With my successful integration I found myself two slots into Hydra-souled. Even without opening my status, I could feel I was on the cusp of unlocking the third.
A very worthwhile two days. And a well chosen target for integration.
Further meditation and integration was going to be required but I was on path to reach Djinn-souled at an unprecedented rate. There was a chance I might even beat my sister.
It shouldn't but the idea of being able to tease Nexxa about me reaching Djinn-souled before her left me with an incredible amount of giddiness.
Shaking my head I brought up my status, looking it over.
Body - Tier 4 - Blooming
Strength : 1.44
Agility : 5.04
Resilience : 101.29
Vitality : 110.36
Mind - Tier 4 - Refinement, Worlds Alignment
Reaction times : 4.08
Pain Clarity : 10.31
Pattern Recognition : 7.12
Memory Retention : 15.31
Neural Dynamics : 41.52
Soul - Tier 4 (Hydra) - 5-Slot Ensoulment, Repository Reincarnation
Progress: 8/5 Fourth Order Integrations, 39% acclimatization, 8 Point Foundational Structure, Enshrined Astral Soul, Fulfillment Pegasus Alignment.
Affinities: 292 Worlds, 54 Nature, 54 Storm, 54 Arcane, 54 Fire, 54 Water, 54 Earth, 54 Air.
My vitality and resilience had both crossed into the triple digits and though my strength and agility remained rather anemic. It was the advance in pain control that was the most surprising. After reflecting on the hydra’s most memorable experiences, not as much. The improved memory recall was beneficial, though nothing revolutionary.
The most significant change didn’t seem to be reflect on my status. I cast translocation matrix and… despite using a fourth Order spell slot, my mana hardly dipped.
It was only partially the incredible worlds affinity. An affinity that continued to tick up as I left my status open, one point every minute or so.
Testing a few other spells, I confirmed my reneration was so fast I could restore my entire mana pool in ten minutes instead of the hours it had been without access to the local mana.
Which didn’t even account for how efficient I was at absorbing that ambient mana. Something that would be difficult to test without dumping my entire mana pool first.
There was, however, a slight side effect. One more thing I’d been doing my best to ignore. Now that I had integrated the hydra’s hearts into my soul I could feel them within me. All eight of them, beating in sync. It wasn’t a single organ that had redundancy. I could feel within that all of my organs had moved into redundant functions.
Sidhe once told me, if it was possible, I should find something that would allow me to regrow my head. I hadn't even been thinking about that part. I'd specifically been avoiding thinking about it, in fact. Now that I’d done so, a quick glance at my status screen confirmed that if I were to lose my head, so long as it re-grew within a few hours, something well within the rate of regeneration I now had, I would be fine.
Even so, I found myself rubbing my neck, swallowing hard. Was one thing to say I could recover from losing my head. It was another thing to endure the act.
Shaking the thoughts away, I did my best to focus on the goals of the day. Now I’d integrated the Hydra, it meant I'd advanced in Hydra-soul. And become less than human. Or more than, depending on how you looked at it.
Either way, it was enough to prove I was worth talking to, apparently, because I received a summons from Creation shortly after.
Not simply with Creation, but before the entire council of Forgelords.
I was a bit in awe when we first entered the council chambers.
[Mechanical thrones that move?]
Each of them sat in mechanical thrones, with their warforms above them.
Inertia too had brought her warform and sat on one of the thrones in her true form. She truly looked like a Forgelord, the way she sat upon the throne much like the other four Forgelords. Each of them represented a mighty creature, though I hadn't seen the similarities until that moment. Inertia had modeled herself after a phoenix, though not a regular phoenix. She had gone after a more predatory raptor phoenix.
Of course, Creation had modeled themselves off of a dragon.
There was a Forgelord sitting in the middle who had modeled themselves off of a Hydra, whose name was Tesseract.
To their left was Deliverance, a Forgeborn who modeled themselves after something with eight legs and a pair of sharp horns. Not a spider. More like a longer horse, complete with thick hoof like feet on six of its legs.
The spider was on the other side. Abeyance had a pair of humanoid eyes beneath the array of other eyes atop her head. Each of them followed me individually as I entered, small puffs of steam leaking into the air.
Honestly, considering how impressed I felt even after my integration… I kinda understood the whole waiting until I could defend my people before they talked to me.
These were literal titans who had forged their own war forms fought for the freedom of their people kept them safe for hundreds of years.
If inertia was right, and I had no reason to believe otherwise, each of them had the strength to rival a dragon at the least. Those were the dragons that the world knew about, not the fledglings Bahama had shown me. Not exactly pushovers, those.
According to Tresla, it hadn’t been my ascension, but our defeat of the hydra that had convinced them. They’d merely held back the invite out of politeness. A lesson a few other so called civilized nations could learn, in my opinion.
Tresla was present, standing at Inertia’s side.
There was no calling to order for the meeting with the Forgelords. Once all six of us were present the constant hiss of Forgespeak simply fell away. Then it resumed a few seoncds later, all turning towards Inertia requesting her to introduce me. Apparently I was her guest despite Creation having been the one to initially pose the request.
