Mash walked through a portal, returning to his world to even more confusion. His domain was massive, and the sudden shift of setting flooded his mind with information. He staggered as he got accustomed to his surroundings. He barely managed it, only to be flooded by more information as the many bodies of Priscilla sent a month’s worth of information into his head. A little under a week in the dungeon had been just under a month here, and a lot had changed. He could see a lot with his domain, and he didn’t sense a single adventurer within it. The information Priscilla gave him, told him why.

  The war started soon after he entered, and it was keeping the adventurers busy. His friends were all fine, he could tell that much. Priscilla mentioned that something had happened to Lisa’s mark, which made sense considering how his own skill had changed. His siblings had been devasted by his supposed death. Mash was more than a little shocked to hear that they had assumed he had died. Although, it was a fair concern. He was one of those who should be able to leave a dungeon so long as he was alive. The only good reason for his sudden disappearance being death, made a lot of sense.

  [Mash, you're okay! What happened? Why did you just disappear like that?]

  Luna and Arthur berated him with questions, soon followed by a series of messages from his friends as well. Mash couldn’t answer them individually and told Priscilla to update them on what happened. Although, he told her to leave out the brand. A discussion like that should be handled in person.

  Mash turned toward the directions of his friends. He was certain Jill would teleport to him in a moment, but he wanted to test his own capabilities a little. Wings grew from Mash’s back. Not wooden, but a pair of real draconic wings sprouted from his back. Then he added more, another layer of wyvern wings grew just beneath him. The energy cost was small, insignificant compared to before. In the past, the mana cost would be immense and sustaining the form even more so. Now, the transformation took little of his energy, and he used none to maintain it.

  He shot from the ground with so much speed that he practically struck a solid wall of air. The more he sped up, the closer that wall felt. The skies seemed to want to trap him. To deny his flight, but he pushed through it. With a little bit of wind magic, he broke through that wall and felt the freedom of the skies. It was his to roam now. He considered going higher, to break into the skies where he had seen the dragon before. No, it wasn’t the time yet.

  The wind blew past him in a blur. Jill teleported beside him only to get blown back by the wind. She spiraled through the air and fell. Mash watched in his domain as she righted herself and teleported again. This time Mash did stop for her as she chose to teleport in front of him. His sudden stop didn’t stop the wind and it crashed into Jill, sending her tumbling through the air. Her next teleport sent her directly beside him, and she threw a punch at him. Mash easily dodged out of the way.

  “I swear to god Mash. Whatever happened to you; I think I can still teleport you to the bottom of the ocean.”

  Jill smiled widely, though tears ran down her cheeks.

  “You can’t teleport me there unless you went there while I was gone.”

  She didn’t respond as she struggled to form words through a half sob. Instead, she grabbed one of his hands and the world around them warped. An instant later he found himself in the middle of a tent. Then his domain caught up to him, and the battlefield had far too much going on. It felt like the information was literally banging on the inside of his skull. He lost his footing and nearly fell. Luke caught him and healed him without any questions.

  “Mash? Are you ok?”

  Mash nodded.

  “Yeah, my domain is a lot bigger. It takes a little bit for me to adjust when I teleport.”

  Luke didn’t step away from him after healing him. Instead, he pulled Mash into a hug. Lisa joined pressing into him from behind. Jill grabbed Red and joined as well. With how big Luke was, Neither Red nor Jill could actually touch Mash. Even still, he felt reassured by each of them.

  They lingered like that for a moment. Red was the first to separate, followed by Jill and Luke. Finally, Lisa let, go whispering something before parting.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Thank you.”

  She backed off before he could say anything else, and he felt like asking her in front of everyone wasn’t appropriate. He didn’t understand why she would thank him. And it wasn’t a simple thing either. He could feel her emotions a little and knew how genuine she was being. What had he done? As he thought about it, his eyes drifted toward the flowers on her arm.

  “Huh, that looks a lot better on you than me.”

  The flowers bright colors only highlighted Lisa’s strangely blue hair. He stared at her for a moment. When he noticed her staring back, he turned abruptly. His face burned with embarrassment.

  “You’re different somehow.”

  Lisa spoke as she continued to stare at him. He could both see and feel her eyes on the back of his head. He tried his best to explain what he thought she was mentioning.

  “Yeah, a whole lot. I’m a great monster of calamity now. And my name is no longer Mash. Also, I gained this thing called an aspect. Actually, I have two of them.”

  “Stop. Mash you aren’t making any sense. What exactly is your class? Priscilla didn’t tell us everything, just that you were okay and advanced.”

  Red cut off his poor explanation, realizing it wouldn’t lead anywhere. Mash calmed down and answered her question.

  “It’s not really a class. I got rid of the class system for something else. So, it’s the name of my, uh, species. I’m now ‘The Chimera of the End and the Beginning’.”

