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I suppose I\'ll just have to —

Wait.

Alex would have slapped himself in the forehead had he not been holding a Spatial Mirror in one hand and a Soul Flame in the other. He had quite a few monsters. Nothing in Harmonious Evolution said there was a time limit on how often he could use it.

There was absolutely no reason for him to use two of his strongest Soul Flames on his first attempt when he could test out how the ability worked on something far less important first.

Almost got ahead of myself there. That would have been stupid. I can\'t let myself make impulsive decisions just because they\'re cool… too often. A few cool decisions don\'t hurt anyone.

I\'ll do a quick combination of two random monsters just to see how it works, then meld the Dredge and the Block-Eater Centipede right afterward.

Alex returned the green and black flame to his Mirror. He then plucked out two more Soul Flames — one from a Corpse Burrower, and one from a Corpse Poker. They both had corpse in the name, but he was pretty sure the combination would be terrible. There wasn\'t much actual synergy between them.

And that\'s fine. The best way to learn is to fuck things up. Once I know what doesn\'t work, I can figure out what does.

He released his Spatial Mirror, which vanished and returned to his side. The typical grey energy that marked its passing was invisible in the grayscale that ruled the world while Alex had Harmonious Evolution active.

Lifting the two Soul Flames, Alex held them out before him. Faint energy pulsed from both of them, pressing against his hands and each other. He tried bringing the flames closer together and the resistance increased — though not by a significant amount.

Both of the flames started to glow as they drew closer still. A faint purple aura emanated out from them and bit into the gray around them, tinging it with color. Alex squinted as he moved the flames until they were nearly touching.

A high-pitched hum rose up into the air and the Soul Flames started to tremble in his hands, trying to fling themselves from his grip. Arcs of energy popped off their surfaces and formed into a miniature storm between them.

It feels just like combining Title Fragments, but a bit easier.

Let\'s see how this turns out, then.

Alex brought his hands together like he was clapping. He slammed the two flames into each other and squeezed his eyes shut as a brilliant flash lit up the gray world. A wave of electric energy washed over him and buzzed across his skin. It was followed by a wall of pressure that drove into Alex\'s gut like a punch.

He stumbled a step back and opened his eyes to find a brilliant ball of white light floating where the two soul flames had been. It pulsated with shifting energy, sending ripples of purple and black light washing out in waves.

Alex held a hand up to block the light and squinted past it. He could see the vague form of… something within the light. The shadow of a pointed beak the length of his arm. Dark limbs, each one nearly as tall as him, shifting and warping.

The buzzing filling the air turned into a deep, thumping bass. The monster within the light grew darker, taking a more concrete form. Limbs snapped into place with loud cracks and flesh bubbled within the light, sliding to form over a new body.

There were several loud splashing thuds as something heavy dropped down onto the dark lake that stretched across Alex\'s Mind Palace. A pop filled his ears and his stomach clenched as the pressure around him abruptly shifted.

The light vanished, the world returned to grayscale, and Alex\'s face twisted in involuntary disgust.

A horrible mass of flesh and feathers sat on the ground before him. The monster, like the Soul Flames, arrived in full color, but it almost didn\'t matter. It was a pallid whitish-gray, with black nails at the end of gangly, clawed limbs jutted out from it at odd angles.

A long yellow beak stuck out from a birdlike face, a thin blood-red tongue lolling from within it. It had a bulbous body that sagged under its own weight. Weeping wounds covered its surface and the sickly smell of rotted meat wafted from its body. The monster rose to its feet unsteadily, its beak clacking as it got its bearings.

Corpse Mass (Novice 5)

Fire erupted across its body no more than an instant later and it twisted in on itself, forming into a Soul Flame to float before Alex.

Mid Grade Novice (Corpse Mass) - 4

"Right," Alex said, wiping at his nose in a fruitless attempt to remove the lingering stench that still assaulted it. "Combination… successful. They combined, but that combination was fucking awful. Also looks like it ended up at Mid Grade, while the components were High and Low Grade. It must have averaged their strength. That\'s good to know."

I did want to see what happened when two monsters I suspected wouldn\'t mesh well together were merged. I guess I got my wish.

The Corpse Poker and Burrower had both been tangentially related in what they ate, but their actual forms were very different. The former was a tiny scavenger bird, while the latter was more of an ambush predator.

