The Swamp's Monster

The eagle woke up on the tree branch. The corpse of the blue hare was nowhere to be seen. It stood up, ready to fly deeper into the cave in search of new prey. The blue hare's meat was very delicious, just thinking about it made the eagle salivate.

But once it started to move, it felt heavier than before. It looked back to see that a pair of long furry legs was sprouting from its waist before its tail feathers. Its waist had elongated to fit the new body part. Its talons were readjusted to the front of its body and its torso looked more mammalian than bird.

Its wings also got considerably longer. Before, the eagle had been as big as a large sized dog but now, it was as big as a small horse. Anatomically speaking, it could hardly be called an eagle anymore.

Now, it looked more like a mini-griffin.

The eagle looked at its blue-ish legs with a little bit of confusion. It tried to move and get a feel for them. They naturally moved according to the eagle's thoughts like any normal limp. They didn't feel any different from its talons when it came to movement.

It flapped its wings to fly and its newly formed abdominal muscles contracted to keep its spine straight during flight. Although its weight had increased by a large margin, it could still fly with ease and even faster than before.

Every part of its body moved optimally according to its instincts.

The eagle moved deeper into the cave as planned. The ground got muddier the deeper it flew and it got hungrier. It had flown for a while without finding any prey to feed on in these parts.

Soon, it was met with another hare, a red one. It was much bigger than the red one the eagle ate before.

The eagle flew at it with great speed, unable to wait for the delicious meat. It pierced its beak into the hare's back to take a bite, not even bothering to kill the animal first.

The hare was slammed into the mud while screaming from having its back pierced into. The eagle ignored it as it coated its beak in violet slime and started ravaging the hare from inside its body. Its neck moved ravenously from the left to the right, swallowing anything that touched its beak.

Promptly, the hare's screams turned into growls as its body heated up fast. The eagle couldn't continue to eat the hare from the heat emanating from it, even with its slime coated beak. The slime around its beak had started to evaporate. It jerked its beak out of the hare and jumped away using its hind legs.

Right after landing, it jumped sideways. A fireball had exploded in the place it was just at. The mad hare had gotten up with difficulty and started spewing fireballs at the eagle from its mouth. The right side of its body was like a deflated balloon with fur hanging from the side and a hole dripping with blood, yet its rage was at an all-time high.

The eagle continued to jump to avoid the incoming fireballs. It jumped in a half-circle to the back of the hare. The hare could barely turn its head, as for moving its body, that was almost impossible in its current state.

The mud under the eagle hardened as the water in it congealed into a ball in front of the eagle. It flew towards the paralyzed hare as it watched helplessly. The ball's momentum slammed the hare into the ground again and weakened its body's heat.

It could only watch helplessly as the eagle flew at it and ravenously started to eat it alive, not even bothering to end its suffering first.

[Pierce] leveled up to lv3

[Water Manipulation] leveled up to lv2

[Fire Manipulation lv1] skill gained

[Hare Legs] strengthened

The eagle enjoyed its meal that had died from the sheer pain. Its hind legs started to turn into a violet color similar to the slime on its feathers.

****

The surroundings changed once again, the once lush forest was slowly turning into a swamp. The giant white trees grew thicker deeper inside and the water level rose more and more. The eagle could clearly see the depth of the water from the light coming off the trees' bases.

More than an hour later, it could see, beyond the giant trees and the swamp, green grassland surrounded by the rocky walls of the cave and a giant ancient wooden wall that blocked the end of the cave.

The wall's bark was a greyish white in contrast to the dark rock surrounding it on the roof and sides of the cave.

Suddenly, the water in the swamp below the eagle rumbled as a giant maw twice the size of the current eagle came hurling at it, intending to swallow the eagle whole. The water raged around the maw as a debilitating roar came from the maw, destroying the giant trees around it.

The trees' bases cracked and the sound of wood breaking and splashing in the water rang out around the maw but it was drowned by the gigantic maw's roar.

The eagle's body went into overdrive as it tried to fly away from the giant maw before it got swallowed. Its wings flapped, changing its direction to move higher up and away from the maw.

Thankfully, the distance from the water of the swamp and the eagle, who was flying above the trees, was high enough for the eagle to escape from the giant maw in time. However, as soon as the eagle turned to observe the maw after steering clear of it, it realized that many water tentacles were stretching from under the maw trying to hit the eagle out of the sky like a fly.

Promptly, the eagle used its fire manipulation skill and fired a few fireballs out of its mouth at the oncoming tentacles and the ones that passed the fireballs were dispersed using the eagle's own water manipulation skill.

