The red eye blinked.
Then another opened beside it. And another.
From the shadows behind the cracked crystal, a creature emerged—a nightmare stitched together from a dozen different beasts. It had the body of a massive lion, but its fur was patchy, revealing scales underneath. A serpent's tail slithered from its hindquarters, tipped with a venomous barb. Two heads grew from its shoulders—one a wolf's, the other an eagle's—while its main head was that of a horned lizard, its jaws dripping black saliva.
The chimera's legs ended in iron talons that scraped against the stone floor. And from its back, a pair of leathery wings unfolded, too small to fly but large enough to strike.
The rogue mage's final creation. Still alive. Still guarding.
Twenty years, I thought, and it never died.
"Everyone back!" Elena shouted.
The chimera lunged.
Kellan's arrow bounced off its scaled flank. Mira's barrier rose just in time—and shattered just as quickly. The creature's main head bit through the magical wall like glass.
Larren thrust his spear at the wolf head. The wolf head caught the shaft in its jaws and snapped it in two.
"Barrier again!" Elena cried.
Mira's second barrier held for three seconds. Long enough for me to act.
I sprinted along the wall, using broken vats as cover. The chimera's three heads turned in different directions—the wolf watching Larren, the eagle watching Kellan, the lizard head tracking Elena.
None of them watched the small bronze lizard hugging the shadows.
I leaped onto its flank.
My Clawed Strike tore into the scales, but the chimera's hide was thick. I barely drew blood. The creature roared—all three heads screaming at once—and bucked wildly. I held on with Grip Jaw, my teeth sinking into a gap between ribs.
The serpent tail whipped around.
I saw it coming. I tried to dodge.
The barb pierced my tail.
Pain exploded through my lower body. The venom burned like acid, spreading fast. My tail went numb. My hind legs weakened.
But I didn't let go.
«Elena! The crystal!» I screamed through the link. «Destroy the crystal! It's powering the chimera!»
Elena's eyes widened. She raised her hand, a firebolt forming in her palm.
The lizard head turned toward her.
I bit down harder on the chimera's flank, channeling every scrap of mana into my Grip Jaw. The creature screeched and twisted, trying to reach me—but I was on its blind side, just behind its front leg.
Hit it now!
Elena threw the firebolt.
The crystal exploded.
Green light erupted outward. The chimera convulsed, its limbs spasming, its three heads shrieking in unison. Without the crystal's power, the corruption that held its body together began to fail. Scales fell off. Flesh tore along old seams.
But it wasn't dead. Not yet.
In its death throes, the chimera lashed out blindly. One of its iron-taloned feet swung toward Elena.
She was too close. Too slow.
I let go of the flank and threw myself between them.
The talon caught my left foreleg.
I felt the bones snap. The claw was torn clean off—ripped from my body like a weed from soil. Blood sprayed. The pain was beyond anything I had felt before—worse than the tail severing, worse than the centipede's bite.
I hit the ground hard, my vision swimming.
The chimera took one more step, then collapsed. Its three heads fell still. The serpent tail twitched once, twice, then lay motionless.
Silence.
"Vritra!"
Elena was beside me, her hands pressing against my bloody stump. Her healing magic glowed, but the wound was severe. Too much blood loss. The venom from my tail was still spreading.
"I can't—I can't stop it both," she said, tears streaming down her face. "The venom and the wound—"
«Elena,» I thought weakly. «Get me out of here. Somewhere safe.»
"Where? The lab is collapsing!"
Behind us, the walls of the buried lab were cracking. The crystal's destruction had destabilized the entire chamber. Stones fell from the ceiling. The glass vats shattered one by one.
Kellan grabbed Elena's arm. "We have to go! Now!"
"No! I won't leave him!"
Mira grabbed Elena's other arm. Together, they dragged her toward the stairs. I clung to consciousness, my body limp, as Larren scooped me up with his remaining hand and carried me up the staircase.
Behind us, the lab collapsed into rubble.
