The brown‑haired boy's black eyes shook with terror. His legs buckled, and he nearly collapsed onto the dirt, sitting only because his body had forgotten how to stand.
Adam had no time to comfort him. He snatched a wooden staff from the ground and pushed forward, dodging and deflecting a storm of blades. The monsters that attacked him wore armor like knights, but their strength was something else entirely—each swing carried the force of ten grown men, enough to crush stone in a single blow.
The only thing keeping him moving was the boy behind him.
"Come on. Get up," Adam said through clenched teeth.
Adam, watch out! Rehan's voice rang inside his head.
Adam's body reacted before thought formed. He jerked sideways, pain tearing through his arm as an arrow punched through flesh. No vital points hit—but it still burned like fire.
All around him, the world was collapsing. Soldiers in light leather armor were being skewered by skeletal spearmen, lifted off their feet and pinned to the earth like broken dolls. Men. Women. Children. No one was spared. The town was turning into a furnace—flames swallowing homes, while a thick red miasma crawled through the streets and killed whatever the fire didn't reach.
Adam grabbed the boy again, dragging him upright.
He spent 100 Creation Points without hesitation. Nanobots flooded through his bloodstream, tearing into mutated cancer cells, forcing progenitor cells to work, stitching tissue and activating his telomeres. His body stabilized—always returning to maintenance mode—but at a cost.
A gnawing emptiness twisted inside him, like hunger that couldn't be fed. The more he healed, the hungrier he became.
He glanced back at the boy, still frozen in shock.
"Come on, man. You can't just sit there," Adam muttered. "I'm already saving your ass."
The boy finally rose to his feet—barely. His instincts screamed at him. His breathing was ragged. His whole body trembled under the limbic system's survival alarms.
"Don't you get it!?" he choked, voice cracking. "I could die! Anyone would be terrified! How are you calm right now!?"
Adam exhaled, tired. "Then I'll leave you here."
When he turned, the boy grabbed his arm. Adam shook him off with a hard sweep.
"Please—don't leave me," the boy whispered. Maybe Adam looked like someone who could survive. Maybe he was his last chance. Or maybe he was just too afraid to be alone.
A child with a bow tie screamed as a skeleton charged. Adam sprinted, interposing his staff—only for the blade to shear it clean in half. He barely blocked with his arms, the edge nearly splitting him open.
The brown‑haired boy could only watch, pale and shaking, as monsters tore through the townspeople. Zombies gnawed on corpses still twitching. Abominations ripped bodies in half.
A lone soldier fought back, crushing a skeleton's skull with his sword.
"For Pinestone! For the stronghold! We will not be forgotten!"
And then—something far worse stepped into view.
A humanoid figure draped in a tattered cloak. Eyes glowing dark red beneath a shadowed hood. Black plate armor covering its body. A massive executioner's axe in one hand. Wings—hollow, colorful, covered with unblinking eyes—unfurled behind it.
The undead marched at its back.
Adam was bleeding again. A soldier shoved a sword into his hands and pushed the brown‑haired boy forward.
"This will not prevail!" the soldiers cried, charging even as the miasma choked their lungs. One by one, they collapsed mid‑stride.
Adam's eyes burned red with fury. He hated one thing above all else—humans dying without meaning. No glory. No honor. Just bodies.
The boy coughed out fumes, throat burning. Adam noticed he wasn't affected at all.
Adam, you're clearly not human anymore, Rehan spoke inside him. Your body has been altered completely by Manori's escape.
"…Huh?"
His vision sharpened. His senses spiked. His eyes glowed. He saw it—bats swirling into a sphere of crimson fury, launching toward him from the humanoid. He dodged before instinct even kicked in.
The monster faltered. Surprised.
[Adam… maybe we should give up this time…]
"No… I just… I really hate that guy."
The ground was painted in crimson. The brown‑haired boy's mind snapped—rage twisting his face, eyes wide and bloodshot. He grabbed a sword from a corpse and charged with a manic scream.
