Sarah was sneaking through the more and more colorful forest. Even the red and yellow leaves that were falling from the trees were louder than her.

A group of absurdly tall deer looked up from where they had been feeding before, looking into the forest with irritated gazes.

Before they could realize why exactly they felt afraid, Sarah disturbed the function of their nerves. And they all started wobbling. This would only last for a few seconds at most, but it was all she needed.

With a swift and flowing movement, she jumped from one deer to another and slit their throats with her sharp claws.

She managed to kill a whole seven deer before the rest of the herd managed to gain control over their legs again and started running away. But Sarah didn’t follow. The team would have enough to do as it was.

"I’m done!" She shouted into the seemingly empty forest, and a group of ten people emerged. They were the ones who would do the job of carrying the carcasses to the caves.

Sarah had spent some time with the cavers now, and they started to accept her more and more. With a few exceptions, she didn’t want to think about right now.

"Should I come with you guys?" Sarah asked the group, which started to wrap the carapaces in ropes.

"I think it should be fine." Answered her the probably biggest man in the caves, who was called Bertrand. He gained some skills in his adaptation specialization, and his build and muscles had started to grow to enormous sizes. He was even taller and stronger than Alex. Heck, he was stronger than her by now.

The giant of a man bound two deer on his back and took another two in each of his arms.

"You are just not normal." Sarah told him with a small shake of her head.

Bertrand laughed very loudly with his deep voice. The people surrounding them covered their ears with annoyed expressions. "You are one to talk. Ever seen your reflection?"

Sarah grinned at him with her sharp teeth. "No idea what you could be talking about."

Bertrand shook his head with a smile and started walking in the direction of the caves. "Just don’t stay too long outside. The days are getting shorter."

With these words, he gave her one last nod and walked away.

The rest of the group was still busy tying up the deer and started shouting after Bertrand to not just walk away alone again. They groaned frustratedly and threw their hands up in the air when the giant just acted like he couldn’t hear them.

Sarah smiled and turned around to leave. "Bye guys!"

They were all complaining about her getting the easy job and letting them do all the heavy lifting, but not really with anger in their voices. This had become more or less a ritual of theirs.

The smile quickly faded from Sarah’s face when she delved deeper into the forest. For a few days now, she has been on the cusp of reaching level twenty. The fight with the dirtbags had pushed her all the way to level nineteen, and her intense hunting had done the rest.

But no matter how much she used her abilities and hunted prey, this one last bit didn’t budge. She even wondered if she had to overcome another barrier inside of her, but she couldn’t detect anything alike.

While looking for a stronger beast to fight, preferably a predator, she fell into deep thought.

Maybe because she was so distracted, she didn’t notice that someone else was already in this area.

Only when she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye did she notice the presence of the other person.

A hand shot out from behind a bush and tried to grab her shoulders. Sarah swiftly dodged, jumped to the side a few meters, and readied herself.

"Why so nervous?" Alex asked her with a dead expression on his face, as he was coming into view from behind the tree.

"What’s the matter with you?" Sarah hissed, fury burning inside her chest. "Just back the fuck off, if you know what’s good for you."

Alex had pestered her at any opportunity he got. She didn’t know why, but he seemed to have it out for her.

"You are dangerous. And nobody else can see it." He told her with a resolute voice. "You are an animal. And you need to know your place."

Alex flexed his enormous muscles underneath his now scaly skin. He had also undergone a lot of mutations, and while he still looked more human than her, his eyes lost more and more emotion.

But Sarah wouldn’t let herself get provoked like this. She knew that if she gave in, she would prove his point about being aggressive and dangerous.

So she suppressed her rage and settled for spitting him in the face.

Ahhh, you crazy bitch!" he screamed while holding his slightly sizzling face.

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With a grin, she felt his magic power well up and soon noticed that it was stronger than before. This idiot had apparently managed to get over level ten. But there was something else.

A feeling. Or rather, a calling. He was also on the path of conflict.

"You juicy, juicy prey." Sarah told him with hunger in her voice. He even stopped screaming for a second and looked at her with apparent shock on his face.

"What did you just…?" He started to speak but was interrupted by a fist that slammed into his jaw.

Sarah's fist hurt pretty bad from the impact, but she didn’t stop there.

Before the hulking man could regain his balance, she started pummelling him with her fists. She could feel it. The unsurmountable wall to level twenty crumbled bit by bit.

When he tried to grab her with his big hands, she interrupted the signal from his brain for a moment, and he lost control over his arms and legs for a second.

Sarah immediately felt dizzy. This had drained nearly all of her magic power. But she had a solution for this.

She grabbed the falling man and bit into his shoulder with gusto.

"Not again, you freak!" He roared and tried to pull her head away, but stopped with a loud scream when he felt her teeth ripping at his muscles.

Sarah inhaled deeply, and his magic power flowed inside her like a strong river. This definitely felt different from the last time.

