CHAPTER 125: AWAKENING!

"Hmm? What do you mean? Isn’t this how you absorb the blood?’

Lucien saw his grandpa and Velmara getting surprised and asked. He truly didn’t think much when chugging it down, as he had no idea how to refine this dragon blood.

He was just waiting for his passive to work on its own.

Sure enough, as Lucien thought, as soon as he drank the entire flask of diluted blood, he first felt his stomach getting warmer than normal.

Then, unexpectedly, Lucien suddenly felt dizzy out of nowhere.

"Fuck!"

He couldn’t help but curse as this was too sudden and overwhelming, as he felt his entire body literally squirm in every corner.

It was as if every cell in his body suddenly turned hyperactive, as if injected with a stimulant.

"Swoosh!"

Then, to Lucien’s astonishment, he felt the entire liquid inside his stomach getting sucked forcefully in an instant.

The sucking was unconsciously done by his own body, and it was so aggressive that Malcolm and Velmara could only watch in horror as Lucien’s stomach caved inward at a terrifying rate, as if some invisible force was vacuuming every last drop of liquid straight into his very core.

The sight was so grotesque and unnatural that his abdomen was collapsing almost dangerously against his spine, leaving the impression that he was being hollowed out from within.

It didn’t even look like a human body anymore, but rather like a vessel desperately trying to contain a power far beyond what it was meant to hold.

"Lucien, are you alright?"

Malcolm asked worriedly, as he saw Lucien grabbing his stomach with one hand while the other grabbed his head, trying to steady himself from the extreme dizziness.

"Ah... ugh..."

Not only that, he saw Lucien getting visibly thinner and thinner until he was almost a skeleton while yelling loudly in pain.

He never thought that drinking diluted dragon blood could still have such an adverse reaction.

"Lucien, hold on... I will help you."

Feeling that the situation was getting out of control, Malcolm finally decided to step in and save his grandson when he heard a faint whisper from Lucien amid his gasps,

"H-Hungry..."

"What...?"

At first, Malcolm and Velmara didn’t understand what he said, as it was quite intermittent and unclear.

But when Lucien raised his head and looked at them with a gaze that almost scared them, they understood what he wanted.

"Hungry... g-give me... b-blood..."

Lucien was feeling so much pain that he was literally experiencing what it meant to be torn from the inside.

While Malcolm and Velmara only saw him getting thinner, he, on the other hand, could feel something far different inside.

He could feel how each and every cell inside him was greedily sucking in the blood he had just drunk, voraciously devouring it as if it had been starving for ages, and then immediately performing reconstruction on its own.

Muscles, bones, veins, and even the tiniest fragments of his flesh were trembling, tearing down their old structures, and rebuilding stronger ones at a frightening pace.

And this wasn’t limited to a part of his body; it was happening in every single cell with no exceptions.

From the marrow in his bones to the strands of his hair, every corner of his existence was undergoing a ruthless rebirth.

You could imagine the pain he was feeling right now.

And the result? The result was that the blood he drank was far from sufficient for this rebirth.

After all, Dragon King’s Physique was an A-rank physique.

How could it be so easy to awaken?

Because Lucien managed to get an SSS-rank skill simultaneously before, he tended to ignore the mere A-rank one.

However, he forgot that this one was related to his physique and wasn’t relying on something external, like the Seed of Greed and Lust he gained directly from the system.

He didn’t experience anything before when receiving the reward because his body didn’t have any draconic essence at all.

Maybe, he would have gained that too from Zeyvyr if the Debt Value was at 100 points. But now it was too late.

As with him drinking that flask of dragon blood, although diluted, it directly managed to trigger his body’s metamorphosis.

"Oh? Okay, Okay....wait a sec..."

Malcolm heard Lucien and, with a face full of anxiety, directly shattered the new vessel once again, generating a crimson river that floated in front of him.

Only, unlike before when the blood hovered silently, controlled and restrained by Malcolm’s power, this time, the moment it was released, it was as if the blood itself had lost all will of its own.

In an instant, Malcolm and Velmara saw the entire crimson river twisting violently and surging forward like a maddened beast that had finally found its master.

"Swoosh!"

