The pain exploded before I finished processing that it had begun.
It wasn't external pain. It was pain from the inside out — as though every cell in the body had received the same instruction simultaneously and the instruction was to come apart. There was no location, no focus, no point of origin the mind could isolate and manage. It was everything at once, with the brutal democracy of a process that made no distinction between what was essential and what was expendable.
My body was coming apart only to be built again.
I could see Morgana and Livina through the capsule glass — clearly worried, unable to do anything. The procedure had begun. There was no interruption. There was no reversal. There was no button to press that would make it more manageable.
My mind wanted to shut down.
I forced myself to stay awake.
There was no official criterion for obtaining a better power from the hero — but it was said that the longer one remained conscious during the process, the greater the chance of a superior result. Nobody knew if it was true or just something invented to make fools suffer more on principle. But if there was any possibility, I would do it with whatever strength I had left.
"DAMN IT AHHHHH — END ALREADY YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
The pain tore. Time had stopped functioning as a reference — it existed only as a sensation of endless duration, without peak, without the moment when something reaches its maximum and begins to recede. My blood-red eyes lost focus. The capsule glass, the two heroines, the white room — everything became a blur with the speed of when the nervous system decides that processing the environment is a luxury it can no longer afford.
Then the notifications began.
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Fortified Body Comm.. ERROR ]
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Fortified Body Comm.. ERROR ]
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Fortified Body Comm.. ERROR ]
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Nature Taming Epic.. ERROR ]
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Fortified Body Comm.. ERROR ]
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Fatal Venom Rar.. ERROR ]
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Summoning Legen.. ERROR ]
.
. .
. . .
The system was trying to classify what had been acquired. Trying. Failing. Trying again with another category. Failing again. I could see the notifications appearing in cascade in my field of vision, but I couldn't process any of them — because at that moment I noticed the smell.
Burning flesh.
It took a second to understand it was my own body.
The blood had begun to drown me — accumulating in my throat with the speed of something that had no intention of stopping, blocking every attempt to breathe before it went deep enough to matter. I could feel consciousness retreating to somewhere very far from where it needed to be.
Before I succumbed —
The pain left.
It didn't gradually diminish. It left — like when a bee's stinger is removed, the sudden absence after constant presence. The body took a second to process that it had stopped. That it was real. That it wouldn't return.
[ Congratulations. Mutation acquired — Extraordinary Summoning (Unique) acquired. ]
Happy. Exhausted.
When the capsule opened, my still-unfocused eyes focused on the two girls. They seemed to be in shock over something I couldn't understand. I tried to speak — and my mouth, upon opening, spat blood while I could barely lift my head.
"Stay down. I'm going to heal you."
Morgana advanced quickly while I couldn't respond.
"How did he not pass out? And why the hell did he stay in there so long… Is this how humans integrate with heroes? Impossible."
Livina seemed shocked, but I couldn't even reason correctly, let alone ask what had disturbed her.
"I… don't know. This is very different from what I knew."
I could still hear them both, but my half-open eyes and my body were ending negotiations with consciousness before I had the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
Then I felt Morgana's green magic covering my entire body.
The healing filled the body with the sensation of something being rebuilt from the outside in — the exact inverse of what had happened. Not immediate, not instantaneous, but progressive — each part being reached in the order she had calculated as most urgent, without me needing to ask.
I began to regain consciousness sooner than I expected.
"I did it."
My first reaction was to look at my own legs.
Still there. Human. No scorpion plates, no extra limbs, nothing to indicate that nature had made decisions without my supervision.
A smile filled my face — the kind that comes before the person decides they're going to smile.
I hadn't become half scorpion. And I had obtained the best power of the Aqrabuamelu race — the unique grade one.
I still didn't know exactly who or what Zaetar was. But I knew what Primordial meant — and that was already enough to understand the weight of what I had acquired. A Primordial creature was the apex of the race: not the strongest of the generation, not the champion of the cycle, but the absolute limit of what that species could become. The strongest, fastest, most intelligent — every characteristic that defined the race elevated to the maximum that biology and existence allowed. The ceiling. The version that makes all other versions a comparative reference.
I had acquired the ability to summon such a creature.
Among humanity, even summoning abilities acquired from rare or epic creatures made someone exceptional — one in a million was a conservative estimate. What I possessed was above that category in a way I was still trying to comprehend.
I was extremely curious to discover what would happen when I summoned it.
