Lucius stood inside the dressing room, surrounded by several racks of clothes, shelves, and full body mirrors. He stood completely naked before one of the mirrors, studying his reflection with a strange mixture of curiosity and disbelief. His body looked different from what he was used to.
The muscles covering his frame were thicker and firmer, giving him a denser appearance without making him look overly bulky.
"My muscles are actually thicker and firmer than what we are used to." Lucius thoughtfully clenched his fists, watching the muscles in his arms tighten beneath his skin. "Strangely, I even feel stronger but very light."
[Of course, but this is only the beginning. The more Xenovian genes you assimilate, not only will you get stronger and heal faster, your Devour Talent will grow stronger as well.]
Lucius stared at the messages for several seconds, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. They were still presented as system messages, but something about them felt different. The wording was less formal than usual, almost as though someone were speaking directly to him rather than a system simply displaying information.
The thought made Lucius uncomfortable. He had already accepted the existence of the system, but until now, he had always assumed it was nothing more than a cold mechanism that operated according to predetermined rules.
"What are you?" Lucius asked.
The light panel immediately vanished along with the messages. No explanation followed. No new message appeared. Nothing.
Lucius’s brows furrowed even deeper as he waited for several seconds, but the system remained completely silent. He stared at the empty space where the panel had been before eventually letting out a quiet breath. Since he could not force the system to speak to him, there was little point in dwelling on it. Whatever the thing was, he would figure it out eventually.
"Devour," Lucius mumbled.
The moment he activated the Talent, his face suddenly paled. His body began deflating as though all the liquid had been drained from his flesh, his skin tightening against his bones while an insane wave of pain tore through his entire body. Lucius staggered slightly as the edges of his lips began tearing apart, black blood immediately trickling down his mouth. He tried to breathe through the pain, but even that became difficult as his body continued changing.
"Aaaah..." Lucius moaned lightly as more teeth began forcing their way through his gums. The new teeth pushed through his flesh one after another, causing his mouth to bleed even more. He instinctively raised both hands toward his mouth to stop the blood from falling onto the floor, only to freeze when he noticed his fingernails stretching and transforming into sharp claws. This chapter is updated first at novelping . com.
"Wha... Wa da hell..." Lucius tried to speak, but his words came out distorted because of the numerous changes taking place inside his mouth.
His body continued darkening as a violet shade spread across his skin. His eyes began crystalizing, the irises transforming until they glowed with a clear, dark purple light. Yet the most striking part of the transformation was his hair. It began growing uncontrollably, rapidly extending until it reached the base of his neck while becoming increasingly spiky and unkempt.
His entire appearance was changing so rapidly that Lucius barely recognized the creature staring back at him from the mirror.
Hufff!
A loud sigh escaped Lucius’s lips, and purple fumes poured from his mouth, spreading through the dressing room. The fumes briefly obscured his reflection before dispersing enough to reveal several rows of razor sharp teeth filling his mouth.
Lucius stared at himself in the mirror, and for the first time since awakening in this world, genuine fear touched his heart. Yet even that fear felt strangely distant. It was so dulled that it felt more like a thought he could acknowledge and ignore rather than an emotion his body naturally reacted to.
Something else had replaced it.
Hunger.
An unexplainable hunger gnawed at his stomach, so intense that it was beginning to feel painful. It was not the ordinary hunger he had experienced after missing a meal. This felt deeper, almost instinctive, like his entire body was demanding that he consume something. Lucius had the disturbing feeling that if he did not find something to eat soon, he might actually die from starvation.
"What in the devil’s name is this... Talent?" Lucius muttered, only to immediately notice something strange about his voice. It was much deeper now, but beneath the deeper tone was another, softer version of his own voice. The two voices overlapped as though two people were speaking through the same mouth.
Lucius stared at his reflection in silence, trying to understand what had happened to him. He looked less like a human than an extraterrestrial creature wearing a human body. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
His ears suddenly twitched.
Lucius turned his head toward the sound of water shutting off in the nearby bathroom. A moment later, he heard Lia’s slow footsteps approaching. Before activating this ability, he had never been able to hear things with this kind of clarity. His heightened senses had apparently changed as well.
"If she’s done, she’s most likely coming here. I can’t let her see me like this," Lucius muttered.
He glanced at himself in the mirror one last time before deactivating the Devour Talent. The moment he did, warmth spread across his body as the violet color began fading from his skin, leaving him in his shriveled, pale form. His body remained unnaturally thin for several seconds before slowly beginning to inflate again. It took another few moments for the color to return to his skin and for his body to regain its normal appearance.
Lucius glanced down at his hands and saw that the claws were gone. He then returned his attention to the mirror. His fangs and the rows of razor sharp teeth had disappeared, although the torn edges of his lips remained visible as they slowly healed. Even his eyes had returned to normal. His overgrown hair, however, remained unchanged, hanging messily around his neck.
"Don’t tell me I have to cut my hair every time I use this Talent?" Lucius mumbled, running a hand through the newly grown strands before his attention suddenly shifted to another thought. "If I show Bruce Ainsworth this Talent, won’t my potential rating reach the Special Authority rating?"
[Don’t, you will be captured, tied down to be experimented on repeatedly until you are dead.]
Lucius froze.
The response was so immediate and so blunt that he was left completely speechless. Unlike the previous messages, there was no hesitation or vague explanation. The system had simply warned him not to reveal the Talent, and the reason it gave him was terrifying enough to make his expression change.
"Why?"
[Becstude the power you posses belongs the very race that unleashed the Blue death on all]