Joey opens and closes his hand as he can feel an absurd amount of strength pulsating throughout his body. Joey had jumped out of the hole he had created with a single punch and stands in the middle of a gym which is nearing ruin.
Observing his surroundings Joey can see a distressing situation that yanks at his heart strings. Out of the 20 other people in the gym, 4 are collapsed on the floor and are trying to fully take in what has happened; 6 more are are stilling convulsing and spazzing as their bodies are going through unpredictable changes; finally 10 people lay on the floor and are not moving at all, not even to breath.
Joey assumes the worst and slowly walks up to one of the 10 to see if they are dead. It is a man who is fairly skinny and probably just started going to the gym recently. Picking up his wrist to see if there is a pulse, Joey feels nothing. Putting his hand on the man’s back to see if he can feel any breathing at all but the man’s body has surprising began to become cold.
Joey is sure that a body doesn’t become cold that fast after dying as it has barely been over 5 minutes since all hell broke loose, but the proof is in the pudding as they say and Joey accepts that all of the other people on the floor lifeless like this unlucky man are also dead.
Giving the deceased a moment of silence, Joey closes his eyes and hangs his head for a second. He doesn’t mourn for long as their cause of death is still unknown. This causes Joey to get goosebumps and be on edge as if he can hopefully stop whatever it is if Joey becomes aware of it.
As Joey decides to converse with someone else within the gym to see if they know what is going on, the world begins to rumble and causes every to fall onto their backsides.
Everyone who is conscious in the room begins to look around in panic and are trying to figure out what is happening but soon their questions are answered.
A giant monster busts through the nearest wall to Joey and stands in the newly made crater in the wall, looking at all the humans inside like they are all meals. With a strange hunger that makes the monster's mouth water whenever it sees humanoid creatures, the monster runs towards the nearest person and grabs the lady by the foot.
The lady shrieks at the top of her lungs as the giant ogre looking creature dangles her by the foot above his mouth, threatening to take the woman’s life away with a single sickening crunch of his teeth.
Joey was finally able to recover after being knocked over by what was most likely this creature merely walking and when he sees the woman getting ready to be eaten, Joey freezes for a second. Several thoughts run through his head as Joey doesn’t know what he can do compared to the freakish body of the monster in front of him.
‘I have this strength, but I don’t even know how it works. Plus this thing looks like it could flick me and destroy me without even needing a second to think about it, but I can’t let this woman die….. Fuck it’
Joey bends over and gets into a jumping position with his right fist poised for the punch to hopefully be able to save the woman in need, but his was slightly wrong about the current situation.
FWOOOOSSHH!
Flames emit from the woman’s body and is sent down the giant’s throat like a spear. Realizing that it had just eaten fire that spawned from the deepest pits of hell, the giant monster begins to roar loudly and drops the woman. The giant ogre clutches its throat like it would somehow calm down the flames scorching its insides and the woman who landed on the floor looked at her hands which are covered in flames.
‘Now!’ Joey thought and jump as hard as his body could possibly handle. Everything seemed to go into slow motion around Joey as he zoomed through the air at the giant ogre at breakneck speeds.
Breaking past the physical possibilities of a human, Joey reaches the giant ogre at the speed of a bullet is barely able to react to his own speed and sends his right fist flying towards the ogre’s stomach. Green threads seem to cover Joey’s limbs and reinforce them before impact and the whole world stopped when Joey’s fist reached the giant ogre’s stomach that burns bright from the fire inside.
An explosive sound that may or not be a boom because the author doesn’t know many onomatopoeias rings forth. The stomach of the giant dissipates from the force of Joey’s punch, along with it the monster’s chest, shoulders, and crotch area also disintegrate as well.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Joey’s punch cancelled out the momentum from his earlier jump causing him to have a rough landing in front of the corpse of the beast. A monotone voice fills Joey’s head as the man calmly makes his way to the woman still covered in fire.
“Congratulations. You have a new level record for the monster named ‘Mountain Ogre: Rank 4’. Your new level record for this monster is now Level 64. No Exp is gained.”
