I could not see.
Yet the one thing I knew for sure at this moment was that I could give a detailed description of everything that was within a twenty-meter radius of me. Each separate blade of grass, each individual grain of dirt, even the tiny cracks within the tree bark. All of it, I could sense in exceptional clarity.
I was dome shaped, a meter tall and just as wide, and smack bang in the middle of a small clearing surrounded by trees and foliage of all kinds. A blob of light sucking black within a wonderland of green.
Though it wasn't going to remain as such for much longer, considering the land around me was already leeched of all vitality and the circle of death was only continuing to grow.
It was my fault, that was for sure. I could literally feel the small inflow of life-force from the plants surrounding me.
I let out a long sigh, well, tried to at least. Whatever creature I was didn't really have a sense of hearing, or the ability to make sounds. I couldn't smell or feel much of a sensation of touch either, for that matter.
I had died, that was something that was only becoming clearer to me the more I took in the surroundings. What I was doing to the surroundings, to be more specific.
My mind buzzed, a strange sense of becoming stronger overtaking me all of the sudden.
Level 2 reached. Progress -0/144-
It seemed that I had levels.
It was oddly reminiscent of a work I had enjoyed within my past life, yet the only real similarity held was the level mechanic. The lack of a tutorial, floating blue textboxes and stats most-likely meant that I was within a world where levels were commonplace, not just something that was unique to me.
It was the safest guess to make in all honesty. And even if the system was unique to me, I was only a level two. I would barely be able to do anything at all. It would only make me more cautious, if anything. And caution, would only help in a situation like this.
A safe location to level up was my first goal. Though finding such a place in the middle of a forest might be expecting too much. What I really needed was somewhere to just hide myself, a pit, or a hole maybe. Then I could just absorb any ambient life-force from around myself without too much to worry about.
Then, when I was levelled sufficiently enough to be able to outmatch any predators I might come across? Maybe then I could really explore and figure out just where I was and how to proceed.
Though everything couldn't be smooth sailing, considering that was when I realized a very important thing. I had no idea of how to move in this new form of mine, or if I even could. And after a few… less than successful attempts at even making myself do anything I could only let out a mental sigh.
Level 3 reached. Progress -0/243-
The nature around me was quickly withering, the literal circle of death and rot surrounding me now reaching a diameter of five meters, a distance where it finally seemed to have stopped propagating.
Plant life, it seemed, was a terrible source of experience. I had only gained two levels after sucking the life out of almost twenty square meters worth of it and I didn't much fancy having to annihilate whole forests just to gain a few levels later on. The idea of it did sound amusing, however. Maybe to watch in a fictitious scenario.
My thoughts were interrupted when a strange tugging sensation formed within my mind. As if asking me to look in a certain direction.
So, I did, and discovered that something had just appeared within my sensory range.
It resembled a large black wolf in appearance. A creature over two meters tall and just as long, it was bigger than any wolf I had ever seen. The two obsidian black horns and the dangerous looking chains that seemed to float menacingly around it only made the differences between this monstrosity and even the largest of canines more apparent.
A Barghest. I didn't know how, but I knew what this creature was, and strangely enough, for all that it appeared intimidating and vicious, I wasn't scared of it at all.
Consume.
No, I looked at the creature like it was a tool, a simple resource to be made use of.
My body moved.
So quickly, that I struggled to understand what was happening.
And just as suddenly as it had begun, everything once again became still, the only difference being that the Barghest was now gone.
I had swallowed it whole. The whole creature already almost completely digested within my gelatinous form.
Once the Barghest was fully digested, words formed themselves within my mind. Alongside this came a much stronger feeling of levelling up, like I had jumped multiple levels at once.
-Adolescent BARGHEST (LVL 14) Consumed-
2 uses of [SKILL] Absolute Consumption remaining
Level 14 reached. Progress -516/1840-
Origin Essence Detected:
74% Barghest
17% Greater Barghest
7% Ancient Direwolf (degraded)
1% Hou-Lagar Garou (degraded)
1% Other (irrecoverable)
Though this time, far more information was provided. Both the skill, and this newly revealed origin essence intrigued me. Absolute Consumption appeared to be very powerful, a trump card of sorts considering it allowed me to jump 11 levels and directly consume the level 14 Barghest. Not only that, but the skill seemed to absorb all the experience the Barghest had accrued and added it into my own experience pool.
Again, it felt like this knowledge was something I already knew of. As if I was simply recalling prior knowledge after not having thought of the topic in a while. And just like dusting off an old memory, more information flowed into me the longer I remained focused upon that particular line of thought.
Absolute Consumption was a skill that could only be used a total of three times during the life of the creature that was known as a Snatcher Slime. It allowed a Snatcher Slime to; as the name implied, absolutely consume any creature with a life-energy strength that was within a certain range of their own.
That range being something I had yet to discover.
More words appeared in my head.
Barghest Origin Essence sufficient enough to be compounded and assimilated. Proceed?
'Proceed.' I confirmed mentally.
Compounding...
Origin Essence was something completely different and extremely interesting, for me at least. Again, it was specific to the Snatcher Slimes, and allowed the slime to essentially improve itself through compounding and assimilating with this essence.
Complete.
Origin Essence itself, was found in any living thing, though far more prominent within creatures than plant life, and functioned in a manner that was similar to DNA, carrying the blueprints of said living thing. A Snatcher Slime could make use of these blueprints, and with a terrifying effectiveness at that.
Assimilating beneficial functions and systems…
-skeletal structure
-musculature
-sensory systems (ocular, nervous, auditory, olfactory, somatosensory)
-mana producing organ(s)
-gust chains
Complete.
Form: BARGHEST assimilated.
The moment those final words entered my mind, the world around me suddenly became all the more overwhelming. Everything I had been missing out on, the chirping of insects, the birdsong, even the more concerning sounds of what must have been large and maybe dangerous predators, made themselves known to me all at once.
It was only after getting used to my new sense of hearing that I noticed the other changes I had gone through. The fact that I could see in a decidedly more normal fashion, the feeling of wind upon my body, the smell of the dirt and plant life, even the taste of the very air around me. It was all magical in a way.
Even the most basic of things could feel special after having experienced life without them.
That I now had four discernable legs, a restless tail and the overall general figure of what I had consumed prior was a fact not lost on me either. I even had the same type of chain floating around my body.
I had become a Barghest.