Their fighting styles and general traits were definitely too different, then. So the skill functions pretty much how I expected, and it doesn\'t look like just being a Mirrorlands Monster is enough to make them similar.

He nodded to himself. That lined up with what he\'d originally expected, but it was good to confirm his guesses. His thoughts turned to the two monsters he actually wanted to combine.

The Blacktongue Dredge and the Riftwarped Bock-Eater Centipede.

They weren\'t as different as the previous two had been. Alex wasn\'t entirely sure which traits were the most important to share, but he didn\'t feel like they had anything that would be directly in opposition to each other.

The Riftwarped aspect might cause some something to shift, but I have no idea what and won\'t have a way to find out until I test the combination. I don\'t think there\'s any way to figure out what that\'ll be beyond just saying fuck it and seeing what happens.

Eh. Fuck it. I\'ve got a basic grasp on the ability now. Let\'s see what this ability can really do.

Alex drew a Spatial Mirror free from the deck and plunged his hand into its chilly depths, pulling free the Riftwarped Centipede\'s Soul Flame once more. The black and purple fire crackled and buzzed in his hand as he dismissed the mirror and strode over to the Blacktongue Dredge, grabbing its Soul Flame.

The pressure between the Soul Flames was immediately evident. His hands were pushed apart like he was holding massive magnets. Alex\'s arms tensed, halting the monsters attempts to fight back.

I wonder what a stronger opposition means. The last combination was bad and had an easy combination… that could just be because they were weaker, though.

Only one way to find out.

Gritting his teeth, Alex brought the flames together. They fought back against him and desperately tried to slip free of his grip. He didn\'t let them. Slowly, steadily, he pushed the two motes of light closer and closer.

Energy ignited between them, a crackling storm surrounding his arms and buzzing as it brushed across his skin. Light spilled out as Alex brought the Soul Flames closer still. It burned the grayscale world away, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut as the flames grew closer and their energy grew brighter.

The resistance the monsters put up grew stronger the closer he brought them together. He could feel the warmth from the energy pouring out of them heating the air and warming his skin. It felt like he\'d stepped out into a hot summer day.

His teeth clenched tighter and Alex let his hands slack slightly, drawing on as much strength as he could muster. Even as the flames slipped back an inch, he drove his hands together.

The momentum slammed the flames into each other.

There was a brilliant flash. Pressure slammed him back several steps and he raised his hands before his face to protect it.

Wind buffeted his hair and bit at his eyes. He squinted past his fingers. A ball of purple energy floated in the air around eleven feet in diameter, arcs of black lightning racing throughout it. The huge orb pulsated, thrumming with power.

Something moved within the orb. The shadow of a centipede\'s leg, connected to a huge, dark mass. Alex grit his teeth as the light grew brighter. Crunches and squelching, ripping noises tore through his Mind Palace.

He fought to try and make out what the new monster was, anxiety twisting his stomach. It was hard to make out any details within the light. All he could do was wait.

Seconds slipped by.

The pressure finally pulled back. All the light vanished, sucked into the monster, and Alex drew in a sharp breath as he laid eyes upon his new monster.

A towering, hunchbacked humanoid made of thick black sludge loomed before him. The monster was almost twice as large as the original Dredge had been. It was wider and taller, easily making it Alex\'s biggest monster by a wide margin.

Its mask was still made of bleached white bone, with two horizontal crescents for eyes and an inverted one for the mouth.

Along its chest, running from just below its mask and down to its hips, was a gaping line. A ripple passed down the line and sludge-like flesh pulled back to reveal a vertical mouth running through the monster\'s center. It roiled with rows upon rows of small, pointed teeth that would rip anything unfortunate enough to be caught within it to shreds.

Two extra undulating arms rose up over the monster\'s back, curling over its shoulders like Dr. Octopus\' robotic limbs. They rippled in eerie unison, made up of dozens upon dozens of undulating centipede legs.

Purplish-red energy crackled like a miniature storm behind the eye holes of the monster\'s mask. Ripples of it occasionally passed through its vicious body like a slow moving storm before being swallowed by the darkness once more.

Riftwarped Devouring Dredge (Initiate 2)

Alex swallowed heavily before his lips were pulled apart in a mixture of delight and revulsion. The monster was horrifying. It looked like it had been ripped right out of somebody\'s fever-induced nightmare.

It\'s hideous.

I love it.