Leo walked away from the smoldering ruins of Hoshimura, the image of the terrified adventurers burned into his mind. Their fear was a different kind of weapon, one his adaptive immortality couldn't defend against. He had saved them, and in doing so, had become their nightmare. The hollow sadness was now a sharp, aching loneliness. He was separate. Other.
He moved with purpose now, a grim reaper hunting the plague he had unleashed. He found stragglers from the horde—a pack of Jackals terrorizing a farmstead, a lone Gloom Bruin smashing a water mill. Each time, he raised the Leviathan Staff and delivered a silent, focused pulse of negation. Each time, he felt a small influx of energy, a bitter sustenance from the creatures he was forced to destroy.
It was during one of these encounters, against a particularly large Magma Weevil that had been scorching the countryside, that it happened. The creature, in its death throes, vomited a stream of superheated, half-digested sludge. The sludge contained the remains of its recent meals—charred animal bones, and the unmistakable, partially dissolved remains of a human adventurer, identifiable only by a scrap of leather armor and the unique, complex energy signature of a human soul.
As Leo's passive absorption field consumed the Weevil and the sludge, he ingested that signature. It was just data, like everything else. But this data was different.
[Assimilating complex biological and spiritual blueprint: [Human - Male],] [Sage] reported, its tone clinically fascinated. [Genetic sequence, somatic structure, and neurological pattern acquired.]
The information flooded Leo's core. He understood, on a fundamental level, the architecture of a human body. The delicate lattice of bones, the intricate web of nerves, the pulsing network of veins and arteries. He understood the chemical signals, the hormonal balances, the very pattern of what made a human, human.
And a desperate, powerful yearning surged within him. A desire to connect. To not be the monster in the dark. To have a face they could look upon without screaming.
[Sage… can I?] he thought, the desire overwhelming.
[The blueprint is complete. Your form is mutable. You can adopt this template.]
He didn't hesitate. He focused, willing his slime body to obey the new design. It was the most complex transformation he had ever attempted. His gelatinous form shuddered, collapsing inward. Bones extended and hardened from within, creating a scaffold. Muscles woven from densified slime fiber wrapped around them. A network of fine, glowing green channels—his version of blood vessels—spread throughout the new body, designed not to carry blood, but to contain and circulate the immense, chaotic energies within him. Skin, smooth and unblemished, formed over it all, taking on a healthy, human hue.
When it was done, he stood on two steady legs. He looked down at his hands—five-fingered, with knuckles and nails. He touched his face. A strong jaw, a straight nose, closed eyelids. He willed his eyes to open, and they did, revealing irises of a deep, calm green, the only hint of his otherworldly nature.
He was handsome, in a way that felt instinctively right, a form crafted from an idealized memory of the blueprint he had consumed. He was Leo, but now he looked like he belonged.
[Form stabilized. Energy circulation network is operational. The pseudo-vascular system will regulate your internal energy, preventing passive leakage and allowing for more precise control. Your aura is now contained within this vessel.]
He was no longer a walking blight. He was a man. A man who contained a universe of power.
He found a still pond and looked at his reflection. A stranger stared back. A handsome, sad-eyed young man. There was no sign of the slime, the jade-green light, the terrifying void. It was a mask, but it was a perfect one. He could walk among them now. He could help without causing panic.
He turned from the pond, his new heart—a powerful, crystalline pump of condensed energy—beating a steady, rhythmless rhythm in his chest. He was still the same being, still carrying the grief of the dead and the weight of his power. But now, he had a face. He could look the next person he saved in the eye, and perhaps, just perhaps, they would not look back in terror.