Azra eyes shot open, his breathing heavy, his muscles tensed and ready to react to any danger. Luckily there was no danger to speak of except perhaps for the lack of sight complement of the surrounding darkness. Azra relaxed, he was home; safe. In that case, was all that a dream. No that was far too realistic to be a dream besides, his aching body and injured claw was a testament to the contrary.
Coming to this conclusion his body tensed again. The last thing he remembered was fainting after watching that red bastard choke to death. Kisshisshi, the look of horror and reluctance on its face...
*Ahem*
'Anyway, how did I get home he questioned in bafflement. Did I sleep-slither?'
No.
'That was too ridiculous even if that were the case the chances of me being attacked by some other beast was too high. Then was I brought back...'
Azra subconsciously swallowed his saliva or the slithern equivalent, as a shiver ran down his spine, which much to his annoyance had been happening quite frequently. He scampered outside eager to find any trace of who or what carried him here.
He poked his head wearily out of the entrance of the burrow observing with scrutiny for any change. Nothing. Not even so much a single footprint. Silencing the flurry of thought in his mind he turned and went back into the somehow reassuring dark of the burrow. Or so he was about to do before stumbling across an unmoving mass fluff.
It was his usual prey, an elkhorn. A clean incision was at its neck, yet it's pale-grey fur revealed no trace of blood. Whoever...whatever did this had kept an intense enough observation on him to trace his feeding habits. His heartbeat sped up once more as he came to this point.
"No calm down."
The fact that whatever it was that was keeping an eye on him didn't harm him and even assisted him was enough to halt his thoughts on the topic. His attention was further stolen by a sound originating from his body.
*Grrrrrrr*
His stomach rumbled protesting the lack of sustenance. Azra picked up the elkhorn, he wasn't about to waste food because it came from a slightly suspicious source ( at least it wasn't cookies baked with 'love juices'). He hadn't had anything to chew on since the day before, by his assumption at least, he didn't know how long he was asleep. Anyway, he went to get firewood since everything in his subspace had been emptied out. Very soon a dainty little campfire was going compliments of dragon's breath, which was the only reprieve the ability had provided him.
As a civilised human...slithern, he couldn't possibly eat raw meat. He removed the pelt from the body with the grace and elegance of an expert- not. Instead, it was sloppy since he hadn't gotten used to it. Casually ignoring the fact that he was being observed he got to work.
As for why he didn't bother absorbing origin for his soul adaptation from it there were two reasons. First, he managed to get the progress to 10.5% before it halted. Any further absorption did nought but ease the pain he felt during one of his spasmodic episodes. Secondly, the meat that came from the origin drained body tasted disgusting.
All food should taste delicious. NO exception. Food is love, food is life. Food came first all things came after. After satisfying his stomach he decided it was time to review his spoils from last night namely the nearly thirty-foot long monster lying in it.
Moving a bit further from his makeshift home Azra opened up his inventory dumping the carcass of his red-scaled brethren on the forest floor. Though it was dead the fearsome aura that it carried while alive was still present causing Azra to subconsciously take a few steps...slithers back.
"It was a miracle I managed to survive after coming into contact with this thing." He mused.
Then with no further ado, he closed his eyes and started to draw the abundant energy emanating off the creature.
"?!!!!"
Just like before a whirlpool of blue dust was drawn out from the creature's body only now it was many times larger. This was different from when he absorbed origin from the rabbits. It was denser, purer and far more abundant. If that was compared to a stream then this would a river- an enormous roaring river of blue.
As the vast power plunged into his body he could feel some sort of limit being reached before shortly being broken. After an odd ten minutes all of the origin had been absorbed into hid body.
"Damn, this might really be addictive," he uttered basking in the after-feel.
Soon enough the usual translucent blue screen popped up.
[Source of origin successfully absorbed. Due to....]
[Commencing soul adaptation...]
[Soul adaptation successful]
[Progress 19%]
"What only 19% after all that?" another blue screen popped up before he could continue.
[Dected host has exceeded the limits of the current form. A period of accelerated growth is imminent. It is recommended that the host procure enough food in preparation.]
*GRRRRRRRRRRR*
No sooner had the screen disappeared when he was assaulted by a voracious hunger.
"But I just ate though!" These were the last words that he hissed out loud before he shot into the forest once more in search of food.