Borden

Borden is an artificial Dalki-like being created from Blade-family biological data and the Green family's experimental process. Although his appearance and much of his temperament resemble Vorden, he is a separate person rather than another personality in Sil's shared body. His unstable creation initially leaves him trapped at miniature size between short transformations, but his loyalty to Vorden, Raten, Sil, and their wider chosen family makes him a protector of the Blades across the Dalki war and the following millennium. (Chapters 458–515, 621–691, 1183–1304, 1512–1562, 1780–1932, and 2109–2117)

Biography

Vampire World and the Cursed Faction

The name Borden first appears when Vorden uses it as a cover identity at the vampire school; that scene concerns Vorden, not the later person. Borden himself is produced after Logan draws blood from the body Vorden is controlling and uses it with an intermediate beast crystal to make a green serum. A vampire laboratory transmits the biological data to an automated facility, where a one-spike, Dalki-like teenager is grown and put through combat trials. Because the sampled body originally belongs to Sil, while Vorden is its active controller and Raten also inhabits the same mind, the experiment's exact division of genetic and personality influence is never established. The resulting being has no memories of life before the tank and is therefore neither Vorden, Sil, nor Raten; Logan proposes the name Borden only after meeting him. (Chapters 402, 455, 458, and 462–464)

Borden immediately treats Vorden as his brother and accepts his judgment, but his Dalki physiology makes his first meeting with Quinn dangerous. Quinn attacks after seeing Borden's single spike, and the wound triggers a second spike and a surge of strength. During the attempt to prevent Fex's execution, Borden chooses to shield Quinn from vampire leaders and continues fighting as his injuries make him stronger. When Raten takes control of the shared body and behaves unlike Vorden, Borden recognizes that the person before him is not the brother he knows; his fear and anger at Vorden's apparent disappearance trigger a third spike. The episode establishes that Borden distinguishes the three occupants through behaviour and familiarity, not because he shares their consciousness. (Chapters 462, 469, and 476–478)

That battle also exposes the defect in Borden's creation. The limited energy inherited from the intermediate crystal burns away under sustained exertion, causing his scales and spikes to retract and his body to shrink without becoming younger. Further injections keep him alive, but Logan cannot restore a stable human-sized form. At the original laboratory Borden learns that the Dalki were manufactured from human material and demon-tier dragon energy, while his own process used an inadequate, partly spent source. He accepts the prospect of remaining miniature if it lets him stay with Vorden, even as Logan continues looking for a permanent solution. In this form he retains extraordinary strength in brief bursts, but excessive output can make him collapse. (Chapters 479, 499, and 510–515)

Borden's dependence on Vorden develops into deliberate service rather than passive attachment. Hidden in a toolbox, he accompanies Vorden back to Blade Island, scouts the island, and obeys Vorden's warning not to intervene in a fight he cannot win. He later enters the dungeon and gives Vorden a communicator, enabling him to ask the Cursed faction for help. Borden tests Quinn's resolve before trusting him with the rescue and explains that training against king- and emperor-tier beasts has extended his transformed state from roughly three minutes to about ten, although the time limit still defeats him during the fight with Duncan. After Vorden and Raten leave Sil's original body, Borden initially resents Sil for looking like Vorden without being him, but he accepts Sil as another brother and becomes his guardian. He and Peter then train the rescued Blade children, and Borden exposes his two-spike form to defend them during Pure's attack; their acceptance gives him a place in the family beyond his resemblance to any one Blade. (Chapters 621–668, 672, 685–691, and 783–787)

Dalki War and Vampire Kingship

When the group returns to the vampire settlement, Borden hides as Sil's supposed familiar because an openly visible Dalki would provoke attack. His loyalty again overrides the danger of exposure: he accompanies Sil into the conflict, protects him and Alex, and joins Leo against the Original vampire Remus. The fight demonstrates both sides of his early condition. His miniature form can briefly produce two-spike Dalki power and becomes stronger when wounded, but the transformation ends on a fixed clock, leaving Borden dependent on coordination with stronger or more durable allies. His contribution helps preserve members of the eighth family, while his continued support becomes one of the few relationships through which the grieving Sil still engages with other people. (Chapters 814, 823, 859, 892–928, and 943–946)

