Chapter 37: | Compatibility
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[You're skills have fused]
[You have gained:]
• † Bloomcrust Veinplate [Ascension I]
• † Bloomgasp Mudlung [Ascension I]
• † Bloomrage Bloomguard [Ascension I]
• † Bloomborne Avatar [Ascension I]
• † Bloompierce Wrath Rampage [Ascension I]
• † Bloomcloud Illusion Veil [Ascension I]
• † Clamjaw Slamhold [Ascension I]
• † Dread-Sense Bloom Array [Ascension I]
• † Fortress-Bloat Coreframe [Ascension I]
• † Mirage-Organ Ghostframe [Ascension I]
• † Shock-Gut Ramplate [Ascension I]
• † Spiral Bloomdash Array [Ascension I]
• † Sporebloom Mossback [Ascension I]
• † Stormheart Bloomcore [Ascension I]
• † Streamflare Motion Core [Ascension I]
• † Titan-Brood Coregarden [Ascension I]
• † Vein Thrash Engine [Ascension I]
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I stretched my body with a slow, satisfying pull, then yawned, yet an emptiness lingered deep in my gut.
These skills… they were decent, even potent in their own right.
But given my current circumstances, they were far from enough.
What I truly needed now was an [Ascension III] skill, something that could elevate my Blooming Colossus Bastion to a higher tier.
A stage beyond simple survival.
A weapon of dominion.
So yes… I needed to fuse them.
All of them.
Hours slipped away in silence as I sifted through ability after ability.
My eyes combed through arcane descriptions, while my mind worked like a loom, pairing compatible skills with the precision of a craftsman and the whimsy of a romantic wingman.
Like matching lovers beneath a blood-drenched moon.
At last, as the final pair clicked into harmony, a low chuckle escaped me.
The result that stared back from the fusion table?
It was beautiful.
Terrifyingly beautiful.
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[Would you like to combine these skills?]
• † Bloomspike Arc Lancer + † Seismic Pincer Drive + † Blurstep Surge
• † Hive-Latch Assimilation + † Matron's Reach + † Bloom-Vein Thrash Engine
• † Hollow-Fortress Frame + † Verdant Skull Bastion + † Bloomstone Coreframe
• † Razorfin Soarer + † Dread-Sense Bloom Array + † Streamflare Motion Core
• † Resonant Aegis Shell + † Thornplate Bastion + † Territorial Coral-Moss Shroud
[Yes] / [No]
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Were these skills truly compatible?
From my perspective… yes, and no.
I was threading into uncharted territory, fusing abilities in a reckless experiment not out of ignorance, but curiosity.
Some might call it a waste.
They'd scoff at throwing away valuable skills in pursuit of an uncertain result.
But they didn't have what I had.
Grotesque Physique.
A unique skill, monstrous and sacred, one that would elevate even flawed material into something sublime.
It would do the heavy lifting.
It would carve my vision into flesh.
My tendrils moved with deliberate purpose, clicking Yes without hesitation.
Moments passed.
Then agony bloomed.
My body twisted.
Mutated.
Bones cracked with wet groans, and my flesh writhed like a nest of worms beneath the skin.
Pain lanced through me, not as excruciating as past torments, but deep enough to awaken the old madness in me.
And I welcomed it.
A cackle escaped my lips, raw and unfiltered.
Yes… this is the recipe, isn't it?
Pain was the fire that tempered my evolution.
No pain, no gain, was such a crude saying.
And yet, nothing felt truer in that moment.
Time warped.
Then, at last, the torment began to dull, retreating from my nerves like a receding tide.
I yawned.
Calm.
Exhausted.
Victorious.
My gaze drifted upward toward the shimmering hologram now hovering before me.
And there it was, glorious, radiant in its silent affirmation.
It was a success.
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[You're skills have fused]
[You have gained:]
• † Bloomthorn Citadel Frame [Ascension II]
• † Bloom-Drift Specter Frame [Ascension II]
• † Blur-Lance Execution Drive [Ascension II]
• † Juggernaut Bloom-Citadel [Ascension II]
• † Matron-Bloom Override [Ascension II]
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Their descriptions played through my mind one by one, each of them etched into my memory by experience, by pain, by victory.
Bloomthorn Citadel.
A brutal augmentation that toughened my body, transforming me into a living fortress, spiked, armored, a nightmare for anything foolish enough to draw near.
