Chapter Three: Destruction

In space there was a giant sponge like planet that appeared out of nowhere and it was floating beside the moon, it was the same sponge planet that the tiny mushroom being was in the centre of, and it was causing strange phenomena all around Earth.

Because of the sudden appearance of a second moon sized planet, the tides all over the world rose drastically, causing immeasurable damage to an uncountable number of coastal cities, towns, and villages.

Karl recognized this planet, he had many dreams about it, and he knew exactly what was gonna happen next. What he knew was gonna happen happened at that moment and a large undulating ball of spores was shot towards Earth at an incredible speed and he slouched down into a laying position

But it hit something suddenly, a barrier of light of sorts, it was red in colour and rapidly dimming from its original blinding glow. A voice of a robotic middle aged man appeared in the minds of all Humans on Earth at that moment.

"Warning! Warning! Under attack by unknown entity! Threat level: Annihilation! Must protect inhabitants of planet. Choosing desired inhabitants... inhabitants found; Humans, canines, and Corvus Corax. Required bodily health, no disease, sickness, defects, under a certain age. Choosing 10,000,000 targets from each inhabitant group... targets found."

The words of the robotic voice were transmitted to all of the sentient life forms not including plants or fungi, only to those of the animal kingdom. Matthew and Kris both disappeared from the sight of Karl and his other roommate, who immediately started panicking.

"Inhabitants in three groups. Creating safe havens for inhabitants... safe havens,created," Kris and Matthew, who were teleported to the same location since they were so close to each other, had only just realized that they were in a different location when the earth under their feet shook.

In the next moment a giant earthen wall rose from the ground and surrounded a large area, and there were gigantic spikes that emerged from the wall as a defence against anything trying to get in or get out.

It was the same in two other locations on Earth, groups of people, dogs, and ravens were teleported to three massive patches of land that were able to support the size of each group, but they were distanced from each other as to not cause conflict between each group of inhabitants.

"Granting immunity to inhabitants... immunity granted. Strengthening dominant inhabitants... inhabitants strengthened. Evolving other inhabitants... inhabitants evolved." Kris and Matthew, along with all of the other Humans who were teleported into the three groups fell unconscious for two seconds, and they all had a system panel when they regained consciousness from the quick blackout.

It displayed their name, all of the basic information about their bodies such as height and weight, their skills, and a level along with an experience bar directly below. They also saw that the dogs and ravens accompanying them all fell unconscious as well, but they didn't wake up as fast.

After falling unconscious, their bodies changed incomprehensibly, the larger breeds of dogs became as big as horses and they were able to be ridden like a horse, the medium sized breeds became as large as black bears, and the smaller breeds, there are none.

All of the ravens became big enough to have three or more Humans riding on their back, they also got sharper beaks and talons, and they became slightly smarter. The other changes will need to be explored after they wake up.

As for all of the other Humans and animals that weren't chosen, they got a message in their mind, "Congratulations! You have been abandoned for the betterment of this planet." Most of the Humans had started wailing or begging to be chosen so they could survive, or to at least let the children be taken, but they got no response.

The reason Humans were chosen was because they were the current dominant life form on Earth, as for the reason all of them didn't get chosen was because there was a limit to the power of the planet, and nothing can be done now.

Surprisingly, the criteria for being chosen was quite strict, and it is the same for all of the chosen inhabitants. To start it off, they must not have any kind of disease or sickness, they must not be on the verge of death, which is why Karl wasn't chosen, they must not have any genetic defects that could potentially cause problems if spread, and they cannot be over a certain age.

For Humans, it was that they cannot be over the age of 30 or under the age of 14, dogs was cannot be under 10 months old or over 3 years old, and finally for ravens they had to be at least a year old and under the age of 3 years.

Back to Karl, he was still looking at the sky, counting down in his heart, 3... 2... 1. With a crack, the barrier broke and the giant spore cloud hit Earth and spread across the surface of the planet in less than ten seconds.

After touching a life form mushrooms would grow almost instantaneously and a weird mushroom creature would pop out based on whatever was hit with the spore. Mutations took place as all of the creatures grew many times their original size as Earth also started increasing in size.

Large mushrooms grew from the ground and grew from dozens to hundreds of metres tall in tens of seconds, it was all different kinds of mushrooms from ones that have been discovered to alien mushrooms that could only be found on other planets that support life.

However there was one thing in common that all of them had, they were all glowing in hundreds of thousands of different colours and combinations. Karl watched as his roommate there with him was touched by a spore and turned into a large 3 meters tall creature with a mushroom on its head and large legs the size of tree trunks.

As the spores touched his body, he also started changing, but something was different about his change. Instead of popping out a mushroom creature after touching his body, his flesh just melted off of his bones like water sliding off bones, and it was accompanied by a pain so great that you would have to feel it for yourself in order to understand just how painful it could possibly be.

