Kairos began abusing the conversion spell, turning more of his blood into black blood. He made sure to do it at a slow pace, but as his body continued to change he realized that was no longer a problem. It was as if his body was getting greedier. He found that he could increase his pace, to the point that he wanted to limit his speed for the sake of not draining all of his own blood.
It was a rather strange feeling, as the supply of black blood made him feel considerably stronger, but at the same time to loss of his own blood made him feel weak.
And eventually, the notification he desired finally appeared.
[Abyss Form (F+) -> Abyss Form (E-)]
He could feel his body morphing considerably. In particular, he could feel the shape of his limbs and spine shifting. Strange creaking sounds resounded throughout his body as his bones realigned and the rest of his body shifted with it.
Another thing that he noticed was that his nose had become strangely wet, almost like he had a cold, but his nose wasn’t blocked. Not to mention, his sense of smell had improved considerably. It felt as though a whole new world was opened to him, and he felt as though he could smell Nyoka, Sara, and Jeff in the distance, which all seemed fairly normal. He also felt a faint sense of something else in the distance, though wasn’t sure of what exactly that was.
He wondered if that was all an illusion. After sniffing a few times, he felt the scent of those three get clearer, despite how strong the corpse in front of him smelled. As for the faint sense he got before, it disappeared completely, making him chalk it up to an illusion.
And if it wasn’t one, then so be it.
He walked out from the collection of spikes, though he felt really awkward on two feet. In fact, he even stumbled a bit once he got out, clearly not used to it. And the moment he did get into view, Nyoka, Jeff, and Sara all looked at him with widened eyes.
Sara seemed to be in a trance as she looked at him.
“…Puppy?”
Jeff furrowed his brows.
“What happened to your arms?… And your legs?”
As for Nyoka, he wasn’t looking at him directly, but at the space right above him. There was an astonished expression on his face.
“Not only did you already get an avatar… but you have two of them?”
Kairos felt rather confused. Sara and Jeff’s comments were both a little strange, but he already had an inkling that he partially transformed into some sort of animal. But Nyoka’s comment seemed out of left field. He didn’t even notice that he had gotten an avatar, but now he was saying that he had two?
With a bit of hesitation, he looked up. And when he did, he saw a foreign gray wolf projection above him. It was a little different from the average wolf, as the teeth hung outside and were both larger and sharper than normal. On top of that, the fur was pressed against the body, making it look smooth and sleek. Though, the thing that stood out the most was the sharp gleaming black eyes.
Even just by being there, it looked quite aggressive, like it would snap out at any moment.
And right by that aggressive wolf, was actually something familiar. It was a faint projection of a purple woman. The protection that Tiana had given him a while back. He had actually completely forgotten about it. Because of the black flesh wrapped around him, the slight weight that the purple woman gave him faded altogether.
Currently, the woman was looking at the wolf curiously, while in turn the wolf was baring its teeth and silently snarling at the woman.
For a few moments, the two were having a standoff.
Kairos was getting worried that the two were going to fight each other. He didn’t exactly understand what would happen if they did, yet before he could worry about it any further, he felt a sense of disappointment, because of what his future vision showed him.
The purple woman reached out a hand towards the wolf that was still as aggressive as ever. Yet, the moment she lightly petted its head, the wolf suddenly dropped all of that. The wolf stopped baring its teeth, causing it to only peek out somewhat underneath its gums. And on top of that, its tongue hung out playfully as it panted. Seeing this, the woman only ruffled its fur harder, while one hand reached for the underbelly and scratched there too.
The wolf did not mind that at all. In fact, it even leaned in closer while its eyes narrowed into happy slits.
Kairos pressed his lips together with clear displeasure.
“What the hell is happening?”
Nyoka smiled bitterly.
“That’s what I’d like to ask you. You’ve got your avatar so quickly, and you somehow have two of them?”
Jeff walked up closer and looked at the wolf intently, not really caring about the face there were two “avatars”.
“I never thought I’d see a dog again. That is how a dog looks, right?”
Sara walked up sheepishly, with her eyes transfixed on the wolf. This was the first time she had gotten this close to Kairos. She then tried to look at Kairos, but she continually averted her gaze. Though, despite being unable to look at him directly, she still spoke.
