Seeing Candil approach, Villin first got nervous but then calmed himself.

He currently had no way to escape, he would have to go through this operation whether he wanted to or not.

He looked at the beating heart that was flying beside Candil. It was coated in a few layers of blood that seemed to be sticking onto the heart itself. It was slightly smaller than a human heart and was quite a bit darker than its human counterpart.

There was something else Villin could feel emanating from the heart. There were fear and anger, the emotions were so clear they were almost visible. It reminded Villin of the black fires the cannibals used. There was no mistake, the creature’s soul was taken together with its heart, it was likely its proper body was lying dead in its cell.

Candil soon got to work. After casting the spell that would lessen blood loss a lot, he began making a large incision in Villin’s chest, big enough so that the heart would fit through. He then used another spell to turn the blood mostly transparent, allowing the scientist to have a clear look at Villin’s heart.

Villin thought Candil would be taking out his heart without killing him somehow, but this wasn’t what happened.

“Now live!”

After saying these words, Candil grabbed the heart, which instantly stopped beating. Without hesitation, Candil pushed the Kitsune’s heart into Villin’s chest. Seemingly with little technique.

Candil had done what he could in the day that passed, right now, there was nothing more he could do other than help the three nearby guards heal Villin when the time came.

Once the Kitsune heart was pushed into Villin’s chest, the beast’s survival instinct kicked in and the heart one more began moving.

Its shape kept changing, becoming bigger and smaller as the Kitsune tried to find a way to live. Villin, at this time, was in extreme pain as his organs were being pushed aside by the rogue heart.

After a few seconds of this, the heart found what it had been looking for.

Villin’s heart was still beating firmly in his chest, transporting blood. 

The Kitsune heart reached out for Villin’s heart and began pulling itself closer. Then, it began consuming the human heart, trying to strengthen itself and get access to the veins that would give it enough blood to survive.

The four people looking at Villin waited. They knew this step was normal, the real fight would begin once the Kitsune heart had really taken its place.

In a little more than one minute, Villin’s heart had been eaten and the Kitsune heart took its place, greedily taking in blood at first.

But the Kitsune wasn’t happy. Its survival instincts had forced him to take the actions up to now automatically, but he had no intention of being the puppet of those that captured her.

First, Villin felt his heart being ripped apart. This feeling brought him excruciating pain but he had gone through similar pains before in other experiments. 

Once the pain began to lessen, Candil and the other guards that prepared healing spells knew what would be coming next.

First came the eating and replacement of the human heart. Then the beast would once more be able to control itself. Unwilling to be subjugated they would try to rip the body apart, expending as much of its energy as possible.

This was what Candil had been preparing Villin for, but he didn’t consider one thing.

Most of the time the test subjects died before they could even get to this step. Their own blood and energies wouldn’t fit that of the beast and they would die because they were incompatible, this would happen even before the heart was completely eaten.

Now, thanks to his hard work, Candil had prepared Villin to be as compatible as possible, then he prepared him for the second step that had only had a few survivors thus far. He gave Villin certain pills to help his body survive the impending attack.

But, the data on this second step was too limited. There were about a dozen cases that Candil had heard of and he based his tests on that. But, there was a crucial difference between the Kitsune that Villin was trying to integrate with and the previously tested beasts.

Unlike most other beasts, a Kitsune would practically never physically attack their opponents. They were mental attackers, their bodies weren’t their weapon, their mind was.

And so, the men waited, but the heart stayed in place and Villin’s body wasn’t being ripped apart.

Candil was confused, he soon noticed Villin’s forehead was drenched with sweat, an invisible battle was currently happening.

About a minute later, in Villin’s mental space, hostile mana had appeared just outside of his outer walls. Villin instantly noticed and focused on his mind.

Unlike Villin did when he attacked with Mentallage, the hostile mana was calm and waited outside of the walls, then it began to morph. It became denser and it began forming a figure. First, it turned into a fox, then it morphed into a woman, the mana began gaining colors, black armor appeared on the woman’s chest, and a rapier formed in her hand.

Villin could feel the anger, then the figure moved. Villin didn’t know what to do. The only magical power available to him were those within the mental walls he had made, his ‘flowing’ magical power was sucked into the handcuffs he was wearing.

Within moments the woman arrived at the outer wall, her rapier flashed within his mind, the wall shook immensely, cracks began appearing after just that single hit, Villin felt an immense amount of pressure. 

The woman didn’t relent and the mental wall was hit twice more, cracks were everywhere and it would soon be destroyed.

Suddenly Villin thought of something. This Kitsune wasn’t his enemy, she just thought he was.

Just as the Kitsune was about to strike again, she found the wall was splitting in half to let her in.

The Kitsune didn’t hesitate to move forward. It intended to ignore the outermost layer, she would attack the emotions and web, destroying memories would be useless. Also, she had yet to see her opponent’s magical power. All she saw was the wall, it was strong but without fluid support, it would’ve quickly fallen.

Yet, when she was making her way through Villin’s memories swiftly, she noticed something was off.

The mana that created the outer wall was being used again, the wall disappeared and the magical power was grabbing memories and placing them in front of her.

Kitsune felt confused, it would be understandable if certain memories were being dragged away from her or the mana went to support a mental construct deeper within the mind, but this situation made no sense to her,

Then she saw the first memory that was placed in front of her. It showed an old face with a single tear on his face, she could feel the emotion in this memory. It was astounding, one of the most vibrant memories in this person’s life. Then, the old man exploded, killing the man that wanted to harm them.

“Tch, trying to get me to be compassionate after killing my family? As if!” the Kitsune seemed to yell out to Villin who caught her thoughts, then a second memory was dragged in front of her.

He was in the cell, the situation felt hopeless, he was looking at a new scar he had gained on his arm.

The next memory was of one of the experiments, something all too familiar to the Kitsune.

“You- you are also a prisoner?” she stopped in her steps for a moment before continuing “In that case, I’ll end your suffering alongside my own!”

Yet, she had only moved forward slightly when another memory appeared. It was one where Villin checked on each of his preparations for the escape, making sure everything was in order.

The kitsune once more stopped, stunned at this memory, “This, you’re planning to escape?”

Yet before she could say another thing, memory upon memory was being dragged around her. Some were about the escape plan while others were about the times he had with his companions. The time he met professor Crumb, when he became a runemaster, when he created his own guild.

Memory after memory flew around the Kitsune. She was stunned into silence. After looking at dozens of memories she looked up, Villin could tell she was directing her following words to him as a person “What will you do if you manage to escape?”

Villin didn’t know how to reply at first. Initially, he was thinking of what the Kitsune would want to hear but he decided to simply speak from his heart.

“I will change the world. Revolutionize magi society.” his magical power formed in front of the Kitsune and formed these words.

The Kitsune paused for a moment “If you promise to destroy the people that did this to us when you have the strength, then I will help you.”

With these words, the Kitsune’s figure dissipated, Villin could feel she had somehow become a part of him. He could feel their heart beating and he felt that he was able to converse with her at will.