While grey chased after the last elf that tried ambushing them with terra far behind the speedy two, sky's attention was drawn back to her main body as lily squealed in excitement.
sky's full attention was now once again with lily when she noticed the giant cave which was most likely the lair of the two trolls they were looking for.
sky slowly enveloped her body in clouds lifting her up into the air with a bird's grace "Ok lily! This is where I'll stop, I will only watch you from afar and make sure no one interferes, but you have to deal with all the trolls yourself. Avoid taking others energy or calling upon grey unless it's an emergency as I want to see what you can do and what your limits are."
lily gave a bright and cheerful nod as she walked to the cave on her own.
'This is my first actual fight like the ones in dad's stories... can i do this? NO! I can't think like that this is also my first step onto becoming a powerful awakened and my very survival.' lily thought to herself with worry plastered all over her face.
as she got close enough to the cave entrance, she saw what looked like a skinless sheep being spun over a fire surrounded in humanoid bones that seemed to contain the flames and keep it from spreading.
it was only now that she was looking at the creatures, she needed to slay that she realized the difference between the stories and reality. one was just a story while this was the cruel ugly truth that had no filter and was actually a threat to her.
she could feel her heart beating rapidly as her dark green hair fluttered in the wind.
the two trolls looked to be about seven meters tall while sitting and chatting with each other, but the first thing she noticed on them was that their skin seemed to be made of stone one a dull blue the other a plain grey.
as lily was staring at the two in amazement the grey troll started frantically sniffing the air like it smelt the sweetest nectar nearby.
the troll slowly turned its head before locking eyes with lily which caused the girl to freeze up awkwardly for a few minutes before she started nervously waving at the two now staring trolls "oh, hey guys i just wanted to come by and say you really shouldn't eat people like that."
the trolls just stared at her confused for a few seconds while lily slowly walked backwards and away. seeing this both trolls immediately started to get up and chase her.
out of pure instinct she started running away, seeing this sky slapped her forehead in disbelief but refused to help the little girl.
lily could feel the very ground beneath her tremble as the trolls quickly came closer to her, she started glowing slightly as a poral opened before her.
she ran behind the portal as a large creature made of dirt emerged from it "Crystal quick I need your help!" lily practically screamed out.
the dirt below everyone's feet slowly converged around crystal as she grew in size and bulk now looking like a ten-meter-tall dirt troll herself as she threw out two punches herself knocking grey one into the ground while the blue one barley dodged and countered with a claw of pure frost that cracked and froze parts of her dirt body causing her to step back a bit.
the grey troll quickly recovered and threw out a punch full of ash at her legs which immediately exploded upon impact destroying her left leg while lily watched with a half-formed purple glyph spinning above her palm.
the grey one went in for another fist full of ash on crystal, but when he extended his arm, it disappeared into a small portal only to reappeared between his legs.
the blue troll watched in shock as his comrade's jewels were not only punched but then proceeded to explode down there sending an indescribable scream to echo through the forest.
the blue troll was enraged at his comrade's misery and shot out a stream of jagged ice spikes in her general direction.
the glyph above lily's hand turned black as it lowered to her feet allowing her to fall gracefully into the shadows avoiding any harm. "Mr. veil was right using my connection to my summons and my glyphs I can more easily and quickly use their runes." she thought aloud from within the silent shadows.
crystal was trapped in the jagged ice, her dirt body slowly cracking and freezing over while lily emerged from the shadows from behind the blue troll, but it immediately smelled her prior to widely swinging its arms behind itself hitting lily in the side and sending her crashing into a tree.
lily laid there in immense pain as her breath was now heavy and ragged, for the first time in a really long time she was in a huge amount of pain and bleeding. it was only now that her hazy vison caught her glyph flickering in and out of reality before disappearing for good.
the troll slowly walked to lily with an ice axe now formed in its hand being dragged along the ground, it's gaze was fierce and heavy with a bloodlust lily had never felt before in her life and caused a sense of deep and primal dread to take over.
the troll lifted its ice axe above its head in preparation to slay lily when multiple loud THUD sounds reverberated behind it.
when the troll looked back it saw a now shrunken dirt troll standing at only four-meters tall with six arms each with a stone hammer at the ends slamming into its unconscious teammates head creating multiple fractures and cracks that looked ready to burst in a few more good hits.
seeing the distracted troll lily immediately opened another portal reveling a grey skinned boney human, she immediately connected to his mind unconsciously "Quick kill it before it kills crystal!"
Adam could feel the panic in voice that echoed in his mind from her, so he glanced at the enraged blue troll starting to charge at crystal who was pounding away at a grey troll's unconscious body obviously just trying to get the blue one's attention.
the troll was pretty speedy and was already closing in on the poor golem, so Adam entered his shadow and quickly appeared in crystals shadow pulling her into his embrace.
the blue troll watched as the dirt monster disappeared from his view just when he got in sticking distance.
he confusedly looked around only to find crystal near lily as a strange small creature approached it with total calm.
"You know I wanted to test out what would happen when an undead could do if he could puppeteer a dead body like how grey talked about. And that is when came up with a special idea!"
Adams slow approach and the two balls of darkness forming in his hands sent a shiver down the troll's spine, but it refused to let something so small frighten it.
"You see, after testing on some birds and insects i created the shatter sphere a ball of shadows that attack and shadow your very mind while consuming your shadow and turning you into my minions. hypothetically of course since you'll be my first big specimens to please do resist."
and with that Adam threw the two spheres at the trolls whilst examining their reactions, the unconscious grey troll was immediately engulfed and turned into a shadow that joined his own.
while the blue troll was covered in shadows but resisted while howling in pain until the shadows retreated after a while leaving the troll on his knees gasping for air.
