It took me a while to come into my senses.
No!
What should I do?
I don't want the pack, especially Lion to see me like this!
My mind is blank. I don't know what to do!
A voice seems to scream at me inside my mind.
RUN!
RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!
Immediately, I went outside the tent and ran without direction.
I panted as I ran without a second thought, no emotions at all, just pure instinct to escape from everything.
Tears flowed down my face as all sorts of thoughts filled my mind.
That's it, run away from everything, you coward!
I'm not a coward! I just don't want them to see me like this.
Like a monster?
A what?!
I instantly stopped and took a glance on my claw.
To my horror and dismay, both of my arms doesn't looked human anymore.
Including my legs.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!
In a panic, I glanced around and tried to look for an oasis. All I can see are dunes of sand.
Endless dunes of sand.
I can still see the speck of our tent at the distance and I knew that the pack can easily catch up with me.
I don't have much time. I should run some more until I can find an oasis and see what I looked like.
To my delight yet fear, I can somehow run faster than normal though in a panic, I somehow kept tripping and falling over.
Finally, I got the hang of my legs and run much faster until I can no longer see the speck of our tent.
Mercifully, it's still nighttime and the darkness can somehow cover my appearance. As for my footprints, there's a slight breeze blowing that somehow shifted the sand and covered it.
Good.
I kept on running until morning.
.....
I hid in what seems to be an empty den of a monster and waited for evening to come.
I'm naked as of now since there's no reason for me to wear clothes anymore.
Why?
My body is not human anymore. Except for my face maybe as I touched it earlier and I can still feel that it hasn't changed at all.
I'm becoming a monster.
The transformation stone is still on my forehead and when I touched it, I can feel that it had increased its size and started to cover the edges of my face.
My hair had turned into some sort of a crystal that I accidentally broke some parts of it when I stumbled into the sand earlier.
If I do somehow turn back into human, my hair would be shorter.
There's no other thoughts inside my mind as of now.
Nothing at all.
It seems that all I can think about is just...
Surviving and escaping from everything, everyone including myself.
So I will continue to wait until evening comes and darkness can cover me.
.....
I'm huge.
While running, I caught a glimpse of my footprints and noticed that it looked much, much bigger than what my footprints used to looked like.
Okay, I'll be honest.
My footprint looked bigger than the length of a car.
That's the best description that I can give.
I'm definitely a monster now.
I also have wings too.
Heh.
Now where's that oasis?
....
I stared at my reflection.
Oh.
I don't recognize myself anymore.
There's no longer a piece of my former self on my current appearance.
My entire eye is black, like I'm some sort of a demon.
Maybe I'm a demon now.
But am I?
The way I looked.. you cannot even tell if I'm a female or a male. Just plain.. ugliness.. with a bit of beauty on some parts.
When I opened my mouth, my teeth looks extremely sharp and.. are those fangs?
I touched one of my fangs using my tongue and to my amusement, it's quite sharp that I tasted blood.
Mmm.. yummy..
It tastes good..
I laughed with glee and hearing my laugh sent shivers throughout my body. Horrifying but music to my ears.
Oh, I feel so alive!
A voice seems to be calling my former name inside my mind, making me roar at them furiously.
It stopped talking instantly then in a voice that seems too soothing, it reminded me again that he's Asmodeus.
Asmodeus? Do I know any Asmodeus?
Maybe my former self knows.
Hmm.. I really don't want to wake her up..
Hey, you! Wake up!
GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!
Someone wants to talk to you!
Oh, buzz off! You go talk to them!
It's Asmo, something? Do you know him?
Asmo.. Asmodeus? Wait! Let me talk to him!
Oh, alright. But you better hurry.
.....
What happened to me?
Asmodeus asked me who was that attractive voice that he was talking to earlier.
The heck?!
Sigh.
I told him everything what happened since I got sick.
He seemed to ponder for awhile then told me that the transformation stone must be corrupted. But I shouldn't worry as the dark lord would be very delighted to hear what happened even though it is unexpected.
With a laugh, he told me that I sounded quite irresistible earlier and he now wants to see me in my current form.
What the..
In a voice that sounds extremely pleasing, he told me that someone is coming to get me and I should stay put.
So.. am I a demon now?
Asmodeus chuckled and told me that I'm a demon yet not a demon at the same time.
Huh? I'm confused.
He explained that by the sounds of my voice earlier, there's a bit of demon in me though he isn't that sure yet unless he sees me.
Before he ended his conversation with me, he told me that he's coming also and several others as well.
Oh.
I asked him if the demon king is coming too in which he chuckled again and told me that I don't need to know whether he's coming or not as he's always around watching me.
