The closer Nalrond's bodies got to merge into one, the denser they became.
To manipulate his cores and protect his bodies, Lith and Quylla had to keep double the impurities of a regular bright blue core which meant that Nalrond's odds of survival would be zero the moment the merging process reached completion.
They exploited Nalrond's vigorous mana flow, Invigoration, and the temporary malleable state of his bodies to get rid of everything that wasn't necessary to keep nudging his evolution in the right direction.
It would have been an impossible task without the Eyes marking the dangerous impurities, the Hands harnessing the power of the mana geyser to finely regulate the speed of the Awakening process, and the Mouths allowing for a negligible cast time.
Nalrond's nature as a true mage gave him years of experience with fusion magic so the moment his mana started to flow and the vortexes to appear, he knew what he had to do.
He circulated his mana to form his favorite spells. Not the strongest or the most useful but those he had learned at a tender age or that held sentimental value. To achieve the violet, magic had to become a part of him and those spells defined who he was.
He lacked Friya's seven streaks so he had to discard the part about using his natural affinities to split the elemental mana. His eyes conjured no world energy so he had to diverge from Morok's technique that used them as a conduit.
His heart didn't store mana like Lith's so he couldn't use his bloodstream to carry the mystical runes. Nalrond stripped one technique at a time of the parts he couldn't use and replaced the missing bits with the first thing that worked.
At that moment, he didn't care for his potential future enlightenment. He only wanted to live. He used his newborn life force to channel his mana, forcing his blood and mana vessels to overlap.
He took hold of the heat that his tissues produced, using it to weave runes that reached every nook and cranny of his new, unknown body. As the first vortex turned into an auxiliary core, a golden pillar erupted from Nalrond and another one descended from the sky.
The pain disappeared as Mogar gave the finishing touches, bringing harmony where there was still conflict and order to chaos. His body still felt alien, but now Nalrond could hear the melody of his life force.
He used it to guide the mana throughout his body and close the rest of the vortexes. Once his deep violet core stabilized itself, the excess energy formed more vortexes that needed to be Awakened into auxiliary cores, but that could wait.
Nalrond bit the enchanted gag, crushing it between his fangs, and jumped off the bed. He punched Lith in the face with all the strength his newly evolved body could muster, the hit accompanied by the cracking of bones and snapping of sinews.
Were the form of the creature born solely out of Bady Sculpting, Nalrond's mass would just equal the sum of his old human and Rezar's sides. Yet due to his height now reaching over four meters (14'), it wouldn't have been enough.
It would have left him in a weakened state that would have lasted until he had assimilated the missing mass by eating and resting. Thanks to Mogar's help, however, he had already reached his peak form and size.
The unknown beast still resembled a Rezar, but it was bigger and now it had silvery bone spikes coming out of his body instead of orange scales. His body shape was also leaner and more muscular, resembling more a humanoid rather than a two-legged pangolin.
The tail and the claws were still there, but the former was slender and longer while the latter formed perfect hands and feet.?The fingers were razor-sharp for their entire length but by adjusting the chitinous plaques surrounding them Nalrond could remove their edge or move it to the external side of his fingers.
This way, his punches would cut and his knuckles would pierce, just like he was doing now in a fit of anger. Lith's mass was that of a Divine Beast so none of that mattered.
Nalrond's fist crumbled and a second elbow seemed to form halfway the ulna. He suppressed the pain with darkness fusion and hugged Lith while light fusion slowly mended the damage.
"Thank you, you beautiful bastard." The air, the light, even the pain felt new and exciting. "You put me through hell and back, but it's only thanks to you that I'm still alive!"
Nalrond's tail hit the floor multiple times in excitement as he rubbed Lith's head with the knuckles of his good hand.
"If you really want to thank me, stop damaging your body. We worked our asses off for hours to make it and you've already messed it up." Lith activated the Immortal Body array to fix the damage to the right arm. "I don't know you guys, but I'm starving."
"Me too." Nalrond's stomach roared like an angry beast. Mogar had made up for the missing mass, but all the nutrients spent before their intervention were still missing.
"I'm not!" Friya chimed in in outrage. "We've gone with your crazy experiment, you've escape the jaws of death by a hair's breadth, and your first instinct is to hug Lith instead of me?"
"Actually, I/he punched him/me first." The two men said in unison.
The hug was simply the byproduct of guilt for the unwarranted aggression and enthusiasm for the success of the procedure. It was Nalrond's way to apologize for his outburst, just like ignoring it and fixing Nalrond's arm was Lith's way to accept the apology.
"Still, you went to him over me!" That was the only thing Friya could think of. "I was scared shitless the whole time. I prayed Mogar and every Guardian I know for your safety and you left me hanging."
She started to cry, making Nalrond feel awful and move to her side. He wanted to embrace and console her, but his new form was so tall that even if he went down to his knees, she would barely reach his waist.
Friya ignored the issue, grabbing his leg tight the moment he came close and bawling her eyes out while nuzzling her face on it. That vision and the desperate cries made Nalrond's stomach churn. Literally.
He felt a tug at the level of his abdomen, like something was being pulled and squeezed from the inside. His form shrunk to two meters (6'7") and the spikes flattened into scales.
On top of that, the elongated snout of the creature turned into Nalrond's face and thick black hair covered the small scales on his head.
"What the heck?" Nalrond looked at his limbs that now had had the muscles of the beast but the shape of a human.
"Shut up and hug me, you jerk!" Friya had noticed as well, she just didn't care.
All she wanted was to feel his touch and warmth to reassure her it was not just a dream.
"I'm sorry." He caressed her head and back, holding her tight in silence until the sobbing subsided.
