Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 7
The Monarch’s Palace
Within a large tower allocated to the Magister of the current Monarch, Tiamat, the Magister known by the name Lazarus Azger stands looking down at a small creature. This creature has the horn of a unicorn, along with various other parts mixed from other creatures.
A chimera.
But this very same chimera can be seen letting out its final breath, following which Lazarus slams his fist into the table it was sitting on and swears. And not even a second later, a loud crash comes from lower down in the tower, on the first floor.
“Magister Lazarus Azger!” a booming voice echoes throughout the tower as a man wearing a set of pure black and gold armor with the emblem of the commander of the Monarch’s Royal Guard steps through the shattered remains of what had been the tower’s front doors. Behind him walk in two dozen members of the Royal Guard, each armed with a similar set of armor but without the emblem to match it, and each bearing the aura of a Duke. “You are to be executed for your crimes against nature! If you come with us without making a fuss, then you will be given a merciful death!”
The Magister in question just turns and sneers at the stairwell behind him that leads down to the first floor before muttering, “Such a nuisance.”
Without sparing a moment to even consider listening to the Low-Prince Ranked Commander’s words, the Magister simply snaps his fingers and causes several materials to float about the room into a small satchel that he hangs at his waist. He then closes his eyes for a second to focus on creating a portal to the Chaos Plane.
Meanwhile, the Royal Guard down below all immediately sense the formation of a portal and begin running up to the third floor, where the Low-Prince Ranked Magister is currently opening his portal. But by the time they reach him, the portal has already opened up fully, revealing a frozen taiga on the other side.
“Stop, Magister Azger!” the commander shouts after bursting into the room. Lazarus on the other hand simply turns to sneer at the man and asks, “In what world would someone actually listen when told to stop?” He then steps through the portal and declares, “You can tell your precious Monarch that I’ll be creating a worthy foe for her. The strongest monster in the world. One strong enough to knock her down from her position as Monarch!”
Then, without another word, the portal between them closes, leaving the other members of the Royal Guard to enter the room a moment too late.
The commander turns to the others and shouts, “Send as many people as you can to the Chaos Plane! I don’t care about being cautious, just catch that bastard before he starts another Era of Chaos!”
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Chaotic Plane
Lazarus looks around the frozen taiga he now finds himself in before turning around and waving his hand through the heavily falling snow.
Little orbs of arcane magic fly out of his hand before constructing a large cabin made out of wood right in the middle of the frozen taiga. The cabin itself is surrounded by several spruce trees and appears to be only one story at a glance.
The former magister takes a moment to admire his handiwork before turning away from the cabin and closing his eyes. He then begins to mutter a chaotic garble of words under his breath, causing a purple pulse of energy to radiate outward from him into the surrounding area.
After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly opens his eyes and begins walking towards the south for a few kilometers until he stops in front of a den of direwolves. And with just a single glance, a maniacal smile emerges on the man’s face as the two-meter-long direwolves all become instantly wary of him, backing up towards the opposite end of the den with several pups hiding behind them.
“My new test subjects!” Lazarus says while rubbing his hands together in glee.
The direwolves all begin whimpering in fear as he raises his hand and levitates all of them into the air before starting back towards his new cabin with over two dozen direwolves in tow.
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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 8
Chaotic Plane
“Damn it!” Lazarus shouts as his eighth direwolf test subject dies before it can complete the experiment. “Not again!”
Lazarus turns to the serum and mutters, “What could be wrong with it… could it be the dosage? Or maybe I put in too much elven blood?”
Seven pained whimpers suddenly raise from the other set of direwolves, drawing Lazarus’ attention away from the failed set.
A maniacal glee shines in Lazarus’ eyes as he rushes over to the seven direwolves strapped to the metal tables.
“Interesting! So, it wasn’t my serum that was the issue, but it was the age of the test subject!” Lazarus speaks out loud without taking his eyes off of the newfound intelligence he can now find in the seven direwolf pups’ eyes.
‘In that case, it’s pointless to waste my time on any more adults if the serum will only work on the newborns,’ Lazarus thinks to himself before waving his hand towards the remaining adult direwolves, making them implode within their cages without a second thought. This serves to further frighten the direwolf pups, but the Low-Prince Ranked Mage doesn’t seem to care as he focuses on the pups again and mutters, “Now that they’ve had the serum, I should move on to giving them a stronger constitution to handle the rest of my experiments.”
He then turns and manifests a large box in front of him. The box opens with a wave of his hand to reveal ten different hearts of several different powerful species.
‘Which means I will have to completely replace their hearts and rebuild their constitution from scratch through their blood,’ Lazarus thinks before turning back to the direwolf pups and muttering, “But before that, I’m going to have to run some experiments to see which hearts would work best.”