That's.. stalker-like behavior.
He's definitely a creep.
Then after that, we ended our conversation.
I wonder if the pack found out that I'm gone?
I don't think they can still recognize me now.
The way I looked... there's no sign of my former self. I looked like a monster. I AM a monster.
I'm.. tired..
Hey.. take over for me, will you? I want to sleep.
OH, HEY! GLADLY! Have a wonderful rest!
.....
I kept on growing and growing until I'm quite humongous.
I still found myself pretty.
There's nothing else to do for me but to wait so I destroyed several ruins to pass the time until I heard a roar from a distance.
What now?
Ohh.. is that something for me to play with?
My two personalities merged while I was busy earlier. I don't know who I am now.
I simply existed and waited for Asmodeus to come.
After several moments of waiting, I saw a dragon flying towards me.
Dragon.. is that Sly?
I can still recognize him though my attachment to him is a bit faint compared to before. I don't think he can recognize me now as I looked entirely different, not to mention having another scent.
In short, I am a monster in his eyes.
Lion, Alpha, Orm and Ghost are riding on his back and they looked...
There are no words to describe the look on their faces.
Much to my amusement, they looked small.
Heh.
So easy to squash them with my foot but they're not worth my time.
After observing them for a while, I tried to ignore them when I heard Lion yelling something at me.
I'm ignoring him!
La la la.. what the?
The ground behind my back exploded in which when I turned to look, I can see Lion flying in the air, with rage in his eyes.
He tried to hit me with his magic!
Also, he looks mad! Pain, grief, anger and other emotions that I can't seem to identify are written all over his face. Tears flowed down his face as he yelled something at me.
I can't understand what he's saying! It's as if he's speaking in another language!
Please, just go away!
I tried to wave my claw towards him, as if I'm signaling him to leave me alone when he tried to attack me again.
What the heck is wrong with him?!
Not only him, but the rest of the pack as well as they tried to attack me also.
Oh.. you're not content on telling me to butt out and to leave you all ALONE?! NOW YOU ALL WANT TO KILL ME AS WELL??!!!
Sly tried to burn me using his magic as madness and grief are all over his face.
I don't care what you feel...
Just leave.. me.. ALONE!!!
I roared with all my might as stone-like spikes from my body flew towards my surroundings.
Alpha transformed into his ultimate form and headbutted me towards the ground.
Ah.. he wants brawling, eh? Too bad he didn't recognize me!
I seemed to recall the brawling techniques I learned back in my previous world and along with some wrestling moves, I pulled his tail with no mercy then twirled him round and round until I suddenly let go of him.
He fell to the ground in a quite considerable distance away from me in which I ran towards him, jumped and landed on his abdomen. He gave a painful howl and got knocked out immediately.
I laughed with amusement but my laughter came out as a weird kind of sound.
Seeing that Alpha got knocked out, the rest of the pack have murderous rage in their eyes as they glare at me.
They kept on yelling all sorts of stuff but I can't understand them.
Using all sorts of magic attacks, they attacked me. To my surprise, I know a bit of magic too.
Orm sent a powerful ice magic spell in my direction while one of my claws started to glow and I immediately ran towards it and gave it a powerful punch, shattering the ice instantly.
I was about to reach out for him when I felt something struck me from behind in which there's a big golem trying to attack me.
It's Ghost summoning a golem. How cute.
As I attacked the golem, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Lion and Sly are trying to attack me sneakily.
Gotcha!
I made several fire-like chains come out of the ground and bound their entire body.
They thought that they can do sneak attacks on me? Ha! It's all thanks to my experiences on playing fantasy online games back in my previous world!
They screamed all sorts of expletives towards me, making me feel happy as their wrath seemed to give me more energy.
I heard a sound and I glanced over at the side with good timing as a huge ice spear nearly hit me.
I see. They really wanted to kill me.
I gave a earthshaking roar out of anger in which several, enormous flames of fire surrounded me.
The pack, except for Alpha who is still knocked out, transformed into their ultimate forms and tried to attack me in beast-like manner.
Seeing them attacking me in rage, made me realize that they are no longer rational and just acted on their emotions.
So I attacked them too.
We all acted like beasts, animals that are fighting each other. But in my case, it's four against one.
It doesn't really matter as I noticed that I'm faster and stronger than them despite having no training or experience with fighting at all.
Is this the power of the transformation stone? Or the power of its corruption?
Bah. I don't care.
All that matters is that I feel remarkable!
At this point, Alpha woke up and continued to attack me.
They bit me everywhere, as if they wanted to eat me in pieces while Ghost used his magic to petrify me.
