CHAPTER 53 - Before everything started (Part 5)

"Urgh!" With a muffled grunt, Logan kneels on the ground.

*BA-DUM, BA-DUM*

A second heartbeat could be heard accompanying his own. Meanwhile, his body slowly morphed and changed. While on his knees, he also fell on his hands, while these started to transform into furred bestial claws that slowly took the shape of big paws, with his arms got covered in shadowy-black fur. His mouth got longer, turning into a wide and slightly long snout, his body straightened while still being supported by his four limbs, while his legs deformed and took the same bestial aspect of his arms, getting longer and wider.

His body slowly grew in size, as fur covered his entire body, including his clothes. Some kind of gas slowly seeped out from his mouth and pores, covering him during his transformation. The blackish-grey smoke quickly covered his body as it grew in size, soon reaching the size of that of a polar bear, stopping slightly after that.

A somewhat long, furred tail could be seen moving behind him, while his breathing was ragged, letting out a deep black smoke-like substance whenever he exhaled.

"Grrr…" A growl escaped his mouth as he tried to adjust himself to his new body. Moments after, he opened his eyes, and a pair of shining blood-red eyes appeared in the Room of Requirements. "Did I-" He tried to speak subconsciously, but what he heard was a really deep, ragged, and bestial-like voice that didn't seem his and that had a somewhat ethereal feeling to it.

"What is this?" He asked, if anything, only to hear himself once again.

[Congratulations! You've completed a hidden quest! You've successfully transformed into an Animagus! You've connected with your inner beast, the more wild part of yourself, to become something more than a simple human being.]

[1,000pts have been earned]

[Your Magic Level has increased by 1]

"So I did succeed…" Logan muttered, trying not to pay attention to the even deeper, ghastly voice that came out of him. "But… How am I able to speak? And what am I? I feel somewhat familiar with myself, but at the same time, I don't know what I am…"

As he spoke, in front of him, something started to rise from the ground, it was a tall full-body mirror. Understanding that the RoR was giving him something for him to look at himself, he stood in front of it.

"…" As the mirror completely formed, Logan got shocked at the view in front of him. It was a wolf. A really big and scary wolf. But this wasn't what surprised him the most. What shocked him was the gaseous substance that was seeping from the wolf, covering him and giving his new form a really ghastly look. It could as well be considered an ominous creature that came out from the depths of hell to hunt its prey and take them back to hell. "What the hell am I?" Logan spoke, only to be shocked once again, since even when speaking, his mouth, or should he say, his snout, didn't move. "Oi, do you know what am I?"

[Not exactly…] The system answered after a few moments. Even the system was shocked. It knew that there was a chance of him becoming a creature from Tibia, but still, it was supposed to be an animal or at least a somewhat feral beast. But he was sure that whatever he turned into, wasn't a simple feral beast. [You look like a Gloom Wolf, but in my database, they are simply larger wolves, similar to dire wolves and war wolves. There's nothing about them having some kind of gas surrounding their bodies or them being able to talk telepathically.]

"So I'm speaking with my mind?"

[Not exactly, but I can't find any other way to express it. It's like you're emitting words… But it's not precisely from your mouth. I can't say for sure, so for now I would say it some kind of telepathy.]

"Right…" Logan nodded, and in the mirror, the huge shadowy wolf nodded too. "I always wanted to know how it felt to become an Animagus if I would feel more like an animal than a normal human. I feel more… wild. But it's not as if I'm losing my normal reasoning… I can't really explain this feeling, it's simply amazing…" Logan closed his eyes and focused on his senses. He didn't have normal human's senses anymore. They were sharper, stronger. He could smell, even outside of the Room of Requirements. He could hear the wind blowing around him clearly, even it wasn't supposed to be wind around.

Outside of the RoR, some students could be heard, and he could pinpoint their location, below him. Some of them not that far from him, some walking around the 7th floor. Even outside the castle, he could hear voices all around him. With time, he slowly adapted to this sense, getting a hold of it, and being able to control it better, not letting the entire parade of sounds and voices turn him crazy.

