The overwhelming pain filled each piece of Robert’s body, not leaving behind even a single cell. He consisted of it, became part of it, turned into it. However, from the pain came power. It was no less terrifying than the awful agony he was experiencing, too huge to handle his mere strength. But Rob tried. He did everything he could to control it, despite feeling the futility of his attempt from the beginning. Still, he continued to struggle even though the battle was on the verge of ending with his unavoidable death. Throwing away anything he could, Robert focused on the control just not to fall apart from the insane level of energy he had to keep in check.
The task almost crushed him into nothingness. Therefore, Rob disregarded everything that took even a tiny part of his focus. The senses disappeared first, leaving him alone to float inside his mind. It wasn’t the first time for him to experience such a feeling, so Robert pushed further. The body was next, keeping his own self only in the role of a combination of thoughts and memories with no physical shell. He wouldn’t be surprised to know that at this point his body stopped breathing, halted the heartbeat, and simply turned into a living corpse. The corpse that was under overwhelming energy would never die.
Unfortunately, it seemed that it wasn’t enough. The reactor he intended to create was constantly rising in power, steadily going out of control. So, Robert threw away everything from his own being, focusing on a single task – to keep his creation in check before even trying to lower the power level. Somehow, he managed to do it – to balance the terrible energy and prevent it from growing beyond his control. However, this was the moment when the source of the creation, the fuel that made its part workable, was suddenly cut off.
The raging energy almost blew outside in a devastating wave of destruction, losing a single thing that was keeping it on the spot – the force shield. For a few long instants, Robert manually redirected explosions to the center of the reactor, catching the energy from leaking out. He even missed the moment when his mind understood how to do it, simply using it without thinking. The forceful effort to do so later pushed him into fueling the energy into the obsidian steel that was covering the self-made reactor from all sides. Not even trying to do any precise manipulation, Robert pushed a mass of energy onto the metal. In the back of his mind, there were some numbers and parameters that he studied during his attempt to fit into the real, but he wasn’t sure he used them. Everything was so fast that Rob had to act relying on intuition, his senses, and luck. Maybe the knowledge directed him. He didn’t know. Still, it worked somehow.
The problem was that the now-stabilized reactor was still filled with much more energy than he could handle, making him focus on everything just not to die. The bigger part of his mind was constantly creating new Energy Blasts, controlling the direction of each explosion before capturing energy back and using it to form another ball of energy. The other part was busy with keeping the force shield. The last one was in panic mode, searching for a way to use the spare mana that was washing over his body. The creation of the multiple steel constructs was just not enough to empty the endless stream.
Therefore, Robert tried to push the steel creation directly inside his body, making the cold metal a part of his flesh. It was immediately stopped by the obsidian steel that was still inside him. However, the attempt to push it out caused the foreign objects to glue to his skin as after so much time of trying to make them a part of himself to gain control over black alloy, the opposite action met an obvious resistance. It never stopped Rob from trying as most of his failures were overcome just by a sheer number of repeats. Nothing was new for him. So, telling himself that he was steel, Robert attempted to push a summoned particle inside each of his cells.
However, such attention left nothing from his own persona, emptying the spot of the captain, who previously controlled the body. And his inner parts, well-hidden after so many fusions and modifications, dived out from the deepness of his soul. Primal, animal-like, they abandoned any evolution humankind went through. The instincts to hunt from the apex predator – the dragon that he got from the unknown Transcendent after consuming the heart of the giant lizard. The desire to kill and torture from the tainted source – the demonic influence that corrupted his soul-body after his short stay in the realm of these bloodthirsty creatures. Not making a proper conscious being, and forming something akin to a brainless beast, they merged into a single entity, using their hatred for the humans as glue.
For an unknown time, Robert lost the connection to the outer world, focusing on supporting the reactor. Only after starting to slow down this dangerous creation did he finally get the pictures of the surroundings and the events that had happened during his absence. They came like flashes of lightning, showing just a single scene but imprinting it on the surface of his eyes for a long period. And those scenes weren’t anything good.
Gruesome pictures of the mutilated corpses that his mindless body tore apart with conjured claws or pierced with the constantly moving spikes. Not all of them were armed guards or mercenaries. On the contrary, the biggest part of the dead was just ordinary people, who were unlucky enough to meet the insane monster that was on a killing spree, trying to satisfy its thirst for blood, while expressing all accumulated hatred toward those filthy humans that treated him like a toy. This thought returned memories of the humiliation in the open cage, reminding Rob why he felt those emotions in the first place.
They deserved it… All of them!