  Jill pantomimed cleaning her out.

  “Care to run that by us one more time?”

  “The Chimera of the End and the Beginning.”

  He replied automatically.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought I heard. So, are you going to need our help destroying the world or do we just watch? Honestly, I’m down for either.”

  Mash gave Jill a flat look.

  “I’ll help. It…sounds like fun.”

  Lisa added in but she was better at sounding genuine. She seemed genuinely eager to help him. He decided to play into it.

  “I don’t know, maybe after a couple of days. I just got back and need to test a few things first. You know like forcibly changing reality by manifesting the aspect of change.”

  “Explain.”

  Red stopped the joke with a single word. She seemed to realize that his words were more than a joke.

  “Yeah. I don’t really understand everything about them, but I got my aspects when my system changed. I had the option to become a king or a god, and they said I would receive something similar. The king was a throne of some type of power, and God would grant me a piece of divinity, whatever that is.”

  Mash stopped talking when he saw the empty stares and open mouths. They seemed frozen, and he waved his hands to get their attention. Jill was the first to speak, her voice laced with incredulity.

  “You can’t be serious. You chose not to be a god to become some monster.”

  “Wait, that’s your concern. How did you qualify to become a god?”

  Luke’s words cut as he said them with some notable hostility. He seemed to reject the very idea of it. Mash just shrugged his shoulders.

  “I think it's just a kind of power, not really about moral character or right.”

  Those were not the right words, and they devasted Luke. He took a few steps backward as if Mash had slapped him. Red stepped closer and asked Mash a more pointed question.

  “What did you do that you’re not telling us?”

  He took a half step away, wondering where she pulled that from. She was right, but he wondered what he had said to give it away.

  [I believe it was when you mentioned possessing your aspect, you referred to it in the plural.]

  Priscilla was just as sharp as Red and had noticed his slip. He sighed.

  “Fine, I got one more thing. Well, two technically. I have the aspect of change and was offered the aspect of freedom as well. I took it, but it had some consequences.”

  Mash hesitated a little. He knew that they would get angry if he told them what those consequences were. He wasn’t really all that worried since they usually took things well enough. He was surprised when Red spoke first.

  “We won’t get too angry. When we thought you died, we talked about a few things. One of those was about our decision to stick together. At least tell us what to expect.”

  She sounded regretful and abashed. Even with what they said, he wasn’t sure how the reality would come across.

  “It’s probably going to cause some problems. I got this thing called the Brand of Change and Freedom. It does some crazy stuff, including marking me as an enemy of those who would maintain. Also, I’m an enemy to all those who would bind people. I don’t think the method exactly matters. So, slavers, gods, kings, and maybe even parents will see me as some great villain. I don’t exactly know the details, but I imagine plenty of people are well aware of my existence.”

  Red looked like she wanted to get angry but visibly restrained any biting words.

  “Is it strange that I’m a little jealous?”

  The words didn’t come from Jill as he expected but from Lisa. She looked at him so wistfully that he couldn’t take it as a joke.

  “We were already hiding my class from the gods, what’s one more? Pretty sure my next advancement will create more enemies.”

  Jill spoke clapping Mash on the shoulder in congratulations. They were doing a good job of not being angry. But the support was creepy. Luke and Red remained quiet for a few moments. Then Luke came over and rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “It could be worse. You could be a necromancer or slaver. This sounds like you’re the literal opposite.”

  That was true enough, even though he would likely never be offered those options. Red seemed to swallow her previous words before speaking.

  “You know, I genuinely expected worse. I still have dozens of questions for you, and you are going to answer them.”

  Questions were something he could handle. He wanted to hear some of their thoughts regarding his abilities too.

  Name: The Chimera of the End and the Beginning

  Stage: Hatchling

  Level: 150 → 1

  Health: 10010 / 10010

  Energy: 8290 / 8290

  Fortitude: 501 → 1001

  Endurance: 329 → 529

  Strength: 393 → 693

  Agility: 429 → 729

  Intelligence: 250 → 300

  Wisdom: 150 → 200

  Charisma: 150 → 200

  Free Stats: 0

  Skills: Hunger, Magic Layering, Begin Anew, Chimera, Magical Beginning, Chimeric Reconstruction, Path of Change, Domain of the End, Reconstructed Adaptable Monster Core, Body of the Beginning, Chimera’s Constitution, Mimic’s Avarice, Harbinger of Nothing, Devoured Soul Body, Mark of the End, Mark of the Beginning, The Aspect of Change, The Aspect of Freedom, Brand of Change and Freedom

  Hunger (Passive): You have gone beyond your limits when fighting enemies and devouring their power. Your limits know no bounds. Gain stats continuously when hunting. Rate increases with hunger. Stats decrease rapidly when out of combat.

