Null left the village after Theef. Without a trail to follow, he chose to head out in search of what his pet was deciding.
Its sense of smell was not that suitable for tracking, but its eyesight was at least able to take care of noticing intricate details.
"I see it!" It chirped.
Before Null could even ask, the eaglet burst into a purple plume of some sort of form and the darted towards an inconspicuous shrub.
Shiik!
A harsh shriek was heard before Null saw a little purple rabbit hopping his way.
In response to the little rabbit's takeover, what looked like a mother rabbit hopped out of the shrub as well.
It was clearly an earth manipulator as its sturdy brown hide showed off and it went on to hurl a rock at the escaping rabbit child that was taken over.
The rabbit leapt towards Null before morphing back into an eaglet in the midst of its jump and flapping its wings and landing on his shoulder.
Very quickly, Null caught the hurdling rock and tossed it to the side. The shrieking mother rabbit then stopped and went back to the shrub— likely to take care of its remaining children.
"Phew! So, you can take over the babies of these beasts and transform into each form?"
"Not just. I can do this too!" The eaglet said as it sprouted two bunny ears on its head.
"A splice of each? That's impressive. If you gain enough useful traits and add 'em all together, that will make for a vicious threat." Null was highly impressed by the ability of the young creature.
"The more I eat, the more I grow. That is the power of the Allbeast." It spoke matter-of-factly.
"Now that I think about it, you came from the depths of my mind in that hobo's space. Just how was that possible? And why don't you seem to be the least bit grown after all this time."
The little rabbit-eared eaglet seemed confused at first, but managed an acceptable response, "Tired. Travelling through space-time vortex reverts body and mind is what he said."
'I guess that makes sense, but just how strong would someone be to be capable of sending something through space and time?!'
The impressive feat aside, just who was the one that called upon him on that fateful day. Their influence on the time that Null was at his worst had helped him reach where he was today.
"Let's find some more beasts for you to take over! We're not stopping till the sun drops!"
"Scree! More! More!" The eaglet's wingspan was noticeably bigger— albeit not much— in comparison to before.
The two companions set off to find Theef and maybe some other young beasts for the little guy to consume.
"Now that I think of it, you don't have a name, do you? Or should I just call you the Allbeast."
"Allbeast is the Allbeast." The Allbeast responded.
"Alright then Allbeast we'll call you that for now."
---
'Almost there,' a figure sat by a half-eaten boar beast corpse.
Theef had eaten four of such meibeasts in his chimera form and slowly, but surely there were mei veins spreading throughout his body.
The more obscure fact of the matter was his back manifesting another tendril full of mei veins, no doubt carrying the possibility of harnessing the mofei.
Because the beasts he ate had varying elements, there was also the respective processing in the veins to be attuned to each.
Before, Theef would simply release the mofei from his hands after being filled with the mofei in all of its forms. Now, all of the unreleased mofei that hid within him was fueling the process of boring new veins inside of his chimera form.
With the new addition of his mofei-infused tendril, he no longer had the need to consume the bodies of the meibeasts.
All that was left was to consolidate his powers and begin sensing the mofei. Once he did that, there was nothing hindering him from manipulating freely.
"Time to actually bring some of you guys back," he said, desiring to fulfill his task instead of munching on their bodies.
He had already scoured the area and found the nests of some beasts; along with those he caught drinking from a river he followed, he now had the ability to tame them after sensing the mind mofei with his brain waves.
His first targets were some more of the boar and pig-like meibeasts that had attunement to the earth mofei. These would need less maintenance and would eat nearly anything they were given.
He had staked out their habitat and noticed a particular patch of mud that they and their young used to roll around in. They were a more powerful bunch that laid their claim on an area by the river.
After getting used to the feeling of the mind mofei he was confident in using it to influence the minds of other creatures. Just to be sure however, he sought to use one of the piglets as a test subject.
He picked a time where the adults had just turned their backs on one of the piglets and stretched out his tendril to latch onto the lollygagging little thing and transferred a link to it without it sensing any danger.
This method was foolproof as it seemed to be something that the piglet could sense as a comforting presence, much like its parents. It had established the connection and at that point, Theef had a meibeast youngling as a pet to control.
He communicated his desire for the piglet to leave the mud and wander off towards him. The piglet did as commanded and left the group to find him, oinking cutely along the way.
The parents took notice of this after a short while and followed its trail begrudgingly. Too many times had their young wandered off.
But upon finding the piglet with Theef, their sense of danger flared, and they took the time to prepare to cast something.
Theef quickly sent his tendrils towards the parent beasts and sent some more powerful mofei to subdue their minds and even added a threatening communication with the piglet in his grasp.
It took a second, but the beasts acquiesced and became subservient. They then received a call to gather the rest of their group, which they happily obliged as if all the danger they sensed before would soon wreak havoc if they did not.
"I've got some piggies to bring back now, should be enough if we allow them a breeding area and some of the beast corpses as food. Whaddya say?" He looked at the piglet beside him.
"Oink!" It oinked in agreeance.