Chapter 224: Incredible Loot, Vladimir’s New Arm

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The massive explosion that followed tore through more than half of the Kobold King’s torso and sent the entire monstrous body collapsing heavily onto the ground. Guts, flames, and thick blood covered the cracked floor completely while Vladimir collapsed beside the remains, gasping for air and staring at the scene in pure disbelief. He coughed uncontrollably, still unable to fully accept what he had just accomplished with his own hands and the borrowed strength of the Shadow Self.

The dark sword that had been driven deep into the Kobold King quickly returned to the faint humanoid form of Shadow Riven. Without wasting a second, the shadowy figure grabbed Vladimir’s severed arm and attempted to press it back against the bleeding stump of his shoulder.

As the chaos settled, Vladimir immediately began blaming Riven for the loss of his arm, cursing under his breath between ragged breaths. Riven, however, was more than willing to help him recover it. He carefully tried to stitch the original limb back into place using threads of living shadow, only for Vladimir to suddenly request something completely insane.

He wanted Riven to graft the entire massive arm of the Kobold King onto his own body instead — a reckless, desperate gamble made purely in the name of gaining more power.

Riven hesitated at first. The idea was beyond dangerous. Yet the more Vladimir insisted, insulting him and calling him a coward the entire time, the more Riven found himself agreeing. Part of him truly wanted to see what would happen... and, if he was being honest, a small part of him also wanted to watch the stubborn bastard suffer a little more for all the trouble he had caused.

In the end he decided to humor the crazy son of a bitch.

He tore the enormous arm free from the Kobold King’s corpse and immediately infused it with a special alchemical compound designed to stop the flesh from dying or decomposing. Then he performed the same treatment on the raw, open wound of Vladimir’s shoulder. Using precise shadow threads, he began connecting bone to bone, tissue to tissue, and blood vessel to blood vessel, binding the foreign limb tightly in place.

"Gaaaahhh!" Vladimir screamed, his voice echoing through the ruined chamber. "It burns...!"

"I told you this was insane. You’re fucking crazy," Riven muttered while continuing the delicate work. "There’s still time to stop and—"

"NO!" Vladimir roared through clenched teeth. "You can eat these monsters and steal their powers whenever you want, right? Then I’ll become a monster too! Because only by becoming a monster can someone fully thrive in this shithole of a world!"

"..."

Riven could not help but admire the raw resolve burning in Vladimir’s eyes. Without another word of protest he continued the procedure, channeling his magic and various powers to carefully connect the lifeforce of Vladimir’s body with that of the grafted arm.

The blood of a human-werewolf hybrid and a kobold already infused with ancient dragon blood began to mix. The process was pure agony. Vladimir’s entire body burned as if he were being cooked from the inside. Thick smoke poured from his mouth with every labored breath.

"Nnnggh! What is this?!" he screamed, veins bulging across his neck and forehead.

"Dumbass, it’s the dragon blood rejecting you!" Riven answered sharply. "Did you really think you could just brute-force something like this?!"

"SHUT UP...!!!" Vladimir snarled. In a final act of stubborn defiance he grabbed the severed head of the Kobold King and began drinking the remaining blood directly from its neck, forcing more of the draconic essence into his system while fighting against the violent rejection.

"Hah... I have to admire your resolve," Riven said with a small shrug, watching the entire process with a mixture of disbelief and respect. "You’re one crazy son of a bitch, and I really do admire that about you."

"Shut up..." Vladimir coughed violently, then suddenly collapsed onto the floor. "Uuuggh... I will... become strong...!" he muttered one last time before his eyes rolled back and he passed out completely.

Riven knelt beside him and quickly poured a high-grade recovery elixir into his open mouth for good measure. Only after ensuring Vladimir was stable did he begin gathering the scattered pieces of the Kobold King’s corpse... along with a single shining piece of loot that had dropped amid the destruction.

"Oh?"

The original axes the monster had wielded had shattered into fragments and faded away into residual flames. What remained in their place, however, was something far better — an evolved form of those very weapons.

SS+++ Rank Dual Flame Dragon Axes – Surtr & Logi.

"Hohh..."

Riven lifted the pair of axes. Even though they appeared as two separate weapons, the System registered them as a single linked item. The moment his shadowy hands closed around the hilts, he felt their intense fiery power and the ever-growing, pulsing draconic might sealed within the metal.

"Amazing. Not bad at all! Without Daniela around, proper loot is really damn rare... but whenever it finally appears, it’s almost guaranteed to be something exceptional."

The axes were so close to true SSS Rank that simply holding them caused pure dragon power to surge through his Shadow Self’s body. A visible aura of living flames wrapped around his form for several seconds before settling.

He glanced down at the still-unconscious Vladimir, then carefully placed the twin axes into the man’s hands. The weapons immediately began feeding him free dragon energy and a steady fiery aura, slowly helping his body acclimate to the foreign Kobold King’s arm.

Little by little Riven watched the oversized limb begin to shrink as Vladimir’s body returned to its normal human form. Because the arm had been grafted while he was still in his half-werewolf state, the transformation had somehow linked the new limb permanently to that bloodline power.

"So it was actually a success?" Riven muttered in genuine shock. He could see the skin itself mixing — patches of tough kobold hide blending with human flesh. This was something that should never have been possible. Vladimir should have died screaming. Yet somehow he had survived. "Is the power of the werewolf transformation really that strong? It must have given him enough raw vitality to endure an agonizing transfusion like this and even adapt through constant regeneration... hah..."

The arm still retained a deep reddish skin tone, dotted here and there with small orange-red scales, and the fingers ended in slightly longer black claw-like nails. Aside from those details, however, it had shrunk to match the exact size of Vladimir’s original arm.

Complete assimilation.

"It’s a success! He’s actually alive!" Riven laughed in disbelief just as Vladimir’s eyes slowly fluttered open.

"What the hell are you screaming about?!" Vladimir groaned angrily, still half-dazed. Then his gaze dropped to the new limb. "Huh?! The arm...! Hah...! Hahah...! HAHAHAHAHA! IT WORKED?!"

"Hell yeah," Riven nodded with a grin.

"FUCK YEAH!!!" Vladimir laughed wildly and tried to raise the new arm in triumph — only to be hit by a sharp, stabbing pain that radiated through his entire shoulder. "Agh! Ack...! D-Damn it...! It’s not completely...!"

"Yeah, don’t move it around too much yet," Riven warned. "The Shadow Stitches are still holding everything together. They’ll dissolve on their own after a couple of days. Until then, better not use that arm at all. Wrap it in bandages or something for now and give the fusion time to settle."

Vladimir gritted his teeth, still staring at the red-scaled arm with a mixture of pain and pure, manic satisfaction. For the first time since becoming Riven’s unwilling subordinate, a real spark of genuine excitement burned in his golden eyes.

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