Every inch of me became a hazard, a living trap of thorned muscle and reinforced bone.
Bloom-Drift Specter Frame.
This one made me vanish.
Not invisibility, no, not quite.
It folded my presence, curled my existence into the shadows.
I became a ghost.
My form melted into the environment like drifting fog, perfect for ambush, misdirection... assassination.
Blur-Lance Execution Drive.
A dash?
An attack?
No.
It was both.
A seamless fusion.
I could cut through enemies while moving at blinding speed, no wind-up, no pause, no vulnerability.
A flawless, forward strike that ignored hesitation.
This skill... was made for me.
Juggernaut Bloom-Citadel.
Now this was different.
Not just external defense, but an internal fortification.
It sealed the pressure within me, bound my organs in reinforced layers of mana and muscle.
Even if the battlefield crushed in around me, my insides would not rupture.
The ultimate core shield.
Matron-Bloom Override.
A mana disruptor.
I could siphon mass, inject my own pulse of magic, and scramble my opponent's flow.
Their balance, their rhythm, their control, shattered.
This wasn't just damage.
It was dominion.
Disorientation.
Control through corruption.
Yes.
All of them were pieces of something greater.
And now… it was time.
I didn't hesitate.
Not for a second.
I selected Blooming Colossus Bastion, Bloomthorn Citadel, Juggernaut Bloom-Citadel, and Matron-Bloom Override.
These would form the foundation of my [Ascension III].
My tendrils moved with calculated precision.
Confirm Fusion.
I clicked.
And the world began to change again.
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[Would you like to combine these skills?]
• † Blooming Colossus Bastion + †Bloomthorn Citadel Frame + † Juggernaut Bloom-Citadel + † Matron-Bloom Override
[Yes] / [No]
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Pain struck without warning.
A violent surge tore through my nerves as if reality itself rejected me.
Every mutation, every gift I had earned through suffering, was stripped from my body with surgical cruelty.
My scales peeled away.
My exoskeleton cracked and shattered. My flesh unraveled.
Then my eyes, my gods, my eyes, ruptured in a burst of hot agony.
Something... some force, unknown and unstoppable, was trying to cram itself into me.
Shoving itself into every corner of my being.
Stuffing itself into my soul like I was an empty vessel.
I wanted to scream.
To thrash.
To end it.
But I couldn't even twitch.
I couldn't move.
Couldn't see.
Couldn't die.
I was paralyzed, locked in a crucible of suffering so absolute that even death had abandoned me.
The pain... it wasn't pain anymore.
It was something purer.
Crueler.
Existential.
Like my body was being rewritten by a mad god using barbed wire as ink.
I laughed.
Yes, laughed.
Madness crept in on jagged jaws, and I welcomed it.
My chuckles twisted into howls as I broke apart,again and again, while my flesh swelled, then collapsed.
Grew.
Shrank.
Reformed.
Fused.
Shattered again.
I was a clay being mangled on a potter's wheel made of thorns.
I could feel every fiber of my being scraped down to the bone.
My soul felt like it was being scrubbed with rusted steel and set on fire.
And then, light.
A flicker.
Hope?
Could it be?
No.
It vanished.
Pain returned like a tide of molten iron.
My body exploded, again, and again.
The incompatibility between the skills ravaged me, tearing me apart from the inside.
It wasn't fusion.
It was violation.
It was like being dissected while awake, my consciousness used as the operating table.
I couldn't even register pain anymore.
Just noise.
Just color.
Just the grotesque static of a soul being unraveled.
Time didn't pass.
It bled.
Until... finally...
Light.
Real.
Enduring.
Blinding.
The pain ceased.
It didn't fade, but it ceased.
I could breathe again.
I could see.
My body didn't tremble or burst.
The agony that had shattered me was gone, replaced by an eerie, crystalline stillness.
And then, there it was.
A soft chime.
A brilliant, golden hologram emerged before me, illuminating the blood-soaked silence.
I had done it.
After what felt like an eternity locked in the jaws of torment...
It fused.
A singular skill.
One perfect result, born of insanity and sacrifice.
I dropped my gaze.
My tail slumped.
A laugh, raw, relieved, escaped me.
And I smiled.
