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Game of the Mad God
Chapter 2- What is it worth?

Chapter 2- What is it worth?

Jason doubled over in pain as he clutched his stomach. Tears flowed down from his eyes unceasingly. As hard as he tried, he could not regain his breath. He was on the verge of death.... from laughter. It had been a few hours since the mad god had disappeared. The transformation powers began to appear first, however...

"What the hell is this?" A man cried. He had been the first to awaken his transformation powers. He like many others, had chosen ’Dragon’ as his transformation. However, what he received was probably not what he expected. He was most certainly a dragon, only… he was around a meter long. Oh my god he looks like spyro! Jason thought, laughing out loud.

Many transformations had similar problems. Ugly unicorns that looked more like donkeys with small or thin horns, gods who were pretty much the same as they were in their human form, albeit sometimes they glowed, or rarely, their clothing changed. And of course, there were plenty of the spyro-like dragons.

They weren’t all failures though. One dragon was actually a good 6 meters long. One person who had chosen ‘Bull’ as their transformation was gigantic, being at least 8 meters long. They must be more like their respective animals. Jason thought. Jason also awakened his  soon after. He instinctively knew how to activate it.

He, however, was not stupid enough to transform in front of everyone. Instead, he tried a little experiment. He began the transformation, but only barely.  Just as he thought, scales began to appear. They were mainly black, with a silvery gray color along the rims.

After around half an hour, he began to get the hang of partial transformation. He found out he could also activate his snake senses. When he did so, he was amazed. he could see heat signatures, and his eyes could focus on things and zoom in, it was all too much information for him though, and he quickly reverted to his human senses. What is Orochimaru? He has nothing on me! Jason thought happily.

Soon after, the other abilities began to kick in. Jason had thought the transformational abilities’ results were hilarious, but the direct abilities would be even more funny. many people had chosen [electricity] as their ability. It had a lot of uses, so theoretically, it had to be one of the best abilities too have.The results were that half of the people only built up enough static to make their hair stick out, while many of the rest overcharged and electrocuted themselves.

Then, the fire users ended up burning their clothes off, which many people rather enjoyed. Jason realized when he felt his own ability activate that you didn’t instinctively know how to use it like the other ability. He knew the ability was there, but he didn’t have a feeling of how to use [Animation]. This is why the imp-god thing said to pick something you know a lot about. Jason realized. He only had a few guesses as to how to use his ability, but he could only try out one in his current location.

He placed his hand on the ground and whispered “animate”. The earth beneath his hand began to move violently as per his will, then after Jason stopped his ability, it calmed down. Jason felt slightly tired after using his ability.[b] So it drains you physically huh… although that may just be for me, other people may pay different costs.[/b] Everyone was busy looking at the people who were activating their abilities, or trying to make friends that no one really noticed Jason off by himself on the outskirts of the glade… or so he thought.

A small group of around nine approached Jason. A person dressed like he was about to work out and  who seemed to be the leader spoke to him. “ Yo what’s up man, we’ve been watching you. You're not like these idiots who are making spectacles of themselves. It’s not safe here, and we’re leaving, in fact the smarter ones already left. Wanna come with?” Jason smiled. He was surprised that the man knew that others had already left. Jason of course had seen them, as he was on the edge of the glade. He watched a few dozen sneak off either by themselves or in very small groups. The 6 meter dragon had also flown away silently after people lost interest in it flying around.

“Thanks man, but I’m not leaving quite yet. This is probably the only time when  these fools will be open enough to show off their abilities, and I want to have as much info as possible.” Jason  turned the guy down politely, and for a legitimate reason.This group was only leaving so as to get the jump on the others, but they probably didn’t know exactly good of an idea it was to leave before nightfall. He had read enough psychological manga to guess what would happen that night, but still, he felt he needed to see it, to steel his heart. He couldn’t afford to be soft, He had seen plenty of MC’s in a situation where they should’ve died due to naivete(of course they wouldn't actually die because they're the mc).  

“Alright bro, that’s on you. We’re heading towards that mountain though. Here, I’m not sure exactly what your transformation is, but if its any good, you should be able to find me with this.” The man  wan took off a bandana that was tied around his arm and gave it to Jason. Most animals had a higher sense of smell than human beings, so it was a fair assumption. The group left shortly after.

Jason spent the rest of the time watching people. A few others had the sense to leave, but most stayed in order come up with some sort of plan of action with the others. People had stopped showing off and playing with their abilities, but Jason memorized the faces and abilities of the strongest ones.

As the sun set, people began to group together and sleep. The sheep are sleeping, now its time for the wolves to show their colors. After a few hours of night, and after the flames from the fires had died down, and the lights had become low, the first screams were heard. In the low lights and shadows, everyone began to panic, no one could see what was going on. But Jason knew without even needing to see.

A group of the people were killing the others. It was only to be expected after that last line from the imp, stating that they could get stronger from eating each other. Using pure logic, devoid of morals, it made perfect sense. If you won the favor of that god somehow, you could go home. The best way to be interesting was to somehow make an impact on this world, but for that you would need power, and the easiest, quickest way to get it was to eat the people around you before they got too strong to take down.

