Velik beat Healer Greenbaum’s predictions for his recovery time by over a week, though in all fairness, the moment he was able to access the energy granted to him by his mystic stat, he activated [True Form] and just sat in his wolf shape, rapidly healing. He even stopped the expensive potion regimen Jensen had been funding now that he’d reached the point of being able to recover on his own, and he ended up giving the man thirty thousand decarmas to cover the cost.

  Jensen hadn’t appreciated that, mostly because he’d apparently been hoping to leverage the expensive treatment to secure Velik’s help in vault-hunting expeditions. He’d obtained a promise to help anyway, but it seemed like he felt less comfortable about Velik keeping his word without a massive debt looming over him.

  Nothing had really gone according to plan, but Velik found that he didn’t regret the time he’d spent in Granite Peak. Annoying as the Monster Hunters Guild might be as a whole, individual members did go out there and save people from monsters, which was something he could whole-heartedly get behind. He just wasn’t planning on sticking around and letting them drag him down with their rules and bureaucracy again.

  He’d also come out of the whole thing significantly more powerful, despite only gaining a single level. Also, I’m still technically rich even after paying Jensen back, he thought to himself with an amused smile as he called up his status to review his gains.

  [Name: Velik]

  [Race: Human (Duskbound)]

  [Class: The Black Fang]

  [Level: 43]

  [Physical: 138(+39)]

  [Mental: 81(+6)]

  [Mystic: 63(+40)]

  [Free Points: 0]

  [Decarma: 96427]

  [Skills:]

  [Apex Hunter (Rank 8)]

  [Dread Lance (Rank 4)]

  [Burden of the Beast (Rank 4)]

  [Aspect of the Wind Tamer (Rank 1)]

  [True Form (Rank 3)]

  [Gear:]

  [Harbinger of Dusk (+15Ph, +5My)]

  [The Sixth Plague (+10My)]

  [Night Striders (+6 Ph, +2 Me]

  [Invoker’s Pendant (+20 My)]

  [Earcuff of Unbreakable Will]

  [Ravensfeather Cloak (+15 My)]

  [Twilight Bond]

  [Heart of the Inferno (+10 Ph)]

  [Chimeric Vest (+4 Ph, +2 Me)]

  [Chimeric Pants (+4 Ph, +2Me)]

  Merging two skills together and boosting a new one up to rank 3 so quickly was a prize, to be sure. The massive bump to all his stats didn’t hurt either. He hadn’t found any upgrades to his gear, but that was to be expected considering how many decarmas he’d spent on it back in Cravel. In that respect, he supposed he was just lucky to have recovered his spear.

  The business of scouring the mountains for more parasites controlling people was a slow and ongoing process that kept Velik’s team out of town for weeks. He saw no one but Jensen regularly, though he’d been told Giller was also staying in town. Sildra, Torwin, and Aria did most of the legwork, courtesy of Aria’s portals, and Velik was already out of bed before he finally got a chance to see them again.

  “Velik!” Sildra called out, waving her arm from three blocks away like he hadn’t already noticed the group and adjusted his direction toward them.

  “Good to see you still among the living,” Torwin said dryly.

  “I am, thanks to you three,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “It was nothing you wouldn’t have done for anyone else,” Aria said. “I think you more than proved your loyalty to the group.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Foolhardy though it might have been,” Torwin added. “But enough of that. We need to have a talk. Somewhere private, if you’re up for a walk on the trails.”

  “I think I can manage that,” Velik said, feeling his heartbeat quicken. The gold blood?

  “You can head to the baths, Sildra, dear,” Aria said. “This is just a guild thing.”

  “If you’re sure…” Sildra trailed off, looking back and forth between them.

  “Go on now. I’m sure your new apprentice is eagerly looking forward to your next lesson anyway.”

  “Apprentice?” Velik mouthed, but he refrained from asking. There’d be plenty of time for that later.

  The three hunters left town together, both of the older ones annoying Velik with needless coddling until he made it quite clear that he was more than recovered enough to travel on his own. Once that was established, Torwin led them up a winding path that overlooked a deep ravine, where he’d already set up a small campsite for himself.

  “Alright, let’s talk,” Velik said, crossing his arms and waiting for one of the others to start.

  “I imagine Jensen gave you my message,” Torwin said.

  “He did.”

  “Right, so… Gods, this is a bit delicate, but…”

  “Oh, just spit it out,” Aria snapped.

  “We noticed in the fight that while you were in your wolf form, you bled gold,” Torwin told him. “But don’t worry, we didn’t tell anyone! Emberson already figured it out, but he promised Aria that he’d keep it to himself until you had a chance to explain it to him.”

  “I can’t explain it to anyone,” Velik said. “I don’t know what it means. Those monsters seemed angry about it though. They kept calling me a traitor.”