Then, to their surprise, with a deafening whoosh, it was directly sucked into Lucien’s mouth by an overwhelming force.

The scene was so comical yet terrifying that nobody knew what to say.

Such a large volume of crimson liquid, and Lucien sucked it all into his tiny mouth as soon as it appeared.

Not to mention, all of this was done by him with physical force alone, with no mana involved in the process.

Truly, they finally realized how hungry Lucien really was.

"Look, it seems he is recovering."

Fortunately, although the scene was comical, the result was gratifying as they finally saw Lucien recovering some of his form.

Even his yelling and pain stopped as he finally closed his eyes, as if focusing on absorbing the huge amount of blood that he had just sucked forcefully.

"Is he... awakening his physique?"

Velmara suddenly asked again, as he saw that while Lucien was indeed recovering, his body wasn’t like the one from before.

Instead, he saw Lucien suddenly growing taller, his frame becoming leaner and firmer than before.

His muscles tightened and hardened, looking so perfectly sculpted that just a glance was enough to feel the power radiating from them.

Even dark, gleaming scales began appearing across his skin, shimmering like a dragon’s armor, while faint outlines of horns slowly pushed their way out from his head.

It was a proper rebirth happening right before their eyes, a transformation so raw and undeniable that it made the air itself feel heavy with awe and dread.

Not to mention the undeniable aura of a dragon, they could already feel from Lucien.

"Dragon King physique... it is Dragon King physique. How is it possible?"

After seeing such things, if Malcolm still didn’t realize what was happening to Lucien, he would be a fool.

But precisely because he knew what it was, he was totally flabbergasted.

A human that managed to awaken a Dragon King physique. Just hearing it sounded absurd.

After all, this physique was exclusive to dragons and couldn’t be replicated like this.

Not to mention, Malcolm already felt that what Lucien awakened was an authentic one and wasn’t some copy induced by ingesting dragon blood.

"Ugh... cough!"

However, just as Lucien was slowly transforming, his body undergoing rebirth while simultaneously healing itself through his regeneration ability, his metamorphosis suddenly halted midway.

The process that had been flowing so violently and relentlessly came to an abrupt standstill, leaving his form caught between human and dragon, as if frozen in an incomplete state.

’No, it isn’t enough.’

Only then did he realize that all the blood he had just ingested had already been digested, and there was nothing left inside his body.

Hence, he failed to activate his new passive properly. After all, the system did say he needed draconic essence.

Just mere blood, even if it was of a higher rank, wasn’t enough to finish the process.

"Fuck... again?"

Sure enough, once his body realized the blood was gone, it immediately showed its colors once again, violently bombarding him with that unbearable hunger.

And because this time he was stopped just before completing his transformation, the condition was even worse as Lucien directly lost his reasoning altogether and roared in fury.

"Roar!"

Only, the roar wasn’t human but draconic.

His body was already half dragon and half human due to his transformation. Now, scales covered parts of his skin, while even his eyes narrowed into vertical slits just like a dragon’s.

"Lucien... control yourself."

Malcolm and Velmara both felt that guttural, non-human roar from Lucien, and it sent shivers down their spines.

For a brief moment, when Lucien’s slit eyes fixed on them, they felt as if he might actually eat them alive right there.

Such raw, animalistic, and wild hunger was simply too powerful to ignore.

Even though they were far more powerful than he was, those predatory eyes were something else, innately.

"Focus... Lucien, FOCUS!"

Seeing such a huge transformation and Lucien losing his sanity all of a sudden, Malcolm became extremely anxious.

He had also already realized that the dragon blood wasn’t enough at all. To be honest, from how voraciously Lucien absorbed it, there wasn’t even a need for him to dilute that thing before.

But now, the situation had turned for the worse as he had no supplement to give him, even though it was such a critical stage.

So, Malcolm hurriedly came close and grabbed Lucien’s shoulder, intending to use his power to stop him forcefully.

Although it might damage his awakening, it would at least bring back his sanity.

He couldn’t risk Lucien damaging himself like this anymore.

"Malcolm, l-look..."

However, just when he was about to do just that, suddenly he was stopped by Velmara, who pointed behind him in utter disbelief, his voice trembling a little.