Beastkin

Many people had heard of the odd followers of Apis but it wasn't widespread knowledge. It was only when they had arrived at the grand meeting with impressive cultivation levels that left humans in the dust that they finally caught greater attention. It also didn't help that they looked a little like Beasts in Enlightened form, but gave off the distinct aura of an Enlightened race.

Naturally, this was a strange phenomenon that attracted attention, but not a lot of it. After all, most people just chalked them up to be Beasts in Enlightened Form even though they had doubts. How else could it be explained?

Still, they weren't planning on remaining oblivious. They merely decided to ask later and focus on the more pressing matters. This was the first grand continental meeting and there were many powerful and famous figures amongst them. They couldn't afford to lose focus and they especially couldn't afford to look dumb. Asking Apis about his little followers could come later.

Later eventually came and Apis, the big peaceful oaf that he was, didn't hide anything back and revealed the identities of his followers with slight pride. They were ex-humans that were transformed by the power of his blood, gifted with unique talents that allowed them to climb the ranks of cultivation and fight. Moreover, they were very loyal.

Obviously, everyone was surprised to find out that those people used to be normal Humans.

Some had thought that they would have been Beast-Human hybrids because at least that was in the domain of something they thought possible. It was very uncommon, but sometimes Beasts and Humans would mate and actually create children. However, to date, Bellatrix had never heard of a successful birth.

The only Beasts that could mate with the Enlightened races were 4th Realm Beasts, also known as Enlightened Beasts. However, the child born from such a Beast is absolutely not something that a weak human could withstand. As such, the human mothers would all die before the child could develop enough, and the child would die alongside her.

Technically, it was possible for a male Beast to essentially donate the vitality required for their child's birth, but this was even more uncommon than natural births because it would leave the male weakened for a while. This was only something someone would do when they wanted a child to be born at any cost but knew that the mother wouldn't be able to take it.

It was a risk that nobody wanted to take for a Human.

As for the other way round, a male human impregnating a female Enlightened Beast? There was not a single successful attempt. Bellatrix once asked Gaia about that and was told that the sperm of the weak humans couldn't impregnate a 4th Realmer. Perhaps it could work if the female Beast controlled the defensive mechanisms of her womb, but there wasn't anyone with that kind of control over their bodies. That was the first time Bellatrix had heard that a womb had defensive mechanisms but it made sense.

So the problem was a difference in strength, not race. So technically, the Elves should be capable right? They had a lot of 4th Realmers and should definitely be able to mate with a 4th Realm Beast.

Bellatrix reckoned it was possible, but as far as she knew, no one had even tried. The relationship between Elves and everyone else outside of the Dawn Forest was usually always tense if not bad, and to be honest, Bellatrix understood.

The way Elves acted, the things they valued, the hopes they dreamed about, all of it was far too different from the way the Beasts acted. To put it simply, there were no opportunities for an Elf and a Beast to meet each other and decide to do the deed.

Well, actually… Now that she thought about it. Dodo's Clan also had a unique way of thinking and they were quite close with the Elves. Perhaps something special had happened in the Dawn Forest that no one knew about…?!

That was certainly food for thought, but Bellatrix didn't have a way of finding out any time soon. Matter of fact, now that she knew what happened in the past with Gloria, there was probably a good chance that the hybrid child would be born deformed. Probably…

Anyways, the point about all this was that at the very least, this was what everyone in the Meeting back then had been speculating. Although Apis was a Celestial Beast meaning that he didn't have an Enlightened Form, they still thought that it might have some other Elephant that fathered the children.

To find out that Humans could mutate with Beast blood and gain new forms was just too startling. Furthermore, the more they heard from Apis, the more excited they got from the prospects. If they reenacted what Apis did, wouldn't the humans they owned become more useful?

These mutated humans were like weakened Beasts but they were fully Enlightened. They still had the ability to absorb Magical Energy from the air and even at a greater rate, and they gained the ability to form Mana from eating flesh/blood and herbs like full on Beasts (but to a lesser extent).

To be honest, from the beginning the Enlightened could already do that. But their Nutrient to Mana ratio was so appalling that they might as well not even have it. And not only that, they also had a stupendous limit to how much they could eat. These 2 factors coupled together resulted in the weakness of the human race that hadn't changed for almost 200 years. The strongest Human of all history had only made it to the 2nd Realm after many decades. Utterly atrocious.

No one knew what technique the Elves had that allowed them to gain Magical Energy a lot more efficiently than the Humans, but they had never shared and the Humans had been bottom feeders for so long.

But now, after the Continental Meeting 6 years ago, the Humans had been resolutely taking the decision to transform into Beastkin. Ah, Beastkin was the name they had been given by Apis and everyone just went along with it, giving respect to the pioneer of the new path.

6 years later, there were all sorts of Beastkin. Wolfkin, Eaglekin, Monkeykin, Dragonkin, etc. As one could expect, there were differences in talent and ability based on race, but chances of failure and resulting death also rose with the quality of the race. Creation and Destruction Dragon blood was the most difficult to fuse with and nobody had succeeded with it. After that was the Celestial Beasts, and then probably the Phoenix or Purgatory Vermillions.

Nobody could say for sure since their bird allies from the other continent had never chosen to accept humans into their fold even if they became Beastkin. So they didn't offer their blood in the first place.

Anyways, if it wasn't for the risk of death that came with choosing to become a Beastkin, there would probably be no more humans left because they would have all chosen to become Beastkin. Who wanted to stay weak? As it stood, the few remaining humans were being shunned even more than before, in part because of their cowardice to make that step, and another part because they weren't needed anymore.

Things were looking very perilous for their future. They might have even been killed out already if there weren't people who still needed them like Gaia and the Destruction Dragons. But not even that was a guarantee, because these days, there were a few desperate Beasts who weren't willing to give the Humans a choice, and opted to coerce them into taking their blood.

It was frowned upon and even surprisingly banned by Gaia and Jörma, but there were still a few Beasts who did it in secret.

It had never bothered Bellatrix much before, especially since she had her own Unicorn Beastkin (Unicornkin for short) that she cared about, and if she were being honest, she too had thought that it was a little foolish to not become a Beastkin. They were so much better than humans in every way and even their capacity to eat food wasn't much of a problem. They didn't gain bigger stomachs but they digested food just as fast as a full fledged Beast, which meant that the little food that entered the stomach quickly dissolved in a matter of minutes and at most an hour if the food was too potent.

Moreover they even looked better. Each Beastkin gained physical traits from the Beast blood they assimilated, making them look like Beasts in Enlightened form, but most of the time it was easy to tell the difference. For example, a Wolf in Enlightened form would have Wolf Ears on the top of their head, but a Wolf Beastkin (Wolfkin for short) would keep their human ears but they would be sharper and covered with fur on the back with just a little on the inside.

This alone already made them look more appealing than the ordinary Humans, at least to a Beast like her. So all across the board, Beastkin were just better! Humans should all just go through the process already! Or so she had thought…

When she later encountered the beautiful High Humans but more importantly found out about their Empress's desire to one day meet the Humans on her continent, she panicked a little. Maybe a big little.

Now, she wished that the Humans would stop the process completely before they went extinct for good.