Second Genesis

The fang necklace rarely showed any signs of, well... anything. It hung from his neck and didn’t display the might a set should have, in all honesty.

The greatest thing Grey received from it was the +3 to all his Vampire Lord Abilities, but that wasn’t as shocking a thing anymore, not when his Crimson Dragon Frame gave him +2 to all of his Abilities regardless of Frame.

Granted, the Crimson Dragon Frame was a higher level item. It made sense that it could simply do more. But even so, Grey was just waiting for the day the fang set stopped being useful to him like its stat bonuses had.

Yet, despite all of this, the moment Grey took hold of the fang like he did, there was a shuddering uproar that coursed through his body. Veins of crimson ran up his arm. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them, pulsing as though a heart had appeared in his forearm.

’Excited to get out, are we?’

Grey’s gaze flashed as he felt something coming from the fang necklace and he moved on instinct.

He brought out both fang daggers and the shaking of the fang necklace calmed somewhat.

’I know what to do.’

Grey had been trying to consider how he should go forward. He had two Pimp Gloves in front of him—one for his left hand and the other, obviously, for his right—but the Wolf Spirit could only go into one of them.

He had an ambitious plan to link them into a single mech, and luckily, Prometheus had confirmed that that would be possible.

However, what he didn’t yet know was exactly how his body would react to that.

It seemed, though... that this was also exactly what the Wolf Spirit wanted.

’This compatibility is about to be off the charts.’

The compatibility of the Star Swallower and his Steel-Toe Shrouds was already excellent, but this was even beyond that. It just might...

’Maybe. Let’s see.’

Grey’s eyes glowed. He pressed one fang dagger into one gauntlet and the other into the other. Then, he laid the fang necklace down between them.

A shudder ran through the length of his body, his hair standing on end as jolts of electricity ran through the air.

Elowen was already in a deep state of shock by this point. She felt like she was watching a genius beyond her comprehension, but this...

’There’s just... no way...’

Life.

That was the only way to describe it. The mechs were coming to life before the Spirit had even fully integrated into its body.

This phenomenon had a name. It was called Spark Life, and it only happened when a Spirit sensed a high Sync Rate coming from a mech it had yet to integrate with.

When this happened, it meant a Spirit would cross a 50% Sync Rate, a Sync Rate that was practically unheard of.

For context, Spirits weren’t normal existences. Although they were divided into Proving Class and so on, it could be said that almost no Spirits were actually at such a low Class when they were alive—at least not the once-living Spirits.

Spirits were essentially the echoes of things that were once far more powerful when they were alive.

In the rare instance that a Spirit and its Class during its lifetime matched...

This was truly astonishing.

For a Spirit to maintain its Class after dying it meant that their baseline talent was so great that they could persist at that level even after their death.

Those were the very best of the best Spirits to get, undoubtedly.

All of this was to say that when you had a high Sync Rate with a Spirit, you were tapping into far more of their power at their peak than you otherwise would, which essentially meant that you were benefiting from a far higher power.

Giving a Spirit a Vessel was like giving them a body. And giving them a body meant you were essentially bringing them back to a point before they died... which in turn meant you were tapping into their real strength before their regression.

The lines of sparking electricity suddenly morphed into the image of a wolf that howled toward the skies as though lamenting the ceiling above them.

BANG.

The fang necklace shattered and a silvery-gold Spirit shot into the "body" of the electrical pulses, and then they dove down into the gauntlets.

Before Grey could react, the gauntlets rushed toward him and prickled against his hands, sliding into place.

The pulsing veins on his forearms raced up to his shoulders, across his chest, and formed larger and larger roots at his heart.

BADDUM.

BADDUM.

BADDUM.

Every heartbeat felt hundreds of times louder, every one of them threatening to rip his soul out of his body.

’Intent. Intent. Intent.’

Grey roared in his mind, forcing himself to focus as the power of the Wolf Spirit threatened to rip him apart.

And then he actually roared.

Flashing strands of electricity danced in the air and his eyes, a lightning storm playing out in his irises as he felt his Vampire Lord Ability reach an impossible Sync point.

The fang daggers melted into his gauntlets and swam to his heart as well, a loop forming around them all.

And then Grey heard a low growl.

But it wasn’t a growl from the wolf, nor himself... but instead a growl that sounded ancient beyond measure...

The growl of a dragon.

The circuitry running up and down across his Crimson Dragon Nexis Suit flashed with power and somehow pulled more from the wolf than Grey could himself.

A balance was formed and energy poured out from the Wolf Spirit into Grey.

And at that moment, he heard the true name of the Wolf Spirit for the first time as the name of his Pimp Gloves changed on their own.

’Ancestral Origin Wolf.’

He thought the words and then breathed them out as though to stamp them into the world.

His crimson eyes glowed, his white hair still standing on end.