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[You're skills have fused]
[You have gained:]
• † Verdant Bloom Colossus [Ascension III – Active]
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† Verdant Bloom Colossus [Ascension III]
Release your sealed power and assume the form of a towering, vine-crystal behemoth. Your tentacles return, now encased in bloomstone armor with stinger-like ends—organic fangs that devour monsters whole. Each consumed beast is assimilated, permanently enhancing this transformation's mass, durability, and strength. Your body becomes a regenerative fortress wrapped in crystalline flora, while thorned spores veil your presence and distort enemy senses. This form persists without upkeep, growing stronger with every kill and remains active until you dismiss it.
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Its description was as broken as the pain I had endured to earn it.
Damned thing.
Had I known the process would plunge me into hell, I might've hesitated.
Maybe. But there was no turning back now.
I let out a long, strained sigh, still feeling the aftershocks of agony thrumming behind my eyes.
Then I turned my attention to the newly fused skill, examining its details, searching for hidden mechanisms buried in the fractured language of its description.
The clues were fragmented, cryptic, like whispers half-remembered from a dream.
But even with that, I understood enough.
Verdant Bloom Colossus.
It wasn't just a form, it was a foundation.
A towering abomination that grew stronger the more it devoured.
And more than that... its spores could transform.
They could birth humanoid entities, extensions of me, if I focused hard enough.
Not yet, though.
I could feel it.
That potential was still... latent.
Dormant. Waiting for a higher tier or some kind of trigger to unlock its full monstrous bloom.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on it.
I reached inward and activated the form.
The moment the command registered, a wave of quiet pressure pulsed through my body.
My existing mutations unraveled, cancelled, as the new transformation took root, overwriting me in full.
I couldn't help but chuckle as my flesh twisted and expanded.
My form swelled, bones creaking, limbs stretching.
My body towered, rising into a hulking monstrosity clad in floral exoskeletons, coiling tendrils, and pulsating stalks that ended in venom-dripping stingers that could devour.
A grotesque titan.
This was power incarnate.
And unlike my other transformations... this one wouldn't fade.
It would remain, until I chose to dismiss it.
A permanent nightmare given form.
Then I lowered my gaze.
My attention fixed on the flickering hologram before me, my profile information, quietly updating to reflect what I had become.
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Status Window
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Name: ALISTER VON FAI
Titles: Kinslayer, Kin Devourer, Predator of the Impossible, Title is just a Word, Lord Slayer, King Slayer.
Race: [★] Whark
Stage: 0
Tier: 9
Level: 19/45
EXP: 147,000/318,000
Class: (Locked)
Subclass: (Locked)
Inventory: (Locked)
Equipment: (Locked)
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Stats
Health: 100/100 (+1 per level)
Stamina: 100/100 (+1 per level)
Mana: 100/100
Physique: 2.00 (+0.1 per level)
Mystique: 1.00
Charm: 1
Luck: 1
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Bloodlines
mundane Bloodline
1. Harbinger of Myth (Sealed)
Lesser Bloodline
Normal Bloodline
Greater Bloodline
Noble Bloodline
Emperor Bloodline
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Bloodline skills
1. Myth Voracity (Weakened)
The core ability of the Harbinger of Myth, allowing them to devour the myth—skills and stats—of others. However, a powerful curse has severely weakened it. Now, rather than guaranteed absorption, it only grants a chance to consume these traits. Despite this, it still feeds on the myth of those the Harbinger consumes.
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Affinity
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Skills
1. † Multi-Core Convergence (Passive)
Artificially integrates multiple lesser cores into different limbs, temporarily enhancing strength, speed, and casting precision. Each core amplifies one aspect—speed, defense, regeneration, magic.
2. † Rift-Shell Layering (Passive)
carapace with hexagonal plating and blooma infusion; resists impact, bite, and corrosion.
3. † Tanglejaw Structure (Passive)
Massive, foldable mandible allows bite radius wider than the head itself; optimal for engulfing prey.
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• Ascension III
† Verdant Bloom Colossus
[Ascension III – Active: 100 Mana Per Activation]
Release your sealed power and assume the form of a towering, vine-crystal behemoth. Your tentacles return, now encased in bloomstone armor with stinger-like ends—organic fangs that devour monsters whole. Each consumed beast is assimilated, permanently enhancing this transformation's mass, durability, and strength. Your body becomes a regenerative fortress wrapped in crystalline flora, while thorned spores veil your presence and distort enemy senses. This form persists without upkeep, growing stronger with every kill, and your form remains active until you dismiss it.
