I was angry, yes, but I have never let anger control me. It was the least powerful of my emotions and at that moment it was alone with nothing to drive it.

I caused his death. Sure the monster threw the spear, but I was the one ready to sacrifice others out of fear. Not even the fear of death, but the fear of pain.

I was stronger than him. I knew it the moment we reunited. I was the strongest in the group at that time, and I decided to sacrifice those I had promised to protect. All because of pain. Pain that I was no stranger to. Pain that accompanied me every single day.

My heart beat caused me pain. My decisions caused me pain. My mind.....My mind amplified every negative emotion and shoved it down my throat every day.

Just because I got a little respite from the pain, I now ran from it. I lied to the kids. I said I would protect them. I lied to myself. I said I would be their rock.

I was nothing more than a pebble ready to roll away before the floods came.

I was angry, not at the monster, but at myself. That thing had become my beacon of shame. Every moment it stood, it cursed at me. Ridiculed me. Taunted me. It called me a liar.

My heart beat grew deeper and louder and much louder. It's rate did not rise, no. I trained hard to control it, but my anger needed to show itself.

A faint thump could be heard by those near me, then it slowly grew louder. The thump grew to a deafening roar.

I felt the weight in my chest. The energy flooded into me like nothing I had ever seen before. My muscles spasmed and my veins bulged.

I said I never let anger control me? That was a lie.

The energy surged into my strength patterns with immence force.

I felt a surge of strength greater than I had ever experienced and grew even taller nearing 12feet. My armor expanded, but did not grow with me. It left large unprotected gaps and only protected vital areas.

I lept into the air in a blind rage, shooting up 30 feet before crashing down on the beasts shoulders.

I heard a loud and satisfying crunch.

The abomination roared and shook its head wildly which flung me off of it into a nearby tree.

My body shattered it on impact and I continued to skid back a bit.

I rose to my feet slowly and charged the monster again. However before I could break through the cover of the trees, I heard a loud crack in the distance. I lowered my stance till my the thickest part of my armor, the pauldron, was on the path of whatever I heard speeding towards me.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

The spear smashed into my shoulder armor and shattered. If I hadn't shattered it's shoulders, that spear would have killed me.

The splinters dug into my unprotected flesh, but I barely registered it. My only goal was to smash that bastard into pulp.

I burst out of the forest and barreled into the giant.

My charge interrupted it's second throw and sent it tumbling. I could feel the strain on my shoulders. That thing was built as solid as a boulder.

I did not give it time to recover nor give it chance to learn how to control it's mangled limbs.

I jumped 20 feet into the air and brought my elbow down in a good old fashioned elbow drop.

I smashed into it's head, leaving it a mangled mess.

I did not feel it's core...

I felt grimy hands latch onto my feet. It lifted me off it's body and swung me around like a kid throwing a tantrum. It refused to let go even as I punched it's forearms repeatedly. I could hear the bones fracture, but it was dead set on stopping me from getting any other advantage.

Unfortunately for it, I was not alone.

A lance of fire shot down from the sky, setting it's torso on fire.

I felt it's muscles contract, not out of pain. The fallen were long dead already. Pain was a distant memory.

The moisture in it's body dried up, which shrunk it's muscles. It led to a gew of it's fingers being unable to close around my legs as tightly as before.

This time I was flung straight into the air.

Above me I saw Ice coalesce into a massive glaive. I grabbed unto it without a second thought as gravity brought me back down to earth.

I smashed into the ground creating a small pit and a shockwave that the soldiers felt even from their own positions.

As I felt my feet hit solid ground, I took a heavy step forward and swung the glaive down without wasting any bit of momentum.

I could feel it's weight crash down towards the immobile giant.

As soon as its blade made contact, the entire head of the ice glaive exploded with imense force.

The giants body was shredded and it's body parts pelted me including razor sharp shards of ice.

It was very dead.

My anger was yet to subside, but I could sense things clearly. The first things I noticed were my injuries. They were many, but nothin the master grade rgenerative pattern couldn't fix.

I reached into my heart to divert some of the energy form my two strength patterns to the the regenerative one, but I met an anomaly.

The strength patterns had fused and I could feel the power of an arcane text forming in my mind.

As my heartbeat slowly calmed, the formation of the text sped up.

At the point I was back to my normal size, the arcane text finished it's formation. I read it's name in my minds eye. Combine. That was it's name.

It didn't have a pattern to learn, just a set of instructions. The patterns I want to merge must both be filled with energy first and both should be able to fit together with no overlaps.

I was shocked. The ability to wield numerous patterns as if they were a single one was something only people with incredible talent could or experience could do. It was a skill only the generals and a few geniuses could use and even then, they couldn't just combine them outright like that...No one in the history of this planet could do that.

With the text guiding him, he could merge multiple patterns and it only required the same amount of energy required to power just one. The energy costs were quite literaly cut in half.

I immediately tried to combine the renerative pattern with the new strength pattern and was surmarily reminded that I couldn't power two patters of different types at the same time.....

Which meant I still had to learn how to do what those generals and geniuses could do.......

Fuck.

I mean, it is great I could combine two of the same types and all, and it was just wishful thinking that the arcane text would all of a sudden give me the ability to do that without training. Sigh.

"You stupid fucking piece of shit!!!" That was the last thing I heard before I blacked out....the last thing I saw however was a very pissed off captain Eleron throwing a right hook at my face.