Chapter 25: The Fleshcraft Rite

Ever since awakening his bloodline, Nathan had never really taken being a "bloodborn" seriously. Subconsciously he still thought of himself as human—just one with a few special abilities humans didn't have.

But now, he could no longer think of himself as human.

Nathan roared on and on, shrill and desolate as a vengeful ghost's wailing, but the misery bottled in his chest refused to vent no matter what.

Sebastian endured it for a while, but he finally couldn't take any more—he released a spell, cut off Nathan's roaring, and shouted: "Can you knock it off?"

Nathan stared at Sebastian, his "face" as ugly as it could possibly get!

A faint Mystic-Gold skull bobbing in a mass of black light, twin Mystic-Gold flames flickering without end in its sockets—whatever expression it tried to make was going to be ugly.

Voice rasping, he asked: "Going over by a measly hundred and ninety hertz, and I turn into this?"

Sebastian's face was even uglier than Nathan's. He steadied himself for a beat and sighed softly: "I can teach you a spell to turn back into a human body."

That line calmed Nathan a little; the Mystic-Gold flames in the skull's sockets dimmed slightly as he fixed Sebastian with a stare and said in a low, hard voice: "You mean it?"

Sebastian barked back: "The vitae frequency band runs from eight thousand ninety-five to a hundred thousand one hundred ninety-one hertz! I rounded it down to 'a hundred thousand hertz' to keep it simple. Your current state is as good as it gets—so what's with all the wailing?"

Nathan blinked in surprise, but suspicion followed fast. "This counts as 'as good as it gets'? Then what counts as bad?"

Sebastian didn't answer him head-on. He settled his own churning emotions first, leveling his voice out as much as he could, and said: "Never imagined you'd not only succeed at aether oscillation and gain a vitae ripple all your own—you managed the Umbral Turning too! If you'd joined the bloodborn world's Four Hosts, they'd hype you as the next generation's genius and pour their priority training into you... right up until you died at the hands of us Eighteen Towers people."

Nathan said in a low growl: "Spare me the speeches! Tell me now—how do I get my human form back?"

Sebastian watched Nathan quietly for a good while before speaking. "Growing up, you heard plenty of stories about bloodborn taking human shape, right? Copying a human body isn't hard. But truly becoming human—there's never been a real precedent. Bloodborn can wear a human face, but they can't change what they are underneath."

Nathan went silent, turning it over for a long while before, in sorrow, he confirmed one fact for himself!

This Order of the Deathless heir could teach him a spell to take on a human shape—but he truly, truly was no longer human.

Grief and fury boiled over; Nathan howled at the sky, pouring out the endless resentment and rage in his chest!

He hated himself, deep down—why had he walked that route that day? If that freak meteor hadn't hit him, he'd never have awakened any bloodborn bloodline. If not for Sebastian, he'd still be a happy-go-lucky kid, secretly admiring the goddess of his heart every day—instead of here, put through one-foot-in-the-grave training and turned into an actual bloodborn.

In a heartbeat, the killing intent around Nathan spiked, all his boundless rage converting into towering battle will!

Faced with a battle-hungry Nathan, Sebastian gave a light laugh and commanded under his breath: "the Comet-Gem Mantis—seal the host's vitae!" The words had barely left his mouth when Nathan froze as if paralyzed, his body locked still, and the black-light vitae rolling off him like fire-waves dimmed down.

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Nathan didn't rein in his vitae right away. Only after a little while did a strange, crooked smile show, and he said quietly: "Teach me how to get my human form back."

Seeing Nathan cave, Sebastian didn't press his luck, saying with a light laugh: "Glad you've cooled off. Transmitting the Fleshcraft Rite to the Comet-Gem Mantis."

The emerald light-screen popped up in front of Nathan again, a formula displayed upon it.

The spell Sebastian passed to Nathan was called the Fleshcraft Rite.

This spell's one and only function: turning all manner of inhuman bloodborn-things into human form. Simple to pick up, all-embracing—any species of bloodborn-thing can practice it, it doesn't clash with or counter any kind of vitae, and after taking human form, your strength drops at most twenty percent.

Any bloodborn that takes human form loses strength—botch the transformation and being left with only ten or twenty percent of your power isn't unusual. Bloodborn who practice the Fleshcraft Rite keep better than eighty percent after transformation. It's a genuine premium product among form-transformation spells, the kind most bloodborn would kill for.

A few centuries back, if this spell had hit the open market, who knows how many bloodborn would have torn each other apart over it. Even in the modern era—with the Concord and the Eighteen Towers signed up to all kinds of treaties and plenty of low-tier spells spread around and popularized, a much better situation than centuries ago—form-transformation spells like the Fleshcraft Rite are still brutally hard to come by. Only the Order of the Deathless acolyte like Sebastian could produce one. A bloodborn's first transformation carries a real risk: the slightest slip leaves a flaw that can never be patched, no matter how deep your Art grows later. Like the werewolves of the old tales—when they took human form, they could never, ever hide the tail.

Nathan studied it with everything he had, terrified that one wrong detail would cost him his human form forever.

Once Sebastian had finished transmitting the Fleshcraft Rite, he left Nathan alone to puzzle the spell out and went back to the yew-wood house himself. His own mood was far from calm; he needed some quiet too.

Nathan memorized it in silence, feeling that this transformation spell meshed with the Titan Godslayer Canon seamlessly. He quietly drove the Titan Godslayer Canon, and his black-light vitae rolled and boiled over like a pot gone wild. Moments later, a patch of skin appeared on his forehead, translucent as white gem. That patch gradually spread, tracing out a nearly perfect human face, short jet-black hair sweeping back.

Nathan opened his eyes—though he didn't need eyes to see his own face. It was at least nine-tenths identical to the old one, just a few features tweaked here and there, but the impression it gave was night and day.

Then snow-pale skin spread down from the face, forming his neck, his chest; his arms gradually grew out, then his lower belly, the equipment that matters most to a man, his legs, his feet... The newly formed body was near flawless. Anyone who knew Nathan would recognize him at a glance—but every single one of them would be stunned, because the boy reborn in human shape no longer had that good-natured, chubby build.

The newborn Nathan was radiant, carrying the keen edge of a sun just cresting the horizon!