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• Ascension II
1. † Bloom-Drift Specter Frame [Ascension II –Passive]
Your form has transcended water and light alike—an apex blur of fin, glow, and dread. Silken blade-fins extend with predator grace, slicing currents or sky in seamless arcs. Beneath that beauty lies terror: a dread-bloom field bends sonar and instinct, making you feel like a ghost—every movement tracked too late.
Photonic mana surges through your streamflare core, illuminating veins that amplify speed in radiant waters. Kinetic anchor-fins lock your dashes with perfect precision, while micro-vibration sensors trace prey across shifting depths.
You are not seen. You are sensed too late. A slashing specter, drifting between light and death.
2. † Blur-Lance Execution Drive [Ascension II – Active: 18 Stamina Per Activation. 5 per chain)
You dissolve into a flickering blur—then erupt forward like a bolt torn from the abyss. Each charge is a chained phantasm of speed, laced with electric bloomspike energy and seismic force. You can redirect mid-charge, chaining Blurstep flickers into arc-lance strikes or pincer slams. Enemies caught in your path are stunned, crushed, or split open in a haze of distortion and aftershocks.
3. † Inferno lighning grove Crystal Core [Ascension II – Passive]
A fusion of fire, storm, and crystalized mana. Vines crackle with lightning, roots channel molten heat, and crystal armor strengthens the body. It creates living biomes that attack, grow, and explode. Converts damage into energy. Turns chaos into strength. Must be controlled to avoid overload.
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• Ascension I
1. † Bloomrage Apex [Ascension I – Active: 12 Stamina Per Activation)
You ignite a bloom-fueled frenzy at will, driving your body into a state of controlled savagery. Coral plating hardens and locks into jagged formations, reinforcing each impact zone. Your strength and speed double instantly, and your movements turn erratic—wild yet terrifyingly precise. You slam, twist, and lunge in all directions, using explosive bursts to flatten enemies and overwhelm defenses. Every strike blooms with brutal efficiency. In this state, hesitation dies. Instinct rules. And the battlefield becomes your garden of ruin.
2. † Bloomborne Avatar [Ascension I – Passive]
The creature's regenerative coral flesh has evolved into a parasitic symbiosis engine. When prey meets certain thresholds, tendrils and blooming growths envelop the host, repairing and replacing tissue while fusing with nerves, mana channels, and vital organs. The process forms a living puppet—an avatar—that retains the prey's physical power, refined by your regenerative bloom. Each avatar adapts over time, becoming more durable, reactive, and increasingly independent. Damaged avatars slowly repair themselves in combat, drawing strength from ambient mana and biological material.
3. † Bloomstorm Core Resonance [Ascension I – Passive]
Your mana heart has harmonized with stormkind essence. Electric affinity surges through every bloom-triggered pulse. When wounded, lightning-charged growths erupt from your body. Your reactions blur past conscious thought, and your lightning-based skills strike with amplified speed and precision. Even your injuries become weapons.
4. † Clamplock Execution [Ascension I –Active: 9 Stamina Per Activation]
Your bite no longer merely restrains—it dominates. Once jaws close, muscle torque multiplies, locking prey in a death-hold before slamming them into terrain with bone-snapping force. Even armored foes crack beneath the weight of your crushing grip. Escape is not a possibility. Only rupture.
5. † Crystallized Brood Core Array [Ascension I – Passive]
Your mana core has fractured into layered systems—one swollen with warped brood energy, the other compressed into ultra-dense crystal strata. You can spawn constructs, channel battlefield-wide distortions, and release sudden mana bursts that reinforce your body with unnatural pressure. Your core is not singular. It is a weaponized hive-heart.
6. † Frostjaw Shatterfang [Ascension I – Active: 5 Mana Per Activation]
Your bite fuses crushing force with freezing precision. Diamond-hard fangs deliver bone-breaking pressure, while each impact sends a burst of cold into the wound—numbing flesh, weakening armor, and making targets brittle. Every bite threatens to snap even the sturdiest defenses wide open.
