Abe could hardly control himself as he dug his claws into the beast’s skull, cracking it apart and ripping pieces out as he exposed the brains to his fangs. Strength surged like never before as the bone cracked beneath his fangs, exposing the sweet brain to his lapping tongue. The familiar thrill of consuming power was coupled with something else. Something within him was awakening and breaking through. He could feel the monstrous core deep within—a theoretical heart of his power and catalyst for his evolution into something stronger.
Colors and senses spiked, almost deafeningly, as he was consumed by the array of heightened feelings that seemed to highlight everything around him. For a moment, it was as if he had become one with the entire forest, his veins pulsating throughout it and sharing its secrets with him.
Wounds healed in an instant, and the weakness he had felt evaporated. Even his growing thirst for Miss Nia’s blood was quenched, and his heart sang as it pounded with a vigor he had never before experienced.
His muscles tensed, and his bones felt as if they were expanding and strengthening. He flung his head back and moaned as his limbs twitched and jerked against the flooding waves of power.
He had known evolution would be different. That it would be at another level than what he had experienced previously, but even so, this was more than he had expected. It was as if the very atoms that made up his composition were changing.
Digging his fingers into the ground, Abe took a mouthful of dirt and vegetation, biting through whatever he could find until he reached a large stick and dug his teeth into it.
Pleasure had morphed into pain, and he searched for anything that could help anchor himself in place as pain rippled throughout his body, feeling as if it wanted to tear him apart.
Rolling to his back, Abe clawed at his chest and shook on the ground as increasingly powerful waves of pain flooded his senses. His pupils dilated, and his lips curled back as a sickening screech escaped his lips, and he dropped limply.
Hours later, he awoke. There was no pain, no hunger, and no fatigue. Abe rose to his feet as if he had the greatest rest of his life.
He looked down at his hands. They were lighter than before, with a strange, fibrous texture, and his blue veins had faded away.
“What is this?” he mumbled.
There was silence within. No worms. No Mor’kel.
“Answer me, where are you?”
No response came, but he didn't need one. His connection to the worms had already evolved beyond the need for direct communication, and he knew in his heart that they were no longer there, at least not how they had been.
But his senses hadn’t dulled. They had grown stronger—Innate. His energy, vision, and sense of life were interwoven with his heightened smell and hearing as if they were part of him now.
He turned to where he had dropped his revolver on the forest floor and extended a hand. Ribbons of white, fibrous flesh snaked out from his arm, curled around it, and retrieved it for him. He had commanded the ribbons of white flesh like how he spoke to the worms, but his control over them was entirely different. They were a part of him now.
Dozens of thin, white streams shot out from across his back and arms and waved in the air above him. The worms had transformed into something else, and he had total control.
Next, mycelium roots expanded from his feet and tunneled into the earth beneath him. Like the worms, he could feel his control over the fungi shell that had been lent to him by Mor’kel. It was as much a part of him as the worms had become, and he willed the tiny mushroom roots to travel deeper.
“This is…” Abe marveled as his body took in his surroundings and returned information in an overwhelming blur that took him a long moment to understand.
“I’ve consumed them, or they have become part of me,” he murmured, staring down at his hands and body. With a simple thought, his skin could shift between the pale gray of his deathly new wight body and the lighter, almost white fibrous skin of Mor’kel.
Furthermore, the mycelium network that was expanding beneath him and infecting its way through the forest was sending back interesting new signals.
“84 Jade Caps, 207 Lance Stems, 76 Sponge Buttons, and 11 Speckled Mantles. Poison, paralyzation, toxic spore clouds, and healing. Interesting,” he mouthed and focused his energy through the roots. He could feel them communicating with him. To an untrained ear, the tiny pulses of energy would have been imperceivable, but not only were these a part of him now, but Abe had been communicating with the worms for a while now, and he had tuned his senses for similar non-verbal communication, and he knew what they were telling him.
His energy sought out the mushrooms and pulled them toward him. Within seconds, they were reduced to an essence that could travel through the roots and into himself, where he could store the properties of their energy. Poison, healing, paralyzing, and toxic clouds—he needed to test these and see their use for himself, but he already knew what he could do with them. Mor’kel’s consumed core had exposed their secrets to him.
“You will come in handy,” he mouthed as he stored the energy away for later.
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Satisfied with his consumption of mushroom essences, he lowered into a crouch and accumulated energy in his legs. Pushing it down, he sent the energy flowing out through his feet and kicked off, propelling himself up and into the air, easily passing the canopy’s leafy, green roof.
“Those mushrooms and tentacles will come in handy, but I’m also fucking strong!”
He looked out toward the settlements as he flew through the air above the forest. The energy signals of thousands of inhabitants were dotted across the horizon. There were hundreds of D rankers and even a few well into C rank. Even if he managed to avoid the giant tree, Abe knew he was he couldn’t take everything on, not even with the strength he had gained.
However, at least he felt hope now. Falling back to the forest floor, he searched for his hunger internally but found no sign of it. He was almost certain that his evolution had nullified his need for Nia’s blood. He still felt a hollowness when he thought about her and a desire to find her again, but the unrelenting hunger for her and the sensation of that inner threat to his life draining away at him was gone.
“I’m free,” he mouthed, unsure exactly how to feel about it. He knew he would need to explore this feeling at some point, but pushed it to the back of his mind as he focused on where he was. Even if he no longer had to race against time to get vampire blood, he still needed to escape a world full of hostile beings.
