Chapter 767: The Shackles of Civilization Shatter

The moment Gugalanna finished taking form, a contract that had been waiting in the dark all along tied him to Tom.

The raging winds split apart around Tom on their own, and the clouds gathered beneath his feet into a staircase. His body rose into the sky without any effort on his part, carrying him up until he hovered level with the Bull of Heaven’s enormous eyes.

Then the Bull shrank. In the blink of an eye it was a little calf with a skeleton of pure gold. Its body was still woven from phantom cloud, but it had clearly learned to control its own size.

Even shrunken down, the storm hadn’t left it. Currents of air swirled around its legs, tiny bolts of lightning darted between its golden bones, and a layer of constantly shifting rain cloud covered its back.

"Moo~!"

The moment it saw Tom floating over, the calf bounded up happily and gave him a gentle bump with its horns. Those horns were made of lapis lazuli and tornadoes. Anything ordinary that got close would have been shredded. But something strange happened. When the not-quite-solid horns touched Tom, they felt real, and not nearly as sharp as he’d expected. They were actually kind of soft.

The little guy just hadn’t figured out how hard to push yet.

That "gentle bump" felt like getting hit head-on by a speeding truck. Tom went flying a dozen meters through the air. Gugalanna realized it had messed up and hurriedly sent a cloud to catch him.

"Ugh... a bit much." Tom’s face twisted into a strange expression.

He had no idea how the contract worked, but he hadn’t just gained a mind-link with Gugalanna. Like with Rayquaza, he’d taken in its bloodline too, or rather, the divine beast’s innate gifts had been branded into his blood.

His magic surged. His blood burned. His bones reassembled themselves.

The fairy bloodline, the life of the ancient phoenix, the authority of lightning, Rayquaza’s talents, the divinity from the golden apples, and Gugalanna’s gift of calamity all fused together in that moment.

It was a complete transformation. Powerful bloodlines from completely different sources slammed into each other, shattered, and reformed, so that every ability could be perfectly absorbed and the strengths of each could cover the weaknesses of the others.

With his insides turned upside down, Tom naturally felt awful.

Gugalanna sensed what was happening, and it felt even closer to Tom now. The Bull of Heaven’s way of showing affection was simple: it rammed him with its horns again and again, as if it wanted to punch clean through him. Tom almost wanted to pull out a red cape and play with it.

"Roooar!"

A ringing dragon cry cut in on the fun. Gugalanna looked up, puzzled.

A long black figure dropped from the sky. Usaki appeared in front of the man and the bull in all her majesty, her stern dragon eyes fixed on Gugalanna.

Gugalanna felt the challenge and the attempt at intimidation in that stare. It lowered its horns and squared up against her without a hint of fear.

The two divine beasts hadn’t even touched yet, and the sky around them was already changing. The clouds near Usaki turned clear and bright, while storm clouds kept piling up around Gugalanna. The two skies collided, and fine threads of lightning crackled between them.

One was a god of weather and a super-beast that ate meteorites. The other was a god of calamity, the end of the line for the Sumerian civilization’s destruction.

It wasn’t exactly a fair fight, but Gugalanna was still just a baby, so it was still a perfectly acceptable opponent.

Tom was busy digesting his new gifts and couldn’t be bothered with these two.

But then Tom noticed something. These two actually complemented each other pretty well.

As a god of weather, Usaki could whip up a natural disaster with no trouble at all, and Gugalanna could eat the destructive power of those disasters to grow.

Right. Decision made. From now on, Usaki would be Gugalanna’s cook.

Usaki, still locked in a staring contest with Gugalanna, had no idea she’d just been appointed the calf’s nanny.

...

Half an hour later, Tom finished digesting what Gugalanna had given him.

His total magic hadn’t changed much. It had gone up a bit. The real gain was a deeper understanding of calamity.

A calamity is a collapse of order past what a civilization can bear. It’s when the forces of nature slip out of life’s control, the existing order can’t contain them, and life and civilization pay the price. That’s what the word means.