[Fireball lv1] skill gained

Finally, the eagle could see who that maw belonged to. It was a giant blue alligator more than 40 meters tall, it was just a little smaller than a space shuttle. Its back was covered in blue armor-like scales and between its eyes laid a sapphire horn. It was sitting on the water of the swamp like a flying mat. The water all around it bent to its will.

The alligator's sapphire horn shone with an azure light while the water under it was floating in the air peacefully.

All the trees surrounding the alligator, that were at least twice its size, were swept away when it came out of the swamp.

Although the alligator's behavior was menacing, its eyes were as calm as still water as it looked at the eagle.

The water mat it was sitting on fired balls of water at the eagle, not letting it catch a break in the least. The eagle continued to dodge to the left and right, up and down, hitting some water balls with fireballs and dispersing those that got too close.

Tentacles of water joined the fray, distracting the eagle from the balls of water coming at it.

Soon, a water ball grazed the eagle's wing, bringing it out of balance and making a few feathers fall from its wing. A second water ball came for the eagle's face. The slime all over its feathers congealed at its face, bouncing the water's momentum away.

[Slime Manipulation] leveled up to lv3

In that split second, the eagle regained its bearing and retreated back at full speed. But the water balls wouldn't stop.

The eagle turned its head and let the violet slime congeal at its hind legs. Two blobs of slime bounced from each of its hare legs. Whenever, a water ball got too close a blob of slime would smash towards it strongly, dispersing it.

[Slime Limb lv1] skill gained

The eagle realized that each time it dispersed a ball of water using its slime tentacles its speed would increase. Therefore, instead of avoiding them, it got behind them and then smashed them to accelerate forward faster. It did its best to get away from that alligator as quickly as possible.

A roar could be heard behind the eagle as the water balls stopped, as if warning it to never come near the swamp again.

Although without the alligator's warning, the eagle was never planning to step foot near the swamp again.

****

Days later.

The eagle returned to the luminescent forest where the hares and slimes were. Wherever it passed the cries of hares and explosions of burned slime would follow. It toyed with its prey, trying all the different combinations of ways to kill them. It released all of its frustrations onto them.

The eagle was frustrated because it couldn't find any exits from the cave. It searched every nook and cranny of the area to no avail. The only area where it hadn't searched yet was the land beyond the lake.

Although it could eat all the delicious hares and slimes here, there were no eagles of its kind here. Bald eagles were highly social creatures that liked to bond with others of their kind and enjoy life with their partners in mating seasons.

But here, there was no one of its kind, that was driving the eagle crazy. There was a hole in its heart that it couldn't fill with just delicious food.

It felt imprisoned.

It could only pass this time by ravenously eating hare meat, drinking slime and hearing the tortured cries of its prey. Even the sizzling sound of the slime coming from the round blobs made the eagle strangely ecstatic.

On this day, the eagle almost had enough of this life. Not even the most delicious nectar in the world could remove its desire for bonding. It flew back to the muddy area of the forest and circled it for a while. If it spotted any hare it would swoop in, torture and eat it, still contemplating whether or not to risk its life to reach the green land beyond the swamp.

Finally, with a large chunk of bloody meat on its beak, it looked to the roof of the cave ready to fly back into the swamp and face the alligator. However, its eyes glanced at a strangely shaped silhouette on the muddy ground beside it.

It turned in its direction and slowly approached it. In the past few days, its control over its new body parts got increasingly better. It learned to walk on its four legs silently to avoid the detection of the hares, so that it would kill them with little resistance.

It sneaked closer and closer to the silhouette until it could make out its appearance.

Surprisingly, the creature it was looking at was an identical looking "eagle" to it. It had the same body size, same limbs, same everything.

As soon as the eagle spotted the other "eagle", it ran towards it with anticipation; dropping its guard completely, similar to a dog that had seen its owner after a long time. There was finally someone of its kind here and it even had those strange limbs like it. It wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

The other "eagle" was walking slowly toward the inner part of the forest away from the swamp, it seemed very tired and weary. Its body was wet all over as if it had just come out of the swamp water.

Its feet squelched as it moved through the forest with its neck hanging loosely downwards from exhaustion.

Once it heard the sound of feet moving towards it, it turned its head strongly with its guard up. It saw a bloody eagle running towards with great expectation.

****

Skills:

- Vise Grip lv8

- Pierce lv5

- Slime Manipulation lv4

- Water Manipulation lv3

- Fire Manipulation lv3

- Fireball lv3

- Slime Limb lv2

Extra Parts:

- Slime Organ

- Hare Legs