A fortnight of dusk-to-dawn running had passed.
However, compared to earlier, Rue had now found a plethora of time to fuck around during the small skirmishes in between his dozen-hour sprints.
During the two weeks, he found several other beasts that caught his fancy, so he had killed them and analyzed their quirks in order to garner any useful inspiration toward the further development of his own physique.
He had gotten stronger with the aid of the laboratory of nature.
Rue felt like a spring chicken on top of the world.
Of course, he hadn't allowed his ever-growing confidence to waver his logic.
Rue knew that he was still weak—the key term was currently.
Shing!
Rue swung his axe left.
Guiding itself from the edge of the blade, a pale blue luminescent crescent shot out.
Plop!
Thud…
The blue crescent easily passed through the flesh of a gray-coated bird with black splotches.
Falling from the sky, the bird separated into two unequal parts before hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
Washing his perception outwards, Rue examined the surrounding 20 kilometers.
Taking a seat under a "relatively" tall pine, the inquisitor fidgeted with several objects resting on his palm.
The objects in question were all roughly the size of a golf ball, and they all possessed a colorless translucent shell with a hollow inside.
From his rucksack, Rue retrieved the marble-sized structure that had once housed that weird entity's ego.
Circumventing his Will into the sphere, the energy began to coat the internal surface area of the structure, where it began to study the small energy paths loitered complex through the interior
During his short breaks here and there, Rue would utilize his precious time to make sense of this thing.
In short, he was attempting to reverse-engineer the inner mechanisms of the sphere.
However, in contrast to his earlier expectations, this process was proving to be herculean.
Rue looked at the marble in a new light.
It wasn't just a bastion of ingenuity, but it was a hellishly complex piece of biotechnology.
"What a great find for future theory," he mourned solemnly, his gaze lingering on the marble. "Yet, the irony is that my ability to study this 'phylactery' is utterly limited to my current circumstances," he sighed, gritting his teeth.
"So many restrictions."
Closing his eyes for several seconds, Rue took a deep breath and began to count from one to ten in his head.
Opening his eyes, Rue stood.
"Allow me digress, it's time to continue."
In sync with his newly found routine, Rue leaped upwards, reanimating his muscles before springing back into a sprint.
His hair immediately thrust back from the sudden acceleration, warranting into an unruly form of frizzled gray.
Channeling his Will into his hair, Rue forced his unruly set of curly ashen-gray locks down, styling his hair into a semi-formal appearance.
Several hours passed—
Abruptly, Rue decelerated after sensing two moving life signatures within the outermost edge of his perception.
Feeling the flow of Will from the two individuals, he was able to discreetly discern the sex, race, Destination, and attire of both people.
Humans.
Watching the two, Rue—who had been isolated from civilization for an unknown period of time—could hardly contain the excitement coursing through his veins.
However, after a fraction of a second, Rue recuperated from his past elation, his mind returning to neutral.
Yes, this was an amazing prospect, but when it came to humans—anything was risky.
Recalling a severe implication regarding his current status, Rue frowned, and his mind shot through several possible scenarios.
Quickly, his frown flipped, turning into a smirk
Looking internally, Rue decreed several commands toward his ambient Will.
Establishing the commands as law, the Will rapidly began to spread through Rue's body before uniformly destroying and reforming his body's anatomy as guided by Rue.
Collapsing onto the ground after his raptor legs suddenly caved in and his bones turned into dust,
Rue's skin outlined the movement of bones, muscle tissue, and even organs rearranging themselves into a specific predetermined manner.
After a minute of this, Rue began to stunt the movement of his Will and stood.
With his feet firmly placed on the ground, Rue's knees buckled and his legs trembled from the sudden weight.
After a second of expected imbalance, Rue adjusted his motor coordination.
"It's been a while since I've done that." he mused, stretching out his human legs.
Currently Rue looked nothing like Rue.
His large mesomorphic build had shrunk considerably, taking a more athletic approach—speed was in full consideration while mostly ignoring the power output held behind each attack.
The inquisitor's ethereal wavy ashen-gray hair was replaced with straight, vibrant orange that fell to his back; his uniquely featured eyes took on a similar heterochromatic scheme of crimson and blue.
Lastly, and most uncanny, was the complete restructure of his face.
His current complexion was considerably handsome, though nothing too striking.
It was in a middle ground of sorts.
His change wasn't just external but also internal.
His entrails moved back into their proper locations in a way that starkly conflicted with Rue's preferred design.
But he couldn't be picky.
What Rue had just done was essentially altering his physical form into the appearance of a memorable bastard-child he had once killed and consumed.
Rue had almost perfectly mimicked this person's physical being, all the way from the minor nuances of scars to their very cells.
Unfortunately, due to Rue's current destination, he lacked the proper mental ability to wrangle replicating DNA due to its sheer complexity. For now, what he had was enough.
Naturally, Rue avoided finessing the appearance of someone who had passed for obvious ethical reasons.
But for the time being, those altruistic ideologies would have to be put to rest.
Popping his knuckles and giving his appearance a final glance, Rue nodded, satisfied.
Feeling out the two individuals, Rue determined a male and a female, both being second minor destination, Fourth Destination practitioners.
If by chance things were to go awry during this confrontation, then Rue would inevitably have to kill them—or at the very least, defend himself until he escaped.
Readying his new body, Rue began to spring toward their location at a fourth of his possible top speed, but still above average for the Fourth realm.
Bang!
FWOOM!
Closing the distance of 40 kilometers between them took Rue a devastatingly long thirty seconds.
When he was a few hundred meters away from the couple, the inquisitor lunged into the air, gliding through the gale for several seconds before barreling toward the ground like a comet.
BOOM!
Crashing onto a plateau, combined with his terminal velocity and weight, created a powerful torrent of wind, stone, dirt, and other debris that swept outwards.
Tik!
Clang!
Recovering firm footing, Rue, noticing the newly created cloud of dirt, shrugged before simply coating his palms with a thin layer of Will.
Winding out his arms, generating enough potential energy, he vigorously brought his hands together—clapping them.
CLAP!
A powerful burst of energy exploded outwards, clearing the storm.
Shifting his gaze toward the male and female, Rue's expression stiffened before becoming puzzled.
Feeling uncomfortable, Rue scratched the back of his head as he noticed the large summoned techy-looking shield from the black-haired man, along with the blue-haired woman's weird pink cubes hovering behind her.
Together, they both secured a position suited for defense and offense.
Clearing his throat, Rue spoke to the natives. "I hope I wasn't intruding on anything?" he said, speaking in Revillain, attempting to use the proper accent.
It was the same tongue they had used to speak to one another earlier, so Rue had just assumed that form of speech.
'Holy shit,' he thought, 'I either have abysmal luck, or I'm just a dumbass—and I believe I'm leaning toward the latter.'