It succeeded for a while in which Orm immediately coiled around my body and used ice magic to freeze us both, making the Lion and Alpha bit me everywhere that made me roar in pain.
Now I don't know how I did it, but somehow I seemed to enter in some kind of state that all I can think of is to fight all of them back because of the intense pain I felt.
I'm in a mindless rampage, attacking all of them everywhere with no strategy or plan at all.
Just pure beastly desire to hurt someone.
To hurt, cause pain and destroy. That's all I'm thinking at the moment as chaos surrounded me.
But despite my huge advantage, the tide soon turned against me as I felt myself being torn apart into pieces.
Lion kept on tearing me apart, as if he is trying to consume the very cause of his pain and suffering.
Suddenly, a bit of my sanity came back and I saw his eyes in mad rage but with grief in them.
I continued to defend myself but it is clear to me that I'm losing.
More and more of my sanity came back but I hid it as I don't want the pack to recognize me.
It's better for them to end me like this without knowing that it's me.
It hurts.. everything hurts.. but I'm glad.. I can finally rest.
Besides Lion, Alpha is trying to consume me as well, making me roar in pain as I tried to push him away.
But I can no longer move as both Orm and Ghost held me in place.
I laughed in sadness though they don't seemed to recognize it as laughter as the sound is horrible, even to my ears.
A voice seemed to scream into my mind, telling me to fight back but I declined.
I'm exhausted.
I don't want to die losing my sanity.
I want to die with dignity and for the pack not knowing that it's me.
It would devastate them.
So I let them continue to attack me in which I simply closed my eyes and waited for the end.
While waiting for my end, I can feel Sly breathing fire on me as he tried to burn me to death.
...
But to my dismay, I heard several strange noises around me.
When I opened my eyes, to my horror, I can see Maelsa, Asmodeus, Subus and a lot of magic users that belonged in the territory.
Asmodeus and Subus are in their fake forms. I don't know why.
With a simple wave of his hand, Maelsa forced the pack to transform back to their regular form using his magic.
A magic seal appeared on the pack's mouths and their extremities were bounded with a magic rope.
Some of the magic users surrounded them while Maelsa simply walked towards me in a leisurely pace.
With a snap on his fingers, Maelsa removed the fire that engulfed me.
He silently studied me for a while then gave a grin, as if he is truly impressed and in joy upon seeing my appearance.
After that, he faced everyone and gave a creepy, happy smile towards the pack.
One of the magic users murmured something and somehow, nothing happened until Maelsa started to speak.
I can understand him!
He told the pack that he is disappointed in them for taking a long time in getting the transformation stone and they all deserved a punishment, if it weren't for the fact that he saw something that gave him joy.
Weird and sadistic. Best words to describe Maelsa.
The pack looked at him with murder in their eyes, making Maelsa laugh and he removed the magic seal from their mouths.
He asked Lion sweetly on handing him the transformation stone in which Lion simply averted his eyes and told him that he doesn't know as tears kept falling down his face.
One by one, Maelsa asked the rest of the pack until Ghost snapped at him and accused him of not warning us that the guardian of the magic stone would appear unexpectedly, far from its location.
Huh?
They all thought that I'm the what?!
The rest of the pack yelled at Maelsa in frustration mixed with rage, threatening him while begging to be released as they want to finish what they started.
Seriously? I thought that they knew that it was me! I was mistaken!
But to be fair, we didn't see any guardian of the transformation stone earlier.
Ah. I understand now. I was transformed as the guardian of the magic stone. They can't remove the magic stone that is embedded on my forehead unless they kill me.
I see.
After seeing my body earlier, the color of the transformation stone and my body are the same. That's why they thought that I must be its guardian.
Well.. they are kind of right in a way..
But why are they crying?
I soon found out why.
.....
They thought that I was taken by the guardian of the transformation stone.
I'm being kidnapped by me.
That's so hilarious!
I'm my own kidnapper!
Besides me, Maelsa roared with laughter while Asmodeus looked amused though he tried to hide it. Subus looked bored as usual while the rest of the magic users have poker faces.
After a long time of being amused by the situation, Maelsa smiled maniacally towards the pack and asked them if they wanted to destroy the guardian monster who kidnapped their mate.
Without a hesitation, they agreed and Maelsa removed the magic rope that bounded Lion's extremities.
With delighted insanity in his eyes, he hurriedly approached me while Maelsa grinned in amusement, saying in a low voice that sounded like, I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Then with a snap on his fingers, Lion tried to burn me alive.
But I didn't die yet though I felt agonizing pain.