As corrosive murk started to thread its way through the entirety of my being, I began to feel something else. Something much more immediate, and much more distressing in the moment.

My body began to change rapidly.

Inside of me, I felt it as my bones began to shift, cracking and extending and fusing and growing. Even though I was hunched over, I knew that I was growing taller and wider. Through hazy, distressed eyes, I watched as my very flesh began to bubble and shift. To my panic, scales began to form from the hardening mass of my formerly smooth skin, shifting in color to a deep, dark black as they did so. Startlingly, my Primorium arm was shifting in the same manner as my flesh was, changing in shape with the rest of me. But instead of black scales, they were the same pure-white and rainbow of the Spirit-shaped metal. The tips of both my hands and feet sprouted talons, long enough that they ripped straight through my already constrained boots. Scales began to grow up from my neck to cover my cheeks, and then the rest of my face. I frantically tried to scratch them off with my new talons, but all I accomplished was carving bloody furrows that closed almost as soon as I inflicted them on myself. I felt it as my ears began to grow much larger and longer, morphing even further as they were covered in those same scales. My eyesight very briefly went out, only heightening my panic before it returned. When it did, I only half-noticed that it was much sharper than it used to be, allowing me to see the individual grains of wood in the wall easily.

But whatever was happening to me wasn’t over.

I arced my back and screamed through changing vocal cords as I felt two protrusions erupt from behind me in a shower of gore. I…could control them as if they were extensions of my being no different from my arms and legs. Disbelievingly, unwilling to comprehend what my core ring was telling me, I maneuvered them in front of me.

Wings.

I had grown two large, bat-like wings.

I gazed at them in horror, because I recognized these wings. I…recognized all of the features that I had just spontaneously manifested. Unwilling to believe it, I looked around wildly before catching sight of a nearby vanity mirror on the wall, only barely aware of how wary Honoka had grown at my transformation. I rushed at it faster than I had ever moved before, creating a small gust of wind from my near teleportation. Gazing into the mirror, a profound sense of despair welled up inside of me as I clutched the edges of the vanity, cracking it.

Looking back at me from a shattered surface was a face akin to Rhazal's. I could only barely make out traces of my own features, under the scales and monstrous protrusions I'd grown.

The Godbound’s last curse on me…was to become him.

I staggered back from the mirror, clutching at my head and digging my new talons into my own skull as tears of anguish welled up in my eyes.

I slumped to my knees and screamed.

What emerged from my throat wasn’t the voice of a man.

It was that of a monster, warbling and screeching into the confines of the room. No doubt the entire manor could hear my howls.

The change to something as fundamental to me as my voice only added to my despair. I hunched over, burying my beastly visage into my scaled hands, and began to sob.

I don’t know how long I knelt there, inconsolable in my own sorrow. But gradually, I felt small, nearly imperceptible footsteps begin to approach me. Panicked, I whipped my head up, expecting to see the drawn blade of Honoka, ready to end the life of the newborn demon before her.

Instead, I found her outstretched hand hovering just over my shoulder, inches from touching my scales. Through watery eyes, I didn’t find hatred or judgment on the older woman’s face.

Rather, there was only concern and compassion to be found on her aged features.

Her hand finished its journey, coming to a rest on my scaled shoulder. Even through my new natural-born armor, I still felt the warmth of it.

“Hart…” I heard her say, through hearing that was far more keen than it used to be. “Is that still…you?”

I reached up and clutched at her offered hand, grasping desperately for any lifeline that I could. “I…I…I t-think so?” I stuttered out, in a voice only slightly reminiscent of my previous one. There were undertones to it, now, both physical and spiritual. The physical was what I expected from monstrous vocal cords, simultaneously the screech of the bat and the growl of the reptile. But there was something more to it now, something familiar.

Although it wasn’t as strong, there was an element of soul speech to my voice now. I could feel it as something about my words reached across the Aetherial distance between Honoka and I, and conveyed my exact meaning to her.

No doubt filled with all of my panic, fear, and desperation.

Honoka winced above me. Though, I don’t know if it was from my new voice or the feeling of my scales under her hand. Still, that didn’t stop her. “Hart,” She said firmly, reaching up to grab my chin with her other hand. She deliberately turned my head upwards to look her in the eye. “I need you to focus, now. This has to be a Skill of some kind. The System doesn’t permit racial changes, and I doubt it would start now. Not for a Precursor, and sure as hell not at the whims of a Calamity. You need to examine your Status closely, and we can go from there. This might be reversible.”