Livina seemed slightly annoyed. My body remained human. She had clearly expected another result and was making a visible effort not to say that out loud.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like my body was destroyed and rebuilt countless times, while I was still conscious for all of it."
A pause.
Morgana seemed curious about something, and it was evident on her face.
"Did something happen?"
She seemed anxious, but as soon as I asked, she surprised me with a question I didn't know how to answer.
"Do all humans go through such torture to obtain their power…?"
I couldn't understand. The Codex said little about integration — in fact, I myself had thought that was how it worked. I was surprised to realize that the two heroines, who had most likely already gone through integration themselves, didn't seem to understand what had happened.
"I don't follow… I mean, I know that the pain of reconstruction is extreme, and that's common for any race."
Morgana looked at me with a confused face, as though something was outside the reality she knew. I felt there was something she wanted to say but couldn't formulate. Perhaps if I explained what I knew, she could clarify what was bothering her.
"During integration, humans suffer extreme pain for a few seconds, while the body is rebuilt and the system incorporates the corresponding evolution."
"Seconds?"
When she said that, I realized my mistake. I was still somewhat dazed, and my body remained extremely weak.
"Sorry… I made an error. It's minutes — if I'm not mistaken, the average is 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Why?"
Livina looked at Morgana, then at me. Morgana did the same, as though I were an anomaly — something straight out of a book neither of them had read before. Before I could question them, Livina spoke first.
"Lord, I agree with you. In my race, the norm was always somewhere between a few seconds and a few minutes… But do you know how long you were inside the capsule?"
The question caught me off guard. I had the impression that they had been with me the entire time, while the pain consumed me.
"Girls… how long was I inside this capsule?"
Morgana and Livina exchanged glances before Morgana turned back to me.
"Lord… you've been in there for almost two days. Honestly, I don't know how that's possible."
I was shocked. That made no sense. The sensation had been much longer than a few seconds — but I had attributed that to the intensity of the pain distorting time, not to real time passing.
"Honestly, Lord, if you hadn't been conscious the whole time, I would have pulled you out of the capsule myself, believing something was wrong."
Morgana spoke while continuing the healing. Livina agreed in silence.
"Good thing everything worked out…"
There wasn't much more to say. Despite being unusual, I had passed through the ordeal — confused and with more questions than answers. With no one who could clarify things for me, all that remained was to accept it: either what I had read was an elaborate lie for humans fearful of pain, or I was simply an unlucky soul condemned to suffer for days to achieve what others managed in minutes.
Fortunately, I hadn't suffered in vain.
[ Extraordinary Summoning — Zaetar ]
After mutation, fragility normally lasted days — sometimes weeks. And yet there I was, managing to sit up in less than two hours. Morgana's healing had compressed weeks of recovery into an interval I couldn't calculate precisely — and probably shouldn't try, because the result would leave me with an emotional debt I wasn't prepared to process.
"And I thought I'd manage to acquire the power of both of them in sequence…" — an ironic blood-stained smile appeared on my lips. The internal wounds still seemed fragile — functional, but unstable, like a newly rebuilt structure that didn't yet trust its own weight.
"I'm going to sleep a little, girls. Take care of the territory while I rest. If anything happens, call me."
I preferred to stay in the capsule — even dirty as it was. My body didn't seem to mind. It was closer than the room, and I didn't have the energy to negotiate with the distance. Morgana's healing, powerful as it was, didn't reach the exhaustion that came from within — from the screaming, from the involuntary movements, from the effort of remaining conscious longer than my body could bear.
"Are you going to be alright, Lord?"
"Don't worry, Morgana. I'm just going to sleep a little. I'll call you both when I wake up."
I was still finishing the sentence when sleep came.
Not gradually.
All at once.
✦
The metallic smell hit my nostrils before my eyes opened.
Dried blood. The specific smell of an old wound — not fresh, not immediate, but the kind that remains after the body has already closed the process and what's left is only a record. My body was stiff. The joints felt like stone. Every small movement I tried to make before being fully awake was met with the specific resistance of muscles that had worked beyond their limit and hadn't yet decided if they were willing to cooperate again.
I got up confused.
Then I remembered.
The mutation was over. I had survived — and more than that.
"Damn… I'm a wreck."
Marks of dried and crusted blood covered my face — coming from my nose, my eyes, my ears. The kind of evidence the body leaves when it has been pushed beyond what it was designed to withstand and needed to release pressure wherever it could. My head throbbed with the intensity of something that had been ignored for too long and was collecting with interest. My stomach growled desperately — more than hunger, urgency, the kind that doesn't accept being put on hold and has no interest in negotiating deadlines.
