Lines of burning white rushed into the heart in my hand. I wasn’t sure if the monsters recognized their own organ, if there was a certain fear-factor involved that had stayed their attack when they saw one their own hearts in my hand. Were they even intelligent enough to recognize it?

Whatever the case, Sacrifice worked fast enough. My last spoken word sufficed as the switch. The transformation began as the heart burned away with blinding white energy.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Heart of a Brillwyrm. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: Inherent Racial Potency of a Brillwyrm now suffuses your body for 1.5 hours. All Iron-ranked Attributes raised by 10 Ranks for 1 hour and 50 minutes. All Silver-ranked Attributes raised by 5 Ranks for 1 hour and 50 minutes ]

[ Rank Up!

Your Sacrifice Aspect has risen by one Rank

Sacrifice: Iron VIII ]

I could barely keep an eye on the blue screens as my world twisted and changed around me. My vision warped. Colours shifted. Shapes sharpened to extra high definition. Strange instincts tried overwriting my normal ones.

Then there were the physical changes. My clothes and armour suddenly felt tight and constricting thanks to my body expanding in size. My muscles writhed, serpents coming alive and trying to burst free from the cage of my skin. Scales grew into being wherever my skin was exposed. Hot pain washed through my guts as I felt my organs trying to rearrange.

I felt like screaming, but I managed to stand my ground. When I blinked, it felt like my eyes were swimming with tears. But no. It was more of a permanent liquid film.

My face was burning. Was I… was I gaining a snout? My throat definitely thickened. I wasn’t even sure if I could talk anymore. My tongue and teeth turned heavy in my mouth, a weight that felt powerful.

Cursing words filtered through my ears. They were weirdly harder to comprehend now, but the still-human parts of brain managed to decipher them. “What in the Pits-cursed—”

I threw the shield behind me. Of course, Cerea was shocked by what I had done. Even I was a bit taken aback by how possessive the transformation was this time. I felt a lot more… animalistic, a lot more monstrous, than I had when I had Sacrificed the Scarthrall’s heart.

The Brillwyrm instincts were trying to overwhelm my actual personality. It was a lot harder to think and remain myself. Why was it so strong this time?

My mind reached out to the best way it decided to remain myself—by sticking to my main priority here.

So, I attacked the Brillwyrms. I wouldn’t be needing the shield, so I had chucked it back to Cerea. Like her, the monsters had paused too, perhaps shocked at seeing a human, a target, a prey, turn into one of them—or some abominable amalgamation of them and their enemies, rather—before their very eyes.

Honestly, I’d have been shocked too.

Then I was on them.

The first Brillwyrm I targeted realized the imminent threat I presented a moment before I struck. It lashed out, its jaws opening wide to crunch down. The nearby ones jumped away, their scales vibrating moments away from flying at me. But I was focused entirely on my opponent.

Before its jaws could close on me, I was smashing my Gravity-weighted mace into its maw. Teeth shattered, tongue split, the entire lower jaw just turning into a welter of blood and crushed flesh. The Brillwyrm screeched out in agony as my momentum sent it crashing back several feet, leaving a trail of blood as it did so.

Screams and scales flew in from the nearby monsters. I raised my arms to cover my face. The enemy scales pinged off my armour and my own scales, and I heard another distant metallic clang too. Cerea with my shield. She was keeping safe. Good.

A strange impulse grew up within me. It started in my chest and rose up my throat, a horrid sensation like I was about to vomit. My throat and jaw widened all on their own as I stared at the farthest Brillwyrm that had shot its scales.

Then a glob of poisonous spit smacked it right in the face.

I couldn’t even begin to feel disgusted at what I had just done. It had felt too natural for such a sensation. Too automatic, like it was an ingrained part of me now.

More importantly, the poison spit—my poison spit—had landed perfectly. While the Brillwyrm's scales were clearly resistant, the monster screamed out anyway. The glob I had shot was dissolving its vulnerable eye.