As if sensing his intent, the pups all push their way to the back of the cage with their whimpering only intensifying in volume.
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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 9
Chaotic Plane
“Fiiiiinally!” Lazarus shouts as he looks at the two direwolf pups in front of him. “A success!”
One of the pups has a strange green glow to its body underneath its black fur, while the other pup’s fur has entirely changed color to a milky white.
Lazarus looks at the two direwolf pups’ bodies and studies their insides through detection magic before frowning.
“Wait a second… there seems to be-”
Before he can finish, one of the pups suddenly begins convulsing as it attempts to yowl in pain through its muzzle before it begins to turn into a vicious green goo. Meanwhile, the other pup becomes stiller and stiller as its body begins to slowly turn into ice.
Lazarus slams his hands into the metal tables and shatters them as he shouts, “Damn it! Those hearts weren’t at all compatible with the direwolves after all!”
Three of the five direwolf pups locked up in the cage across the room from him try to move further back in the cage out of fear, only to realize that they’re already as far back as they can go. But at the same time, the other two stay at the front as they watch on with interest.
A few seconds pass as Lazarus mutters to himself before he looks up and sees the two pups staring at him.
“What’s this? Are these two already intelligent enough to understand me?” he asks before walking over to the cage, only for the two direwolves to slowly start backing up to join the others. He rubs his chin as he thinks, ‘These two appear to be advancing faster than the rest in intelligence. Perhaps I should try experimenting on them next.’
Stolen story; please report.
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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 10
Chaotic Plane
Lazarus sighs with regret at the sight of both the special pups seemingly growing sluggish, as if they are about to die. But before he can get upset, strange things begin to happen within both of their bodies. The female pup begins to turn an almost clear blue, as if she was made out of water, whereas the male pup’s veins begin to glow a molten red, as if it had molten lava running through them.
“They were a success?” Lazarus mutters in confusion before jumping up and shouting, “They were a success!”
Both pups begin moving against their restraints as they regain consciousness and open their eyes to look at the room with an even sharper gleam of intelligence than before.
Lazarus’ eyes widen in surprise as he thinks, ‘Did they both become even more intelligent after the experiment?’
He then frees the two pups from their restraints and levitates them over to himself before he asks, “Would you two like to learn the written language of the natural plane?”
‘Since they can’t exactly speak and all, it might benefit them to learn the language later on,’ he thinks to himself. ‘If they survive, of course.’
Both of the direwolves nod their heads and yip in agreement.
“Great! Then I’ll begin teaching you in between experiments!” Lazarus says with a note of finality.
‘A future Monarch should be literate after all,’ he thinks to himself with a smile before turning to the other three direwolves and saying, “Now, on to you three!”
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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 12
Chaotic Plane
“Well, that’s unfortunate, but I already have these two pups,” Lazarus states with a frown before turning to the two direwolves. “Although, I guess you aren’t really pups anymore considering how much you’ve grown.”
He waves his hand before an open box appears in the air next to him holding four eyeballs with golden pupils.
“Let’s see if the eyeballs will work with the wolf with the magma lord heart first,” he mutters while looking at the male direwolf with magma flowing through his veins.
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Lazarus squats in front of the male with a smile as he stares into the direwolf’s lovely new golden eyes.
“Astounding! The fae eyes work perfectly in him!” Lazarus exclaims with excitement before turning to the female direwolf and saying, “That being the case, it should work for her as well!”
He gets up from his squat and begins walking over towards the female direwolf as he thinks, ‘It’s a shame that there isn’t more than one of that part, otherwise I could make a second ultimate weapon!’
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“Or not,” he mutters as he watches the eyes of the female direwolf grow cold before they dissolve into water as the direwolf dies.
Lazarus studies her corpse for several minutes before he finally mutters, “I guess the fae eyes didn’t mix well with the undine heart…”
“Well,” he says has he gets up and turns to the male direwolf, “I still have you left!”
The direwolf continues watching him with a wary look mixed with a hint of curiosity as he stands in the middle of the cage.
“I am not so sure about these next parts, but if they do end up killing you, then I can always just get another batch of test subjects,” Lazarus says without a hint of pity before turning away and muttering, “although it would be rather difficult to get the parts again.”
Unknown to Lazarus, a cold look glosses over the direwolf’s golden eyes as he glares into Lazarus’ back with hatred.
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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 14
Chaotic Plane
“I can’t believe it was actually a success for all of your claws!” Lazarus exclaims with glee audible in his voice as the wolf lays still on the metal table whilst occasionally twitching in pain from the procedures. He then leans down and looks at the wolf’s paws while it is still strapped to the table and mutters, “To think, there is now a single wolf with the claws of a wraith, the eyes of a fae, and the heart of a magma lord.”
He stares at the ominous looking claws before getting up and thinking, ‘But he isn’t complete. He’s still missing the most important part.’
