When Aydrian came too, the sun had just risen above the horizon, casting its morning rays across town. He sat up with tired eyes and looked to for a clock out of habit. However, upon searching, he couldn’t find one. At that moment, Aydrian realized he had no idea where he was.
Wait, where am I?
He looked around the room questioningly and then at his hands.
Blood . . ?
The full weight of everything slammed down on him like a tsunami of memories. In an instant, Aydrian felt himself being overwhelmed with emotions. Guilt, anger, fear, grief, hatred, regret; All these emotions mixed and intertwined inside him, causing tears to spring from his eyes.
He just sat upright in his bed and looked at his bloodied hands. They were shaking slightly. Aydrian ran into the corner of the room and retched into the sink. Even as he vomited, he couldn’t stop himself from shaking and crying.
It hurt more than any physical pain he had ever felt. The pain of failing Femi and seeing her mutilated body consumed his mind fully, leaving no room for anything else. Aydrian grabbed the sides of his head and sobbed, unable to stop himself. Once there were no tears left to cry, sadness turned to anger.
Why couldn’t I just be a little faster? Why couldn’t I . . . why? why? WHY? WHY?! WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO TURN OUT LIKE THIS?
Aydrian loathed himself, but more than that, he loathed the world. He teetered on the brink of insanity.
I’ll avenge her.
Aydrian stood up to his feet as he felt the fire inside him rekindle. Just like yesterday, it spread its heat all throughout his body. When Aydrian looked in the mirror, he saw himself, except his appearance had changed.
His veins had changed colour, as they now glowed with a dark purple luminance. His eyes had likewise changed to a dark purple, giving him an unnatural gaze. His whole body was covered in black, dried up blood. It gave him a wild, unchained look.
Aydrian paid his appearance no mind and began to roam the hospital.
l need strength.
Aydrian had recognized the Wimaic back at the school because it was a common monster from Aezogoth: Magic Mania. When you killed monsters in that game, they dropped blue orbs which gave you mana that you could then use to make yourself stronger. These blue orbs were denoted as Monster Cores by the game.
Aydrian then recalled that shadowy figure shoving a blue orb down his throat before he had passed out. When he woke up, his wounds had been healed. It was an easy conclusion since Aydrian was already familiar with how these things worked from playing Aezogoth. As he pondered such insane things, Aydrian recalled the tutorial level of Aezogoth.
‘Hunt more monsters and gain their strength.’
At the back of Aydrian’s mind, some rational part of him thought that it was an impossible coincidence that a game perfectly mirrored what reality had become. Aydrian didn’t think about it for long enough to truly ponder what this meant. He could only focus on the present, and not why the present was how it was.
Aydrian arrived at where he had found Femi’s body and saw three monster bodies. One was the red bear, and two others were dog-sized rat creatures. Aydrian drew his Wimaic blades and stabbed into the corpse of the red bear, causing blood to start pooling on the floor. Once his blade had dug about halfway down, it stopped as Aydrian landed on something hard.
Aydrian took his right hand and dug it straight into the beast’s innards and quickly ripped out a blue monster core with the diameter of his thumbnail. Aydrian stared at it for a moment, before swallowing it like a pill. The taste of iron filled his mouth, but after that, the heat inside him increased ever so slightly.
It’s not enough.
Aydrian quickly dissected the other two monsters and consumed their cores. Then, he moved on to the security room where the spider monster was feasting on the wasp monster's corpse. Aydrian took out a Wimaic dagger and threw it. The dagger thunked into the spider’s abdomen. It reacted quickly, shooting spikes at Aydrian. The spikes flew at him, but Aydrian knew two of them would miss.
The last spike flew towards Aydrian’s stomach, but he grabbed it out of the air and tossed it to the side. Aydrian closed in on the spider which couldn’t move because of its wound. It let out a hissing noise as Aydrian drew close, but before it could fire off another volley, Aydrian stomped its head into a mushy mess. Aydrian quickly retrieved all three cores from the monsters in the room and moved towards the front where he had killed another red bear yesterday.
Surprisingly, another monster had arrived at the red bear’s corpse. It was another wolf-monkey like he had encountered while burying Femi. When Aydrian remembered how the previous wolf-monkey had tried to interrupt. His expression darkened. The monster had no idea what was coming as it charged Aydrian.
