After the start of the first tribulation, many monsters popped up out of nowhere and wrecked havoc. While the giant beasts with frightening supernatural abilities were the ones who wrecked the most havoc, many slightly mutated animals also played a huge part in creating chaos. Despite not having even half of the size of the frightening supernatural beasts, their vast numbers made them a nightmare to behold.

One type of these small mutated animals happened to be horned badgers of Santa Cruz. After most of the giant beasts finished wreaking havoc and left the area, these horned badgers became the king of the area as they populated most of the city. While they were only about as strong as a normal badger, their horns, which are their primary weapon, were as strong as steel. Couple that with their numbers that reached to the thousands, many leftover survivors were easily overwhelmed and killed by them.

Inside a house beside Delaware Avenue, a man in a white tank top was holding a metal bat as he tried to swat away the ten horned badgers that was assaulting him. His body had been chewed on countlessly by the surrounding badgers as blood kept pouring out of the various bite marks and holes. Despite his desperate struggle, the badgers kept on charging at him with their steel horns and eventually killed him with their numbers.

They then feasted on his corpse.

About half an hour later, when these horned badgers have finished consuming the man and let out satisfied burps, the door to the house suddenly flung open. A young man with clawed gauntlets was at the door and his face was as cold as the face of death. Looking at the bloody scene that the horned badgers created, he didn't seemed the least bit perturbed as he unhesitatingly rushed towards these ten monsters.

'Hmph! As I thought, none of the monsters around here came even close to being as fast as the squirrel,' Alex thought as he swung his dull claws around and ripped apart the badgers that were swarming at him.

Alex had already killed around three hundred of these horned badgers before he made his way over here. He had struggled at first, but after killing ten of them, he started to get the hang of their movements. After killing his hundredth badger, Alex could already kill them all with almost no effort.

Unfortunately, these little badgers give way too little exp points. Even after killing almost four hundred of them, Alex had only managed to level himself up by two levels to level 7. The two stat points he gained from his level ups were spent on raising his agility to 17.

Of course, Alex was tempted to just pump all of his additional stat points into vitality until it reached 50 points so that he could fire his life energy beam forever, but he knew that it was not feasible. With the various monsters and beasts hanging around in every corner, Alex needed to have some life saving method. He decided to spend points into his agility because not only was it already high, so he only needed a few points to raise it to a high level, it also allowed him to move faster and nimbler, which made it easier for him to escape if he ever needed to.

Fortunately, he never needed to. The horned badgers did not have the devastating power of the giant tortoise or the frightening speed of the deadly squirrel. All they had going for them was the fact that their horn was as strong as steel. When facing these kinds of normal monsters, Alex could kill them even when they outnumber him ten to one.

It only took him about five minutes minutes for him to sweep up and clean the whole house out of these little horned rascals.

'Oh, a storage ring. With this, I'll have five of them,' Alex said nonchalantly as he picked up a bronze ring off the ground and put it on his hand.

The storage ring is a pretty rare drop item that he got after killing these horned badgers. Once worn, he can store around 99 items in each them. After getting these rings, Alex ditched the large backpack he looted from the school and stored most of the smoked tortoise meat in these rings instead. Not to mention, he had also stored about two hundred horned badger corpses in these rings as well.

Since the storage space inside the ring seemed to be similar to some sort of vacuum space, Alex have decided to store the badger corpses that he have killed as a sort of food supply that he can take out and cook at any time. It was better to stock up on food whenever he can. Who knows when he would have to flee and couldn't find food quickly?

'Tsk! They have already gotten you too Hank? Looks like I came too late,' Alex said as he stared at the bloodied and tattered tank top lying on the floor.

After his parents' death, Alex had been living with his uncle Hank for the last eight years. Their relationship have been shaky at first as they usually went head to head and argued with each other on a regular basis. Eventually, their relationship became one that is focused on ignoring each other and not getting in each other's way. Alex always thought that once he turned 18 in a couple of months and graduated from high school, uncle Hank would've kicked him out of the house and he would have to fend for himself. Unfortunately, the world went to shit before that could happen.

'Well, I'll try to t give you a proper burial at least. You were my uncle after all,' Alex thought as he picked up and collected the pieces of his uncle's bones that have been picked clean.

Alex came out into the house's backyard as he brought uncle Hank's remains and a shovel with him. Alex dug a hole in the house's backyard with the shovel. Since he didn't really have any experience with digging, the hole that he dug looked sloppy and messy, but at least it was deep enough. Alex threw his uncle's bones down into the hole and covered it up quickly with dirt.

