Author's note: An extra-long chapter, as promised. Wanted to write the next one today as well but it is extremely late for me and I am very sleepy. Hope you like the chapter! Starts off a bit slow but it picks up, bear with it :P A few time jumps happen in the chapter, all needed to move the plot along.
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The first direction I headed to was to go back to abomination city. I wanted to see what became of the city. I wanted to see the state of the city, and if there was anything that I could take back from my parent’s house. I was readying myself to head out last night and realized that I had absolutely no pictures of my family. I had never been one to keep sentimental things like pictures on frames and display them around my apartment, so I had no photos at all. Sure, I had quite a lot of them on my laptop or on my mobile, but these things weren’t working anymore so the photos in them were pretty much gone.
I like being alone, and I don’t feel much for anyone, but I had known my family since I was born so obviously the strongest feelings I had in the entire world was for them. Also, I had no idea how long I would stay alive for, who knows I might get the immortality ability one day and live forever, and it would be a shame if I was to forget the faces of my family in the future!
As I got closer to the city, I was constantly scanning every single creature and plant I could see for a useful ability, but couldn’t find anything useful. The creatures both in the sky and on the ground kept decreasing in number the closer I got, and soon there wasn’t any creature in sight. I could see the city in the distance now, or what was left of the city…
The city was no more. It was only a pile of ruins. There was no building left standing as far as I could see, and the tallest structure visible in the city was a ruin that reached about 3 stories in height. It looked extremely eerie, to the point where the sight of a completely dead and silent ruined city gave me a few chills.
I flew closer to the suburb area and found the same result of houses in ruins. There was not even a single house in sight that still had a wall left standing! Did the earthquake created by those abominations do all this or did they actually smash everything up themselves when they all came above ground…?
I flew closer to the sight of the ruined house that had belonged to my parents. There were a few pieces of recognizable furniture I could see tattered here and there but overall it was just as smashed as everything else.
I flew closer together and used both my improved vision and X-ray vision at the same time in hopes of finding a somewhat intact picture. It took me a while, but I finally found one that looked more or less okay. Its corners were messed up and there were two folds that ruined the picture a bit, but given the state of the house even this picture in this condition was a miracle!
I lifted a few pieces of rocks, bricks and stone up a few inches, slowly, taking care not to smash anything on the ground. After the way was clear, I took control of the picture through telekinesis and carefully led it towards my hand. I looked at it and was pleased to see that the picture was in a good enough condition. It was a picture taken two years ago of the whole family when we all visited London and it was a good and memorable time. A perfect picture to save!
I carefully put it away in an inside pocket of my jacket and then lifted off into the air. I checked once again to see if there were any other salvageable pictures, but found none. I then picked up as much rubble as I could through telekinesis and then smashed it all down on the ground! Immediately the Earth split apart, but nothing came out of it. It felt like the abominations were waiting to see if whatever had thrown the rocks would show themselves…
I wasn’t strong enough yet to face the whole lot of them, but I will be one day, and when I am I will be sure to come back here and kill every single one of these fucking things!
With that decided, I tried to think of where to go next. The picture came to mind immediately, and with a smile I thought as hard as I could about the place we had taken the picture in, and teleported off to London!
I instantly arrived at the place in front of Buckingham palace where we had taken the picture. It was a bit nostalgic for me, but I remained on guard against any threats even though I was using my hiding presence ability.
…..
Hmmm…. Nothing… Strange.
I could see the roads filled with dried blood, plenty of corpses and body parts lying around, but there was nothing alive in sight. It was different from the case of the abominations as they had cleaned up the roads completely and hadn’t left any corpses or body parts behind. Just to make sure, I lifted up the body of a large wolf-type creature that had two heads and dropped it on the ground. I waited for something to happen… but nothing did. Good, no abominations here at least!
I then lifted up higher into the air and looked around, but there was nothing alive in sight. It was all too silent. I tried using heat-vision but couldn’t find anything at all even when I used it with improved vision! This was a city which was completely dead as far as I could see.
