Artemis felt his legs begin to buckle underneath him. Although he was still endowed with that fiery Daemonic essence, it felt like he was burning through it far too quickly, and it felt like it was consuming all of his stamina just to keep itself going. It took everything in him to stand up straight.
So in the end, he fell to his knees in a hail of panting.
His severed arm lay before him, a heap of rubied meat that still twitched whenever the wind brushed against a cluster of nerves. The pain from the stumpish counterpart still attached to him, cut away around halfway through his upper arm, burnt with radiant agony. While it seemed like Lark's Daemonic countenance was working hard to counteract and heal it, it wasn't enough to alleviate it fully.
If I do something like that again... lose another arm... then it might get pretty difficult to hold my sword...
Although he joked with himself, in truth, he was finding it hard to excuse the turmoil in his heart.
And that was because during that fight, he hadn't been strong or skilled, he had been utterly helpless. If it hadn't been for whatever intervention Lark had initiated, he would have died there.
He was so overwhelmed to the point where losing an arm became an adequate solution to the task of surviving. He could excuse this as just a part of his style that had been ingrained into him by his instructors since birth, but that wasn't really the truth, he had never considered him a brutal fighter, certainly not like his father. And neither did he have the grace of his brother.
All of that really just meant that he had been backed into a desperate corner for no other reason than that he had been weak.
Of all of the things Lark had done to him, of which he had come to have an intricate knowledge of, it was the enhanced regeneration effects which had kept him alive throughout the fight. With his entire focus now on his body, he could see a faint outline of thin crimson lines that ran through his body, emanating from a larger ball of red strands in the center of his chest.
Is this... the essence of a Daemon? Why has it settled in my chest instead of my eye, like most Spirits would do?
They weren't static, pulsating every so often. When they would finish sealing one of his wounds from the inside, they would slither towards the next, coursing through his body with a fiery warmth that wasn't exactly painful, but also not very comfortable. Although, that could have just been the fact that he had injured his body so greatly that even breathing hurt...
The serpentine stitchwork under his skin eventually reached his severed arm, now paying it a bit more attention considering he wasn't shedding an intense amount of blood as he fought. Although it didn't seem to be growing new flesh outwards into a new arm, the strands focused on making sure he couldn't bleed out, a thin layer of skin enshrouding the mushy crimson pulp of his wound.
Although he was a bit saddened that they didn't seem to have that application, he was already ready to accept the consequences of his actions. Being a fool deserved at least this much punishment.
Although, by thinking such a thing, Artemis wondered if a bit more of his false father's brutality had rubbed off onto him than he first suspected.
As he watched the snake-like strands heal his arm, Artemis tilted his head, curious.
I know each of the Archknights are able to summon animals as a product of their contract... are these serpent-strands similar to that? Is it possible that Lark was actually a snake-like creature? A conniving bastard... that makes a lot of sense, actually. He could be nothing else...
I wonder what the particular differences are between a Contractee of a Daemon and a Contractee of a normal Spirit...?
There weren't... any Daemon Contractees at all in the Blackbaast, really. After all, it was a vilified sort of magic. While he had known of the perils of Spirit Magic for a long time, he had never considered there to be much difference between the two except for that one was considered morally acceptable, and the other wasn't at all.
But now, confronted with it, he found himself quite curious.
Looking down at his chest, he saw the malevolent crimson strands coarse down towards his abdomen, weaving over his shattered ribs in an attempt to repair them.
This continued for several minutes until his bone structure felt pleasantly normal, a bit of pain still pulsating in his abdomen.
Then, those same crimson strands seemed to look further in his abdomen, towards his organs, twitching as if ready to move again.
But they hesitated. Instead, it seemed they had changed their mind, and began circulating back through his body and returning to the crimson core in the center of his chest.
How peculiar...
Artemis scoffed, trying to suppress his laughter. Even though his wounds had mostly been healed, every bit of movement still made something hurt. So he thought he might as well act like a statue until he had properly recovered.
Well, if you're done, can I finally study what Lark has done to me?
More than that, why wasn't Lark speaking to him anymore? That annoying bastard had spent their whole initial meeting yapping like a dog, so why had he suddenly gone silent?
