For a moment, everything was black.
Akio could feel the weight on his mind, the ever pounding feeling against his soul not proving unbearable, to say the least. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't even move. The only thing he could do was wait and try to wait calmly. That being said, he was getting a slight feeling of panic drifting into him, his doubts coming forth in his mind. What if he'd made the wrong choice? What if he were to be left to this damnation for all of eternity? He would not only be trapped here, but he'd let his lineage succumb to the same fate.
No, he thought to himself. Trust your ancestors...trust your judgement...
He pushed the high-tension thoughts from his head. He meditated. He waited and waited until something would begin to happen. He found a zen in a quiet place and used it to his advantage...to settle for peace of mind. Peace of body.
And then...he felt a stir. A swelling surge of energy growing within him. His other two essences within himself began to spread outwards, mixing with this well of power that seemed to be coursing through his system. At first, the essences seemed to combat each other, fighting for a place within Akio. Or maybe they were combating a new arrival. He began to separate the three, giving them each a place within his body. He began to feel lighter on the mind and heavier on the body as he thought he could hear something. Something very faint. Something very far. And it was getting closer.
The essences no longer were mixed and unshaped, but formed a flow in his head...a balance in his mind and a core in his body. The core was split into three different lines, all connected to his mind. One was dark blue, the essence of Shadow. One was bright magenta, the essence of Myrkul. One was shimmering white, the essence of Blood.
And like breaking the surface from underwater, he began to adapt and conform to his body. He began to feel a muscle move, his leg twitching slightly. Grasping hold of that feeling, he tried to bring it under his control and possess his body with his mind. He could feel a sense of familiarity, but also a sense of foreign appendages that weren't there. He was having a harder time grabbing hold of those. But the essentials were obtained. Legs were in working order, arms in the same condition. He even felt an oddly perfect sense of weight in his right hand...the weight of the Ancestral Blade he'd brought with him to this new body.
He could breathe again.
Inhale...
The first rush of oxygen permeating this new body he inhabited sent all kinds of feelings down through his soul. Relief on his older side for finally obtaining access to that precious life source. New surges of cooling and relaxing of rigid muscles and inner organs brought by a long lost feeling of circulation through the body. His third tether, the Essence of Myrkul, began sucking up this oxygen and clinging to it so as to never be let go...so as to feed this new energy supply within him.
Exhale...
His senses had all but come back to him. His dry mouth was bring wet with his own saliva. The air reeked of a surprisingly strong scent of wildly uncontrollable magic of some kind...Chaos, his mind recalled. He could barely hear a familiar voice calling out amidst the blackness. "I hope that's a humankind in the Zhou. Wake up! We're out of time the black storm is here! Forget the remainder you need to get us out of here!"
He inhaled. He couldn't help but feel like the voice was calling out to him in particular. Forget what? he wondered.
Well only way to find out.
He exhaled and opened his eyes.
The scene was definitely chaotic. He saw way too much at the same time. He saw everything progressing as normal, the fight between the Space Marines and the forces of Chaos continuing at a breakneck pace. He saw the tear in the realms in which he'd Shadow Dashed through and he spotted the ship from his vantage point. Onlyā¦his viewpoint was drastically different. Everything felt smaller. And he caught glimpses of something right in front of himā¦a terrible blackness that was sweeping through. Something asteal in the back of his mind told him this unperceived threat would be upon them soon. He remembered the mission and why he'd come down here...to retrieve the artifact.
He looked down and saw an amazing thing. His body was coated with crystalline-like scales and his chest seemed to glow with an exterior energy of some kind...the energy he now possessed. His feet were elongated and had claws on their toes. He glanced down at his hands and saw more of the sameā¦well two sets of the same anyway. In his right hand held a crystallized sword that maintained the same grip he had on it before. It looked different the way it almost appeared jagged and crude in make. And yet, he knew it was as sharp as ever. They still felt foreign to him, but he could feel appendages in his rear, on his back, and even hanging by his side. Taking a slight glance behind him, he saw wings and a tail.
Akio was a dragon now. He was the artifact.
And as quickly as that realization was upon him, the sorcererās long winded speech had begun. The next thing Akio knew, he was being surrounded by this hardened energy, a barrier of some kind. He knew the corruptive properties of the substances said sorcerer had been using, so he didnāt dare touch the stuff. But it was impeding their escape and he had to find a way around it. Or through it by non-physical means.
His sword? He knew it was tethered to him by blood and as such remained incorruptible, but he didnāt know of the crystalline part of it, whether that was truly the sword he knew or just an extension of itā¦a carbon copy. For now, he wouldnāt chance it. The Shadow Dash would only work if he had a clear line of sight towards his objective, which this barrier blocked all viewpoints. Shadow Magic wouldnāt do him much good either.
But he had a third option nowā¦another essence stored within him and dying to be used. Myrkulās Essence.
He went deep into thought, deep into the back of his mind to try and find an answer to this power. He considered reaching out to his Ancestors once more for figuring this out, but tried to see if another presence within him would answer.
āMyrkul.ā
Heād heard the word being said many a time since joining Captain Ean and his crew, but the word still sounded so foreign on his tongue. From what heād gathered, Myrkul was an entity in the back of everyoneās mindā¦a being that could be spoken to if necessary. A guide to Akioās new abilities and capabilities, he figured. And he was hoping that calling him by name would prompt a response.
