His screams were inhuman—not from pain alone, but from the fundamental wrongness of what was happening to him. This wasn't evolution or transformation. This was a mutation, forced and brutal, turning him into something that biology never intended, that nature would have rejected as an abomination.
But it was effective.
When the transformation stabilized—if such a term could be applied to something so volatile—Caden stood changed. He'd gained another foot in height, his body now a mass of overdeveloped muscle that would have been comical if it weren't so terrifying. The purple energy radiated from his skin like heat shimmer, and the malicious power rolling off him was palpable, a pressure against reality itself.
Jorghan felt it through his senses, the toxic, corrupted power that existed in opposition to natural life.
