Christopher could say that his mind wasn’t really in the right place when the meteor crash landed down into the forest. When that meteor abruptly fell from the sky, a strange feeling was evoked from his heart as if some sort of voice was calling out to him, and that voice, that presence that wanted him belonged to that meteor, and he somehow knew that for some mysterious reason.

When he got closer and closer to the crash site of the meteor, the stronger that feeling became as if his heart was about to leap off his chest.

When he finally touched the meteor, a blinding white light greeted his view and he fell unconscious. In that state where he lost consciousness, he distinctly recalled the strange sensations that overwhelmed his mind as if currents of endless energy flowed through his whole body, from his mind, down to his heart, to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his veins. It was prickly, numbing, yet weirdly warm and comforting.

Christopher imagined it was like a mystical version of acupuncture. As the strange feeling continued to spread all throughout his body, it eventually started to affect his very brain, and even stranger was the foreign object deep inside some sort of metaphysical space inside his body.

Is this… my soul? Christopher wondered with his fragmented thoughts as the prickly feeling caused him to lose all sensations in his body.

He felt like an ethereal body floating through an endless void, lacking any senses. However, as time passed, sparks of light, illusory shapes, and weird colors began to fill that endless void as if he was regaining his senses in an incredibly warped manner, yet as weird as those sensory inputs may be, he could oddly vaguely understand what those things were.

Then, as long as the process was, it was as short as the time that elapsed was merely a few minutes in reality. He abruptly opened his eyes which twinkled with bizarre whiteness, with sparks of electricity glowing at his fingertips.

He looked up at the sky, amazed by the inexplainable sight he saw. Rather than the usual starry night sky with fleeting clouds and the beautiful moon, he saw a reality far from what he was used to.

There were folds, strange shapes and colors, strings and waves—it was another part of the universe altogether that very few could ever perceive. His mind ached from the overwhelming amount of information, but fortunately, his vision slowly returned to normal.

He silently lied down on the ground for a short while to reorganize his mind as he got used to switching between his two perspectives of reality when he was taken aback by a faint sound from the distance. The sound was weirdly slimy, wet, mushy. It reminded him of the sound of minced meat being transformed into patties by his mother back at home when he was watching her cook back when he was a child.

He was about to stand up as he would usually do by pushing himself up with his hands when he got a certain idea. He took a deep breath and he once again perceived reality with his strange extrasensory senses, and as he intuitively tried to grab hold of a certain part of that mystical reality, a strange force covered his whole body and he shot up into the air.

Christopher widened his eyes as he rapidly approached to the ground, but just as he was about to crash against the floor, the strange force once again covered his whole body and stopped him from falling face-down as he hovered mere inches above the bottom of the crater.

He released a relieved sigh and hurriedly stood up with a mischievous grin.

To think it would actually work… Christopher felt his heart boil with excitement and thrill. He stared at his hands, his thoughts turning wild and erratic, but soon calmed himself down as a certain thought flashed in his head, What would Braun do in this situation?

Obviously, he’ll try to calm himself down as much as possible and assess things as logically as possible.

So, the strange meteor from before, the blinding white light, and the strange things I’m seeing now… This must mean… THIS MUST MEAN I HAVE SUPERPOWERS!

I gotta show this to Braun! I bet he’ll be super jealous… Just like always… Christopher’s usually bright smile dimmed down as he stared at the weird reality he perceived. I wonder… I wonder if I could share this power with him… Then perhaps he’ll finally be…

“So… I really am a monster.”

His focus was quickly broken upon hearing Braun’s familiar voice echo just outside of his view. Christopher placed his wandering thoughts to the back of his mind, focused on the issue at hand, and hurriedly ascended the crater using his surprisingly enhanced body.

Climbing up the crater with relative ease, Christopher was about to excitedly reveal his powers to Braun when he instead saw a sigh that caused his whole mind and body to freeze.

Although his body may have changed and the lower half of his face was covered by blood, he clearly recognized who that strange-looking man was—Dark brown eyes, messy black hair, pale white skin, it was none other than Freidrich Braun.

