Chapter 56: Stygian Beast Form I

Nox's body started to shiver and trembling as the flesh underneath his skin disturbingly rippled and grew, stretching his skin and showing the flesh blood within. Giving him a overly muscular build.

But then, it started to blacken, once again hiding the flesh within and thickening, no longer the skin of a human but a monster's coarse and rough hide.

His hair turned into a greyish colour and grew rapidly, even on his chin and cheeks forming a majestic grey mane like that of a lion. The next change were his eyes.

While they were already blood red from the use of his skill, their previously white sclera turned pitch black as his slited, dragon like pupils glinted with savagery and insanity as red crack like lines extended from his irises into the rest of his eyes and the skin around them.

Nox's features then started to shift even more massively as his bones morphed and his flesh grew even more ripping through his clothes and armor. His legs became bowed backwards, much like a feline's and his grew massive talons.

His arms elongated and grew sharp claws and his torso grew greatly in mass, turning Nox into a three meter tall behemoth with powerful muscular frame the rippled with wiry strength.

Lastly, his facial profile became predatorial, elongating and giving space for all of his teeth to turn into savage fangs and his canines became even larger and stronger. A large, muscular tail extended from his coccyx and enormous bat like wings with spiked tips burst from his back.

No trace of humanity was left in Nox as he turned into a monster far more deadly, savage and bloodthirsty than any found in the Dungeon.

And so, with nothing but a thirst for blood that could not be easily sated flooding his mind, the Stygian Beast that was once Nox set out . . . The Hunt had begun.

The beast targeted every single lifeform its hyper enhanced senses could detect and, at speed Nox had never once achieved, flickered around killing and devouring.

But soon monsters started to dwindle in the secluded area of the 24th floor the Nox had been in and the beast moved onto other areas . . . closer to where other adventures might wander.

Although it lacked all of Nox's abilities that were not strictly related to the Sanguinare Vampiris skill, even though it could benefit from the passive boost of the Archon skill, its raw power and physical stats far surpassed Nox's and all of its vampiric abilities had been drastically enhanced.

As such, no monster in the floor could even pose any sort of challenge as the beast tore every single being it came across with extreme ease.

Soon however, it encountered a roving band of adventurers . . .

Even though it lacked Nox's reason, the beast had much sharper instincts and could evaluate its targets.Seeing a group of powerful beings, the beast stifled its urge to just jump and tear at them, opting for a more stealthy approach.

As a vampiric creature of the night, the beast's stealth was anything but ordinary as it stalked the party of adventurers in utter silence but its ominous intentions revealed its presence.

"Can you feel it Dix?" A buff bald man with a black facial tatoo asked his leader.

"Yeah . . . Something is watching us." Dix responded.

"Think its one of them?" The bald man, Gran asked.

"If it is, they saved us the trouble of finding them." His leader replied.

"Get ready boys!" He ordered, resulting in all of the members of his party taking up their battle ready stances.

If he was in control, Nox would have recognised Dix Perdix, captain of the ikelos familia and a man that made his life capturing Xenos in the Dungeon and selling them on the black market.

Dix was tall, muscular, and had black hair and red eyes. His left eye had a D on it, signifying that he was a descendant of Daedalus.

He wore goggles with translucent smoky quartz lenses, a slightly dirty battle cloth, and  wielded a red spear imbued with a curse that stopped wounds inflicted by it from healing.

The group eyed their surroundings carefully searching for the haunting presence that unsettled them to the core, only Dix seemed to be fine, the only thing keeping the others from panicking and the beast, it could smell that weakness.

A fast moving shadow darted towards the group at blinding speed, tearing through the neck of one of Dix's subordinates with its teeth and dicing two others with its claws in passing as it dashed away before the group could even have a good lock at it.

The party, having lost three members and beng reduce to around 10 adventurers tightened their formation in fear and looked ready to run for it at any given opportunity.

"This isn't looking good Dix!" Gran said, panicking fully seeping into his voice.

"Get your shit together!" Dix shouted, shutting Gran up.

"Sorry Dix." He apologized.

"Listen up! If any of you wastes run, I'll kill you myself!" He declared making the desperate adventurers firm their grip on their weapons from being driven into a dead end. They wanted to take their chances with the beast rather than risking betrayal out of fear for their boss.

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Privately, the gears in Dix's head turned.

'It was definitely a monster but I ain't never seen one like that before . . .' He considered.

Being the only Level 5 in the party and one of the strongest Level 5s in Orario, Dix had managed to get a good look at the beast, unlike his subordinates.

'That thing is faster than me for sure. The question is . . . Is it stronger . . .' Dix continued to think.

'If it is, these pieces of trash won't even be good enough fodder and I should get out of here. No payday is worth my life.' He pondered.

'But monsters tend to have areas of specialization so being fast, it should not be too tough to hurt it, the problem is hitting it.'

'I have to wait for the moment it strikes and when it gets its claws on one of the wastes, I'll take the chance to counter attack.' Dix decided.

"Get ready for a counter attack fools!" He commanded.

Knowing their leader's style of command, they already knew what was up. Let the poor bastard that is the beast's next victim die while the others strike at it. But what choice did they have? All they could do was pray they were not the sacrificial lamb.

Soon enough, the beast struck again from another direction, being upon the group before they could even react and struck but this time, the other adventures pushed against it rather than trying to make distance and prevented it from just dashing through them.

This allowed all of them to get a good look at the beast that still held their already dead comrade in its fanged mouth as they surrounded it.

Its appearance sent shivers of fear as never had they heard of or seen such a fearsome beast but it didn't change what they had to do and so, drowning their fears in shouts, they struck at it.

'Good, it's boxed in and unable to use its speed. Looks like these fools are not so useless after all.' Dix thought with a smirk on his face.

But, rather than seeing the beast being struck down, all the weapons failed to penetrate its tough hide, bounding off harmlessly with a dull sound.

Everyone froze in shock and, in the next instant, the beast roared and shrieked with a sound that penetrated deep into one's very being and froze them all in supernatural fear.

The end result of this was quite obvious.

In a storm of blood and claws, fangs and teeth, the beast decimated all of the adventurers surrounding it, only three of them, including Dix and Gran surviving the onslaught due to their faster recovery, being the only Level 4s of the group and Dix being Level 5.

The beast gorged itself on its feast which it found rather more pleasing that the monsters it had previously devoured adn, feeling it was not feeding fast enough for its taste, it shrieked again summoning all of the blood in its surrounding into its mouth.

All of the corpses on the ground shrivelled as their essense was continuously drained by their killer, leaving only the three survivors to stare in shock and terror at the spectacle before them.

Dix was once again the fastest to recover.

'Shit! This thing is not anything so cute as a monster! I fucking outta here!' He internally screamed before dashing away.

Gran, noticing his boss' move internally shouted 'FUCK!' before before following and the third member, finally realizing he was alone, ran away in a different direction.

But how could the beast that had just developed a feeding preference for adventures let its most delicious prey yet, escape so easily?

The hunt had just begun . . .

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