I had just experienced the chills I felt at the sight of a dead city in ruins, but somehow the sight of a seemingly intact city which was completely dead and completely silent gave me major chills throughout my body! It was extremely creepy!
There had to be a group of strong monsters here that were ruling this city like those abominations were, but I couldn’t see any signs of such creatures anywhere at all! My instincts were screaming at me to leave the creepy dead city and leave for someplace else, and I felt obliged to listen. I was thinking about where to go next when suddenly..
BOOM!
The whole ground shook!
What was that?!? An explosion??
BOOM!
Another one! What is this??
BOOM!
It sounds like it’s coming from behind me…
BOOM!
I turned around slowly… I could feel chills running up and down my spine…
BOOM!
I had completely turned around, and almost fainted at the sight! About 50 meters in front of me was a huge dinosaur! And not just any dinosaur, a Tyrannosaurus Rex! And not just any T-rex, this thing was more than a 100 feet tall! Weren’t T-rex’s supposed to be around 40-50 feet at most?
HOLY SHIT!
Is that thing looking at me!
I checked but I still had my hiding presence ability active, how was this huge dino looking at me! I lifted off into the air to see if it was just a coincidence that the T-rex just happened to be looking in my direction, but no it was following me with its huge, menacing golden eyes! What the fuck! Why isn’t this ability hiding me!
The T-rex had presumably gotten tired of looking at me, because it then charged straight at me with incredible speed! It took two huge steps, accompanied by another two BOOMs, and it closed the 50 meter gap between us to just under 10 meters!
I immediately thought of my apartment, which was the first thing I could think of, and teleported, just as I saw the T-rex’s massive jaws closing in on me!
I then found myself inside my apartment, and fell down on my knees weakly. I had never been more scared in my entire life! I checked and found I hadn’t pissed myself. I was actually proud of myself for not pissing in spite of the jaws of death closing in on me like that!
It took a good 5 minutes for me to calm down and to get my heartbeat back to normal again… All motivation of travelling to new places gone, I erected an Earth wall all around my bed, reinforced it with a bit of metal, and fell asleep.
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It had been two weeks since the dinosaur incident, and I had stayed well clear of London during all this time. I had no idea if there was just one huge T-rex there, or if there was a whole family of huge T-rexes running around, but I had no reason to find out. I still didn’t know how the dinosaur had been able to see me despite my hiding presence activity!
Currently, I was in Dubai. I had visited this city a few years ago with my family, so I was able to teleport here without any difficulties. I had teleported myself to the top of Burj-Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and was enjoying the view. We hadn’t had the chance of seeing the view when we visited, and I had to say it was a missed opportunity as the view from up here was incredible! Not as good as when I teleport to the clouds and free-fall, but still pretty good.
I used my improved vision ability and could see a number of different creatures walking in the streets far below. I had gained a couple of new abilities over the past two weeks, though they were gained through animals and monsters only as I had stayed far away from any human contact, and I was eager to gain more! I jumped off the top of the tallest tower in the world and dove down to see if there were any other useful abilities down there!
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Two more weeks had passed since I was in Dubai. I was currently in Tokyo, Japan. I hadn’t visited this place before, but had always wanted to. I had to perform a series of teleportations over other countries to get here, but it was well worth it! The sights were incredible! I had been all over Japan before reaching Tokyo, and it was a country unlike any other! Truly incredible!
I teleported to Beijing airport, where we had a stay-over once due to some difficulties in out flight. I exited the airport to explore a new country and new sights, while still staying completely alone!
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Another week had passed by, and I had stayed all alone during all this time. Sometimes I wished someone else was here with me to talk to or to share all the sights, but then I would remember how annoying most people were and the feeling would go away.
Right now I was at the top of Mt. Everest! I had to repeatedly teleport myself to the top, as the peak was too far up for me to see at once! I could see the clouds stretching below and the view was absolutely breathtaking! Even with my heat and cold resistance ability active and the multiple layers of clothes I was wearing, I was still shivering from head to toe. I knew I couldn’t stay for long, but just a few more minutes of this incredible view wouldn’t hurt!
