Chapter 828 – Boundless shadow (Patreon)

Percy watched the colourful carapace of the Merciful Spring Queen disappear into the darkness of the nearest tunnel that was wide enough to accommodate a creature of her size. Despite their victory over the Great Houses, the hive had suffered major losses, so Nephthys had her work cut out for her.

It would be up to the reincarnated deity and her older sister to oversee the recovery of their kingdom as soon as the latter was rescued. The Blue Starry Princess wouldn’t be able to lay eggs for some time, and Percy didn’t want Nephthys to start laying her own until they understood her mutations better, but that wasn’t as much of an issue.

The population of Starry Breeders hadn’t been affected by the war, and the flightless wasps were the ones responsible for replenishing the rest of the insects. In fact, the hive already possessed enough Drones and Workers to replace the fallen Soldiers, Knights, and Commanders, so restoring the hive was just a question of providing the weaker bugs with enough time and nectar to evolve.

Leaving his fellow aspect in charge of the wasps’ recovery, Percy flew to the top level of the Fungal Spire to reunite with his loved ones.

His family and closest friends rushed to hug him and make sure that he was okay, while the leaders of the other Houses and the remaining Guild elders settled for handshakes, congratulatory words and the standard pleasantries. Nesha held on a little longer than the others.

“Uncle Jeen and Machaon… They’re both dead,” she muttered against Percy’s chest. “It’s finally over.”

“It is,” Percy confirmed with a soft smile.

He’d considered letting her kill Machaon herself, but ultimately decided against it. Even with an empty core and all his limbs severed, a White could do a lot of damage with his domain. Giving Nesha a slightly more satisfying shot at revenge wasn’t worth risking her life. Judging by her relieved sobs, she hadn’t held it against him.

His girlfriend’s grip finally loosened as she let out a long, shaky breath. Percy waited patiently for her to pull away whenever she felt like it.

The others had kept the celebrations brief, however, as everyone had noticed the traces of Violet mana in Micky’s first core and were curious about the evolution of such a unique creature.

Percy didn’t blame them, as none of them had been present during the former Starry Queen’s evolution to White, nor Nephthys’ to Violet. Not to mention that Micky’s elemental body was even stranger than a typical beast’s, promising to make his upcoming promotion quite the spectacle.

Unaffected by the dozens of eyes observing him with interest, the Huehuan kept pulling bodies out of the spatial seal, carefully removing and consuming their cores, before finally returning the manaless corpses to storage.

Micky wasn’t above devouring the bodies of people who had attacked him or Percy, but he didn’t really need any nutrients beyond the cores, because he could reconstruct his body out of ice mana during his evolution. He and Percy had already decided to send the corpses back to their families in a decent condition as a sign of goodwill. The more they dulled the nobles’ hatred toward them, the smoother the next few decades would be.

By the time Micky shoved the first White core into his beak, the Blue mana inside his own core had already been fully replaced by thick Violet bands. Once he ate the fourth core, the Violet bands shuddered and looked like they were about to snap together, though the Huehuan still swallowed the last two cores – Machaon’s and Theseus’, in fact – for good measure.

The cracked marbles disintegrated inside his stomach and filled his beast channels with enough mana to push him past the finish line.

[Congratulations! Your mana core has advanced: Blue -> Violet!]

Percy frowned slightly upon reading the notification. He was happy for his friend, but it felt surreal that both of his fellow aspects had already reached Violet with their first cores while he was only at Green. It was understandable that Nephthys had caught up with them so quickly due to being an Orange-born, but even Micky had now surpassed Percy by two grades. Clearly, even Gloomy Dawn wasn’t nearly effective enough to keep up with the progress of a beast core.

‘I hope Micky’s ice and gravity affinities reach Blue before his beast core gets to White,’ he thought.

The Huehuan would never be in danger of starvation again because he could always shrink his body to a more sustainable size, but he would still struggle to fight at full power for a prolonged period of time if the gap between his cores was too wide.

Regardless, Percy kept those thoughts to himself, as he didn’t want to sour the mood with minor concerns over something that wouldn’t even become an issue until decades later, if at all.

Using his boosting arts and mutations at full power, Micky rapidly converted his other elements into beast mana to fill up his newly promoted core. Only when the organ was full did he allow his body to shapeshift back to his giant crow form, and then to keep growing past it.

Percy carefully examined his friend’s transformation, eagerly watching for signs of Micky’s upcoming gravity mutation. Unfortunately, there weren’t any. The bird simply grew larger and larger while retaining the same shape and midnight blue colour from beak to talon.

The blizzard raging around the elemental grew alongside him, dragging more ambient mana with every passing second as countless snowflakes latched onto the Huehuan’s body to become part of his plumage. Before long, Micky’s wingspan reached eighty metres, slightly surpassing the length of Nephthys’ body and making the crow about as large as Percy would have expected.

Micky had always been a little larger than Starry Wasps of his grade, which was why Percy’s eyes widened when his friend’s growth showed no sign of stopping.

The snowstorm only spun even more violently around the Huehuan, causing the microscopic humans to scatter and put some distance between them and the colossal bird. It was only then that Percy understood what the new mutation was.

Micky’s wingspan crossed the hundred metre mark and kept going until it was over a hundred and fifty metres across. The Huehuan’s growth began to slow down after reaching two hundred metres from wingtip to wingtip, but only stopped completely at around two hundred and forty metres, making the crow a full size larger than he was supposed to be.

