Elias gasped as the blood re-entered his body through the same wounds it had left, but it was not the same.
It would seem that when his blood was taking the weird runes above him, it was transforming, and what Elias now felt flowing into his body was thicker, heavier, and brighter.
His body opened up to receive it as the blood flowed through veins that were wider now, deeper, as if his channels carved by the Art were now made to carry something more than blood.
The new blood flowed through his chest, shoulders, neck, and head, and where it passed, the flesh around it changed.
His skin split along new lines, lines that followed the expanded architecture of the Crimson Vein.
The splits opened in his arms first, then his chest, then his face.
There was pain, but this pain was different because these splits were not necessarily wounds but were something else.