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Suddenly I heard a loud roar from below me! Snow and ice actually fell and started an avalanche below on the mountain side! I immediately got on guard and prepared myself to teleport out of here.
I used heat-vision but couldn’t see anything at all. Another loud roar, this time from my right side! I looked over there and saw the legendary creature: A dragon! An ice dragon to be exact! Glaring at me with clear-blue eyes, its huge crystalline body rose up the mountainside rapidly with the help of two massive crystal-blue wings!
I froze.
I was completely terrified of the constantly growing body. I tried to teleport but I found out I couldn’t! What’s going on?
Then it dawned on me! Dragon’s fear! In most games or novels dragons always had a certain pressure that made their targets freeze up! I had always thought of it as nonsense but here I was completely frozen in fear because of a dragon!
I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could on teleporting… A few seconds later I could feel the sharp drop in temperatures! I opened my eyes and found myself in the fields of Tibet from where the highest peak of the world was visible in the distance.
I breathed a sigh of relief. First London and now Mount Everest, two locations on the fuck-no list!
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6 more weeks had passed by. I had been travelling for almost three months now! I had been all alone all this time, and frankly I was starting to get a little lonely. I had never realized just how much humans crave for social interaction! It had taken me about 3 months, but I was sure most normal humans wouldn’t have lasted this long all alone.
I had travelled all over the world, apart from the North and South poles, and the continent of Antarctica. It had been a most wonderful experience, but I did wish I could have shared it with someone else too…
It had also been most profitable for me. I had gained 11 new great abilities, and improved a few of my existing abilities too! I could have gained more but I concentrated more on the new sights then on gaining abilities. That being said, all things considered, it had been the best experience of my life!
I was currently back in my home country of America, in New York city to be exact. And for the first time in 3 months I was actually ignoring the creatures down on the streets and instead looking for survivors! Incredible how much human interaction I was now craving because of a mere 3 months of travelling alone! Wasn’t I supposed to love staying alone…? *sigh*
I had no idea if I would find survivors, as it had been close to 5 months now since the monsters first appeared. Or had it been six? Keeping track of days was getting hard too… Speaking of which, my 22nd birthday should be coming soon too… hmmm… doesn’t really matter though...
I was searching for survivors just so I could get a bit of human interaction, share a few conversations, hopefully get a few more abilities and then leave. I was craving for human interaction, but I was still a loner at heart! And thus I was only planning on staying with any survivor group I found for at most 2-3 days. More if the survivors aren’t annoying, but I find everyone annoying so that has a really low chance of happening…
I searched using improved vision, X-ray vision and heat vision all at the same time, and soon found a lot of humans gathered at a penthouse of a building. I flew up to the top, as my flight ability was one of the abilities I had improved during my travels, enabling me to fly for longer and fly at much higher altitudes!
I looked through the window and saw a large gathering of people all in a massive room. There would be around 40 people altogether I believe. This looks like a fun group, most of them are laughing about and the mood seems to be generally good.
I teleported inside but was still using my hiding-presence. I didn’t bother with identifying their abilities yet, as I would have plenty of time afterwards if I stayed here. I was here for a bit of human interaction and not for gaining abilities anyways…
I was going to reveal myself but then I stopped. The atmosphere seemed a bit… strange… for some reason it felt like there was something wrong. I observed closely and noted that there was an older woman, would be in her late forties or early fifties, sitting in a large comfortable looking chair right in the center of the East wall. It looked to me as if she was sitting on a sort of make-shift throne…
I looked around at everyone in the room and most of them seemed happy. Correction, all the men seemed happy. They were happily chatting about and laughing with each other, but all the women, apart from the older woman on her ‘throne’, were looking anything but happy. They had blank expressions on their faces and were looking into the distance with dead eyes. I could guess why this was the case, but before I could figure out if my guess was correct or not the older woman started speaking.
“Attention everyone! It’s time once again. You all know what to do.”
