17 A Personal Banquet (rewriting in progress)

Inside a certain place, residing deep within the hellgreen woods. A Figure of light slowly appeard.

Michael slowly opened his eyes. Once more greeted by the sight consisting of flat grass and skyscraper like trees.

Looking around his current position, he found a familiar chipped dagger laying beside his naked foot.

"Sweet! Should throw this inside the dungeon shard."

he picked it up and placed it next to the purple stone. It was quickly absorbed inside while the voice of Jenkins echoed in the other end.

"You still there..? Ah! good. Found two beast cores here alongside some small life orb. I bet they are yours, so I placed them inside the treasure room. But that's not why I called. Jam the core fragment into your arm. Holding onto it would be a pain while you go on a rampage. It will be easier to keep it like that, and we will still be able to communicate. Give it a try, tough guy!"

Michael starred down at the purple stone. Suddenly, he slammed it into his untransformed forearm. It was both sharp and sturdy, easily penetrating the weak human tissue.

He looked at the bleeding hole in his arm. Beginning to imagine a bracer made out of feathered scales to cover and seal it.

the skin around his bleeding forearm changed to a silver color almost instantly, making it look like he wore a piece of armor usually found on a noble knight.

'D...Di..it....w..ork?' a voice rang inside his head. getting more and more understandable each time he spoke.

'Nice! There is only one thing I wanted to tell you. The ruling beast of this land, or rather, the 'King', is conveniently at the (middle) king layer. Try taking him on when you feel ready. I'll give you all necessary information needed. Anyways...happy hunting!' Jenkins's voice then disappeared.

As he was now alone again, he began to speak to himself out loud.

"My new bestial senses can already reach back towards the village I originally came from. However, it's surprisingly empty. Did the kingdom come to evacuate them mabye?"

Letting this thought pass, some sort of man made breeze blew against his lean upper body. It began to circle around him, making his golden hair fly in every direction.

A smile was formed on his face as the golden eyes gave of a weak glint.

"So even without transforming I still possess all my abilites? Very convenient indeed. Now.."

As the air began to flow faster, a small tornado was slowly created. After reaching its maximun level, the wind emitted caused several of the leafes connected to the sea of trees to shake lightly.

While the air was sendt in every direction, Michael's body began to rapidly expand. His skin took on a sliver luster, growing longer and thicker by the second. His face grew in both width and lenght. Shaping the recognizable voodoo mask.

His joints cracked and the eyesockets opened up sideways. A long horizontal line was slowly formed, looking like a half-grinning devil. The eyes were lost inside a expanding sea of orange light which now filled the cut socket. His lips hardened. Forming a dark orange half moon. And lastly, while his legs grew claws, very much alike his talon shaped fingers, The beautiful silver sun was once more covering his back.

He watched as the changes unfolded, starting to speak with the hoarse voice as they calmed down. It made the once, incredibly hard ground tremble.

'I will get rid of this kid eventually. However, until then, let's see what uses I can find for him...'

"The rest is up to you, Marss. You know what to do."

The one known as Michael the disappeared. Changing into the less hardy Marss who was slightly afraid as he saw his new appearence.

"I...I hope no one sees me while in this form....But I will do my best! Its to bring mom back!" As Marss was originally a soft hearted boy, and now not being under the primal rage he was previously, he had to steel his heart while adapting to it. Finally building up the courage to continue.

He then took of, deeper into the vast forrest...

...

Inside a cave far away from where Marss was training, two hooded figures were speaking to each other. The first one was very tall, possesing a fitting murky voice. His hood was surrounded by some sort of dark steam, hovering around the entire body.

"I heard that even the villagers escaped. Would you mind telling me what happened? after all, I paid you."

No eyes could be seen behind the black smoke, but they pointed in the direction of a masked humanoid figure. The hood was covering almost the entire face, only showing an elegant mouth. Also worth noticing was that it was much smaller than the towering smoke screen. Some golden hair could be seen extending down from where the mouth laid for display.

"Hey, what can I say? This world is really large. Don't you think so?" a deep feminin voice came into the world as the golden haired individual spoke.

The murky voiced man did not answer, but some of the surrounding smoke moved towards the golden haired one's direction.

"I will not ask twice, so called 'great lord'. You can talk now or try your luck while flowing through the styx."

The golden haired person did not panick, and instead maintained an impenetrable poker face on top of his mouth. Slowly answering the fog.

"Very good. There was one man there...rather strange actually. He was able to destroy several of my minions while only seeming to be at the lower soldier layer. He beat me black and blue, escaping while I tried to recover."

More smoke began to cover his body. As it came into contact with his robe, it slowly began to burn it.

The golden haired individual was seeming very dissatisfied as his lips twitch.

"You belive I dare lie when in a position like this? Good! then take this!" He did not move, but instead threw a piece of silver towards the foggy screen.

It slowly stopped. Hovering in front of the murky voiced man. Looking at it, it seemed like some sort of broken needle.

The murky voiced man retracted some of the surrounding smoke. Pleased, but not satisfied.

"Do you have a description of the one who fought you?"

Jenkins smiled. Almost instantly answering him.

"He donned some sort of red beard. Also bald. slightly bulky. Someone called him Gen if I remember correctly?"

Two green holes began to glow within the smoke.

"You did your part. We really put you in a difficult spot thanks to the lacking information. As compensation for your losses, I will double your pay."

The poker face laying over the lips disappeared. Showing a smile.

"You are too kind. Please, give my regards to your lord."

The green dots blinked once. Representing some sort of nod. The smoke slowly dissipated into thin air, leaving behind a small ring with a pink crystal attached to it.

Seeing the smoke disappear, Jenkins breathed a sight of relief. Silently cursing inside his mind.

'I hope that boy is doing as he was told. For if not, we will both end up as some weirdly shaped vegan dish in about one month.'

He slowly walked towards the ring on the cave floor. Proceeding to leave the place.

.....

Back in the hellgreen woods, deep within the forest, laid a fairly sized body of water. The dark grass surrounding it was further overshadowed by the tightly squeezed leaf clouds above. But if one had some sort of light source, remains of several mutilated body parts of all shapes and sizes would be seen. Some seemingly belonging to a amphibious creatures while others were covered with some plucked white feathers.

If amining said light source towards the body of water, you would see that it was filled with large red puddles. Some sort of silver peacock sat in the middle. Covered by a mighty silver circle. It's glowing orange eyes were blindingly starring at a large bone being absorbed into his talons.

Marss, who had his original thoughts currently influenced by the wild instinct residing within, was having some weirdly disturbing thoughts.

"I...I could eat flesh all day...all day long..." While remembering the image of how his mother disappeared, the overwhelming feeling over rage grew once more. He rouse up from the body of water, Making the red puddles split into several pieces.

"I have gotten every single animal residing within this part. The next place which emits a strong feeling is that way."

Marss was further influenced by the prehistoric beast's instinct. Now continuing on as he smashed down all the trees which were unfortunate enough to stand in the way...