Closing his eyes, Abe focused his array of senses for a moment. And an image of the world’s inhabitants grew clearer in his mind’s eye. They were fungi, sporeling creatures like Mor’kel had been—like a part of him now was.
He focused his energy on the fungi and spores that had evolved to be part of his very body and essence and pushed them toward his externals.
Ribbons of white fibrous flesh piled atop one another, forming a shell that continued to grow, and within seconds, he had grown thicker, and his clothes and buttons had popped apart as his body expanded.
Turning to one of the many lakes scattered around the beast’s lair, Abe took several steps and looked down into the tranquil water.
Through the reflection, a purple-capped mushroom stared back at him. This wasn’t his true form, just a shape he could take thanks to his absorption of Mor'kel but it would be immensely helpful ointhis world.
Furthermore, he felt his energy mutate. His connection to the deathscape and its power hadn’t been severed, far from it, but it had changed. No explanation was needed. Abe knew he could now draw on both kinds of energy to replenish his stores and travel throughout the lands of dreamers and the living dead alike, which were now open to him.
With minor adjustments, he twisted his mutated energy to resemble dreamer energy, and within minutes, he couldn't sense any difference between his own energy signal and that of the inhabitants of this place.
Still, he had to move. His tiny energy source dropped like a drip into an ocean, which would have been hard to see for the inhabitants of this place but not impossible. There was a very real chance someone had detected him and his battle with the beast, and they might have been on their way here at this moment.
******
Sat staring into a mirror of swirling greens and purples, Miss Nia waved a hand across it, connected by twirling streams of deathly energy.
Her door creaked open, and she turned with a bent brow, “Report,” she hissed.
“They’ve completed the tethers. Our domains will be bound within hours,” Kearn said as he entered and bowed.
“And Ricky? How is he getting along?”
“It’s operational to some extent. But it’s weak, Mistress.”
“Will it keep them out?”
“For a little while.”
“And, what about our plans? Can we execute them?”
“No, I’m afraid not. We haven’t the energy. They struck earlier than expected.”
“I suppose we’ll have to retreat for now,” Miss Nia sighed and rose from her velvety red chair.
“Agreed, Mistress. We cannot hope to resist in our current situation. I have already tethered our vessel to Acheron and arranged accommodation upon arrival. When you’re ready, we can leave.”
“I knew there was always a chance this would happen, but I still can’t believe it has come to pass. Surrendering my barony,” Miss Nia shook her head. “Did you at least manage to finish the preparations for our return?”
“Partially. If war breaks out as predicted, I believe we will have the opportunities we require.”
“Acceptable. Perhaps our situation has turned out for the best. Without my domain, the largest targets should be removed from my back. That at least will allow us to work with less scrutiny.”
“Yes, Mistress, I believe so as well.”
Miss Nia turned and slowly walked toward her window, casting her gaze out across the frozen landscape.
“Still thinking about him?” Kearn said, trying to hide his scowl.
“I can smell your jealousy from here. But it is more than simple desire. Be mature, Kearn, and you can even tell how special he is. We haven’t lived this long because we are blind to such things.”
“But the guild-”
“Are useless. You forget about the treasure we consumed together. Something has undoubtedly happened to him, but he isn’t dead.”
“I hate to say it, but if he is so valuable, why not send me to find him?”
“Regardless of his potential, he is still an infant. To send you after him would weaken him. He needs to be tested. To survive this on his own. Only then will he have any chance of living up to what he is truly capable of.”
“You’re cruel.”
Miss Nia turned, a smile curling her red lips, “Oh, Kearn. It is only what is necessary. One cannot survive this land of cutthroats without a little backbone. As he grows, he will learn these truths as much as you or I.”
“I will trust in your wisdom,” Kearn bowed his head.
“Good. Shall we be off then?”
Kearn nodded and stepped aside, holding the door open for his Mistress.
The duo quickly marched through the manor and out into the rear yard. Nia’s limousine was parked beside it, its engine humming softly.
Kearn approached the vehicle and opened a door for Miss Nia. He bowed as she climbed in, only straightening once she had taken a seat.
A drum of deathly energy reverberated out from the car as Kearn slid inside, beside Nia, and it lifted off into the sky.
Streams of white energy funneled around the vessel as Nia engaged the orb at its center console, tethering deathly energy between her palm and the orb.
A second later, the domain’s barrier flickered and opened for them, and through the wormhole, the limousine flew.
Across the valley, hundreds, maybe thousands of tethering tunnels had opened up across the sky. All kinds of janky steel frames from a past era flew through them, including a circus of World War 2 era aircraft, flying-fortress Pe-8s, Sukhoi bombers, and Mig 3’s. But that wasn’t all; flying ships flew through the largest of the tunnels, with ancient destroyers and submarines sailing through the sky with their old soviet flags still flagging through the icy wind.
As the armada touched down across the valley and the town, a horizon spanning a body of land broke through the thick fog. It was the Countess’s domain, pulled by giant spectral chains that were locked to the Barony via tethering towers. As the two masses of land joined, a shockwave flooded out, brushing away the fog and revealing the new superstructure momentarily before the fog reformed.
The valley was no longer alone.
No longer an island separated by the Vale.
No longer a barony.