A Rat and Shapeshifting

The trio of an undead, a living flame, and a rat have escaped the city of Seelf. They party find themselves in the forest of monsters, Kraude. Here, there were both high and low level monsters. Of course, the party would be ranked quite high amongst the monsters here, but there were still some more powerful. The party walked through the forest, with the constant threat of encountering one of these beasts.

Sheila was well aware of the Royals of Kraude, and couldn't help but worry about them. Naturally she would also want to inform her comrades on these monsters, and so she did, "We should be careful; if we run into one of the Royals of Kraude, we would be in deep shit."

"Royals of Kraude?" Henry and Eodum said in unison.

Sheila looked at them surprised, "You don't know about the Royals of Kraude?"

"No." Henry and Eodum once again said in unison.

Sheila was shocked. These beasts were quite infamous amongst the humans who lived around the forest. Sheila decided to share this information with her teammates, "The Royals of Kraude are the strongest beasts in this forest. Where we are is the forest of monsters, Kraude. There are high and low ranked monsters here, but the ones at the top are the Royals of Kraude. At the moment, there are 5 of these monsters: Ezalb, the red dragon, Tnaig, the forest giant, Ksilisab, the basilisk, Boh, the goblin lord, Eniram, the sea hawk."

Henry and Sheila continued discussing their plans and making small talk, but Eodum had been silent. These monsters were the rulers of the forest, so they must've had unparalleled strength. Eodum could only wonder what it'd be like to battle one. Eodum wasn't exactly raring for a life or death fight, but the amount of XP defeating a Royal of Kraude one could get was tempting.

High risk, high reward. It was the same case with fighting that strange man, it was tough, but they all got stronger because of it. Though if what Sheila said was true, fighting one of these might be the equivalent of suicide. Eodum decided to push the thought aside, if they found one, they'd fight it, if not, oh well. With that settled, Eodum began practicing [Shadow Body]. This skill could be quite powerful, but would need to be trained like all skills.

Eodum had already had [Shadow Body] turned on. Its body was in its usual form, although larger with spikes all over and a blade at the tip of its tail. The first thing Eodum wanted to try was focusing the shadows in one place. The shadows all over Eodum shifted and grouped up in one area. Wait, something wasn't right. That was when Eodum finally noticed that it wasn't surrounded in shadows, it was the shadows.

[Shadow Body] absorbed shadows into one's body, and transformed them into a mass of shadows. With this in mind, Eodum decided to try something a little harder. Eodum wanted to see if it could change its appearance into some other creature. Eodum thought into what creature it was most familiar with, what came to mind was a spider. The spider was the first thing Eodum had killed after all; it had a special place in Eodum's heart.

With that image in mind, Eodum's body began to transform. Eodum halted to a stop, and its body was visibly changing. First, Eodum's body began to pulsate, and become malformed. Second, Eodum's body retracted into a sphere. Third, the sphere grew another sphere. Fourth, eight long legs sprouted from the original and largest sphere. Finally, the head began to shape and grow in detail.

Eodum stood up in its new body, knowing the anatomy of a small spider because of [Body Scan]. That was when Eodum then heard a notice in its head.

[Skills: Shadow Body and Body Scan have leveled up!]

[Skills: Shadow Body and Body Scan have leveled up!]

Wow, two level ups! This was super neat! While Eodum was thinking about how neat this was, Henry and Sheila noticed the stop of their companion. They had watched the entire process, and they were disgusted. The process from an outside perspective was quite disturbing to watch. Henry and Sheila just stood there shocked and horrified at what they witnessed.

"… What?" Eodum said, noticing its audience.

Sheila and Henry stood there for a second longer, and then stuttered out, "N-nothing! Let's get m-moving."

The trio began walking, and Eodum began walking as a spider. Eodum tried out a few other forms, but eventually went back to its original rat form. It found its rat form to be the most comfortable and familiar, so it then just tried small changes. A few extra spikes here, a serrated edged blade there, Eodum tried all these small changes.

[Skills: Shadow Body have leveled up!]

Neat! This practice was paying off! Not only was Eodum getting more acquainted with the skill, it was also getting sweet, sweet level ups! Eodum was quite happy with this. The trio continued walking. That was when they encountered a monster. This monster was snake-like, though much larger. It had brownish green scales, and was the size of a horse. A basilisk!

Luckily, this wasn't Ksilisab, it was far too weak and small to be it. No, this seemed like one of Ksilisab's offspring. The monster still seemed to be quite young, but this didn't mean it was weak. Because of it being Ksilisab's child, it would've inherited some of its strength. The snake's eyes snapped to the new prey in front of it and hissed.

The snake reared up and tensed up its body, readying for a fight. The trio also prepared themselves, knowing that they should be prepared for a tough fight. The snake hissed once more, and it launched itself at the group. The trio dodged out of the way, and the snake bashed through the trees behind the party. It was once again time for another battle.