TRANSFORMATION

The silver liquid pierced through the blood vessel with great enthusiasm, as if it genuinely wished to enter Scylla's bloodstream. It left bright silver trails that could be clearly seen through her skin as it snaked through her body, outlining her formidable circulatory system.

Athos braced himself, taking to the air, waiting for some kind of seizure but no such thing occurred. On the contrary, the monster's roars slowly began to die down, as though she were being lulled into sleep. Her tentacles and wolf heads ceased spasming and her five living heads began to grow sluggish, her eyes glazing over.

The silver trails continued up and down Scylla's body, healing any wounds it came across. The flesh on her tentacles began to grow at an accelerated pace as her spine began to reconnect.

'Circe hasn't betrayed me, right?', Athos thought with a frown as Scylla was slowly restored to her peak form.

At this point in time, the silver trails had completely taken over her lower half and had begun moving toward her upper body. The moment the trails reached her brains, her crushed head began filling out, blowing away the rocks covering it. The monster that had terrorised the sea for millennia had been fully healed.

Athos' eyes flashed with black lightning as he stared at the body of Scylla, ready to unleash his Draconic Aura any moment. He had already wasted a good chunk of his stamina making Scylla the way she was but he had enough to do it again.

Fortunately, he had to do no such thing.

Much to Athos' surprise, the four-hundred-and-fifty feet colossus began to slowly shrink and morph. Her scales, fur and hide along with her muscles began to melt and coalesce into a humanoid blob.

Its body was blood-red while silver blood vessels highlighted half of it. The other was filled with similar blood vessels but they were a deep purple colour. The two colours seemed to be butting heads while the blood-red humanoid blob seemed to be trying to stop that from happening.

A few seconds later, inside the blob, a skeleton began to grow. The bones emerged from seemingly nothing as they fell into place with soft clinks. It looked to be identical to a human and the hip bone indicated that it was a female.

Eyes, nerves, silver and purple blood vessels, and a brain. Human-like or nymph-like body parts began to grow, borne from the blood-red soup. Everything went smoothly, but when it was time for the muscles, something changed.

As pinkish-red tissue began covering the now half-formed body, the multicoloured blood vessels seemed to go crazy. It was as though someone had set off a bomb.

"ArghhhgrraahrrgghRAAAA!!!!"

Human screams mixed with reptilian growls burst out of Scylla's half-formed mouth as muscles and skin grew and withered on her body. Scales grew and fell, her nails turned to claws and back, and her pupils alternated between slits and circles as the silver and purple blood within her began to actively battle.

"What's going on?!", Athos exclaimed as he landed next to the convulsing....figure. He stared in equal parts concern and disgust as the silver and purple blood seemed to destroy her body from the inside out. He didn't dare interrupt the procedure as he believed it was a part of Scylla's transformation, but when she began tearing herself to pieces he knew something was wrong.

"ArgghrAAWggrhhaa...No...Noooaaaerrrgj..ARgh"

In an attempt to prevent Scylla from killing herself, he reached out and grabbed her hands which were still constantly morphing from human to reptilian and held a piece of her own rib, in turn coating his armoured hands with thick red blood.

"Sto-You need to stop...Fuck! What's going on?", He grit his teeth.

Was this some elaborate, sick plan by Circe to kill Scylla for good?

"The oath still binds her. She can't lie to me. She has to follow my orders. She could not have foreseen this...FUCK!"

The only divine consumable item he had on his person at the moment was the Apples of Immortality of which one was already Nereus'. Moreover, the Apples weren't exactly known for their healing properties and since Scylla was a nymph before her transformation, he didn't know how the Apples would affect her.

The more she struggled, the more blood covered Perastos who didn't like it one bit. Blood that wasn't from a battle was not welcome.

Just as he was contemplating dragging Scylla to Circe which wasn't the best of ideas, her borderline deformed face snapped toward his own, her eyes filled with surprise. What was supposed to be a finger, pointed at his chest and she spoke, whimpers of pain accompanying every word.

"A...Dra-Dragon?!!"

"Wha...Dragon? What's happening to you?", Athos replied in confusion. No sane person would confuse his humanoid body for a dragon but Scylla, with her constantly changing half-nymph, half-reptilian body didn't exactly look sane.

"Argh....Plea...Ahhhggh..please blo...Graaaa....Blood!", She spat, her bloodied face hissing at him with anger but her eyes were filling with pleading.

"You want my blood? What? I'm not a Dragon. I'-

"Arggh!!...Pleasee..."

One hand in his grasp began withering and chunks of flesh began falling off her face. Athos' eyes widened.

She was dying.

'Well, I'm the reason this all happened, so why the fuck not', Athos cursed in his head. He wouldn't call himself a dragon, but he had indeed metamorphosised in Ladon's heart. Perhaps he had some dragon blood in him, after all his Draconic Aura didn't emerge from anything.

Using his now free hand, he summoned the giant axe that was Leviathan. Charybdis went ballistic as she always did when he materialized the weapon, but he ignored the monster. He brought the axe close to his wrist and cut into it using one of its blades.

Leviathan sliced into his insanely durable skin and muscles like butter, making reddish-gold blood gush out. Unlike what one would expect, his wound didn't heal within seconds. It would've if he let it heal, but he willed his body to cease its attempts at regeneration which partially worked. He had to cut his wrist once more within half a minute.

The reddish-gold blood poured into Scylla, entering through the ever-increasing wounds on her person. Her body began to shudder and the chunks stopped falling off her face so Athos continued pouring his blood.

'Why is it...Is it rejecting my blood?', Athos frowned as he watched Scylla's body expel parts of his blood, colouring the rocks below with gold with a tinge of copper.

'No, It's rejecting the small bits of Ichor in my blood and accepting the red, human blood. Wait, is the copper tinge my dragon blood? Why did she expel that? I thought the reason she wanted my blood was that I had some dragon in me.'

Questions bubbled up in Athos' head as he watched Scylla's body slowly stabilise. The silver, purple and red blood began to intertwine, the red blood acting as some sort of catalyst.

Scylla's pained yells and roars died down and a bright white cocoon emerged from her barely visible, torn skin, and covered her body in its entirety. All Athos could see was a faint shadow within it that had now curled up into the fetal position. Scylla seemed to be going through some kind of metamorphosis.

"Well, wasn't that something", Athos sighed and sat down, his wrist wound immediately healing. He had done all he could to turn Scylla back and now all he could do was leave it up to chance. Leviathan turned back into its ring form which calmed Charybdis and he stared out into the greyish-green horizon.

He had noticed that the more he learned and progressed in this world, the more questions he had.

Why did Scylla expel the Ichor and Dragon blood while accepting human blood? What was the connection between Merlin and Scylla? What was in the poison that Circe gave Scylla? Did it have something to do with the purple blood in Scylla? How could Scylla resist his Draconic Aura and what would she turn into now that she had the antidote? What was the Khaos seed and how was Leviathan connected to it? Why did Charybdis react so violently to Leviathan? Why were her roars suffused with sadness when Leviathan appeared? What history did she have with the axe? Was using physics to guide the way he used his powers a valid method?

"So many questions....", Athos muttered as the wind from the hurricane brushed through his hair. "But questions that can be answered."

All he had to do was start with one.

Black sparks flickered on his fingertips.

He would start with the easiest.