But that was only using pure logic. For these people,  it was probably as simple as eat or be eaten.  Different groups began fighting back after they realized what was going on, but  some actually joined in on the slaughter. People who could fly tried to do so,  only to be hunted by the devourers who could do the same. There was fire and lightning being fired everywhere, and the skies were a battleground for  dragons and birds of prey. Everywhere Jason looked, there was violence.  It horrified him… and yet the taste of blood in the air was somehow… sweet.

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Jason was immediately  disgusted with himself. How could he enjoy this? then his tongue flicked out inadvertently and he realized. It was the snake inside him reacting. His sync rate with the snake was fairly high, so he must be taking on its attributes.  I need to leave this place before I do something I’ll regret. Jason already felt himself getting excited at the idea of the hunt. he began to walk away from the fighting, but all of a sudden he felt pain in his left shoulder, then he was on the floor, having spasms.

“Whoa there, we have a runner!”  A man approached Jason leisurely from behind. The man talked down to Jason in a condescending tone. “I saw you talking to that group that left,  you should’ve went with them if you were going to be this weak.  But damn, my dragon transformation may suck, but this electricity works pretty well as a taser once you get the hang of it. Now be a good boy and let me eat you, ‘kay?” The man became a 3 meter long dragon with horns that looked somewhat like antlers.

Little did he know, those would be the last words he spoke. Now I have to , right? It’s kill or be killed now, right? It’s just one guy, and it’s self defense, so I’m definitely not wrong.  Yes, it’s fine.  Jason had made up his mind to kill the man. For the first time, he activated his transformation completely. The dragon that was about to eat him now stared in horror. Jason’s spasms had stopped. Black scales covered his body, and shown with a silvery brilliance. His body had grown to be around 18 meters long, and  when he opened his eyes, the dragon saw that they were  a glowing pale silver.

The dragon could no longer move, staring into Jason’s eyes.  “You sssssshould have left me be.” Jason  hissed at the dragon, before biting its head off and then devouring the rest of it whole.  several of the man’s comrades saw this, and were about to avenge him,but one look into Jason’s eyes let them know the difference between them. Jason then calmly slithered away into the forest.

What the hell was that?? Jason thought after he switched back to human form around two miles away. He hadn’t planned to eat the guy, only hit him with his tail and kill him. If the guy had just been knocked unconscious, he would have been fine with that too. but when he became the snake, all that changed.  His predatory instincts kicked in and he simply acted according to them. How dare that puny dragon think of eating him? Insolent whelp.

Suddenly, Jason felt a change run through him.  He realized he could now use electricity like the man had, though somehow, it felt weaker. He also knew there had been a change in his snake form. He transformed and realized he now had two appendages sticking out of his body. two thin arms with three long clawed fingers and an opposable one each. He also had the antler like horns, however, he had no wings. God, I look like black Shenron Jason thought to himself as he slithered over to a nearby stream to wash himself.

Suddenly Jason realized something was wrong, he saw a large group of heat signatures heading for the camp, but from the smell and taste in the air, they were not human, no they were something much more foul. I need allies,I don't think even i could handle that many of whatever those are. Oh yeah, there was that group. I should head towards that mountain.Jason tucked his new arms in and slithered for the mountain at a breakneck pace that surprised even him. It took him only a around two hours to reach the mountain,  and he soon detected ten heat signatures.

He slithered towards them fairly quickly, then, right before he reached their camp, he resumed his human form. He walked into the small clearing to find that many people already had their abilities pointed in his direction. One woman’s blue flames looked particularly dangerous. "Whoa whoa whoa, calm down I’m just here to talk!” Jason said quickly. The people quickly cancelled their abilities. and relaxed. The leader-type guy from before stepped forward.

“Hey man, you reconsidered? Sorry for almost killing you, but Lee heard something big coming at us really fast, so we were kinda scared!” he said, with a big smile.  he had numerous small wounds on his body, as did the others. “Oh yeah, there are things in this forest man, I think they’re goblins or something, but around sundown, they started attacking us, luckily we have Sabrina here” the man said, pointing at the blue flames user.

“Yeah, I know, around 75 of them were heading for the old glade.”  Jason said. The man was speechless. Immediately, he and his group talked about making plans to go back and  save the others. Jason interjected however. “No, you don’t want to go back there. its not the goblins you have to worry about. They were probably drawn out by the smell of blood. It’s the people that you should fear.” Jason then recounted what he had seen to the group, leaving his own part out.

The group was horrified. they had kind of expected some violence, but not wide scale cannibalism. While they talked about it, Sabrina had something else in mind, which she soon voiced. “If everything was as bad as you say, then how did you survive?” She asked Jason coldly. Jason looked back just as coldly and simply asked “ How do you think I survived?” The question needed no answer. Quiet rushed over the group. “Rick, this guy can't stay with us. If he does, I’m leaving.” Sabrina stated. She didn't want to be together with a possible murderer. The leader-guy, apparently Rick,  immediately  tried to change her mind. before long, the group was split in half over whether Jason could stay or not.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving.” Jason said. He knew that if he stayed, the group would split up, and in their low-morale, they would mess up at a crucial moment and everyone would die. But it was okay, he was used to being alone anyway.  Rick looked at him apologetically. “Come on bro, don’t look like that, here, if you ever need to find me, use this. By the way, the name’s Jason, Jason Delacroix.”  Jason took off his tie, and gave it to Rick who took it and said, “Ricardo Rodriguez.” the two shook hands, and then Jason left the clearing the same way he had entered: Alone.