The Glorious Evolution

Levi let out a long exhale to calm his racing heart... after his last soul-split evolution, even the thought of evolving triggered his PTSD.

Although he knew the Sun and Void were somewhat cool with him after he gave them their own souls and wouldn’t make his life hell during future evolutions, he still couldn’t forget the trauma of his soul burning under Aether flames.

But as he recalled the destruction and havoc Bishop Na’thir and his goons caused, the last bits of hesitation died in his heart.

Levi brought the bottle to his lips and emptied it in one gulp.

Sweetness coated his tongue, followed by a bitterness that made his stomach protest... a sour taste worked its way along his gums... it was like the formula dared to touch all of his receptors with every possible taste.

He forced himself to swallow before his body reconsidered the decision.

’Months of searching... and it tastes like shit.’

’Complain after it works.’

Levi recited the incantation that awakened his tattoo and pressed the crimson seed at his tailbone.

The concoction’s influence reached the main soul, and the Nine Senses Seed within it responded... its roots tightened around the foundations they already occupied, drawing in the nourishment for their next development.

For several seconds, Levi felt nothing beyond warmth gathering in his abdomen.

His next pulse interrupted his breathing.

Ka-thumb!

The roots thickened.

Pressure spread through his pelvis and descended along his legs, making his toes curl against the floor.

Above it, the trunk expanded along the spine of his soul, pushing through the limits of its previous growth.

Levi kept his attention on the process as the branches divided farther through the chest and shoulders... buds swelled along their lengths, opening into crimson leaves one after another.

Each development sent a corresponding change through his flesh.

His muscles contracted around the growing network. Tendons pulled until his limbs refused to settle comfortably, and the connections running through his body deepened with every beat of his heart.

Levi pressed his palms against the ground and let the process continue... it was painful, but compared to what he went through during the previous evolution, it was a breath of fresh air.

With the Sun and Void Seeds occupying separate souls and their physical networks remaining apart, the separation spared him the attacks that turned his earlier evolutions into a struggle between all three.

But then... the pain turned into a wave of numbness spreading across his mouth.

It wasn’t the good kind that spared him the pain.

It felt like an army of ants taking tiny bites out of every inch of his mouth... a maddening sensation he couldn’t rub or scratch away.

Levi moved his tongue around, pressing it against his palate. When that failed to ease the feeling, he pushed it between his teeth and bit down.

He even rolled onto his stomach and pressed his tongue against the floor, rubbing it back and forth in a desperate attempt to soothe the maddening sensation, uncaring about hygiene.

Anything to make it stop...

As though answering his complaint, the Soulleech Maw suddenly burst out of his palm!

Its purplish tongue lashed out, curling and twisting as the same changes worked through its flesh... having a second tongue as part of his entity meant having a second victim!

The little creature chilled peacefully until the most irritating sensation of its short life assaulted it.

It also tried dragging its tongue against its teeth, but that did nothing... when it saw its father dragging his tongue across the floor, it didn’t hesitate to slap its own down next to his and begin rubbing it back and forth with the same desperate urgency!

Within the Spiritual Leywell, Ash’Kral and the Titan watched the two of them licking the rough ground in silence.

Then, the Titan slowly turned toward Ash’Kral.

”Is it really that bad?”

Ash’Kral merely shrugged and stuck out his own tongue.

It trembled, its surface shifting as it underwent the same mutation... yet the rest of his face remained perfectly calm.

The Titan glanced between him and Levi, who rubbed his tongue against the floor even harder.

”...I see.”

The Titan knew that Ash’Kral wasn’t a good reference... after so many evolutions, nothing seemed to faze him anymore.

’Fuck!! I’d be better off cutting it!’

Meanwhile, just as this thought started taking over Levi’s mind, he found his tongue refusing to obey him!

Then, it began to grow, thickening at the base and forcing his jaw wider.

He tried to pull it back into his mouth, but it kept lengthening on its own... sliding farther across the floor as the muscles under his chin strained.

Past its swollen base, the tongue grew slender, tapering toward an end that split into two fine tips... both twitching as the organ curled like a snake outside his mouth!

Black markings began surfacing along its length.

Through his Harmonic Spine, Levi followed two bands of inscriptions twisting from the root toward the tip.

Their paths wound around one another, while smaller symbols branched across the spaces between them to connect the two bands... the emerging tattoo resembled a strand of DNA, though its connections were far more elaborate and mysterious.

Each new stroke brought another stab of pain.

’Ilthorien inscriptions?’

Levi groaned as he watched the symbols link into an array that followed the tongue’s length... before it finished, another formation appeared between its strokes, adding its own inscriptions to the twisting design.

Where Levi expected them to collide, their strokes passed through one another and settled at different depths.

Ten arrays became dozens... he counted past a hundred before the activity grew too dense to follow individually.

Together, they formed a continuous pattern of intertwined inscriptions, narrowing with the tongue until its final branches divided between the forked tips.

Meanwhile, the Soulleech Maw’s tongue remained more or less the same, except for its forked tips and the Ilthorien tattoo forming across its surface.

Its design resembled a river of souls... countless figures crowded its banks, some human, others bearing horns, wings, or shapes Levi couldn’t recognize.

Their bodies unraveled into threads that flowed toward the tongue’s root, where they became strokes of Ilthorien script.

Aetheric green glimmered within the black tattoo. Whenever the tongue moved, the figures seemed to drift deeper into it... their forms disappearing while the inscriptions preserved something of each.

Before Levi could think about its meaning, the accumulated pain made his teeth ache, and his throat tightened around breaths he could no longer take through his mouth.

Then, the pressure concentrated around his upper canines.

Both teeth began to lengthen, forcing their way past his swollen gums as their tips narrowed into points.

They curved slightly inward, framing the tongue with a pair of vampire-like fangs... with that forked muscle hanging between them, his open mouth looked disturbingly serpentine!

Levi forced air through his nose as a mixture of blood and saliva gathered along his lower lip... he let it fall rather than attempt to swallow while the mutation continued altering the muscles around the tongue’s root.

The tongue remained a healthy pink as the formations connected, making the black tattoo stand out against its surface.

Then, every inscription activated at once.

Within the Spiritual Leywell, Ash’Kral stopped examining his own tongue.

His attention fixed on the black inscriptions twisting along Levi’s... he followed their connections toward the forked tip, and the amusement left his face.

’...Is it?’

Beside him, the Titan went still.

He leaned closer, studying the pattern as though searching for a difference he already knew he wouldn’t find.

Then, he turned toward Ash’Kral.

Their gazes met.

Neither spoke.

The Titan recognized that tongue... and the ancient creature that once possessed it.

He remembered watching its owner die.