‘So it was a Mountain Ogre huh? What is this, Dungeons and Dragons?’ Joey thinks to himself and as he finally makes his way to the human woman, she has an amazed and distant expression as she deeply stares into the flame on her arms.
“Hey, are you okay?” Joey says slowly just in case the woman is in a dazed state and might not understand his words fully.
“Yeah, I guess. What exactly is going on?”
“That’s a good question that I do not have a solid answer to. With that being said and since we both want to know what’s going on, I think we should team up and stick together with everyone in the gym.”
Joey figures that sticking together and working as a unit will definitely work better than doing something dumb like splitting up or going solo in such a time of chaos. The woman seems to think about it but that only takes a second before she nods her head and agrees wholeheartedly.
“That’s a great idea! Plus with your insane strength it makes me feel a lot safer.” the woman says and Joey helps the woman up off her bottom. The fire on her hands had disappeared when Joey initiated conversation so Joey did not get burnt from the woman’s destructive powers.
“Alright, I’m going to check on everyone else, can you please watch that massive hole in the wall and tell me if you see anything weird.”
“Alright, leave it to me!”
“You have entered a party with ‘Lyla: Rank 4’. Exp will be shared and you will be alerted when they die.”
Joey and Lyla both make a face full of surprise but don’t question anything as this will be helpful for now and a good way to tell each other their names.
The other 3 people who weren’t going through changes or wasn’t dead seem to have finally composed themselves Joey is easy able to rally them up and explain what he knows to them. They had actually saw what Joey had done to that Mountain Ogre and weren’t stubborn in joining Joey and working as a group.
“You have entered a party with ‘Derrick: Rank 3’, ‘Gabbie: Rank 2’, and ‘Chad: Rank 3’. Exp will be shared and you will be alerted when they die.”
Joey goes and checks the other 6 people that were still transforming when the Mountain Ogre arrived and only 3 are still alive from then. All of them have now finished their transformation and like the others are easily persuaded into joining Joey’s group. Their names are Kyle, Cole, and Kevin, all being Rank 2 respectively.
Having a group that is 8 strong, Joey is ready to venture into the city and try to figure out what the hell is going on.
Joey and his group make it out to the street through the big hole caused by the Mountain Ogre and all they see is utter chaos. Beasts in the air are making horrendous screeches and some are even carrying humans to their deaths. Sounds of fights of the supernatural kind echo throughout the whole area, causing a shiver to go down everyone’s spines. Dead bodies of all kinds already litter the streets and Joey can see several humans in dire situations and his fists tense up.
Though he is in the dark about what is going on and he wishes to find his friends and family, everyone around Joey is in need of help and he refuses to simply to ignore them. Joey has grasped that everyone has different powers and some are most likely weaker than himself so Joey finally makes up his mind.
“Everyone! Our first objective is to help everyone we can and persuade them into joining us until we rid this town of all of these monsters! If you don’t want to fight at least help the injured and save the people stuck under rubble. Is that okay with you all?”
Feeling a majestic aura exuding from Joey, everyone is filled with determination and in their eyes a strand of green shows that looks like the ones that whip out from Joey’s body every now and then.
“That’s fine with me Joey, don’t worry. We got your back!” Lyla yells as her hands are once again wrapped in flames. Everyone else agrees with Lyla and afterwards the power of Joey fully infiltrates their bodies. A message appeared inside the minds of the 7 standing behind Joey.
“You have received the buff called ‘Strength of the One Chosen by Worlds’, physical strength increases by 100.”
They all look at their hands and arms in amazement as power flows their veins while Joey decides on who to save first. Joey spots a group of kids being approached by some ugly creatures and Joey’s rages blows up. All of the kids seem to be injured in some way and they are stuck in a corner that leads them towards death.
‘Even the kids are brought into this. Whoever planned this will get and all exclusive date with my fist for their skull.’ Joey says in a menacing tone in his mind and in the distance a bright flash explodes throughout the sky and dark clouds begin to form above the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. Followed by that thunder echoes throughout the air and it is so loud that it breaks all of the glass within the viewing distance of Joey.
Not worried about the ringing in his ears that causes him immense discomfort, Joey rushes towards the monsters try to kill the kids with his fist back and ready to kill.