Her reserves filled up in an instant, and Alex fell unconscious. She quickly opened her mouth so as not to accidentally rip out part of his shoulders with her sharp teeth.

"This is it!" Sarah shouted in excitement when she felt the wall towards level twenty shatter completely.

It didn’t take long for the system message to pop up.

As soon as she realized what this meant, she felt the horrible pull on her mind again. Before she could lose consciousness, though, she kicked Alex's unconscious body one last time.

"Damn, I missed his balls." She mumbled in a blurry voice before her consciousness left her body.

Just like the first time, she seemed to fly at extreme speed through pure nothingness.

When the feeling of motion stopped after some time, nothing happened for a while.

Then the hunched-over figure of a lanky man came into view.

"Recording two, Dr. Alain Becker," he said in the emptiness in which he was standing with his dry and professional voice.

Other than the first time, he didn’t seem downcast anymore. He rather had a fanatical expression burning deep in his gray eyes.

"This energy. It changes everything." He started speaking in a breathless voice. "It does… things our science cannot even begin to explain. It is outside of every possibility we could even imagine."

He started walking around, his hands cramping together like claws. "The damage is regrettable, but… humanity can ascend from its ashes. It will be worth it. It will definitely be worth it."

For his last few words, his voice started quivering a little, but he soon found his countenance again.

"We will ascend like the mythical phoenix out of the ashes. Humanity will be reborn. We will be more."

His fanatical rambling came to a stop, and he cleared his throat with a surprised look on his face. He looked around him as if astonished by his location.

He cleared his throat again and continued speaking. But now with a calm and dry voice again. "It seems like not only a lot of humans weren’t able to survive the initial impact of the energy. From visual observation, a lot of flora and fauna also perished. This needs more research."

He started walking again, and the glow started to come back into his eyes. "But the humans who survived… They started changing. It wasn’t quite apparent at first. Objects breaking without any reason, people disappearing without a trace. But the boy. He showed us all. The true potential of the energy."

His voice got louder and louder, as if he could barely control himself. "We haven’t found any limits to the application of the energy. The only limitation is the extent of what and how much can be done. But this limitation is also slowly disappearing. We are getting stronger."

He stopped walking around and shook his head for a while, as if to somehow shake off errant thoughts. He rubbed his face and stepped closer. Now Sarah could see deep, dark circles underneath his eyes. His skin was pale, and he seemed very unhealthy. Something was definitely wrong with him.

"I cannot say for sure right now, but… Humanity will take the next step. We will become gods."

With his last words, his image disappeared like smoke, and his voice echoed through the endless nothingness.

Sarah started racing through the nothingness again until she violently connected with her body again.

She heaved for air as her body spasmed like it did the first time.

"That’s seriously horrible." She groaned while trying to regain control over her body again. When she managed to do it, she looked over to Alex, only to see him still unconscious next to her.

She lay down on her back and rested for a while. She felt so exhausted, like she had been awake for three days straight. Why the hell did the system show them such visions? And what did they mean?

The system said that they were recordings. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant, though. Something in the back of her head told her that she should know what that was. She just couldn’t pinpoint it.

With a frustrated groan, she sat up. Although she hadn’t seen much of Tobias during her time in the camp, he was well known for being pretty smart. Also for being pretty weird, but who was she to judge? She would have to ask him about these visions. Maybe he was able to gain some more insight into them.

Sarah grabbed Alex by his neck and started pulling him back to the caves. Even though he was an ass, she wouldn’t let him get eaten alive by wild animals. He didn’t deserved that. Yet.

On her way back, she mused some more over this Becker guy. Most of what he said made no sense to her. It was just too different from what she had experienced. Either this was a scene from a long time ago or from a very different place.

But one thing was for sure: The energy he described was definitely magic power. Why he didn’t call it that way was another mystery for her. A lot of things just didn’t make sense.

It didn’t take long for her to reach the caves. It was already close to nighttime by now, so practically no one was around. She threw Alex into the dirt and noticed that he was naked by now and badly scratched on top of that.

"Whopsy." Sarah said, while looking around, if anyone had seen her. But luckily, she was alone.

Without waiting any longer, she ran away in a hurry, leaving the naked Alex lying in the dirt. Seeing as everyone was most likely already asleep, she would talk to Tobias the next morning.

"This is a problem for the tomorrow-Sarah." She mumbled while still running towards her personal cave. Well, it was mostly her personal cave because no one else dared to climb so high. But it still felt good.

After she finally reached her home, she made herself comfortable on her furs. The new people from the other camp had some serious skills in tanning the hides of animals. And as she hunted most of the animals, she was given the honor of receiving the first fur-blanket. With a satisfied sigh, she let herself sink into the soft embrace of it.

She tried to switch off any thoughts and get some sleep. But it took a long time for it to come.

One thought just didn’t leave her alone: Something was seriously wrong with this Dr. Alain Becker.