Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"Aaaaaaargh!"

An ear-piercing cry echoed through an untamed wilderness, away from the touches of civilization.

The moonlight was barely keeping away the dark conjured by the forest's dense vegetation.

A boy in his teens could be seen struggling with something very peculiar inside a cave located seemingly nowhere in the middle of the wild.

He looked to have short stature. His wavy black hair was a mess and his skin was sweating buckets all over. Of course, he seemed to have already anticipated his situation and therefore was only wearing his pants.

The ground beneath him was lit with various mana runes arranged in an array. That light generated by array activation was the only source of luminance in the pitch-black cave.

It looked like something semi-transparent was crawling on Eren's skin, slowly making its way upwards after covering the large part of his torso and limbs. This very act seemed to be the reason behind his scream.

His green eyes had been glowing with emerald luminance. His sharp but small nose and his V-shaped jawline had given him a kinda handsome yet boyish look.

But all that charm could not shield him from his ongoing misery. His entire body seemed like it was on the verge of transformation.

This was none other than Eren Elijah Idril. He had been going through a beast contract spell inside the Lionhearts Beast Sanctuary.

He had chosen an isolated spot for himself to go through with the process safely, away from the prying eyes. He had laid the spell's array after confirming that the cave was safe for him to cast the spell.

The butcher's condition was special. The demon beast he was going to sign the beast contract with was already tamed by him through the blood ritual. He didn't know what would happen if he decides to proceed further with the spell. But he had concluded that it wouldn't be anything normal.

Plus, he needed to keep Reen's identity hidden. Therefore, he couldn't perform the spell inside the safety of his dorm room. Eren guessed that the process would garner attention. So it was better if he did it in the wild.

And so far his guess had been spot-on, even more so than he had previously anticipated.

Eren knew about the normal beast contract spell. It would allow the ranker to form an unbreakable bond with their tamed beast.

But the spell itself was very simple. The ranker only needed to lay down the array that had two array-eyes positioned in the yin-yang style. Then the ranker needed to stand inside one of the eyes and chant some incantations. The tamed beast whose will to fight had vanished needed to stay inside the other eye.

The array would be lit up and the spell would activate after everything has been done correctly. The array would start shrinking. The runes present in the array would climb over the tamed beast and the ranker at the same time, finalizing the process.

At the end of the spell's execution, the beast would have its body melted and the resulting essence would get attracted towards the ranker standing inside the other array eye.

The essence would merge with the ranker on a superficial level. It would form a corresponding beast tattoo over the ranker's body, indicating that the process had been successful. All this would happen in the case of beast contract spell getting performed normally without any blood ritual involved.

The normal beast contract spell would destroy the body of a beast forever. Only its soul would remain trapped inside a runic tattoo that would have its visual features.

In return, the ranker would gain some or all the advantageous features of the beast, depending upon their elemental and inherent nature compatibilities.

That's why rankers would perform the spell on the beasts who had the same elemental affinity and inherent nature as them. A synched contract between the ranker and beast would ensure that all the beastly powers get acquired by the former. The beast's soul would also get preserved without any abnormality.

The part about inherent nature was vague. But generally, a ranker with ferocious inherent nature or battle style would prefer the beast of the same kind. And a ranker with sneaky attributes would choose to form a beast contract with an equally stealthy beast.

The beastly features could be covert or overt depending on the way the ranker handled them. Some rankers who had made use of the beast contract spell would prefer to show their beastly features while the others would keep them hidden.

But that was not all. A ranker could choose to invoke the soul residing in their tattoo through the beast manifestation. It was another part of the beast contract. It would create a semi corporal body out of mana for the beast to temporarily reside in and perform their master's bidding.

It didn't matter if the mana body got destroyed. The beast would return safely to its master's side if and that happened, getting retracted into the tattoo. Or the ranker could choose to do it willingly after cancelling the beast manifestation of their accord.

The spell was advantageous to rankers in many ways. First, their bodily resilience would increase. Some of the body stat values would shoot up, enabling the rankers to gain a one-time boost in their ranking journey.

Second, the rankers would gain the natural talents of the beast while keeping their intelligence intact. It allowed for better use of the same beastly features, raising the overall battle prowess of the ranker in one go.

