When James regained consciousness, he noticed that his body felt different.

His breath wasn’t coming in from his nose and it seemed like he didn’t even have a nose. He could feel the air from the outside slowly entering from the surface of his entire body. It was a strange experience, being able to breathe without lungs or a nose.

James opened his eyes and looked around. There was a large light brown colored something that partially blocked the lower center of his vision. From the shape and location of it, it should be a beak.

But that didn’t make sense, because why would he have a beak.

Wait… birds had beaks, not humans.

James decided to put that aside for later and looked at where he was.

Unlike his location from before, all around him were giant grass-shaped leaves. They moved along with the wind and the gigantic leaves swung around, like a giant tower about to collapse.

Surprise and confusion were all James could feel.

He was lying on his back, so when he tried to get up, James realized that the beak wasn’t the only change to his body. His arms, or what should have been his arms, failed to bend the way that he wanted them to.

He could hear his arms trying to move, but all they did was hit the ground.

After a few more times, he realized that it was futile and raised up his arms to see that the heck was wrong.

From his vision, when he raised his arms up, he saw two red shapes appear, both covered with red feathers.

It took James a few moments to realize that they were wings. He no longer had arms, instead, he got wings.

His ‘breathing’ got faster and he pulled himself into a panic.

Using his mind, James quickly pulled up his status.

Name: James Ingis

Sex: Male Age: 14 Race: Phoenix-Human(Hybrid) Level: 1, Sp:0 Stage: Infant(Phoenix Form) Class: None Titles: Born of Mana, The Bread Thief, The Thief of 15th Alley, Blessing of the Fate God, King Skills: None Strength: 1 Agility: 2 Wisdom: 1 Will: 2 Vitality: 2 Luck: 2

There were so many changes. James closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. Him panicking now would not help him.

James thought back to that man, now he no longer had any doubt that he was lying. The System wouldn’t lie and all of the things that the man said about him were true. He did have the blessing of a god and his race also changed.

It struck him then that just killed someone and that someone was a god.

James never killed someone before, but that didn’t mean that it was an unfamiliar concept to him. He spent a good few years on the streets of Ru and he saw his own share of deaths. People being killed, killing themselves, and dying because they didn’t have enough to eat or enough warmth in the winter.

So the thought of the blood on his hands wasn’t too hard to deal with.

And who knows, James certainly didn’t see a body, so there was a small chance that Crimonus was still alive. After all, he was a god.

Now that James believed that the conversation that occurred was true, the things that he said that were important were actually important. James quickly thought back to that conversation and tried to remember everything.

He remembered Crimonus talking about 2 thousand years ago with the gods messing up, not trusting the other gods, the god of hunger eating him, his mother, and the Calamity.

James thought through everything for a few minutes and made sure that he didn’t forget something important.

Religion in Ru was weak and the presence of the Church was non-existent, but that didn’t stop the knowledge about Gods from spreading. As far as James knew, the Gods were all beings who lived from the very beginning and would live forever until the end of time. They were the supreme power of this world and had the greatest power imaginable.

And now he found out that his mother was a god and another god believed that he could do something important.

It was a lot of responsibility, but James felt like he could carry that weight. He gave up on his parents a while ago, but now it made him happy to find out that his mother didn’t really have another choice but to give him up.

Sure, their relationship was a bit more complicated, but James had hope.

Whatever he needed to do for his mother, he would do it. And if it was dealing with some Calamity, he would do everything possible to prevent it from happening.

James opened his eyes again and resumed his goal of getting up and, unlike before, there wasn’t any panic in his actions, instead, there was determination.

James felt his legs and started to swing them from one side to another. As he expected, they were the claws of a bird. He had four fingers, each one facing a different direction, on each foot and at the end of each finger was a long white nail.

His body of a human was gone, replaced with the body of a bird. James didn’t know what a Phoenix was, but judging from how he looked, he assumed that it was some type of bird. Crimonus said that he was a hybrid, so he must be some combination of human and Phoenix.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He never heard of people being half monsters, so it probably meant that he was a special case, or at least it wasn’t common in society. Who knows what different races lay in the deep forests.

He was a human for 14 years of his life, without the bird part, so maybe now that it was unsealed, it needed to catch up with his human side.

It was just a guess, but James didn’t know much more, so for now, it worked.

And Crimonus did say something about this being quicker.

James built up momentum with his feet and, after messing around with his wings for a little bit, he was able to roll over.

Standing up was a whole different experience as a bird. His knees and ankles were further up along his legs. It took a bit of experimentation, but after falling down a dozen times, he could properly stand up.

James hesitantly folded his wings and tried to take a few steps forward. He felt much lighter and his feet weren’t what he was used to so he tripped and fell.

It took another few minutes to figure out how to get around without falling on his face.

It took James walking around for a few minutes to properly get the hang of it.

But, now that he could move, it was time to determine where he was and where he was going next.

From the size of everything else, James guessed that he was small, very small. The size of a fly or an ant. From his view, the small rocks in the dirt beneath him were massive boulders and some larger ones were like mountains.

James picked a random direction and started to walk towards it. The large rocks and pieces of wood were walked over and James walked around the large blades of grass.

He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, so it was almost meaningless to pick a location to go to.

The sun was still up, but it was completely hidden behind the blades of grass and the things that stood above them.

“Rustle, Rustle”

As he was walking, he heard the rustling of grass coming from the distance. He couldn’t see where it was, but if it could move this grass, it must be massive, far larger than James’s puny body.

