Pact of the Broken Sun
Chapter 7 - The Ritual of Binding (2)
Location: Earth - The Collapsed Realm, Capital of the Feral Collective
Year: Y.P. 100
Designation: The Lunar Sanctuary
"What ceremon—hmm umm!"
Kaelen finally found his voice, a desperate, raspy sound tearing from his throat, but as soon as his mouth opened to demand answers, one of the towering Lunar Strikers flanking him moved with terrifying speed. A rough piece of coarse cloth was brutally shoved into his mouth, gagging him instantly, before a powerful hand gripped his head, forcing his gaze to remain fixed upon the Alpha Matriarch on the golden throne.
"Humans are not allowed to speak in this sacred hall, sweetie,"
she purred, her voice retaining its unnervingly seductive quality even as her ruby eyes gleamed with a predatory light.
"And that cloth… it will help you tolerate the pain caused during the conversion. A small mercy."
Her words were laced with a chilling amusement.
The very next moment, she rose from the throne, her movements fluid and deliberate, and with a dramatic flourish, she threw aside her ornate, embroidered coat. A collective gasp, quickly stifled, rippled through the masked figures seated in the hall. Surprisingly, shockingly, she wasn't wearing anything underneath it. She stood before Kaelen, and indeed, before everyone else in the vast throne hall, completely stark naked. However, the masked attendees quickly, almost frantically, averted their eyes, their gazes dropping to the luxurious teal carpet. But Kaelen, despite his terror and the gag in his mouth, did not.
This was, perhaps, Kaelen's first conscious encounter with a completely nude woman, and his eyes, wide with a mixture of horror and primal fascination, fixated upon the raw, unadorned beauty of the Alpha Matriarch's powerful, sculpted body. But the sight, both alluring and terrifying, lasted for only a fraction of a second before her body began its horrifying, yet mesmerizing, transformation into her true, monstrous form.
A grotesque spectacle began: her skin, moments ago smooth and glowing, rippled and stretched as thick, coarse fur, the color of moonlight on snow, erupted from every pore. The bones within her body began contorting, shifting with sickening clicks and groans. She visibly grew, gaining at least two full feet in height, her lithe frame expanding, her torso becoming abnormally huge, bulging with coiled muscle, and so too did her powerful legs.
Kaelen could clearly see the bones within her body moving and shifting places, a living, terrifying jigsaw puzzle. Several of them even ruptured through her skin with a wet, tearing sound, only to be instantly healed and covered by the rapid growth of fur and new flesh. Yet, there wasn't a tinge of pain or discomfort on her face; instead, a look of pure, primal ecstasy twisted her features. Her human-like fingers elongated, becoming impossibly long claws tipped with razor-sharp, obsidian-like fingernails. Her piercing crimson eyes, which Kaelen had come to fear, slowly bled into a horrifying yellowish hue, her pupils dilating and expanding until they consumed the entirety of her eye, becoming twin orbs of glowing, predatory gold.
Her ears, already pointed and sharp, grew even further, becoming elongated, sensitive receptors twitching in the air. However, the most horrifying, yet oddly captivating, thing Kaelen witnessed was the emergence of her charcoal-colored snout. Her beautiful, angular human face seemed to rip itself in half down the center, as her powerful jaws began elongating, pushing outwards. Her newly formed jaws, lined with rows of gleaming, razor-sharp fangs, looked terrifyingly powerful, but even worse were her abnormally large, dagger-like teeth. Just one of them, the largest canines, appeared bigger than Kaelen's entire skull.
With that final, gruesome contortion, Kaelen had witnessed one of the rarest, most forbidden moments any human could ever experience: he had seen a true Lunar Striker transforming into its feral form. It felt as if hours had stretched by since the Alpha Matriarch began her horrifying metamorphosis, but in reality, the entire transformation only took a mere couple of agonizing seconds. Although the process itself was nothing short of grotesque, a symphony of tearing flesh and shifting bone, the end result was undeniably… beautiful in its terrifying perfection. For some inexplicable, deeply unsettling reason, the Matriarch's pure white fur, her colossal, muscular body, and the sheer predatory power she exuded, looked profoundly appealing to Kaelen, a strange, primal draw that went beyond mere aesthetics.
"Beautiful, aren't I, sweetie?"
