Lillene

Enjoy!

Death watched the two Beast Gods from her position in the shadows. They didn’t know she was there and she was going to keep it that way until everything turned out the way she thought it would. She didn’t want to handle the reactions she knew she’d get if she went out there now. She was used to solitude and that was something taking Serenity as her Incarnate hadn’t changed. If anything, he’d accentuated the trait.

The fact that they were talking about her didn’t help.

Coyote shook his head. “I feel sorry for Death. She hasn’t taken an Incarnate before. To lose one so quickly always hurts, and I’m used to losing them.”

Dragon’s chuckle was devoid of humor. “He’s not dead yet. The link is still there.”

“Not dead yet?” Coyote stared at the wash of color that filled the image in front of the two Beast Gods. “How? He’s not there anymore.”

“I don’t know.” Dragon looked concerned. “All I can think is that it’s one of his Skills. He does have a shapeshifting form that looks like smoke; maybe he had time to shift?”

Coyote and Dragon went back and forth with different theories about exactly what was happening while they waited for something to happen. It was clear that they expected Serenity to die while at the same time they hoped he wouldn’t. Both of them had pinned quite a few schemes on the survival of their newest wildcard. 

Death watched but didn’t say anything. For all that both Coyote and Dragon were theoretically her allies, they found her uncomfortable even if they didn’t realize it, so she often stayed in the background, unnoticed. They hadn’t spoken of the schemes to her, so she would act as though she didn’t know of them - unless they acted against her interest or that of her Incarnate, of course. Then she would act. For now, however, they truly seemed to want him to grow. Death found that interesting and was happy to watch.

Death didn’t need to theorize about what was happening to Serenity. She knew how he’d survived and she knew it wasn’t from shapeshifting. She always knew what could kill and what would kill. A Skill had nothing to do with this.

Essence Dragons were highly resistant to wild mana. Death didn’t have to have seen another Essence Dragon to know that. All dragons were resistant but Essence Dragons were resistant even for dragons. Serenity’s Arcane Affinity would help even more.

Even with those advantages, a normal Tier Eight Essence Dragon would probably have died; at a minimum, it would be lying there badly injured. With a few more Tiers or a fully intact shield and perhaps something to hide behind it would have been completely survivable for another Essence Dragon. Other dragons would have a harder time and non-manavores would require even more protection.

The continuing storm wouldn’t be a problem for almost any Tier Eight dragon that could survive the explosion and be healthy, even if the explosion destroyed their shield and whatever they hid behind. It looked fiercer than it was. 

Death could see that, even if the two Beast Gods couldn’t. She could also see just how much of the storm carried Serenity’s signature, not just his Affinities but actual attuned mana. Some was probably ripped from him, but Death thought it was more than that; she thought Serenity had actually woven himself into the storm. He was fighting with the other mana. Death knew he would win; for all that he was the lesser component, at least in quantity, he had a will and an intent while the mana was static. Death knew her Incarnate would win. Eventually.

Death watched with a grin as the mana types of the storm slowly shifted. It wasn’t under Serenity’s control but it was no longer harming him when she relaxed. She’d known he would win, yet she’d still been anxious watching; why was that?

Serenity wasn’t a normal Tier Eight Essence Dragon; he was much, much harder to actually kill. Death couldn’t be certain, but she thought that killing him permanently might be harder than killing Althyr, despite Dragon’s far higher Tier. It was almost like Serenity was really a far higher Tier than any of the gods, even though that didn’t make sense.

Death thought it was something that came back in Time with Serenity. Whatever it was, it wasn’t exactly power; instead, it was more like inevitability. Serenity was; there was nothing else to say about it. He was probably not a true immortal, but he was the next thing over from it: someone where Death could not see a true ending.

It was one of the reasons Death took Serenity as her Incarnate; it was something they had in common. Despite the fact that Death represented Death, Death could not die. It was perhaps the biggest reason she’d never taken an Incarnate before; none felt like they were similar enough to her. Few of those with truly high Affinities had accepted Death while neither longing for it nor reveling in bringing it to others. Of those who did, none had felt right.

It couldn’t just be the near-immortality that made Serenity feel right. The Final Reaper was very close to it as well, but he hadn’t felt right at all. It was only once Serenity returned through time that he felt right.

Death didn’t speak of such things to others. She didn’t talk about why she didn’t choose an incarnate before and she wouldn’t talk about why she chose Serenity now. Coyote and Dragon didn’t remember the future and it was best that they never knew that Serenity was the Final Reaper. 

“Something’s happening!” Coyote called Dragon’s attention back to the display. 

