The feathers dissolved into ash that curled away, dancing on the wind, yet this time no new ones burst from Omelette's skin to take their place. Instead it was the skin itself that changed.

What was soft and pink rapidly began to darken, the skin losing its colour as it became as black as the night sky. It changed not only in colour, but in texture. Previously he had skin like a sphynx cat but as it lost its colour, it became thicker and tougher.

The soft, silky skin becoming tough like old leather, until the surface of his skin was like that of an old tortoise, or the dinosaurs of old. Scales that were like miniature plates of obsidian grew from certain sections of this new skin, like humans grew fingernails. These new scales lined Omelette's spine and crawled down his long tail until they culminated in long, sharp growths that were a strange mixture of scales and spikes at the end of his tail.

Seth couldn't help but notice the similarity to the Manticore spikes, although these were pitch black and lacked the deadly venom of the manticore, yet even without the venom their deadliness was nothing to scoff at.

Unfortunately for little Omelette, the lost of his feathers was not the only change. As the feather's disintegrated from his wings, leaving them as nothing more than bare twigs, those twigs immediately started to snap.

His bones snapped, crunched and popped as they erupted from his toughened skin. Three bones extended outwards, flexing like overgrown fingers each nearly a metre in length, while the talons of his claws grew even larger and more wicked. His new wing talon, the claw that would act as his thumb, would make a Omni-raptor feel inadequate about its own claws.

Tendrils of muscle, flesh and skin rapidly grew around the newly grown bones until they were fully formed fingers, each tipped with a wickedly sharp and straight, dagger like claw. His skin seemed to peel apart before healing once again, as a thin membrane stretched itself into existence between these fingers before the membrane and the bridge of his wings were covered in newly formed scales.

His head was next to shift, the small remnants of his beak rapidly disappearing as it shifted into a fully draconic snout. The final remnants of his beak turning into a keratin plate at the end of his snout, which moved upwards until it turned into a small horn that rested comfortably between his nostrils, like that of a Ceratosaurus of old.

Finally, two additional horns tore through his head and pointed backwards, although they seemed rather small compared to the dragon he had seen. Undoubtedly because, despite his size, Omelette was still considered a child.

With the final details of his latest transformation complete, Omelette's struggles finally subsided and he once again rested his head down. His breathing heavy and rumbling, as if he had flown a thousand miles, yet it was undecidedly healthier. Now he was simply out of breath, whereas before it was a matter of not being able to breath.

Far better.

Lifting his hand, Seth couldn't help but notice that the wound he had been pouring the blood into had closed up, completely healed in the process of Omelette's skin changing and becoming these splendid, glimmering scales.

Previously he was a Wyvern with the appearance of a 'paleo-accurate' appearance of Dinosaurs, simply a large bird. Now, he had fully embraced the movie styled lizard dinosaur, easy to see the influence of the little Nugget's evil Mistress. He expected she had somehow used him to start the transformation and simply used the blood in Seth to power it, although why she would do such a thing Seth had no idea.

Seth coughed a few times and rolled his neck, a strange lump forming in his throat and refusing to budge. For some reason his breathe also had an odd scent to it, but it subsided as quickly as it arrived and in the next few seconds the lump simply dissolved away when he next cleared his throat.

He really should stop biting into random monsters, it was not doing good things for his throat. And it's not like he would be seducing any girls with his breathe reeking of sulphur and raw monster meat, now would he?

Finally glancing at Astra, who was staring at him with her eyebrow raised in her usual curious, and ever so slightly demanding, mannerism Seth simply gave her a gentle smile and a lazy thumbs up. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, before sighing and rolling her eyes and simply walking off to join the others.

Chuckling softly to himself, Seth sat back down onto the ground with a groan and leaned back against the newly transformed Omelette, who was still sleeping peacefully after his entire ordeal. Closing his eyes, Seth let his mind wander.

He did wonder how things were going on in the city after all, it had been a while since he had mentally checked up on them. Surely nothing bad had happened in the day or so that they had been gone.

***

"Rich, I'm Rich!"

"Uh, We're rich you mean Boss."

"Yeah sure, Whatever."

The Boss with the flaming hair stared at the crate full of glimmering coins with greed filled eyes and a wide, childish smile on his face. It was a crate that looked almost entirely identical to the one that had rested within their hideout earlier that day, apart from the lack of a mark on the side.

Just as a precaution, the Boss had left a small, inconspicuous mark on the side of his crate of fakes. Whether it was out of suspicion that his crew would steal the real coins and give him the fakes, or simply that they would mix up the two out of pure incompetence, it didn't matter.

Whatever the reason, he knew which was which. Which meant that he knew for absolute certain that these were the real deal, freshly sealed coins straight from the castle that should have been on their way to the banks.

He didn't have the weird symbol that the store merchants used to detect the seal, he had tried to replicate it but no matter how many times he drew that dumb little symbol it just refused to work. There was probably some secret behind it, or that it was just a misdirection to catch idiots like his crew.

But he knew that bank route well enough to know that he didn't need the symbol to know that these were the real deal.

Switching them had been surprisingly easy too. The transport was already lacking in guards, since they were split all across the city dealing with the aftermath of the shattering, and the ones it had were almost as incompetent as his own goons. It just showed the absolute hubris of that so called 'Lord'. Honestly, that beaky bastard should just step down and let a real alpha male take charge.

The boss man knew that if he was in charge, then things would be a lot better around here. Especially for him, and that was the most important part!

"So Boss... what about our cut? I mean we did all of the work switching the crates, and Dave practically threw himself in front of the cart to stop it. So we deserve something fair. Why don't we split it all equally?"

"Equal? As if! You know what, Take this and get out of my sight. I don't need you useless ingrates anymore. You're lucky I even hang out with you instead of burning you alive."

He grabbed a fist full of coins and tossed them dismissively at the feet of the rest of his 'crew' before going back to admiring his wonderful collection of gold. He simply ignored the mutterings of those rainbow skinned jokers and let them fight over the scraps of gold. Why did he need them now? He was rich!

All he could think about was what to buy with all of his money now!

***

'Huh... That's weird.'

Seth, while possessing one of the bank puppets, examined the latest delivery of gold within the bank. The vault was manned exclusively by puppets, at least on the inside. It was convenient 24/7 supervision, plus let him get away with a few last minute sealing sessions, like now.

He brushed his hand against the odd mark on the side of the crate, a little doodle of a flaming haired stickman carved into the wood.

He double checked the coins to make sure everything was there, but it all seemed right. Although the workmanship on the coins was a little substandard, maybe he would have to have a word with the guys down at the mint. Or maybe he was just overworking them with the recent increase in production... that was probably it. If it persisted, then he'd sort it out then. No need to cause a scene over one bad batch.

It wouldn't matter if a few of them went wandering anyways, without the seal they were absolutely worthless.

Picking up the first coin of the pile, Seth hummed softly to himself as he started to process of sealing the freshly delivered batch while his expedition party rested.