Just a few repeats of this thought brought a burst of energy into his wild part, clouding his vision once again. The flashes of the scenes soon started to reappear, while Rob’s sane mind was fighting for its life against the raging reactor. Several times he was near getting full control, but the beast was in constant motion, hunting for any living being it could find. Using Robert’s knowledge and his abilities, this almost mindless and insane creature had a single aim – to kill. And it did, getting into the fights without even the slightest hesitation. Such a behavior brought another problem to Rob.
Each projectile, each bullet, and each wound caused the rise in energy as an instinctive reaction to the threat. Using it, the beast immediately healed, basically recreating the now steel-infused body with conjuring ability. Simultaneously, it led to the loss of any gained control, making Rob return to the starting point. On the other hand, another flashed image showed him a process of biting someone’s head with summoned teeth, shaking his already unstable consciousness. Still, Robert tried to push an idea to his monstrous part that he had to get out of the station. Maybe it worked, or maybe it was just sheer luck, but at some point, he found himself outside.
The small but important nuance in the situation was that he was on the surface of the planet, curling into the ball trying to protect himself from the absence of any atmosphere. The panic only began its attempt to shake him out of balance, before Rob’s mind threw it away just a mere moment later – there were too many similar situations in his life to even bother. The lowered level of the reactor’s production helped him to regain a part of the control, making it possible to send something akin to indirect commands to his beast part. He was still far from ruling his wild instincts, but it was the start.
Thickening the sphere's wall around his body and thanking his physique which didn’t need much oxygen even before creating a reactor, Robert made his inner monster create several outer limbs. It basically turned him into some kind of blind spider that crawled around until it found the corpse of the mercenary that was present in his latest memories. Not having any sense of touch through the conjured steel, Rob had to envelop the whole figure of the dead to “feel” the gaps in his created construct. Locating the helmet, he separated the head from the other body before proceeding to check his trophy.
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From his memory of studying, Robert remembered that the battle gear always had reserve systems, hidden in the sleeve if the first one failed. The same was true with the helmet which relayed on the cameras to provide the sight for the soldiers. So, after careful blind “observation” Rob located the switch that opened the view to the transparent visor that was there in case of emergency. It took a lot of time and effort to achieve what looked like an easy task in “normal” conditions. At some point, he wanted just to blast with an energy explosion, but it appeared with the ongoing reactor on the lower volumes Robert failed to create even the tiniest white projectile. It seemed all his ability was already busy with running the reactor, leaving only scraps to use. But that was the problem for the future. For now, after prolonged struggles, he managed to get his hand or, precisely speaking, clawed paws on the visor.
Putting it against his face, Rob moved the steel to cover the visor from all sides not to leave even a single gap. That finally opened the view of the unfriendly surface of the planet. Looking around and noticing the broken gateway, he started to understand what had happened through the fragments of the pictures. Not that his current of precepting reality was any better. The surroundings were regularly freezing, being stuck on one frame before jumping into another scene without any warning as if the connection between his mind and body was still far from being optimal. Still, Rob found the traces of footprints, sending the beast to follow, while returning his attention to the reactor.
The next return to the senses he found himself on the outer side of the spaceship, which was slowly rising into the air. His over-exhausted mind took some time to proceed with what was happening, allowing the spacecraft to stabilize above the ground before changing the angle of its metallic body. Glancing at the sides, Robert finally noticed the main engines that were starting to glow as if charging.
Oh, fuck!
Gripping even the tiniest gaps in the hull, Rob threw all his progress into the imaginary bin, accelerating his inner reactor before the real acceleration would kill him. Fueling the formless blob of metal with the remnants of the consciousness, he prayed that it would be enough. In the next moment, the sudden jump forward almost threw him from the hull. Luckily, the absence of the atmosphere spared him from the fate of being fried or squashed. On the other hand, it returned him back to square one.
However, this time it went differently. Maybe it was because Robert finally got a grip on his situation and the whole process of stabilizing his inner reactor core. It was not only easier but also gave more control over his manipulations. Feeling it, Rob decided to slightly change the course of his actions. This time he wasn’t just fighting for his life by fixing and patching the constantly breaking mechanism that went out of control. No, he started to build a foundation for a proper stabilized system that would later fuel his own existence. Moreover, his beast part was finally put out of order, being stuck without any motions and with just the wish to continue the hunt, but not the ability to do it.
Sensing that the acceleration had disappeared as if the spaceship was going at a constant speed, Robert changed the form of his protective layer into some kind of cocoon. It was still forcefully attached to the hull, fixing him on the spot, but the connection was a bare minimum of what was needed. Finishing it, Rob once again directed his attention to the inner self. He couldn’t see the reactor core, but his senses gave him enough idea of what he had now in his body. The fist-size sphere with an empty space inside was stuck under his heart, connecting to the latter with a thin but widespread net. Completely black, it was enveloped in an invisible force shield that was covering the inner walls of a hollow ball. Only such protection could prevent Robert from the fate of being disintegrated from inside because of the raging energy that was in working overtime.