It flung itself recklessly let every other stupid monster, but Aydrian sidestepped its crazed attack. As It crashed to the floor, Aydrian nailed its tail to the floor with a Wimaic dagger. The beast began to cry out in pain, yanking on its tail to no avail. Aydrian put his boot to its head and slowly increased the pressure. Its cries turned to squeals, but Aydrian didn’t stop until he felt its head caved in from the pressure. Then, he took its core along with the red bear's core and left the hospital. Once he consumed their cores, he could feel himself gaining strength. His body began to feel lighter and his mind sharpened.
It's not enough.
Once Aydrian entered into the open air, he saw the blackened remains of what used to be a thriving town. The office building had collapsed onto the street, which wouldn’t have been possible with fires alone. The rubble completely covered a nearby street.
Aydrian was gazing at the rubble with an expressionless face until he heard an unhuman voice from behind him. It was high pitched and smooth as if the one who spoke was supremely confident.
“The rat finally emerges from his hole.”
Aydrian turned around, expecting to see a human face. He was rightly taken aback when he saw a hulking mass of black fur with enormous moon-white ten-inch claws. Standing at seven feet tall and twenty feet long, it was taller than Aydrian in height alone. Beneath the black fur, clear cut muscles wriggled as the feline leisurely stood up from its perch, right over the doorway of the hospital.
How long have you been there?
Aydrian had sensed the Wimaic’s gaze on him even when he wasn’t facing it, yet Aydrian was oblivious to this oversized cat’s entire existence. In this way, Aydrian felt a slight terror creeping in on the edges of his mind. How such a dangerous creature could lounge behind him without notice was beyond Aydrian at the moment.
Aydrian gripped his Wimaic daggers tighter as he gazed at the beast. If his knowledge of Aezogoth: Mania was correct, this creature was known as a Midnight Moon Fang Tiger. It rarely entered out into the daylight and hunted once every full moon. However, Aydrian began to doubt whether his knowledge was correct.
It’s out in broad daylight?
The element of surprise was the Midnight Moon Fang Tiger’s biggest strength, yet it had given it away just like that. Aydrian’s eyebrows tilted downwards into a frown.
Cocky bastard . . .
The midnight tiger didn’t open its mouth, but regardless its voice resounded into Aydrian’s ears.
“You look familiar . . . I just feasted on a human who looked just like you. In fact, he kept calling out the name of his son as he bled out . . . By any chance is your name Aydrian?”
Aydrian stared at the beast and felt a fury building inside him. As if answering his anger, a second heart had begun, creating a duel thumping inside his chest. One heartbeat sounded off after the other in a repeating manner, each beat sending Aydrian further into a craze. His veins went from a simple glowing purple to an iridescent purplish black. Aydrian could feel his body and mind awakening with rage.
“You’re lying.”
The beast released a rumbling noise like a peal of deep, booming laughter. Then, the midnight tiger spoke again. Its yellow, slitted eyes seemed to have a sick joy inside them.
“Brown hair, green eyes, a bit taller than you and much more muscle-”
Aydrian felt his soul explode with anger. His veins illuminated his surroundings with purple light, covering his body in a magical aura. Inside his chest, two heartbeats hammered away stronger than before. Aydrian catapulted his body forward, shattering the ground underneath his feet as he did so. Then, he swung his Wimaic blade on the creature’s neck. As the biological dagger made contact with the tiger’s fur, it snapped in half. The midnight tiger laughed at his attempt.
“Foolish, you canno-”
“Shut the hell up.”
Aydrian pushed his other hand down the tiger’s maw before ripping his blade back out, tearing a huge gash inside its mouth. Unfortunately, even the monster's mouth was so tough he couldn’t deal a lethal blow. Regardless, it caused the tiger pain. With a loud yowl, the midnight tiger looked at him with rage in its eyes.
“I will make you suffer for that, human filth!”
The black feline bolted forwards faster than Aydrian could react and sunk its teeth into his right shoulder. Then, it pinned him to the ground and kept him there. Even with its mouth closed, Aydrian could hear its voice.
“Frail! Puny! Weak! This is the great Duesvas? What a joke!”