Third, the mana body of the beast in the beast manifestation would only be limited by the ranker's rank. An F-Rank user could only grant their beast a body made of F-Rank mana. But the beast would be able to exert the maximum potential of that particular rank with the body manifestation.

That meant an F-Rank user in the initial stage could have a trustworthy, undying companion in the upper stage of the same rank in the form of their contracted beast, as long as they could support the mana consumption.

This also meant that the beast contract spell did not have a rank restriction. Its rank would automatically rise with the ranker.

Plus, once cast, the beast contract spell would remain active until the user decided to end the contract with their current beast. Upon contract termination, the beast's essence would disperse in the thin air and its soul would be released from binding.

The beast that had its contract terminated won't be able to be summoned back. The ranker would also experience a regression in their ranking journey. But the side effects won't be too severe for them.

Therefore it could be concluded that there were almost no disadvantages of the spell. It allowed a ranker to amplify their battle power in a short time without facing any apparent consequences.

The beast contract spell wasn't called a transcendent spell for a show.

But something entirely different to normal spell execution was happening to Eren and Reen.

Reen had been blood bound to Eren through the blood ritual. So the array couldn't treat her as a different existence to Eren.

The spell didn't destroy her body. Nor did it do anything to her soul.

A fusion of bodies was taking place instead of the fleshly essence of the beast turning into a beastly tattoo. The semi-transparent stuff on Eren's body that was climbing up was Reen herself. She was getting fused with Eren's body.

The whole process was extremely taxing on both Eren and Reen. The former felt like his skin, his innards, and his bones were getting dissolved in acid. And the latter just sent distress signals to her master via their mental connection.

Eren couldn't see what was happening to him because he had closed his eyes and bit his lips to sustain the severe pain he was feeling. But he could feel that his fleshly essence and Reen's slimy stuff were getting mixed through the spell execution.

All of Eren's spells were inadvertently getting manifested as his body's coping mechanism kicked in. That manifestation destroyed his clothes and made him butt naked.

It took a while for the process to get finished. Eren was then seen laying on the ground with his hands spread apart. His eyes were closed.

He wasn't unconscious. Just severely exhausted from the whole ordeal.

Eren stayed that way and fell asleep. He had already closed the only exit the cave had. His cynic, paranoid nature had forced him to choose a location that wasn't populated by any dangerous beast. So he didn't have to worry about his safety.

****************

The dawn of the next day had just started making its presence known when Eren opened his eyes. He first looked around himself with his groggy thoughts and blurry vision.

The cave was still dark. But there were rays of lights piercing the makeshift closure made out of rocks and leaves.

"Eren, are you awake now?"

The butcher heard a voice coming from seemingly nowhere. He recognised it to be Reen's so he started to look around some more to find her.

"Reen, where are you?"

He couldn't help but ask. His disorganised thoughts were slowly calming down in his head.

"I'm here!"

Said Reen. And immediately afterwards, Eren saw transparent slimy stuff coming out of his palms. It looked like his skin was melting. But he didn't feel any pain.

The slimy stuff oozing from the palms of his hands got concentrated and formed a mass before turning into the body of a beautiful female.

Eren opened his eyes wide open after seeing Reen take a corporal body that wasn't a mana body formed due to beast manifestation.

Reen's body wasn't destroyed in the beast contract as it normally should be, thanks to the blood ritual with Eren. But that was not all.

When Eren tried to get up, his hands and feet became jelly. This was the beast contract spell's effect taken to the extreme.

Normally, the appearance and manifestation of beastly features on ranker's body had a limit. They couldn't cross certain boundaries set by the ranker's body.

But what Eren was seeing right now was the breach of those very boundaries.

"What happened to us last night wasn't a beast contract spell."

The realisation struck the butcher and made him aware of his current situation. But that didn't help him come out of his current predicament. He wanted to get up but felt like he didn't have any bones in his limbs. His torso also felt like it could cave in if there was some pressure applied to it.

"Reen, how do you… should I say... solidify your body from the slimy stuff."

"Hmm? I just will it and it happens. Is it that difficult to do? Hehe! Am I perhaps a genius?"

"Oh, you are. Now send me your thoughts so that I can analyse them and fix myself."