The first thing Robert did was to redirect his source of mana from Aether to this sphere. Previously, it was always fueling him as a whole, not having a specific place of output. However, by changing it, Rob tried to prevent the reactor from going astray, keeping it always in check. He couldn’t measure everything precisely, but he was sure that only a tenth of the energy flow from Aether was used to create Energy Blasts, while the remaining part was supporting the shield. Luckily, his biggest fear of incompatible sources of energy appeared to be not a problem at all for the all-mighty being.
The next part was to direct the flow of the created energy from the Energy Core to fuel Robert's body. In fact, the bigger part was returned backward to support the force shield as any rise in power would cause more devastating energy to be produced, thus demanding more defensive measures. Maybe, in the end, he had less than ten percent to spare on his own needs, but this was still tens of times more than a direct flow from Aether. Therefore, using the net that was going out from the sphere into his heart and inner organs, he slowly made it fill everything from tip to toe, spreading the “small” stream of energy evenly. At this point he tried to reevaluate the change in his physique after his attempts to spend the overflowing mana… and they were huge. Just a single ping of senses pointed that he was currently almost like a living mixture of flesh and still that was interfused on the lowest possible level.
Well, now if something happens to my core, I am dead. I don’t think my connection with Aether is enough to support my body… Maybe only the head and torso? Not going to check it.
He indeed became steel. A living humanoid steel with enormous weight just from the feeling. The remnants of his “Heavy” rune that long ago merged into different abilities returned, working on a full motion as a passive. Rob had to use additional energy just to lower it back to “normal”, making him still heavy, but not on the level of an armored tank with limited mobility. The steel itself was also not the same, once again taking a new way after mixing with obsidian steel. Tougher, heavier, and more conducive to his mana, it was harder to create. Together, it created the situation when Robert barely had any spare energy to create anything at all, using most energy just to support his existence.
Moreover, his ability to conjure Energy Blasts was also inaccessible as it seemed to be occupied by running the reactor. And that wasn’t all as quite a few pieces of obsidian steel still were stuck inside his body. Becoming a part of himself, they could be transformed into anything he wanted with a noticeable effort, but he couldn’t disperse it completely. Some amount of it stayed with him permanently, no matter how he tried to get rid of it. On the other hand, he made quite a few improvements.
The constant fueling of his now steel flesh raised his regeneration to an insane level. He hadn’t a possibility to check it, but Rob was sure he could recreate anything in a mere second, literally fixing and not healing any wounds. Excluding his main weak spot - the reactor, of course. It also included the obsidian steel, but the reason was eluding his mind. The other “buff” to his physique appeared the lack of need for anything to sustain his life, and overall insane toughness.
When Robert started to lower the output of the reactor, he simultaneously decreased the size of the surrounding cocoon up to the point when it disappeared without a trace, and he had to find something to grip with his hand. For a moment Robert felt a prick of fear, but sensing nothing, even the tightest discomfort, he once again looked at his naked body that was stuck on the hull of the spaceship that was flying through the darkness. His blood wasn’t boiling, the oxygen or liquid wasn’t trying to be sucked away, the temperature was just nice. Opening his mouth, Rob paused for an instant before trying to take a deep breath. Obviously, it didn’t work but the attempt didn’t cause any damage.
Well, I am fucking abomination now… I bet it’s only possible because of my adaptiveness to that rodent’s soul. The best choice I’ve ever made, and I confirm it again and again. Still, doesn’t change a thing in me not being an abomination… A merged human-rodent soul in a cloned body of basically a super soldier that was cleansed by a dragon before adding its genes only to be tainted with demonic energy… And everything before merging with steel… Yes, don’t forget my brain modification… Ripped affinities… Yeah, I can get why Aether called me just a hybrid – much easier to explain what I am… So, now what? Oh, I see a ship.
Focusing on his sight, Robert noticed how the tiny red dot was slowly but surely growing in size until it turned into a battle cruiser. The latter was in the midst of turning around, pushing a long tube with a docking port. Enormous, the warship looked like a flagman just from the sheer size and the class. Multiple gun ports, thick armor plates, a powerful energy shield – everything made it a real gamer changer on any battleground. And that was what was bothering Robert.
What the fuck is it doing here? What is going on? Oh, to hell with it… Just need to get inside. I will have plenty of opportunities to find out about the current situation… and to test my upgraded body. Hope Aether will let me leave this realm – I am already sick of it.