7. † Hallucinbloom Mist Veil [Ascension I – Active: 7 Mana Per Activation]
You release a haze of glowing blooma spores—part illusion, part neurotoxin. The bioluminescent mist flickers with shifting patterns, drawing attention away from your true position. Victims caught in the fog lose clarity, stumbling through visions, false movements, and crushing fatigue. In tight spaces, it's near inescapable.
8. † Instinctive Flow [Ascension I – Passive]
Your body moves before thought. Reflexes sharpened to their peak let you dodge with liquid grace, adjusting mid-motion as if foreseeing danger. Close-range attacks struggle to land as you weave through threats with near-perfect timing.
9. † Phantasmal Core Array [Ascension I – Passive]
Your body blurs the line between presence and absence. Light bends across your surface while sound scatters in inconsistent waves. Internally, your organs are shrouded behind translucent, illusion-woven flesh, distorting any attempt to target or track your vital systems. You are a ghost even while in motion—seen, but never fully real.
10. † Predator's Multisense [Ascension I – Passive]
Your crystalline compound eyes rotate and focus with unnatural speed, locking onto multiple moving targets while adjusting seamlessly to light shifts. Heat signatures, motion trails, and minute vibrations are etched into your vision, while sensitive auditory filaments track shifts in air and water pressure. Stealth means nothing to you—every movement is seen, heard, and anticipated.
11. † Sovereign's Gaze [Ascension I – Active: 10 Stamina Per Activation]
Your presence bends the will of lesser foes. With a single look, silk-fiber fins unfurl, and dominance floods the battlefield. Even hardened warriors falter, instincts screaming retreat. This isn't fear—it's obedience to a superior force.
12. † Stormpiercer Horns [Ascension I – Passive]
Twin horns spiral with built-up lightning, storing energy from motion and ambient mana alike. Every charge channels that force into a focused burst on impact—stunning, piercing, and overloading nerves with raw voltage. Vital strikes can cripple movement or knock enemies unconscious. Built to ram. Designed to break.
13. † Thundercoil Descent [Ascension I – Active, Stamina: 15 Per Activation]
You plunge from above or below with electrified speed, coiling your body mid-strike to ensnare prey. Upon impact, your charged horns discharge a violent surge that arcs across multiple foes, paralyzing and scattering them. It is an ambush, a crash, and an execution—all in one seamless motion.
14. † Toxic Gasp Sporelungs [Ascension I –Active: 6 Mana Per Activation]
You've restructured your lungs into biofiltration units laced with toxic glands and spore ducts. You can inhale even the filthiest silt and exhale a refined burst of poisonous blooma gas—lingering, clinging, and silent. It's not just a breath weapon. It's a biome-altering exhale.
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Unique skills:
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[Unique] Grotesque Physique
A twisted and corrupted trait originating from the Whark race's natural biology, reshaped into a grotesque vessel through the influence of an unknown force. This skill allows your body to consume and bind external abilities—skills not native to your race or class—marking them with a grotesque sigil that nullifies their original growth path. Once devoured, a skill permanently loses its level, tier, and evolution potential, becoming a static construct within your internal system.
Instead of leveling, devoured skills are categorized by Ascension, reflecting their fusion depth, integration quality, and overall combat utility. While each absorbed skill retains its base effects and identity, they now act as modular components within a larger chimeric framework. Through Grotesque Physique, compatible skills can be fused into stronger, layered mutations—forming powerful bodily constructs.
This physique is not a container but a living system—one that mutates, synthesizes, and redefines the body with every devoured skill. Each fusion brings you closer to an unnatural apex, sculpted not by nature or training, but by the deliberate harvest of foreign power.
You can no longer stack body mutation skill of the same type.
Skill Devoured:
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Normal Skills
• † Multi-Core Convergence
• † Rift-Shell Layering
• † Tanglejaw Structure
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Ascension III
• † Verdant Bloom Colossus
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Ascension II
• † Bloom-Drift Specter Frame
• † Blur-Lance Execution Drive
• † Inferno Lightning Grove Crystal Core
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Ascension I
• † Bloomrage Apex
• † Bloomborne Avatar
• † Bloomstorm Core Resonance
• † Clamplock Execution
• † Crystallized Brood Core Array
• † Frostjaw Shatterfang
• † Hallucinbloom Mist Veil
• † Instinctive Flow
• † Phantasmal Core Array
• † Predator's Multisense
• † Sovereign's Gaze
• † Stormpiercer Horns
• † Thundercoil Descent
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