A god of calamity doesn’t govern a mere phenomenon. It governs the entire process from beginning to end, which makes it something between an enforcer and an administrator.

A storm isn’t a calamity. Neither is a flood. Only when they cross the line of what civilization can endure, wrecking cities, drowning people, and bringing order crashing down, does a calamity truly appear. By its very nature, it stands opposed to civilization.

Tom looked up at the sky, and a sudden realization hit him.

He finally understood why, back in New York, he’d moved around a little and met so much hostility that the world seemed to be pushing him out. It wasn’t the world rejecting him. It was today’s human civilization.

Human civilization ruled the planet, and the wizarding world was the heretical fringe that the rest of it rejected. When muggles fought among themselves, that was an internal matter. The moment Tom stepped in, it became a "calamity" aimed at the whole civilization.

’So I’ve been kicked out of the human race.’

Tom laughed at himself, but it didn’t shake him at all. Species, human status, none of it mattered, as long as he got stronger and lived a free and easy life.

He used to worry about how to get rid of that hostility. Now he grinned up at the sky.

Now he was the embodiment of calamity. Standing against civilizations was practically his job description, and the world backed him up. The collective consciousness of one primate civilization was nowhere near enough to suppress him. The pressure that had been weighing on him before had only been held in place until his bloodline’s power forced its way through, and now it was completely gone. He felt light and free again.

"All right, you two, enough staring."

Tom held out his hands, stroking Usaki with his left and rubbing Gugalanna with his right. The two finally stopped glaring and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Usaki, from now on Guga is your good friend. He was just born and he’s still growing, so you’ll look after him for a while. Three meals a day, remember. Every day, find somewhere with no people around and make some natural disasters for him. Got it?"

Usaki blinked. Those usually majestic dragon eyes were full of very human confusion.

She didn’t get it. She’d only come to check on her master. How had she ended up with a babysitting job?

But Usaki would never turn Tom down. She gave a small nod of her big head to show she agreed.

Gugalanna did the same. He knew that in this form it couldn’t follow Tom around forever, or it would wreck everything everywhere it went.

"Moo!"

The calf bellowed at Usaki. Even without the mind-link, Tom could tell he was hungry.

Usaki flicked her tail and leapt into the upper atmosphere. Gugalanna followed right behind, and soon both divine beasts vanished from sight.

Once they were gone, the storm over Dalaran faded fast. The clouds parted to either side and sunlight that had been blocked for so long fell back over the city. Puddles on the ground mirrored the sky, as if none of it had ever happened.

Tom dropped back down onto the Karazhan tower.

"You look like you got a lot out of that," Ravenclaw said, looking him up and down. In just a short time, she could tell the pressure coming off him had grown by another notch. Like Gugalanna, Tom now carried an aura that stirred up instinctive fear. It was the most primal reaction humans have to calamity.

"Why do I get the feeling you’re scared of me?" Tom reached out and pulled Ravenclaw into his arms.

They say women are made of water, and Ravenclaw was the finest water of them all. Of all the girls he’d held, hers was the softest body, and holding her was a pleasure.

"You should dial it back," Ravenclaw said in a muffled voice. "You’re too frightening right now. I’m afraid I won’t be able to sleep tonight."

"I’d love to. Just give me some time." Tom sighed. "Mystryl is going to be on my case again. I promised to keep my gifts in check, to stop relying on talent and instinct to do whatever I want, and to really master magic. And now my gifts have gotten stronger for no reason. Does that count as failing?"

Ravenclaw pushed him away, annoyed. "Go away. Just looking at you irritates me."

Even someone who valued wisdom over talent couldn’t take this.

Who was this shameless? He’d hit the jackpot and was still complaining.

Tom didn’t mind getting brushed off. He leaned in with a cheeky grin, planted a light kiss on Ravenclaw’s forehead, then turned into a streak of light, shot into the sky, and was gone.

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