Something was indeed happening on the screen; something solid was taking shape in the fuzz of the mana storm. As it cleared, Death found herself grinning. Perhaps someday Serenity would adopt a form that truly spoke of Death. She was pleased he did not take the Final Reaper’s form as the manifestation of his Incarnate but she hoped he would someday choose one.

Until then? This would work. Yes, this would work well.

Before anything else, Serenity decided to reach out to Gaia. All he got back was the sense that she was very, very busy and he should handle A’Atla’s node while she dealt with the rest of the planet. If he knew what to do for A’Atla’s node, it would probably have been a good division of labor; unfortunately, he didn’t. He was going to have to depend on the dungeon to handle it.

That meant he should focus on his own situation. The first step, as he’d told Rissa, was to try to shift.

Serenity reached for his human form. It should have been the most comfortable and easiest to reach other than his dragon form, but it simply didn’t come together correctly. It wasn’t pain, exactly; it was more like the Skill he was using didn’t quite recognize the end point.

Serenity grumbled to himself and tried to reach his Sovereign form instead. It was the origin of the Skill; it ought to work. 

It wasn’t quite pain; disorientation was closer. Serenity recognized the feeling from his first visit to Serenity Settlement. While he was tracking a rockfin back to its portal using the disturbed earth it left as it tunneled, he’d gone too quickly and incautiously. As he moved in his Sovereign form, he left bits and pieces of himself behind, trapped in pockets that didn’t connect easily. It felt a lot like this.

Sovereign form was definitely not an option. 

Serenity tried to pull himself together, but it was difficult. He was more or less functional but a good bit of his attention had to be kept on pulling himself back together as the mana storm pulled his form apart. He needed a more solid form, one that a little disturbed mana wouldn’t try to shake to pieces. 

His base form was that of a young dragon. He probably should have tried it first. Serenity reached for the Skill, only to feel the same almost-rejection as his human form. This time, he got the feeling that he could force it to work, but he also got the feeling that he shouldn’t. There was something about the mana around him that was pushing him away from his preferred shapes.

It took longer than it should have for Serenity to realize what the problem had to be. He wanted to attribute the slowness to the damage from being continually pulled apart but he knew that wasn’t the main reason. The main reason was that he simply didn’t want to take the obvious way out.

It wasn’t instinct that kept him from shifting to his draconic form. Instead, it was the knowledge that the storm was heavily tainted by the feel of a demon combined with the knowledge that he had an evolution waiting for him to shift to his own demonic shape. 

Just as truthfully, the reason was fear. Fear that he’d shift to something between dragon and demon and have it become his base form with the evolution applied on top of it because the unknown Voice took the demonic mana coating the area as him shifting to his demon form to trigger the evolution. It shouldn’t happen and he knew Order’s Voice wouldn’t do that, at least not without warning, but he didn’t know the mechanical Voice at all. It might; that was enough. 

That made the answer straightforward if unpleasant. He needed to shift to his demon form. Rissa had already agreed that he’d made the correct choice; there was nothing holding him back except his own distaste for it and there was no real reason for the distaste. 

He’d made himself do even more unpleasant things in the past. He could shift into a form that was entirely too angry now. 

This time, starting to shift was easy, maybe even too easy. Serenity knew that was mostly because he wasn’t holding himself back this time, but it felt like maybe the odd demon-scented mana helped a bit as well. 

The shapeshift itself was odd. He felt more things that didn’t make sense; that had to be the mana storm that surrounded him. Hot mana, the smell of cold, the color of metal and the sound of blue; for a moment, each was there and then it was gone. Serenity was tired of it almost as soon as it started.

It seemed to take forever and no time at all. That had to be the evolution; every evolution was unique and this one was no different in that respect, at least. He was conscious during the whole thing and felt every part of it, but if you asked him how long it took he couldn’t have answered accurately. He’d gotten used to his built-in clock and it hadn’t functioned since the explosion.

Wait. It was there now.

Serenity stood on his own two feet and blinked. He could stand again. There was wild mana around him, but it no longer interfered with his senses. The mana still tasted faintly of a strange demon; Serenity knew he would recognize that taste if he ran into it again.

He seemed intact, but there was no light. Eyeless Sight worked, but all that really told him was that he was bipedal, naked, and either had skin or very fine scales. When he pressed a hand to his chest and found out that there was a texture he wasn’t used to, softer than his dragonscale and without the obvious delineations between scales but tougher and less sensitive than human skin, he noticed that the nails on his fingers were more like claws than the flat nails of a human. 

Lillene

I don't think I ever stated it clearly before, but I finally had the chance in this chapter. Yes, Death remembers what happened in the destroyed timeline. I also finally got to say something about why Death picked Serenity instead of the Final Reaper.