When Zoe woke up, she realized that she was still impaled by a harpoon and dangling from a cable, but she was no longer in the so-called “scorched wastes.” Instead of dusty, dried up ground, a mass of lush and vibrant greenery blurred beneath her. It was a bit hard to keep her eyes focused on it with how low and fast they were moving, but if she looked farther off into the distance she could make out the terrain more clearly.

It looked like a jungle canopy. She couldn’t see down to the ground — or even past the very tips of the treetops. The sun had moved far across the sky, painting the landscape in warm, late afternoon tones.

Also, while the scorched wastes had been completely flat aside from the big canyon, the terrain beneath them was quite mountainous. In fact, if Zoe looked to the side she could see peaks that were actually higher in altitude than the airship she was dangling from.

Right. I got harpooned and now I’m being carried away by some random new assholes.

Zoe groaned. It was a rich, deep and guttural sound — a kind of sound she was unaccustomed to hearing from herself. There was also quite a bit of pain, but she didn’t give it any mind. It was a useless feeling. Easy enough to ignore.

Rotating around as she swung in the artificial breeze, she began trying to extricate herself from the harpoon. Unfortunately, it was hard to get any kind of leverage, so she grabbed the cable tightly with her upper arms and continued trying to free herself with her lower.

Wait, what?

It had been instinctive up until this point, but now that Zoe was actively thinking about it she lost control and began freely spinning once again. Annoying. Feeling over herself with all four arms, Zoe began to get a sense of her own body again. Right. That was a thing, yeah.

Holding one hand up to inspect it, Zoe flexed her claws. Really, it wasn’t a hand at all — the entire thing was claws. She growled at it. This is going to make things really fucking difficult. Sure, they looked like pretty nasty weapons, but how was she going to do anything requiring even the barest amount of dexterity.

Zoe didn’t even want to think about how she must look from an outside perspective. Let’s see, I’m covered in a mixture of pitch black scales and what looks like chitin plates, I have giant pincer claws for hands — all four of them — and what, a giant bladed tail? Zoe lashed the offending appendage in irritation. I’m like some sort of xenopmorph ripoff.

Feeling around more, she realized that she still had a bit of skin — mostly her upper face — but even that ended in thick, curling horns. Fucking hell. At least before — aside from the glowing red eyes — she had still looked human.

Curling her toes, Zoe realized the last change was the talons. Rolling her eyes, she went back to trying to free herself.

And then she looked down again.

Yeah, maybe not a great idea.

Freeing herself was not only proving to be exceptionally difficult with the lack of solid ground or adequate leverage — it would also end with her getting impaled immediately after by a fast moving tree. Perhaps I should try going up instead.

With that thought, Zoe began hoisting herself up the cable. It turned out to be really easy. She didn’t even have to activate {Kinetic Enhancement} — hell, it felt easier than climbing up a short flight of stairs.

Granted, the additional arms helped, but Zoe mostly came to the conclusion that her new form was just naturally really fucking strong. At least that was one benefit.

As Zoe continued to climb, she went over everything that had happened. Honestly, it was kind of hard to remember. It felt like trying to cling onto a dream. From what she could remember about the feeling of it, she suspected that she hadn’t really been lucid or in control. Or at the very least, she was in an altered state of mind.

Yeah, that’s definitely it. I felt like an enraged animal. A shudder rippled through her powerful new body. Freaky. From what her mind was now piecing back together, she knew that she hadn’t been any… what, stupider? She had been just as sharp and clear of mind as she always was. But she was more feral.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

What had changed? Would that state of mind overtake her again? As Zoe neared the end of the cable, she pulled up her status.

Zoe Blackwell

**Lesser Demon of Corruption / ??? - 29

Traits: {Rugged Constitution}, {Untamed}, {Monstrous Strength}

Abilities: Resistances: - {Pain Resistance - 20, Bronze} - {Lightning Resistance - 7, Bronze} - {Acid Resistance - 3, Bronze} - {Cold Resistance - 16, Bronze} - {Venom Resistance - 8, Bronze} - {Poison Resistance - 20, Bronze} - {Spirit Resistance - 20, Silver} - {Psychic Resistance - 20, Silver} - {Annihilation Resistance - 6, Gold} Healing: - {Heal Wound - 10, Silver} - {Medicinal Diagnosis - 5, Bronze} - {Cleansing Hellfire - 1, Bronze} - {Devour - 3, Onyx} Kinetic: - {Kinetic Manipulation - 13, Bronze} - {Corrupted Strike - 1, Onyx} - {Kinetic Enhancement - 7, Silver} - {Kinetic Dash - 6, Bronze} Mana: - {Mana Manipulation - 17, Bronze} - {Meditation - 18, Bronze} - {Spirit Enhancement - 8, Gold} - {Manasight - 3, Bronze} Other: - {Breath Control - 7, Bronze} - {Stealth - 2, Bronze} - {Physical Conditioning - 5, Bronze}

Perks: {Last Defiance}, {Righteous Ire}

Mana: 290 / 290

Woah.