He brought out a big rock that he found on his neighbor's yard. With great difficulty, Alex tried and succeeded in creating a small life energy beam from one of his fingers and used it to carve out his uncle's name on the rock. After that, he embedded the makeshift tombstone on the ground.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Due to your precise control of the skill, 'Life Energy Beam' had leveled up to level 2!

The strange voice spoke in his head right after Alex finished carving out the crappy tombstone. Of course, it was good news since he had not leveled it up even after he had already used the beam at least a hundred and fifty times to kill many horned badgers on his way home. However, Alex did not celebrate as he directly ignored the voice in his head. His mind was completely focused on the grave that he had just created for his uncle Hank. Two streaks flowed down his cheeks.

Despite the fact that they were not close at all, even to the point where they could be considered to be enemies, uncle Hank was his dear family after all. After his parents' death, uncle Hank was the only person left in this world that he could call to be family. The middle aged man was also the person that Alex had been the closest with for the last eight years. While he had made quite a few friends in school, Alex have always thought that blood will always run thicker than water, and his blood related uncle Hank would always hold a special place in Alex's heart, even if they never did ever get along.

'Farewell, Hank. If the afterlife do exist, I hope that you can go to heaven and find eternal happiness,' Alex prayed to his heart one last time before he wiped the tears in his eyes and returned back to his normal deadpan expression.

'Maybe I should stay here for the night?' Alex thought as he gave a good look at the home that he have stayed in for the last eight years.

While most of Santa Cruz city was completely destroyed by the giant beasts, Hank's house was relatively intact due to it being more on the outskirts. While the house only had some flimsy wooden fences surrounding it, the door was relatively sturdy. The only reason as to why the badgers managed to make it into the house before was mostly because uncle Hank had opened the door some one time ago.

When Alex looked through the house, he found that other than the blood splattered all over the living room, most of the house was completely fine. His room looked exactly the way he had left it back in the morning. The gas and water in the house was working fine, but the electricty seemed to have given out and won't work no matter what Alex tried.

With the water working, Alex's first order of business was getting as much drinkable water as possible. Alex gathered all of the bottles in the house and unhesitatingly filled them all with water. In fact, he even filled up the bathtub with water after he ran out of bottles to put water in.

After that, he closed all the windows and curtains. He also locked all of the doors going outside the house and he even locked the fence gate at the front of the house. While Alex knew that the fences outside could not stop the monsters, at least it would make some noise when some beast tried to force its way into the house.

With all of his preparations done, Alex made his way into his room and laid on his bed. The day had been long, and killing almost four hundred badgers have made him tired. As the sun sets outside the window, Alex felt like the world is finally starting to start its first new day after the end.

As he laid on the bed, Alex felt like what had happened before was slightly unbelievable. Not only did his whole life was rocked as he saw the city he had lived for eight years in decimated in front of his eyes, Alex even had to bury the dead body of his own uncle. If it wasn't for the fact that all of the pains that he have felt in this day was completely real, Alex would've felt that he was still daydreaming in class right then.

With his uncle gone, Alex had no one left in this world. All of his classmates are dead, and he haven't seen even a single living human ever since the monsters came and killed everybody. At that moment lying on the bed, Alex felt for the second time in his life that his life is empty and he had no more reason to live.

'No, that's not really true is it?' Alex thought as he brought up his status screen.

Name: N/A

Race: Human (Basic)

Level: 7

Class: N/A

Strength: 9

Agility: 17

Vitality: 28

Spirit: 12

Skills: [Life Energy Beam lv. 2]

With this status screen and the capability to level up, Alex was sure that there would be many others like him in this world who have survived. Humanity would no doubt rise up from this catastrophe and strike back against the monsters. It probably wouldn't take long before he would see another human being again, and with time, it wouldn't be strange at all if some of them would become like gods once they accumulate enough levels.

A strong burning desire suddenly welled up in his heart. The desire swept away the feeling of lost that he had felt before and replaced it with a strong will and determination. Alex realized that it wouldn't do to just stay here and wallow in self pity at his loss.

'Father, mother, you had such high hopes for me back when you were alive. I haven't accomplished anything even after the 8 years that you have left me. All because I've sunk into a pool of apathy and rotted from the inside. The ambitious drive that you have instilled within me have turned into a form of twisted pride that meant absolutely nothing.'

'Well, I will allow it no longer!'

'I will be one of those 'gods' of this new world! I will stay alive and accumulate levels until I have reached the peak! Father, mother, I swear to you that I will achieve something great in this new world! To make sure that as my parents, your names would be immortalized in my legacy!' Alex swore in his heart.