Upon seeing the cat jump right at it, the bird took off to the air, using its claws to accurately grab hold of the cat's tail before flying away.
When the cat tried to use its superior body's reflexes to grab onto the bird's claws, the bird swerved in the air, using the generated inertia to throw off the cat's balance, constantly causing it to dangle at the end of its tail.
Before long, the bird reached a height of hundred metres in the air, letting go of its hold.
Followed by a fierce screech, the cat began to fall towards the ground, accelerating as it fell. It swerved its head, watching the rocky surface beneath, continuing to screech in dismay.
Suddenly, it turned into a parrot, flapped its wings, and oriented itself. Though, before it managed to gather its bearings, the bird landed on its back, using its claws to grab hold of the parrot's wings, slamming it onto the ground.
The slam caused a forceful thud, causing blood to leak from the parrot's body. Having witnessed its previous feign of death, and the mysterious transformation ability it showed, the bird didn't let go of its hold, lifting the parrot a metre high before slamming it onto the ground once again.
But when it was about to do the same a third time, the parrot that looked like it had died turned into a snake and coiled around it, constricting it, preventing it from flapping its wings.
Even though it was just a rat snake and lacked any venom, it still wished to use its mouth to damage the bird's eyes first. That way, the bird would be unable to target it, allowing it to hunt the other party.
But, right as the snake thought as such, the bird opened its beak. And, exiting it was its tongue, or at least, that was what it should have been once. But, its tongue currently resembled a snake, possessing a pair of teeth on its front, with lots of molars to grind things better.
The tongue lashed out as the teeth opened wider before wholly clamping upon the snake's neck, digging into it. Suddenly, the bird's instincts warned it as the tongue leg go of its hold, retracting on time right when the snake morphed into a grown man.
Using the window of opportunity, the bird flapped its wings and took off to the skies, actually using the opportunity as his transforming face coincidentally came in its way. Using its claws, it pierced into his eyes, dug out his eyeballs, and flew up.
"Argh!" Krager screamed in pain as a mysterious energy enveloped his body, causing him to regrow another pair of eyes. But still, the sensation of pain coursed through his nerves, causing him to roll on the ground.
Until now, the wounds were still at a level that he could endure somehow. But, the pain of his eyes being roughly gouged out was beyond what he could tolerate. And, it seemed the bird had done so coincidentally in a way that generated the maximum pain for him, almost sending him unconscious.
Unable to deal with it, he shot a look at the thicket of trees, glaring at the shadowy figure that remained in the same place as before, uncaring about the battle that transpired.
As the bird was just about to attack him, he tumbled into the thicket of trees on the other side, rolling down the mountain slope for a dozen metres before he stopped, coughing out a mouthful of blood in response.
His injuries healed automatically as he groaned in regret, "Dammit, I wasted so much contribution points that I gathered over a week."
The Beast Form System gave him a great ruse. And, that was the contribution points. It would generate Quests to him, allowing him to act as an animal for a certain duration, perform a certain task as the respective animal, etc.
These actions would of course cause a lot of people to observe him—while as an animal. After all, when pets performed weird antics, people loved to observe and record such actions. And some would even become viral on the internet.
That was the fastest way to gather Mental Energy. So, the Beast Form System used this method.
And, the contribution points allowed Krager to select through a variety of abilities in a System Shop that it created exclusively for him, most of which were one-off use. In this way, he was always at a shortage of contribution points while in actuality, the Beast Form System possessed that ability and gave him to use them once before retracting it.
It was casually toying with his efforts. But, the abilities it presented were lucrative enough that Krager always complained about the Quests not being in enough number.
Depending on the complexity of the Quest involved, the rewarded contribution points varied. And, this current Quest had by far the most contribution points he had ever seen. It was ten times the amount he had amassed till now in total.
Moreover, unlike Neena, he was aware of the creatures mutating, since the core of the Beast Form System was to slay beasts, devour them, and turn into them later.
And, his Quest detailed that at the peak of Mount Craire were some mutated creatures. And, one of them had laid an egg, the first of its kind for a mutated creature.
Thanks to its mutations, the hatched creature would be one of a kind. Upon devouring it, he would obtain its beast form, able to turn into it in the future. Moreover, he would also unlock the secret power of the apocalypse as a result, allowing him to lead humanity as a hero.
That was the reason this was addressed as the First Quest of the Main Quest. It was unlike all the Quests he had performed until now, which were only addressed as Side Quests.
Groaning in defeat, Krager sighed in frustration when his senses were alarmed, causing him to immediately turn into a snake and slither under a root. He then observed a massive shadow stealthily pass by, causing him to be afraid for a moment before his eyes glinted with greed.
'Here's my chance!'
