The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage

WM [99] Don’t Think About It

Author's Note:
Don’t worry—you haven’t missed a chapter or gone backwards. This chapter is simply out of order because I forgot to post it on time. It will be moved back to its proper place in the timeline on Monday, when the next new chapter releases.

So while we’re taking a brief step back today, everything will continue as normal on Monday—as if this never happened.

Thanks so much for the support, and let’s hope I don’t forget again!

“You can’t seriously be thinking of going back!” Eliska screamed, her voice breaking as tears welled in her eyes.

Isin met her gaze, his expression unreadable, his body rigid as if bracing for a blow. They had fought about this for days, ever since he told her he was leading the return team to Echo Site 15. He had to report to Nuriel, had to convince her to release more humans to him. 

He wouldn’t tell her he already made it to the Alpha Extraction Site only that he believed he could find it. As far as Nuriel would know, the others who had gone with him were all dead. Giving them the time to work in secret and strengthen the foundation of what could be humanity’s greatest chance at freedom.

He wanted to stay but it had to be him. If anyone else tried, Nuriel would kill them without a second thought. As much as he hated it Nuriel had an odd fascination with him. He knew that out of all humans she wouldn’t let the only son of Bazaath die.

“Eliska,” he said, his voice quieter now, almost pleading as he reached for her. “I have to.”

She recoiled, swatting his hand away. “You don’t have to do anything! You’re choosing to go back to that monster!”

“If I don’t, no one else will make it out.” Isin said. “Nuriel will kill them on sight.”

“What’s to stop her from killing you?” Eliska asked.

Isin took a deep breath keeping his expression neutral. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about it, of course it was a possibility. He thought about death at Nuriels hands over and over. He had played out every possible outcome, every path this mission could take. The odds were slim even Laxy said so. It didn’t change much though things had always been slim.

“What am I supposed to do if you die?” Eliska’s voice was quieter now, raw with something deeper than anger, deeper than fear. “What are we supposed to do?”

Her hand drifted to her stomach, barely noticeable, but enough for the breath to catch in his throat. He knew. He had felt it. Even before she told him, before she had the chance to say it out loud. He looked up at the ceiling then back at her despite knowing what he was leaving behind, he was still leaving. 

He knew in his heart he would not stop here. He would not stop until he could free humanity and kill every divine that believed humans were cattle to raise and butcher. Isin clenched his fists, swallowing the regret that threatened to rise in his throat like bile.

“I am not going to die,” he said, forcing steel into his words. “I will come back. I swear it. And when I do, we’ll be together. Safe. Here. Where none of those Divine will ever touch us again.”

Eliska stared at him, her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something. He expected her to say something. To beg him to stay, curse him for leaving. Something. Instead, she set her jaw. 

“Fine,” she said.

Isin stepped closer to her holding her close and she didn’t pull away. Isin knew she didn’t believe him. She didn’t think he was coming back. Worst of all deep down, neither did he.

***

Bjorn woke up precariously near the edge of his new sky island. He groaned as he smacked his dry mouths, one letting out a yawn. He scanned his surroundings quickly the island was small with a single defining feature being the rock formation at the far edge that almost looked like a perfectly carved octagonal spire. Thankfully he had not passed out on an island with monsters or he would be a very dead hydra.

“Seven hours.” Failsafe said. “Night is approaching.”

Given how odd day and night felt in the Chaos Lands Failsafe was their time keeper. Somehow the reincarnation construct always knew exactly what time it was. So any time he slept he asked Failsafe to remind him of the time. It was important since they were on a bit of a time crunch. If possible Bjorn wanted to be done before the month was up but would hope that Tanisha’s group will come through on lengthening time by destroying the androids.

“Another memory, but not of the core’s creation.” Bjorn muttered.

“We'll get it soon.” Failsafe reassured him. Then, with an amused lilt, he added, “On the bright side, it looks like you had a child.”