Logan's research gradually changes the problem from simple survival to controlled restoration. The group returns to the Dalki facility, learns more about the failed manufacturing process, and later obtains fresh material from the living demon-tier dragon on Blade Island. Logan converts that source into a small supply of green injections which can temporarily return Borden to full size. Borden carries the syringes for emergencies and understands that each use is limited rather than a cure. He even considers whether eating beast crystals might replenish him, but rejects the idea at this stage because ordinary Dalki would already have exploited so obvious a solution if it worked for them. (Chapters 913–914, 1033–1038, 1112–1131, and 1272–1276)

Borden first uses the improved serum as part of the effort to rescue the Blade family. At full size he disguises himself as Sil so their enemies must divide their attention, fights through Blade defenders, and protects Vorden and Raten while their new bodies are vulnerable. His anger when Slicer threatens his brothers produces a fourth spike, but Slicer's near-five-spike strength still overwhelms his attack and forces the group to retreat behind Quinn's defence. When the injection wears off, Borden returns to miniature size; neither the temporary growth nor the new spike removes the underlying energy limit. His choices nevertheless make clear that he values being able to reach and protect his brothers more than preserving the scarce serum for himself. (Chapters 1189–1207, 1220–1239, and 1254–1255)

After Hilston's fall, Borden joins Sil, Vorden, and Raten in rebuilding the Blade family rather than claiming their lineage for himself. He guards Vorden and Raten during their beast evolution, trains Sil in hand-to-hand combat, and remains with the family when wider war demands its fighters. Other characters sometimes describe him collectively with the Blades because of his face, loyalties, and origin sample, but he never demonstrates the Blade ability, holds copied abilities, or occupies their shared mind. His status is that of a brother and protector by relationship; his body remains the distinct Dalki-derived creation produced by the laboratory. (Chapters 1183, 1190, 1254–1281, and 1301–1304)

Celestial Conflict and the Millennial Return

During the last stages of the Dalki war, Borden alternates between miniature travel and serum-assisted combat while the Blade family attacks Dalki positions. His four-spike state places him above most manufactured Dalki, but he remains weaker than Sil, Vorden, and Raten in their evolved bodies. Logan eventually takes him back into the production facility and uses stored demon-tier energy to place him through a second tank process. Borden emerges permanently human-sized with five spikes and immediately uses the upgraded body to stop a dragon's tail and save Fex. The procedure stabilises his size, not his projected lifespan: when Logan warns that he may still live only as long as a Dalki, Borden chooses to destroy the laboratory rather than preserve a factory capable of producing more Dalki merely for the possibility of extending his own life. (Chapters 1512–1544 and 1548–1551)

The permanent form lets Borden fight Graham, but even five spikes do not make him equal to the strongest Dalki. His survival after the war depends instead on restraint. Logan concludes that Borden is more human and stable than ordinary Dalki and advises him to stop transforming if he wants an ordinary human lifespan. Over the following millennium, Borden continues searching for an answer and slowly consumes beast crystals after Vorden and Raten's beast-derived bodies suggest that his own construction lacks a completed beast component. He attributes his survival and later growth to that long process and calls himself probably the first complete Dalki, but the corpus leaves his own explanation qualified: it does not isolate whether the crystals, his human-like stability, the earlier tank treatment, or a combination of them accounts for the result. (Chapters 1550–1562 and 1780–1781)

In the later era Borden appears as an adult man whose resting state conceals most of the overt Dalki features. His matured body can disperse demon-tier fire through physical force, launch destructive pressure with punches, and trade attacks with Erin without using Qi. He deliberately accepts shallow wounds to activate the Dalki increase in strength, while experience helps him avoid treating every injury as useful. Borden then returns to the Blades and reunites with Sil, Vorden, and Raten; this is the same person who survived the earlier war, not a new laboratory copy or one of Sil's duplicates. (Chapters 1772–1791, 1822, 1843, and 1905)

