The Primeval Era-Chapter 129: Are You Strained? I

All that was left of the Kishi Demon was a vibrantly crimson medallion that hadn’t melted even by his terrifying flames.

Damian gazed at it internally for some time. His transformed senses probed its surface, searching for weakness or meaning or anything that might explain what this object truly was. The runes carved into its crystalline face seemed to shift when he focused on them directly, dancing away from comprehension like fish fleeing a predator’s shadow.

Nothing.

He couldn’t find anything useful on it. The medallion kept its secrets behind walls he didn’t currently have the knowledge to breach.

So he chose to spit it out for now.

The crimson crystal emerged from his massive jaws and floated before him, spinning slowly in the air as residual Mana from his flames kept it suspended. It caught the light of the clearing skies and threw crimson reflections across the scorched landscape below.

The skies finally seemed to calm.

The golden clouds he had conjured were dissipating, their purpose fulfilled now that no more lightning needed to be called. The crimson corruption that had painted the heavens red was gone entirely, burned away by flames that left only purified air in their wake. Afternoon sun broke through the fading remnants of his storm, casting long shadows across a landscape forever changed by the battle that had occurred. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Damian’s massive body floated there amid the settling calm.

Nine tails drifted behind him, their golden crackling reduced to a gentle pulse now that combat had ended. His mane of blue flames still burned around his leonine features, but with less intensity than before. The Crown of Kingship remained above his head, that declaration of sovereignty continuing to blaze with light that made the sun seem modest.

He was magnificent.

He knew this without arrogance. It was simply fact!

Serala and Masamuk cautiously floated over.

They approached him the way one might approach a Sacred Mountain that had suddenly decided to hover in the sky. Shock mixed with wariness mixed with something that looked very much like the expression of people who had witnessed too many impossible things in too short a time.

They looked at Damian.

Then at the medallion.

Then back to Damian.

"..."

The silence stretched as they processed everything they had just witnessed. A young man transforming into a beast that rivaled Noble Lineages. A demon being consumed and burned from within. A battle that had reshaped the very geography of the local Lands of Stone.

It was a lot to take in.

After a heavy silence, Masamuk floated before Damian’s massive body.

The Slime of Chaos positioned himself directly in front of those leonine features, obsidian body pulsing with energy that seemed almost giddy despite the damage he had sustained. His crimson eyes shone with light that bordered on fanatical admiration.

"From this day onward, Masamuk declares you as his brother!"

His deep voice boomed across the battlefield.

"Brother, come on, tell me how you did all of this!"

He bounced closer, stellar blue points dancing within his obsidian form.

"Was it when you were healing Tiaret? Did the Ancestors bless you for your feat by giving this power to you? You can tell me!"

...!

His eyes were vibrant as he wanted to know everything.

The questions tumbled out with enthusiasm that seemed absurd given what they had just survived. But that was Masamuk. That was the Slime of Chaos who had declared friendship after watching a stranger heal his beloved and who now declared brotherhood after watching that same stranger devour a demon!

Meanwhile, Serala only looked over with a complex expression.

Her wing-shaped pupils moved across Damian’s transformed body, studying the wings that matched her own, the eyes that held the same shape as hers. Whatever thoughts moved behind that gaze, she kept them to herself. After a long moment, she focused on the medallion instead.

Damian saw this.

"Do you know what this is?"

His voice emerged strange and resonant from his lion form, carrying waves that vibrated through the air itself.

Serala studied the spinning crimson crystal for several heartbeats before answering.

"This one I’m not too clear on."

Her voice was measured and careful.

"Even the sacred texts did not have everything. The archives of the Hallowed Voice are vast, but they are not complete. I might know what it is, but I don’t want to be wrong, so I won’t say anything for now."

She paused.

"But you..."

Her gaze returned to his massive form, moving up and down across golden fur and blue flames and white-gold wings.

"Does your soul not feel a strain activating and holding what... multiple Physiques?"

Her wing-shaped pupils narrowed with scholarly intensity.

"How are you still able to hold that massive form?"

...!

How was he able to maintain this transformation?

The question made him blink. Those massive leonine eyes closed and opened as he turned his attention inward, examining the state of his being with the same scrutiny Serala had applied from without.

He felt... normal.

There was no strain pulling at his consciousness. No pressure suggesting that this form was temporary or taxing. No sensation of energy draining away to maintain something that shouldn’t exist. He simply was this body now, as naturally as he had been his human form before.

He didn’t particularly feel as if he was utilizing a lot of energy to hold up this transformation.

It just... was.

Serala seemed to read the confusion in his silence.

"Those who alter their entire physical bodies possess some of the most powerful Land and Sky Physiques," she explained, her voice taking on the rhythm of someone reciting knowledge burned into memory through years of study.

"The Noble Simba. The Basmu Sovereign. The Thunder Emperor’s Mantle. These transformations grant tremendous power."

She gestured toward his form.

"But they take a toll on the soul. The shape of one’s spirit does not fully match the shape of one’s transformed flesh. There is dissonance between what you are and what you become. Thus it takes a great deal of effort to take and keep a different form. Most who transform can only maintain it for minutes. The greatest ones, far above you and I in power, might sustain their alternate shapes for hours."

Her wing-shaped pupils fixed on his.

"Yet you... show no signs of strain at all."