Eren had decided to ask the expert. He didn't panic after seeing Reen's features getting manifested on his body. Neither was he worried about whether or not it would make things difficult for him or not.

He thought with a calm mind. He realized that the blood ritual wasn't the only spoiler in the beast contract spell. Reen herself was the biggest spoiler.

Her elemental affinity didn't create any conflict with Eren at all. Not because she had lightning element affinity. But the butcher felt that she had affinities for all the elementals, making her element neutral.

Same thing with Reen's inherent nature. It didn't have any specific inclination towards anything. Her body, elemental affinities, and inherent natures were entirely malleable.

The slime beasts were identified by their super flexible bodies. But they weren't known for having all the elemental affinities or completely malleable inherent natures.

This was not natural. Nature sought balance by distributing each creature with its share of advantages and disadvantages in such a way that it'd negate things in the big picture. But Reen seemed like an exception to that rule.

'There is something much deeper hiding behind Reen's existence.' Eren concluded. Otherwise, she couldn't have been able to keep her body after the process was over.

The beast contract spell destroyed the beast's body so that the contract would get established with less conflict. And there would be naturally some conflict within the beast and the ranker's compatibilities, no matter how synced their elemental affinities and inherent natures were.

But with Reen such conflict did not exist. She was completely compatible with Eren to the point that the spell treated her the same as the ranker who was casting it.

There was no beast tattoo as well. But he had just seen that Reen was part of his body a moment ago, sharing his senses and lending him hers.

It was like Eren and Reen had become mutually inclusive and exclusive existence at the same time.

"*Sigh! Reen, there's something seriously wrong with you."

He said that while analysing Reen's incoherent thoughts for a solution to being jelly and solidifying at will.

It took him a while to make sense of things. He soon figured out a way to make himself return to normal and get up.

Reen had puffed her cheeks after hearing that. She wanted to register her protest. But Eren asked first before she could do so:

"Reen, do you feel any different?"

"Um… no! Not now. But I felt a little different while I was part of your body. And what's with that spell anyway? And why didn't you tell me It'd hurt this much to go through with that process?"

Reen again changed to her natural slime form before plopping onto Eren's shoulder while complaining a lot in Eren's head. Then she changed into a miniature girl and kept on pestering him. She soon melted into Eren's body without any resistance, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Eren wanted to shut her up. But an idea formed in his head after seeing Reen's fluid transformation into various shapes. It clearly wasn't possible for him to turn jelly, he still had blood, bones, and other things that made him human after all. But what if he could change into different people like her?

Eren immediately willed his body to stretch and adapt to a different shape. It was difficult at first. But he soon got the hang for it.

The butcher first pictured himself to be Dom Walker, the first E-Rank hunter he had killed in this timeline. Soon his hair grew and changed colour. His statue increased in height and size.

One could see a slightly different and naked Dom Walker standing inside a cave after Eren's transformation was completed. Of course, his first try at such transformation didn't give him spotless results.

He still couldn't get all the facial features of Dom right. And his original features were slightly making themselves apparent. But even this was enough for him. With time, he'd be able to take any shape he wanted with impeccable perfection.

Dom-looking Eren had a wicked smile plastered on his face now. He could achieve so many things with this new power of his that the possibilities froze him in his thoughts.

But he prioritized one thing the most to take advantage of his newly acquired transformation powers. He needed to make contact with a certain someone while not being Eren Idril.

"Julie Ekheart, what are you up to these days?"

Eren smiled mildly after asking this question to nobody in particular. He knew things were going to get interesting for him now.

Author's Note: 0!

(Brace yourself for another long-ass Author's Note! You can skip this though, if you want. ;))

The 100th episode of VEH is here. Consume it while it's still hot. ;)

We should always be aware of our beginnings. That's why the 100th chapter of VEH pays homage to its first release with the way it was started!

Plus, even without the author's note, the chapter is almost 3k words long, which more than double the usual length. (My recent s had avg WC of 1.3K) So that's another bonus to make the 100th chapter extra special! ;)

This release paves the way for Eren to let loose and start doing stuff in a way that he hadn't planned before. I always wanted Eren to have shapeshifting power.