Are you just tired? Does doing something like this exhaust you? Can Spirits even get tired?
Well, whatever. When you want to talk, you can talk.
I can explore this without you in the meanwhile.
While he hadn't been to parse through what he had learned during the fight, his mind had instantly been imbued with fragments of knowledge, likely given to him whenever Lark had done whatever he had done, gifting his power to Artemis.
He had to recall that feeling, that strange sense of gathering lights that emerged when he focused on the ivory tree.
But this time, his focus wasn't directed to an element of his surroundings. It was himself. Particularly, the mass of red essence in the center of his chest.
And once more, that barely-legible script took shape in front of him, the light in his eyes shimmering as it adapted to read it. The lights malformed themselves and took the shape of runes he could discern, smiling with elation as he realised this.
His eyebrows flew up as he read the first lines, muttering to himself.
"Theres... no way... Lark, is this...?"
[Boon of the Serpent Prince]
The remnant power of the Serpent Prince, the eldest son of the Blossom Daemon. This terrifying, cunning lineage was fractured by the death of the Prince, what fragments left bestowed to the Bastard Prince in a dire moment at the behest of the Shadow.
===
The words crackled as he spoke them, like lightning on the edge of his tongue. The words carried an aura of malice, a vile feeling that buried itself in his bones, making him nauseous. As if there was anything left in his stomach for him to throw up...
The Serpent Prince? Is this referring to Lark? He was a Prince too, or is this a matter of elegant naming, rather than an actual title? And why is this stupid ability calling me the Bastard Prince? Am I just something to be talked down to, no matter whose lips the words come from...?
He cursed as he continued reading through the script, trying to stand the sickness that spread through him.
===
[Boon of the Serpent Prince]
The Bastard Prince has been bestowed the traits of a Daemon, the Lineage itself withheld. While he cannot progress this path, he can use its accompanying traits and abilities. This does not mean the Bastard Prince has become a Daemon.
Daemon Traits:
[Core Serpent]
Woven into a coruscating spiral, the fractured Core Serpent handles the dispersion of essence throughout the body, allowing the Bastard Prince to use the traits of the Daemon and access its abilities.
These are the things moving throughout me, healing my wounds? They really are snakes... that's oddly terrifying. But they aren't physical, I can sense them. This heat, it's like energy, not flesh...
[Enhanced Physicality]
The Bastard Prince will experience enhanced strength, stamina, speed, durability, and perception. He will be raised to the pinnacle of human standards and well-exceed it in many regards.
And that's what allowed me to win the fight against the Daemon Knight...
[Enhanced Regeneration]
All damage sustained to the body will be adequately healed, given that the Bastard Prince lets the Core Serpent focus long enough for it to do so. Unlike a true Daemon, lost limbs will not be regenerated.
And why I didn't bleed out...
Daemon Abilities:
[Eyes of Discernment]
Allows the Bastard Pronce to see the innate makeup and history of something, as long as it is intended to be peered into by non-Deific beings. These appear as crimson runes in front of him that only he can see. He can use Eyes of Discernment on his own abilities to check their progress, such as how many living creatures he has consumed through Serpent Prince.
[Serpent Prince]
Bound by restrictions, the Bastard Prince would normally be able to summon the Daemon as a large, terrifying Serpent. However, due to the particular nature of the contract, the Daemon has been bound to the Bastard Prince, and as such, can be utilised as a form of transformation. The size of the beast is equivalent to how many living creatures it has consumed in its lifetime.
[Creatures Consumed: 1]
[Cyclic Gluttony]
By consuming a creature with innate magical properties in Serpent Prince form, the Bastard Prince can borrow one of its abilities at random. Once used, it will shatter into nothingness, rendering the Core Serpent empty.
===
He sat in silence for a moment, not only surprised by the depth of the abilites he had been granted, but by just how much they had benefited him so far.
He owed... quite a bit to Lark.
There was something else, another strand of runes hiding somewhere in the depths of all of this. Etched deep in the Core Serpent, the collection of coruscating crimson strands.
It was... speaking to him specifically.
His gaze shimmered as he read the first line of text.
"I am a Prince, and I am dead."