CHPT 566: Altered System

DING!

[Your Beast Tamer Class has been systematically changed at its core due to external stimuli and personal changes! Continued action in this direction will result in a Class Change!]

[Class Change Options: (Beast Shifter)30%/(Beast Breaker)30%]

[Your actions and environment from this point forward will have heightened consequences…]

DING!

[New Class Aspect, (Shifter Recognition)]

[Due to your System Alteration, Transformative Abilities and the Skill Merging stage of your Class Level, a new form is recognized…]

[Beast Trait + Shifter Recognition + Full Embrace—> (FullBeast Form LV???)]

DIN—

"ENOUGH!"

In the face of the man that turned you into a slave and threatened to kill your friend— which you had few of, who gave a damn about a class change?

Not Claude.

Not Rupont.

Not a soul on the snowed in field under gun smoke and shadow.

The Lupine took off, leaving a mushroom cloud of snow and Verdilak slime in his explosive wake.

BWOOM!

Buckles and straps of his armor strained and popped as if he was still growing with every swing and punch at the elusive general.

His claws raked through the Elder's longcoat and connected with hands suddenly holding shields and swords.

"You are a symptom of a much greater disease, Final Lupine!"

"Shut up!" Claude snarled as he missed a swipe at the Vampires face. Instead of rearing back for another wild strike that gored the earth, he spun and loaded up a roundhouse kick.

SHLICK!

His heel connected with Sgt Bertrand's pointed jaw followed by his claws ripping off his eyebrow.

The Elder Blood hit the air and sent his nerves on fire as if a primal evil just entered the earth.

"Everything cannot be JOINED!" Sgt Bertrand exploded into shadows, vortexing around Claude before reforming his arm within the black mass behind him.

Claude's senses were too advanced for the juvenile attempt at a flank.

He reached behind in a blur and caught the hand. Onyx's jaws exploded from his forearm and clamped down on the hand.

No screams.

Only fire… gunpowder….

"Bomb."

Claude recalled the Phantom Wolf just as the whole of the Elder's corporeal form turned into bombs and went off like fireworks.

For a flash it was hell.

Loud enough to make him sick. Deadly enough to shatter his aura and pop holes into his arms and legs.

When the dust settled and Sgt Bertrand materialized standing over him with a musket in his hand, Claude only had one thought.

"Where the hell is Rup—"

BANG!

The bullet went through his jaws and out the back of his neck in a flash.

When his back hit the snow he questioned if hell… Valhalla…. whatever realm of the afterlife was just an endless period of stillness. Forever locked in your last moment.

Because nothing was fading to black.

"[Claude... y….you're healing. What the fuck! I get it now…..]"

Rupont stepped over Claude, sparring him a single wink before taking off, "He'll be right back." He said to Sgt Bertrand.

"[FullBeast Form….. Shifter Recognition. By the gods you have the abilities of every Silver Cursed…. Every bird…. Every Sub-Zero Serpent in the area…..]"

By the time Arne was finished speaking, Claude had his hand raised to the sky. A hybrid combination of fur and feathers lined his skin. Beneath it, scaled flesh stretched over his muscle. Stripe-like designs ran up his midsection and down his back, working their way around larger collections of feathers making psuedo wings.

The talons on his fingers dripped with venom that melted the snow like acid.

"Move your ass before you lose it, Lupine!"

WOOSH!

The two Vampires blew past him.

No. He joined them.

He was on his feet swinging and dodging in a deadly tango of three before he even had time to assess that he just walked off hell from a barrel.

"You dumb bastards!"

"Quiet." Rupont ran his spear through Sgt Bertrand's leg.

The Elder exploded into smoke to flee.

Claude let off a sonic howl, now sounding like something entirely new with its added reptilian hiss, Hawkish screech, Leonine roar and Feline snarl.

The smoke shrunk and molded into the form of man.

"Got ya…" Rupont slammed his other blood spear into the floor.

FWWOOOOM !

Hundreds of blood spears exploded from the earth beneath Sgt Bertrand.

Their blood clashed like explosives— like a chemical reaction with Sgt Bertrand receiving the brunt of it.

As he was caught on the spears impaling him, sparks and foam exploded from the opposing undead titans essence.

"HSSSAAAAA!!!!" Sgt Bertrand roared as his veins squirmed and flashed like they were lined with Christmas lights and fire. The spears inside him bubbled and shifted shape.

Whatever else happened Claude didn't care or see as he ripped his way through the extra spears, finding one held tightly in his hand.

"THere must always be them and US! A WORLD without enemies— without war, is a blade with no whetstone! The more we have to sharpen our tools the better are! The purer the bl—"

Claude landed on Sgt Bertrand, running the blood spear through his face and kicking him a few hundred feet into the distance.

The majority of the Elder's forces were now caught in Shifter tooth and claw.

They descended. Claude's heart dropped.

"NO!"

The massive horde of fur and fang stopped in their tracks. Surrounding the laying Elder like rabid animals on an invisible leash.

The snow was almost completely melted. He blended in with the earth.

Until he started smoking.

Not Vampire smoke.

Gunpowder.

He coughed.

In between the coughs he laughed as his insides glowed the shades of war.

Flames and flashes.

The back of his cloak bubbled before a pair of wings exploded from his back.

They fanned the gun smoke coalescing around him like ghosts risen from a battlefield.

"Us and them….. us and them…. Unity is a social construct— it's not real! It's a poison of the mind! You will ruin us with your filth!"

His longcoat burned off, revealing a body covered in scarring and tattoo's. Meaning they all came before he was a Vampire.

That was the least of their worries.

There were bombs in his stomach, spawning out of thin air, blowing him up like a winged balloon.

Steaming hot gun barrels replaced his eyeballs. Claude could hear the revolving cylinders inside his skull.

He leaned forward with his head raised. A sniper rested in his throat, aimed neatly between his fangs.

His words became unintelligible metallic gnashing and snarls.

He barely looked like a Vampire.

Rupont suddenly appeared next to him.

"War is a gift to no one….. it's indiscriminate of its participants— they're all enemies. Even the one who wields it."

The realization dawned on Claude.

He got up off all fours.

"Fuck that, you don't get off that easy!" He reached for the earth beneath the ticking time-bomb Vampiric Warmonger and pulled.

VWOOOSH!

Wooden tendrils and vines rose from the cold earth, puncturing Sgt Bertrand in his explosive stomach fast enough to cut him into two before the explosive pile up could kill him. Truly.

SHRI—BBBBOOOOM!

The sky lit up as the vines carried the lower half of bombs to the stars.

The psuedo-night covering evaporated in the intense flash of heat and cast them under white sunlight, highlighting the evil that lay strewn across the floor. Now going up in flames.

"Well…." Rupont stopped talking as he realized Claude was no longer standing next to him.

In the distance, Claude landed with an upper half of a split body in his hands.

Sgt Bertrand was barely alive. He was that way even before being cut in two.

But a promise was a promise.

Looks like making him run was a bit more literal than he could've ever thought.

The Shifters waited behind him. Massive monsters with the cruelty of a vengeful human mind in the driver seat.

Claude heaved an arm back and threw the Elder.

The Wolves descended….. beside the Tigers…. And the Lions…. And the Crocodiles… and the Hybrids.

"[So much for Unity being a farce….]"

[+1000 EXP]

DING!

[You have Leveled Up!]