I woke to the feel of the wind in my wings.

‘Wings? Why the hell do I have wings?’

A quick assessment of my situation told me that I had somehow transformed into the giant flying alligator-bird-hybrid that had tried to make a meal of me not so long ago. And what was more, my unconscious Hominum body was draped limply across my reptilian back. How that had happened, I had no idea.

Well, not exactly. I did remember losing my grip on its beak and being tossed away like a worn ragdoll. I remember falling and it diving after me, poised to impale me with its beak. Then…

Nothing. I don’t remember anything after that.

Instinctively folding my wings, I passed through the gap between two narrowly spaced trees, then snapped them out again once I was through.

‘Well, that’s new.’

I had the instincts of the raptor. I could feel myself making hundreds of tiny adjustments every second to let my wings better generate lift. And the positions of my heavy beak and tail were calculated to let me balance myself in the air. The guidance of the raptor’s instincts was the only reason I was still in the air and not spiralling down to the ground or crashing into a tree.

‘Everything looks funny.’

The raptor’s vision had a strange focus. Everything in front of me was curved and magnified – as though I was looking at it through a fishbowl – while my peripheral vision was rather blurry, but still hypersensitive to any sort of motion.

In the short time I’d been awake, I’d already detected two forest critters: one of the flying squirrels and something that looked like a cross between a red panda and a lemur. I was sure I would have overlooked both if I still had my normal eyesight. This was a predator’s gaze. Designed to detect movement in the surroundings, then lock on to it with a single-minded focus.

And that wasn’t all.

Beneath all the instinctual layers that gave me control of the raptor’s body, was another set of instincts. Instincts that promised me access to another set of functions. Its magic.

‘It’s getting harder to convince myself that this all a trippy dream caused by blood loss.’

It was just too real. Too many details that I had no way of knowing. I mean, I wasn’t a bird. How the hell would I know what it felt like to have wings? Or a tail. Or a beak.

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The magic was just the last straw that broke the back of my disbelief. My soul sense was showing me the complex ways in which the runes on this body affected the mana in their surroundings. Experiencing Hei Lian’s simulated-reality dreamland, had given me a better sense for distinguishing between illusions and reality. I could tell that this was real.

‘I don’t think I’m too fond of this situation.’

Specially since I could scent the smell of blood coming from my back. My blood. Although I couldn't feel anything through the thick scaly hide of the raptor, I was sure it was a mess back there.

Flaring my wings, I killed my speed, careful not to plunge my regular body to its death several hundred feet below. Choosing a particularly sturdy looking branch, I landed on it, my razor-sharp talons digging into the bark.

Crouching, I tilted my back and dumped my body onto the branch as gently as I could. All the time I was on my toes, expecting to have to dive down and catch myself if my body slipped off the branch.

Thankfully, the branch I chose was broad enough and I managed to lay my unconscious body securely on it.

Relaxing, I straightened up, stepped back, and took stock of the state of my body without the risk of accidentally skewering myself with my newly obtained beak.

‘Damn it. This is bad. Really bad.’

There was a huge hole in my right shoulder and the wound was utterly mangled – a twisted mess of rent flesh and shattered bone. It had stopped bleeding… more from a lack of blood to bleed than any sort of clotting. I was as pale as a sheet of paper. My right arm was barely connected to my body by a thin string of gristle. It was a wonder it hadn’t fallen off while I was flying unconscious. I would have never been able to find it amidst the undergrowth if that had happened.

‘My body’s in a rather poor state, ain’t I?’

An understatement if ever there was one. It was busy dying.

Using my soul, I reached out to the light mana in the environment, ready to cast a Heal or a dozen to start with. I failed. I could sense the light mana, but for the life of me, I couldn't get it to bend to my will.

‘The hell!’

Casting my soul around, I quickly realized that apart from fire and wind mana I had lost the ability to control ambient mana, while my ability to sense it remained unimpaired. But in the case of fire and wind, my ability was quite a bit stronger than in my regular body.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out the cause. ‘Bloodlines.’ The dense Bestial bloodline flowing through my current body was inhibiting my external casting for any element outside the two it amplified.

This was bad. Very, very bad.

Without access to light mana, I couldn't heal my tattered body. And without prompt healing, it wouldn't last long. Already I could see the rise and fall of its chest growing weaker and hear the beat of its heart growing feeble and erratic.

‘I have to get back to my body.’

But the question was: How? I didn’t know how I managed to jump ship the first time, let alone know how to do it again. But it indisputably had something to do with my soul. And experimenting carelessly with one’s soul was a sure recipe for disaster.

I was wedged between the halves of a split bamboo. Going in or retreating were both painful options. Should I give up on my body and spend the rest of my life as a scaly monster? Or should I try to bridge over from one body to the other with my soul and risk total annihilation of my consciousness, a wipe of my memories, loss of motor control, or a host of other equally horrifying consequences?

‘Is there even a choice?’

My reptilian eyes glowed a bright red as, sharpening my focus, I gathered the entirety of my soul and directed it towards my original body.