Late Morning - Late Summer : The Tree of Prayer, Valtivar | Siratha

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*VWOWOWOWOOM* The mana around us was in complete turmoil as the color of Lief's skin rapidly fluctuated, from a rotten black to a bright porcelain, seemingly decomposing before reforming itself with tendrils of muscle and coating it with skin.

To most, it was likely quite a disgusting sight, but at the same time, no one around could take their eyes off her.

-Seems like things are going well...- Turning toward her soul, I watched as it continuously fluctuated and reformed itself like the mixing of yin and yang, forming a small vortex at the center of her reserve and sucking in a considerable amount of mana like she was entering a dragon sleep.

However, thankfully for us, this wasn't an evolution on that scale. -Since she isn't growing in size, and her body is already that of an ascended demihuman, so this should be a fairly seamless process... Though she might need more mana...-

Without pulling my eyes off her, I swiftly ripped a melon-sized chunk out of the massive tree root we stood on before vector-flipping it into the void.

*crackle-VWOOOM* A blast of raw mana instantly erupted from the void, only to be contained by my aura and focused around Lief.

Almost immediately, her body started to devour it like a starved dog, sucking in so much of it that it created a vortex even children could see.

But while it pushed her reserve to the brink of shattering, it didn't take long for the space mana I injected into the elixir to spread through her abdomen and reinforce it.

Beyond that, all I did was contain the dense mana around her and accelerate her body's regeneration while it slowly spread her new, modified genetics throughout her body, something I studied closely as it spread.

From what I could tell, the mix of mana within the elixir was the catalyst of the entire process, destroying essentially everything in her body at an atomic level, similar to immense radiation, but rather than immediately repairing her DNA like the rest of her body, it would take sections of my DNA within the elixir to patch it up. Because of this process, she could never gain something like a new form through an elixir, and would always have the humanoid frame, but it didn't exempt her from taking some traits from my other forms, such as the less dense bones in the legs of my Fenririan form or the more dense ones from my draconic form.

But while it seemed simple when just looking at one strand of DNA, the grander scale of things wasn't so simple. Each and every cell was hit by the immense shock of mana differently, and to make things more complicated, even if two cells were dealt the same damage, they wouldn't heal the same as each other.

However, much like in a large ecosystem, it was survival of the fittest, and as time passed, the same thing happened with her cells; as she was reconstructed, the number of altering DNA strands shrank until just one blueprint overwhelmingly dominated the rest. -It really is like a bunch of tiny animals fighting... How intriguing...-

Just watching it caused my curiosity to spike with my desire to see how far I could take things, to see if I could give her a draconic form by tagging another section of genetics onto hers.

But Lief was far from replaceable. -I can't let myself get carried away...-

Quickly calming back down and giving her body some guidance, the ceremony continued for about another half an hour, giving me more than enough time to understand the process and feel comfortable about leaving her on her own for the remainder of the evolution, something I expected to take about a week based on her regeneration speed.

However, as I was wrapping things up and preparing to leave, Lief's body had a sudden twitch. *flick*

-Hm?- Up until this point, there had yet to be any real visible changes to her besides the vibrance of small parts of her skin, and for the most part, she didn't so much as flex a muscle even as they were reconstructed. The changes in her body had only just started. -She can't be waking up already...-

Quickly shifting my attention to her brain, I noticed a sudden surge of brain activity as if she was on the verge of waking up, even though she was in what was essentially a trauma-induced coma. -Is she dreaming?-

But I quickly got an answer to that question.

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*VWOOM-CRACKLE-tssss* The air around us crackled, sparked, and hissed as I caught Lief's fist with my aura just below my jaw. -Interesting...- It was a punch with enough force to shatter the skull of an Elder, coming purely from an instinctual reaction. -Did her mind suddenly consider me a threat?-

But that wasn't the case.

As I once again tunnel-visioned on Lief's condition, I felt the faintest of mana ripples coming from just above my head and a few meters behind Alva, who was about ten meters behind Leif.

