Marvel: Incursio

'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?"