To describe just how painful it would be, it would be equivalent to getting your skin peeled off with a serrated potato peeler while being constantly showered in rubbing alcohol while laying on a bed of jagged salt rocks, and then being baked inside an oven and being cut up and eaten over and over again.

But it was a if this was happening all over his body dozens of times a second, that is just how painful it is, and not to mention that his nerves were gone almost instantly, but even if it was that painful he wasn't awake to feel it since he blacked as soon as the spore hit him.

Which is why he missed the message that had appeared in his vision shortly after he had blacked out, " Congratulations! You have been chosen by the Patron #>{~ as a potential holder for the "Bones of Evolution", please rise to the dominant life form in this Universe before the time limit is up. You have 111111111 years."

Two seconds later another message appeared before his eyes, "Error! Error! Unknown entity interfering with time limit! Informing patron... patron investigating... patron has been erased from existing in history... finding new patron... new patron found... prepare for binding of unknown system."

Another message appeared right after that one, "Interference detected... getting rid of interference... Error! ERROR! System under attack! Fighting back... losing... perishing..." and the messages stopped after that last one.

Instead a small right hand appeared out of nowhere and it started inscribing symbols on Karl's skeleton, which was a different than the skeleton of other humans, and the difference being that his skeleton was the same colour as his eyes.

On the small right hand there was a burn scar near the index knuckle along with many other smaller scars all over the hand. After the hand started inscribing on Karl's skeleton the colour of his bones went from green and blue to plain old white.

His skeleton was covered in tiny microscopic symbols, like the ones in his drawing, and he had green and blue light shining from them. It was as if the colour from his bones was condensed into the symbols, which is exactly what happened.

Pulling their hand back the being which controlled the hand looked at it's work before they added one final symbol to Karl's skeleton, a tiny little M just above his eyebrows, and then the hand waved and Karl's bones appeared to be white without any kind of markings, just like a normal skeleton.

Half a year later...

Opening his eyes Karl sat up from his previous position of laying on his back and he looked around, surrounding him were broken down buildings overgrown with mushrooms, vines, and trees. Noticing something he looked up and saw that it was actually nighttime but the moon wasn't out, all of the light in his surroundings was produced by the glowing mushrooms, and there were many glowing mushrooms.

Gigantic mushrooms standing at over 4 kilometres tall were all over the place while mushrooms of all sizes below 4 kilometres were growing every several metres. Dozens of mushroom creatures were roaming the street he was on, they varied in size and shape, but they all looked relatively the same.

Not only were there weird mushroom creatures roaming the streets but also weird flora creatures roaming other streets as well. Looking at the gigantic mushrooms Karl remembered some of his dreams he has had, he remembered that there was supposed to be those three cities all over the world, but he doesn't remember where they had been located.

Deciding to head back to the university dorms to get all of his drawings, he stood up and started walking towards the direction of the university based on the destroyed buildings in his surroundings, and that was when he noticed.

Turning his gaze downwards he started panicking and screaming, but no sound came out, instead there was the sound of objects covered in moss hitting each other. Smacking himself repeatedly the fruits of his labour was nothing but the sound of bones hitting each other.

Running towards one of the destroyed buildings he ran inside and frantically searched around for any kind of reflective surface, and he found a large broken mirror that had pieces large enough to show his entire body.

Seeing his reflection in the mirror Karl would have fainted again if he was able to, but he couldn't, and he examined himself. Returning his gaze was a skeleton covered in moss and small mushrooms that were producing a small bioluminescent glow.

Blue and green flames were dancing in his eye sockets, each colour in the same place as his eyes had been, green in the green socket and blue in the blue socket. Touching his skull with his fingers, he realized that he wasn't dreaming this time, it was really true.

Falling backwards, Karl hit his skull on the corner of a piece of concrete, and a system panel appeared before his eyes. On the panel there were all kinds of different things, but they were in different tabs like on a computer.

The main tab showed his name, age, health, and a level with a bar below it that had the words "EXP" beside it. He was currently level one with only four points of health, his name was Karl, and he was only six months old.

For a better view it looked like this,

"Name: Karl, Age: six months, Race: Human Skeleton, Level: 0,

"Health: 4, Skills: None, Pets: None, Weapons: None, EXP required: 100, Relationships: None

When he had fell backwards it caused a ruckus that drew one of the mushroom creatures nearer to the building Karl was in and it was approaching fast. Arriving at the opening into the building, the mushroom creature tried going inside the building but it was too large, and it started getting angry.

(P.S. I have pictures of the mushroom creatures, but I didn't draw them, and I can give the name of the artist for most of the pictures that I am going to use. Also the identity of the hand will be revealed at the end of this novel, along with the reason why Karl was chosen.)