The Dawn of the New World

Arthur struggled to get free, flailing about not much different from a fish out of water while Hao Xuan watched on with a knitted brow. His hand jerked down and Arthur's knees loudly slammed into the ground.

"Ah, I see it now. It is not that my raw strength has increased that much, the only difference being that I can use it a lot more efficiently now. I feel like I can control most of my body at will, almost at a cellular level. I don't have to 'manually' flex or gather strength, it's all there by itself."

When Arthur couldn't pull away forcefully he used the only good hand to try and pick Hao Xuan up and draw him closer towards his face, intending to bite him in half.

Hao Xuan's expression turned ugly and before Arthur could put his plan to action he reached out and broke off the two crystalline horns protruding from his forehead.

Arthur writhed in pain while unholy screams came escaped his mouth. There were two distinct voices coming from his gullet, one that belonged to the original Arthur and the other that belonged to something else. .

Hao Xuan could barely wrap his hand around Arthur's neck it had gotten so thick but he still didn't let him slip away and in fact, drew him closer towards him. Their faces were barely a few inches apart as Hao Xuan stared intently into his eyes.

The red flames danced within the whites of Arthur's eyes, reflecting a faint image of a screaming ox-like creature. The sides of Hao Xuan's lips arched into a faint smile.

"There you are, you still haven't become one, that is very good news," he mumbled to himself.

"ROOOAAR!"

Arthur opened wide and roared right into his face which was exactly what Hao Xuan was waiting for. His eyes suddenly brightened by several degrees as he also opened his mouth in return, right before whispering the word 'Devour'.

Wisps of black smoke rose up from Arthur's body and straight into Hao Xuan's maw. The smoke was soon mixed with small tongues of flame that tried to wrap around Arthur in an effort to keep from being swallowed but to no avail. (Google "Harry Potter's dementor scene" to get a better idea of what this is supposed to look like.)

A couple of seconds later a large bulbous mass in the shape of the spirit's actual image was pulled out of Arthur and sent tumbling down the twisting darkness that awaited within Hao Xuan's jaws.

While this was happening Arthur's body slowly grew smaller and smaller, eventually returning to normal size and regaining its original appearance.

Without the spirit to influence his body and mind Arthur returned to his original state by the time Hao Xuan loosened his grip. He smacked his lips, still able to taste the faint spicy charred flavor on his breath. He burped and let out a small cloud of smoke.

After breaking into the Second Realm of the Physique Hao Xuan was now able to 'Devour' a lot more than ordinary objects. He could feel the changes very clearly this time, his body was screaming them at him.

'I still need to completely ingest the remains of the physique demon to stabilize myself properly. Until then whatever I devour will be lost and I can't get any actual benefit out of it.'

All that extra flesh fell off Arthur's body and caught fire, unable to exist by itself. Thankfully there was not too much damage done to his body other than the broken arm that was caused by Hao Xuan himself.

Regaining consciousness Arthur raised his head and met Hao Xuan's gaze, "Master..." he weakly called out.

Hao Xuan smiled in return, "This is gonna hurt like a bitch, try not to scream in front of the others."

"Huh? What do you-"

*Crack*

Hao Xuan pulled Arthur's arm back into place without giving him any time to prepare himself.

"UNGGG!"

Arthur bit down on his lips as hard as he could and managed to barely keep it together.

"There, you'll be good as new in 6-10 weeks. Or much sooner if one of them can use a spell or two to heal you."

"T-Thank you...master."

*Sigh*

Hao Xuan stood back up and looked at the other Orcs that were staring at him with blank faces.

'This really got way out of control.'

Shaking his head he started walking towards the stair.

"I'll count this as a win for me then. Help Arthur up and...Miss Leona, follow me, we need to talk."

***

Over the next few months Hao Xuan stayed mostly in his room. The only time he ever went was when Altron called for him to open the gateways so he could send the scavenger drones through or to train the Orcs.

Speaking of the drones he came up with quite a nice design for them. Each one was barely half a meter long with a storage space of 50 square meters thanks to the storage rings that were dismantled and used as a core component for them.