Borden's physical attacks prove important when he and Sil confront the celestial Kipo, whose body ignores elemental abilities. Borden's punch and tail sweep make Kipo react, allowing Sil to identify direct force as a viable counter. When further celestials arrive, Borden refuses to leave Sil and absorbs enough punishment for his injury response to approach the output of top Dalki. That strength has a lethal boundary: Sil compares it to fuel burning away as Borden nears death, and Borden's wounds do not grant limitless recovery. Their survival convinces Sil to return to the Blade base and remain with the family, so Borden's willingness to stay beside him directly reverses Sil's movement toward isolation. (Chapters 1918–1922 and 1930–1932)

Reawakened World and the Demon War

By the renewed conflict, Borden is one of the Blade family's leaders and remains aboard its ship with Sil and Shiro. When Jack Truedream's forces trap the ship, Borden stands beside his brothers and the other Blades rather than seeking an individual escape. He charges the ability-bearing Dalki released from the enemy pods, overpowers both three- and four-spike opponents, and prioritises the variants most dangerous to the family. The invading Dalki are new creations controlled by Jack and Jim; their existence does not make them later versions of Borden. Similarly, the many identical figures on the battlefield are Sil's ability-generated clones, not copies of Borden. (Chapters 2109–2113)

The attackers then deploy H, an eight-spike Dalki created from Hilston and other Blade-family material. H's human-like reversion resembles Borden's unusual transformation, and both are Dalki hybrids carrying Blade biological material, but H is a separate project with Hilston's face, transferred abilities, and no Borden identity or memories. When Sil becomes absorbed in searching for a winning ability, Borden learns H's attack timing and physically holds him back. H asks why someone like him would interfere; Borden answers that Sil is his brother and continues restraining H even as H drains his strength. H then melts Borden's head, killing him while Borden is still smiling in confidence that Sil will fight back. (Chapters 2114–2116)

Recovered ship recordings and Logan's reconstruction establish that the casualty is the original Borden, not a simulation-created duplicate: the simulation only replays the recorded event for Quinn and the others. Borden's death deprives Sil of the fighter who had been clearing the hostile Dalki and helps force Sil to abandon the battle in order to teleport the remaining Blades to safety. Quinn later mourns Borden as permanently gone and resolves that any account of their history should preserve what he did. The supplied corpus does not show Borden being resurrected, cloned, or manifested again after his death. (Chapters 2116–2117 and 2125)

Appearance and personality

Borden first appears as an older-looking teenage boy with blond hair, green blood, dark scales along his hands and face, and one spike on his back. His face is almost identical to Vorden's, though his hairstyle differs. After exhausting the energy that sustains him, he shrinks to roughly puppy size while retaining adult proportions and awareness; custom clothing and a toolbox let him pass as a familiar or travel unnoticed. Serum temporarily restores his larger body, and the later laboratory treatment makes that size stable. (Chapters 458, 462, 479, 499, 859, 1197, and 1550)

After the millennium, Borden's resting appearance is that of a grown man with subtler scales around his hairline, face, and arms and no visible back spikes. His combat transformation expands the scaled Dalki body and includes a powerful tail, while returning to the human-like state gives him needed recovery. The narration never confirms that his later absence of visible spikes means they were lost; it presents them as concealed by reversion, and it does not assign a higher numerical spike count after his confirmed five-spike state. (Chapters 1550, 1780–1781, 1919, and 1922)

Borden is direct, cheerful, and eager to test strength, but his defining trait is protective loyalty rather than indiscriminate aggression. He calls Vorden, Raten, Sil, Quinn, and others brothers with little concern for bloodline, studies their mannerisms closely, and places himself between them and stronger enemies. He can be impulsive and enjoys combat, yet he obeys Vorden's warning on Blade Island, accepts retreat from Slicer, and later limits transformations to preserve his life. His refusal to save the Dalki laboratory for a possible cure, and his final decision to hold H for Sil, show a person who consistently values his chosen family above his own survival. (Chapters 462, 621–636, 1238–1239, 1541–1551, 1781, and 2115–2116)

Powers and abilities

Borden's abilities come from an artificial body produced through Dalki research, Blade-family biological data, beast-derived energy, and later stabilisation. Similarity to the Blades affects his appearance and temperament, but the corpus does not show him copying abilities, using a Blade soul weapon, accessing Sil's stored powers, or sharing Vorden and Raten's mind.

