章節 108: Changed
'A cost, huh.' Liam thought, looking at his right arm. 'I can understand why Mordo wants nothing to do with this. In all teachings, appearance changes indicate corruption—a connection to Forbidden Forces, which is strictly forbidden.'
"We should head back now," the Ancient One said. "There is some aftermath that needs to be handled, and you need to get some rest."
Liam nodded. He stood up weakly. Today had pushed him to his limits—not because of the fight with the stone giant itself, but because of how tricky it could be to protect ordinary people.
'I did improve my strength by a lot again,' Liam thought. 'This raw amount of physical power is something I've never had before, not to mention the increase in the amount of energy I can use.'
"You did great handling this dimensional tear," Wong said as the Ancient One turned to open a portal back to Liam's room. "Not many could have managed it better."
"As for Mordo, don't mind him too much. He'll come around eventually."
"Thanks," Liam said, offering a weak smile.
"Head back to your room now and rest. We'll discuss the aftermath tomorrow," the Ancient One said as she turned around.
"Sure," Liam replied, stepping through the portal to his room.
The Ancient One and Wong nodded at him before the portal closed in front of Liam.
After the portal disappeared, Wong looked at the Ancient One.
"Are you sure he's going to be okay?" Wong asked. "That level of change isn't normal."
"Nothing is certain," the Ancient One said. "While we can help him as much as possible, in the end, it will all depend on him."
Wong stayed silent, studying the Ancient One as he became lost in his thoughts.
The Ancient One summoned another portal—this time to the training courtyard—and walked through it.
'Who would've thought he could get so strong in just the few years he's been here?' Wong thought as he followed after her. 'Let's just hope the corruption doesn't consume him.'
Meanwhile, Liam walked through his room, exhausted. He glanced at the mirror as he walked past it on his way to bed but stopped in his tracks.
'So, my arm wasn't the only part that changed?' Liam thought, stepping closer to the mirror.
From above both ears to the middle of his head, two long, white horns curved back diagonally from his head.
'So now I have a different arm, different eyes, and I've grown horns?' Liam thought, feeling the horns with his hands. 'Am I even human anymore?'
'No wonder Mordo reacted like that,' Liam thought, walking to his bed. 'I could have still covered up my arm, but with these massive horns, there is absolutely no point.'
"I'll check it out properly tomorrow," he muttered, feeling too drained to think about the changes.
He climbed into bed, his horns cutting his cushion into pieces as he fell asleep. Despite being drained, he was still really worried about the physical changes he had gone through.
In his sleep, he began dreaming. This dream, however, wasn't unfamiliar to him.
He was trapped inside the Tyrant, unable to do anything but watch. The dream picked up where it had last ended.
The Tyrant, pierced by the massive greatsword, began evolving. Golden light surrounded its body as it ripped the greatsword out of its chest, throwing it to the side with such power that it killed thousands of ordinary humans upon impact.
Still covered in golden light, the Tyrant absorbed energy from its surroundings. It drained the life from trees and grass, turned the soil beneath its feet into solid rock, and continued gathering energy.
The energy gathered on its back, turning into a massive set of wings. After the evolution was complete, the Tyrant spread its wings wide and shot into the sky, escaping the people that had surrounded it.
The dream ended there. Next, Liam got nightmares for a few hours, thinking off his future with his monsterous appearance, until he was pulled into another different dream. This time, he watched a man in familiar armor battle large beasts with a long red spear.
For half an hour, Liam observed as the man killed beast after beast before the dream ended and he woke up again.
Scratching his right arm since it felt itchy, Liam thought, 'That was a weird night. I saw another part of Incursio's memory… but what was the dream about the man in Incursio's armor?'
He paused, scratching his arm again, before realizing something was off.
He sat up and looked at his arm. The scales that once covered it had completely vanished, he no longer had claws for fingers either.
'What the hell?' Liam thought. 'So it wasn't permanent?'
The more he looked at it, the more he realized that wasn't entirely the case either.
