Next day, when Erebus opened his eyes, he found himself in a small room, sparsely decorated and completely carved out of wood .
He was lying on a soft cushion of leaves and flowers, which moved as he shifted slightly.
The first thing that came to his mind after waking up was, checking his status panel.
He mentally called out for his system and a screen flickered to life in front of him.
[System partial activation]
[All functions of system are currently locked]
"What??"he exclaimed, but what came out of his mouth, was an angry 'purr' of a cat .
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"WHAT???" He shouted again, this time looking at himself, and standing up on all fours.
Again only 'purr' of a cat .
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Then suddenly, the door to the room burst open and a beautiful woman wearing a dress , which hugged her figure but also not accentuated her curves as it was fluffed with red, orange, blue and yellow feathers, walked inside and had a warm smile on her face.
Erebus instinctively took a step back, for some reason, that smile sent shivers down his spine, it felt like a sweet promise of something he doesn't know, and he knew, there was nothing Worst than a smile for an unknown promise, and that from a beauty.
Panicked, he looked around for a window, and tried to run but as soon as he took the first step, he tripped, and fell sideways on the spot .
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"Ahh, i forgot, i didn't know how to walk in this cat body, damnit", he tried to roll away, but it was already too late, the lady grabbed him and placed him gently in his arms like a baby .
She started caressing is back , and to be honest, it felt… good for some reason, and his body started to relax.
No, what am i doing?? I need to…get… get…. Ou…. Ahhhh…. So good….
"What no… noo…what the hell??" panicked, he tensed and looked at the lady with a gaze that spell murder.
She chuckled at my behaviour, which came out as a shrill squeaking of a bird.
Hearing it, Erebus tried to jump but the lady's hold was tight, all he could do was a little squirming , which had an opposite effect as the lady tightened the hug instead.
She took him outside the room, there was a small open space here and the walls were circular, leaving a horizontal oval shaped opening in the front, with leafy branches hanging from its edges. Once they reached it, Erebus looked outside and was immediately stunned.
The view was simply too breathtakingly serene and beautiful , the house he was in was high on the trees and the whole village was visible from here .
It was covered in greenery, wherever he looked.
A lot of houses of different shapes and sizes were scattered around irregularly with trees growing from within many of them , some smaller ones were completely covered in vegetation and bigger ones loomed over like unshakable fortresses.
Some houses were loosely hanging from the tree tops while others were made directly inside the tree trunks.
A variety of animal like people were walking and flying about their day, the sky was covered with greyish clouds and a soft trickle of rain was pouring, creating a perfect symphony which calmed the mind, and without him knowing Erebus completely relaxed in the lady's grip.
Then suddenly, she jumped, but before Erebus could fully comprehend what had happened, she perfectly landed on a thick branch nearby, then on a house, after two more leaps and hops, they were finally on the ground.
Haah…
Erebus let out a visible sigh of relief, but it didn't last long, as she crouched, and the ground started trembling beneath them, for a moment everything stilled, then she launched herself into the sky , this time she transformed into a giant colourful bird and with the shades of some sunlight seeping through the clouds she looked no less then a fairy ascending to the sun, her feathers grew larger, her hands changed into big wings, which she tucked closer to reduce air drag and held Erebus in her beak. Once they reached the peak of their ascent, she unfolded her beautiful multi coloured feathers and started flying in a particular direction.
In the meantime, Erebus was trying his best to become able to speak , his senses have enhanced due to this body and he could hear everything the people all around him were speaking, moreover for some reason he could perfectly understand it.
"Maybe due to that 'partial system activation', he thought.
Erebus closed his eyes and tried to concentrate… but with all this noise he couldn't .
"hmm , that goddess... said with 'shape' affinity i could change the shape of anything, but what should i do?…, how do i use my affinity?…, do i just imagine it?... haa… , he sighed , in most novels they control some kind of energy then form some kind of core , do i also have to do that too? ... but i don't have that much time .
He tried to sense something…, anything that was out of ordinary for him, but… nothing, he couldn't sense any energy at all.
He once again closed his eyes , this time trying to do something different.
He concentrated all his attention on imagining reshaping reality, to imagine the shape of his larynx and change it .
hmm... ..., imagine... imagine... i am seeing my larynx, i am seeing my larynx..., i am shaping my larynx... ...
Then suddenly, he felt the air rushing to his face stopped and the noises around him became muffled, confused, he opened his eyes to look around, it was pitch black darkness, he was in a completely different place, there was nothing here except a box floating in front of him, he was inside the realm of his imagination, he tried to move but couldn't, then he tried to reach out for the box by imagining it in his hand and to his astonishment it blinked out of existence and reappeared in his hand,seeing it, he didn't waste anymore time and began imagining moulding the box into a sphere and it instantly did .
He could physically feel something in his throat change and he was no longer able to speak or even breathe .
Instead of panicking, he smiled and started imagining the shape of a human voice box , first it morphed into a funnel like chamber, then two thin bands stretched across it, tightening as it's small internal joints twisted to pulled the bands together, forming an organ capable of speech .
He willed himself outside his imagination and opened his eyes , he could feel the shift in his throat , when air passed through it , his vocal chords trembled .
A dry , broken sound escaped through his mouth , haa..oo ... ,he immediately shut himself up, as it was not yet time for him to speak, first of all he needed to know, what situation he was in .
He looked around and found that they were descending towards the biggest house he had seen here, it was a massive multi-storey mansion and there were many armoured knights stationed outside it , which made him raise his cat eyebrow, there was definitely something going on, Erebus thought, while unconsciously licking his paw.
A line of people stretched outside the mansion door.
"Waiting for something perhaps" , Erebus thought.
"No there were kids with them", he narrowed his eyes , hmm interesting, he spoke inwardly .
They reached one of the balcony of the mansion and the lady started transforming back , her wings fluttered violently as they got near it, few objects flew away due to the gust produced by her wings but she didn't care and landed smoothly.
Once again she held Erebus in her embrace and started walking inside.
Erebus didn't pay any mind to his surrounding as he was completely focused on deducing about the presence of so many people outside , he only came to his senses when he heard the lady knocking on a big wooden door .
A sound of bell ringing came from inside and she opened the door and went inside .