  Current Rate: + 1-100 all attributes per minute

  Magical Layered Wood → Magic Layering: You started with sticks and grew them into something that could not exist naturally. But what does the Chimera of Ends and Beginnings care for the natural order. All magic you steal can be combined to create impossible and unnatural magics. The more magics you use at once, the more energy you consume.

  Inhuman Hibernation → Begin Anew: You have stolen the techniques of mages and monks to form an artificial technique. You molded those techniques into your unnatural existence. Recover from nearly any wound. As a fundamental aspect your life is tied to it. The greater your end the longer you need to begin.

  Chimeric Transformation → Chimera: A Chimera in truth you change your body changes through your species. Transform your body taking on aspects of those which you have consumed. Control which aspects to take and combine them to create the perfect form.

  Wooden Birth → Magical Beginning: Form imitations of creatures you have consumed, imitating life through your magic. Impart your own life into the creatures to grant them true vestiges of life. As the Chimera of the Beginning, you can create true life.

  You cannot gain experience through killing the life you create. A portion of what monsters earn gain will be returned to you.

  Chimeric Reconstruction: Consume what you kill for more than just stats. Steal their flesh to repair your own. Their blood becomes yours. Your enemies are nothing more than your medicine.

  Vagabond’s Path → Path of Change (unique): Having chosen the path of the Change, you have freed yourself from your own world. An ender of era’s, your journey is one filled with hope and devastation. Open portals to worlds you have already been. Once per year, travel to a world in need of change. Your world is one of endless change, of boundless freedom.

  Chimeric Domain → Domain of the End (Passive): Your eyes just weren’t enough. Sense the changes in the reality around you. Connect to the mana and life in your space and inherently understand the nature of the mana and life. Your presence suffuses the space, bringing and end of the the magic and strength of enemies beneath you. The end touches all.

  Current Range: 75 → 18300 feet

  Reconstructed Adaptable Monster Core (Passive): An unnatural mana core has fundamentally altered your body, fusion with a monster has given you access to its potential. Stamina and Mana combine to become energy. Your monstrous body is better able to handle the changes to your core. You have progressed your core further, by forcing it to adapt. Now, you may only further your core by repeating the process.

  Current Bonus: 100% efficiency

  Wooden Body → Body of the Beginning (Passive): You can connect with the world around you. By expending your energy, you bring your magic to life as another one of your limbs. All of your magic within your domain is bound to your will.

  Chimera’s Constitution (Passive): Giving up your humanity has improved your body, improving your physical control, natural defenses, animalistic intuition, and mana control. No longer a human in any sense, you are no longer bound by that which limits them. You have created your own race, improving your rate of growth.

  Mimic’s Avarice (Passive): Devour your enemy in battle to temporarily raise your stats. The fresher the victim the stronger the bonus. Gain full benefits even when consuming through your magic. Absorbs some properties of those you devour alive. Removes the negative effects of things you consume.

  Harbinger of Nothing (Passive): Belonging to no race or group, you have embraced the nothingness that is a part of everything. You are free and deny others' attempts to bind you. Constantly emit the aura of nothingness within your domain. Your allies will gain some of the freedom you possess. You are a bringer of nothingness. Your power causes all that would oppose it to fray and slip.

  Devoured Soul Body (Passive, Unique): You have devoured your own soul, uniting it to your body through the primal action. Your body and soul are one, changes to one are reflected in the other. Changes you make in your body are now permanent.

  Mark of the Devourer → Mark of the End: Having devoured the marks of greater beings, you have stolen the keys to their power. Mark those who would become the best of meals. The mark will bring you to them when their power becomes significant. Bring about their End.

  Mark of the Beginning: The Chimera of Beginnings can grant a boon to those that desire change. Grant them the power to grow. Break all the bonds that would restrict them. Greatly improve their growth at the cost of their species. You grant them a new beginning.

  The Aspect of Change: Having manifested an aspect, your existence embodies that aspect. The appearance of a new aspect can be felt across reality. As an aspect of the fundamental, even your power is but a tiny piece of what it embodies. The aspect grants you limited use of its power. Forcibly change something. Energy costs are proportional to the rigidity of that which you strive to change.

  The Aspect of Freedom: Your refusal to be bound by any bonds or limits has let you claim the Aspect of Freedom. Manifest the aspect to free yourself or others from restrictions or corruption.

  Brand of Change and Freedom: Possessing two aspects marks you as an enemy of those who would resist them. All those who wish to remain unchanged will become your enemies. All those who wish to bind others will become your enemies. Your marks do not allow you any influence over the marked. When you create life, you have no dominion over them. You can never gain or uses skills or items that would be used to bind or restrain others. You can only grant people their end or a new beginning free of any limitations.