The wrath of a berserker was a double edged sword. While the warrior’s breath made mana go wild inside the body in a controlled pattern to enhance the user’s abilities, the berserker mode did the same with the body itself, minus the control.
Adrenaline poured through each fiber of Bloodeye’s being, while the brain’s cognitive functions were suppressed to the maximum. His lizard brain took over, his heart beat three times faster, and when his muscles contracted, they almost ripped themselves to shreds.
Since the transformation wasn’t reinforced with mana, a berserker would self-destruct if given enough time. Unfortunately for Finn and Annie, time was not on their side.
The large beastman disappeared from their sight, only to smash like a train into Annie a second later, throwing her across the cave so fast he could not even swing his axe in time to cut her. Instead, he swung the weapon at Finn who was just stepping back.
A huge gash appeared on the boy’s thigh, and before it could heal the baron ran him over. Like the blue snakes from before, he was so fast he slammed into Finn and kept going. Halfway across the cave, he finally stopped, peeled the boy off his chest, threw him several feet into the air and pulled back his axe to chop him in half.
Two laser beams struck the beastman’s fingers. He let go of the axe, roared and disappeared from his spot. This time around, he appeared with his palm around Annie’s throat. He pushed her into a wall and started punching her with his free hand, breaking one reinforced shield per blow as if he was doing a twisted karate demonstration.
While Finn ran to help, Mammon slowly got up from his throne. He was walking down the flight of stairs, towards the beam of energy which connected the two spaces.
‘Get lost!’ The boy shot a barrage of flames, but they did nothing and the lion kept swinging. Since hitting with one hand wasn’t breaking the shields fast enough, he let go of Annie and started punching and kicking with all his limbs, biting and scratching, with such speed and ferocity the mage could not keep up.
“Help!... Finn!...”
Annie’s shields were breaking faster than she could restore them. The first punch to pierce through crushed four of her ribs along with her left lung. The second ‘scratch’ ripped the front part of her throat. The beastman then bit into her shoulder, tearing it off along with the entire arm.
Tears started pouring down the young mage’s cheeks. She wished it was all a dream, that she could turn back time, but something told her she could not do it again. She had shut off the pain receptors in her brain, but that was about it. Foreseeing her impending doom and not even being able to scream, she locked eyes with her friend and surrendered to her fate.
‘No!’ Finn panicked. ‘Stop! Please stop! There’s not enough time, I need to move faster!’
The teen was doing the best he could, but unfortunately, his abilities as a mage were limited. He was only as fast as a well trained human in this form, and his flames had proven completely ineffective.
‘Is this it? Am I supposed to just watch how he kills us all? In slow motion no less…’
Again, time was moving slowly for the teen, so slow in fact that even the baron was barely moving. He was pulling his head backwards after ripping Annie’s shoulder, but it was taking so long, it was like a moving portrait. Annie’s pupils could be seen trembling from the pain, her eyes filling with water to somehow cope with the situation.
‘I have to stop him…’ The lion slowly spit off his friend’s shoulder. He then opened his jaws wide, wider than Annie’s entire head and closed in for the finishing blow.
‘Stop! Stop, you bastard! I have to move, I…’
“Will you let her die?”
Time started flowing once more, and the beastman went to bite off Annie’s head. The girl closed her eyes and a thunderous noise broke out through the cavern. A horrifying roar resounded a moment later, but it was not the beastman’s, it did not resemble an animal.
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Annie’s eardrums burst from the sound, so she opened her eyes and saw Finn screaming in front of her face. His body was hunched over, yet taller, wider and deformed, his muscles were bulging and spasming at random. Blood was bursting through his skin, through his ears, through his eye sockets, and he was screaming wildly, both in pain and in anger.
‘I… I have to… kill.’
Suddenly, his head turned at an impossible angle, focusing on Bloodeye who was pancaked against a wall.
“Die!!”
Finn disappeared from his spot, and when he reappeared, he kicked the beastman into the wall with such force, he created a tunnel five feet deep. The blow almost pushed the berserker form out of the beastman, and he collapsed on all fours, heaving and huffing.
Unfortunately, Finn wasn’t doing much better. His mana was running wampant, his body was falling apart. He tried doing the warrior’s breath, but his cells kept bursting, deforming, and mutating.
‘I went too far.’
“You will make a fine demon.”
Finn trembled from fear, pain and panic. He fell to his knees and started shouting “Stop!!”
‘Why?’ something answered. ‘You’re better this way, stronger, superior. There’s no fear, fear is an illusion. Become, become, become… us.’
Finn looked at his shoulder. There was an eye there, looking back. The eye rolled once in its socket and then winked cheekily at its host.
“Ho, I pity you,” said Mammon. “That mutation is among the worst.”
“No, no, NOOoooooo...”
………………………………
Finn opened his eyes. He was on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic, seated at a table near a pool with a martini glass in his hand.
The boy started trembling and the glass spilled all over his lap. Ignoring it, he shakily pulled the sunglasses off his nose to take a better look at who had summoned him. It was Loki, seated on the other side of the table in a pair of shorts, with a beer in his hand, and his legs crossed.
“What did you do, Mark?”
“W, w, wha…”
“So you admit it! You’re in cahoots with that woman, aren’t you? Speak up!”
God broke his beer bottle on the side of the table and pointed the sharp, pointy end at Finn’s throat. However, instead of striking fear into the teen, Finn’s lips weirdly curled up and he started laughing while trembling.
“Are you mocking me!?”
“T-thank you,” Finn mumbled.
“Huh!?”
“T-thank you!”
The boy gave God a hug, tripping over his feet and almost falling onto him. Loki’s cheeks instantly turned red, and he pushed him off and into the pool.
While floating in the water, Finn kept laughing like a madman. Then, right when Loki had summoned another beer, he stopped. He readjusted his position in the pool, and while treading water, he asked “Am I dead?”
“How the hell should I know? I put us in a time bubble, so I wouldn’t miss the show, but…”
“But you’re God.”
“Yes, and I’ve been busy. Somebody reversed the planet’s mana flow for a whole 15 seconds; you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? And I couldn’t locate you for some reason. It was hard to even force your soul here; what the hell did you do?”
Instead of answering, the boy slowly swam back to shore. ‘What I say next will probably decide my fate.’ As he was pulling himself out of the pool Finn’s new life flashed before his eyes. For some reason, he could barely remember the old one.
After gulping audibly, the boy kneeled in front of Loki, similar to how Bloodeye had kneeled in front of Mammon.
“Almighty God, I did not reverse the planet’s mana flow. In fact, I’m terrible at magic. And I’ve been stuck in the labyrinth for a while, so it might have hidden my location.”
“Oh, I bet that’s going swimmingly. ”
“It’s not, and I have a question.”
“Spill it.”
“I’ve been trying to use both magic and the warrior’s breath, but I have no talent for either. It takes me half a day to switch between each form, and I’m weak in both.”
“Ha, moron. I told you, you should quit.”
“Yes, so I’ve been thinking of forcing it.”
“What!?”
“If I force myself to switch from warrior to mage and back, if I let my body mutate...”
Suddenly, God walked over and grabbed Finn by the throat. Once lifted off his feat, Finn could feel his soul being squeezed; his very essence was about to get squashed.
“You little shit, you’re actually pissing me off. Did you meet him? Did you meet that cheater, are you joining his side!?”
The intensity in Loki’s eyes increased ten-fold, as did the grip on Finn’s throat.
‘Who’s he referring to? There’s no time to ask, but it’s his enemy, I’m sure of it.’
“Oh mighty God,” Finn gulped once more. “I’ve met… Mammon.”