A lot had changed.

She had apparently gained five levels, her species had changed, several of her abilities had reached Tier 1, and a few of them had changed completely. Going back to the top, Zoe checked out each change one by one.

Alright, so now I’m a demon of corruption. Makes sense I guess, but what about the question marks? What does that mean? Wasn’t it ‘undetermined’ before? What’s the difference?

Her {Pain Resistance}, {Poison Resistance}, {Spirit Resistance}, and {Psychic Resistance} had all reached Tier 1. The {Pain Resistance} explained why she just didn’t give a shit about the harpoon impaling her chest. She had no idea what the {Poison Resistance} was from, but the last two were probably because of the feral state she had been in. Was leveling them all the way up what allowed her current lucidity? She hoped so.

She also had something called {Devour}. It took Zoe a moment to figure out what was missing — and then she realized {Lesser Vampirism} used to be there. Vaguely, she remembered something early on about the ability being corrupted. But what about the grade? Bronze-Silver-Gold seemed pretty logical, but what the hell is Onyx?

A mystery for another time. It’s also interesting that it went down in level.

It seemed that something similar had happened to {Kinetic Strike} as well. Zoe glared at her status. I liked that ability. As she clambered up onto the side of the speeding airship, she resolved to hope that the new {Corrupted Strike} would be even better.

Finally, Zoe thought that a few more abilities might have leveled up, but she wasn’t sure — she was having trouble remembering. Oh, and also a new trait. {Monstrous Strength} sounded pretty self-explanatory — perhaps that was why she was able to climb so easily.

Shrugging, Zoe clawed her way towards a hatch. Her claws left deep punctures in the metal fuselage, so she was careful not to get close to the big balloon overhead. Once she was at the hatch, she realized that there didn’t seem to be an easy way to open it.

Sighing, Zoe dug her claws into where she thought the latching mechanism would be and ripped it open.

The entire hatch came off, so she discarded it into the air. Clambering inside was pretty easy — the whole thing was. Having what felt like impossibly sharp claws and talons made climbing around the craft pretty simple.

Once she was inside, it took but a moment for her eyes to adjust. No one was attacking her. In fact, she seemed to be in a small storage room. Creeping in further, Zoe curled her talons to root herself in place and then began working on extricating herself from the harpoon.

It took a few tries, but she was finally able to rip it out. Unfortunately, it took a big chunk of her flesh with it. Incredibly thick black blood oozed from the wound. Grimacing, Zoe activated {Heal Wound}.

{Heal Wound has been corrupted into CORRUPT WOUND.}

Zoe froze. Shit shit shit! Her healing was her most useful and powerful ability! Was this going to make it no longer viable? Zoe began to panic — but then her mind started butting up against {Psychic Resistance} and she calmed down.

Well that’s useful at least.

Resolving to find out, Zoe put just a little bit of mana into the new corrupted ability. To her delight, the pain began to lessen as her torn flesh wriggled back together. It looked a fair bit grosser than her prior healing abilities — black arteries snaking outwards in search of other flesh like grotesque fingers, blood curdling and pale white flesh squirming — but it worked.

Soon enough, Zoe was back to peak condition. It’s interesting that my insides are mostly that pale white. Like a shrimp or bug or something. Especially given how pitch black my outsides are.

Shrugging, Zoe tossed the harpoon back out of the hatch. Bracing herself, she flexed all four arms as she made her way to the next door. Come on, stop worrying. They could barely hurt you until they brought out that machine gun thing.

With that, Zoe resolved herself to step forward and begin the massacre. After all, they deserved it — they had harpooned her like a damn whale.

What was that story — Moby Dick? I think? Well anyway, the whale killed everyone, so that’s fitting.

Brushing the thought aside, Zoe ripped open the door. Time to hunt.