I latched onto the lifeline Honoka had thrown me, an indescribable feeling of relief welling up inside of me. I nodded vigorously as I frantically called up Hidden Amidst the Spheres once more, hope held close to my heart.

God, please…please. Please don’t let me be stuck as a monster.

I don’t know if I could take it.

My Status appeared once more in my minds eye, suspended in place from where I had abruptly abandoned it in my despair.

You have gained 31 levels! You are now level 100 (122)! You have gained the title, Calamity Slayer. Calamity Slayer grants +50 in all Virtues. You have 90 (310) unspent Virtue points. Level 100 Class Ability inherited. You have gained the Skill, Vis Maledicta Exactoris. Would you like to review your Status? Y/N

I frantically scanned the dialogue box in my mind's eye, before settling on the last line before the review prompt.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Vis Maledicta Exactoris.

That had to be it. That had to be the Skill that had transformed me in this way.

Desperate, I shut my eyes and tried to search within myself for it. Sometimes it was easy to mentally reach for Skills, and sometimes it wasn’t. I almost had to familiarize myself with the mental triggers of newer ones before they became easy to use. I prayed that I could find the one for this new transformative ability.

There!

That was it. I was absolutely certain of it.

Floating in the recesses of my soul was a new Skill. It felt nearly…malicious, to my senses. In my mind's eye, the representation of it looked distressingly similar to one of the Revenants that Rhazal had loosed upon the city. It was leashed to the greater part of my soul-tree by a thick chain of familiar-looking murk, so similar to that which the now deceased Godbound had layered over the sky. But it wasn’t snarling or fighting the chain.

Instead, the monster was almost eerily looking directly at me. Even though I wasn’t actually there in this corner of my being, its attention was fixed in a direction like it was facing my attention. The beast’s wide, crimson eyes were unblinking as it stared at me, sitting eerily still.

Cautiously, I extended a mental hand to the bestial hound. It didn’t snap or fight me. It just closed its eyes and leaned into the touch.

Connection.

I had the Skill in my grasp now. With hope in my heart, I turned it off.

In the real world, my body was immediately shrouded in corrosive murk, causing Honoka to leap backward from me. But I wasn’t paying attention to her.

I was focusing on my changes.

Thankfully, they weren’t as painful as the initial change had been. None of my bones were rearranging themselves inside of me, and none of my features painfully adjusted position at the cessation of the Skill. I instead immediately shrank in my over-stretched clothes, returning to my previous height. The added musculature that my transformation had granted me disappeared as well, while more drastic changes to my form happened in an instant. My wings vanished, while my scales had thankfully faded away to reveal my pale skin once again.

But…it didn’t feel like everything was gone. My ears on the side of my head felt…heavier than before, while something much more obvious had stuck around on my hands. While I didn’t quite have talons anymore, my nails on my hands and feet were still hardened from their previously normal state. They weren't quite talons, but they weren't human nails any long. I left scratches on the hardwood floor as I clumsily pushed myself back to my feet.

Honoka hissed from between her teeth from across the room from me, drawing my attention. “You’d…better take another look at yourself, Hart,” She said ominously.

My breath catching in my throat, I approached the vanity mirror I had halfway shattered earlier. Looking into it, I could see what had caught Honoka’s attention, and it caused my heart to drop in my chest.

I looked different.

I was still recognizably Nathan Hart, but with a bit…more. As I’d noticed, my ears hadn’t gone completely back to their normal rounded shape. Instead, they were long and tapered now. They stood out from the side of my head at an angle, with an extended flat edge on top that tapered out to a point. Thankfully, they weren’t quite as wide as an Orc’s ear, which would have looked comical on a human.

Instead, they just looked similar to an elven ear. Only…the long flat edge had a tapering of monstrous black scales along the top edge of it. The black of them glimmered in the low firelight.

And that wasn’t the only change from my previous appearance.

My eyes had not only changed shape, but they were glowing. The pupil was slit now, almost as if I possessed the eyes of a Gnoll. My emerald green irises glimmered in the light cast from the fireplace, visibly glowing. As I watched, the slit pupil of my new eyes flexed back and forth to accommodate the lighting conditions.

I shuddered at the sight of it before another glimmer caught my eye. I raised a hand to my cheek to trace what had caught my attention disbelievingly.

