Shelter.

Under a sky where stars blinked with an unfamiliar cadence, Victor slithered stealthily amidst the shadowed realms of the alien forest. The mantis had transported him further into its depths, and the environment had grown more strange and whimsical.

The canopy overhead bore branches that twisted in fractal patterns, reaching like bony fingers toward the heavens, filtering the soft glow of an almost full moon painted an unnatural hue. The massive trees sported leaves with iridescent sheens, fluttering with an eerie silvery light that cast an otherworldly ambiance, transforming the forest floor into a labyrinthine dance of light and shadow.

Shelter.

Victor moved his serpentine body with an urgent grace, a river of muscle, scale, and claws seeking refuge as the darkness deepened, bringing a chill that bit into his cold-blooded physiology with unforgiving teeth. Every sound, every whisper of the alien woods sang a song of strangeness and potential danger, making Victor’s tongue flicker anxiously as he scanned the surroundings with his senses.

The surrounding woods featured trees with trunks like molten metal, the surfaces dull and pitted, offering back distorted images of Victor’s monstrous form as he passed. The underbrush contained plants that appeared more fauna than flora as they twisted in mesmerizing patterns, picking off the minuscule insects that sought to feast on their flesh.

Shelter.

Each potential resting place Victor found held its own peril. Caves of vibrating crystal that thrummed with an eerie, mind-grating hum, groves of carnivorous plants with snapping jaws and tendrils that reached with gnawing hunger, all forced him to move on, seeking safety within a landscape that bore no resemblance to the planet he once called home.

Desperation mounted as the night grew colder, and Victor finally found a potential sanctuary. A hollow, similar to his battle with the beetle, lay beneath the roots of a giant tree, the trunk bearing soft, luminescent moss that cast a gentle flow in the surrounding darkness. Victor approached cautiously, senses on high alert as he inspected the inviting alcove, his vision hinting at vacancy.

SHELTER.

Finally, with a weary sigh of relief, he slithered into the hollow, curling his long, serpentine body in sinuous coils and gathering his scythe-like appendages around him like curved walls. Victor rested his head on his scaled hide, his lifesense pinging the surrounding forest for signs of danger.

During times like these, Victor wondered whether he had erred in focusing on offensive evolutions. He desperately wished for more senses to inspect his environment. He knew the peril of lopsided force projection in combat and saw the parallels in his evolutionary strategy.

If a unit was too specialized, they often found themselves at the mercy of more flexible forces with a better composition. He focused all his energy on developing his bioweaponry, resulting in the mantis’ ambush.

Victor knew he couldn’t be perfect—that was an ever-moving target, but pursuing perfection often put one ahead of those who weren’t. He had limited knowledge and couldn’t foresee every conflict he would be exposed to. In the meantime, Victor needed to plan his development so he had multiple options to attack, defend, and—if necessary—withdraw to a better strategic position. The serpent had to get past this initial animal survival phase and make it to civilization. However, that presented its own challenges.

What made Victor unique were his abilities as a generalist. He rarely worked alone. He could be dropped into a complicated situation, simplify it to a level that anyone could understand, and put the right people in the right places to take advantage of their own affinities. He didn’t believe in the trite philosophy of trying to bring out the best in people. Why fight against a current when he could guide the river where it best suited? Managed self-interest was the most effective management tool. It removed the emotion and inefficiency from a system and channeled effort in a mutually beneficial way.

If the capricious god wanted him to create an army, then that was what he would do. Not merely because she had asked but because it was in his self-interest to do so—a fact he believed the deity implicitly understood.

After mentally reviewing his battle with the mantis and taking a few hours to get much-needed sleep, Victor decided it was time to leave his hiding place. Luckily, the sun was starting to rise and warm the forest air. The sluggishness that pervaded Victor’s body gradually receded, allowing him to focus on his next move.