'This arm… it's a completely different color compared to my other arm.' He noticed more differences. 'The bones, veins, nerves and muscles—it's like they belong to something else entirely.'
His arm had turned a pure white, as if it was colored by a white crayon. Its structure had no resemblance to that of a normal human's. He had more bones and muscles inside his arm than before, even stranger was that it all functioned properly.
Liam hopped out of bed and walked to the mirror. There, he saw his own face and hair again and started smiling.
'My horns have shrunk as well,' he noted.
Feeling his horns, he realized they were now much shorter and thinner than before.
Taking a closer look inside his body, he noticed changes in his skull. Two round bones branched out from the sides, piercing through his skin and left a little farther above his ears than the night before.
'Thank God,' Liam mused, happy. 'For a moment, I thought I was becoming the next Bruce Banner.'
He had been seriously worried about his future with the changes Incursio had left him with.
"People don't like monsters, after all," he muttered.
Looking even deeper into himself, Liam looked at the significant changes in his cells.
The percentage of white energy within his cells had increased dramatically, especially in his right arm and horns.
'Those areas consist of about 90% white energy and 10% yellow energy,' Liam thought. 'But it looks like the yellow energy in my body is slowly flowing into those cells, balancing them out.'
Grabbing his notebook, he began writing down ideas.
'It seems my horns are shrinking because the yellow energy is forcing my body to return to normal,' Liam noted. 'Very interesting. That might mean I won't have horns at all in the future.'
'At the same time, the horns could still be there if the energy levels out with the rest of my body before they completely shrink.' Liam thought.
"But would they grow in size again if I summoned Incursio?"
創作者的想法 
Donnuuu
Donnuuu The grandfather of a very close friend of mine suddenly collapsed yesterday and was rushed to the hospital, where they discovered he has blood cancer. The doctors say it's only a matter of weeks.
During this time, I will be away from home for 1 or 2 days a week.
If all goes well, I should still have enough chapters prepared to continue daily uploads on the other days. However, I want to let you know that I might miss a day or two in the coming weeks.
章節 109: Headlines
Liam continued thinking about more possibilities for some time before he started feeling his stomach ache from hunger.
'Let's eat something first.' He thought, walking to his fridge.
After eating, he checked his phone and found out that it had been three full days since he had gone to sleep.
'The exhaustion really did a number on me,' Liam thought. 'I wonder how the Ancient One dealt with the aftermath.'
Liam reached for his laptop and started Googling. Typing in "Greece," hundreds of fresh news articles, debates, and speculations showed up in an instant.
'Wasn't the Ancient One supposed to take care of the aftermath?' Liam thought, reading the titles. 'Why is all of this still here?'
"Supernatural winged creature."
"Angels are back!"
"Massive walls stop landslide from reaching city."
All articles, debates, and speculations had one thing in common: the winged person with golden light around him who had created massive walls out of nowhere to protect a few cities from a massive landslide.
'The worst part is,' Liam thought, 'there's video proof of this happening.'
A few videos, without any context, had spread like wildfire right after Liam had vanished, sending chills to people all over the world. With it came disbelief and countless questions. In response, all the major news stations rushed to Greece and started interviewing witnesses and victims from Crete.
The witness interviews revealed many different perspectives. Most people believed Liam had saved their lives and were immensely thankful for what he had done. However, there were exceptions—those who hated him, not for stopping the landslide but for failing to prevent the earthquakes.
Many of these witnesses had lost family, friends, or others to the earthquakes and found it hard to accept that someone capable of such things hadn't intervened earlier.
People around the world reacted differently to the news reports with context and witness statements.
Despite all the proof, many people still couldn't believe that something like this could happen in real life. Others outright demonized him, either for failing to save more people or simply for having supernatural powers. Naturally, the majority of people fully supported the idea of a savior.
As for whether he was an actual angel, as most people from Crete claimed, or not, the global debate wasn't even close to nearing an end.
Despite the ongoing discussions and skepticism, the number of people joining churches worldwide increased by 80% on the first day after the event.