I…think my scars were being overlain with those same black scales as well. The jagged scar that had long stood out on my face from my first fight with a monster all those months ago had grown them as well. The mark that the Blade-Rack Hart had left on me was now overlaid with tiny obsidian scales. Hurriedly, I opened my ratty shirt to look down at my chest, uncaring about Honoka’s presence. Sure enough, I had more of those scale marks visible on my body from every other scar I had ever accumulated. From the smallest accident mark to the largest battle scar, they crisscrossed my body in scaly, obsidian marks.

I just stood there for a moment, feeling bereft.

Was…I even human anymore? Had Rhazal stolen even that from me, with this last curse of his?

I let out a shuddering breath.

“Could be worse,” I heard from behind me. I turned my head to look at Honoka in complete disbelief. I found the older woman looking at me with a considering look on her face, cupping her chin in one hand.

“What?” I said, growing almost irrationally angry. “What the fuck do you mean, it could be worse?! I barely look human anymore!”

“Yes, and that’s a bit of a problem,” Honoka replied, unflinching in the face of my fury. “You’ll probably be mistaken for an elf, now. But as far as permanent Skill-based physical changes go, I’m telling you. I’ve seen worse.”

“Then…this is something that can happen to other people?”

Honoka shrugged and wavered a hand in front of her. “It’s pretty damn uncommon,” She said, dashing my hopes of not being a freak. “But it’s not like it’s never happened. It’s just…most people who’ve been changed so extensively by their Status are much, much higher level than you. You’re only at the cusp of the first breakpoint, after all. But…I think we can spin this.”

I sighed and walked over to the chair that had been discarded at the start of my transformation. “How so?”

Honoka joined me, sitting in the chair to my right. “Not many people have ever killed a Calamity, Hart,” She said, doing her best to be comforting. Honestly, it just sounded awkward coming from the normally fiery old woman. “People don’t know what you get from the System for doing it. I’m not sure even Grey knows.”

“You get a title called Calamity Slayer that gives you fifty in each Virtue,” I cut in tiredly.

Honoka raised an eyebrow, but continued anyway. “Sure, and that’s pretty good. But we can say it was something else. Like, say…a curse of some kind, from the dying monster. Bam!” She slammed a fist into her open palm. “And that explains your new looks.”

A curse...

I looked at her almost disbelievingly. “And the activated version of the Skill?” I asked her. “Because I can tell that I can turn back into that…thing. The Skill is still there, waiting for me. Will people believe that came from the System?”

“If we tell them it did, yes,” Honoka nodded, surprising me. She just smirked. “You underestimate the pull that Grey and I have. If we say something like that, people will believe us. And Grey will go along with that. I’ll just have to get to him first, and head this off before it becomes a problem. He and the rest of the Army are only about four days away. I can fly there, fill him in on all that’s happened, and then be back by sundown. Then, he can do something to help Sylvia.” She finished, nodding hopefully at the still comatose form of the Sculpted woman.

I looked at Sylvia as well, a different emotion than hope in my heart. I felt dread, instead.

Would Sylvia even care for me anymore, after I had been cursed like this?

We were interrupted by the sound of banging on the door of the room. Startled, I looked over with Honoka towards it as a muffled voice came from the other side.

“Lady Honoka?!” I heard a man yell through the wood. “Are you okay?! We heard what sounded like a monster from in here!”

Thankfully, even though they were rattling the door handle, they couldn’t get in. Honoka had melted it in her fury, after all.

Said woman looked at me and leaned close. “You’ve got to go,” She said hurriedly. “I don’t have a cloak in here to hide your new features, and I don’t know how these guards and soldiers will react, so soon after the massacre. Skill concealment might just provoke these flatfoots, from how jumpy they are. Lay as low as you can before Grey and I can come and find you. We’ll get this sorted out with an announcement when we can.” She finished, shooing me in the direction of the window.

I stood up slowly as the pounding on the door increased. It sounded like the guards were trying to break the door down. Honoka approached it. “Calm down!” She yelled through it, projecting irritation that was believable for her. “I just had a disagreement with someone, that’s all. I’ll fix the damn door,” She said, still motioning for me to leave.

I took the hint and activated Thorn Cloak, slipping the hood of the manifested Skill over my head. Turning away from both Honoka and Sylvia, I only remembered at the last moment to grab my new staff from its resting place near the bed. When I had a firm grip on the staff that had once belonged to Honoka’s deceased husband, I opened the window and slipped out unseen.

Like a proper monster.