The mantis had transported him far deeper into the wooded interior. Victor could feel the hivemind of the forest pulsing in his thoughts like a lighthouse illuminating his way. He uncoiled from his sanctuary beneath the luminous, moss-laden roots and emerged from his temporary den, stretching elongated muscles and working out the kinks of his new body.

The early morning light revealed an altered hue to the landscape as phosphorescent plants dimmed, giving way to the more mundane colors of the forest. Unfortunately, the minor variation in Victor’s sight didn’t allow him to fully appreciate the natural transformation.

After a short time navigating through the undulating underbrush and past tress with metallic trunks heading toward the call of the forest’s unconsciousness, Victor stumbled upon a beaten trail, marked by humanoid footprints and wheeled tracks that left smooth patterns in the soft, spongey earth. The path was flanked by flowering plants with petals bearing geometric patterns, a clear demarcation from the chaotic growth that surrounded it.

The serpentine monster felt drawn to the path, intuiting that it led to his destination, but was concerned that following the trail would cause him to encounter more dangerous enemies. Woodland roads were often the route larger predators would take in search of prey or water. Meanwhile, the signs of civilization meant the possibility of encountering sentients, and his twelve-foot frame bearing keratin armor and bioweapons didn’t present the most diplomatic profile.

By mid-afternoon, Victor realized his fears were unfounded. Whatever faction had created the trail had also kept it clear of beasts. Victor could sense more powerful life signatures on the edge of his sensory range, but they didn’t near the road out of a cultivated sense of self-preservation. It was a situation that the vulnerable monster felt appreciative of.

Every half hour or so, Victor would stumble upon another beast and take the time to practice with his new bladed appendages. After several encounters, he became inordinately pleased with his new weapons. Victor had the range to attack his adversaries while keeping his sensitive snout above the fray.

His favorite way of killing woodland creatures had become hiding in the tall foliage and ambushing them from their depths to slice the animals across their vitals. The blades were sharp enough that often, it took only one swipe to spill their guts across the packed dirt.

It wasn’t usually a one-hit kill, but not one enemy had been able to keep from fleeing as blood poured out of the stab wound. Victor became annoyed that he always had to chase down his fleeing prey, but he was mollified that stronger enemies than him were dying without much risk to his safety.

As the sun began to set, Victor dwelled in the middle of a small clearing while he consumed the remains of his most recent kill. The small doe-like mammal with a bluish silver coat marked by white spots shaped like crescent moons had led him in a merry chase far from the path in its death sprint. Unfortunately, he hadn’t found any new evolutionary traits he wanted to adopt throughout his hunt, but he had stored enough biomass that his typically insatiable hunger had waned.

As Victor finished the last of the remains, his instincts screamed a dire warning, a chilling premonition that froze his form just as a pack of otherworldly wolves broke through the underbrush, their snarls tearing through the silent air. The strangest thing of all was their lack of life indicators. They appeared as little more than inanimate objects to his senses. If it weren’t for their movement, Victor may not have noticed them at all.

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The wolves were not the beasts of his home planet but creatures almost as monstrous as himself, bearing sinewy bodies armored with rough, chitinous plates, their azure eyes glowing with predatory hunger. Sharp, angular muzzles carried teeth like obsidian shards, catching the eerie light of luminescent moss as it began to display its night-time glow. They moved languidly, encircling Victor and baring their fangs in his direction.

Victor didn’t wait for them to attack. He launched himself with a speed that belied his size, elongated body coiling and twisting with a dancer’s grace yet imbued with a warrior’s deadly intent. He lashed out, striking with his organic blades, slicing through the air with a whistling sound that echoed in the confined clearing.

The wolves dodged with agile maneuvers, leaping and sliding with frenzied energy, a pack acting with singular, murderous intent. They circled around Victor, some distracting the snake from the front while others took bites from his serpentine tail.

Victor couldn’t let the sting of their bites distract him. He was fully aware that distraction would lead to his destruction. Thankfully, he had four primary limbs to attack with and two secondary ones that were smaller but no less deadly, especially when they pumped his attackers with paralyzing venom.

