A loud sound clanged behind me. I looked over in time to see the metal door slammed shut. I gave it an exploratory push and looked for any handles but found nothing. There was no undoing this decision, nor did there appear to be any other avenues for immediate escape.
My muscles tensed as my eyes scanned for the mysterious enemy, the one who caused these bloodstains. My tongue flickered out of my mouth in anticipation. It was only now that I saw that it was forked. It didn’t matter, there was a fight to be had. If only the enemy would show themselves. I wanted a face to face fight; not a glorified game of hide-and-seek.
Please wait for the next available opponent.
I relaxed. It seemed that another unfortunate soul would be the first opponent.
Despite the circumstances, my mind felt quite energetic. Thoughts of a good brawl fired up my soul in a way that little else could. Just like how I wanted to badly fight Terrance from C-Block or Mike Tyson in his prime, I hungered for a test of strength against a powerful demonic opponent.
So, this was what a true underground fighting ring looked like. I heard some of the guys in Raymond’s group would have organized fights in a basement before their arrests. They were dudes that were jacked on the concept of Fight Club. They were roofers and truck drivers and used car salesmen that were sick of it all. I never had the opportunity to fight in clubs like that. One on one, fist to fist in violent camaraderie; as brothers. I didn’t know those guys before I was imprisoned and lacked the friends for such invitations beforehand. They preferred easier prey.
My fights were usually on the street outside bars against drunk men who got too lippy with me, in the dark corners of the cell blocks, or in fields in the middle of nowhere. However, in the fields, I was often the only one who was trying to fight.
Perhaps a hunt was more apt.
I still remembered how differently those fights, those kills, felt from regular brawls. Where one created the rare happiness in his existence, the other only produced rage. They were always sniveling beasts; drug addicts or gambling fiends that took more money from my employer than they could afford. Something in my soul couldn’t reconcile their actions with their pitiful excuses. They always ignored the rules and consequences when they accepted the money, but then, they always made up excuses as to why they should be spared of those agreed upon consequences. Somehow, they should be made exempt to the rules.
They all ended up as broken corpses under my oppressive power. Once that initial anger subsided, I always felt empty. It was always the same boring conclusion.
There was only one that ever accepted their punishment. They were also the only one that I killed with a gun; suffering was never an agreed upon consequence anyways.
I shook those thoughts out of my head, there was no point in thinking about the past, especially when a new opponent was so close. I was already serving penance for those actions by standing here on this sandy floor.
One of the iron doors opposite of me groaned open. I immediately lowered into a stance, guarding myself against a potential preemptive strike.
Instead, out plodded a creature that still looked much like a man. Unlike my drastic transformation, theirs seemed more mundane. At least it was still mammalian. The creature had a pinched nose that was elongated and twitched as it sniffed the air. Two large teeth jutted from the snout and numerous smaller teeth lined the long jaw. Instead of hair, the creature had a mixture of fur and numerous quills that started at the hairline and traveled down into the hospital gown it was wearing.
When it laid eyes on me, it froze and immediately tried to make itself smaller. I watched it try to slowly retreat into the hall from whence it came, but the door slammed shut before the escape could be made.
image [https://i.imgur.com/FAudLEY.jpeg]
Quest! Your New Demonic Form: In another life, you would have been a successful MMA fighter. Use this exhibition match to, not only acclimate to your new body, but to impress some very bored spectators.
Rewards and punishments vary on performance.
As soon as the notification left, two new annoyances tattooed themselves on my eyeball. In the bottom left corner of my vision, I saw two bars: a red bar and a blue bar. The red bar was not completely filled in. It was slowly creeping up towards full. That one, I concluded, was the health bar.
Additionally, a partially filled red bar appeared over the head of the creature, hinting that it also suffered against the might of the rocks.
“Can’t we talk about this?” A squeaking voice called over in my direction. “Something’s not right here. I don’t deserve to be here.”
I rolled my eyes and began to walk towards the creature, my limp tail parting the sand in its wake. This was something that I could never understand about others. If they were receiving punishment, they had to do something to deserve it. I understood that. I had a long mental list of every transgression that I performed. Whenever I had been wronged, the other person always had an excuse for why they had done it and tried to make me look like the bad guy. It was rare for someone to outright admit that what they had done was out of malice instead of whatever convoluted justification they had in their head so they could still feel like a good person.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
But such lies did not work in a world with a supreme being. Justification was only a word used as delusion. Nothing can be hidden in the eyes of those that transcended flesh. This sniveling creature stood across from me, meaning that it had done something. Their lack of shame began to awaken a familiar anger.
“But you are here with me anyways,” I responded, rotating my arms to loosen the muscle. “I know why I am here. If you think hard enough, you’ll know why you’re down here too.”
I watched the wretched creature cry and bemoan their situation. Disappointment filled my heart as I realized that the universe had provided me with a tomato can for my debut. I could only hope that it would fight back, even a little, before I squeezed all the red pulp from inside it. If it doesn’t, I would not receive much reward. In the worst case, I might be punished for boring whoever was spectating. Wherever they were, as there were no stands nor sounds of audience.