Bones and cartilage snapped and shattered under the beast’s maw, however, Aydrian didn’t take it lying down. He used his legs and hands to push it off of him. The black feline grunted as Aydrian pounded its stomach with the full force of his enhanced muscles. The mana from all the monsters he had slain thus far was coursing through his veins, giving him far greater strength. The beast flew off of him with a surprised expression. Aydrian rolled to his side and returned to his feet. Aydrian took his Wimaic dagger and stared at his enemy. That big oversized cat bared its teeth at him, which shone red with his own blood.
“You fight like your father, which is not saying much.”
Aydrian’s face remained deadpan, but inside him, an unfathomable hatred began to pour out from his wounded soul. His purple glow turned black. His mind returned to that hyper-flow state, his body grew hot, his pupils dilated, and his hair stood on end. In this instance, he was completely beyond insane. The ground imploded from the force Aydrian’s legs delivered, and the wind screamed as he flew at his enemy.
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The tiger lashed out at him with its huge paw, but Aydrian took it head-on. He leaned into the blow with his shoulder. The wind from its swing threw dust up into the air. Once the blow collided with Aydrian’s shoulder, his momentum was reversed. Aydrian slid backwards a few feet but did not yield. Digging his feet into the ground, Aydrian wrapped his arms around its gigantic paw and twisted. With a pop, something inside the Midnight tiger's shoulder broke.
Aydrian was thrown off his feet as its other paw slammed into his back. He landed dozens of feet away and lay unmoving on his back. Aydrian’s lower spine was damaged, maybe broken. It seemed impossible to move, but that’s not to say he didn’t try. Using his arms only, Aydrian managed to sit up. However, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t even get his toes too so much as wiggle. His entire lower half seemed to be completely disconnected from the rest of his nervous system. Aydrian felt his emotions violently churning inside him like a whirlpool.
Come on, move! GET UP ALREADY DAMN IT!
In response to his rage, that fiery heat grew inside of him. His twin heartbeats resounded faster like automatic gunfire. That scorching hot feeling inside of him became concentrated on the small of his back, causing Aydrian immense pain. He could feel bones grinding against bones, muscle fibers rapidly reattaching themselves, and nerve connections being repaired. All of this caused him immense pain, but after a few seconds, Aydrian had once again returned to his feet. That tiger waited for him from where it had struck him, sat on its bottom while licking its paws as if he was no challenge at all. All the injuries Aydrian had inflicted on it were gone. He furrowed his eyebrows and seethed.
He could have killed me while I was on the ground. Why didn’t he finish me? Is he really that prideful?
Aydrian shook off his doubts and studied his opponent. Huge claws, huge teeth, big ears, and a big nose. It was faster than Aydrian as well, meaning any attack had to be unexpected for it to land.
Plan . . . I need a plan . . . think . . . Monsters from Aezogoth: Magic Mania are becoming real . . . if I can use magic somehow, I might be able to do something, but will any magic hurt him? Not even my Wimaic daggers could scratch him . . . makes sense. The midnight moon fang tiger is a late-game opponent . . . maybe if I can . . .
Aydrian steeled himself and began to chant something that the midnight tiger couldn’t detect. However, what the midnight tiger did detect was a sudden flux in Aydrian’s mana. Up until now, his mana had only been sent to various places around his body to strengthen it, but not it was collecting itself in an orderly manner. This could only mean one thing. The great and prideful Midnight tiger’s eyes opened wide open and it stared at Aydrian. However, after a moment, Its cocky attitude reappeared instantly.
“Magic, hmm? Strange, I don’t remember anyone teaching you anything . . . perhaps you really are a Deusvas.”
Aydrian bent his knees and kept whispering to himself, before exploding forwards in a reckless attack. The Midnight Tiger, who now knew Aydrian’s top speed from his last attack, dodged it easily. Aydrian’s attack hit nothing and he flew through the air, unable to change his course. His opponent launched another attack. The Midnight Moon Fang Tiger’s maw opened wide as its teeth once again found themselves buried within Aydrian’s shoulder.
It was the same shoulder that had been bitten before, re-shattering what had previously been healed. It pinned him to the ground again, exactly like before, except this time Aydrian was on his back. Aydrian’s expression didn’t change. He focused on what he was whispering under his breath. The black tiger looked down at Aydrian with an incredulous expression.
