'Phew! That was harder than I thought.' Silva thought as he massaged his jaw. He was reclined against a tree his stomach swollen repulsively. 'It feels weird eating a human but he didn't taste bad. It would have been better if these villagers showered often but it can't be helped. This new adaptation is amazing. The time of adaptation increased by a few days just from eating.'
'As much as I would love to stay in this form I still need to acquire voluntary adaptation. Which means I have to eat snakes nineteen more times. Sigh, why do they taste so bad? They should taste like this human.' Silva stared at the moon as he waited for night to deepen. The crescent moon barely provided any light but it was enough for Silva.
He slithered back to the edge of the village but there was a noticeable change. Silva's movements were loud and slow. The full stomach was restraining his previously graceful movements. Getting over the fence that he previously considered to be child's play took over ten minutes. Inside the village, Silva noticed that most people were awake and grieving.
'Great, now I'll have to crash a funeral. Why couldn't they just wait till sunrise to do this? Now I can't mercifully poison them in their sleep. They brought this upon themselves.' Silva thought as he snuck up on a man who had strayed away from the rest. He got behind him and reached for his neck to choke him so that he didn't make a sound. Silva's cold, scaled hands reached for the man's neck and instantly clamped down.
A sickening crunch and gurgling sound was produced. Silva had underestimated his strength and completely crushed the man's windpipe along with every bone in his neck. The man's body fell out of Silva's grasp as he stared at his bloody hands. 'Did I get stronger just from eating? Nice.'
Another silent murder occurred followed by a few more. Silva had entered one of the houses where kids were sleeping since the adults had gone to the mass funeral. House after house, Silva crushed the skull of anyone unlucky enough to be inside. His cold, expressionless face was now twisted by a chilling smile. There was a glint in his eyes that hinted at pleasure. He hadn't noticed when it began but Silva had been tasting the blood and bits of brain matter stuck to his hands with his forked tongue.
At one point, he was too absorbed in the tasting to notice that one of the villagers was staring at him. The villager, previously frozen in fear, let out a blood-curdling scream when Silva turned to face her. He dashed toward her but his belly made it so that he couldn't come close to reaching her. The chase ended with the woman joining the crowd of fearful villagers. Silva hissed loudly at the crowd to scare them but a ball of flames to the face ended the hissing.
Silva withstood the flame easily but the heat snapped him out of the trance like state he was in. He could finally think clearly again. Silva looked at the crowd differently now. He now saw them as a possible threat to him and not some weak prey he could toy with like he did before. 'It seems the unique adaptation affects my mind. The problem is that the change in thought process is so smooth that I don't even notice that there's something wrong with me.'
As that realization dawned, Silva decided to take down the villagers first then deal with everything else later. The villagers had started to gather their courage and look for weapons whether it was a sword or a big stick to be used as a club. They were surrounding the monster when it suddenly regurgitated the child it had eaten. The rage they had initially was now beyond consolation. The mage hidden within the crowd produced another fireball, this one more intense than the last.
Silva noticed the spell with his domain and with his speed back up to normal after regurgitating, he was in front of the crowd before the spell took shape. A man with a pitchfork was at the forefront and he barely processed the charging serpent before his chest caved inward. His body flew back into the crowd knocking down those behind him. Silva grabbed the pitchfork and launched it at one of the guards holding a sword. 'They're holding weapons but they're afraid. Their fear makes them uncoordinated and that makes them weak. This is gonna be easier than dealing with the crabs. I'm gonna leave the mage alive, he's young so he'll be fast. I should injure him a bit too, to make his story more believable.'
Silva dashed through the crowd, reached the mage and swung his tail like a whip. He had held back not to break any bones but the force was enough to knock out the mage. With the mage unconscious, Silva began his massacre. He killed everyone brutally making sure most of the corpses were unrecognizable. It didn't even take an hour for everyone in the village to turn into a bloody corpse. The scariest thing was that Silva was fast enough to catch and kill those who tried to escape before they reached the fence.
A light fog covered the village when the mage finally woke up. It took a while for him to remember the events of the previous night but once he did, he broke apart. The mage scoured the village of corpses to find any signs of life. He checked every where but all he found were bodies broken beyond recognition.
As the mage was searching the village, he found the murderous serpent picking apart a corpse in one of the houses. The monster had its back turned and hadn't noticed him. He thought about attacking it but he remembered how ineffective it was. He wanted to run away but the rage he felt, seeing a monster kill and devour the people he grew up with, wouldn't let him rest. Then, he remembered something.
The teachers at his magic school. They could produce more destructive spells with a snap of their fingers than he could with minutes of preparation. If he reported what happened here, this monster will meet its end quickly. The mage left the village silently not to alert the feeding monster. After leaving the area, he broke into a run.
Silva followed behind the mage easily. His new form moved silently across the forest floor. The mage didn't even know that he was being followed since Silva always made sure that he was within his domain at the very edge. The mage would stop to rest every few minutes but he had incredible stamina. He had been running like his pants were on fire.
It was approaching dusk when the mage stumbled to another village. The guards carried him in as he had fainted from exhaustion upon reaching the village's proximity. While this was happening, Silva circled the village. The layout was identical to the one he came from. Silva felt the presence of a few mages in the village but none were as strong as the one he fought at the lake.
Silva wanted to go in and kill everyone but there were a few things that needed to happen. First, this village would send someone to verify what the unconscious mage will say after he wakes up. Then they'll probably try sending someone to call for backup from somewhere better. This would take two to three days. Silva wanted to have unlocked or be close to unlocking voluntary adaptation.
Silva willed for his transformation to end and he felt his muscles contract. His head felt heavy and he blacked out for a moment. Silva pried open the material covering his face and took a deep breath. He struggled for a bit before he stood up, fully nude. Silva looked at the snake skin beneath him curiously. 'I didn't expect that ending my transformation would make me shade my skin. It felt like I was breaking out of a cocoon. I wonder if my other unique adaptations will be the same.'
Pulling his clothes out of his inventory, Silva got dressed. He had managed to store his clothes away before his transformation tore them apart. 'I have to go snake hunting. I didn't feel that many meaning that it'll take me a long time to find enough for twenty transformations. I need to find food first, and some water. What am I so worried about? I'll just steal from the village once night falls. In the meantime, I'll walk around a bit to stretch my legs.'
Silva wanted to relax during his walk but he was too goal-oriented to do so. He didn't even notice that his leisurely walk had turned into a hunt for serpents. Only when it was deep in the night did he stop. He climbed a tree and surveyed the village from above with his night form. 'They don't have strong mages but they have a lot of weak ones. I should cut down the numbers before I start my hunt for free BP.