Helos and Gavi walked into the eerie forest, one behind the other. Night had fully fallen. Moonlight was fragmented by the dense canopy, leaving only sporadic silver spots on the fallen leaves.
The forest was unusually quiet, with only the crack of their footsteps on dry branches and the distant chirping of unknown night insects.
Gavi followed closely behind Helos, her gray eyes vigilantly scanning the surging darkness around them, her hand hidden in her sleeve already ready to flick out its armor-piercing spike.
Helos, however, seemed unusually calm, even at ease. She seemed to belong to this darkness naturally.
Soon, they arrived at a relatively open clearing. The trees here were sparser, allowing a sliver of moonlight to pass through, so their vision wasn’t completely swallowed by the dark.
Helos stopped. Her voice was especially clear in the silent forest, and especially cold.
“Let’s do it here.”
Since it was late, the light in the forest was very dim. The surrounding tree shadows swayed gently in the breeze like monsters with claws bared.
But Helos seemed prepared. She took out a palm-sized Magic Crystal that emitted a constant white light from her alchemy backpack and handed it to Gavi.
“Here, light it up.”
“Yes, Master.”
Gavi took the Magic Crystal. The soft white light instantly dispelled the darkness around them, illuminating Helos’s delicate but expressionless face.
Then, Helos took out a small black cage from another backpack. Inside the cage was a magically enhanced rat.
It was a size smaller than the “subject” Eleanor had seen in the crystal ball—only about the size of an adult’s fist. It was pitch black, curled up in the corner of the cage, trembling uneasily.
The magically enhanced rat looked ordinary on the outside, except for its red eyes, which seemed a bit eerie under the light of the magic stone.
Gavi looked at the trembling magically enhanced rat in Helos’s hand and couldn’t help asking:
“Master, is this your latest research achievement?”
“Sort of.”
Helos nodded. She opened the cage and, with a casual attitude, reached in and grabbed the magically enhanced rat. The rat let out terrified squeaks in her hand, struggling desperately.
“It’s just a magically enhanced rat that I’ve given a ‘preliminary’ modification.” Helos explained coldly, as if what she held was not a living thing but a recently assembled tool.
“The purpose of my trip is to test its combat capabilities. To see to what extent my ‘will’ can distort it.”
Gavi said nothing more. She only tightened her grip on the Magic Crystal.
Helos took a deep breath. She slowly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the cold blue light in her pale purple eyes became even more pronounced.
She raised her head, and those eyes shimmering with blue light, like the most skilled hunter, scanned the surroundings. Soon she locked onto a target.
On an old tree not far ahead, a bird the size of a palm was quietly perching on a branch, unaware of the impending disaster.
A cold smile curved the corner of Helos’s mouth. She released her hand. The magically enhanced rat fell to the ground. But it didn’t run away. Instead, it looked up at its “Creator” with its red eyes, filled with fanatical adoration.
Helos raised her hand and pointed at the bird. She gave the command.
“Go.”
“Grab it.”
“Devour it.”
The next moment after Helos gave the command, a terrifying metamorphosis occurred!
Puff!
The magically enhanced rat, originally only the size of a fist, suddenly began to swell! Its black fur split apart, and tough muscles grew savagely at a visible rate!
Before Gavi could react, two flesh-colored tentacles, as thick as an index finger and like whips, tore violently from its back!
The surface of those tentacles was covered with a slimy liquid, and the tips were sharp bone hooks!
Shiiing—!
The magically enhanced rat didn’t even need a run-up! The two tentacles on its back shot out like whips, crossing a distance of over a dozen meters in an instant, precisely latching onto the bird that had just been startled awake!
Chirp?!
The bird only managed a short, mournful cry before the tentacles strangled it and dragged it down.
Skreeee—!!
The magically enhanced rat let out an excited shriek. Then, an even more horrifying scene occurred. Its head—that originally small mouth—suddenly split open!
Not just opening its mouth, but its entire skull split into four parts from the middle, blooming like a carnivorous flower! Inside the split head, there were no eyes, no brain—only ring after ring of fine, razor-sharp teeth like a shark’s, and a bottomless pit of flesh and throat!
***
The next second, it opened this terrifying mouth, several times larger than its body, and swallowed the still-struggling bird, feathers and bones alike, in one gulp!
Gulp.
Accompanied by a sickening swallowing sound, the magically enhanced rat’s body swelled a bit more. The tentacles on its back slowly retracted into its body, and the torn wounds healed quickly.
It reverted to its “small” rat form. It turned around, looked at Helos with its red eyes, and made a purring sound from its throat, like a cat’s contented purr.
Helos watched this scene with a satisfied smile on her face. She seemed very pleased with the result. She nodded.
“The will imprints ‘devour’ and ‘capture’ were very successful. Strength and speed also exceeded expectations.”
“It’s just the form… still a bit too ugly.”
She seemed to regret that the creature’s appearance was not perfect. Meanwhile, Gavi, standing beside her, had gray eyes full of helplessness.
‘So this is Master’s current “research”?’
Gavi’s gaze shifted. She looked at Helos’s cold but beautiful profile, immersed in the joy of “academia.” Then, seemingly unconsciously, she glanced toward the deeper darkness behind them.
The forest was dead silent. But not far behind them, in a dense thicket, Julius was silently watching this scene.
He had seen the rat too. Seen the tentacles tearing out from its back. Seen the head splitting into four, lined with teeth. Seen the blasphemy of life devouring a living creature in one gulp.
This kind of creature… he was all too familiar with it.
In the three years he had wandered the Borderland, when he ventured deep into the territories of the Chaos Believers, he had fought against things like this countless times!
‘Wasn’t this exactly what those Chaos Believers summoned through sacrifices of flesh and soul…’