“No magic you could possibly know could so much as scratch me, you imbecile. Humanity has just been introduced to magic only yesterday. I am a great apex predator, nothing you could muster will even scratch me.”
With a swipe of its path, it sent Aydrian careening across the battlefield once more. Aydrian slammed into the concrete wall and felt his breath leave him. However, he continued whispering. The black tiger roared with laughter.
“Didn’t you hear me? Your magic is pointless! I am a Midnight Moon Fang Tiger, the apex predator of-”
“-Darenki forest??”
Aydrian finished his sentence for him. The tiger looked at him with a surprised expression for the second time. Its expression was all Aydrian needed to see to know what it was thinking. Probably something along the lines of “how does he know?”. Aydrian then pointed at his enemy and smiled like a devil.
Should have finished me when you had the chance, you bastard.
“Roaring Inferno.”
In that instant, a pillar of white flame exploded underneath the Midnight Moon Fang Tiger. The sound that came from such an explosion reached Aydrian’s ears, filling them with a sound that was impossibly loud. It sounded like the continuous roaring of a thousand lions. Anyone within a twenty-meter radius would find themselves instantly falling to the floor as their eardrums burst. Beyond that, going deaf was not such a far-fetched outcome.
The pillar of flame rose so high into the sky that it reached even above the clouds, like god himself had smitten the monster from heaven. For seconds on end, that white fire tumbled and twisted as it burned. No normal human could even see the fire dancing because It was too bright. It could hurt someone's eyes even after they closed them. Its luminescence was so radiant that for miles around, people couldn’t look directly at the flame. It was like a small nuclear bomb had gone off, but instead of expending its energy outwards, it only rose upwards.
The heat inside the pillar of flame probably reached tens of thousands of degrees celsius. However, its heat seemed to be contained by magical means. If it wasn’t, Aydrian and the rest of the town would have been burnt to a crisp if the heat had radiated to the surroundings. By the time the flame faded, there was nothing left behind but a blackened concrete floor. The Midnight Moon Fang Tiger was nowhere to be seen.
Aydrian lay on the ground unconscious. He had been passed out since the moment he finished saying “Inferno”. His purple glow had faded, his body returning to normal. Physically, Aydrian was completely fine. However, he still remained in a deep sleep. No monster came out to attack him, since the massive amount of mana expended had scared everything in the vicinity away. For the moment, the town was liberated from all monsters.
----------------------------------------
From inside a building, a girl looked at Aydrian with her mouth wide open. She had observed the entire fight and had begun to doubt if he was even human. She quickly grabbed an empty backpack and made for her door, but someone stopped her. A woman who looked to be in her forties held her elbow and whispered in a harsh tone.
“What are you doing? If you go out there you’ll be killed!”
The younger girl pulled herself out of the older woman's grip and whispered back with an urgent tone. Her expression was laced with determination.
“You saw what that guy just did! He got rid of that black panther, meaning we can access the medical supplies inside the hospital. If we get some antibiotics, it could help with Daniel’s infection!”
The older woman narrowed her eyebrows with doubt.
“And just how do you expect to get past the monsters outside? They kill humans on sight, you saw what happened yesterday.”
The younger girl bit her lip and seemed like she was about to cry. The memories of yesterday were traumatizing, to say the least.
“Please! If we don’t get medicine for Daniel, he’ll really die! That infection is bad!”
The older woman stared at the younger girl with a hard expression for a long minute before replying with a sigh. She picked up her own empty bag as she did so.
“Fine, but I’m going with you.”
The younger girl nodded anxiously before slowly opening their door. It slowly slid open, creaking noisily. In the silence, the simple sound of a door creaking was deafening. Both the younger and the older froze, looking out into the street with stiffened expressions. After a few moments, the younger girl fully stepped into the outside world and realized that she couldn’t see any monsters. Normally, there would always be at least one or two roaming the streets, but now it was completely empty.
“They're all gone . . .”
The older woman behind the younger girl hesitantly stepped outside with her and gazed around in wonder. Yesterday, inside that black storm, this place had been like hell. Now it seemed like a hurricane had just swept through.