"This is… Amazing…" Logan muttered, letting out a sigh that at the same time sent out a big cloud of the smoke-like thing he was exuding. Opening his eyes, he looked at himself in the mirror once again. "I do look a lot like a Gloom Wolf… But it's not that… I don't think it's a mutation either."

[Maybe another creature based on it?]

"It may be. Some creators liked to play around, creating new creatures and spells when creating an OTS. So it may be something like that. A creature from some OTS. But which one? I don't know. There were so many of those servers that it's almost impossible to count, and this wolf-like creature could be from any of those thousands or hundreds of thousands of servers. Also…" Logan said as he closed his eyes and concentrated hard on his surroundings, slightly opening his snout. Suddenly the blackish-gray smoke that was coming out of him, moved and focused right in front of his open snout, forming a ghastly sphere that spiraled at a really high speed.

[...]

"Roar!" With a roar and an abrupt movement of his head, the now condensed ball shot towards the mirror, breaking it while flying all the way towards the wall of the room, before dispersing in a cloud of shadowy smoke. "Whoa… I had the feeling that it was possible… But actually doing it… It's something totally different."

[What was that?]

"I don't know." Logan shook his head. "I had a feeling that I could move whatever thing was coming out of my body at will, and shot it like that."

[That's interesting, to say the least.]

"Right?" Logan said with a nod. H

[Do you have any idea of what that can be?]

"No. But if I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with the death attribute." Logan said with a frown. "It somehow feels like using Exori Mort or the Instant Death rune. Though, I don't think it's as strong as the Instant Death rune."

[That's as best of a guess as mine. Can you do something else apart from using that ball?]

"A breath?" Logan tilted his head, before closing his eyes once again to focus. Soon enough he took a really deep breath, while all of the gaseous substance around him flew into his mouth. "HAAAA…!" Only to be released moments after in the form of a blackish-gray wave of smoke.

Whenever the smoke passed by, the remaining pieces of the mirror, the ground, and even the walls he shot the breath towards, slowly changed. It wasn't a really impacting change, but you could still see traces of slight weathering in some places.

[It doesn't look like something that amazing, though.]

"I'm not sure, but I would bet it's just a really weaker version of the Instant Death rune? So maybe it causes decaying?"

[It might be. You can experiment with that later.]

"Yeah. For now… I think I will just go back to being human." Logan said with a nod, closing his eyes to concentrate. Moments later, he just sighed and then started to look around for his wand, which he dropped while transforming. When he found it he was once again shocked, this time, while seeing how tall he was.

Yes, he saw himself in a mirror, but he lacked a reference point to actually compare himself to. Even the mirror was taller than him, so it couldn't work as a good reference point. But now that he saw his wand, he couldn't help but finally figure out that his height changed greatly and get surprised as to how tall he was in this form, he was almost 1.85 meters tall. And that was insanely huge for any normal beast.

"This is insane.." Logan muttered, before sighing. "Well, let's just hope that I don't break my wand…" As he say so, he lowered his head, before gently, at least as gently as he could, picking up his wand, then while focusing once again, his body started to change once again, while he left a slightly quiet grunt of pain. Though it wasn't really hurtful, it might as well be just a slight surprise during his change.

After finally transforming himself back into a human, he took his wand out of his mouth and looked at it, letting out a sigh. "At least nothing happened to it. Well, that was certainly interesting."

[Indeed. It was. By the way, can't you turn back without using your wand.]

"No." He shook his head. "I think I'll have to transform a few times before actually doing so. Oh well, I'm actually more worried about the constant release of that gas. I should probably try to see if I can keep it inside my body."

[There might be a way, with how easy it looked for you, I would say that you can find a way soon.]

"It came to me almost as if an instinct." He said while looking at his hand. "Sadly. It seems that I can't invoke that same gas while in human form. I always wanted to know if it was possible for an Animagus to have a mixed form… Like a Zoan Devil Fruit user."

[Apparently. It's not possible. But who knows? In theory, you're one and the same within your animal form. And yours, more than an animal, looks like a magical creature. Or a monster if we consider it is coming from an OTS. So maybe there's a way to turn things around and turn into a hybrid form?]

"Mm… I might take a look into that later." Logan said with a shrug. "Well, I guess I should be going now, I really feel tired after all that has happened…"