Artificial Dalki physiology

Borden has green blood, scaled armour, exceptional strength, speed, durability, jumping power, and a Dalki's capacity to become stronger as he is injured. Even as a newly created one-spike being, he survives automated trials and can break Quinn's blood attack; with later development he tears apart other Dalki, produces force at range through punches, and uses a transformed tail as a weapon. His human-influenced mind lets him suppress the general urge to fight that he reports feeling, so Dalki instincts do not determine his loyalties or choices. (Chapters 455–462, 499, 1541, 1780–1791, 1919, and 2112)

His durability is substantial but not absolute. Strong vampires, Slicer, Graham, celestials, and H can injure or overpower him, and the increase caused by damage is purchased with worsening physical condition. Borden may deliberately accept minor cuts when the tactical benefit is worth it, but severe cumulative wounds bring him closer to death even while raising his output. Destruction of the head remains fatal; neither Dalki strength nor the later completed state allows him to regenerate from H's final attack. (Chapters 479, 919, 1238–1239, 1562, 1789–1791, 1932, and 2115–2116)

Injury response and spike progression

The spike count is a visible progression associated with Borden's Dalki strength. He is created with one spike, grows a second after Quinn first wounds him, and manifests a third while already injured and enraged that Raten appears to have replaced Vorden. Anger when Slicer threatens his brothers later produces a fourth; the permanent demon-tier treatment finally leaves him able to reveal five. These changes occur during extreme injury or emotional pressure, but the corpus does not define emotion as an independent power source or provide a repeatable threshold for growing each spike. (Chapters 455–462, 476–478, 1238, and 1548–1550)

Spike count is not a complete measure of Borden's performance. His early three-spike body can lose to opponents with superior technique or strength, the fourth spike does not let him defeat Slicer, and Graham repels him after the five-spike upgrade. Conversely, training and his unusual construction let him overpower later Dalki whose displayed count is comparable to his own. After his millennium of beast-crystal development, Borden can transform and revert, but the narration no longer gives him a confirmed numerical increase above five; assigning him the counts of H or other late Dalki would conflate separate characters. (Chapters 642–653, 919, 1238–1239, 1532, 1562, 1780–1791, and 2112–2114)

Miniature state, transformations, and serum

Borden's original body is powered by an inadequate intermediate-tier source. Heavy combat consumes that reserve, retracting his scales and spikes and shrinking him into a stable miniature state rather than making him a child. He can still exert enormous force for moments and can transform into a two-spike combat body, but the early duration is only a few minutes; repeated beast fights extend it to around ten minutes. When the timer expires he loses the larger form and may fall unconscious, so injury-based growth cannot be exploited indefinitely. (Chapters 479, 499, 510–515, and 642–653)

Green serum made with stronger demon-tier material temporarily restores full size and access to greater Dalki power. The supply depends on scarce samples from the living dragon, must be injected, and wears off after use; it is neither a general Dalki cure nor a permanent transformation method. Logan's later tank procedure uses stored demon-tier energy to stabilise Borden at full size and five spikes, removing the recurring shrinkage but not the expected short lifespan. Borden's post-millennium reversion between human-like and combat states is a later controlled transformation and should not be treated as a return of the defective puppy-sized state. (Chapters 913–914, 1112–1131, 1197–1207, 1254, 1276, 1542–1551, and 1922)