He then saw the discarded and torn suit near Braun’s kneeling body covered in dark crimson blood and mushy bits of flesh. Christopher immediately recognized who that suit belonged to as the image of a muscular, scary-looking yet gentle and kind man appeared in his mind.

It didn’t take a genius to know what happened. It only takes a little bit of common sense to imagine the sequence of events that led to here, to why a suit was lying on the ground and a young boy having bits of flesh and dried blood covering their mouth and lips.

The stench of blood invaded Christopher’s senses as a fire burned in his heart.

Albert… Bright white sparks crackled around him silently as he raised his arm to the sky. Rocks and dirt floated into the sky, clumping together into one large boulder.

Braun seemed to notice the strange vibrations of the ground and he turned to look to the side, interlocking his gaze with Christopher.

“Oh, it seems I’m too late-“

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Christopher hurled the boulder at Braun, causing it to fly at breakneck speeds far faster than what a normal catapult could achieve.

Braun hurriedly stood up from his kneeling position and leaped to the side, barely avoiding the large boulder that crashed to the ground right beside him. A cloud of dust covered the area, enveloping his figure and hiding him from Christopher’s view.

“Let’s go at this, you perfect bastard chosen by destiny!” Braun shouted amidst the smoke and burst out of the cloud towards the broken canopy of trees in the distance.

The white sparks around Christopher’s body turned brighter as he floated into the air, his originally blond hair slowly turning white just like his eyes. Rocks and dirt hovered in the air around him, with each one being hurled like makeshift bullets.

Braun’s mind gradually adapted to the barrage of rocks being thrown his way, enhancing his processing speed and making those rocks appear sluggish in his view. He dodged each pebble with ease, ducking, swerving, leaping, and hopping as if there were a pair of eyes in his back until he finally arrived at the canopy of trees.

He rolled forward and disappeared into the layer of leaves and branches.

Christopher glared with his eyes glowing like radiant stars. He raised his arm and pointed it at the area where Braun disappeared into, and as he pressed his palm down, light and space bent to his will as gravity warped, amplifying its downward strength.

Braun hurriedly burst out of the leaves, leaping deeper into the forest to escape the manipulated field of gravity.

Gravity manipulation?! Braun cursed and clutched the simple pistol in his hand tightly. If anything, this was his lifeline to clutch the fight and survive.

Blending in with the shadows of the night, he turned around and pointed the pistol at Christopher as he flew forward with a trail of white sparks behind him.

He pressed the trigger and shot a bullet with impeccable aim. If it hits, according to his prediction, it would pierce right through Christopher’s eye and into his brain, killing the godlike man in an instant.

Christopher was unfazed by the speeding bullet and kept flying forward. As the bullet approached him, it abruptly collided with an invisible barrier around his body, making Braun, who had risked his life for the gun, shocked beyond words.

And a fucking barrier to boot?! Braun widened his ways and ran deeper into the dense forest of trees.

Christopher bulldozed through the forest, toppling down the upper halves of random trees in his way, causing them to fall down and inadvertently blocking Braun’s space for movement.

As the powerless boy ran and hid while hiding in his tracks with the rudimentary skills he learned along the way, he leaned back on a random tree, hiding amidst bushes and fallen leaves, clutching the handle of his gun with a tight grip.

Think, think! Braun gritted his teeth and tried to look for any possible way he could get out of this situation alive.

Then, he remembered his power, the same green flame covered in an endless layer of mysteries. If somehow, that green flame, his one single superpower, could help him, then he’s willing to bet everything on it.

He took deep yet silent breaths and closed his eyes, muting out all the sounds he could hear with his enhanced hearing, and looked deep inside him. Braun had expected the process to be harder, but as if it was as natural as breathing, his mind entered a strange metaphysical space somewhere in his body where a green flame burned silently.

Braun was mesmerized for a second, entranced by the green flame, but the sounds of trees toppling in the distance made him focus.

This was it. This was his power. If he could somehow find a way to use it not just for absurd adaptation speed, then he’d have hit the jackpot, and that jackpot is something he desperately needs right now.