Inertia did so, taking a great deal longer to make the point than I expected. It was hard to follow some of it since not all of it were words she normally used.
She spoke of how we met, the initial trade of knowledge, of what we created in Eternia and then, finally, of our trip to the Forgelands. Only at the very end did she mention how I’d seen the very heart of her forge and instead of binding her had saved her.
Honestly, if I wasn't staring down five gigantic war machines, each onse strong enough to pulverize everything we’d built, I would’ve been moved to tears. As it was I was touched yet couldn't escape the reality of having the behemoths towering over us.
Once Inertia was finished regaling them with our past, it didn't take long for them to move on.
They quickly agreeed they’d allow us to pass over the wall so long as either I or Inertia was present on board whichever vessel did so. They warned that Terra Vista would likely not be receptive of any vessel passing over the wall now that they were being turned away.
I wondered if Starbreaker might take exception to that, though I doubted he'd simply abandon me. Not until he knew his great grandkids were safe.
That was the only reason I could think of that he hadn't already returned to Terra Vista, given his ability to traverse the sky using Starlight. My thoughts continued to wander while the Forgelords discussed potential aid and the obstacles to providing it. None of it required my input or my full attention.
Not until they suggested a more permanent connection through the Waygates. Inertia had barely mentioned them. Apparently the Forgelords were so interested they were offering to supply material to increase the capacity.
While the offer was incredibly generous, it was one I couldn't follow through on. Not until we brought down the wall. Honestly, to do all they wanted, I’d need to upgrade our own Waygate Nexus too. Even so, I conditionally accepted the offer and the tier six worlds materials it entailed. It was a frankly staggering reward for something I wanted to do anyway.
All throughout the meeting, my hearts continuously reminded me of their existence. Honestly, had I known a set of hearts were going to be part of the deal I might’ve put in more time refining. At least I didn't end up with two heads. Or dragons forbid, eight.
Eventually the meeting of the Forgelords drew to a close. Abeyance had declined to offer any support, saying it was too early. It hadn’t mattered.
Each of them had their own resources to draw upon. There was no need for a consensus. The meeting was simply to maintain a degree of discussion and awareness. It was important they all understood which resources the Forgelands no longer had to call upon.
I wasn't sure what sort of government I would call it though perhaps A democratic dictatorship was most fitting. In the end, it didn't matter. From what I'd witnessed, most Forgeborn were happy with their home. The discontents were limited to a few dozen in a single level of the Hellbrand Spire.
Even with so few discontents, they expected a number of Forgeborn to be interested in at least visiting Aeternia. Especially once the barrier expanded and our land started to look more like theirs. They were hopeful, since we already had trains and airships flying under power sources that didn't require traditional magic. There was some amount of fear from Abeyance, who seemed worried about what an alliance with squishies might lead to in the future.
They were treated with surprising respect, despite the level of hysterics they displayed on occasion. Or, perhaps, not so surprising. Not when I thought about it. These Forgeborn had long memories and long lives. They’d likely been friends longer than their civilization had existed.
It wasn't long after that the first of the Forgelords took their leave. Eventually it was just Creation, Inertia, Tresla, and I in the council chambers.
Creation came over in a much smaller form still that resembled Bahama, though this was her humanoid dragon form they’d copied. I thought back to those times when Inertia said there was only one species on Ro’an almost as good as the Forgeborn. I'd felt it baseless arrogance at the time. The more I witnessed, the more I wondered how much it’d been arrogance and how much had been earned pride.
There was also part of me that wanted to see Creation take Bahama on in a duel, just to see it. Didn’t even care who won, just wanted to see a mechanical dragon fight a real one.
“That went better than I expected,” Creation said, tilting their head towards me, their voice only having a slight mechanical hiss to each word.
"Long since war," Inertia replied, the words slow but not quite so challenging for her to enunciate, even if there was a great deal more hissing and whistling accompanying them than Creation’s. “Pain eases.”
“You are correct, old friend. Pain does ease with time.” Creation clapped one of his massive hands onto Inertia's shoulders before turning to look at me. “If it did not we would not have allowed your human friend to stand before us as we debated how to aid him.”
“That was a debate? That was possibly the most civil debate I've ever seen.”
“Tell me, Magus Protectus Percival, now that you have secured our aid, limited though it may be, what will you do next?”
“I've been giving that a lot of thought,” I replied, turning to look out the side of the Hellbrand Spire at the sprawling Ashforge City below. More specifically to where the Iron Curtain was moored.
I wouldn't abandon the crew. According to Sidhe’s most recent reports, the monsters had extended their wall all the way to the coast, nearly besieging Spellford. While the city stood, it was a dangerous route to take at the moment. Which only left one good option. “We’ll be heading for the Front,” I said, shaking my head. “There isn't any other good choice.”
“As I suspected will you be taking your War Form Forgelord, Inertia?”
Inertia tilted her head to the side, eyes whirring as she turned to look up at the War Form towering above us. Then she let out a long hissing sigh. She turned back to look at me again, only saying one word: "War."