"How long did I sleep?"
[ 4 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes. ]
Zeus's voice pulled me out of the stupor completely.
Almost five days.
Despite having slept so long, I wasn't thirsty — someone had given me water during the process. Someone had taken care of what needed to be taken care of and left without waking me, repeatedly over the course of days. The kind of silent care that doesn't ask for recognition and for that reason is harder to ignore than the kind that does.
That left me with a feeling I preferred not to examine while I was still trying to get my joints working.
I moved to the door and stepped out into the territory — still disoriented, still processing, with the step of someone who knows where they're going but isn't yet sure the body will cooperate for the entire journey.
I had entered during the day. Now I was coming out in the late afternoon — many days later.
The light was different. The air was different. I swept the territory with my eyes before taking a step — the instinct of someone who had learned that surprises in the Oasis were rarely pleasant. The constructions were in the right places. The workers maintained the routine programmed to function regardless of the Lord's presence. Everything in order.
Then I identified what I was looking for.
At the top of the wall, near the gate — two silhouettes leaning over, their backs to me, monitoring something outside with the concentration of those who had decided that was more important than anything else in the territory. Including the Lord who had just woken after five days.
My heart raced.
Attack. Threat. Something that had arrived while I was unconscious, that I hadn't calculated, that had been left for the heroines to manage because I was too busy being rebuilt cell by cell inside a capsule.
I advanced still limping. Still weak. But I advanced.
Then they both saw me.
"Lord… you woke up."
"My Lord, finally."
It wasn't urgency. It was relief — with the specific texture of relief that comes after days of waiting, not seconds of fright.
I breathed.
And then I realized something was wrong. Not with the territory.
With me.
✦
Morgana was more beautiful than I remembered — her chest moving as she ran toward me in a way that my new brain registered before the old brain could intervene. And even Livina, half scorpion and all, had an upper human half with a presence that left me completely defenseless. I had to slap myself in the face before the situation got completely out of control.
"Smack."
Both stopped. Looked at me.
"My Lord? Did something happen?"
The Aqrabuamelu were known — as were other races — for a high degree of sexual dysregulation, a direct consequence of their low fertility rate: biology compensated for the difficulty with intensity. It was documented information in the Compendium, not speculation. The DNA hadn't absorbed the most extreme characteristics of the race, but some had clearly remained — and apparently had decided that the first visual contact after almost five days of isolation was the ideal moment to make themselves known.
I knew that. I had read that. I had calculated that as an acceptable risk before entering the capsule.
The problem with calculating acceptable risk is that the calculation happens before. Reality happens after.
"It's nothing, girls." — I said with the firmness of someone who is lying and knows they're lying, but needs the other person to pretend to believe it. — "What happened while I was out? And what were you two looking at outside?"
The two looked at each other — anxious, with the kind of anxiety that isn't fear but also isn't calm. The signal that there was something to show that they had decided I needed to see with my own eyes.
"I think it's better you see for yourself." — Livina said.
I found that strange. I didn't understand what could be curious but not urgent enough to have been reported immediately.
I stepped forward.
Morgana stepped in front of me and blocked me with the specific composure of someone who had decided that this conversation needed to happen before anything else.
"My Lord… I think it's better you get dressed first."
I looked down.
My clothes were in her hands.
I had entered the capsule dressed. I had come out with nothing.
Which meant someone had undressed me during the almost five days I had been unconscious. The same person who had given me water, probably — and when I thought about who would have done that with the discreet efficiency of someone who handles any need without needing to be asked, the name that came was Morgana. Functionally correct. Necessary, even. The kind of care I would have been grateful for in any other context.
The problem was the context.
Thinking about it in detail left me in a state incompatible with the composure I was trying to maintain — and the hormones the Aqrabuamelu had kindly left as an inheritance weren't helping.
When I took the clothes Morgana was extending for me to put on, I noticed a new problem.
It wasn't the clothes.
It was the body.
I had entered the capsule with the build of a solid six — not fat, not thin, not strong, not weak. The kind of body that draws no attention in any direction, that exists functionally without making declarations. Below a trained human, above a sedentary human. Average, in a competent way.
