Andrew slumped to the floor, the rapidly drying herbs of a myriad of colours falling from his grasp, floating into a pool of his blood. Over his body stood a man wrapped in a cloak as dark as night, clutching Andrew's bleeding heart in one dark steel gauntlet. Jules tried to scream, tried to do anything, but the moment he tried his body collapsed followed by the system notification:
Jules could only lie there and watch as his friends life flickered out before his eyes.
"I swear once I get out of here I will hunt you down," promised Jules in his mind, "Even if I have to travel to the end of the great continent to do it!" Yet Jules knew that he would not be able to do it, the system ensure it. The strong rule and the weak are just steps for them to climb on the way to the peak. As these thoughts flashed through his head, he heard the mysterious killer laugh, "Finally this is what I needed, now I can finally break through to the second stage." As the dark killer continued to laugh, Jules slipped into unconsciousness.
Awaking to a slick liquid slipping across his face and a metallic taste in his mouth, Jules jerked quickly in alarm, sitting up in panic. Sliding one finger across his face, he took a look at his hands. Recoiling in disgust he continued to stare at his blood soaked hands. Andrew's blood Jules remembered in horror. Snapping his head in the direction of Andrew's cold corpse, Jules instantly threw up. A massive hole was punctured through Andrew's chest, parts of his lungs were thrown across the room, his stomach was half outside his body- punctured and spilling out its acidic contents. Jules dragged himself to his feet turning in a tight circle he saw the bodies of his sect- his family- everywhere he looked. Finally turning to the gate that had been blown to smithereens as the man had burst through, easily ripping the limbs from the sect guards bodies and tossing them aside, Jules took of out of them tears falling down his mud and blood soaked cheeks.
Running through the gloomy forest, Jules headed for the nearest stream hopping to wash the blood from his body. "Why, why did it have to be my sect?" Jules cried as he scuttled across the rough forest terrain until he reached the slowly bubbling stream. Just as he arrived to the river he fell cutting himself across the arm causing more dark crimson blood to ooze down his arm. Collapsing by the river, he continued to cry for the next hour until dusk started to fall. As his crying started to slowly abate he noticed a notification in the top left of his vision. An anger Jules had never felt began to well up in him. Setting his eyes up to the sky Jules started to scream at the system itself, "This is your fault, it's all your fault. My sect. My family wouldn't be dead if you had never been here. He would never have attacked if you hadn't incentivised violence. And just as I promised that killer I will promise you now you corrupt system- I WILL DESTROY YOU!" As those final words left his cracked and blood-soaked lips a massive gust of wind rushed past him and a new notification appeared.
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Jules could only stare at the notification in shock. It had given him a chance, a chance to have his revenge. A grin split its way across his face. still staring at the notification in front of him he quickly spoke the words that would forever change his life, "Option 2."
The shear pain was almost unbearable, it felt like pure acid was being pumped through all his veins, arteries and capillaries. But the most painful part was in his heart, the force of hundred of heart attacks simultaneously flooded his body. The last thing Jules did as he collapsed into unconscious was to scream but not the scream of a human, the scream of a beast.
It was the next morning by the time Jules awoke. His body felt strong, his senses felt fine tuned, he felt unstoppable. as he rose he looked down at the cut on his arm but instead of bleeding read it now blead ash grey. However even as he looked it it he didn't feel horror or even disgust at his new blood, instead he smiled for he felt the power that was trapped inside this blood. And whilst he wanted to test out his new capabilities, he knew he needed to get back to his sects base and restock on supplies before he could head out to the nearest city.
Walking back under the damaged arch at the front of the sect camp, he was once again confronted by the image of Andrew laid dead on the floor, yet unlike before he didn't feel a stomach-curling, sickening disgust at the sight, now he felt a primordial, insatiable unger.