He struck with all his strength.
The blade didn't leave a mark.
A wave of darkness wrapped around him, crushing the fight out of his body. He collapsed, shaking violently—transformation halted midway.
Adam grit his teeth. Powerless again. Unable to save another life.
He grabbed a fallen rifle and fired relentlessly—twenty rounds piercing the monster's chest.
The humanoid tilted its head. The wounds forced the bullets back out and sealed instantly.
Then it vanished.
A blink.
A flash of movement.
Suddenly it stood before him—axe glowing with red lightning—ready to carve him in half.
His life flashed in a single heartbeat.
[Activating multitasking… parallel processing engaged… initiate dimensional escape…]
[Unavoidable.]
In an instant—like lightning splitting the sky—Rehan's pulsating force slammed through Adam's body. Pain tore through every muscle as his limbs contracted violently. He raised his rifle fast then sound, but it shattered under the strike, slicing through the weapon as if it were butter. The monster's blade swung toward him, aiming to cleave him in half.
Bones cracked, muscles tensed beyond human limits, and Adam twisted, dodging death by a hair. The monster's strike cleaved his right arm, sending it soaring into the sky like a broken branch tossed by a storm.
[Activating emergency save mode.]
Adam's vision dimmed as he collapsed among the carnage. Skeletons, monsters, and mindless zombies sprawled around him, the land steeped in the aura of death. The brown-haired boy was nowhere in sight, vanished amidst the ruins. The knights in their plated armor dissolved into the horizon, leaving only the echo of destruction.
The monster stood shrouded in a black aura, lifting its staff—a red orb pulsing at its tip, a gem floating inside it like a beating heart. Miasma gathered around Adam, swallowing the ground in a choking haze.
The creature paused.
It felt killing intent—real, sharp—and stepped out of the miasma, realizing the poison wasn't affecting Adam at all.
Above them, Rehan watched silently, her hologram forming a single glowing eye.
Without a sound, the monster turned away.It walked past Adam—past the corpses, past the fires—heading toward the next town to bring its destruction there as well. With aura of a spell of death around the monster.
[Directing nanobots.]
Pain lanced through his severed shoulder as the nanobots began their work. Circulation restarted, tissue created, bones and muscles regenerated. His eyes flickered open, glowing faintly with awakened life. He forced himself to remain silent despite the agony.
It was painfully slow. Hunger gnawed at him, a constant void he couldn't fill. His body thinned, fat consumed to patch wounds, organs stretched to meet impossible demand.
Adam… eat something… anything…
His gaze fell on a wild boar carcass nearby. Instinctively, he devoured it. His eyes gleamed red. Fangs protruded from his mouth, sharp and glinting, yet his skin retained its human tone. Rehan watched in astonishment.
"That… that's something… the monster's instant-death strike failed because your body… it's different," Rehan muttered.
Adam's right arm slowly regrew, like a mutating tumor reshaping itself, then solidifying. He stood, surveying the ruin around him. The brown-haired boy was gone. The town lay in splintered ruins, buildings torn in half, humans impaled or mangled.
"You owe me one, saving you, dumbass," he muttered.
-_-… Yeah.
He walked silently, thinking, What am I? What is happening to me? Strength coursed through him, but hunger still clawed at the edges of his mind.
Well… you're a monster… but still human… maybe… Rehan's voice was faint, speculative.
Then he saw the boy. Or what had become of him.
Black hair like shadows themselves framed a pale, corpse-like face. Eyes burned a jewel-red deeper than Adam's. Teeth sharpened to lethal points, fingers elongated with razor nails. The boy towered over Adam, five foot six lost against this nightmare figure.
Being a six foot 4 being.
The boy collapsed to the ground, squealing: "Please… don't kill me!" Teeth tearing into a rat as if it were nothing.
The duck? Rehan murmured, almost amused.
At least you're not that, Adam thought grimly.
To be continued…