Helpless and exhausted Arsanguir lay with his eyes closed, feeling his body grow and heal, his skin preemptively growing and stretching over his wounds attempting to cocoon him into safety. The feeling was sharp, akin to many fishhook's pierced through his skin dragging it and stretching it around him. The gaps and gashes underneath flooded with a searing warmth and a prickling freeze. Enduring a few minutes of the unnatural sensation Arsanguir felt his body. His fingers responded to his grasps and his toes wiggled to his whim. He had regained the feel of a functional body once more.
Opening his eyes he froze once again, the dragon's amber gaze fixated on him, he knew he was helpless. Helpless to fight back. Helpless to run away. Like an ant aware of the unstoppable boot about to crush it's rich and full existence. His throat trembling he tried to beg, plead even, but no words came out. Instead a raspy inaudible screech graced the silent atmosphere.
Watching the beast reach out with its claw once again, Asanguir fainted.
The entity watched Arsanguir curiously, amused and entertained by his actions and reactions. It tilted its massive head, the glow of its amber eyes dimming slightly as if in thought. The faint rise and fall of Arsanguir's chest confirmed his fragile consciousness—barely tethered to the waking world. A claw paused mid-air, its razor edges glinting with a soft, unnatural light.
"So fragile," the entity mused, its voice a deep, resonant rumble that seemed to echo in Arsanguir's mind rather than in the cavernous space they occupied. "And yet, so resilient."
A flick of its wrist sent a faint shimmer through the air. Arsanguir's body lifted slightly from the cold grassy floor, suspended by unseen forces. His limbs hung limp, and his head lolled to the side, but his shallow breaths continued.
The entity leaned closer, its vast maw filled with teeth that could rend steel mere inches from Arsanguir's unconscious form. Yet, it did not attack. It inhaled deeply, the breath stirring the stagnant air, tasting something beyond the physical.
"You don't even know, do you?" It chuckled, a low, reverberating sound that could almost be mistaken for distant thunder. "What you carry… what you are… You think yourself prey, but you are far more. Or perhaps, far less.x We shall see."
Its claw glided closer, a talon tracing a circle in the air just above Arsanguir's chest. A glowing sigil appeared, its abyssal lines forming a strange, intricate design. The air hummed with malevolence as the sigil pulsed once, twice, and then sank into Arsanguir's body. His frame twitched as if reacting to an electric jolt, and then he stilled again.
Satisfied, the entity withdrew, its massive form retreating through the trees. "Rest now, little one. You will need your strength. This is only the beginning."
When Arsanguir awoke, the world seemed… different. The dim evening light of the sunset flickered strangely, and the air felt heavy with a power he couldn't name. His chest ached faintly, and when he touched the spot, his fingers brushed against warm skin, as though something had been branded there.
The memory of the entity's eyes came rushing back, and he scrambled upright, heart pounding. But the entity was gone, the vast forest empty save for the faint echo of running water.
Confusion and fear warred within him. Although, there was something else now—a quiet, insistent hum in his muscles. His bones. It was as though a new force had awakened, one that was not entirely his own, itching to be released.
And then came a growl.
"Awake at last, are we?" It was the entity's growl, but something smoother, silkier, and far more intimate. "Good. We have much to discuss, you and I."
Arsanguir froze, glancing around the empty cavern. "Who—what are you?" he stammered, his voice hoarse.
The laughter that followed was almost cruel in its amusement. "Let us say… I am a bridge your new friend. Or perhaps a curse. That depends on you."
And in the silence that followed, Arsanguir realized his hunting trip had taken a turn he could never have anticipated. Something ancient had been awakened within him, and whatever it was, it wasn't going to let him go so easily.
The entity pounced, crushing him to the floor. His arms and legs were now spread, like before but this time it was not the dragon holding him down. No, this was something else, there were no restraints but nevertheless his limbs would not raise from the ground. This was a force, not Kucholel it was something else. It felt corrosive, corruptive somehow.
The draconic entity reached out one more it's talon tapping the sigil on Arsanguir's chest. His chest erupted, peeling away, like the petals on a flower except the petals were his skin, tissues, muscles and finally his ribs. Asanguir's breath halted, not out of pain for he felt none in this instance. He dared not move. He feared that the slightest movement would invite the pain to flood his mind once more. Maybe it was the adrenaline or maybe it was something else but Arsanguir knew only one thing. He was thankful for he did not want to feel the pain once more.
The entity pulled out the pulled out the heart of the behel fox and began to work. As the heart was lowered into Arsanguir's gaping chest, an immediate, all-consuming pain erupted, ripping through him like a wildfire feeding on his nerves. It was not a simple sensation but a cataclysmic storm, each wave more devastating than the last. The organ throbbed violently, its foreign pulses radiating outward, sending shockwaves of agony that reverberated through every inch of his being. His chest convulsed with unnatural force, as if his body rebelled against the intrusion, muscles tightening and tearing under the strain of the searing, foreign heartbeat.
When the veins of the heart erupted outward, lashing like living tendrils, the torment surged to a horrifying crescendo. Each vein, glowing faintly as if alight with molten fire, tore into his flesh with unrelenting force. It felt like burning wires were snaking through his insides, dragging themselves deeper, cutting and tearing as they went. The sensation of invasion was visceral, primal—a raw, unyielding violation of his very essence. The veins anchored themselves, piercing muscle, snapping through cartilage, and grinding against bone, the sound of their integration a grotesque symphony of pain.