āWhat is your will, Dragonkind?ā
Even while he may have been expecting some kind of response, the voice in his head caught him off guard. It was surprisinglyā¦robotic. Not it quality, but in tonal structure. It could almost convey emotion through the tone of voice it used, but it was off in some ways. Detached. Conveyed more of the opposite really. The fact that Myrkul referred to him as Dragonkind didnāt help that either, but Akio could assume such was true now. He did adopt the body and all itās namesakes after all.
āI request guidance,ā he answered back, āGuidance on how to tap into thisā¦essence. I must save your allies from the destruction of Chaos and Demons, but I do not know the body I am in nor the abilities I possess.ā
Myrkul's voice rumbled the floor of the mind as a leviathan of mind leaned closer to hear. The different flat-emoted cadences borrowed from other conversations as some rising wind threatened, "Your mind's eye is now mutable, former Humankind, the soul of Humankind cares less for its meat than its will. You are not the present. In Ex Libris you are all Akios that have ever been. What is now will always have been so."
A small memory shot through the blue link to Myrkul of a small smattering of text, "Thus spoke the Dragonkind Ex Libris: I do not cause an avalanche from the power underneath all things, Myrkul's Vein, I am the avalanche. I am in my enemies. I am in my obstacles. I am in the world both reside. That I end means I simply choose to rest. By my roused will I carve unto the landscape how things shall now be in that moment I choose to look away from the self."
It added in that mid-conversation cadence it had between sentences, "Akio is shadow's cataclysm. Akio is nature's violent course. Akio is mankind's smoky lance of wrath. Align the Akios' eyes to the present with a will from any fullness of understanding of all Akios' nows that have ever been. Beware, no muscle incompletely understood can truly be strong."
The speech felt broken and foreign, but in his headā¦somehow it made perfect sense. He had to concentrate on becoming one. He couldnāt think about the three abilities as separate powersā¦he had to think of them as one surge of energy inside him. It was less about adapting to this body and more about allowing this body to adapt to him. His muscles. His intentions. His will. Align himself and he could use this power as well as any of his other ones.
āThank you, Myrkul,ā he expressed his own gratitude before turning his attention towards the barrier in front of him and focused. He closed his eyes and thought about bringing the forces inside of him togetherā¦harmonizing his priorities with his spirit, his mind, and his body. His spirit was of an ancient heritage. His mind was of a shadowy complex. His body was of a Draconic Awakening. And while his essences had different goals to achieve, all stemming from different backgrounds of his life and wishing different futures, they all had one goal in this current moment. They all wished to fight.
With a roar that wasnāt his own, Akio felt the power of white hot energy building in the pit of his stomach, rising to the back of his throat. It was violent, but tranquil. Steady, but explosive. And he expelled this intense energy forward, out of the open maw he still wasnāt used to. He had yet to speak an English word in this new form and the first thing out of his mouth was the answer heād been looking for.
The barrier didnāt stand a chance. It melted from the sheer strength and potency of the blast. Three powers combined to break down and dismantle the force the Sorcerer had elected to use unto him. His blood remained uncorrupted, nor did his unyielding composure waver, even if the intensity of the blast may have made others think it had. Though there was a difference in appearance. Not many would notice it, having not seen the dragon before. But Plinth would catch a symbol etched in an odd light on Akioās Crystalline Dragon Forehead. It was a circle split into three different portions, a dot in the epicenter of each portion. It looked like a three-faced Ying-Yang symbol, a sign of mastered equilibrium beyond the standard for those of a Taoist faith.
But it didnāt stop there. Akio had made an entrance into Dragonhood by blasting through the barrier and he continued by unleashing more brightened energy onto the corrupted soil. His stance was steady despite the suction-like vice the Warp had on the area and he could feel his mind attempting to be tainted by the very air around him. And still, he remained incorruptible. Not by the build of the body, nor by the sway of the mind that prevented his essence from being dragged into a chaotic lack of control, but by his blood. His heritageā¦his soulā¦they worked together to keep him tethered to reality. They kept him sane. And he stood still, a beacon of light surrounded by the redness of Chaos.
Akio occupied the dragon.
Everything he torched around him was purified by his soul, rebuilt by his body. The corruption that had plagued the land was reverting itās course. The hue of destruction would slowly be giving way to that of a much brighter force, one whose composition would trifle with most and come away free. One whose will was aligned to destroy those that wished to hurt Humankindā¦no, people. The personal word rang strong in his head as he remembered who he was fighting for. His friendship in Captain Ean. His family who was always by his side. The tides within him shifted slightly as his true essence broke through, one that couldnāt be controlled by the waters he occupied, but could be harnessed.
His Draconic eyes glowing, his gaze shifted to the Sorcerer, who would realize what kind of power heād allowed his enemy to take. It wasnāt Zhou alone that was the force to contend with. It was whoever the Zhou aligned with. And that was someone who already had a personal leverage over the will of the Warp. Someone who could once withstand it and now recede it.
Someone who was already inside his enemyās head.
āAbrubhor,ā he spoke, his voice deeper and much more masculine, āYour corruption stops here.ā