The sky was crimson red and the air tasted like blood. The sand was filled with uncountable numbers of leech creatures crawling through, which were capable of boring holes into any being without them being the wiser.
In place of flesh, Rizhak grafted a thick, powerful, war metal onto the shoulder socket of his victim. The metal had been previously crafted into the shape of a sword in preparation for the procedure. He picked up two long, stretched-out muscles, twining them like threads into a needle, and then he grafted them between the shoulder joint and war metal. Picking up his cross pein and placing a thick, inches wide nail on the joint, he brought the hammer down, chanting all the way.
"Flesh begets Flesh."
"Flesh binds Flesh."
"Flesh is Flesh."
His victim twitched in response, too tired from earlier processes to voice out any signs of pain, though his eyes watched Rizhak in fear as he worked.
"Do not be afraid," Rizhak comforted. "I will make you into a perfection."
He knew his patient did not believe him, but Rizhak knew he would make good on his promise.
Humans, in his opinion, were a subpar race. He knew others disagreed with him, but he truly believed so. Compared to the other races, the human race was far below standard. They lacked the great agility granted to the elves at birth. The great survivability of the dwarves. And the natural armor-like body and speed of the beasts and scale races. Even flight was naturally denied them. Such a pitiful race.
His grafted leathery wings – taken from the corpse of a Red dragon – flapped widely as his excitement bled into them.
"Such exquisite specimen," he cooed, gently rubbing his patient's forehead, to which the man's eyes widened in terror.
"Do not be like that," he murmured. "I just want to make you into a better version of yourself. You will eventually thank me when I am done."
It had cost him dozens of his previous creations to safely capture such a great specimen as this. Thankfully, he did not lose as much compared to if he had gone searching for specimens as fortified as this.
A few days back, he had been attacked by finger-level assassins from the Shadow Hall, accompanied by their Claw-level acolytes. Rizhak knew enough about the Shadow Hall to recognize their threat level, which had led to him deploying twice the number of some of his precious creations. He didn't know how they had found him, but seeing the great gifts that had been delivered up to him, he refused to complain.
Although he had lost all the captured Claws due to their bodies not yet fortified enough to withstand his procedures, he still used their failed procedures as a lesson for his better subjects.
Finished with the arms which had been transformed into true, unparalleled weapons, he moved on to the legs.
Rizhak picked up a limb, taken from the lower parts of an early-tier Monarch goat from the beastkin race. He had kept the leg – imbued for years – since he hadn't found a perfect subject to use it on. Now looking at it, he couldn't help but marvel at the agile power and resilience.
Placing it at the joint where it met the hip, Rizhak chanted again.
"Blood begets Blood."
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"Blood binds Blood."
"Blood is Blood."
He chanted two more times as a dozen tendrils of blood slowly pooled out from both body parts, twinning and mixing until slowly, they became one, pulling the goat limb onto the lower torso.
Rizhak stepped back, awed at the perfect, seamless conjoining. No evidence shown whatsoever of the process that had just been done.
Done, he moved on to the second leg, beginning the same process all over again until his subject was now fitted with two perfectly strong and agile legs. Rizhak smiled as he admired his work.
"Don't you look so beautiful?" His eyes misted. "I know this is all new to you, but you will see the right of it soon enough. You will be perfect," he looked at his other waiting subjects – including those still in their cages. "I will make you all perfect."
Done with the lower part of the body, Rizhak ignored his subject's moaning pleas as he rolled him over, turning the back facing upward. Rizhak pulled out his scalpel and, in one smooth, deep cut, tore open a line, a foot long, down the man's back close to his shoulder blades. He controlled the blood flow that tried to pull out, taking a sip and then putting the rest back.
Rizhak brought out a wing, taken from the corpse of an avian calamity beast. The wing, a treasure of silver metallic alloy. The feathers, Instead of being organic like some other birds, were all metal: hundreds of sharp silver detachable metallic feathers.
He had found the corpse a short distance away from the body of a holes riddled sonic griffin.
"Blood begets Blood."
"Flesh begets Flesh."
"Blood binds Flesh."
"All brought together by the great Creator."
Chanting the same ritual and watching as the same blood tendrils wrapped around the scapular and then pulled it deep into the flesh, Rizhak watched as seamlessly, the flesh closed in around it. Satisfied, he did the same for the second wing.
"Now for your head and neck, we wouldn't want you unfortunately getting decapitated after all the perfection done on your body, would we?"
Tears streaked down the subject's eyes as he watched Rizhak bring out a metallic neck clasp. Despite his weakened state, he began shaking his head, eyes wide and tears streaking.
"No," Rizhak commanded. "None of that."
At his command, his subject stopped, frozen still.
"Your stubbornness displeases me. I do not like subjects who displease me. Do you want my displeasure?."
Calmly, Rizhak approached, bringing the opened clasp around the subject's neck, when he stopped.
Turning in a single motion, the metallic clasp rang loudly as it deflected a dagger aimed at his head.
"More presents!" Rizhak smiled.
At his words, two figures manifested out of shadows. Rizhak couldn't tell anything about them other than the dark purple cloak they wore and the purple insignia of a hand on one chest and another drawing of a bird on the other.
They said nothing as they stood there, eerily still and watching him.
"Are you here to volunteer for one of my operations? Like I said to them, I promise to make you a better version of yourselves."
Still, they said nothing.
"Don't you know it is rude to ignore your host?"
The shorter figure eerily tilted their head sideways, their voice coming out scratchy and difficult to identify. "You are the fleshcrafter, Rizhak?"
A big smile blossomed on Rizhak's face. "Yes, I am. I am glad that my work has made me so famous that figures of such prestige would pay me a visit," he waved towards his captured subjects. "Although I think your previous Envoys were a little bit rude."
The two never took their shadow-covered hoods away from Rizhak. "We are here for business."
Rizhak jumped up excitedly, clapping. "Ohhh. Business partners are always welcome. What can I offer you? Although I only have my homemade blood wine, I could send a servant to go procure something else if that is not to your taste."
***
Damien floated, his fully manifested Astral image behind him and facing those from the Torinian clan chiefs. Below, the last stragglers from the Alliance had just crossed back, returning to their various staging halls.
"So, who put the contract on me?" He said out loud.
The clan chiefs looked confused, turning questioning looks toward each other and then back to Damien.
But he wasn't referring to them.
Damien looked down on both his wrists, seeing the tattoo-free skin. "Don't you people usually.... like, mark your targets with one of those eerily appearing tattoos?"
Still, no reply. But he got his answer a moment later when his wrist burned, and the marking of a raven in flight appeared.
"Wow! I've never had a tattoo before."
Damien sighed. "If you won't say anything other than eerily hiding in the shadows like that, I'm going to have to take my leave."
Space tore open in a purple, human-sized, filmy glow, swallowing him, and Damien allowed it.
Knowing for a fact that the assassins wouldn't follow.