She looked around, her mind racing to figure out a way out of this situation. While the silver light continued to illuminate the village.
It poured through the cracked barrier like liquid fog, cold enough to sting skin and sharp enough to make the air ripple. Villagers shielded their faces as the silver haze spread across the ground, crawling like tendrils searching for warmth to consume.
Aria grabbed the fox, holding her close against her chest as she backpedaled. "Everyone, fall back!" She yelled, her voice cracking under the weight of fear. "Get away from the barrier!"
Elder Rean slammed her staff into the earth, and roots erupted upward, forming a makeshift wall of thick vines between the villagers and the breach. It wasn't strong enough to stop a creature like this, but it bought seconds, precious, shaking seconds.
The distortion's arm pushed further through the broken ward. Its body dragged behind it, warping reality around its limbs. Wherever the silver touched the grass, the ground dimmed as if drained of life.
The fox's breath hitched as she felt the silver pulse through her bones, matching the unnatural rhythm that throbbed inside her core.
It called to her; it recognized her and she knew it wanted her.
Her body trembled violently, vision flickering between normal sight and glitching static. Heat spread beneath her fur, her veins burning with a power she didn't fully understand.
[Inhuman Core Activation: 7%]
[Instability Rising.]
Her legs buckled, and Aria almost dropped her in her panic. "No—no, stay with me." She knelt in the dirt, pulling the trembling fox into her arms. "Why is this happening to you? What is that thing?!"
The fox didn't know how to answer. Her body was small, fragile, and straining under energies that weren't meant for something like her. Her pulse crashed inside her ears, mixing with the distortion's whisper.
"Come back, you do not belong here."
The word slithered through her mind like a cold breath on her neck. Familiar, wrong, and binding. She dug her claws into the ground, desperate to keep herself grounded in this world.
The barrier shattered fully with a deafening crack.
The distortion slid through the opening like it was peeling itself out of a different dimension. Its long form bent unnaturally before straightening to its full, towering height.
Villagers screamed and stumbled back. Hunters raised their bows but none dared fire. Even the lantern trees dimmed further, their magic recoiling from the unnatural presence.
The creature's head tilted in a slow, jerking motion, its silver gaze locking onto the small fox trembling in Aria's arms.
Aria rose, clutching Luna tightly. "You're not taking her," she said through clenched teeth, though fear trembled through every word, but she didn't move.
The distortion took a step forward, the air warping with each movement.
The fox felt her heartbeat scatter. Her body was too small, too weak, and slow; she wouldn't survive a single strike. Fear wrapped around her like icy chains as the creature took another dragging step.
And then another, the silver fog crept toward them.
The fox's vision blurred with static again. Her mind was glitching, splitting into fragments, some of which were hers and some not. She heard echoes, memories of a voice from before she woke in this world.
The day she died.
"Come back."
Her ribs squeezed painfully, a memory she didn't want to remember clawing toward the surface, she did not want to lose it all again, even if it was a second chance by mistake.
Her core pulsed violently, forcing her back into the present.
[Override Approaching Threshold.]
[Physical Form Insufficient.]
[Warning: Predation Detected.]
She tasted blood; her nose had begun to bleed. The silver resonance tugged at her, pulling, dragging something inside her toward the distortion.
If she stayed like this. If she remained a small fox. She would be devoured, absorbed, or dragged back into a realm she never wanted to see again.
The distortion reached the vine wall and its hand passed through the roots as if they didn't exist.
Aria backed up again, steps shaking.
"Please…" she whispered to the fox, voice barely audible. "Please don't leave me."
The fox blinked, panting. Her heartbeat stuttered, deep down, she knew she wasn't strong enough.
Not like this.
Not trapped in a body meant for hiding and surviving, but not fighting, not protecting, or choosing her own fate.
Something inside her churned, and her eyes widened in realization she had been resisting since the shard, since the system first whispered of evolution and partially came online.
She needed… more.
More strength and control. A shape that could stand between everyone and danger, not curl helplessly in a girl whom she recently met arms.
A form that belonged to this world, yet wasn't prey to it.
Her core pulsed again, hotter, sharper.
[New Requirement Triggered.]
[Evolution Path: Partial Humanoid Form Recommended.]
[Reason: Survival Probability < 7%]
The fox inhaled sharply, the system wasn't hinting anymore. It was forcing her to face a truth she could no longer ignore:
She needed to evolve. Not eventually nor later, she needed to do so now, to give these people a reason to let het stay and fight.
Her body trembled with a new kind of fear, one of changing, of losing the little identity she still held and one of stepping into something wholly unknown.
But when she looked at Aria, at the girl desperate for something or someone to be her family, at her trembling form gripping her tighter, trying to shield her from a nightmare even she didn't understand.
A different sort of hope bloomed in her chest, this world... There was a chance to gain something she never had as well, and she knew there was no other way.
The distortion lifted its long, warped arm toward them.
The fox's eyes narrowed, heat gathering beneath her skin like fire preparing to break through its shell. the same feeling that had stirred within her before.
She braced herself as the system whispered the final confirmation in a cold, absolute tone
[Evolution Necessary.]
[Choose or Perish.]
Her heart pounded in her chest; she needed a half-human or some sort of form, and her choice, her only option, was to start accepting the system and this was the first step toward a humanoid form.