Each strike Victor landed was decisive, a blur of motion that left the wolves temporarily withdrawing with deep gashes, ichor spilling upon the vibrant forest floor as alien ferns recoiled from the toxicity. However, his attackers were relentless, driven by a predatory hunger that crowded out any fear. They attacked Victor in waves, a living tide of fur and chitin and burning eyes that sought to overwhelm him through sheer numbers and vicious tenacity.

The clearing became a vortex of violence, a maelstrom where flesh met keratin blade in a frenetic dance of death, a display of primal ferocity and elefant violence. Victor fought with a cold, deadly grace, a master of bladed combat weaving a web of lethality with strikes that bore lethal precision, an artist painting with strokes of crimson on a wooded canvas.

Despite the wolves ' frenzy, Victor was calm and collected, his heartbeat barely elevating in the fight. Each strike and parry was calculated with terrifying precision, his mind working at a velocity that saw paths of engagement before they happened as he predicted the animals’ actions with unnerving accuracy.

Slowly but surely, the tide turned, and the ring of wolves thinned as Victor’s blades found their mark repeatedly. Each of his attacks left a wolf dying or paralyzed on the forest floor, a testament to his evolved physiology.

Finally, the fight ended not with a bang but a lupine whimper as the last of the wolves fell, leaving the clearing silent, save for Victor’s panting and the micromovements of paralyzed canines. The serpent lay coiled amidst the fallen, his bladed limbs twitching with barely restrained energy, his senses scanning the surroundings with wary vigilance, ready to meet further threats with a deadly counterattack.

But the forest remained silent, and soon Victor moved to consolidate his gains. He slithered among the fallen, dispatching the wolves who were merely paralyzed instead of dead. He began his grotesque yet necessary ritual after finishing his grim battlefield tour.

Victor secreted his corrosive enzyme, the potent fluid with digestive capabilities that could dissolve organic matter with horrifying efficiency. As the vicious acid touched the first of the corpses, the flesh and chitin began to break down under the unyielding assault of the corrosive liquid. The slow, meticulous process turned the clearing into a hellish tableau.

Victor moved from one body to the next with almost ceremonial deliberateness. Victor fed upon the organic slurry When each wolf was broken down into its component parts. It was a morbid ingathering of nutrients and biomass as he incorporated the strength of the wolves into his own being.

And what a strength it was. Victor’s mind was flooded with their memories, the ranges they hunted, the bitter fear of the two-legged humanoids that stalked them every month, and the pulsating heart in the center of the forest.

Simultaneously, he learned the ins and outs of their anatomy, finally improving his senses and adopting their fanged maws, lupine eyes, and evolved sense of smell and hearing. Finally, Victor picked an unusual adaptation: their hind legs.

The organic traits stacked on top of one another, requiring a vast sum of biomass to make the changes, but thankfully, the wolves’ biomass, combined with the results of Victor’s daytime hunting, provided the necessary fuel.

When the last body entered Victor’s gullet, he collapsed into a heap on the blood-soaked grass. His whole body was inflamed as the evolutions tore through his frame. The first changes were structural. He felt fangs forming in his jaw as the bones thickened and elongated to support the growing teeth and sensory infrastructure.

Small holes opened up in the sides of Victor’s head, creating inner ears connected to auditory nerves to finally give him the much-needed sense. After the ears, he felt an itching in his skull as ocular sockets formed and biomass flooded the area to develop the retinas, cornea, irises, and lenses required for sight. Next, recessed nostrils formed, leading to the olfactory epithelium, vomeronasal organ, and olfactory bulb, the highlights of a canine sense of smell.

The most significant change was saved for last. The appendeds sprouting from Victor’s hip buds were transformed. His hips grew wider and stronger while the limbs rapidly lengthened, growing the musculature, tendons, and ligaments required for bipedal locomotion. Due to their canine origins, the legs were digitigrade, talons gripping the earth, while the rest of his feet lifted to give the reptilian monster sprinting and lunging power.

