Stuck in the ground, Akiel stares at his now dead opponent. Seconds pass and a gentle breeze sweeps through the forest, bringing the pungent scent of blood away. Minutes pass as several apes gather around the spot, waiting for movement. Angry and mournful of their king's death they stare, waiting for him to move.

Akiel continues to stare, not moving. Not a single sign of life could be seen in the devastated battleground. As the minutes pass the apes start to get impatient. Finally, as an hour passes, one of the apes descend from the trees. It circles around the clearing, observing the stone blade embedded into the ground and then its king’s body.

Akiel remains still, there was no real way of knowing if the contract was still valid. The king is dead and there was no way for it to have told its followers about it. Unless the vermin somehow already know, the contract should have been nullified the moment he killed the lug.

Unsure of his next move, Akiel couldn’t bring himself to move. With his only remaining limb stuck deep into the ground, he had no way to move without remodeling himself into a smaller and more fragile version. With the situation as it is, the chance of him breaking away in his smaller form seems slim.

As he ruminates, one of the apes pulls him out of the ground by his head. Staying as still as possible, the ape swings him around like a sword. Finally convinced, the ape walks to the king in rapid movements, taking Akiel with it.

Noticing the ape moves in sets of three steps before pausing, Akiel grows increasingly annoyed by the nonsensical behavior. At the height of his restraint, the ape reaches the king's body. Is examines the wounds and stone blades before making its way to the head.

Grabbing Akiel, it smashes the head open. Rummaging around, it spills the brain matter and several chunks of bone before finding a fist-sized orb. The beast core belonging to the former king. Picking it up, the ape pops it in its mouth.

Realizing what was happening, Akiel starts to squirm in the ape's hand. Startled by the sudden movement. The ape drops Akiel but forgets soon after. Intense pain assaults it as its body starts to warp. Its lanky form starts to swell. Starting from its chest, everything starts to bulk up. Bending over in pain, it starts to screech and bawl. Slamming its growing fists into the ground, it sends Akiel flying through the air.

Akiel, waiting for the opportune moment, remodels his body to be able to detach the head and upper chest portions and builds a sizable amount of mana between his body and the detachable parts. To be able to launch his blade limb in mid-air, the majority of his mass needed to be used to counter the force. Waiting as he rotates above the writhing ape, he ejects himself and plunges into the growing apes wide back. Using remodel, he divides his slender body into several delicate limbs meant for digging. With a whir of mechanical movement, he shreds his way into the ape’s left lung.

Feeling the struggling airflow, Akiel grinds the surrounding flesh and proceeds to rip through its insides. Using his limbs like disposables he navigates around bones and slowly digs through the softer flesh into the neck. The neck itself hadn’t enlarged to the point where akiel could fit inside so he popped out just beneath the jaw.

Happy about his location, Akiel jabs his limbs into the soft skin under the jawline and pulls it apart. No longer rushing to reach the beast core, Akiel waits as the ape finishes assimilating the core and forming its own.

As it is, there is no way to know if the former beast core has already been absorbed and the body is just undergoing changes or the ape was siphoning the power from the former beast core. It was best to just grab the finished product. Waiting patiently as the ape’s struggles slow down and it bled out, Akiel slowly crawls into its oral cavity. Sticking one of his remaining limbs into its tongue, he flips the rest of his limbs to face the upper back of the throat. Waiting until it stopped trying to scream, he remodels the remaining limbs into more compact and durable versions.

Without an accurate look at ape anatomy, he could only guess where the relevant bones were. Right above him should be the equivalent to the hard palate and where he was aiming is the soft palate. If he could accurately see, he might even be able to shimmy up the spinal cord but all his mana sight shows him is an influx of mana flowing continuously in every direction. Biding his time, Akiel starts to count the number of moans the ape makes before croaking.

It really is different, being inside something dying. Feeling the heartbeat, it erratically thumps at a quick pace. As the ape lessens its moans and starts to softly whine, the heartbeat starts to calm down. It slows until he has to wait five seconds between each beat. Feeling like it was time, Akiel gores through the remaining bones and flesh, roughly jabbing the beast core. Thankfully, it was much more sturdy when compared to the smaller ones. Wrapping his mangled limbs around it, he imagines absorbing the core.