Beast-crystal evolution and completed state

After the war, Borden avoids Dalki transformations on Logan's advice and consumes beast crystals slowly over approximately a thousand years. His theory is that the original Dalki formula failed to complete the beast component and that the crystals allow this part of him to evolve, an idea prompted by the viable beast bodies occupied by Vorden and Raten. The process coincides with a stable adult form, far greater base strength, controlled reversion, and survival far beyond an ordinary Dalki lifespan. Borden describes himself as most likely the first complete Dalki, language that leaves the conclusion and exact causal mechanism short of certainty. (Chapters 1780–1781)

The completed state can physically disrupt demon-tier flame, produce destructive air pressure, fight Erin, harm element-resistant celestials, and overpower most later artificial Dalki. It does not grant Qi—Borden explicitly fights without it—nor does it give him the copied abilities demonstrated by H and Jack's new Dalki. It also does not eliminate the injury-response cost: against a celestial army he grows extraordinarily strong as damage accumulates but approaches death and must revert afterward. His latest state is death at H's hands, with no demonstrated recovery or successor body. (Chapters 1789–1791, 1918–1922, 1930–1932, and 2112–2116)

Combat skill and perception

Borden develops from an instinctive brawler into an experienced close-range fighter through beast hunts, war, and a millennium with the Blades. He teaches the rescued children, trains Sil in hand-to-hand combat, times his attacks around allies, uses feints and his tail, and learns H's movement well enough to intercept him. Raw force remains his primary method, so ability-based restraints, energy drain, overwhelming speed, or opponents who can survive and exploit his injury response are effective counters. (Chapters 642–653, 685–691, 1190, 1789–1791, 1919, and 2112–2115)

Borden can reliably distinguish Vorden's manner and voice from Raten's and later recognises that Sil is a separate brother despite their common face. He also senses unusual strength from his brothers at close range. These observations show familiarity and heightened perception, not confirmed telepathy or access to the Blade mind-space; he can be fooled temporarily by disguises and must use behaviour to identify the controller. (Chapters 476–478, 656–668, 1183, and 1220–1222)

Power progression

Relationships

• Vorden: Borden's first and closest attachment is to Vorden, whose active control of Sil's body accompanies the sample used in Borden's creation. Borden learns Vorden's behaviour well enough to distinguish him from Raten, repeatedly risks himself to rescue and guard him, and treats their brotherhood as a chosen relationship rather than proof that they are the same person.
• Sil: Borden initially resents Sil because he has Vorden's original face without Vorden's identity. He comes to accept him as a separate brother, protects him through the Dalki and celestial conflicts, and dies holding H back so Sil can act.
• Raten: Raten's abrupt manner first makes Borden believe Vorden has been taken, producing their early conflict and Borden's third spike. Once he understands the shared-body arrangement, Borden includes Raten in the family while continuing to recognise his distinct personality.
• Logan: Logan accidentally initiates Borden's creation and then assumes responsibility for understanding his body. His serums and permanent treatment preserve Borden, while his later advice gives Borden the time needed to develop the completed state; neither of them pretends that the science offers certainty.
• Quinn: Quinn's mistaken attack awakens Borden's second spike, but Borden quickly accepts him as Vorden's friend and later calls him a brother. They fight together on the vampire world and Blade Island, and Quinn mourns Borden's death as the loss of a family member he failed to revisit.
• Peter: Peter and Borden become the principal protectors and combat teachers of the rescued Blade children. Their friendship is grounded in shared directness, unusual nonhuman bodies, and a willingness to stand between the children and Pure's attackers.
• Shiro: Borden serves beside Shiro in the later Blade leadership and trusts him with the family's defence. They stand with Sil during Jack's assault, and Shiro survives the battle that kills Borden.
• H: H is a separate Dalki–Blade project derived from Hilston and other Blade material, not a clone or evolved form of Borden. Their shared hybrid traits allow H to recognise a similarity, but Borden rejects that as a reason to abandon Sil; H drains and kills him.

Items

No named inventory item is configured for Borden in the generated article set. He uses Logan's green serum syringes as temporary treatment and transport gear such as the toolbox, but neither is represented as a standalone linked item page.