It made my eyes go wide instantly. -How did I not sense them until now?-

*VWOOOM* Releasing control of the mana around Lief, I caught the heavy fists of two humans cloaked with light magic just before their heavy fists could slam into the back of our heads. *CRACKLE*

Their strength was only just below that of Lief's; both of their punches were backed by a substantial amount of divinity.

However, unlike those strong enough to have divinity, those two humans had no aura at all. -What the hell..?- The only way I could detect them without closely reading my aura was by sensing the mana ripples coming from the runes lining their dark leather clothes lacking any kind of insignia.

Looking more closely, I found that they were seemingly normal humans in their twenties with highly trained bodies, no reserve or attribute nodes, the souls of the average peasant, and possessing a trait not too terribly uncommon among humans called mana insensitivity.

But that wasn't what disturbed me. -How do they have this much divinity...- Although nothing compared to what Lief had, it was enough to give regular humans the durability of older dragons and strength that could rival the likes of an Apostle like Alva, all while having an almost undetectable presence. -They aren't apostles... There isn't a tether connected to them at all. They also have no means of communication or identification...-

It made me think they were some kind of puppet, like a lifeless shell infused with the desire of a god, something I knew to be possible, even if it was a bit of a stretch. -And with the Holy Kingdom constantly poking the nest.. I'm sure it's them...-

But once enough time passed for the humans to react, I found that not to be the case.

"Ah-AHHH!" They both screamed as they finally reacted to every bone within their arms shattering from how my aura stopped their fists instantaneously.

Not only were both the humans conscious, but they also acted and reacted normally, their hearts racing from stress and their minds breaking into panic. It was almost as if they were only trained physically. -Is this really the standard of assassins trained by the Holy Kingdom? They couldn't have given this much divinity to sacrificial lambs, right?-

Deciding to only interrogate one of the assassins, I picked the more panicked of the two, the one who was targeting me, and swiped my tail through him so fast my fur acted like dense wall of razor blades, instantly reducing him to a misty and powdery mix of blood, flesh, and bone, and shredding everything down to his divinity.

But while the other man was still alive, his death would be far more painful. "Hera, would you mind holding onto this man while I wrap things up?" Moving the man up to the edge of Hera's aura, I held him there until she picked him up with a silent nod. "I expect him to be tied to Asgard somehow, but-"

However, the moment I let go of him, his soul scattered, and every part of his body was stripped away from his web of divinity. *CRACKLE*

But it wasn't Hera's doing. *VWOOM* Finally noticing the god's appearance as the human's body was eviscerated, I sped up my divinity slightly, but by the time I slowed things down, the presence had already moved thousands of kilometers away and dragged the human's web of divinity with it, leaving only a bloody mist behind.

But while I could have easily caught up to them with the void, and had more than enough divinity to slaughter them like cattle, I simply normalized my divinity, not wanting to waste it before helping Father.

"He sure hasn't changed..." Hera mumbled under her breath as she looked toward the now-distant presence far over the horizon.

"Do you know him?" I spoke calmly, already knowing they were a god of Asgard based on the direction they ran.

"That was Baldur, the eldest son of Odin and Frigg... He's just as childish as ever..."

-Baldur, huh... Is he the one directing the pushes on Siratha?- He was a god I knew quite well through Hera, and was the epitome of a child born with a golden spoon.

But in reality he was simply the result of a successful experiment between Odin and Frigg to create a child through just the mixing and combinations of souls.

He was essentially an amalgamation of the personalities of Frigg and Odin, mixed with that of a young human child, giving him strength rivaling the top of Asgard yet the disposition of a spoiled teenager. Energetic, unpredictable, and powerful.

In other words, he was a bomb simply waiting to explode.

It was just a matter of time. -But the more time he gives me, the easier he will be to deal with...-

He was clearly planning something, going as far as to test the waters with me.

But he had no idea what kind of nest he was jabbing at.

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