The younger girl hurried towards the hospital, eventually coming up on Aydrian’s unconscious body. The person below her had brown hair matted with blood, making it look black. His left shoulder was bleeding badly and his shirt was basically ripped to shreds. Underneath the shreds of the shirt, layers of dried blood were caked on him like clothes. His chest slowly rose up and down in a repeating motion as he breathed. With wide eyes, the younger girl realized who he was. Without a second thought, she reached down and tried to pull him to his feet. As she struggled to lift him, the older woman behind her grabbed her arm.
“What the hell are you doing? We have to move before any monsters come back!”
The younger girl shook her head from side to side.
“He’ll help us, I’ve met him before!”
The older woman looked at the younger girl with an incredulous look.
“How could you possibly- oh never mind! This is not the time to argue. Let me help you.”
The older woman reached down and helped carry Aydrian by putting his left arm over her shoulder. The younger girl did the same, and with both of them helping, they quickly returned him back to the house they had been in previously. Then, together they headed towards their original destination, the hospital. Once inside, the younger girl held her stomach as the smell reached her nose. Dozens of dead bodies lined the hallways, filling her nose with a putrid smell. She turned away with her eyes watering.
The older woman wrapped the younger ones in a comforting hug and spoke to her.
“Don’t look at them, just continue walking with me, ok? Remember Daniel. We’re here for Daniel”
Slowly but surely, they made their way through the hospital, ignoring the corpses. They crept about as they made their way through the place, trying to make as little noise as possible. The younger girl was about to turn a doorknob to check a room when she heard the older woman gasp.
Upon turning around, the younger girl felt her heart drop as well. A little further down the hallway was the corpse of a gigantic maroon bear. Its body was decomposing just like everything else, but you could still tell it only died from two precise wounds. Its neck and forehead each had a gaping hole where maggots had begun to proliferate. The younger girl once again put a hand to her stomach and closed her eyes, concentrating on not throwing up her dinner onto the floor.
Once inside the room, the two quickly scavenged for what they needed, as well as all the medical supplies they could carry. They filled each of their bags before setting off back towards their safe house. The younger girl quickly gulped in the fresh air as they left the hospital. The number of dead bodies in that confined space left her very close to breaking down, but she persevered. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“I hate it in there.”
The older woman at her side looked grim as she nodded her head. Together, they made their way back to the safe house when a voice from behind them spoke. It sounded masculine and familiar, but also unfamiliar. The voice was the same, but the tone made her nervous.
“Give me those bags.”
Both of them turned around with a startled look on their faces. Behind them was a boy that the younger girl recognized. She stuttered through her words.
“Be- ben? What are you doing?”
There stood her classmate, Ben. He was your normal blonde pretty boy, but right now, he looked almost as rugged as Aydrian. He had a wild look in his eyes, and if you concentrate long enough, you could see his veins glowing with a slightly greenish color. His body was clean and unwounded, but his hands had a crimson liquid on them. He took a step forwards and his expression furrowed in a snarl.
“Give me the bags.”
His veins began to take on an even more greenish color. The younger girl looked at him with a hurt expression. In class, he had seemed way nicer than this.
“Please, we need these! My little brother daniel is sick-”
Ben took another step forwards, coming dangerously close to the two of them. The older woman stepped between Ben and the younger girl protectively, before laying her bag on the ground. She then spoke in a calm voice and a deadly expression.
“You can have my bag, but we need at least one.”
Ben stared at the bag that had been thrown on the ground, before picking it up and taking a few steps backwards. Once he was a certain distance away, he quickly tore through the bag like an insane man, taking only a few bottles of some medicine. The older woman, upon seeing this, suddenly changed her expression to that of pity. Ben shouted at her in a rage as soon as he saw her expression.
“Don’t you dare judge me!”
The older woman said nothing, only watching Ben turn around and leave. Irene looked between the two, confused. She wanted to ask but decided to wait until they got home. During the short walk home back to their safe house, Irene hugged her own bag to her chest as she thought about what Ben had seemed to become. For a moment, her mind panicked.
What if that guy changed too? He seemed like a good person when I tried to give to give him money for what I made him drop . . . but what if he changed too?
With such doubts clouding her mind, she mumbled to herself with a sorrowful expression.
“What is the world coming to . . .”