  “Don’t know?” Torwin looked startled. “Gods, of course you don’t.”

  “It means you’re a literal monster when you use that skill,” Aria said.

  “Monsters have black blood,” Velik protested. “I’ve killed thousands of them. It’s always black.”

  “Yes, that’s true in almost every single case,” Torwin said. “But there’s an exception.”

  “They’re called divine beasts. They’re monsters with gold blood, and make no mistake,” Aria said, looking Velik in the eye, “they are monsters.”

  “They’re not really divine,” Torwin rushed to add. “It’s a kind of translation thing. It’s more like ‘monster that transcends the mortal limits’ than ‘being that is worshiped.’”

  “So, let me get this straight,” Velik said slowly. “You’re telling me that every time I use [True Form], I’m turning myself into a literal monster.”

  “A divine beast, yes.”

  He was silent for a moment while he thought about that. It made sense, in a weird sort of way. His friend had been turned into a monster, albeit one with the typical black blood of their kind. He’d received a class orb as a reward for destroying that threat, and he’d used it to augment his class with a new skill. Of course becoming a monster would be part of it.

  That didn’t answer the question of how a human had become a monster simply through a class in the first place, but Velik had always assumed that was because he and Chalin had gained their classes through a dungeon seed, not a class orb.

  “I don’t feel like a monster,” Velik said. “I’m still in control of myself. There are no urges to cooperate with monsters or to kill people. Even when that parasite monster was giving the lizards orders, I didn’t feel like it could make me obey it.”

  Torwin and Aria shared a glance. “What do you mean ‘giving orders?’” he asked.

  “It was telling the monsters to attack you when we first arrived,” Velik said. Come to think of it, that’s a point in favor of my wolf form actually being a monster form since I could understand it.

  “You’re wearing an earcuff right now that increases your resistance to mental domination,” Aria pointed out. “It’s entirely possible that without that, it could have been a different story.”

  “I didn’t have it in wolf form, though,” Velik argued. “The skill doesn’t let me keep the benefit from my gear.”

  It was probably better if they didn’t know all the specifics. After all, they couldn’t share what they didn’t know, and if he was getting what they were saying, it was that the Monster Hunters Guild would not look kindly on a shapeshifting skill that turned him into a monster. Were they to find out about it, he might become the target of a new mission posted on the board.

  “What do you think it means?” Velik asked.

  “Honestly? We have no idea,” Aria said. “Our first thought was to have you use it around Sildra to see what her monster detection skill says, but we’re pretty sure we already know the answer. It could mean nothing, just that you have a skill that it would be better if certain people didn’t find out about.”

  “Doesn’t seem likely to me, though,” Torwin cut in. “Morgus himself got involved in this whole mess. If I were you, I’d follow up on this, carefully and discreetly. There’s no telling where it could lead to.”

  “Don’t look at the guild archives for information,” Aria advised.

  “Do you think this could lead back to the source?” Velik asked, recalling the quest still attached to his system status to mind.

  [Current quest: Locate the source of the dungeon seed and destroy it before it can spread more chaos and destruction.]

  “Maybe. Just… be careful is all we’re saying. Don’t tell people that your wolf form bleeds golden blood. Don’t let the guild connect you in any way to a monster.”

  “What about Emberson?” Velik asked. “He already figured it out.”

  “You also saved his life, as well as a few of his friends. I think he’ll keep his mouth shut if he knows you’re not in danger of switching sides in the war between humans and monsters.”

  There wasn’t much to say after that. They walked back to town, but it was a quiet walk. Velik had a lot on his mind, and it didn’t seem like there were many answers for his questions. He’d come to Granite Peak looking for a clue to point him in the right direction, and in that regard, he felt like he’d failed. His wolf shape had nothing to do with the town or the dungeon. They’d undeniably done a lot of good here, but that hadn’t been their purpose in coming.

  “Oh,” Velik said suddenly. “What was it you were saying about Sildra having an apprentice?”

  “Apparently she impressed a local boy who was just about to awaken his class, so much so that he started worshipping Morgus and managed to secure himself the [Lunar Druid] class.” Aria stopped to giggle as she told the story. “Sildra doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing, but bless her heart, she’s trying. It’s honestly not a bad idea, really. We could use more people with the ability to detect these parasitic monsters. Put a druid like her in every city, and they’ll never spread their corruption to humanity.”

  “That’s a far-off solution,” Torwin said. “We don’t have a perfect count, but based on what the hunters you rescued saw, our best guess is that better than fifty agents of corruption managed to escape the dungeon before we got there. For now, I think we’d better be a bit more proactive about this whole thing than just waiting to see if Sildra ends up heading a new branch of worship.”

  Velik couldn’t agree more.