Artephius hadn't ever lived a normal life, abused by his parents since the very first book, and in turn his very first memory, due to his affinity with creation magic. They would never even know he had others because he had been struck during testing interrupting it. It wouldn't be found out by himself until much later.

He had known instinctively, as fire always called him to it, wanting him to burn away his parents and his life to ashes. Always telling him that no one will know, or care that he pa.s.sed away. Even if he was part of a n.o.ble house, they would gladly accept him in the pits of h.e.l.l.

He instead persisted, taking his beatings as the flame of hatred grew his powers slowly until they were a roaring flame inside of him. Even with all that rage, the reason he always endured was that he was a coward, he feared not only his parents but of hurting someone.

He would remember his father's words that he used to always use when scolding him for his mistakes till the day he died, "The weak will always be destroyed by the strong. You are not my son, only a stepping stone for my true heir." Eventually, the first line became a mantra for him, changing his mindset slowly.

At his twelfth birthday, it got to be too much so he slowly suffocated his parents in their sleep using fire magic to drain the room of breathable air. Taking all their coin he could carry from their n.o.ble house he began to travel trying to find a new home. Instead, he mostly saw the dark side of humanity and grew fascinated with the honesty brutal nature of monsters.

Fascination became an obsession, obsession became almost pure wors.h.i.+p over the beasts of the world.

"Why were humans born so weak, and crushed so easily by the strong beasts in this world? It's because humans are the least loved of the G.o.ds creations, they're meant only to make the beasts stronger!"

At the age of twenty, he started caging several hundred monsters. Starting his own research to dissect and learn everything he could about them. Their breeding habits, their evolutionary paths, every detail he could measure or record was done so.

A question slowly surfaced in his mind, before he decided that this would be the new path of his research. Since some monsters were humanoid in shape and size could one procreate with them?

In the village near him, people started to slowly disappear. Gender, build, age, none of that mattered so long as they didn't have any resistance to the drugs he was pouring into them. Men and women were given a breeding partner of one of the humanoid monsters.

If this person was still alive I would probably have vowed to kill him by the self serving way he used humans and creatures over his thousands of experiments. The hundreds of people I had seen drugged to either impregnate monster, or the other way around would haunt my dreams. The maddening thing was since these were memories I felt as though I was the one doing each experiment making me feel disgusted with myself as in the memories I was enjoying it far too much.

My breathing was heavy after each memory I looked at, trying to control my emotions to keep from screaming. I knew however that these actions had already been done, it would be wasting those people's sacrifice not to learn from the experiments even if their source was covered in such evil.

I had cried, gaged, and punched things so many times that my body was shaking from exhaustion even though it was only mental. Eventually, even the h.e.l.l that I was watching could no longer affect me as badly, my heart had grown colder and more callused with time. By the thousandth memory, I was even taking notes without my hand shaking.

The real information came from caring for monsters though, and their evolutionary paths. This was a side effect of his research, as having hundreds of monsters captured and raised by him allowed him to observe and doc.u.ment a full list of things about their growth and development which he did out of habit now, no longer really interested in this path of thinking.

Dissecting monsters to find out what made them tick, and how magic interacted with their bodies. He had a habit of making them mate before directing them to see if he could make any more process in making a hybrid. In this, he found the reason his human-monster hybrids would never work naturally. Even though the act of breeding between two monsters looked like a s.e.xual act it was, in fact, a spell.

He dubbed the spell that he had learned about as, 'The Blend' as what it did was force the magic from two cores to clash until they became harmonized creating a third separate core. Since humans had seven separate cores instead of a singular core like monsters, blending would never occur, rather their bodies would be corrupted by the monstrous energies raging in their body. This was the reason most of the humans he used died during the mating sessions, or soon after it.

He experimented slowly, trying to take monstrous hybrids through grafting their body onto humans. Human bodies with a demon's limbs, or a creature's claws all died upon his operating table. The body naturally rejected those changes as they were built with vastly different parts.

Grafting different parts onto monsters though had many benefits, it could strengthen their bloodlines, or be used to control evolutions. He had sewn several heads onto a h.e.l.lhound to create the first Cerberus which was still around today. When it evolved it completely changed its evolution path from a mere h.e.l.lhound.

He had found many benefits to a monster's body to humans though, small doses of their blood when introduced to a subject would over time make the body stronger. If enough blood is given to the subject they won't reject the process and evolution becomes an option once enough of the body has been replaced.

This is how ghouls came to be in this world, they weren't undead but instead beasts that hungered the flesh of anything living. Their populations were rather low since they often are each other though, otherwise, with their power, they'd be an unstoppable force. This however made them nearly mindless, which wasn't what he was looking to turn himself into so he focused on the blend.

Since he knew that the blend was a spell it was theoretically possible for a human to learn it. So that's where his research turned to, mastering the spel through modification and experimentation. Eventually, he came up with a method for a human to cast the blend, but only a highly powerful mage could cast it.

As he was alone and couldn't risk angering any other organization through kidnapping any of their powerful mages, he took it upon himself to practice and eventually use the spell. There were other personal reasons for it, but he justified it as such. This would actually be the first time he actually tried mating with a monster as he knew that only death awaited him should he have done this earlier.

My hand paused as I stared at the last memory book, knowing what it had inside of it. This was forbidden knowledge if there was such a thing in this world. Something that could change the world drastically if it was to ever get out. Part of me was actually antic.i.p.ating it, and that part of me horrified me to the core.

Feeling disgusted with myself I knew that there was only one option laying in front of me. I'd open this book sooner or later, questions left unanswered bothered me much more than I'd like to admit. I wouldn't rationalize it, or say it was for the sake of knowledge. This was pure morbid curiosity, and genuinely wanting to know what was the end results of his experimentations.

With a deep sigh, I grabbed the last book to absorb the knowledge within, I didn't want to admit it but taking in these books had made me more apathetic.

The book was as I thought him using the spell, a feeling of deep power was created in his chest. He had chosen one of the most human-like races to mate with, the demons as he didn't want to touch the others. This was his own sick underlying l.u.s.t that he had for non-humans, that always lingered there after each experiment.

Her chained body gave him chills of excitement for what was to come as he expected his spell to be successful. Even though she recoiled against his touch he knew he was powerful enough to enforce his will upon her. This was the rules of monsters, if you could enforce it then you could do anything. His mind had turned into a monster even if his body had not.

His hands were gripping the demon that stared at him with horror after seeing the thousands of experiments before her. He had never hidden away his experiments from the monsters as he enjoyed their fear, he felt like a true monster at those times, filling him with pride.

This man was the avatar of death in her mind, a being of unknown evil that even the vilest would cower from. The scene of their mating was violent, and swift but scarred me in ways that I had never known before now. In a week's time, there was a child to be expected.

Sadly he would never see it as he had to take to mating with many monsters, and one of them was hiding its power for the opportunity to strike. When the moment came both of them died in each other's arms.

When the memory was over, I was crying at my feelings of emptiness and helplessness, not of his death but of the scenes before. In those memories, those were my hands, my actions. I felt justified for every action I felt pleasure from their fear and powerlessness, I had been the one to have given into l.u.s.t, and I felt as though a piece of my soul had been condemned to h.e.l.l.

"Not all knowledge should be known. Some secrets should be forever buried with time." I knew now that I wouldn't rationalize my actions anymore, trying to gain knowledge in acts that should never be performed. I hoped that any knowledge that I gained from the system would never come as memories again.

'Apollo feels empathy for your plight +100 favorability.'

'Spell learned: The Blend'