Several hours after sinking into something closer to unconsciousness than sleep, Turan opened his eyes to someone tapping his cheek. Vije was gently nudging him with the side of her beak.

"Vije."

[Does it hurt a lot?]

Vije lifted a stone tablet taken from the High-Capacity Pouch, displaying words she had clearly written beforehand. Despite himself, Turan laughed.

"Not a lot. Just a little... Ugh."

As he sat up, a bruised ache ran through his entire body, as though someone had beaten him black and blue. He had detonated the Spirit of Fire beside himself dozens of times to propel himself at high speed, then spent the final moments crashing madly against the walls inside the great sea serpent's skull. Of course he wasn't unscathed.

'I was too worked up to notice during the fight... I must have strained quite a few things. This will take a while to heal on its own.'

Of course, regular doses from the restorative-potion magic tool would have him recovered before long. First, though, he would have to treat his companions' more serious injuries.

"How's your wing?"

[It's fine!]

"Can you fly?"

At his worried question, Vije tried to take a quick, easy lap around him, only to land with a sharp squeal.

"Take it easy. I'll have another look at it later."

[Okay...]

Turan then woke his two companions, who lay beside him, one at a time. Solif, merely exhausted from fatigue and excessive mana expenditure like Turan himself, was soon up, but Maysa took considerably longer to open her eyes.

"Where are we?"

"The island from earlier. How do you feel?"

"I... I thought I was dead."

"You nearly were."

Perhaps remembering how her entire lower body had been severed in those final moments, Maysa looked down in fright. Then she saw both her legs attached and let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness..."

"Let me check the wound."

"Okay."

The coat Maysa favored, along with her other defensive magic tools, had all lost their power. It was a terrible waste, but a small price to pay considering they had saved her life. No means existed to restore a life once lost.

Carefully lifting her torn clothes revealed a long scar encircling her body just below her navel. Solif clicked his tongue at the sight.

"Whew. It really is a miracle you're alive. We didn't even connect her organs properly, did we? Just lined up the cut and healed it?"

"That's what worries me. Could you try moving? I checked that blood was circulating, but I don't know whether you can walk."

"Hmm... You're right. They won't move at all."

A few gentle prods and pinches confirmed that Maysa's lower body was merely attached, not functioning. Apparently, the nerves had failed to heal properly.

They made another restorative potion for her to drink, but there was no sign of improvement. It had been enough to patch the wound, but proper healing seemed to require a stronger restorative power.

"Maybe we'll have to call in the young lady who healed me before. At her level, it'll take quite a while, though..."

"It's fine. I can move around with flight magic anyway."

As if to prove her point, Maysa immediately raised herself with levitation and flight magic, then glided smoothly over the ground. Having used it far longer than Turan, she certainly possessed remarkable proficiency.

"With a little practice, I could probably even make it look like I'm walking."

"You can't live like that forever. Besides, there could be something wrong with your organs. We need to find a way to heal you quickly."

Turan sat Maysa down and carefully felt around the wound. Perhaps because they had used a relatively low-grade potion, the join definitely felt less than solid. Like a broken mast clumsily patched back together, he supposed.

Since he couldn't be sure her organs had reconnected properly either, they would have to find treatment as soon as possible.

"Then we should absorb the great sea serpent's corpse first. Come to think of it, what happened to it?"

"He said he'd bring it to the beach. I only just woke up myself, so I haven't checked."

"Let's hurry! If some passing monster eats it, I might actually die of rage!"

Turan waved a hand to rein in Solif's fussing.

"It's fine. The merfolk are guarding it."

"They are?"

He could sense the great sea serpent's tightly gathered power on the beach a few hundred meters away, with a merfolk presence beside it. There was only one guard, but an enemy capable of matching a merfolk royal was hardly likely to appear in the middle of the North Sea.

"They're the ones who need the corpse, after all. I'm more concerned that absorbing its mana will make Maysa stronger and harder to heal..."

She was already too strong for the restorative potion to work properly. Once she absorbed the great sea serpent's mana and grew stronger still, she truly would be unable to recover without an upper-tier Healer's help.

"Don't worry about me. It's not as though I'm going to die right now. Besides, the mana of a wraith that's already risen once disperses if you don't absorb it quickly, doesn't it? After all that trouble, we deserve our reward."

Maysa spoke with a calm smile.

* * *

Their discussion over, the three headed straight for the eastern shore. There, on ground utterly devastated by the great sea serpent's death throes, lay the lonely corpse of a monster once worshipped as a god.

"We really killed this thing..."

"Even looking at it, I can't believe it."

Turan silently shared Solif and Maysa's sentiments. Having lost its second life as well, the great sea serpent looked much as it had when he had seen it underwater long ago. Yet facing it after actually fighting it made the sight all the more dizzying.