Bjorn let out a defeated sigh. “Yeah. Looks that way.”

“You sound… less than thrilled.”

Bjorn didn’t answer. He was silent for a long moment, then, without a word, he stood. His healing factor had already done its work. There was no lingering pain, no soreness, no exhaustion. Just the weight of thoughts he wasn’t ready to voice.

His gaze drifted upward, back toward the island he had escaped from. It had transformed into something otherworldly.

The entire landmass was now overgrown with plants that burned—yet never turned to ash. Fire pulsed along sprawling vines, cascading down the island’s edges like a waterfall of living flame. The infernal tendrils stretched all the way down into the shattered craters below, the embers dancing like falling stars.

Heat rolled off the island in waves, distorting the air, warping the very space around it. The sky itself seemed to shimmer under its intense glow. What had once been a barren, floating mass had become something both beautiful and terrifying. It was a ceaseless, fiery mushroom cloud suspended in the heavens.

The air surrounding it was alive, burning hot with violent updrafts, as if the island itself was breathing fire into the sky. Bjorn watched it for a long time, the sheer spectacle of it reflected in his many unblinking eyes. It was magnificent. It was a disaster. It was something worthy of the name Chaos Lands.

“We leveled up a few times. Some of those levels are from Tanisha’s side by the way.” Failsafe added.

“Thanks Failsafe.” Bjorn said, his voice heavy.

Bjorn knew he added in the information about some of the levels being from Tanisha to lighten his mood. It meant they had resumed hunting down the site's security and that she was fine. 

“Don’t mention it.” Failsafe responded.

He opened his menus and sure enough he had leveled up five time so he had fifty UCP to place. However he was getting close to his limit of place points. He placed twenty in Dexterity, the increased speed would be greatly appreciated in another fight against the Spinefangs. The remaining thirty were split evenly between Primana and Primana Regeneration.

Status Menu

Name: Bjorn Isin Scalebound
Species: Lernaean Hydra
+ Level: 49 < 54
Vitality: 178 / 195
Restoration: 270 / 270
Constitution: 140 / 140
Strength: 120 / 130
+ Dexterity: 80 + 20 = 100 / 100
Stamina:100 / 115
+ Primana: 100 + 15 = 115 / 150

Page 1 of 4

Bjorn scanned over his new stats, pleased to see that everything had finally broken past one hundred. Restoration and Constitution were his highest, which made sense given how much punishment his body had endured. However, he was running out of places to allocate more UCP. He knew it was time to ask about maturation and how it would work.

When he had been overflowing with maya, his body had forcibly grown larger because Failsafe had to burn off the excess energy just to keep him from dying. Now that he was reaching that point naturally, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Would he just get bigger again?

“When it comes to maturation, how will it affect my stats?” Bjorn asked.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Failsafe replied. “And we’re getting close to that, aren’t we?”

Bjorn noted the way Failsafe’s voice held a bit too much amusement, as if this was just an interesting experiment rather than a fundamental shift in his biology.

“Luckily,” Failsafe continued. “We had that whole nearly going insane due to the maya thing.”

“Luckily?”

“Yeah,” Failsafe said, unfazed. “Thanks to that, I was able to get a complete picture of how your body would develop over the next few years. Granted, that was a corrupted, maya-saturated version of you, but close enough.”

“We did almost die from that, you know.”

“We almost die all the time at this point,” Failsafe countered. “Despite all of my warnings. Tell me, how many times have we been decapitated? Most people don’t survive that happening even once.”

“That is beside the point,” Bjorn muttered.

“Ah, right—maturation.” Failsafe made a sound like clearing a nonexistent throat. “We have one hundred and twelve UCP left before it triggers. So, in about twelve more levels, we’ll still have a handful of points left over. I’ll take those and push them into your body as a whole. This will accelerate your growth.”

Bjorn flexed his claws. “How much are we talking?”

