A dragon-sized bolt of electricity speared into Jen, causing her to drop back her head and scream… nothing… She begged but her voice didn’t care, instead cowering in fear of the invader. Thunder clapped around them and boomed across the fields, throwing further people and Aliens on edge. Even the strongest Aliens backed away from the fight, terrified of the wolves in sheep’s clothing in front of them; while they had initially considered Jen’s and Stanis’s appearance onto the battlefield that of a challenge’s, now they saw them as rightful hunts, them the predators, they the prey. And this was all without even mentioning the star-stone plummeting down to Earth…

The electricity coursed from Jen’s bloodstreams back into Stanis’s, causing him to cringe on the edge of his teeth. One round.

Jen cocked her head forwards. Something snapped within her, reflected in her eyes, and her voice stood up, towering over her previously held fear. She would fight fire with fire, and she would win. Darkness squeezed out of her pores and streamed towards the incoming round of lightning, clashing with it and throwing buckets of condensed mana all over themselves.

They roared to life like internal infernos but Stanis fought through the pain, instead draining even more of his mana into the lightning. It would be beyond dangerous when the round returned to his body but it was a risk he was willing to take; it was a risk he had to take.

The lightning cut through the thickly-weaved darkness and pierced her, puncturing her lungs and throwing her mind into oblivion. She felt a short respite as the lightning left her and her head powerlessly fell forward. Her eyes caught onto his brightly lit body and saw in his eyes what she had never feared till now: death. Not his, but hers; she would die the next round, weak and feeble against his tyrannical force.

Well, if she was going to die anyway, what was stopping her from cursing him?

This thought cheered her up for the briefest of moments, one so short that she didn’t even have the time to smile in it. But what she did have was enough time to let go of her body and the world that shackled it. Explosively.

Before the third wave of lightning pervaded her holy-temple, her body disappeared from existence. Every cell turned into the thickest and most pungent of darkness imaginable and exploded with a cheerless bang, lacking both firepower and splendour. But for what it lacked, it made up through a primal, bloodhunting force.

The coal-black liquid splattered over Stanis and sent him sprawling to the ground. He struggled and failed, the darkness eating and growing at the expense of his flesh. He tried to cast Light Healing but failed all the same, reducing down to a sickly sack of flesh and bones. But then flags of lightning soared out of his deepest reserves, claiming back the body which was rightfully his. It fought the darkness and won, tearing away at its formation and slurping away the seeds it left behind.

He struggled and won; he was finally the figure of power he had always wanted to be. He opened his eyes from the nightmare and faced a far grander one shining in the sky: the meteor.

Gulping, he looked to his sides, before releasing the Aliens had cleared out from over 100 metres around him. He stood up and ran, before falling face first into the bloody ground. The meteor was casting an intense pressure on him and over his surroundings. He considered the distance and weighed the risks: he could either wager his life and attempt to escape the point of impact in time, or he could build up impenetrable walls around him.

One, two, three, the walls built up around him. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, he stared up and felt an uncertainty, no, he could do this. Twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, the final barriers stacked up. While the individual barriers weren’t as strong as Jen’s had been, the combination of all of them was far stronger. Hopefully.

Giving no heed to pleasantries, the meteor crashed into Earth and sent flames and cracks alike running through the ground. It lobbed Stanis like a ragdoll high into the air, the last of his barriers collapsing under the heat and pressure. He rammed into the ground and felt the Ocean follow, stacking onto his body. He tried to breathe but he couldn’t: there was no air. He tried to stand up but he couldn’t: there was too much pressure. He tried to squirm and squeal but couldn’t, his echoes lost to the abyss.

Then, hope reignited itself in him. There was no ocean, and there was no foe he couldn’t beat. He had killed the strongest human with his own, bare hands; he was now the strongest, the greatest, the invincible. He rapidly cast Light healing with his eyes shut and his body, crumpled over the ground, began to solidify, giving further strength to his hope. He stood up and roared, catching eyes with the multiple Aliens charging towards him.

Why?

As if in his own world with the passing of time a fraction of what it was on Earth, he looked around and saw Alyona in the distance. He couldn’t hear what she was saying but he could read her lips.

“A monster has taken control of his body,” she said. “It will kill all of us,” she said.

He then looked at the army of soldiers standing beside her on the wall. “No, such a lie can’t be true,” their incredulous eyes read. But their faces said otherwise, preaching to them that a human couldn’t be this strong and this cruel.

Cruel? He wasn’t cruel.