Most joined under a simple belief: "It wouldn't hurt if we made the wrong decision and nothing happens after joining, but it could make a difference if we made the right choice and it is indeed an angel."
Right after Liam had gone back, many countries had send over rescue workers in order to save people from rubble.Even now, these rescue workers were still working tirelessly to save people from the rubble.
At the same time, scientists had begun investigating what had actually happened to the mountain. The sudden creation of a volcano was something that had never happened before, after all.
'Such a shame,' Liam thought, reading the negative comments. 'I wish I could've saved more people too, but I gave it my all. I know most people won't see it that way, but I'll just have to ignore them.'
'This was the exact reason why I had expected the Ancient One to wipe all memories related to this,' he thought, deciding to visit her soon for an explanation.
There was one last thing that genuinely surprised Liam.
'No governments have stepped forward to say anything yet,' Liam thought. 'No explanation, no gratitude. But also, no one has asked me to surrender myself, no wanted posters, nothing.'
After thinking some more about the situation, Liam could also see a positive side to this making headlines.
''Maybe this publicity can be a good thing,'' Liam muttered. ''This can save me quite a lot of time when setting up my organization.''
After some more thought, Liam closed his laptop. Without wasting any more time, he left his room and headed straight for the Ancient One's meditation chamber.
The Ancient One opened her eyes as Liam let himself into the room.
''Good morning, young Liam,'' the Ancient One greeted him. ''I see you rested well.''
''Yes, I will admit that I needed it,'' Liam mused as he sat down on the opposite side of the table.
''It seems like resting also helped your body,'' she said, looking at his smaller horns and arm.
Liam nodded.
''Let's change the topic to the aftermath now,'' the Ancient One said. ''I can see that you have many questions.''
''Why did you not completely remove their memories regarding what happened?'' Liam asked.
''I did remove some of their memories,'' the Ancient One answered, smiling. ''I removed all information about the creatures that caused this.''
''Why remove the information about them but not me?'' Liam asked.
''I removed the existence of those beasts because they would sow fear and chaos,'' the Ancient One began. ''Humanity isn't ready to know the truth yet. Instead, they need to be gradually eased into it.''
''Starting with you,'' the Ancient One said, pointing at him. ''While Tony Stark started the Hero Era, you showed them an act that's completely beyond their perception.''
''Magic,'' Liam said, linking what the Ancient One's goal was.
"That's right,'' the Ancient One said. ''Over time, they will accept the notion of danger from magical creatures since they know magic exists.''
Liam accepted the situation. What the Ancient One had said made sense, after all. 'If people aren't eased into something like this, they will turn on each other and only cause chaos and destruction.'
The Ancient One and Liam talked some more about the aftermath before she changed focus to his changes.
''Now, as for your body,'' the Ancient One said, ''I would advise against using your armor until a few days after your horns are gone.''
''Don't worry, I wasn't planning to go out for the next period of time anyway,'' Liam said, thanking the Ancient One before leaving.
'Now, let's see what's next on the checklist,' Liam thought, creating a portal back to his room.
Before he made any plans, his mind went back to Illyana. While he had spoken to his grandfather quite often, he realized he hadn't seen Illyana since leaving her with the Ancient One quite some days ago.
'That'll go on the top of the checklist,' Liam thought. 'I wonder what she will say after seeing my horns.'
'After talking to her, I will have to test my new body again, and I need to go to Incursio's dimension to get some questions answered,' he thought.
Meanwhile, in a military base in the U.S.,
A general was finishing a phone call.
''Your requests have gone through, and the board has allowed you to capture your specimen and continue the experiments,'' someone on the other end of the line said.
''Don't worry—this will be the breakthrough the military, and America, needs.'' General Ross said as he put down the phone, ending the call.
''Bunch of hypocrites,'' General Ross cursed. ''I warned them these freaks would be a danger sooner rather than later.''
''And look where we are now,'' he cursed again, standing up and walking out of his office.
''It's time to go,'' General Ross told a commanding officer. ''We have a specimen to catch.''
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