“Eight points won’t be much. Maybe a few weeks of growth at most. But it will do two major things for us. One, it increases your stat cap.”

“And the second?”

“Do you remember when I explained base stats?”

Bjorn nodded. “Yeah, of course. You hid it from me at first. You said it was the natural strength of my body or something.”

“Good Enough. The second thing is raising them. As any creature ages, they naturally become stronger. You’re not even four months old, so once your body matures a little, your muscle density, magic potency, core strength, everything, will increase exponentially. And since you're a True, expect all of your stats to grow, even from just maturation alone.”

Bjorn mulled that over. “So… when the maya nearly corrupted me, how old was I maturation-wise?”

Failsafe chuckled. “You were essentially just a big baby back then. Maya became toxic to us, so that form was mostly a last-ditch survival mechanism. If I had to guess, you’ll naturally reach that size in about five years but, I could be wrong. When we lost access to the maya, we couldn’t sustain the form anymore, and we didn’t need to, either. All the levels and false maturation it forced on us will probably return once we regain control over that part of your core.”

Bjorn’s tail twitched. “Wait. Won’t that be… bad?”

“Not this time,” Failsafe assured him. “It was dangerous before because your body wasn’t ready for it. Your mother pumped us full of abyssal maya and latched it onto us. If you were a normal Hydra pup, you probably would’ve been fine, but since you were born here, you didn’t have the same immunity to maya.”

Bjorn exhaled sharply. “Right. You said that if I’d been born in the Higher Planes, I probably would’ve started at level two hundred.”

“Yep,” Failsafe said cheerfully. “You’re the runt of the litter.”

Bjorn hummed in response, choosing not to dignify that with a real answer. Instead, he turned his attention back to his stats. There was still plenty to go over.

Skills Analysis

Reincarnation Failsafe
An incomplete reincarnation magic and your best friend who has your back no matter what!

Error: Eyes of the Queen
+ The Queen of a Thousand Heads is watching you. When I get there you are going to be grounded because of how you spoke to me. I am not angry, I am disappointed.

Venomous Bite
Primana Cost: 0
You have a neurotoxic venom which can be injected through a bite with your fangs. Your venom becomes infectious and will spread to nearby targets within five feet of the injected target. Allies are unaffected by your venom.

Poison Cloud
Primana Cost: 5
With your right head you can mix venom into the air using magic, creating a large area of poisonous gas. This gas will rapidly reduce the health of those inside. Allies within your Poison Cloud are unaffected. Gain control over the spread and density of the Poison Cloud.

Plague Fire Breath
Primana Cost: 8
With your left head you can breathe a plume of superheated toxin, which will ignite enemies and infect them with your neurotoxin. Flames retain toxicity until you release the spell. Plague Fire will spread like normal fire. 

Aetheric Disruption Breath
Primana Cost: Variable
(I) Low cost, 10 Primana. Release aetheric energies that boost allies and poisons enemy active spellforms. Boosted attack spells gain a poison; weakened spells become unstable and harder to control, spreading instability to future castings. All effects last for five minutes. (II) Medium cost, 15 Primana. Expand the breath’s range, affecting multiple spells. Poisoned spells are even harder to control, while boosted spells deal stronger poison damage. All effects last seven minutes. (III) High cost, 20 Primana. Target spells to cause backfire, turning magic against its caster. Boosted spells gain potent venom, and poisoned spells spread instability to future castings. Effects persist for ten minutes.

Poison Claws
Primana Cost: 2
You can infuse your claws with neurotoxic venom, making even small scratches fatal. Venom has resistance to cleansing effects. Allies are unaffected by your venom.

Delta Familiar Contract
Primana Cost: -225
You are a bonded delta-class familiar. You gain +225 to Primana regeneration. Your bond has grown, allowing you to convey emotions through your bond. Your bond is more resistant to outside influences and can not be forcibly severed by outside parties. 

