The body of the cop that was originally in the passenger seat began to writhe on the ground like as if Retsu was in a zombie movie. The arms and mangled body parts moved together at once to return to the corpse. He had expected the corpse to do the opposite as he absorbed the essence, maybe even to disappear, but instead, it rose up to look at him, its dull, dead eyes staring back at him.
[Congratulstions! Essence absorption was a success! A new essence has been added to your profile, the user can now communicate with Enzo.]
Retsu's moment of confusion was interrupted by the loudest screaming of a man, tortured beyond Retsu's comprehension filled his mind. He fell to his knees and covered his ears, letting out it a scream in pain that nearly matched the one in his head.
And then the body of the police officer began stumbling around in panic and confusion.
"Where am I? OH MY GOD!" The voice in his head exclaimed when he saw the body stumbling around. "OH MY GOD!" Was all it could say.
"Who are you?" Retsu asked but the voice just screamed again, "oh no! No no no no! Tony!" And the resurrected zombie body ran over to the other dead cop and fell to its knees. "Oh Tony! Don't worry! It's going to be ok! I'll call an ambulance!" Retsu could feel that the zombie didn't know what had happened any more than Retsu had, as if both of them had missed the carnage unfold, but still, he began trying to do CPR. The zombie turned to Retsu finally and the voice in his head yelled, "what are you waiting for? Call 911!"
Retsu was bewildered, but the man was dead, the system said so, so what was he supposed to do?
"He's dead." Retsu confirmed. "You both are." He added.
It was obvious now that Enzo was his new zombie who seemed to only be able to communicate with him in his mind. Actually, it felt like Enzo was physically in his mind, because his body was not alive at all, just an empty shell.
Enzo took a moment to respond. "I can see myself, it's awkward to control my body, am I having an out of body experience? Did we crash? I don't remember any of it. Are you dead too?"
Retsu shook his head and went to the car mirror. Allowing the zombie body to follow him. He showed himself his reflection. Unlike the zombie who had soulless eyes, Retsu still had his soul. In fact, his eyes were strong and intense. His skin no longer looked warm like a human's, he didn't have a beating heart either, but he was more alive than Enzo. Enzo wasn't in control of Retsu's body either, he was like an observer. Essence absorption must have absorbed his actual soul.
Just like before, he had a time limit. But this time it didn't seem like an ability would wear off per say, because even though a countdown to the skill Essence absorption had begun, of four hours like before. The notification of a new pack member being added to the group also appeared.
Pack members: 2
And it hadn't said 2 when the Revenant was created, so the second pack member had to be Enzo.
He opened Enzo's stats.
[Essence Manifestation is active.]
Name: Enzo Weathers.
Level: 5
HP: 500/500
Class: Essence
Species: Shade
Title: ?
[Please select a title. ]
This time it did allow him to see what a shade was, and now it made sense to Retsu why Enzo seemed to be in his head.
[Shade- a fragmented soul, who experienced a violent death, and as such attatches to a nearby life source. Shades can manifest physically for a short period of time. They can pass through physical objects, being useful as a spy that cannot disobey their master. A shade feeds off of the life source of its prey. ]
The discription left Retsu a little bit more confused than not, but it made sense that his physical body would be temporary because there was a time limit.
[Essence manifestation is active, duration of physical form 4 hours.]
Just to play with it, Retsu wondered if he deactivated it, would Enzo's body be able to appear or disappear at will?
Without asking him, he deactivated Enzo's physical form, and suddenly his communication with Enzo was cut off. The body dissolved into dust before his eyes.
He hovered over the pack members tab and found Enzo's name. He clicked on it and sure enough, there was an option to activate Enzo's physical form.
"Manefest Enzo." He said out loud, and Enzo's zombie body appeared in front of him again, ready for his command.
[Communication active] and this time Enzo's voice was not yelling or screaming, just silent. Then he said the first thing that seemed natural for him to say, "How can I help you, master?"
"Call me Alpha." He said to Enzo. "I'm a zombie werewolf, and you my friend, are the newest member of my pack."
Enzo hesitated, deciding how he felt about this. Was this boy playing with powers of creation that should belong to Gods? Was he just casually declaring that werewolves and zombies were real? And now ye was one? "You killed me then? We didn't crash the car?"
"I told you I was hungry." Retsu said, "I am sorry about that, but I promise you, I will fix this as soon as I figure out how."
Enzo's body nodded. "I'm tired, Alpha, may I rest now?"
This time his physical manifestation had only been strong enough for 1 minute, and before Retsu could answer, Enzo's body crumbled to dust again and the only voice in his head now was his wolf.
Retsu wondered how he should 'feed' Enzo next time so his manifestation can last longer, perhaps if men tried to jump him again, he could be able to sick him at them, and use him to fight instead of having to do it himself, then he would never run out of HP again and could control his hunger better.
But first, he had to find Rori.