Just then, someone sitting atop its head jumped down and approached them.

"What, you're only just awake? I suppose even humans that strong get weak when they're tired."

"It was a brutal fight. Where are the other merfolk?"

The young royal guarding the corpse was Kolova, the sea turtle who had been scolded earlier for speaking too freely.

"Resting in the sea nearby. We're better off in the water when we're tired. I'm the only one who's fine, so here I am, stuck outside. Hurry up and suck out that mana. I'll fetch Father."

Turan nodded at the visibly exasperated prince, then turned to his companions. He could sense the anticipation and longing in their eyes.

"Shall we begin, then?"

"Yes."

The three humans and the bird approached the enormous corpse and immediately began absorbing its mana. A vast green radiance flowed out and sank into their bodies.

"Huh?"

At that moment, he saw a portion of the mana split off and seep into the Mimic Holy Relic. In his experience, it had never absorbed monsters' mana even while he wore it. Could this be because a god's wraith had been mixed in?

Turan hastily tried to take off the Holy Relic and throw it aside. Four was the optimal number for absorbing mana. At this rate, not only he but Solif, Maysa, and Vije would lose out on their shares.

But Maysa and Solif, standing nearby, caught his hands and stopped him.

"Why?"

"Leave it."

"Who knows? Something good might come of it."

They meant that infusing the Holy Relic with the mana of the god it came from might have some beneficial effect. But if all it gained was Waverider and Mimic mana, it would be nothing but a pointless loss.

He was about to argue when an immense shock struck his mind, robbing him of the chance to respond.

"Guh!"

"Ah..."

He barely registered the astonished gasps and groans beside him. The pleasure the great sea serpent's mana brought him was truly beyond anything of this world.

It felt as though every bone and muscle, every scrap of flesh and every nerve in his body burned away and was reconstructed anew. All the mana he had ever absorbed before was child's play compared to this.

Turan's mana, previously near the bottom among top-ranking nobles, surged past the middle range where Solif stood, into the upper range, and then to the very pinnacle where Maysa had been.

Then, just as when his bloodlines had unlocked before, he heard a metallic clunk and felt himself reach a limit before breaking free of it.

Even afterward, his mana continued to rise. Only after reaching a level somewhat stronger than Maysa's former strength, somewhere between top-ranking nobles and the heads of great houses, did his growth stop.

"Ah..."

Turan wiped the drool from his mouth and turned to his companions. Solif was opening and closing his fists as though unable to contain the power boiling through him, while Maysa had sunk to the ground, unable to maintain her flight magic.

Their mana, too, had grown to an entirely different level, beyond the realm of ordinary great nobles. Maysa could now hold her own defensively, at least to some extent, against Osel Ravistas, the weakest great-house head Turan had met. Solif was weaker than her, but stronger than Turan.

He had worried that one of them might reach their limit, but as befitted those chosen as vessels for gods, they apparently possessed ample potential to grow to a House Head's level.

[Turan! Turan! That felt good! Really good!]

Vije, making such a fuss, had also advanced several levels in an instant. She now possessed mana on par with a top-ranking noble comparable to the heirs of great houses—exactly where Turan had stood before this battle.

The appearance of a monster with such power would surely cause an uproar over a mythical-class monster's emergence. Nobles from ordinary houses would probably have no way to oppose it and would have to call in a great house's army.

'With this much strength... we could even fight Arabion.'

He still couldn't be certain they could defeat the mighty Thunder Lord, but they had at least reached a level where ordinary nobles who weren't gods' vessels amounted to mere foot soldiers.

He had barely begun savoring that delight when he noticed changes within his two companions and studied them closely.

"Why are you staring like that?"

"Both your symbols have changed."

"What?"

"Did either of you hear anything inside your body?"

"Something opening... I suppose? There was a sharp crack, like wood breaking."

"Mine sounded like shattering glass."

Beside Solif's original symbols—a white-glowing hand and a fireball—there was now a shield. It was unmistakably the symbol of the guardian bloodline, which Turan had once seen in his martial arts teacher, Haram.

As for Maysa, a white anvil and black hammer, the symbols of the Enchanter bloodline, had appeared beside her thundercloud. If the clenched fist were to grasp that hammer and swing it, she would likely display the same power he had once seen from Arabion's House Head.

Both looked startled when he told them.

"An Enchanter...? Me?"

"I have no connection to the guardian bloodline."

"It is one of the Silver Sun's four bloodlines. Maybe there's some secret about your birth."

"Watch what you say about people's parents, you bastard."