Arsanguir's body writhed uncontrollably as capillaries, impossibly hot and alive with a will of their own, burrowed into his flesh like searing tendrils of molten steel. They wormed deeper with every pulse, threading through his arteries, forcing themselves into his veins, and binding to his circulatory system with a cruel, unholy precision. His insides felt aflame, as though his very core were being melted and reforged, torn apart and rebuilt in an endless, maddening cycle of torment.
Every beat of the heart was a fresh eruption of agony, a relentless battering of his sanity. It felt as though his chest was not just being consumed but reshaped—every shred of his identity rewritten by the alien organ. His breath came in ragged gasps, each one a desperate fight against the overwhelming pain that sought to suffocate him. His vision blurred, dark spots swimming at the edges, yet the agony refused him the mercy of unconsciousness. It was too sharp, too violent, each thundering beat dragging him back into the living nightmare, tethering him to the relentless, excruciating reality of his transformation.
As the alien heart synchronized its pulse with Arsanguir's own, the torment reached a sickening peak, and then something new began to happen. From the seams of his wounds, dark, viscous growths began to sprout. At first, they were small—thin, thread-like tendrils that oozed out sluggishly. But within moments, they began to grow, twisting and writhing in all directions as if alive with some chaotic purpose.
The tendrils were not flesh, nor entirely shadow, but something caught in between, a substance that defied comprehension. They glistened with an eerie, liquid sheen, their surfaces undulating as though they contained something trying to escape. They snaked outward, intertwining in grotesque, organic patterns, forming a writhing web of darkness that extended beyond Arsanguir's prone body. The air itself seemed to recoil around the growths, thickening with an oppressive weight, as if the tendrils were leeching the very life from their surroundings.
The writhing mass expanded rapidly, reaching out in all directions, probing and groping as if seeking to consume the world itself. The tendrils coiled and knotted around one another, their movements chaotic yet strangely deliberate, forming shapes that flickered in and out of existence—symbols, faces, unknowable geometries that seared themselves into the edges of Arsanguir's vision. Each touch of the growth against the ground or the air sent shivers of power rippling through his battered frame, their movements inextricably linked to the rhythm of the heart.
As the dark tendrils began to sprout from Arsanguir's chest, they grew with terrifying speed, no longer mere threads but massive, serpentine growths that surged outward with a life of their own. What started as faint, sluggish extensions soon exploded into an unrelenting cascade of writhing, pulsing masses. They poured forth in every direction, multiplying as if feeding on the agony coursing through his veins.
Each tendril stretched impossibly far, coiling and branching as though the forest seeking to engulf the entire space around him. Some grew thick as tree trunks, their surfaces rippling with veins that glowed faintly, pulsing in time with the alien heart within him. Others were thin and jagged, darting forward like spears before curling back into the chaotic dance. They twisted and intertwined with one another, forming an intricate lattice that expanded ever outward, consuming more and more of the area around him.
The sheer volume of the growths was staggering. The tendrils filled the air like a storm cloud given flesh, blotting out light and sound, creating an overwhelming sense of suffocation. Their reach seemed limitless, stretching toward the farthest corners of the space, merging into massive networks that swayed and writhed as if guided by a single, malevolent will. Wherever they touched, the ground cracked and darkened, the very earth quaking beneath their relentless advance.
The tendrils did not merely expand outward; they dug deep as well, burrowing into the ground, disappearing into the unseen depths below. Others rose high into the air, weaving into towering spires of shadow that loomed over the scene like grotesque monuments. The air grew heavy, charged with an unnatural energy that made every breath feel like inhaling ash. The world seemed to shrink around Arsanguir, dwarfed by the sheer enormity of the tendrils' presence.
As the growths multiplied, they began to shift and converge. The mass of darkness spiraled inward, forming vast, undulating waves that rippled through the air. The tendrils intertwined into enormous, writhing structures, some resembling monstrous limbs, others forming unrecognizable shapes that flickered in and out of existence, as if they defied the natural laws of reality itself.
Just when it seemed as though the tendrils might consume everything, the movements slowed. One by one, the colossal growths began to collapse, their massive forms losing cohesion. They didn't merely fall or dissipate; they were drawn inward, sucked back into Arsanguir's chest as though pulled by some invisible force. The towering spires crumbled, the lattice of interwoven tendrils disintegrated, and the serpentine masses shrank, folding into themselves.
The process was both rapid and deliberate, as if the tendrils were obeying some silent command. They withdrew, shrinking further and further until all that remained was Arsanguir's body, now eerily calm, lying in a pool of faintly glowing residue. His chest, where the heart had been implanted, no longer bore any sign of the grotesque eruption. The only evidence of what had transpired was the faint, rhythmic glow beneath his skin, marking the presence of the alien heart that had become one with him.
When it was over, Arsanguir's body lay still. His chest, though stained with the remnants of his ordeal, appeared outwardly untouched, its surface smooth and unbroken. The veins that had forced themselves into his flesh were no longer visible, and the darkness that had writhed and expanded outward had vanished entirely. His breathing steadied, shallow but rhythmic, and his body, though drenched in sweat and trembling faintly, looked...normal.
But beneath the surface, something had changed. The darkness had not truly disappeared; it had become a part of him. It lurked within, coiled and waiting, hidden beneath the fragile facade of his restored flesh. Arsanguir's chest rose and fell as he lay there, the faint glow of the foreign heart pulsing within him, a silent reminder of the transformation that had just taken place.