“C-Can I pet it too?”
Kairos stared back at Sara for a few moments. He wasn’t really offended by the question or anything like that. Rather, he was quite surprised. He didn’t have anything against dogs. In fact, he thought they were cute and wouldn’t mind petting one from time to time.
But the thing above him definitely was very far from an actual dog, being a wolf and all. On top of that, it wasn’t even really a wolf as it was a changed version with longer teeth.
Sara seemed to be quite uncomfortable under his gaze.
In his future vision, he saw she would suddenly stutter and back off, so he spoke up before that happened.
“Yes, you can pet it if you want. But I don’t really have control over it, so don’t blame me if it bites.”
Sara’s expression lit up as she hopped over and reached a hand over to begin petting the wolf. Kairos felt a little strange, but the wolf was just having the time of its life. He didn’t seem to have to deal with turning into a cat, which he was initially relieved about.
But if the tradeoff was having a dog that just trusted anything that pets its fur one time, he felt that this might’ve been worse.
Nyoka noticed Kairos’ displeasure and couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
“Haha, it seems you don’t have much control over your avatars, which is normal. But at the very least they are still getting along.”
Kairos turned to him and raised an eyebrow.
“Is having two avatars really strange?”
Nyoka slowly nodded.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, or even heard of other people talking about it. Now that I think about it, there might be some correlation between this and the unknown core from earlier. Perhaps the only way it can be activated is if someone gains their avatar.”
Kairos blinked a few times, a little glad that someone else was coming up with an excuse for him.
“That sounds like a strange activation trigger.”
Nyoka shrugged his shoulders.
“It is, but that does explain why the previous guy was unable to use it. That is quite lucky, as you are essentially the only person that can use that sort of ability”
Kairos nodded.
“That sounds about right.”
He then shook his head.
“Anyway, do we still need to kill more of these things?”
Nyoka waved his hand dismissively.
“You killed it on your own, so you can just keep that core. As for the others, they aren’t all that important right now, so we can just go to the city and show you around there.”
With that, he turned and began walking once more. Sara stopped petting the wolf when she saw this, while Jeff just followed along while still daydreaming about something. As for Kairos, he followed after them, but couldn’t help but notice that the woman above him was still playing with the dog.
He cleared his throat and posed a question to Nyoka.
“How do you get your avatar to go away?”
Nyoka responded quickly.
“You need a certain level of control over it, which you can get by interacting with it and building up a relationship. There are a few other ways, but they are unreliable.”
The corner of Kairos’ lip twitched.
“So I can’t right now.”
Nyoka laughed.
“Hey, usually the problem with most people is getting the avatar out in the first place. Realistically, you are the lucky one here.”
Kairos didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he looked up at the wolf above him blankly, and it too looked back, just curiously. The wolf tilted its head to the side, almost like it was asking what he wanted.
Kairos slowly reached out and began petting it, though he didn’t really understand how he was supposed to do it, and thus just did so lightly. While the wolf seemed pleased, it also seemed a little disappointed, wanting a bit more from him.
As for his control over the wolf, he didn’t feel much at all.
Kairos wondered if he was doing something wrong, but with how weak he felt he decided to worry about it later.
After walking for another hour or so, it seemed the woman and wolf eventually had their fill of fun and both retracted into Kairos’ body. He was thankful for that, especially since he was thinking of excuses as to why he had those avatars above him.
Along with that, they did eventually find themselves reaching a giant black wall.
Kairos was able to see it from over two hundred meters away, as his vision had improved. He pointed at it and spoke up.
“Is that the city?”
Nyoka gave a small nod.
“Yes, it is. Now the only slight issue is that they might not allow you in since you don’t exactly look like other people.”
Kairos furrowed his brow as he realized that was indeed a problem.
“What if I show them my avatar? Or do monsters have that too?”
Nyoka rubbed his chin.
“Normally, only people have the ability to have avatars, but the issue is that there are many monsters that look like people, imitating them in many different ways. So… they may misunderstand that all of us are monsters if you do something like that.”
Then, Sara spoke up.
“What if we say he’s our pet?”