Lazarus snaps his fingers before the restraints on the wolf suddenly snap off and the wolf begins yowling in pain as he is lifted into the air by Lazarus’ magic. But without being able to enjoy his freedom, the wolf is almost immediately placed back into the shadowsteel cage again. Following which the mage snaps his fingers, making an ominous black box appear out of thin air in front of him.
The moment Lazarus opens the black box, waves of chaotic black and purple energy envelope the entire cabin, making the wolf freeze up in terror.
“The stomach of the Fallen Lord of Chaos, Fenrir!” Lazarus says while staring at the organ in awe.
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Year 1396 After Chaos
Month 5
Chaotic Plane
The Wolf
I wake up in my cage after another round of testing to the sound of my torturer and teacher messing around with the terrifying piece of flesh again.
Ever since I can remember, my life has been nothing but painful tests and lessons, mixed in with several of what he calls ‘experiments.’
All in all, quoting from a book the man read to me once, my life is and has always been a living hell.
As for the man himself?
I have mixed feelings in regard to him. After all, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be able to think like I’m doing now to make me forget about the pain I’m in. On the other hand, he massacred my entire pack, and I wouldn’t be in said pain if it weren’t for him.
So, in the end, I both feel respect for him, and want to tear his throat out the moment I get a chance.
It’s too bad that he’s too strong for me to do that.
A feeling of relief spreads through me as the pain suddenly goes away.
Then there are the times – like right now – when he takes some measure of pity on me and casts a spell to dull the pain.
My eyes begin to feel heavy again now that the pain is gone.
I glance towards the man one last time as he continues messing with the strange piece of flesh before going back to sleep again.
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Year 1396 After Chaos
Month 7
Chaotic Plane
Wolf
I am forcefully woken up as I feel the familiar restraints clamp around my mouth, neck, and legs.
No!
Not again!!
I thought we were done with the experiments!
The man ignores my whimpers and begins to cut me open as pain engulfs my entire body. Pain much worse than the pain I’m usually in.
Stop!
Please stop it!
I feel tears begin to leak out of my eyes as the restraints around my mouth stop me from voicing my pain and anger out in any way.
A very familiar stuffy feeling suddenly mixes in with the pain as he uses whatever spell he has that stops me from dying while still forcing me to feel all of the pain. I then notice him reaching into me and pulling something out as an even more severe wave of pain radiates out of my entire body before he sticks something into a box and reaches into the box containing the terrifying piece of flesh.
Wait, what are you doing?!
Please stop it!
I try to thrash about even harder, only for him to glare at me and cast a spell on me that completely freezes me in place.
Please don’t put that terrifying thing in me!
My whimpers of pain and terror once again don’t make it past the muzzle covering my mouth as his hands reenter my body with the thing held in between them.
I push as hard as I possibly can against the spell holding me down, but I can’t even budge an inch before an even larger explosion of pain radiates through my body and everything in the room suddenly goes dark.
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My eyes slowly open again to see everything within the room thrown around everywhere.
What happened…
The memories of the experiment flood my mind before I realize that I am on the metal table without any restraints.
Huh?
I rise to my feet before looking around at the table and finding the restraints destroyed.
This is a first. What happened after I blacked out?
Also, where’s the pain? There’s just nothing now. No pain at all.
A groan catches my attention from below the table.
When I approach the edge of the table and look down, I find the man lying down with a look of absolute glee and awe as he stares up at me from the floor while looking half dead.
What happened to him? And why’s he look so happy despite looking like he’s about to die?
“My exp-p-periment w-was a s-success!” he manages to get out before coughing out a mouthful of blood.
My eyes widen in fear and I find myself turning my head to look at my back, but I fail to find anything different with it.
Does that mean that that terrifying thing is inside of me?!
Nonononono. Please don’t let that be the case…
I turn my head back to the man in a terror-riddled confusion.
“Kill me b-before I d-die!” he asks me before weakly reaching for a piece of paper and adding, “Everyth-thing you need t-to know is written on this p-piece of paper…”
I jump down from the table before approaching the man with a brief glance at the paper.
He wants me to kill him?
That’s odd, but I have no problems with that.
It wasn’t like I was going to let him live anyways.
Right before I clamp my jaws around his throat, he manages to mutter one last sentence that confuses me, “The second era of Chaos shall c-commence as a new Lord of Chaos rises…”
I crush his throat in between my jaws before raising my head again.
It’s finally over.
Right as I am about to go look at the paper he mentioned, a strange flood of words and symbols appears in my vision.
What the…
I try to bat the words away with my paw to no avail before giving up and reading them.
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Awakening in progress…
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What is awake-
Before I can finish my thought, the words are replaced with a new set of words and symbols.
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Awakening Successful
Congratulations, you have now been awakened to the System!
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