Even though she had completed her terrifying transformation into a monstrous, lupine form, her voice retained its original, seductive timbre, a low, resonant purr that seemed to vibrate directly in Kaelen's bones.
She began to move, slowly, deliberately, her massive, clawed feet padding softly on the teal carpet as she approached him. Kaelen was still helplessly kneeling on the cold floor, utterly mesmerized, his gaze locked on her transformed form. Around them, everyone else's gazes remained fixed on the ground, carefully averted from the Matriarch, as if looking at her in this state was a heinous crime.
What Kaelen didn't know was that the Alpha Matriarch, particularly in her true form, was leaking a powerful, subtle visual pheromone. This unique ability caused a potent chemical reaction within the bodies of living beings upon direct exposure to her transformed self.
It could be said that, for those susceptible, just by looking at her, others could become unwilling slaves to her will, their minds and bodies compelled to obey. That was the crucial reason no one else was looking at her, while she had deliberately exposed her full, terrifying glory specifically to Kaelen's eyes. It was a rare, powerful skill, one that only the Alpha female Lunar Strikers possessed, and it was generally used to attract the strongest males, to ensure the purest bloodline, to exert dominance. In this specific, horrifying case, the 'male' she was attempting to enthrall was Kaelen, and she was, in her own twisted, predatory way… seducing him.
But there was a critical downside to this unique skill. It worked on humans only after they crossed a certain developmental age, that age being sixteen cycles. This biological threshold was precisely the reason why sixteen-year-olds were specifically chosen to be converted into Lunar Strikers; it was the age when human hormones usually went into overdrive, making it easier for the female Lunar Strikers to overpower their wills and proceed with the ritualistic conversion.
The two hulking Lunar Strikers who had been holding Kaelen down suddenly, almost abruptly, let go of him and backed away, putting significant distance between themselves and their Alpha. Being too close to the Matriarch when she was actively leaking such powerful pheromones, even for her own pack, could activate their primal instincts, potentially leading to uncontrollable urges and challenges to her dominance. Thus, it was far safer for them to maintain a respectful, cautious distance.
Although Kaelen was now physically free to run if he wanted to, his mind, his very will, was ensnared. Or, to be more precise, he was too utterly mesmerized by the Alpha Matriarch's terrifying, magnificent form to move on his own. He was frozen, his gaze transfixed. All of a sudden, her gigantic, clawed hand reached out, its sharp talons gently, almost tenderly, wrapping around Kaelen's face, caressing his cheek.
"This will hurt… a lot, sweetie."
Her voice, a low rumble, seemed to echo directly in his skull, devoid of any genuine compassion.
The very next moment, she opened her gigantic, fanged jaws, revealing a maw of gleaming, razor-sharp teeth, and bit him—hard, brutally, deeply—into his neck. The excruciating pain was a cold, shocking torrent that finally snapped Kaelen out of his trance, shattering the pheromonal spell. However, it was far too late to do anything now. He could thrash his limbs all he wanted, could scream and writhe, but the Alpha Matriarch had her claws clamped tightly around him, her strength absolute. He screamed and screamed, the sound muffled by the gag, but no one in the vast hall, not a single masked figure, moved to save him. Blood spurted everywhere, a hot, sticky geyser against his skin, as his vision slowly, inexorably, began to fade.
As consciousness receded, he once again felt a familiar presence coalesce around him not a physical one, but something within his mind. He saw the insistent yellow blinking light, now a beacon in the encroaching darkness, as everything around him turned to absolute black. Seeing that light, that strange digital interface, miraculously brought back the fragments of memories he had been trying so desperately to recall ever since waking from his mysterious slumber in the barracks. He once again saw similar texts, glowing in the void, just as he had before:
[Transformation successful!]
[You have been turned into
[Sending a petition to the Administrator to resolve the issue...]
[Petition rejected... initiating protocol.]
[The system can resolve the issue itself...]
[Issue resolved!]
[You have assimilated the genetic essences of a Tier-C Thrall, a Tier-A Crimson Eidolon, and a Tier-A Lunar Striker.]
[You have been recognized as an Apex Chimera.]
[Due to the complexity and unprecedented nature of your new DNA, it would take 4 more cycles for your full powers to manifest. Until then, you are free to live as a