Victor rose to his new feet, assessing his improved physiology as a wave of new senses crashed into his consciousness. His eyes pierced the dim recesses of the forest, returning conventional sight to the monster, though lacking the green, orange, and red spectrums of human vision.

He took an exploratory whiff of the dense woody air, picking up the metallic scent of spilled ichor and foul corrosion. Under the more overt smells, Victor detected the subtle pheromones emitted by the wolves in their dying moments, describing a complex blend of fear and rage.

Finally, Victor turned his attention to the most missed sense of all: hearing. His new sensory organs returned the subtle shifting of trees, the buzzing of insects, and the slithering of various flora from miles away. No longer would something like a mantis be able to sneak up on the monster. Victor hadn’t realized how divorced from reality he felt from the lack of senses. For the first time since he arrived on Somna, he felt alive.

After cataloging and noting his new senses, Victor flexed and stretched his fresh legs. He leaped into the air experimentally, easily cresting six feet before the inexorable pull of gravity returned him to the surface. The monster jogged around the clearing, finding his forelimbs and tail a slight encumbrance. Victor learned to hold his tail aloft to prevent it from dragging on the ground while carefully positioning his four scythe-bearing arms to the side so he wouldn’t accidentally impale himself.

The sun fell over the horizon for hours before Victor felt confident in his new body. He was more mobile, had better senses, and could hunt better than ever. As he skidded to a halt, a wave of exhaustion pressed upon him like a heavy blanket. The battle and his subsequent transformation had taken their toll.

As much as Victor would like to sleep in the clearing, the smell of blood and violence would likely draw more predators, and while he was confident in his ability to defend himself, he wanted his rest to remain uninterrupted.

The monster continued his solitary journey, the memory of the violent confrontation and grotesque feast lingering in his mind. Though he had absorbed the energies and nutrients of his defeated foes, a deep, intrinsic caution urged him to find a new sanctuary to rest, rejuvenate, and remain hidden from possible retribution.

The forest morphed as Victor jogged toward the path, the flora transforming with the fading light, revealing hidden nooks and crannies within the labyrinthine tangle of roots and glowing fungi. They were features that Victor never would’ve noticed without his improved eyesight.

Guided by an innate sense of safety, Victor meticulously searched, an explorer navigating the mysterious yet captivating scenery with fresh eyes. He could sense the collective unconsciousness of the forest, feeling the pulsating rhythm of the living environment as he south a haven where he could rest in peaceful slumber.

After returning to the path and running along its length, he was drawn to a secluded glade shielded by overarching branches woven together like a natural canopy, a shelter forged by nature’s own hands. The ground was a lush carpet of moss, vibrant and soft, caressed by tendrils of bioluminescent plants that granted a fennel pulsating flow, casting a calming blue light that felt like safety.

Victor approached cautiously, carefully examining the glade, noting every possible escape route and hiding place within the leafy alcove. Finding nothing of concern, Victor settled into a self-made bed and released a content sigh, his body relaxing after the day’s efforts.

Shielded beneath the woven branches and bathed in the luminescent glow, Victor closed his eyes and entered the world of dreams. His thoughts were filled with images of the wolf killers, the two-legged hunters that prowled the forest and dispatched his kin. Behind them, a pulsating heart of the forest beat in time with the hunt. Its presence filled the woods and ruled everything within its domain like a remote monarch.

Victor dreamed of meeting the lord of the forest and communing with its spirit. He corrupted it—turned it to his god’s purpose so that an army of monsters could be released upon the world. The beast king led troops of two-legs, and four-legs, and six-legs, and scale-kin, and winged-ones that blotted out the sky. He was master, general, and saint, all rolled into one, a messiah of blood and bone.

He dreamed and plotted the course of the future.