It’s gone… it’s all gone. Everything is gone! My pride and joy, my precious dam and my home… a single leak ended up washing away all those months of hard work in one flood of epic DISASTER!

  Oh, and I suppose all the giants below got washed away, too… and now there’s something even stranger happening.

  Only moments before, my dam had proudly stood beside me. Now its colpse had left a gaping, muddy void, only partly filled by a new raging river… nevermind the flooded apocalypse going on in the valley below. The noise of the water’s wild and untamed flow made me shudder—a massive leak that would never be plugged—but something unnatural in the air grabbed my attention.

  [Ascension: Phase One ready. Evolution is avaible.]

  No matter how long I stared at the floating shapes, I still couldn’t make any sense of them. “Hey, Frie. Do you see this?” I finally asked.

  The otter gave no response, her face still frozen in shock, muttering nonsense to herself. “I… I-I’m the hero. I’m still going to be the hero. It was an accident. We’re not the baddies… We’re the good guys. The good guys!”

  “Frie. Frie!”

  The sound of my voice made her jump. “W-whoa! Oh, Beaver, uh… So this is… Look. If anyone asks, this was all because of an accident. We were trying to save everyone and we just had a totally unavoidable accident. We’re innocent!”

  “Forget about that for now. Can you see this?” I gestured with a paw at the shapes.

  Frie shivered. “Hey, you’re scaring me! What is it?”

  [Evolution is avaible.]

  It seems she can’t see this. “It’s something unnatural,” I said, “like shapes in the air? It’s giving me a really unsettling feeling. I’m not sure if I’m just imagining it, though. I don’t know.” Staring at them makes my head feel kind of fuzzy. Have I seen these shapes before, in another time and pce somewhere long ago…?

  [The Dark God smiles upon you.]

  [New Ability acquired: Gift of Language.]

  All at once, memories that were not my own began rushing through my mind. A river, a forest, a mountain, a pin, a forest of rocks filled with more giants than I had ever seen… I saw through the eyes of countless others with so many different ndscapes and backgrounds in view, all staring at the same kind of shapes. No, not shapes—they were symbols that made characters, characters that were letters, letters that formed words…

  “The Words of the Gods?” I found myself saying.

  Frie gasped. “Beaver, do you see a text box? Is it a system? Did you get a truckload of experience points after that flood destroyed the whole vilge?!” She grimaced. “That’s pretty morbid… but I’ve heard of worse, I guess.”

  [Evolution is avaible.]

  “I don’t think that’s it,” I said. “Somehow I can understand them now, but I don’t know what it means. It says evolution is—”

  Everything shifted and blurred. My head swam. My body felt hotter all over, rippling, shifting, changing. My vision began to darken as the whole world seemed to blend together in fading colors. I heard Frie call out to me, but her voice sounded muffled and impossibly far away. A moment ter, everything faded to bck as if every ray of sunlight had instantly disappeared.

  I blinked and found an empty, endless darkness around me. The only light came from an eerily glowing giant standing in front of me… but this one looked different than any other giant I had ever seen. The size of her chest told me she was a girl—a female giant with bright red eyes, flowing white hair, a pair of fox ears overhead, and many fluffy white tails billowing out behind her.

  She is… She’s a fox giant? She’s beautiful. I didn’t know giants could look like this.

  “Oh my, aren’t you a cute one~?” she said with a curious smile, kneeling down in front of me. “I see Veles has not lost that sense of humor. Then again, I used to be a very naughty fox myself, so who am I to judge?” While humming with a pleasant, enchanting sound, she reached out with her front paw to gently pat my head. The sensation felt strange yet oddly comforting.

  “Is this real?” I found myself asking. “Am I really understanding a giant right now?”

  “A giant…?” She burst out ughing. “Oh, that takes me back! I remember when I used to call the humans that. Do not worry; this will all make more sense to you soon. Perhaps you will even meet the other two-legs first.”

  “You mean… you were like me. Who are you?”

  She nodded. “I am your predecessor. I am the demon lord who came before you, like all the others before me. And one day, you will be here to meet the one who comes next, because you have become a part of the cycle. That is, unless you are able to succeed where I failed and finally… No, that does not matter now.”

  “I could ask you a hundred different questions, but honestly, I didn’t ask for any of this. All I want is to go back and build another home with my friend.”

  The fox giant frowned. “I am afraid that simple life has already drifted somewhere far away from you, along with your previous home. There is much you must learn if you are to survive, yet we do not have much time. The least I can do is to save you some of your own.” She held up her two front paws for me to see. “Hands. Fingers. Your thumbs can move like this. This is very important; I wish my predecessor had shown it to me. While strange at first, this will all come naturally to you before long. You will be able to build things that you could have never imagined before.”

  I had never had a chance like this to safely observe a giant so close to me. “Hands, not paws… fingers, not toes…?”

  Her form began to shimmer and fade. “We are running out of time, but should you live long enough, we will meet again. All you need to worry about for now is staying alive, and do what you think is right. Nothing else matters. Except one thing: it will not be long until the humans learn of the new demon lord. One among them will be blessed with their own powers and become your nemesis. Whatever happens, do not let the hero discover you! You must find the witch before—”

  As the white fox and all her fluffy tails blurred out of focus, the darkness began to brighten around me. I blinked again and found myself surrounded by a familiar forest of tree stumps with a raging river beside me… but something was different. My whole body felt different all over in a way I could hardly describe.

  Staring down at the water beside me, the reflection I saw was not my own. In the slightly muddy surface below, the two bright red eyes of a young female giant stared back at me. She looked sort of like the fox giant I had just met—except this one had brown hair with two round, fluffy beaver ears on top of her head.

  Wait… no. Those are my ears!

  [Ascension Phase One complete. Primary Aspect: Nature.]

  [New Evolution: Castor Sapiens. All physical and magical capacities have been increased.]

  [New Skill acquired: Dendrokinesis Rank 1.]

  [New Skill acquired: Poison Resistance Rank 1.]

  [New Ability acquired: God Sight.]

  Yes, yes! This is good… I think? I’m still not sure what some of that means.

  Many new lines of words filled my vision for a moment before vanishing as fast as they arrived. I went to reach for them with a paw only to realize it wasn’t a paw anymore. Then those mysterious words of the fox came whispering back to me.

  Hands. Fingers. My thumbs can move like… this? Wow, I can grab more than one branch at a time! Now I can expand the dam even faster than—oh, right…

  My smooth, furless arms had grown long enough that I could hold out my own two hands in front of me. My cws had shrunk like my teeth, but I might not need those as much anymore.

  Now that I thought about it, it felt like all the fur on my body had moved on top of my head. My thick coat of fur had turned into long, silky strands above like a river of dark brown that flowed off my shoulders and down my back. Turning around, I found my long, ft tail still extending behind me. It seemed about the same size as I remembered, but my tail’s warm and scaly texture felt unfamiliar against my furless butt.

  Awkward. “Um… Mysterious fox giant? Why am I giant now? How do I see the words again?”

  [Name: Bober Kurwa, Level 1 Demon Lord]

  [Ascension: Phase One]

  [Skills: Dendrokinesis Rank 1, Poison Resistance Rank 1]

  [Abilities: Gift of Language, God Sight]

  That was easy. Willing the words into existence seems to make them return whenever I want them to. I’m not sure how to feel about my name, though…

  Malonymous