I had come out looking like I had taken enough steroids to win any bodybuilding competition without needing subjective judging. My arms had doubled in volume. My chest had expanded with the solidity of something that hadn't been built through training but rewritten through process. The entire structure had been reformulated with the logic of a race that had evolved in an environment where strength was the only criterion that mattered.
And then I looked down and realized the transformation had been completely democratic in its breadth and magnitude.
"What the hell happened to me."
It wasn't a rhetorical question. My endowment had grown in a way that easily reached the size of a school ruler — which was impressive from one perspective and completely disturbing from another, especially considering I was still processing the side effects of the first problem.
"That is the side effect of our race." — Livina spoke with the tone of someone who had been waiting for this moment and was savoring every second of it. — "Perhaps you didn't know, but Aqrabuamelu males are known for their enormous strength, robustness and… of course… virility."
The pause before "virility" was deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing.
I grabbed the clothes with the speed of someone who had decided that situation needed to be ended as quickly as possible. The obsidian-colored armor still functioned as protection. As coverage for what had changed in every relevant dimension, it was a bad joke I was wearing.
"I'm going to need new clothes urgently. These won't be very effective anymore."
Livina opened a slow smile completely without hurry.
"Honestly, my Lord, I wouldn't mind if you stayed like that."
"Livina." — Morgana spoke with the specific tone of someone making an effort not to say what they're really thinking.
"I'm just being honest."
"You're always honest at the worst times."
I ignored them both. With considerable effort.
"Let's go see what's happening."
✦
I advanced to the wall.
Outside — three figures around a small campfire. Two men and a woman, human by their silhouettes. Tired by their posture. Dirty by their appearance. With the kind of stillness of people who had stopped moving not because they had arrived somewhere, but because they had nowhere left to go.
Wanderers.
That was what the Lords who lost their territory but hadn't yet settled in another were called — not quite fallen Lords yet, in the system's recognition. Lost through battle, through demerit, through any reason the system recognized as sufficient failure to remove what had been granted. They weren't as rare as in other races. Humans had a survival instinct strong enough to abandon their kingdom upon realizing defeat was inevitable — what other races called cowardice and I called intelligence. Dying alongside the territory preserved nothing. Retreating preserved the possibility of staying alive.
Each of the three had a hero at their side.
"Two elves and a werewolf." — Livina said, anticipating the question.
Elves weren't especially powerful summonings — rare at best, competent, but without the kind of power that changed battles, very different from Grand-Elves or Abyss Elves. The female werewolf was different. Rare certainly. A capable race, with strength, agility and adaptability that few rivaled.
"What happened to their territory?"
"They didn't say. They demanded to speak with the Lord."
Demanded.
Their clothes were different from what one saw on recent Lords — without the characteristic obsidian color of newcomers. Fabric of visibly superior quality and cut that communicated extravagant origins before any word was spoken. Items that in the market were extremely expensive and rarely purchased — the kind one acquires, not buys, coming from families with enough resources to send gifts even inside the system.
Nobles.
And from the fact that they kept their heroes at a distance — not beside them, not allied, but separate, like auxiliaries who didn't deserve the same campfire — it was clear they didn't see them as equals.
"Morgana." — I approached. — "What do you think?"
"I don't know, my Lord." — she paused with the quality of pause of someone who has an opinion but is evaluating whether it's the right moment. — "They didn't seem willing to talk to anyone besides the Lord."
"Yes. These sons of bitches certainly saw me as nothing more than an object." — Livina didn't hesitate. — "At least until they got to know my better half. After that… the conversation changed tone. Lords who treat heroes that way rarely have pure reasons for asking for help."
Morgana was subtle. Livina was direct. In this case, I felt the direct one was closer to the truth.
"Very well." — I turned. — "Let's see what they want."
Without overthinking it, I advanced to the stable.
The male Urskra recognized my presence before I got close — he raised his head, his yellow eyes fixed on me with the specific expression of a creature that had missed someone and was processing whether to show it or not. I mounted him without ceremony. The Cockatrice descended from her perch and landed on my shoulder before I asked, with the determination of something that had decided wherever I went she was coming along and there was no need for discussion on the matter.
"Lord, don't you want us to accompany you?"
"No need. I want to handle them personally."
If they wanted to demonstrate superiority — if they had arrived at my territory demanding an audience with the Lord as though that were a right and not a privilege — then they would meet the Lord.
Mounted on an adult Urskra, with a Cockatrice on my shoulder, coming out of the wall that had withstood a Chimera and four hundred Zhur'kai.
Let them see who they were asking for help.