King of the Reptiles
Passive Skill
Dragons, lizards and amphibians all show hesitation and fear around you, going so far as to run away. More study needed.

Intimidation Roar
Primana Cost: 1
Infuse Primana into your roar to paralyze anyone that hears it. Your roar can paralyze humanoid magic constructs as long as they are connected to a magic caster. Paralysis duration depends on distance and level disparity between you and the target. Those bound to you are immune to this effect.

Hydra Regeneration
Primana Cost: 15

Enhance the natural regeneration of your body giving you an unparalleled healing factor. Increases the body's natural healing rate by 4x regeneration statistic plus 20% constitution statistic. (Head regeneration is still unknown. More information required.)

Shadow Concealment
Primana Cost: Variable
(I) Cloak yourself in shadow magic, blending into dim or dark environments to hide your presence. Movement is undetectable to non-magical senses. (II) Deepen the shadow cloak, concealing even magical traces of your presence and blending with shadows in moderate light. Shadows will also muffle the sound around you making you harder to detect.  (III) Unknown.

Air Claws

You have felt the aerokinetic energies of your Follower’s mastery and you have gained insight into the working of magic. Focusing this power into your claws increases the range of slashing attacks. Cause blades of aerokinetic magic to cut your enemies down. As this is a shared natural ability you can not level this ability by any means but through communing with your master. This ability is tied to your Follower, should your Follower die or reject your bond you must reclaim her soul or you will lose this ability.

Chaos Scales Armor

You have felt the power of your Follower’s aura and mantle and embraced the influence of the chain breaker. The power you experienced now resides within you, reshaped by the chaos of primana. Call forth this chaotic energy to fortify yourself, hardening your scales with its unpredictable touch. Each activation grants a random additional resistance, reflecting the chaotic nature of the energy. As this is a shared natural ability, it cannot be leveled by any means other than communing with your Follower. This ability remains bound to your Follower; should your Follower die or reject your bond, you must reclaim her soul or this power will be lost.

Hydromancy

Commune with your Follower to unlock.

Water Light

Commune with your Follower to unlock.

+ Hydro-breath

You understand the nature of water and have absorbed its primal elemental properties into yourself thanks to the efforts of your Follower. With that understanding breath torrents of water to wash away enemies or focused streams capable of cutting through foes with ease. As this is a shared natural ability, it cannot be leveled by any means other than communing with your Follower. This ability remains bound to your Follower; should your Follower die or reject your bond, you must reclaim her soul or this power will be lost. 

Page 2 of 4

Twin-Soul Core Analysis

Error: Tri-Core

You possess a partial soul tether to the Sage of Seiðr, a bond that persists even through death unless deliberately severed by you or the Sage. Without a complete and permanent union of your souls, communion with the Sage of Seiðr is required to fully unlock the core's potential. This advanced core retains all functions of the Twin-Soul Core while granting additional abilities. It now allows you to monitor your followers, gauging their strength and potential. Furthermore, the core enables you to catalyze the evolution of your followers, though this process demands immense power; insufficient energy risks the follower's death.

Permanently fuse your souls and complete bond [No/No] (NOTE from P̵̫̗͗o̸̖͛̂i̴͔͐s̷͍̈o̵̯̗̓ǹ̸̘̌:  Don’t you even think about it, Aki’al!)

Chaos Nature Discipline

Specialties:
Venefikinesis - Creation and control of toxins, venoms and poisons.

Chaos Elemental Discipline

Specialties:
Aerokinesis - Control over air currents and atmosphere.
Hydrokinesis - Creation of and control over water.
Pyrokinesis - Creation of and control over heat, fire and thermal temperature.