Stanis put his palms over his face and felt that his muscles were tightened. He was… grinning?

Why?

…

Oh.

He looked back at the soldier’s faces once more, and this time their expressions made sense. They were jealous and scared, frightened but selfish, dumb and bitter.

His grin grew wider and devoured his whole face. So it be, if what they wanted was a monster, it was a monster they were going to get. The last smatterings of energy burst out of his body and formed lightning gauntlets: it wasn’t a lot but it was more than enough to put down a few rabid dogs.

He flickered out of sight and appeared next to the closest Alien. It didn’t even have enough time to turn around before its head shot to the ground, eventually followed by its limp body. The Aliens began to squeal in their shrill voices but it was already too late. Stanis then moved to the strongest of the Aliens. It produced several barriers and cast a violent force against his abs. Unfortunately, its attack turned out to be nothing more than a scratch and its defence as strong as drenched paper.

At this, the Aliens truly began to fear. One by one they ran with their tails between their legs; they had focused on him because they had feared he was stronger than the village put together, and he had proved their theory more than correct, more than what they could certainly take. Stanis would have chased them but his target was of a different breed altogether; he turned his head and faced the walls and the cowards who manned it.

He bolted down the corpse-filled battlefield and immediately jumped the walls, landing onto the walkway. His lust sung and he listened, his arms moving in harmony with his hatred, his loathing. His symphony played timelessly, until it stopped.

Confused, Stanis finally awoke from his trance and looked around, noticing nothing but blood and limbs around him. He tried to walk out of the pools he stood in but found his steps heavy and clumsy. Why? He looked down and noticed the small scratch the strongest Alien had gifted him was actually far more than a scratch, instead a gash that ranged from hip to rib.

<Light Healing>

He tried to heal but noticed his body devoid of all energy; he had already spent all of his wealth. Fuck. Mind blurred and puzzled, he tilted his head up and noticed a sound for the first time, a call even.

“ ******ay!”

Stanis rubbed his eyes and tried to listen again, although all that did was pour blood into them.

“****ke way!”

“WHAT?!” Stanis shouted back.

“MAAAKEE WAY!”

It was closer this time. Stanis turned to face the sound and saw Bear, followed by Skint and Pete. He tried to raise up his arms in time but failed as Bear hit him like a ball against bat, only with the side of a bastard-sword instead.

Stanis grazed the stone-floor with his landing and infected it with his blood. He immediately tried to stand back up but quickly realised that he was done for; he had no energy left and no miraculous seeds of hope waiting to sprout.

Pete squatted over him and lightly patted his back. “You’ve done me a service, boss man. Pick him up, Skint,” he said.

Skint softly gripped his skin and allowed him to lean on the smaller man’s body, finally letting him stand to full height.

“Think about it this way: two monsters who you just can’t beat. Why bother with two plans to kill both when you can just use one,” he said as he pointed at Stanis. “And you, yes you, are a monster but also the plan. You really did me a service, boss man. I thought you’d fail and I’d have to risk it to finish her but look at you go, tearing through even her suicide attack without batting an eye. I respect you, I really do.”

He paused and Skint slightly pushed his body forward so that his head fell to face the floor.

“So, that’s why you’ll have to go…”

A hatchet buried itself into his neck, before going out again. A distant swear sounded out, before another swing. Another swear and a final swing, finishing the job.

The strongest Human had died. Stanis Volkov was dead.

****

Yils stared into the starless sky and spotted the faint discolouration. She grabbed out and latched onto a soul, pulling it so hard that it fell out of the sky and into her hands. She turned to Zelgard and showed him her catch, although he seemed to not care as he whittled away at a hollow tube.

“Look Zel, I got it,” she said.

He didn’t hear her and instead kept shaving the wood, allowing the soft tufts of hair to fall to his feet.

“Zeeel, look,” she repeated, pointedly pushing it into his face.

“Oh,” he said, taken aback by the sudden interruption.

“You were right. He died exactly 6 months after he first climbed his way up,”

Zelgard nodded in agreement and approval and acceptance, and fuck off I’m busy, as he returned to his whittling.

“But I was right as well,” she continued, mostly to herself as Zelgard had already blanked out. “I did say that he would die drowned in resentment,”

Zelgard continued nodding, hoping that it would appease her. He was the overseer meant to look after the planet but he found her distractions far more urgent than the problems of Earth. He was the grand overseer, a position others only dreamed of, and she was a lowly servant, built up to the powerhouse she was now, and he, well, he was just another human powerless against the powers of fate, a person who was just not worth his time.

The End.