James wasn't a person that was scared of insects, but he began to suspect that they were now a problem. A big problem.

James moved next to a stem of grass and pushed his body against it. He still remembered that his strength stat was 1. With a 1 in strength, he probably would get blown off with the breath of anything that attacks him and his body was as soft as a feather, so any attack would face no resistance piercing him.

Why did he have to become a tiny bird with no defense? And he didn’t know how to fly either.

As he was thinking, the grass parted to allow a gigantic beetle to come through. It looked like an armored warship with its shiny black exoskeleton. Its one large black horn, at its head, was bigger than James’s entire body length. Its antenna moved around, trying to pick up various scents.

James started to slowly kneel, trying to make himself smaller. His red body wasn’t making this any easier as it stood out.

All of his efforts were useless as the head of the beetle turned and pointed its horn straight at him.

He was spotted!

He quickly stood back up on his shaking, twig legs and turned around. It was Fight or Flight, and James didn’t know how to fly. So he started to run as fast as his legs could carry him. The beetle didn’t still either as it began to give change.

His agility of 2 wasn’t much better than his strength, but it was better than nothing.

He was thankful that he managed to figure out how to properly walk since if he didn’t, there was a good chance that he would have tripped already and it would have been all over.

James had a foot between him and the beetle. In the insect kingdom, lengths held a different significance. If it was before and he was within a foot of a guard chasing him, he would have already been as good as caught.

But no matter what the distance was, it didn’t matter as the beetle slowly started to catch up.

If he didn’t figure out something soon, forget the Calamity, he wouldn’t even survive until nighttime.

James could hear boulder-sized rocks being tossed away and small pieces of wood being smashed to dust behind him. Ignoring all that, he focused on moving his little feet and trying not to trip.

Wait, it was true that he didn’t know the first thing about flying or birds, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn on the fly.

If he wasn’t in a fast-speed chase with his life one the line, he would have laughed at his own joke.

James opened his winds and did his best to start flapping. It was a feeling that he never felt before, having to move his hands up and down as if his life depended on it. But, a few seconds later, his feet were still on the ground, and the thing behind him wasn’t any farther away, in fact, it was closer.

It was close enough that James could feel its horn brushing against his tail, which he just realized existed.

Without any other option, James dove to the side. The soft dirt and his light body prevented him from taking any damage, but James narrowly missed one of the six legs of the beetle by the skin of his teeth. Or more accurately, the skin of his beak.

The beetle moved past him, unable to quickly stop its charge.

James quickly got up and started running in the opposite direction.

He didn’t have a single class, or a skill and his stats were ones and twos. There was literally nothing that he could do against the beetle other than hope that some other animal came along and ate it for him.

It wasn’t long before James heard the beetle coming after him again.

He needed to think of something quick before his stick legs ran out of stamina.

Could he run up a blade of grass?

No, that would never work. The beetle was probably much better at climbing than him, so the only thing going up would do is trap him.

But wait, the beetle wasn’t much different than a small and fast turtle with six legs and a horn. If he got on its back…

It was certainly a crazy idea, but so was being chased by a beetle that was ten times your size.

James slowed down for a moment and let the beetle catch up to him. It cluelessly charged at him the exact same way as before even though he managed to dodge. Talk about a bird brain.

James dove to the side again, except he wasn’t as fortunate as last time. The beetle’s leg smashed into his side and caused him to change direction mid-air. He rolled to a stop half a foot away.

James didn’t know what, but something was definitely broken. Under his left-wing, a terrible pain was being felt. In the pain, his eyes lost focus and he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing.

It didn’t take long for the beetle to back up and find where he was. It pointed its horn straight at him and began to move toward him. James watched as it came closer and closer, alongside his death. It took him a few seconds to realize that he needed to move away, far too long than what it should have taken him.

In that time, the beetle had already reached him. Its horn ripped through his skin and entered into his organs that lay inside. Its speed carried James along for a few moments before it came to a stop.

It raised up its horn and James was lifted up in the air like a fist at the end of a spear, unable to escape. James looked into its cold and dark eyes and wondered how he was still alive. As if to mock James, it shook its head left and right.

James felt his body being launched into the air as he was flung off of the horn. He hit a blade of grass and bounced off and landed close to the beetle.

James didn’t have any energy to do anything anymore. As strange as it was, he noticed that he wasn’t bleeding. The hole in his body was still here, but for some reason, nothing was coming out.

But the beetle didn’t care as it slowly moved to finish its little snack.

“Rustle, rustle,”

The grass moved again, except this time, it wasn’t the beetle. The beetle, also, noticed. Its antenna moved around for a few seconds until it stopped moving.

The beetle turned around and moved as quickly as its six legs could carry it. A few seconds later, a lizard with dark green scales followed the path that the beetle took. It was easily a few times bigger than the beetle.

Thankfully, it didn’t pay much attention to James as it began the chase. And so the chase of Prey and predator began again. The beetle, which had just been the things giving a chase, was now the things that were being chased.

James watched all of this with a dazed expression. His position as a captured prey was quickly changed in just a few seconds.

But, this didn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t get eaten by the next thing that pops around the corner.

James tried to get on his feet but found that he couldn’t. Ignoring the pain of moving around, neither one of his feet moved as he wanted it to and his left-wing had a fairly large hole in it.

No matter how much he wanted to move, he couldn’t.