He slowly extended out his will to the green flame, and as his ‘hand’ grasped the green flame, he instinctively pulled it out and opened his eyes. They burned with a bright green glow and his veins were illuminated by flowing green energy.

From his fingertips, green flames burst out like a sore thumb. In the dead silence of the night, the green glow of his flame made it easy for his spot to be uncovered.

Gravity around him flipped a second later as he found himself uncontrollably floating into the air. He swiftly grabbed hold of a nearby tree and resisted the ‘downwards’ force dragging him up and focused on the green flame burning quietly on his palm.

The green flame, now wielded by his own hands, seemed to come alive with a mere nudge. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do with the flame, but when the flames came into contact with the pistol, a strange change began to occur.

The flames covered the pistol, and like magic, it began to change shape. The width of the barrel became thicker and the clip glowed bright from the inside and out. A mysterious power flowed through his fingertips into the inner machinery of the gun, allowing its springs and bolts to shift and turn.

As the light receded and the leaves fully flew up into the air, revealing his bare figure hanging by a tree with his legs pointed up to the sky, he aimed the gun at the flying figure covered in white sparks.

Bang!

A bullet laced with strange green energy left a trail of green flames in its wake, piercing through the air at supersonic speeds beyond the limits of a normal pistol’s shooting speed.

Christopher, previously confident in his defense, stopped in his tracks and instinctively created a multi-layered barrier ahead of him.

The bullet crashed against the barrier, destroying multiple layers in one go and almost reaching Christopher’s eye by a mere few inches.

Cold sweat dripped down his forehead as he stared at Braun’s strange gun.

I see… Enlightened to another facet of his abilities, Braun unhesitatingly let go of his grip on the tree and fell towards the sky. His stare never left Christopher, with the green flame once again bursting forth from his hands.

Inside his body, he could feel the green flame kindle with newfound vigor, with its brightness and intensity ever-increasing as if propelling itself to new heights without pause. It resonated with his heart and soul, guiding him along with its perplexities and profoundness.

Grabbing two of the many lighters in his pockets he kept just in case he needed to light a flame, he tucked his body and slammed the lighter into his boots. A green light burst out when the two objects made contact and Braun burst out with green flames spewing out the soles of his feet.

He rapidly escaped as the lighters stuck to the soles of his shoes released a bright green flame of incredible strength. The gas powering the lighters seemed to have been replaced by a different energy source altogether as the veins in his legs glowed brightly.

Christopher hurriedly ascended into the sky and was soon approaching Braun. He hurled torrents of winds and warped gravity constantly to throw Braun off his tracks, but the rapidly evolving entity kept adapting at monstrous speeds.

He shot one bullet after the other as he emptied his clip, leaving him with no more shots, but Braun wasn’t worried. He pocketed the gun and bid for his time.

This flame should be enough. He unfastened his belt while flying deep into the forest, agilely avoiding the trees in his way without much issue.

Christopher followed from behind and brute forced his way through the forest, toppling down more trees in his path.

He gripped his belt tightly and covered it with bright green flames. With his understanding of his powers deepening at a rapid rate, with his mind entering a state of flow, and with his body being forced to adapt to the life-threatening situation, he began to use his powers in ways far more mystical than ever before.

Better… Better, make this belt into a weapon… Make it transcend its status as a mere belt, make it evolve and grow into a weapon! He repeated the words in his head like a mantra as the belt shifted and squirmed like a living snake.

It began to thin out and stretch out, but even though it became thinner, it felt denser to hold and more durable. Braun gripped one of its ends tightly and took a deep breath with memories of a random swordsman demonstrating a sword technique online flashed through his mind.

“HA!” He swung his incredibly long, thin yet durable belt in a circle, cutting through numerous trees with unparalleled sharpness to reveal Christopher in the distance.

Time for round 2! Braun grinned, albeit not with full confidence. He secretly gazed into the distance, and at the thick layer of broken trees beneath him, assured of his plan in case things go south.