I Shall Devour Everything

Chapter 46: Losing Humanity

He didn't expect the Queen Jawfiend to kill him so soon. He didn't even feel any pain, or it was that his shock had numbed his pain or his nerves were too worn out to even transmit the pain.

All he knew was that his vision was getting darker and a weird feeling in his heart before everything went dark for him.

*KREEE!!* 

The Queen Jawfiend suddenly stumbled back, letting out a screech of distress and pain while pulling out its stinger from Arion's heart.

It was as if it ingested some poison instead of blood when it tried to suck Arion's blood from its heart.

It wanted Arion alive all this time since it smelled how tasty Arion's heart was, especially when he possessed the Darkness Aspect, and it coincidentally had the Darkness Aspect as well. 

Thus to develop its aspect, it was looking for pranic hearts with the Darkness Aspect and told its children to immobilize Arion instead of killing him.

And the most effective way was to eat the pranic heart while the victim was alive. If dead, the gains would be significantly less.

When its children Jawfiends attacked Arion, they were all connected and communicated to each other through a hive mind. Thus, the Queen Jawfiend was able to stop them from killing Arion by giving out orders.

The normal Jawfiends had no Aspect at all nor much intelligence. All they had were basic instincts and to follow the orders of their Queen Jawfiend.

Arion had already guessed that the Queen Jawfiend wanted him alive, but he had no idea that it was looking forward to eating him alive all because he possessed the Darkness Aspect.

If he knew, he wouldn't know if he should consider himself lucky for buying himself some more time before getting his heart punctured through by the huge and sharp stinger of the Queen Jawfiend.

*KREEE!!*

The Queen Jawfiend continued to screech in pain and confusion, even stumbling onto some of its children Jawfiend who were even more confused, wondering why their Queen Jawfiend was acting so weird.

Meanwhile, Arion's pulse was becoming weaker and weaker till his punctured heart completely stopped beating.

However, suddenly his blood started to emit a dark glow that seemed to spread throughout his body in an instant, covering every part of his system, including his heart.

The gaping hole in his heart quickly seemed to stitch itself up till the tissues rejoined together, and the hole became smaller and smaller till there was no hole or injury at all.

Meanwhile, the Queen Jawfiend was crashing onto the walls and even accidentally killed some of its children in its crazed state while the other Jawfiends stood rooted to their spots, not daring to make any move without her orders.

Finally, the Queen Jawfiend stopped screeching, and its pincer fangs kept on moving in a creepy way as it came to a stop. It seemed as if it found a way to suppress whatever was causing pain inside its body and stayed in a stationary position.

Arion's heart which had stopped beating before, now started to slowly pump again, his heartbeat increasing as seconds passed.

But this time, his heart was pumping black blood instead of the usual red color of blood!

On Arion's mind, a screen of information popped up, 

[ INNER PERCEPTION AWAKENED ]

Name: Arion Elsar

Strength: 1.5

Defense: 2.0

Agility: 1.9

Pranic Force: 1

Defity: Prana Binding Stage [7th Cycle - 15,000/16,384]

Bloodline: Doom Lizard (Undergoing Transformation)

Prana Aspect: [Darkness] / [Devour]

Pranic Mark: None

Abilities -

Shapeshifting [Lvl.1]: Limited to same race and bloodline form 

Passive Abilities -

Ingestion Empowerment [Lvl. 1]: Ingest any pranic organic items to increase Defity

Enhanced Healing [Lvl. 1]: Heal physical injuries faster than normal

Enhanced Senses [Lvl. 1]: Enhanced hearing, smell, taste, touch and vision

Enhanced Inner Perception [Lvl. 1]: Read own status (Defity stats, pranic marks, abilities etc) based on the terms host is familiar with

However, Arion wasn't conscious enough to read this screen of information that popped up.

But the blood in his system had turned completely black by now, and his body started to undergo drastic mutations from the inside.

Suddenly his body began to heat up, and his eyes suddenly opened, looking reddened with blood vessels popping out across them.

"AAAHHHHH!!!" A thunderous roar of pain escaped from his mouth as he suddenly began to roll around on the ground. 

The pain he was experiencing felt like every blood vessel in his body was exploding, his muscles tearing apart and his bones shattering.

The Jawfiends were all startled by Arion's roar, but they still didn't move since their Queen Jawfiend seemed to stay in a half-hibernation state which was a state it usually stays in to heal.

They didn't know if the Queen Jawfiend still needed Arion alive or dead, so they decided to stay put.

However, the mutations going on in Arion's body were completely contrary to what he was feeling.

His pranic heart began to get bigger, and even his other organs seemed to become bigger and longer.

That was just the beginning as his whole skeletal system began to grow larger in size and undergo changes in its shape; his muscles expanding, its cross-sectional area increasing, the muscle fibers becoming denser until it began to look less human.

His skin began to flake as new skin began to push them out from underneath his old skin, shedding it away. The new skin looked dark as the midnight sky with no hairs at all and instead had a lustrous texture.

A long-tail began to form out from the tail of his spinal cord as it became longer and muscular.

Sharp yet small needle-like protrusions began to protrude from his neck region till it covered half of his back.

His mouth and jaw region began to grow bigger and elongate forward, his teeth growing in length to become more canine-like.

He was becoming less and less human and more like a humanoid monster with lizard-like characteristics, a frightening one at that.

There were a lot of mutations taking place, but all this transformation barely took a few seconds. Within another few moments, his roars of pain ceased as he laid on the ground with his eyes closed.

A new screen of information appeared in his mind