Power flooded through Stella faster than she could absorb it. Her entire body began shaking, and the thousands of souls within her awakened at once.
The forest vanished.
Stella found herself surrounded by darkness.
Countless masks floated around her, each belonging to a soul she had consumed.
They whispered, screamed and laughed.
At the centre of them stood Vorr.
The masks rushed toward her.
Stella felt them tearing at her mind, ripping through her memories and clawing at her identity.
She saw her first life.
A television screen.
A collapsing building.
Pain.
Then came her second life.
The farm.
Her family.
The cliff.
Her broken body at the bottom of the canyon.
The memories began slipping away.
Even her name became difficult to remember.
Give in.
Become one of us.
There is no Stella.
Her consciousness started sinking beneath the ocean of souls.
Anger exploded inside her.
"No."
The masks continued closing around her.
Stella reached out and grabbed Vorr by the throat.
She crushed his neck.
"I am not becoming some mindless monster."
One by one, the masks shattered.
Her will expanded through the darkness like an explosion.
Every soul within her was forced into submission.
The darkness cracked apart.
Back in the Menos Forest, Stella's enormous Gillian body collapsed.
Her spiritual pressure became wild.
Cracks spread outward from the black hole in her chest, racing across her ribs and shoulders. Her long, shroud-like lower body folds inward as if an invisible force is dragging every part of her toward the centre.
Her massive form began shrinking.
Flesh compressed.
Bones snapped and reformed.
The shoulders of the lower limbs slide down along her contracting body. Elbows split and reform. Wrists twist backward with wet cracks as the fingers lock together, lengthen, and fuse into narrow points.
Eight pale arachnid limbs take shape beneath the shrinking humanoid torso. Each develops multiple armored segments, sharp joints, and long spear-like ends.
Her remaining two arms are pulled toward the front of her torso.
They become thicker as her hands broaden into massive claws.
Coarse white fur grows around her shoulders and wrists
Behind her, the remainder of the Gillian shroud knots together.
The vast mass twists into a long, armoured abdomen. Plates of white carapace overlap across its surface while red bands emerge beneath them.
Jagged fins and spikes tear through the abdomen's upper plates.
Her elongated skull mask splits down the centre.
The broken sections are dragged inward, grinding against one another as the mask becomes smaller and more tightly fitted to her new face.
The exposed teeth retract and the jaw shortens.
The round Gillian skull narrows into a more human shape, but pale bone still frames her features. Red markings spread across the new mask and cheeks, while several fragments harden into horn-like spikes around the sides of her head.
Long white hair pours from the back of the reforming mask.
It grows rapidly, spilling over her shoulders and streaming behind her as the last of the Gillian shell disintegrates into pale dust.
When the dust settles, Stella is dramatically smaller than before.
Her Gillian form had possessed enormous spiritual power spread throughout a gigantic body. Her Adjuchas form contains that power within a far more compact structure. Every movement now carries greater speed and precision.
Stella takes her first step as an Adjuchas.
The pointed leg takes its first step forward as the other seven follow in perfect rhythm.
Stella's claws close as she senses several Gillians moving in the distance.
"Ah… I'm still hungry."