NOVEL NEXT 60
Concept level up
Bloodlines 1 -> 3
With the last adjustment, Dorn stood up. The golden Cygor now stood twice my height. Dorn is the first Cygor I give birth to right after the problem with the Nurgle plague is done. He is still blind to all but magic like the rest of the Cygors but they can see everything inside my domain. Which makes them excellent defenders. All that is left is to give Dorn his own weapon and something that can make him see outside then I will have an absolute unit in my herd.
“Dorn, go tell two of the other Cygors to look for the waystones fragments they always carry.” I told him and allowed him to go.
“Yes, Mother.” A very deep voice answers me.
The other three Cygors I have also have been bestowed with all the mutations that my herd have. The golden metallic skin, the illusory feathers, the perfect body, and the rest while also empowering them with my Bloodline concept. The result is a bit taller and leaner Cygor but much faster without sacrificing their strength, their bloated stomach is properly replaced by abs too. Even so, Dorn is still almost twice taller than the rest, more than 12 meters I think. Two Cygors leave my Herd encampment properly, no longer shambling slowly. If they can see my domain, then they won’t get lost if they use my domain as a lighthouse on where to return. Maybe. Unless they fall to the sea or some deep gorge somewhere, they are still practically blind outside.
As for the rest of my herd, I almost gave up when I saw Beastmen DNA? Or something like that. It is an absolute clusterfuck in comparison to the female humans and female elves we have for breeding. It is like comparing one big ball of tangled up knots and a relatively tidy arrangement of lines. The problem is that Beastmen have an absolute number of recessive genes. Most probably come from their beast counterpart. Fortunately most of the mutations I give are more dominant, allowing me a place to start properly.
First I empower Kal, Lak, and Druig. They now stand twice taller than the rest of their kind. The three now embody the best of being Bestigor, Beastwomen, and Minotaur. Sort of like beastmen Primarchs or so. Primagors? Or Primegors? No matter, with them being the template, I uplifted the rest to a somewhat better degree. No additional organs yet as those are difficult to properly put in place. I could do it to normal humans and elves but not to beastmen due to their clusterfuck of genes.
Then I look towards Lak and Mal currently teaching the beastmen I have given the magic genes. Not that many, mostly beastwomen but at least I get another hundred wizards after the teaching is done. Even just adding the magic gene is quite difficult, one of my first subjects imploded. I don’t know why that happens but at least I can try to evade it. Beastmen come to be because of Chaos, so probably most of their genes, even the recessive ones, are very sensitive to magic.
Lastly, I saw the batch of spined beastmen that collapsed unconscious. Adding the mutation that allows them temporary access to shadow dimension while somehow much easier than adding magic is quite lackluster in application. At least for now. First of all, they can’t breathe in the shadow dimension. I did try to mitigate this while also experimenting on how to add new organs. The result is that the beastmen have spinal extensions like those Xenomorphs in Alien that help them to breathe. My idea is to allow them to partially resurface on the material world, take a breath with their spines and dive back in. I did get my infiltrator units but the result is that they will tire much faster. At most an hour of continuous dive and resurface for breath. Could be because of the addition of poorly optimized organs too.
Making space marines or super soldiers in general is hard. Other than all that, most of what I did is to lower the chance of mutations. Which marginally helps the newborns to not have additional mutations to add to the clusterfuck of genes. Now that I think of it, where are my werewolf scouts?
—
Back in the outskirts of Laurelorn. A golden werewolf slammed to the ground. The skull shattered as a foot stomped upon it. The place is a scene of massacre.
“That's the last of them?” The owner of the foot barks towards a group led by five Grail Knights
The leading Grail Knight looks at his entourage for an answer. The knights that can count do the counting.
“We are missing one.” A questing Knight answers
“Fucking piece of shit! You lost one!?” He barks in anger as he retrieves his enchanted greatsword impaling a golden werewolf deep into a tree.
“Watch your mouth peasant!” A knight almost draws his sword when the leading Grail Knight stops him.
“Long time no see. Captain Bertrand right? I see you get a new arm.” The leading Grail Knight starts.
“A pair of legs and an eye too. I suppose I should be honored that you remember me if you Didn’t fucking failed to exterminate the golden herd!” Bertrand roars in anger. After he is crushed under the stampede of horses and men from the failed Taurox hunt, he is one of the few who survived. The Huntmarshall spared no expense on healing those who survived. His crushed and mangled legs are regrown, so does his crushed left eye after a horse stomp on it. But different from the others who have their limbs regrown, his regrown limbs are now much more powerful than normal.
“Last I saw of the golden beasts, they crawled back to Drakwald. We have tried to hunt them all this time. Even lost a few of us to the treachery of a one eyed beastmen. We saw no sign of them so far, we thought perhaps their other wretched kin would finish off the last of the golds.” The leading Grail Knight explains. Some of the knights are now without their steeds too.
“Why are you still here anyway?” Bertrand asks and looks upon the sickly Eonir elves. While he and the Grail Knights did save them just in time, they still lost most of their able bodied guards.
“We have taken an oath to save Leslie Leoncuour. If we fail then at least we retrieve something as a confirmation that she already died. We will stay here at least until winter properly comes.”
“And now you have the oath to exterminate the golden herd unfulfilled too.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.” Bertrand sighs. Nothing gets done these days. “Now what about them?”
Bertrand cannot save an entire plagued refugee group. Even the Grail Knights are reluctant, both of their oaths are unfinished all these times, adding more will add more burden to them. Even the Eonir elves too have accepted their fate and doesn’t voice their hopes.