A lonesome boy ran as fast as he could, his fear for death was none existent, his desire for change greater than anyone else.
beyond the great stretch of grass there was a crowd of trees huddled up, perfectly masking the sun.
Midas attempted to reach the group of greens, his attempt faltering. The lack of nourishment has caused his legs to give out.
His desire to reach the trees was beyond his fatigue, so he began crawling, slowly, increasingly slowly.
The chaos behind him was at a gradual decrease as many began their own ascension, causing most of their strengths to be at a stalemate.
He was scared, confused and overstimulated, he randomly began understanding all the words of the other humans even though he never learnt their languages.
He didn’t know what to do, he was tasked with killing a single living thing, but for a young boy this would be a difficult task. The current humans were too powerful, he hadn't seen a single animal so he didn’t know their strength either.
The only thing he could concentrate on right now was crawling, ever so slowly he made his way to the trees.
Under the shadow of the vast trees his eyelids gave up, letting him fall into a deep slumber due to the mental and physical exhaustion today.
The next day arrived, the previous spawn area for the human race is mixed with red and mangled parts of viscera.
Light infrastructures are built, such as tents out of leaves, and foundations of houses made out of comically large logs.
Due to the absence of money, fruits are the payment, some who couldn’t attain fruits spoke promises of future payments but everyone knew they were liars.
Midas, due to his extreme exhaustion had overslept an extreme amount, he had woken up during the night of the next day.
He slowly rose, his body trembling, begging for food.
He continued his previous crawl but this time, back to the spawn area where others were sleeping.
Midas crawled slowly as he got closer he saw things he was familiar with, the black and blue marks across the bodies of those without ‘beds’, their bodies scarred with symbols that refer to ownership.
Some were missing limbs or eyes, this would cause most from drawing closer to this location but due to Midas’s previous life, this was seen as normal and expected.
It seems that a group has formed, those who survived the chaos joined together in a group of those who have ascended and those who haven't, this didn’t seem like an equal group though, those who have ascended are practically slave masters.
The camp was 1 km in front of the forest, but the size of the spawn area was similar to the size of London , Midas was lucky to have spawned near the edge.
As he reached the camp he spotted a scrawny boy, his left arm twisted against where his joints are supposed to bend but that was the better of the two arms. His right arm was nonexistent but what remained wasn’t bleeding as the stump had been burned to prevent the boy from dying.
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The poor boy's eyes were constantly closed, blood dripping from his eyelid, he continued to try and make noise but his teeth and tongue had been ripped out.
At the sight of this, any man would cry.
The young boy wanted his soul to be liberated, the pain was unbearable. Midas delivered just that.
Midas sat on the boy's chest, feeling the boy jolt and shake out of fear. Midas carefully placed his hands on the boy’s crimson emaciated neck before pressing with all his might, blocking the blood from reaching the brain.
If it had been anyone else Midas’s strength would have been insufficient, but due to the boy already being close to the gates of death it was way more doable.
You have ascended
A beautiful voice spoke to Midas, he was told of his recent achievement, however his attention was elsewhere.
The previously bruised and frail body slowly filled out, fixing his injuries and quenching his physical needs immediately.
He looks down as a bright light shines in front of him.
A purple screen appeared in front of him.
Name: Midas
Age: 11
Level: 2
Health:10
Attribute: hidden until level 5
Strength: 1(terrible)
Agility: 1(terrible)
Intelligence: 2(terrible)
Stamina:1(terrible)
Defence:1(terrible)
Wisdom: 2(terrible)
Even though the overall status was considerably bad, this was the first time Midas had been given a name.
He didn’t know if the name was his true birth name or if it was a system given name but nonetheless he felt an emotion he never felt before.
A sense of Belonging.
He felt… like a human.
——
Alastair walked with a group behind him, he was walking further into the centre of the spawn area.
Any person who attempted to attack or harm his people was instantly disposed of, not by him of course.
What king goes out of their way to step on to an ant?
The closer they got to the centre the bigger the group around Alastair was.
A saccharine tongue that infects the mind, planting a seed of ambition and subordination. He caused all to bow to him under the promise of power and fame.
He made sure to not reach level 5 based on kills as he wanted to develop the image of carer and good man who cares for the rest.
“Alastair, we have reached the centre” claimed a short man with a beard, his wrinkles evident across his tanned caramel skin. A clear scar infected his face forever dooming him with a wretched look.
“Good, now those of you who have reached the fifth level, organize yourselves into groups based on three categories: information gathering, physical abilities and resource gathering.” Alastair commanded, his words carrying an authority none of them could deny. Snakes had wrapped around them, planting the eggs of Alastair's reign into their minds.
The masses quickly began separating themselves into groups, those who haven’t reached the required level of 5 were meant to kill each other to reach it.
Alastair now had an army of thousands of level 5.
Even with an unbelievable achievement ringing in his head with a beautiful voice, the orange screen in front of him had him curious.
“From what I heard from the others, the attributes are categorized with a tier system. Abraha claimed that his attribute was a tier 6 and it was a multitude of times stronger than those who claimed a tier 7, this must mean the lower the number the stronger the attribute. Some of the other men claimed that they received something called evolutionary attributes that get stronger over time.” Alastair thought about all the information he had received from his followers. “I either need a tier 5 or an evolutionary tier 6,” he muttered. He knew he couldn’t control the exact attribute he receives but he had to just gamble his future on this one point.
Two young children were brought before Alastair, who sat on a throne made of humans, they were the final two he needed to reach level 5. Wasting the man power of adults was illogical, he wanted to kill those who would bring no benefit to his vision.
“Please… please!” A woman roared from behind the soldier’s shoulders. “My boys… don’t- don’t kill them! I’ll do anything, all work harder than everyone… but please… just don’t kill them!” She cried, her tears and sniffs clouding some of her words but he had understood the general premise.
“Let her through,” his words had allowed no negotiation, the level 5 soldiers parted perfectly and in unison.
She immediately ran hugging her two boys, they were too young to realise why their mother was crying but at how she tightly held them, they also sensed a bit of her emotion.
“Thank god… thank god!” She began repeating, her tears on full release.
THUD*
“Wha-“ the mother’s tears stopped, Her vision blurred and her arms trembled as she held the lifeless body of her sons.
“Next time, thank the one who let them live you stupid bitch!” Roared Abraha, as his hand was covered with the blood of the children.
“AHHHHH!” Her cries had reached the god that Abraha ever so resented,
Alastair was stunned, he had understood the love between a mother and her children, but Abraha had killed them over a petty reason whilst defying him.
He hadn’t wanted to rid the mother of her children, his face scrunched. He wanted to let Abraha know to never repeat that again but before he could raise his voice to object to Abraha's actions.
BAM*
The woman's head rolled to Alastair's feet. “Stupid bitch, can’t you see he looks annoyed? Your pathetic screams are clearly making it worse,” Abraha’s words sounded like he was holding laughter, Alastair was disgusted, he found the death of others amusing.
The death of a mother that was needed to improve his new society was unnecessary and not a part of the plan, but it happened.
He felt… like a monster.