Chaos Darkness Discipline

Specialties:

Page 3 of  4

Follower Ascension Panel

Name: Aki’al Hashemi
Title: Sonr Orma Eilífra
Divinity: Demi True Immortal
Divine Realm: Venom
Followers: 1

Follower List:
Name: Tanisha Valkyrja Scalebound
Species: Cernunnos
+ Level: 54
Status: Alive
Special Status: Soul Bound (Partial)
Evolution Status: Pending

Follower Evolution(s) Status

Name: Tanisha Valkyrja Scalebound
Species: Cernunnos (Greater Wendigo < Normal Cernunnos) - Dagda (Greater Cernunnos)
+ Evolution Prerequisite  6 / 10
Current Approved:
Mana Gate Open, Blood Gate Open, Mind Gate Open, Maya Meridians and Veins, Pledge of Soul
Approve Current Evolution Status Prerequisite Met:
Bone Gate
[Yes/No]

Status Not Met for Evolution: Cernunnos - Dagda
Complete Communing (4/5), Spirit Gate Open, Aetheric Tool Bound, Level 100

Page 4 of 4

Other than the threat from his mom there wasn’t any world shattering changes in his own skills or core. What he did notice was that Tanisha had already opened her Bone Gate. They were a long way from level one hundred and communing had to be done in person. Bjorn wasn’t sure what the Aetheric Tool was that needed to be bound but they were getting close to Tanisha being a dagda.

Bjorn accepted the Bone Gate prerequisite without hesitation, eager to see what changes it would bring this time. He hoped Tanisha would inherit at least one more hydra trait, so far, she had been picking up mostly demon and goblin alterations. Then, an uncomfortable thought struck him.

Technically, I’m changing her too. He tried very hard not to think about giving her multiple heads. He didn’t know how his own nature influenced the future dagda species? What if she woke up one day with six mouths arguing with each other because of him? He shook his heads, shoving the idea aside. If he didn’t think about it shouldn’t come true.

“Okay, we’ve rested enough.” Bjorn stretched, his claws digging into the rocky surface. “Let’s see what horrors we have to face next.”

Failsafe’s voice chimed in with mild amusement. “I’m still surprised we haven’t seen any flying monsters. Even in the monster book Tanisha found, they were apparently rare.”

“Failsafe, don’t jinx us,” Bjorn said.

“Oh. Sorry.”

The island they were on was significantly smaller than the blazing jungle he had narrowly escaped. It had only one notable feature, a massive, black monolith rising at the far side like a jagged, obsidian fang.  Bjorn frowned. That hadn’t been there before. None of the sky islands had possessed structures like this when they were still on the ground, which meant it had to be created during the phenomenon that launched them into the sky.

Bjorn looked around the edges to see if there were any close-by sky islands he could jump to before committing to approach the monolith. Unfortunately, there wasn't, so he approached cautiously. It looked like a normal rock spire, but there was an unmistakable aura pulsing around it. 

He reached out with a claw and sank right through it. His talons didn’t scrape against solid stone. Instead, the surface acted like liquid, swallowing his limb whole. However it wasn’t liquid. It felt like stone still gave the sensation of being dense and rigid yet behaved like water. The only difference was that it neither rippled  nor splashed.

Bjorn pulled his claws back, flexing his talons uneasily. 

“This place is weird.” Bjorn said absent mindedly.

“Look up.” Failsafe instructed. “The monolith connects to the next skyland.”

Bjorn shifted one of his heads skyward and sure enough, the pillar extended all the way up, seamlessly merging with the bottom of a much larger island looming high above them. Something clicked in his mind.

Bjorn furrowed his brow, “wait… did you say skyland?”

“Yep. Brilliant name, huh?”

Bjorn huffed in amusement. “Yeah. I like it.”

His amusement faded as he studied the monolith again. If it was truly connected to the island above, then…

“You think we can swim up this?”

Failsafe hesitated. “I think we don’t have a choice but to try. Unless you’d rather climb the flaming vines back into the burning forest?”

Bjorn grimaced, “yeah, no. Up the rock waterfall we go.”

The words left his mouth with less confidence than he intended.