Immediately, large amounts of mana course through his body, quickly overloading it. As cracks begin to appear on his body, he quickly infuses the excess mana into the ape's body. Reclaiming its bones he moves onto its muscles. Without a living body, it would be hard to make the body move, but he could just emulate the mana structure in his original body and layer it over the musculature. He didn’t need the body to move for him. He just needed something to call a body.

With most of the excess mana invested, he sighs as the rest had already dispersed. Flexing the limbs, he feels some of the flesh from his mouth fall off. Without any way to communicate, he decides that he just needs to escape. Accessing the ape's eyes through emulation of his previous vision structures, he finds hundreds of apes staring at him.

There was no way that he could have fought this many even in his original body. Regretting his actions, Akiel starts to reluctantly gesture in the direction he wanted to go and starts to awkwardly shuffle sideways. It may seem simple, but walking like an ape is complicated. Not only do you have to place your hands firmly on the ground, but your back legs also need a synchronous rhythm to move correctly. The arms are longer and the muscles are made for the awkward motion.

Reaching the edge of the clearing, Akiel watches the primates above him. A few lower themselves to ground and approach him. Gesturing to the sides he points to then and the gestures to himself and forward. As if understanding his intentions, most of the apes move away. As he trudges forward, one of the apes approaches him. It motions to itself and then him. It seemed to want to follow him.

Having an idea, he showers it in blood instead of chuckling. Noticing his lack of a neck, Akiel abruptly stops. He signals for the ape to come forward. Trying his best to smile, he tenses his large arms for movement. As it approaches, he gets lower to the ground. Almost face to face, the ape waits for him to do something. Amused, Akiel grabs the ape and chucks it at the canopy, causing several other to drop.

Heaving himself forward, Akiel adapts to the new method of locomotion. As he breaks through the encirclement, he jumps and latches onto a sturdy looking branch. Swinging on it, he propels himself over the treetops. Spotting the stone landmark he lands on top of another tree. Looking down, he gingerly reaches out. Letting himself fall, he grabs onto a branch and continues to swing through the forest.

An hour later, he reaches the edge of the forest, opening up to a rocky plain. Stopping, he checks his mana levels. Not able to talk to himself, he just happily beats his chest. His ambient mana is at a healthy 56%. Deciding that this is a good time to regain a proper body. He drags a few boulders over and starts to infuse them with mana. With the recent monkey business, he decided a bigger body was probably a great idea. Using the given template, he forms his body to stand at 3 meters high. Shaping a spear into one hand, he overlooks his new template.

The size would help him in many ways, but the spear might not. As long as he could maintain his distance, the spear is an excellent choice. On the other hand, if the enemy gets too close, his spear would be close to useless. Ruminating on the problem, he settles with some arm bracers and knuckle spikes. As an extra precaution, he adds retractable knives to his feet.

Using remodel, he ditches the ape carcass and forms his new body. With only 21% ambient mana left, he sighs in comfort. Getting up, he stretches his limbs, similar to new shoes, new bodies also have to broken in. Sending punches and kicks at imaginary foes, he slowly acclimates to his new size. Grabbing the ape carcass, he flings it away. He stops to admire his throw before turning around and heading to the rock formation.

Hours pass as he walks through barren, rocky outcroppings and scattered sand dunes. Sitting on a particularly tall stack of stone, Akiel tries to measure the remaining distance, “This thing keeps on getting bigger. It’s like I can keep walking forever and I’ll still never make it.”

Dusting his thighs, he gets up and starts running, determined to reach the landmark by nightfall. Another two hours pass until he runs into the tall stack, ”Arrgh. This thing is ridiculously fine-grained. I thought I was far away and just now seeing the finer details.”

Looking to the side all he finds is an endlessly long rocky wall, “This thing is probably as big as a major city.” As he marvels at the monstrosity, something suddenly smashes its way up the stack. Making his way to where it launched from, he finds a peculiar looking bird. Mostly dark grey with glowing red streams of liquid coming off of it.

“This might be my distant cousin,” he muses as he approaches. The bird watches him but doesn’t move, determined to squat on its spot. Just as he makes it within touching distance, the thing blasts into the sky, exposing a gaping hole in the ground. Examining the hole, he finds the inner walls glowing with heat. The ledges show signs of claws scraping the undersides and he could see magma at the base.