After her words, everyone got up and started heading towards the older woman. The men started piling things like canned food, water bottles or general goods in front of her while she noted what each of them brought, while the women filed up behind the older woman and stood there silently with blank expressions.
After all the men had piled everything up, the woman looked up and started speaking once again.
“The rules are the same. Whoever gets us the most number of goods or the most useful goods gets first choice. Judgement of who does best will remain with me. As usual, the grand prize will be my daughter. Bring her here.”
With that, two of the women went away, opened another door and disappeared inside. A few minutes later they brought along with them an extremely beautiful girl. She had the perfect figure, green eyes, red hair and snow white skin without a blemish on her at all. Though her image was ruined by her being bound by chains and gagged with a cloth in her mouth, though she was still struggling and trying to scream as loud as possible. I noticed all men immediately had looks filled with lust.
“I will remind you once again. You guys can do whatever you want with your prizes, but don’t injure them so severely that they can’t be healed back up by our healers. Once you are done with them, take them to any one of the healers to heal them back up. No one has to hold back with my daughter as you all are well aware of her ability.”
.......
This was disgusting! My guess was proved right after all. Actually, I never guessed that this woman would be the one in charge of all this, and I certainly didn’t imagine her to be using her own daughter like this! So it was much worse in reality then what I had guessed!
I was seething with rage!
These guys could have been fighting with each other and I would have ignored it, they could have been executing someone and I would have ignored even that, but there was one thing I could absolutely not tolerate: rape.
Ever since Samantha had gotten raped, I had been disgusted by all rapists no matter who they were or why they did this despicable act. I had seen Samantha’s injuries, I had seen how she looked at me and even her own father with fear, and worse of all the rapist had made me lose all respect for her.
Raping someone was an unforgivable act in my eyes, and it was the only case where I would actively help someone. And this… this was something much worse than raping!
These people were using these 9 girls as sex slaves! The woman’s words also implied that these men were using the women as ways to release all their agitation, and they were beating them and healing them daily!
I saw as a man advanced forward to the chained girl with lust clearly written on his face.
I stopped him with telekinesis. There were around 27-30 men, 8 girls, the chained girl and the older woman in the room. Controlling all the men and the older woman with telekinesis was an easy feat for me.
I advanced forward, took control of all the men and the older woman and deactivated my hiding presence ability. The older woman saw me and exclaimed with wide eyes, “Who the fuck are you?”
I threw the disgusting piece of trash as hard as I could against the wall using telekinesis, but made sure that she still remained conscious. I wouldn’t want her to lose consciousness too soon…
“The name’s Ben. I just found out what’s going on over here. I thought I might come over and kill all you bastards as none of you deserve to live anyways.”
With that, I threw everyone through telekinesis against the walls.
I had already killed a lot of innocents unintentionally, looks like I might add a few intentional murders under my belt today.
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Author's note (2):
Firstly, all abilities he gained will be revealed later. Why later? Because I thought you guys could chip in and throw some suggestions in as to what new abilities he should have gained. I already got a few suggestions through comments earlier, and thought it would be a nice idea if you guys threw in some abilities you want to see the MC have. Please don't list down any unique abilities previously mentioned, as he couldn't have gained them because he only got abilities from animals and creatures during his travels, as mentioned in the chapter. He would have needed to get abilities from humans if he wanted the unique abilities...
Secondly, for all those wanting a heroine, she has arrived! For all those NOT wanting a heroine, or more specifically not wanting cliche settings, please give me till next chapter to show you how I will develop the relationship in a manner that isn't cliche. Although the setting above with their meeting is frankly a bit cliche, the future of their relationship won't be. I won't be focusing on the relationship much anyways, which is why the fiction doesn't even have a romance tag yet.
Thirdly, I would like to apologize for not replying to a lot of comments made today. I haven't had the chance to read all of them yet. I will do so when I wake up tomorrow morning and reply then.
Let me know what you guys thought of the chapter! And also comment below if you guys want to see a particular ability for the MC :)
Thanks for reading!