The soul dug into the guard's side, clawing at the fatty tissue and doing it's best to damage the monster before him. It's brethren were clawing at it from above, metal staples falling all around the gigantic form and slightly revealing exposed tissue. The spirit was completely oblivious to this, however, as it was already headfirst into the sizable wound he was digging out, almost as if he was trying to plunge himself into the guard itself. Of course, his efforts were obviously minor - you cold even say they were negligible. Compared to the swarm of light pulling apart the monstrous guard, the spirit doing his best  to dig into the creature was practically unnoticeable. Maybe that was why, with an insane amount of force, the guard began to swat the various spirits away with great force, slamming down on it's weakened gut. It succeeded in doing so, but suffered a dire consequence. Slamming it's hand down with force the spirit could hardly even imagine, the creature failed in crushing one of it's attackers - instead, the stomach of the guard burst like an overripe fruit from the pressure, spewing it's disgusting contents and a horrid smell over the whole area. Along with this, it also shot out the spirit, who was nearly chest-deep with a small pile of flesh by his side. While the stench persisted, the contents slowly became less foul - they condensed, seemed to collapse in on itself, all the while taking on the same incandescent shade as the spirits themselves. A breeze of unknown origin blew by, taking the majority of the stench and causing the dust to float away into the air, becoming nonexistent.

Their, in what once was their tormentor and killer, laid nearly 3 dozen small, beautiful white pearls. They were pure, a far-cry from the disgusting beast it was once a part of. Perhaps they were something it stole? But to be honest, the spirit couldn't care less. He only knew one thing - he wanted them. The spirit saw the others make movements towards the orbs, and the spirit decided to take a portion of five souls - a fair share. After all, he didn't want to fight these creatures - they were a part of the same group, the same pack.

The same hive.

As he stared at the orbs, an incredibly painful sensation rocked the spirits body. His head felt as if it was splitting open, tearing apart at the very seams. Just as his mouth opened for the first time, he greedily shoved the first pearl in his gullet. After that, another followed, and again, and again, until all five disappeared. The spirit was content, but quickly, he curled on the ground in a fetal position, as a sense of pain rocked it's body. It wasn't unbearable, but was very uncomfortable - like being heavily medicated and getting hurt. You could feel it, but didn't really care. The pain permeated his entire body, as if each individual organ in his body was being consumed all at once. All the while, his shine progressively dulled, until it was completely gone and he was just a pale humanoid. As suddenly as it came, the pain subsided, and his mind was gifted two pearls of information. His name was Troy Crane, and he was dead. Everything beyond that was just as much of a blur as it was before he consumed the souls, and Troy couldn't focus on it no matter how much he tried. Slowly, he rose to his feet, slightly weaker than he was before consuming the souls. His transformation completed itself in the span of about 10 seconds. He was now more than he was a minute ago. A slight afterglow followed, an ecstasy that Troy had never experienced. It was the feeling of having just eaten a soul.

It was beautiful, in every sense of the word. Troy relished every facet of it.

The others had undergone a similar transformation. One of them called out to the others.

"Friends, allies, are you there...?"

The voice was androgynous, belonging to neither a male or female. Turning, the origin was revealed - one of the spirits, although which one it was originally was impossible to tell, was calling out to the others. It was far larger than they had been previously, but was nearly identical besides two features. It's face was covered by some strange mask, and the spirit also held a stick with a lantern on the end. Behind the masked spirit stood a more bestial one, with skeletal features and on four limbs. It must have been another ally, and was showing aggression towards what was behind Troy. Turning towards the pool of lava, a great distance away, a massive column of lava was falling back to the pool, as if something had come out suddenly and displaced the liquid. While Troy thought that a creature capable of such a feat was impossible to even exist, there was a gigantic monster flying in the air, just above the surface. It was even larger than the horned guard, and seemed even more dangerous. Considering the only reason they defeated the guard was because of a lucky accident, Troy was not willing to take the chances with something so dangerous. Troy turned back, facing away from the creature. There was no chance in hell they could take it. Along with the two other spirits, there also was a man in some mechanical suit of armor, deliberating on the course of action they would take. Another was a man seemingly made of metal, who Troy and not been paying attention to up to this point. 

A sound reached Troy's newly formed ears, the sound of someone falling to the ground. Another humanoid, obviously female, with several animal features. She was currently looking at her tail, and finally noticed the giant monster headed right towards them. She tried to rise to her feet again, and managed several steps, before falling to the ground. While the beast was far away, it would catch up at this rate... 

Troy quickly made his way towards the girl, whom he was relatively close to. He helped her to her feet, and kept her arm around his shoulder in order to provide balance. He would have preferred to carry her since it would be faster, but his transformation seemed to weaken his strength, so he was forced to help support her until she could carry herself. Or course, h wanted to leave her behind, ensure his escape would be quicker... but this woman was part of the hive, and the flying creature was fairly far away. Troy had a high chance of escape no matter what, so helping the survival of the hive was currently the highest priority. Having helped the woman to her feet, Troy seemingly hissed from his mouth a voice that seemed to consist of thousands of individual, small speakers, and was somewhat high-pitched when compared to the armored and masked spirit. 

[color=598527]"We should escape before that... thing catches us..."[/color]

Troy had difficulty speaking, having lacked a mouth before and the strange nature of his biology making his speech slurred and guttural. Troy turned began to move forwards, away from the lava lake and their distant pursuer. The weight of the woman was impossible to discern, but she was not too difficult to support, even with Troy's weakness. She could almost certainly feel the writhing creatures just below Troy's skin, doing their best to push the pair forwards. Troy moved at a slow pace, mainly to allow the woman to get used to her new body and relieve him of helping her.