But the linear character progression stopped me from introducing it prematurely. But the time is ripe and all of us have waited long enough. I'm excited as a writer. I'm sure you'd be too. ;)

We finally have Eren's visual profile included in the description. It was decided by you guys with your likes getting counted as the number of votes. The decision was entirely democratic and the one with the most likes has been selected. Hope you don't regret your choice now! :p

What else? Yes, the book cover. Sultry, ain't it? *Insert author's smirk here

It took me a couple of days to get accustomed to image editing and produce decent results. Had to dump some of my drafts before ending with the current image. (Shhh…! Don't ask me who she is!? It's a secret until it isn't!)

I wanted to keep textual at the bottom of the image. But the NSFW filter prevented me from doing that. Too much cleavy is injurious to health it seems. So what you see now is a compromise! ;)

I've also revamped my WN's cover pic along with the book covers of my other titles. I also have my logo now. The whole shebang! So do check them out too!

It might not be the best image editing work you've seen. But it is the best I can do right now.

Furthermore, VEH also has its dedicated Wiki Fandom now. It is currently 27+ pages rich. More details will be added later on.

Setting up a Wiki is extremely hard. I know I haven't done a good job in a lot of areas there. But I'm slowly trying to understand these things. I am but one man, after all.

On that note, if anyone wants to help me and knows about how to set up a Wiki, let me know on Discord. I'll grant the editing rights on Fandom after confirming your account and skills.

The Wiki Fandom's link has been mentioned in the synopsis. But that's not all there is. You can also see a short poetic piece on the novel included now. So be sure to read that too. Just not out loud. We don't want our readers to come across as weirdos in front of their friends and families! Stay nerdy sneakily! *Adjusts metaphorical glasses.

Another piece of good news I wanted to share is that VEH finally got contracted. *Firecrackers going off in the backdrop

I had changed my book genre midway and that had misplaced my work from going to any of the editors handling their respective genres. The book remained in limbo because there was no editor assigned to it. It was a mistake on my part. Hehe! *Walks away from destruction like he had nothing to do with it!

Anyway! So now you can send me Lil coin packets we call gifts. They range from 10 coins onwards. I'll include shoutouts from my even for the smallest amount. The bigger gifts would obviously have extended shoutouts spanning across many chapters, depending upon their gift value. I'll also think about something else like extra chapters, new character introductions based on top contributors, and more! But let's keep those things aside for now. ;)

What's more? When the novel goes premium and chapters get locked, I'll organise an exclusive event on VEH Discord soon. It will be to select a few dedicated readers among you and give you some vouchers for chap unlocks.

VEH has gained an endearing audience. It has already received four golden tickets even when the novel is yet to go premium. Thank you @BoneMarr0w0, @SHADOW_WRAITH, and @Nicklaus87.

Also, a sincere thank you to all the readers who have liked VEH so far. Your interactions keep the novel lively. So keep doing that.

I'm taking a break for a few days before the novel goes premium. And return on the 18th of this month. I'll start releasing at least one chapter a day after that. There would be if enough readers contribute! I hope you guys can contribute enough coins to keep me busy writing additional releases. ;)

I'll complete my second vaccination during this break. I've already written my will. Now I'm ready to face that near-death experience once again! ;)

But I'll stay active on IG and Discord during my break if my post-vaccination wellbeing allows me to do so. Be sure to follow the IG as I'd be uploading characters' visual profiles and more on my Insta handle @GraybackNovels.

You can drop all your queries in my Inta DM or join VEH Discord. But stick to the stuff that has happened in the novel so far. Just don't ask about spoilers! I won't say a word about that! You hear me, not a word. *Pssht! Some teaser info. maybe! ;)

Lastly, now that VEH has punched in 100 chapters, I'm requesting another form of contribution from you. The kind that everyone can do.

It's about time we start writing reviews about the journey so far. Even if you've already placed one, you can place another follow-up review and talk about what did find amazing or disappointing in these 100 chapters. *Sigh! I know there are no intimate scenes after volume 1. So if you can, refrain from rubbing that salt on my wounds in your reviews.

If you haven't placed a review or your previous review was deleted by WN's filter bot, what are you waiting for? I expect a lot of funny, non-spoiling, and criticism-driven reviews from you during my break. Just make sure you don't use any NSFW words tho. Otherwise, your efforts won't be fruitful!

That's about it. Catch you on the flip side. ;)