The light that came from her body wrapped around the silver fog, which pressed tighter around the village, making the air shiver like glass on the verge of cracking. The distortion's arm hovered only a few steps from Aria, its form bending like liquid metal searching for its prey.
The fox felt her pulse stutter once, then twice, each beat louder than the last. Her core was reacting violently to the need for survival, heat spreading across her limbs until her fur glowed faintly with pale embers.
She could feel something within her changing, her small body collapsing under the weight of everything: fear, instinct, memory, and power.
Her bones vibrated, while her heart pounded so hard she thought it might burst, and her vision kept flickering between reality and static. The world glitched around her edges.
She couldn't stay like this, not for another second, the pain was too much, but before she could move, another pulse surged through the fox's chest, stronger than the first.
[Core Stability: Critical]
[Evolution Initiation Delay Will Result in Collapse.]
She trembled, claws digging into her own flesh before slipping loose. She gripped the ground, not out of rejection, but because her body simply couldn't hold still anymore. Her bones wanted to shift, and her veins hummed like strings pulled too tight.
Her body spasmed, her fur standing on end, claws digging into the ground beneath her paws. A strangled whine escaped her throat as white-hot energy tore through every vein.
The distortion's head snapped to the side, as if sensing the shift. The silver fog recoiled for the first time, swirling back like it recognized a threat.
Elder Rean struck her staff to the ground once more, yelling, "Fall back! Protect the villagers at all costs!" Yet her words were lost in the wash of silver resonance flooding into the village.
The fox's world tunneled to a single point. The creature, the fog, and Aria's trembling steps all blurred into a distant vibration.
Inside her mind, the system spoke with a clarity that felt almost cruel.
[Recommended Evolution Path Selected: Inhuman Variant—Humanoid Base Form (Incomplete).]
[Warning: Evolution Will Be Painful.]
[Warning: Body Size Increase. Biological Reconstruction Required.]
The fox exhaled shakily.
[Evolution Path Initiated.]
[Partial Humanoid Prototype: Unstable—Proceed With Caution.]
"Proceed," she muttered, since she knew deep down that she had no choice but to accept what she was now.
But she hesitated, if only for a heartbeat, staring up at Aria.
The girl's fists clenched at her chest, eyes wide and terrified. "Little fox," she whispered, voice cracking, "please don't disappear."
The fox took a step forward, paused, and gently pressed her small forehead into Aria's hand, a soft, tender gesture, as if saying thank you and promising to return in the same breath.
The distortion roared, a warped, scraping sound that shredded the air and the villagers trembled, hiding behind each other, terrified.
Seeing that, the fox's core ignited once more, fiercer than before, as she stepped away from Aria and the others; the energy from within her flowed out of her in a violent wave of white flame that shredded the silver fog and sent the distortion skidding back with a distorted shriek.
The shockwave knocked Aria off her feet, sending her tumbling into the grass and the ground beneath them cracked, glowing with pale and purple light as something ancient stirred.
Due to the heat her body was giving off at the time. Some of her fur burned away in shimmering flakes. Her bones lengthened, twisted, and reshaped in flickers too fast to comprehend.
She let out a loud roar in pain, and her heartbeat thundered like a drum.
Her breath hitched once, twice, then she felt the world snap into terrifying clarity. Her small fox form was unraveling, threads of light peeling off like shedding skin.
[Evolution: Beginning.]
Her body jerked, pain ripping through her like claws beneath her skin. She gasped, breath shattering as the ground beneath her paws cracked even more from the pressure. The sparks of light from the ground erupted around her as though it were alive, spiraling upward as her form started to blur at the edges.
The fox arched as her bones twisted again, not breaking, but reforming. Her tail flickered between existence and absence, her shape blurring noticeably.
The distortion's hand reached for her and her eyes narrowed; it was too close and too fast.
The fox snarled, an instinctive, primal sound she didn't know she could make and released the first burst of energy from her changing core, one now mixed with two different forms of energy.
A ring of silver-gold light exploded outward, slamming into the creature. The distortion staggered, its body fracturing into flickering pieces before re-forming with a violent ripple.
But it had been pushed back.
She had pushed it back.
Aria stared, trembling. "She… she did that?"
Elder Rean whispered, "That is no ordinary spirit beast… What have you brought to our village, child?"
The fox didn't hear them anymore. Her world narrowed to the evolution tearing through her body and the creature trying to reach her.
Her fur melted into shifting light. Her limbs lengthened in bursts, painful, uneven, and incomplete. Her ears flickered, and her tail wavered between fox and something longer, more ethereal.
Her heart thundered and the core within her screamed.
[Warning: Evolution Interrupted.]
[Stabilizing with Emergency Override.]
A pulse of agony shot down her spine, causing her body to collapse.
Aria rushed forward instinctively but a shockwave burst out and forced her back.
The fox's body curled, then stretched once more, caught between shapes she didn't fully understand, she was becoming something new… something not meant to remain on four legs forever.
But she wasn't ready. Not yet, since she could feel it was not completed.
The distortion sensed the instability and roared, a purple form of energy swirling around it. The creature launched forward again, sharper, much faster, and more feral.
The fox forced herself upright, halfway shifted, her form flickering dangerously. Her vision was fractured, half-seeing the village, half-seeing a place of void where her death had been etched into the fabric of a different world.
She refused to go back.
Her mouth opened, not to speak, but to scream the pain and defiance twisting inside her.
Her evolving core responded and a surge of raw energy burst from her chest like a star being born. It collided with the distortion mid-lunge, tearing a jagged hole straight through its torso, this was the beginning, and her eyes, for the first time, glowed and a snarl escaped her lips.