"Hmmm, it seems mental resistance and willpower can bypass the shatter sphere, but the subject still feels pain. good to know; Now we will see what this does." he said dropping a shatter sphere on the ground like it was a regular ball.
the moment the sphere landed the ground around it ruptured as it released a shock wave that even launched Adam away, he quickly entered a shadow upon impact to negate any fall damage, but when he looked back what he saw amazed him.
standing there was a fully healed tall grey stone troll with empty black eyes and shadow markings pulsing all over it making them look almost alive. And best of all Adam could feel a connection to its mind and shadow as if it was his own.
he sent a mental command to kill the other troll, and it attacked without hesitation almost like a drone that received absolute commands. the thing that surprised everyone watching was the grey troll created claws of ash that burned away at the blue troll's ice.
everyone watched at the grey troll attacked only the head of the other one and didn't even try to defend it took all the hits the blue dished out as emotionlessly crushed the other head in its ash covered hands.
while all this was happening, terra was in the wood's eyes puling a light green hue as all the plants around her slowly consumed all the fall getting rid of any evidence, they were there.
"Return to mother nature and serve the ecosystem even in death." after a small prayer for the fallen she looked to where grey and the lighting elf disappeared and decided to link up with sky to let grey have his fun.
grey on the other hand was chasing the elf with a childish smile on his face but for the man that look felt so sinister and no matter how he tried shaking off grey the demonic rabbit seemed to be able to jump off the air, and it even caught up with him a few times but luckily its weak kicks to his back didn't even hurt so he was able to continue on despite being slower than the rabbit.
suddenly the elf's vison went blurry causing him to almost crash into a tree, but he was able to catch himself just barley when he heard a voice echo behind him.
"About time it kicked in and here i thought it wasn't working but it just seemed to work slower on you for some reason?"
the elf stared at grey who was standing in the tree line above him like a lord judging his subjects "YOU CAN TALK! NO, before that what did you do to me?"
grey looked in a seemingly random direction "Looks like terra is done with clean up, Anyways I kind of wanted to eat you to enhance my bloodline abilities as terra calls it but it looks like my decay is already doing that just check your back."
the elf touched his back as grey said but all he felt was wet flesh and bones. "WHEN you kicked me! you poisoned me and then just waited for it to kill me instead of just ending it why?" he asked whilst scratching his head in confusion.
grey just chuckled at that "i just wanted to test my poisons on you since you seemed powerful, but now you dead so I'll leave you to it." grey said before disappearing from view.
the man was left standing confused "Huh?"
he looked at his body to see if the rabbit did anything else to him but that's when he noticed his hand which was now missing two fingers and the skin around it started decaying right in front of him.
it was only now he understood what grey meant he touched his back with this hand and now it was also decaying meaning when he scratched his head earlier it was spread directly to his head.
the man slowly slumped over onto a tree and looked up into the sky while laughing hysterically "this is not how I should have died but compared to what I've done this is kind of peaceful, this decay may look horrifying but at least I don't feel anything."
the man accepted his slow and painless death as grey heard what he said while heading to lily.
grey used lost whisper to speak one last sentence to the man from a distance "I call this poison hollow decay; the painlessness is meant to be discreet not peaceful but i guess you can see it as a peaceful send off."
The man died soon after and grey finally arrived to where he felt lily but when he arrived, he saw a strange sight.
Adam was studying a massive grey troll while crystal was raiding loot in a cave nearby while an unconscious lily was wrapped in a cloud that pulsed with a golden energy.
"Don't worry about her since sky his healing her as we speak." terra said sitting atop the blue troll's corpse patting the side to invite grey to sit next to her.
"You're not going to take its bloodline to use yourself?" grey asked as he approached her as if he didn't just chase down a man for fun.
she chuckled a bit at that comment "no trolls don't have blood like us and even if they did, I wouldn't waste one of my remaining slots on a troll, but they do have a flesh heart for you to eat if you want to try to use your chimera powers on it."
''Just remember what I said about our scions you need to force the bloodline or essence in this case into your body to force that where you want it."
grey nodded at her words and started digging around the corpse looking for the heart.
After a bit of navigation inside the trolls body grey finally found the the heart inside the troll but when he did he was pleasantly surprised.
The heart was flesh like but it seemed to be more like a crocodiles unkempt skin than normal flesh.
Grey started eating away while focusing on his chimera body. That's when he could feel some energy from the flesh he ate enter something at the center of his body.
The energy only randomly entered the core but didn't fill it. "So that's why I only gain some new transformations, only some energy is filling this… hmm I'm going to call it a chimera core. Yeah that's sounds pretty cool."
As grey continued talking to himself and eating away his chimera core was filling up more and in the process grey learned how to better direct a creatures essence into his core to support his body.
After he ate the whole he felt that essence full his core which seemed to react to his feelings. "I think I can transform with this."
He muttered while exiting the corpse from the where the head should have been.
When grey was out he immediately activated his new form quickly gaining everyone's attention for a brief moment.
Greys body slowly expanded from its small almost pocket sized frame to a large two meters making him look more like a bear with floppy ears.
The all stared at the massive rabbit that now had more white fur alongside it.
Adam quickly returned to studying his own creation while sky was about to say something to him when Lily suddenly stirred awake.
Lily saw sky's stern face and immediately threw her head back into the clouds "I know that face! Please no lecture I just woke back up." She complained.
"Fine I will lecture you when your full healed, but you did good and your summons are… very unique to say the least." Sky said while staring at Adam and grey.
Lily was happy to hear her words of praise but when she followed her gaze she was shocked to see grey was now big enough to ride and Adam was controlling the troll she thought was dead.