- The Beast Awakens

My body disintegrates, leaving behind only three glowing red crystals and a single glowing white orb. The three heartstones orbit around the white orb. Instinctively, I know what it is. It's my soul. My everything. Every emotion, good or bad. Every pain, every pleasure. Every memory. Everything that makes me me is stored in this little white ball. And then, the three heartstones start to rumble, as well as my soul. Had I been conscious, I would've been worried. However, I feel that I shouldn't worry. The three heartstones start to melt and move towards my souls that is still shaking. A red glow can be seen starting to emanate out from the center of the soul. The three heartstones meld together around the soul, creating an eerie red glowing crystal. The crystal then begins to take the shape of an anatomical heart, before beating like the pistons of an engine. Each beat draws in so much mana that it condenses into crystals as it flows in.

I then feel my body begin to reform, slightly larger than what it was before, but many times more sturdy. I feel like even being directly hit by a nuclear bomb would do nothing to me now. My eyes alone feel like they could take a shell from a tank. I feel invincible! However, this process is taking a while. It seems my body is having a difficult time forming, so I start trying to help it by sending mana into the already grown parts to speed it up. This works, but only a little. I feel as though the part of me that's grown the most is my patience as I feel as though I could sit here for a hundred years just helping my body grow. I spend the next what feels like a year in this state, just growing constantly.

Finally, the tip of my tail fully forms and I feel the magic pump through me once again. I open my eyes for the first time in forever, and crack through my crystal cocoon.

"B-big brother…"

As my eyes adjust, I look out of my cracked shell and see Willow with a sword stabbed through her chest! The person that stabbed it through her chest is nowhere to be seen.

"Willow! What happened!"

"Th-this happened a few days a-UGH! Ago. That human we talked to before came here and tried to interrupt your evolution. I-I stopped him, but he managed to stab his sword through me. Apparently, s-somethings called dungeons started to appear, rapidly increasing the strength of hu-humans and dropping artifacts. A-and he wanted something to test his sword on."

As she's talking, I notice an arm on the ground near her.

'Ellie, analyze the status of the person this arm belongs to.'

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[Status:]

[Name: Gauge Stewart]

[Race: Human]

[Title: Hero]

[Level: 387 / 500]

[Class: A-rank Hero]

[Domains: 1]

[Mana Heart: 1st - Hearthstone, 2nd - Heartstone]

[Inherent Magic: Holy]

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'I fucking knew it. Ellie, is there a way for me to track him down?'

[I can track him for you if you'd like?]

'Do it.'

[He is-]

I start casting life magic on Willow, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

'Ellie, why isn't life magic working on her?'

[That sword has an ability that makes wounds caused by it to be unable to be healed with magic.]

"FUCK!"

I take the sword and pull it out of her chest, pouring all the magic I can into the wound. But, it seems like that's not gonna do anything. Willow puts her hand on my nose and says,

"D-don't worry. I'll be fine."

She gives me a warm smile, before turning into dust in front of me.

Something inside of me snaps, and I lose consciousness.

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Narrator:

As Willow turns to dust, Adam just stares at where she was. Then suddenly, the very air around him starts to quake as the aura he'd been keeping inside of him bursts out violently, causing even the world tree to shake under his power. He lets out a deafening roar and beats his wings, taking off into the air. As he burst forwards toward the city, a sonic boom can be heard. He reaches the city in seconds. All through the city, the corpses that once filled the street are nowhere to be seen. It's not nearly as lively as it was before the outbreak of monsters, but many people can be seen moving about. One little girl looks up and starts screaming and crying as she sees Adam. A gigantic blood red dragon flies over her and her mom, coming to a stop in front of a tall tower.

The pressure in the air seems to increase a hundredfold as the hero is talking to his guild.

"What the fuck is that?"

One of his members points at the window, just as the entire room is engulfed in flame, killing everyone in the room and severely maiming the hero.

The hero looks at the dragon and shakes uncontrollably, with over half of his face being burned beyond recognition. The dragon then starts to create a giant blade of wind, so strong that the wind is actually visible. Adam aims for the floor right below the hero, cutting off the very tip of the building and sending it crashing to the streets below. Normally, Adam wouldn't do something like this because of the risk to innocent lives. However, the beast part of Adam took over, and it doesn't give a fuck who dies so long as its not one of his people.

The top of the tower crashes down, sending dust everywhere and crumbling a whole section of the building like an accordion. This didn't kill as many people that it would've had the city been at a normal population, but it did kill at least 34 directly. Adam noticed that none of them were the hero. He flew down and landed in front of the rubble before freezing the entire pile solid. Another kill, but not the hero.

"HERO!"

Adams voice boomed out, shattering the glass nearby and rupturing anyone within three blocks eardrums.

"COME OUT! NOW!"

Adam kept his eyes trained on the rubble, spotting a section of it moving. He conjured an ice spear, so cold it was freezing the air near it, and used earth magic to move the rubble from the movement. As it lifted, he immediately sent the ice spear rushing towards whatever was coming out. He barely managed to stop the spear after he saw what was under the rubble. It was a little boy, holding onto a bloody, severed hand. The spear stopped only an inch in front of his face before Adam regained control.

He looked around and saw all of the people around him trembling in fear. A father with glass shards in his back from protecting his daughter, a young teenage girl bleeding out from a piece of rebar having stabbed through her stomach, a young girls body with her head crushed in by a piece of concrete. And then, out of nowhere, Adam gets a notification:

[Hero killed]

[Level up x37]

[Lesser Human (Adult) killed x33]

[Level up x10]

[Lesser Human (Juvenile) killed x5]

[Level up x1]

————————

I look around at the destruction and chaos I caused. I did this. I killed 39 people. With five of them being kids for fucks sake. I look at the little boy who's holding his parents severed hand.

'System, find the survivors under the rubble and tell me where they are.'

The system tells me that there's a living person near the boy with the hand. I lift up the rubble with my magic and see a woman half crushed, missing a hand.

"M-MOMMY!"

The boy rushes over, as he sees a green glow envelope his mom. The glow begins to solidify on both her missing legs and her hand, even cleaning the blood off of her body. As he looks around, he sees rubble moving in various spots with similar glows emanating from the holes. Soon after, people start coming from those holes with parts of their clothing missing and stained in blood, with their skin underneath being completely spot free. After the green mist dissipates, the dragon takes off again, heading back into the forest.