something to do with air manipulation. And she was fixated on increasing skills related to her threads, and they’re all really high apparently… I think… Anyway, doesn’t matter, we’ll figure it out as we go along,” Sylver said, as he patted his steed on the neck, and was surprised to find dark brown reins hanging down from her head.

Sylver leaned over and saw that Mora also had a saddle on her back, along with two bags on either side and a small pouch around where the handle was.

After touching the fabric, it felt like normal, everyday leather. Except the “leather” shifted its shape, and for a couple of seconds, Sylver saw that everything was made out of tightly-woven string. Sylver looked down and could see shiny silver-colored metal horseshoes peeking out from underneath her hooves.

“You are amazing,” Sylver said to Mora and could tell by the smug way she raised her head in the air she understood him. Sylver reached into his [Bound Bones] storage and pulled out a carrot.

The vegetable was flicked out of his hand by an invisible string and landed near two furry mouse-like chimeras, who happily lowered their head and started munching on it.

“Alright… Apples? No. Tomatoes? No. Sugar? Hay? Barley? Grass?” Sylver kept guessing for a while and wanted to smack himself for not thinking of something so obvious. “Meat? Human meat? Oh…”

Sylver reached into his [Bound Bones] storage and removed one of his old clones. They were largely useless at this point, not to mention he already had enough spare arms, legs, and heads, that they were just taking up space.

Sylver was curious to see how Mora planned to eat the corpse. It turned out she first sucked out all the blood in a specific piece using her tongue, and then used her extremely powerful tentacle-like mouth quarters to wrap around it, then ground it into pulp, and then swallowed it.

Despite how it sounded, the process was surprisingly clean, and if you ignore the sound of bones being crunched, rather quiet. Her saliva had some kind of congealing effect, given that the places where she had bitten off the corpse's arm weren’t bleeding.

Sylver pulled out 3 more clones and left them for Mora to snack on, while he, Bruno, and Tera went to see the other chimera Bruno had prepared for him.