Figuring out how his cousins were climbing the stack, he decides to follow them. Using remodel, he forms a shield like object to sit on and waits. His first attempt is met with him flying 2 meters upward and them settling back down. Forming hooks on the bottom of the shield, he causes the pressure to build until the edges of the hole crumble. Shooting upwards, he reaches three-quarters of the way up before his momentum runs out.

Watching in horror as the shield falls away and he plummets downward, he hurriedly remodels his hands into sturdy spike-like anchors. Stabbing the rockface, he manages to slow his descent just enough to avoid destruction. Looking for his shield, he complains, “Who said villains get the easy job. Heroes get beaten up on screen before winning, but what about the villain? The poor villain probably dies several times before enacting his plan.”

Finding his shield pulverized, he reforms it and checks his mana. With only 15% left, Akiel decides to try one more time before resting to recover his mana. Placing his shield on the hole, he steps on only to feel the ground give away. The ledges holding the shield up couldn’t hold his weight.

As he fell, he noticed that the hole itself was just a slight bit bigger than the ledges had been on top. His circular shield is almost a perfect fit. Aas his descent slows with the building pressure underneath, Akiel notices several vents leading away. “They probably lead to other surface openings. I wonder if this will be enough pressure to launch me to the top?” he muses as his freefall starts to slow down. Slowly he started to feel the shield pushing back as he continued to descend. He passes several vents and the shield below him starts to deteriorate as the inconsistent rock walls grind against it. Thankfully, before it shatters, the falling sensation stops. An intense gravitational force is followed by him stalling near the bottom of the hole. Guessing that he would soon start to rise, he clamps his hands onto the side of the hole to build more pressure.

If this fails, there is a good chance that he will not be trying again. As his hands start to lose traction and he starts to rise, he feels the shield crack beneath him. Looking down, he finds the stone shield to be glowing red, not only did a massive crack through the center appear, but his lower body was also starting to heat up.

Letting go, he hugs his knees and tucks legs in. With the immense force ejecting him out of the hole, he shoots out into the surface rapidly. Rotating like a projectile he clears the top of the stack easily. Just when he starts to relax, he notices that his shield had disappeared. Not panicking, he tries to see where he would be landing. He could possibly try to counteract the motion by eject a portion of his mass again.

Reaching the peak of his parabola, he spreads his limbs wide. Slowing the spiral motion he was exhibiting, he finds himself approaching the edge of the stack. He would clear the whole monument! Panicking, he gets ready to eject a small part of himself when his momentum abruptly stops.

“Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Look who I found Cedric, it's the Rocky!” an excited voice says. Frowning, Akiel tries to see around the glove holding his face but fails to even move his head. “Clown, that's the construct we dropped in the forest. If you remember, Rocky was the old cat we found dead and rotting in my house just yesterday.”

Realizing who caught him, Akiel dangles from the clown's hand while waiting for their next course of action. “Oh, yeah. I remember it now. You’re the one trying to kill all the people in the world right? Oh boy, this is getting exciting, isn’t it.? This calls for a party!” the clown screams over his ear. Thankful for his lack of eardrums, he continues to quietly wait. He could try to escape, but the clown doesn’t seem like someone he could possibly outrun, much less the massive warrior companion prodding his foot.

“Not happening. I agreed to babysit you, not some half baked construct. I say we crush him. I wouldn’t want my house to fall due to one of his attacks.” Cedric denies. Akiel steadily builds his mana up in his core. Relying on his prior experience, he was planning on exploding and hiding in a small fragment to avoid destruction.

“Dear me. Little Cedric’s worried his little wifey will die. Oh, I forgot she’s not yours. Remember why we were supposed to leave this morning? Because she has another man! You are supposed to accompany me!” the clown teases maliciously. Getting a bit of information, Akiel hurriedly tries to offer a deal, “I won’t touch this village! If you help, I won’t touch anyone close to your wife!”

“Suppose I agree, what would you have us do? We won’t work for you longer than a day, I’ll tell you right now.” Cedric growls.

As if given a ticket to heaven, Akiel excitedly says, “I just need help toppling the kingdom. Not right now, but when I have made my preparations. I just need you to take down a few of the strongest knights and mages. I’ll deal with the rest of the capital.”