[Congratulations! You have acquired a new mutation: Giant Body!]

Micky’s body was almost as large as the mushroom he was standing on, his enormous talons digging deep into the spongy cap of the fungus. Percy half-expected the mushroom’s stem to break under the bird’s weight, though he was surprised to see that it only bent slightly.

‘I see… his mass doesn’t seem to have increased as much as his volume has. Or it might be more accurate to say that his gravity mana is counteracting his weight, allowing him to grow bigger without making him any slower or increasing the strain on his beast core,’ Percy concluded.

This was clearly a more efficient way to convert Micky’s third affinity into raw physical strength than the Huehuan’s previous attempts at reinforcing his body. With any luck, the elemental’s mutations would merge into something even better when he mirrored the effects of Percy’s Thess’kalan ritual.

Leaving that experiment for later, Percy scanned his allies to ensure that they were okay. While Micky’s evolution hadn’t broken the mushroom’s stem, the cap had still tilted slightly under his weight. Thankfully, everyone was at a high enough grade to maintain their footing without much difficulty, though their wide eyes and agape mouths made for a funny sight as they all gawked at the enormous bird from within its boundless shadow.

“Who wants a ride?” Micky offered, the corners of his house-sized beak curling up with amusement. He hadn’t even bothered to infuse his willpower into his words, but his booming voice was still loud enough to shake the entire mountain. “We still need to retrieve the second Princess from the artificial hive and return the nobles’ corpses to their families, so we might as well use the opportunity to stretch my wings and send yet another message to the defeated Houses.”

Elaine, Nesha and Orin hopped onto the crow’s back after a brief pause, clearly knowing Micky well enough to trust that he would keep them safe. Periphetes and Fyn were the first among the allied patriarchs to join them, though the others eventually followed, their curiosity clearly overcoming their fear.

“Go on,” Percy encouraged them, feeling a little guilty that everyone had spent the past decade and a half trapped inside the settlement because of him. “You might as well enjoy your victory lap around the continent, and you can also use this opportunity to discuss how to reform our society in the coming days.”

Percy didn’t join them, because he’d already talked to Elaine, Nesha and Orin extensively about his plans and trusted them to represent his interests well during the upcoming negotiations. He also didn’t need to physically ride the giant crow to experience the trip.

Archibald was the only other person who had to stay behind. Percy’s grandfather couldn’t move too far from his clones, otherwise the constructs would run out of mana and die after a while. Archibald couldn’t be bothered to drag them all to the crow’s back, nor waste the next few months replenishing his minions.

Letting his grandfather return to the settlement to deliver the good news to the rest of their allies, Percy pulled up the mutation section of his Status to examine the changes that both of his fellow aspects had experienced while waiting for a certain other person to join him atop the mushroom.

___

Mutations:

·         [Saint’s Eye] – Draws from the cumulative knowledge listed in the Status to enhance one’s senses, allowing them to discern details previously unseen.

·         [Divine Spark] – Grants endless inspiration when developing one’s magic.

·         [Twin Heartbeat Physique] – Massively enhances one’s physical strength, agility, flexibility, toughness, endurance, metabolism, reaction speed, natural regeneration, as well as resistance to extreme temperatures and toxins. Grants Thermal Vision, Night Vision, and Internal Sight.

·         [Dead Winter Elemental] – Uses ice mana to regenerate, shapeshift and sustain one’s body. Allows every part of one’s body to interact with souls.

·         [Grey Panoply] – Selectively reinforces the most rigid of one’s body parts.

·         [Giant Body] – Uses gravity mana to counteract one's weight, allowing their body to grow denser and larger without becoming any heavier.

·         [Merciful Spring Monarch] – Allows one to efficiently generate, utilize, and convert various magical resources, interact with and preserve the souls of others, temporarily project the stored minds into compatible vessels, or permanently infuse their souls into special eggs.

___

Before doing anything else, Percy took a moment to appreciate how neatly Phoebe’s Decree had organized the mutations. It still hadn’t bothered to label them based on which of the Lone Wanderer’s aspects they affected, but it had at least grouped them up accordingly.

The Saint’s Eye and Divine Spark mutations were listed at the very top since they now affected all three of their bodies in the same way. They were followed by Percy’s Physique, the three mutations that were exclusive to Micky, and finally the one that belonged to just Nephthys.

‘The Giant Body mutation works like I thought it did,’ he realized. ‘But there’s more to Merciful Spring Monarch than expected. What’s with that line about infusing souls into special eggs?’

A sharp pulse of hope rushed through his connection to Nephthys, who was clearly paying attention to him. Percy didn’t blame his fellow aspect for getting excited, as her son and the other Amenthei might finally have bodies of their own again.

Percy was about to ponder over the implications of this ability and come up with a new set of experiments to test it out, but his brainstorming session was cut short when a certain deity joined him atop the mushroom.

Judging by how abruptly the titaness had appeared by his side, he guessed that she had been waiting there for some time. Percy had simply been too preoccupied by other matters to notice her presence, eventually causing her to voluntarily retract her magical veil.

“Really? You just casually show up after ignoring my urgent attempts to reach out to you for years?” he asked, not even bothering to hide the irritation in his voice.