Chapter 293: Taming the Monster Within

"You want me to transform into that thing again?! THAT was your plan B?"

Slimo nodded his head while spreading the ashes of the dead fire on the ground with his foot.

"You don’t have any idea how powerful you were in that form. To be honest, I am almost dumbstruck that we managed to not lose anyone’s life fighting you. You practically took us all down one hit at a time."

Jacob shook his head.

"It’s a bad idea, a terrible idea to even try."

"Just think about the possibilities, Jacob! Our group wouldn’t have to rely on Sheeby so much for everything!"

"Last time I transformed, I hardly even remember transforming. I don’t even know how to activate the transformation... well, I have a feeling I know what to do, but it makes controlling the power that much more difficult."

Slimo walked up to Jacob and put his rough hand on his shoulder while staring into his hazel-green eyes.

"We have Lidia with us now, who is much more powerful in case you lose control."

"But I don’t want her to overexert herself while she’s carrying a child."

Slimo sighed deeply and turned around to look at Lidia who was sitting quietly near them, listening intently to their conversation.

"Trust me, I feel that more than everyone in this group. However, it’s exactly because I want to protect that child that I need you to get stronger. Lidia told me it was really close to getting hurt in the last fight at the temple. I can’t ever allow that to come close to being a risk from now on. We are desperate, Jacob. Very, very desperate."

After a long time sitting in silence, contemplating Slimo’s plea, Jacob caved.

"Fine. Just... please don’t let me lose control again. I can’t forget anything anymore, so I won’t be able to forget what I will do to all of you. I am a bit curious of something though."

Slimo raised his eyebrows.

"And what would that be?"

"I wonder if the powers I managed to gain from my previous transformation will stay. Now that Zalo has come back to life, all kinds of mythical powers have been messed up or changed completely."

"It’s unlikely based on how your power already works outside of the transformation, but that would be quite terrifying if you kept them. That also makes me wonder how strong you had been before receiving those powers."

"Only one way to find out, right?"

He looked over at Lidia who was smiling warmly as her long hair rested on her shoulders. For being in such a horrifying place, she appeared strangely at peace.

"You heard the plan, right?"

Lidia nodded her head.

"I will follow you both to the thick brush. At the first sight of a monster, we can allow Jacob to transform. I will be ready to slap him out of it when I need to."

"Keep an eye on Sarah for us, Squabee."

Squabee was resting her chin in her palms as she sighed.

"She can handle herself, but I guess I can make sure nothing sneaks up on us."

As they walked away, Lidia mumbled to herself.

"Why does she keep acting like Sarah isn’t blind?"

After travelling into the thick brush of the jungle, all three of them heard the screams of a creature hitting itself against the massive trunk of a tree nearby. Each hit sounded like an explosion rippling through the air. Slimo kept his voice low as he spoke to them.

"I think we found our first test subject. To think we’re using a leviathan as a test subject... what has my life come to?!"

Lidia nudged him angrily as she looked over at Jacob.

"Are you sure you want to do this? You know what to do?"

Jacob shook his head.

"I have no idea what I’m doing, only a suspicion in my gut. If I lose my mind, please bring me back."

Lidia and Slimo slowly walked away from Jacob to give him some space to transform. He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes to focus. He started going through all the senses flowing through his body. He could feel his blood flowing, his heart beating, his lungs expanding and contracting, but most importantly, he could feel his mark glowing darkly on his arm, as if it was shouting to him a silent command.

Jacob tried listening to its awful melody, but nothing was happening. He focused on the mark even more. He didn’t want to simply listen to it but pull it out from where it was hiding. Suddenly, he could feel its dark power flowing through his bloodstream like a plague. Its movement was slow and calculated as Jacob struggled against its attempts to explode outward to eat everything in his body that belonged to him.

The closer it got to his brain, the colder his sense became, and the emptier his stomach felt.

Suddenly, the moment he could feel the black stream collide with his brain, it started absorbing it like a sponge. It was as if the mark broke free from Jacob’s grasp and spread as fast as it possibly could. Jacob was losing his sight the more his brain consumed the dark power.

Sadly, as much as Jacob tried his best to control it, everything was simply too much. There was too much power residing behind his mark for Jacob to handle. Therefore, he lost all control as his body turned dark black and doubled in size. Lidia and Slimo stood back as they witnessed the transformation happen.

"I think now is a good time, Lida."

However, before Lidia could do anything, Jacob’s figure jumped up after the creature in the tree and clawed on to its back. Even though his transformation was not complete, his hunger was breaking his mind apart. The creature screamed and tried swinging its large claws back at Jacob, but he was much so small that its arms couldn’t reach around to its back to hit him off. Jacob’s teeth reshaped themselves to have pointed edges before he sunk them deep into the creatures back, meeting little to no resistance from the bite.

"He just bit out of a leviathan like it was nothing."

Lidia started running up the tree. Slimo ran after her in a panic.

"Wait! Where are you going?! We have to wait for him to come back!"

"No! It knows that’s what we’re going to do! Otherwise, it would have gone after us first! If we let it grow more powerful, not even I will be able to do anything!"

Suddenly, Slimo realized the fatal flaw in his plan. When Jacob couldn’t control himself, that also meant the creature he turned into wasn’t going to think like Jacob. It was possible it recognized Lidia from their previous battle and knew what would happen if it tried turning on her.

"That clever bastard. We can’t get it any more leviathans!"

By this point, Jacob’s form had started gaining features that were similar to the leviathan he had just finished eating. His arms and hands were thick with long dark fur while other parts of his body had simply rounded out in shape, most likely using the extra power from his meal to refine his muscles.

Lidia waved back at Slimo.

"I need you to throw me, Slimo!"

"What?! What if that’s what he wants?!"

"I’ll be fine! Just do it!"

Slimo nodded. As they ran, Slimo prepared his hands. Lidia turned her body and perfectly landed square in the middle of his palms. Using all the strength he had, Slimo concentrated his power right where Lidia’s feet were and threw her upwards as hard as he could. Lidia pushed back at Slimo’s hands to give herself more power.

Lidia’s hair screeched behind her as she soared through the wind incredibly fast almost immediately closing the distance between them. Jacob’s transformation was waiting for this opportunity. It maneuvered its large body around the trunk of the tree to evade Lidia’s touch and tried squishing her inside his hand.

Lidia had no time to react. She was caught in the monsters grasp instantly. Jacob began bringing Lidia towards his mouth to consume her whole. However, right as his teeth were ready to pierce through her body, his jaw melted off his face, along with his hand that he was using to hold her. As he tried looking down to find where she had a went, a radaint white figure stood around his neck, holding on to both sides of his head.

"Release the light!"

Jacob roared as black blood escaped from his throat. With one blinding blast of light, Jacob’s body slowly started shrinking back to its normal size. Lidia held on to his body and began falling back down towards the ground where Slimo was. With little effort, Slimo caught her and Jacob before they could crash. Jacob was groaning while Lidia held on to him.

"That... was WAY too close. I don’t want to do that again."

Lidia kissed Slimo softly on his lips.

"Everything was under control. I purposely let him catch me like that because I knew his stomach couldn’t even resist a child of light."

"Ugh. My head feels like it’s on fire."

Slimo sighed.

"This is going to be much harder than I thought it was going to be."