We emerged into the ravine as the ground shook. The mound sank inward, swallowing what remained of the rogue mage's nightmare. The black creek began to clear—slowly, but visibly—as the corruption's source was buried.
Larren set me down on a patch of moss. My left foreleg ended in a ragged stump. My tail had a hole through it, the flesh around the wound blackened with venom.
Elena knelt beside me, sobbing. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have been faster."
«Not your fault,» I thought.
But my thoughts were growing faint. The panel flickered in my vision, urgent and insistent.
[Critical injury detected. Left foreclaw: missing. Tail: severe venom damage. Blood loss: critical.]
[Available Gene Points: 108.8]
[Evolution available. Evolution will heal all wounds and reset physical state.]
[Warning: Evolution requires complete physical transformation. Process will take approximately 20 minutes. During this time, host is vulnerable.]
[Evolve now? Yes / No]
Yes, I commanded. Yes, evolve.
The panel flashed.
[Evolution initiated. Select target species:]
- Venomous Skink (100 GP)
- Spike-Tailed Gecko (100 GP)
- Draconic Newt (100 GP)
- Two-Headed Lizard Snake (120 GP - insufficient GP)
- ???(Locked)
I didn't have 120 GP for the Two-Headed option. And the locked path was still unavailable.
Draconic Newt, I thought. The dragon-blood path. Give me that.
[Evolution selected: Forest Lizard (Adult) → Draconic Newt. Cost: 100 GP.]
[Remaining GP: 8.8]
[Evolution in progress. Time to completion: 19 minutes, 58 seconds.]
My body seized.
Elena gasped. "Vritra? Vritra!"
I couldn't answer. The transformation had begun.
My scales heated until they glowed. My bones cracked and reformed. My missing claw—the stump—began to itch as new tissue grew, not a replacement claw, but something different. Something larger.
My tail swelled, pushing out the venom. The wound closed. New scales—darker, thicker, with a faint reddish hue—spread across my body.
My jaw elongated. My teeth grew sharper, more numerous. A ridge of small horns sprouted along my spine.
And deep in my chest, where no core had existed before, I felt something form. A spark. A seed. A tiny, swirling vortex of mana that was mine—not borrowed, not fleeting.
My own magic core.
The panel flickered one last time before going dark:
[Evolution: Draconic Newt. Complete.]
[New abilities unlocked. Mana core formed. Species grade: E → D.]
I opened my eyes.
The world looked different. The mana in the air was no longer a faint tingle—it was a symphony, each color and texture distinct. I could see the flow of power in Elena's healing hands, in Kellan's arrowhead, in Mira's staff.
And I could feel my own core, small but steady, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
I was no longer a forest lizard.
I was something new.
Elena stared at me, her mouth open. "Vritra? Is that... still you?"
I raised my right foreleg—the one still intact—and touched her cheek.
«Still me,» I thought. «Just... upgraded.»
She laughed through her tears. "You're beautiful."
I had nearly doubled in size—my body now seventy centimeters long, my thick muscular tail adding another eighty, for a total of one and a half meters and at least five or six kilograms, far too heavy for Elena's leather sling. My soft forest lizard scales had transformed into hard, overlapping plates of dark bronze edged with crimson; the larger scales on my back felt like armor, while my belly remained smoother for flexibility, and when I moved, the bronze shimmered like oil on water with hints of gold and copper. A ridge of small, sharp horns ran from my head to the base of my tail, my jaw had elongated into a serpentine shape, and my teeth were now a mix of needle-like fangs and serrated grinders.
My regrown left foreleg had become a dragon's claw—three fingers and a thumb tipped with obsidian talons that could extend and retract.
Most striking were my eyes: larger, with vertically slit pupils and molten gold irises that glowed faintly in dim light, granting me perfect night vision without need for Elena's light orb.
Nice.
Kellan let out a low whistle. "That's not a lizard."
"No," Elena said softly. "It's not."
She stood up, offering me her shoulder. I climbed onto it, my new claws gripping her leather jacket with ease. Behind us, the collapsed lab smoked gently. The creek was running clear.
"Let's go home," she said.
I nodded.
Home.