Solif grumbled, but didn't deny the possibility. Unlike Maysa, the child of a House Head, he had been born to an ordinary noble couple. The circumstances of his birth would have been relatively easy to manipulate.

While Maysa cast a spell to identify the functions of the magic tools she carried and Solif thumped his chest to test its newfound toughness, Turan made a light gesture toward the sky, now utterly cloudless after the storm spirit's departure.

KRA-BOOM!

A bolt of lightning plunged into the sea with a deafening crash.

'It's complete. The Storm Bloodline...'

Normally, calling down powerful lightning from such a clear sky required considerable power, but the mana Turan had just expended was comparable to what he would use during a storm. He could even place the strike with precision measured in centimeters. Clearly, the last remaining component, his lightning bloodline magic, had finally manifested.

He went on to practice various applications, generating lightning with a little friction and wrapping it around himself like a barrier, or shaping it into a snake and making it move. Noticing this, Maysa asked him a question.

"You can properly use lightning now, too?"

"Yes. It certainly is convenient. I think I understand why Arabion's wizards don't practice a variety of attack spells."

Compared to wind magic, which was difficult to use offensively, this power was absurdly strong and straightforward. Its only drawback, perhaps, was that it was vulnerable to defenses made with earth-alteration magic, much like fire magic. And, of course, it was difficult to attack someone submerged underwater.

"So, have you both tested things out?"

"Yes. I can use enchanting now. I've never done anything in that field, so I'll need practice to use it properly."

"We can contact Asiz later and ask him for some pointers. What about you, Solif?"

"Well, I'm a lot stronger. Want to see?"

The moment Turan clasped hands with Solif and pulled, his body was yanked effortlessly toward the other man.

"Wow."

"Amazing, isn't it?"

With his compact, sturdy build and powerful mana, Solif had already been somewhat stronger than Turan. But the gap had certainly never been this overwhelming.

"I'll need to test my defenses more... but with this much of a change, they must have improved too."

Solif had already possessed superb offensive power through his Sun bloodline. Now that the guardian bloodline had granted him defense and hand-to-hand combat ability as well, it was fair to call him the strongest of the group in sheer offense and defense. His weakness was an almost complete lack of mobility and support abilities. Indeed, hadn't being the only one unable to fly forced him to stick to support from the rear once Vije was injured in this battle?

"I wish I'd gotten something like that instead of Enchanter."

Maysa abruptly clamped her mouth shut after that mutter. She seemed to think her complaint disrespectful to the mother who had passed that bloodline down to her.

They had only a brief time to discuss their new gains before Turan sensed several merfolk in the water. Moments later, the merfolk king and the others came ashore together.

"Kind demon! You're all right!"

"Yes, I'm all right."

Turan greeted the beaming Armani and swept his gaze over the merfolk royals. The absence of several dead royals was conspicuous, among them Makun, the octopus and the king's eldest son.

He wasn't particularly sorry about that, of course. When he had barely made it ashore, utterly exhausted, the merfolk king's gaze had distinctly been that of someone sizing up an opponent.

Had their forces been intact, and had Turan not planted the suspicion that he was a god's vessel, his entire party might have been killed on the spot.

The stern-faced merfolk king pressed down on Armani's head as he spoke.

"So, have you finished your harvest?"

"More or less."

"Then we shall take our share now."

Turan quietly weighed the strength of the merfolk king and his royals against his own party's abilities. None of his companions were fully recovered, but they were far stronger than before, whereas the merfolk had weakened. If they fought here, victory was certain.

But—

"As promised, the corpse is yours."

"Hmm. Fair enough."

The merfolk king had shown signs of testing them, but he hadn't attacked, so the agreement remained unbroken. Besides, there was a good chance that the merfolk gaining the great sea serpent's power would benefit Turan's party in the long run.

Led by an enormous whale, the merfolk royals transformed into various large sea creatures and dragged the great sea serpent's corpse off the beach. Last of all, Armani, in baby shark form, waved a fin in farewell and vanished beneath the sea.

"Whew. It's really over..."

"More importantly, how are we getting off this island? The boat was wrecked in the fight, and Vije's wing still isn't in great shape. Should we have asked them to take us to a nearby island?"

"Vije's injury isn't that serious. A few more doses of restorative potion should have her healed in no time."

Vije flapped her wings as though to reassure them, then let out a squeak, apparently hurting the spot that had broken. As Turan stroked the whimpering bird, Maysa, watching them, spoke up.

"What happened with that, anyway? The Holy Relic."

"Right! I'd completely forgotten. I hope letting it have some of our mana was worth it."

Urged on by his companions, Turan immediately took out the Holy Relic hanging against his chest. It looked unchanged, so he pressed the protrusion and opened the lid—

"Oh."

"What is it?"

"The inside has changed."