That took care of that. The nearer ones I could handle on my own.

I smashed into them. Manipulating Gravity with Infusion to increase the weight of impacts and Siphon to raise my own speed only enhanced the natural gains I had acquired on my Power and Agility.

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Two quick smashing hits crushed a monster’s scales before ripping open its back to expose its guts. I swiped my arm through the air, the scales on it flying off to stun several Brillwyrms. That opened them up to a flying, crashing landing with my mace. Another Brillwyrm turned to bloody pulp beneath me.

One stupid monster tried to tackle me and drag me down. These Brillwyrms were still significantly bigger than me, even after my transformation.

But they hadn’t counted on my Power being well higher than theirs. One powerful kick sent the monster flying into several of its fellows, making one tumble into lava and start screaming. I discovered that I could channel Gravity through corpses without much difficulty, so I Infused a massive amount of deep purple threads into a dead Brillwyrm body and sent it slamming on top of the one I had just kicked.

“Have a taste of your own medicine,” I growled, my words coming out garbled and barely decipherable. At least I could talk.

Another Brillwyrm rushed up to me. I whirled around, faster than I thought I could. My mace swung in with devastating momentum. Its jaw was crushed in that first exchange. Just for good measure, I slammed my weighted weapon down a couple more times, turning its head to bloody mush. Strangely, the way its eye popped made me feel nothing at all.

Thunderous sparks alerted me to my real goal. Ripping through the Brillwyrms was all well and good. But I was supposed to protect Cerea.

She had done a good job of safeguarding herself so far, using my discarded shield to ward off the scales and poison while maintaining distance. Precise small lightning strikes kept any of the more adventurous Brillwyrms at bay.

But seeing me making mincemeat of their compatriots had made several turn towards her. Now, one of them was about to leap.

Bless Gutran for teaching me to read muscle movements.

The monster jumped at Cerea. I did too.

Gravity lowered my weight as I rushed forward, then pushed off. I intercepted the Brillwyrm mid-flight, infusing higher weight into my boots a second before impact, sending the monster screeching and flying in a different direction.

Cerea had staggered back in surprise, which caused her to stop the constant barrage of lightning bolts. That emboldened the other monsters to rush in.

Even after I had sent one of their own flying right back at them.

“Fucking monsters,” I growled.

“Speak for yourself,” Cerea muttered.

The Brillwyrms attacked, but this time, I had assistance. I kicked back the first one that tried to get too close. My swinging mace crushed its tail. Another spit poison that started dissolving the skin around my leg since the scales there had flown off along with my kick. I ignored it and lunged forward, smashing its jaw apart.

Cerea’s lightning stunned a couple more. I took full advantage, leaping up and bringing down my crushing weight to flatten the monster, blood and scales popping around its corpse.

I picked up the body. Yet another Brillwyrm was charging fast at Cerea’s unprotected left side, its eyes closed against her electric sparks. I just hurled the dead monster. Both Brillwyrms, dead and alive, went flying back, the living one splashing into a pool of lava with a shriek.

With more crashing, crushing, leaping blows, I reduced all the nearby monsters to bloody, pulped, misshapen messes.

Cerea’s presence definitely helped. Her constant lightning bolts—which she had been able to continue pummelling after I gave her the opportunity to drink a mana potion to replenish her magical energy—helped a lot. I was almost wreathed in deep-purple threads of heavy Gravity as I threw my increased weight around.

I was breathing a little heavy when I finally stopped. “That’s the last of them, I think.”

It was nice that Cerea could understand me. “We wouldn’t have made it through so easy if you hadn’t…”

I grinned at her. It was probably pretty frightening. My skin and nerves were still buzzing, threads of Gravity filling me up even as the heavy emptiness of mana exhaustion tugged at my soul. Blood and gore had coated me into an even more monstrous version than just the transformation through Sacrifice had done. “Looks like we’re almost done.”

