"I have no regrets." Tista's voice still sounded feminine but had the deep, rumbling timbre of a storm. "This is what I worked my whole life for. I was just too arrogant to see it before."
"Not that I'm complaining, but why now?" Lith asked. "You still had a bit of time. You could have talked to Mom and Dad first or at least undergone the transformation with the support of our family instead of alone during a deadly battle."
"I wasn't alone. Valia was with me." Tista replied. "It's thanks to her that I understood how stupid I have been to waste my time with hesitation. Fear had brought me to turn my own body into a prison.
"It was like having the Strangler again. Always scared of the future and with my body aching from terrible pain, but this time it wasn't a cruel joke of fate. It was all on me. I was simply tired of suffering for no reason.
"Tired of waiting for others to find solutions to my problems like I did for most of my life. As for Mom and Dad, we had the conversation about my life forces many times yet I needed none.
"I've seen how they treat you and how you treat them. Becoming a Tiamat didn't make them love you any less and vice versa. I had no reason to even think that it would have been any different for me, I was just making excuses to stall.
"Whatever happens from now on, I can finally stand by your side as an equal. Be it against your enemies or helping Elysia with her future struggles, you are not alone anymore, little brother." Tista hugged Lith, the contact between their scales sharing their affection for each other.
By turning into a Divine Beast, Tista had made their bond grow deeper than just blood. They didn't belong to the same species but they walked the same path.
"By the way, it's the first time I have a face mask." Tista pointed at the scales covering her usually-exposed fangs. "How do I retract them when I want to spew Origin Flames?"
She took a deep breath, but aside from smoke puffing from between the scales, nothing happened.
"It works the same as unfolding your wings." Lith replied. "Unlike the rest of our scales, they are connected to new muscles you have to learn how to flex. Like this."
Lith's mask opened and closed quickly a few times, showing her how the scales were supposed to slide over each other. Tista tried to imitate him but with no success.
pandasnovel.com "My problem is that even though I found the new tissues with Invigoration, I have no idea how to trigger them. My face feels the same as before and I've already tried everything I could think of. Any suggestions for newbies?"
"Yes. Do you remember when you first got your wings and didn't know how to fold and unfold them on your back?" Lith asked and Tista nodded for him to continue. "Same thing. Flex your whole body at once and instinct will do the rest."
"Like this?" Tista took a deep breath, clenching her teeth while tensing every fiber of her being.
"I did it!" She said once she felt something sliding off her face. "It's way easier than-"
Alas, it was quickly followed by something else sliding off her chest and crotch.
"What the heck, Tista!" Luckily, the Demon had already shrunk to human size so Quylla rushed in front of the Demon and covered Tista with a mage robe. "We are all Healers but this is still inappropriate."
"What's the matter?" Tista lowered her gaze, noticing her exposed body and turning to a flaming shade of red.
"Dammit, I forgot about that." Lith turned around, glad that no one had been with him back when he had encountered the same issue after achieving the violet. "Now that you are not a hybrid anymore, all of your forms have a full set of organs."
"Interesting." Ajatar nodded. "Now we are certain that whatever Tista is, it's still a mammal and that her reproductive method is the same as a human's. Can you shapeshift into a Dragon and a Phoenix?"
"I'm not doing this on purpose!" Tista covered herself while trying to put the scales back into place but the stiffness from the embarrassment kept them retracted. "How do I fix this?"
"You just need to calm down." Lith replied once he had permission to look again. "Then, you need a private place to learn how to move the scales of each area one at a time."
"How do I calm down? I just flashed my body!" She said with a snort.
"For example, you can start by thanking the gods that Morok and Nalrond aren't here." Quylla said. "That would have been awkward."
"Good gods!" Tista turned a pale red at the thought. "I really dodged a fireball here."
Luckily for her, the Rezar was using his bloodline abilities to follow Morok's group inside Zelex and act as first response backup in case something went wrong.
"Also, you can start by thinking about how to call yourself from now on." Lith said.
"Good point. Any suggestion that's not a variation of Red Demon?" Between the safety of the robe and the focus on the issue, her scales moved back to their original position yet Tista kept the robe closed tightly.
"Depends." Lith shrugged. "How many forms do you have? Can you shapeshift into a Dragon and a Phoenix, making them four, or do you only get one of them like me?"
"Excellent question." Tista nodded while putting back her Voidwalker armor and shapeshifting into her human form. "Yet that's a talk for another day. I'm not doing any more experiments until I get some privacy so that I won't embarrass myself further."
***
The underground city of Zelex, at the same time.
The Hati Queen guided their guests toward the senate, unaware of the presence of the Rezar following them just a few meters below the street level. Nalrond was forced to stop outside the white crystal gates of the building due to the powerful arrays covering it down to its foundation.
'It's still better than nothing.' He thought. 'At the first sign of alarm from the guards, I can cause a distraction and keep Friya and the others from being surrounded.'
As they walked through the city, Morok noticed that the monster tribes either looked at him with blind admiration or burning hate. The followers of Glemos believed the young Tyrant to be the prophesized savior while everyone else considered him no better than his father.
Once inside, Syrah brought the group to a private chamber with a domed roof. It was smaller than the room where the senate discussed their dealing with the Undead Courts and administered the rites of passage.
It contained a circular white marble table with many wooden chairs around it.
Several cabinets were lined up against the walls, each one filled with either dried food or bottles of liquor. The few pieces of art decorating the room were small busts and paintings of Tyrants that seemed to look down on their guests.
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