Being the marionette of dark forces did make my stomach turn. But, I was never good at following the good words anyways. It was better to survive today and repent tomorrow.
“No!” The creature screamed in indignation. “I’ve never harmed anyone! Stay away from me!”
From its head, several quills defensively whistled out and flew towards me. Some bounced ineffectively off my new scales while a couple dug into flesh. It felt like receiving a flu shot. Compared to the pain from the transformation, I’d gladly take a thousand quills to the body.
I lost 6 HP from the exchange, setting my already unfilled health stat to 40. Despite that, I could only smile in relief at the weak attack, causing the creature to shrink further in fear. Its quills quivered and danced to ward me away.
To test the waters, I punched the creature with moderate strength. Nothing that would knock out someone in a single blow. Despite my consideration, it wailed in pain, turning its body away from me. It wasn’t an effective strike. These new cumbersome claws made forming a proper fist nearly impossible. All the hard work that I put into perfecting my strikes were evaporating in front of me, souring my mood.
If I couldn’t punch, I would have to utilize the claws that stole that from me. I splayed my hand apart and swiped it along the creature’s body from shoulder to abdomen. My claws smoothly slid through the torso and dug deep trenches of flesh from across the creature’s chest. All that I felt was a tugging resistance on my nail beds as angry red wounds spewed blood, staining the tattered hospital gown.
Even though it was a piece of my body now, it felt impersonal now, like slashing with five knives at once. It would need some taking used to before it felt like it was actually a part of me.
The creature clutched its wounded shoulder and writhed on the ground in pain. Its red bar had already dropped well below half. Another attack or two would deplete the bar entirely.
Would the creature die then? Even if it were stabbed in the hand or foot or anywhere else that wasn’t fatal? I did not yet understand the logic behind the numbers. However, there was no better opportunity than to have someone else experience it on my behalf. It would be wasteful not to learn something from it. Disrespectful even.
Not to mention I had yet to try out the active ability that came from my transformation. Though, I was not sure how I was going to get that to work.
Tip: To use an active ability, mentally use the command “Use [Ability Name]”.
I brushed away the new message. While I appreciated the timely advice, I did not appreciate how it felt like my mind was being read. I didn’t need demons perusing through my inner thoughts to torture me in whatever clever way that it deemed enjoyable.
[Flaying Tail] was the only active skill. If I used it without understanding how to use my tail, would it succeed?
My mind thought the words to the requested command; the blue bar shrank immediately in payment for the effort. Muscles that I had yet to fully comprehend flexed in response to the mental command as though it were piloted by invisible string. I felt each of the individual muscles tighten and release like a meat accordion as it swung around to slash the creature horizontally across the torso, leaving a thin bloody line.
I quickly tried to copy the move before sensations escaped my memory. My tail spun around, but whiffed the creature entirely. They had already stumbled further away from me. It hissed at me, continuing to try nonviolent ways to ward me away.
The creature’s health bar did not go down much. It was even less than the botched punch. However, I did notice that the creature was now steadily losing health as the seconds passed by. I guessed that this damage was gradual.
It crouched down, sniveling and showing its back spines to me. It bristled angrily. A few blind shots sprung forth from the bristling sea, but they, once again, were not very powerful and I did not take any significant damage.
I sighed. This was as far as the exhibition was likely to go. The ticking damage stopped, but anything in my arsenal would send this creature onwards to whatever life existed beyond this one. It was, by all counts, a pitiful display. Supernatural viewers notwithstanding, I wouldn’t know many living people that would be entertained by such a limp performance. This creature surely wasn’t a tough person in life. Their sins might not even be physical. There wasn’t much I could do to rouse an opponent like this.
I decided I would let the beast be punished on its own. I would not subject myself to a similar unholy torment that I faced in the cell just because of some sniveling former-man that lacked the courage to admit their own mistakes. Instead, I would follow a path that I had several times in my past life. I just needed to appeal to the warden and hope that it had the same twisted sensibilities as mankind.
“The next attack will kill it,” I stated loudly and clearly to the spectators that I was told existed somewhere. “If there was a way to prevent that, I would show you much more of what I can do.”
A rumbling shook the floor. Sand hopped with the vibrations and stalactites fell down from their menacing perches. I had to hop a couple steps to the side to avoid being brained by a sizable chunk of rock that thudded only a couple feet away. I clicked my tongue, ensuring that I remembered this carelessness from the powers at be.
Once the shaking subsided, a new message popped up. I could only grin. Finally, there was something that could revitalize my flagging motivation. Something that would allow me to test both myself and the limits of the demonic form.
For the next minute, the opponent will be invulnerable to all damage. But, they will still feel it. Don’t disappoint.
I turned to the sniveling creature, my eyes burning like a coyote who spotted a small dog outside. A new symbol appeared next to its health bar; a tiny golden skull. A small gray sliver was slowly being taken from the skull, indicating that the timer had already started.
Not wanting to waste time, I sprinted towards the creature, the time for toying with my food was over. I needed to get a good workout to avoid a worse fate.
“Grit your teeth!” I advised the creature while my claws spread wide, eager to taste more flesh.