He arrived at the crevasse she had fallen into and was surprised to find someone else there cooking a meal of fish over a small fire The man seeing Randidly blinked and leaped to his feet Immediately Randidly’s eyes refocused and he recognized the man it was the friend of Kayle and Paolo Dinesh The slender Indian man blinked for a few seconds then bowed hurriedly
Randidly opened his mouth to ask why he was here but the ground rumbled Through their bond Randidly could feel that Neveah was stirring the short sharp twitches of someone who was about to wake
Instead of speaking Randidly blew past him heading to the edge of the hole Below he could see twisting and cracking bones and a thick mist made from condensed Aether The mist seemed to pulse with Neveah’s breath moving slowly rising and falling rising and falling
Neveah Randidly thought towards her along the lines of their bond
There was stillness and then the rumbling intensified The pull of Aether grew until it seemed that Neveah’s transformation began to occur so quickly it lost sight of itself Cracks rang out of the ground bits of bone and rock ground to dust as the different sections below pulsed and shifted seeking a final resting place
Is this good Dinesh asked his face pale
Randidly said nothing
After 15 minutes of the constantly increasing cracking noises there was a crescendo a low rumbling happening concurrently with high sharp cracks Then there was silence Within the crevasse there was only stillness Then a handmade entirely of bone reached out and dragged a body behind it
Randidly chuckled as Neveah slowly and ponderously clambered out of her resting place even while Dinesh became increasingly nervous She had certainly lost quite a bit of her size but Randidly didn’t mind that so much He could already sense how the changes would make her more powerful overall even if she didn’t retain the same overwhelming momentum that she could have previously
Neveah had shifted from being a thick worm on the ground to a more humanoid form about 2 5 meters tall But in terms of humanoid it was much closer to a lizardman than a human Her legs were thick and powerful soft grey flesh covered in a thick armor of bones The torso was elongated and from the back there was a powerful tail extending perhaps three times the length of the torso itself
Her arms were relatively thinner but they were tipped with gleaming daggers of bone From her back stretched two wings made entirely of bone and Randidly doubted that they possessed the requisite lift for flight but they undoubtedly be a powerful weapon in a close range fight
Perhaps the most stunning change or lack of one was Neveah’s face Because instead of a humanoid face she retained the same face of the bone wyrm possessing cold black eyes over a circular maw of a mouth that was lined with sharp teeth
Ran d I back Neveah said her mouth twisting in glee Dinesh excused himself and fled the area rapidly
Chapter 470
Drake looked around at the surrounding 20 men and women the cream of East End as they smiled cockily at him
You really want to fight us all at once Zither said his smile long and lazy on his face
Drake nodded solemnly his eyes scanning the group around him At first he wasn’t sure what to make of the Ghosthound’s strange speech about power When Sydney appeared to be sleeping when Drake returned he decided to check to see how much of it was true
Even now as he looked at those around him he noticed the way they were standing with two of them close enough to Drake that should he attack suddenly they would likely be dead before the true fighting started It was an easy thing Drake supposed not to understand implicitly the range of a lunging man with a sword or of a monster with claws but it was something that he would see corrected regardless of their performance against him in a group
Fine fine but do you want a half hour to get your Bone Armor ready Zither asked casually moving to a peg on the wall to get training gear and a wooden sword to practice with
Grimacing Drake pressed down using every ounce of Willpower to accelerate the process Around him out of his pores liquid bone flowed joining together and shaping itself almost instantly forming gauntlets greaves pauldrons and a helmet Within 30 seconds Drake’s entire body was covered in the Bone Armor and he let out a long breath The 20 guards were frozen regarding him with shock
He supposed he shouldn’t feel too smug most of this simply had to do with having higher Stats But Drake couldn’t deny that using the Skill day after day as a defense against death had sharpened his utilization to heights he would have previously considered impossible
No need Drake said simply drawing his great sword of bone And don’t bother with putting the gear on I will leave you in one piece I will attack in 10 seconds Ready yourselves
Neveah delighted in her new body but it was relatively easy for Randidly to tear her away from experimentation and towards his inner world where Lucretia waited Neveah seemed determined that after this however they would head into Donnyton now that she looked like a people’ Randidly wasn’t sure how he could break it to her that she in fact didn’t look much like a person at all so he said nothing
If anything her transformation made her look more fearsome as the Bone Wyrm head was pasted onto a vaguely humanoid body But it was true that her size enabled her to move through most human doors which had hitherto been taboo as she could only shatter them not go through them
They found Lucretia floating in the sky above Randidly’s Soul Skill When the Monster King had sacrificed his life he had severely damaged the Creature and her minions had lost their guidance often attacking each other This allowed the allied armies to crush the remnants driving them away
Even now below their floating forms the people were beginning to rebuild fixing all the damage that the Skin Shifters and then the army that had followed had caused Even without the Monster King the monsters stayed in line for the rebuilding efforts the wolf woman monster leading them to assist It would only last for a few more weeks as previously agreed but for now there was peace in his Soul
There was more than peace however there was a transformation that would occur Randidly could sense once he had time to think it through and shape it But for now he turned his attention to Lucretia
You’ve looked through the memories already He asked
She nodded Some of them But they are messy and fragmented so it’s hard The Thief gathered them as consistently as she could but she didn’t want to stay in that place long Not while the Monster King’s body watched her she said She did however bring the body back with her
Randidly didn’t know what to say to that He felt profoundly responsible for his death in a way he never had before He had killed sure but he had never convinced someone else that it was worth it to die for him Well perhaps he had done that to all of his Soul Skill But with the Monster King the convincing was a very personal thing Randidly had come down and spoken to him given him the tools he needed to carry out the task of burning the Creature from the inside out
For that sacrifice Randidly swore to himself to care more constantly for his internal world They deserved much better than the cursory investigation he had given them previously
Held in Lucretia’s hands was a bowl and inside of it there were numerous small gems They were thick and dark things forest green maroon navy blue and when Randidly reached out to touch them he felt them flicker and twitch and then slide into his fingers to become a part of him
They weren’t easy to piece apart as Lucretia said and they hit him in a huge wave of images and thoughts and emotions Although they weren’t his and they weren’t overpowering in any way they were certainly compelling It was almost chilling how he could see from its well truly her perspective how right she was in what she was doing