It was the strangest experience I ever had. The feeling of enveloping something alive completely. The state of becoming the one existence with it. It was entirely different from the simple absorption of nutrients I did before.

More than anything, it was comparable to growing a new organ inside yourself. Something new appears within—something you make your own.

Alongside this feeling, foreign experiences come—the memories of the cat. Those are strange, indistinct, and primitive memories. Of its home, its owners, how a little girl (rather a cat-girl, considering her ears and tail) petted it, fed by an old woman (of the same race), how it hunted for mice and slept, slept, slept...

Then, everything changed. Its... no, his world changed. Just a few hours ago, when he, the cat called Zeyl, enjoyed the gentle embrace of his younger female owner, the strange melody reverberated at the center of the village. It didn't affect Zeyl, but each human lost the ability to think, and just mindlessly followed the sound source.

He wasn't glad that his subordinate was controlled by something! So the cat left the house to check what happened.

At the center of the village's square was a man. Instead of standing on the ground like he supposed to, the man in dark cloak levitated two meters above the ground.

The man was too far away for Zeyl to see him properly, but it was evident that he was the perpetrator behind the strange phenomenon.

But the sight wasn't cat's forte in the first place. He could smell the man even from hundreds of meters—the pleasant scent full of danger.

Instinctive fear paralyzed Zeyl. He could only observe the unsettling situation from a distance.

Humans, demi-beasts, and elves gathered around the floating man. Each of them was mesmerized by the creepy music.

Then the man started to chant something while looking at the raising Crimson Moon. The dark fog began to expand out of his body and enveloped everyone. And then, Zeyl witnessed the nightmare.

Each humanoid lifeform trembled in anguish—hundreds of screams and terrified shrieks: foaming mouths and crazed eyes. The pandemonium lasted for minutes before each life was lost.

The dark fog became the crimson and then returned to the man; it gathered under his levitating body. The gruesome scene made the man hysterically laugh in happiness.

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Then, he took away something spherical from his cloak and threw it in the fog.

Something was created from the unknown sphere and the fog. It something was... me. But bigger. Stronger.

Then it started to absorb bodies. About one minute was enough for this two meters high version of me to "eat" three adult-sized corpses.

But I already know what it wouldn't be able to do it for long... And sure enough, after about half a hundred bodies were annihilated, the change happened.

From afar, something blue attacked the thing at lightning speed. The cloaked man was unable to react in time. And so, the monstrosity was frozen solid just a few moments later.

The man screamed. He was unhappy. He raised his hand, and the green light approached the thing. But alas, something was faster. The flying spear pierced his frozen creation and shattered it in countless pieces.

Then a woman appeared at the scene. In heroic white armor, tall and beautiful, she was the true embodiment of the word Valkyrie. The same as the man, the gravitation didn't bound her movement in the slightest.

She picked her spear, then chanted something, and the iced pieces of the creature get enveloped in gentle silver light, seemingly obliterated forever.

After witnessing the true form of his opponent, the man didn't look relaxed nor brave. Deciding that his chances are slim, he immediately fled the scene. In less than a second, both he and the woman left the scene.

Zeyl was terrified, but also angry. His obedient and kind servants were killed and then eaten by something incomprehensible. I don't know why a cat could hold such complex emotions. I also don't understand why cat-girl and cat-granny would take care of the actual cat... But what I know is the reason why he attacked me. And the reason behind my existence.

Some parts of that creature survived. And then, revived. And then, got the human mind - my mind.

I should feel sick and disgusted, knowing the origin of my newfound body. The cat was entirely right in attacking me. But alas, I feel nothing—just pure enjoyment of getting a new form. The emotions of the thing that kill others, absorb others and become others. This village and the cat are my first victims, but would they be the last?

Should I seek self-destruction? Do I have the right to live as something so twisted and sickening? Just the existence of this body is the sin, at least from the human morality point of view.

But what about it? How many lives do we humans consume just to exist? How many living things are sacrificed to give birth to one baby? We eat animals, some of them are very close to us. Heck, they eat cats in China, don't they? And what about plants? I suppose vegans don't know that even banana has 50% of human DNA.

Do I need to align with human morality so much now, when I'm not even sure what kind of lifeform I became?

No, this thought process is dangerous. What would Lily think about current me? Would she hate me? No. She wouldn't.

It wasn't my choice to be born like this. What truly matters is what kind of conscious decisions I make. Even if my body and instinct tell me otherwise, I'm still me. I wouldn't kill innocent or make anyone who doesn't deserve it to suffer. I wouldn't indiscriminately attack just because I'm hungry or want to taste the delicious flesh.

But the main question is - should I eat the already dead?