Beyond us, Ugnash and Khagnio were finishing up the last of the Brillwyrms on their end. We had moved apart in the brutal showdown, so they had probably lost the effects of my runic buffs. But it didn’t look like they had needed it much.

“What was that?” Cerea asked, staring at me intently. “Are you…”

I could tell she was struggling to formulate her questions. She was actually so stunned, she wasn’t even bothering to collect the corpses. Though, I supposed, that would need Khagnio and Ugnash to help chop them up first.

“It’s still me,” I said. I tried to make my voice sound more normal, but my physiology was so different, I just ended up sounding more like a frog. “My Sacrifice Aspect has an Affix called Emulation. You can figure out the rest.”

Her eyes gave the impression she was thinking about what I had said. They left me to note the carnage around us instead. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be so… ruthless.”

I looked around too. It… didn’t make me feel anything. Not the way I had torn apart the Brillwyrms, not the way I had crushed their jaws and gullets, not the way my mace had turned their bodies to pulp, not the way I had destroyed them. Blood, broken scales, even bits and pieces of their innards were littered all around us. I could smell them. I could taste it in the air.

The eye-popping returned to me then. It was another scene that should have made me at least queasy, if not ruin my appetite and upend my stomach. And yet, I felt nothing at all.

Was I turning ruthless, or was it this new were-Brillwyrm I had become?

“I really wish we could clean up somehow,” I muttered as I walked on.

Cerea followed.

Ugnash and Khagnio were done. They were no less bloodied and gory than I was, although it was more intense in Ugnash’s case. The big Rakshasa did like to get up close and personal.

Neither seemed surprised at my state, however.

“How long are you going to be like that?” Ugnash asked.

I grinned at him. “Why? You having trouble pushing away the urge to cave my skull in like the other Brillwyrms?”

Khagnio laughed. “The little mageling really has turned into a monster-ling.”

“Another hour or so,” I said, responding to the actual question.

Ugnash grunted. “Good work out there.”

“Just good work?” Cerea said. “Good massacre more like. We probably wouldn’t be coming out of this whole mess so easily if Ross hadn’t pulled out his secret little trick.”

“I know. But I like knowing about secret little tricks beforehand better.”

He had a fair point there.

“I… wasn’t sure it’d be necessary to use,” I said. “So it didn’t cross my mind. And personally, I’d like to not use it if I can help it.”

“Why?” Khagnio sneered at me. “You having trouble pushing away the urge to spit poison at us like the other Brillwyrms?”

Leave it to the Scalekin bastard to use my own words against me. It struck deeper than it should have. He was right too. Why wasn’t I feeling like I had felt when I had transformed into the Scarthrall? There was the urge to continue the massacre I had been carrying out on the Brillwyrms, but I wasn’t disgusted by those impulses.

They just swam within me like fish making their way through murky waters. All I could determine was that Sacrifice had grown so strong, especially with all the buffs layered on top, that I had become far more monstrous than I had with the Thrall.

So much so that even my natural feelings as normal Ross were being supressed, maybe even superseded, by the monstrous impulses.

Because I couldn’t stop my eyes from noting the wounds on the corpses. Because I couldn’t stop my long tongue from coming out to lick along my fangs. Because I really did feel my gullet was trying to expand to spit out another gob of poisonous spit.

None of which I wanted to do.

Khagnio whistled from farther ahead. “Well, would you look at what we’ve got here.”

Ugnash didn’t turn at his words The big Rakshasa just met my eyes instead, and I understood what went unsaid between us. If I did anything stupid, he wouldn’t hesitate to use force.

Cerea diffused the situation by stepping past me. “Come on, Ross. It’s your first time seeing dungeon treasure, isn’t it?” She had avoided touching me, but her smile was welcoming like before at least. “Time for you to see what kind of haul gets even Khagnio excited.”

I nodded, trying to smile as I followed behind her.