After the last mutants were killed, Gab suddenly noticed that his comrades were starting to act strangely. "Shit, it's not just Evie who lost control of herself," Gab cursed as he watched Luke occasionally throw spears at people who got too close to him.

Evie, on the other hand, seemed to be getting more aggressive by the second, and it didn't take long for her to attack even innocent group members who got near her. Gab, who made it his mission to protect as many people as possible, ran towards Evie and threw his shield at her to get her attention.

The shield drilled into her shoulder, and Evie roared out loudly. She suddenly started growing taller and even more muscular. "Run," shouted Gab to the other group members who were resting in the cave.

The blonde-haired girl, who was tiredly clinging to her staff, just clenched her teeth and watched from a distance, getting ready to jump in. "He's such a foolish idiot," she muttered to the other mage who silently nodded. "At least he gives his best to protect our group members like a real leader," remarked the muscular dude. "Yeah, you're right on that," the girl responded. By now all of the group members left the cave.

Evie, on the other hand, jumped at Gab. However, he dodged each of her blows with ease since he was faster than her by a big margin. "Evie, please come to yourself," Gab pleaded as he watched Evie stuff a mutant down her throat while continuing to attack him.

He didn't dare to attack Evie with the blade of his weapons because of their friendship. Instead, he used the bone handle of his weapon to strike at Evie's limbs.  The blonde-haired woman regularly used light spells to blind Evie for brief moments. Gab's tactics seemed to be successful since Evie kept toppling over, but unfortunately a sharp thin bone shoot through Gab's lower body.

The shot was strong enough to interrupt Gab and allowed Evie to grab him one more time. Evie threw him against the wall with all her might, and Gab only felt his bones break. The broken bones seemed to puncture his organs. "I can't die yet," Gab muttered desperately with crimson eyes.  But before he could do anything else, bone spears continued to bore into his body, nailing him to the ground.

"Why Luke," Gab whispered desperately and stretched out his arm. Luke on the other hand just screeched out loudly and charged at Evie. As the two fought each other, Gab's fainted.

***********************************************************************************************

Somewhere deep in a dungeon, the moon was reflected on the surface of the flowing blood. The blood flowed out of the cave into several cave passages.

If someone were to enter, they would see a gigantic pile of stacked dead mutants. The pile reached a height of around 20 meters with a diameter of 40 meters. The body pieces of dead mutants were scattered throughout the cave.

At the top of the pile were two monsters. One of the monsters resembled a tree as each bone of the dead slowly moved in its direction and accumulated on it. The other monster resembled a minotaur in size and sound. It stuffed the meat of the dead monsters as well as the dead comrades into its mouth and chewed loudly as half of it fell from its mouth.

On the ground, however, laid something that used to be Gab. Several bone spikes were deeply embedded in Gab's body. His body also was strangely bent and trampled. Gab layed there with his eyes closed. People could even consider him dead if it weren't for all the blood that kept flowing in his direction. With every minute, his wounds healed more and more. Only after several hours, his body was almost healed completely.

At the same time, it took even longer for the other two monsters to regain consciousness and resemble humans again.

By now, Luke was climbing down to Gab in  a dark bone armor and a dark spear. His new armor was built out of the bones of a mutant dragon. These were far sturdier compared to the bones of humans and mutants. "I'm sorry, Gab," he whispered as he pulled out the bone spikes that were still embedded in Gab's body one by one.

"I lost control over myself under all the bones that were present. I became a monster that attacked everything in its path. A monster that only wanted to consume. Thank you for standing in the way of Evie and me to give the rest of the humans a chance to escape," Luke muttered as he stuck his fingers into Gab's wounds. "I would never do such a thing but consider it as a gift. I'll use some of the mutant dragon's bones to encase your fragile skeleton."

After Luke took care of that, he set to work with the remaining bones to create weapons or arrows from the remaining bones.  A few hours later, Evie came back to herself.  Tears immediately rolled down her face.  She rushed to Gab's side and knelt beside the sleeping Gab.

All she could do was mutter, "how am I supposed to face someone when I tried to kill him after losing control over myself."

Luke, who was creating weapons with a guilty conscience, looked at her.

"We shouldn't feel too guilty. We were naive and thought that we could become stronger without consequences.  We thought we were still masters of ourselves. We thought that our desires were still caged.  We forgot that we can lose control over ourselves if we get too Strong too fast and absorb in excess," Luke commented. Evie nodded with tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Gab, for protecting the rest from us," Evie whispered while placing her hand on Gab's forehead.

Slowly, the sound of footsteps from the other group members echoed through the cave. The one eyed man sat down on a stone and just sighed loudly. "I would rather fight a thousand mutants than you two. Thank God you got yourselves under control," the one eyed man remarked coldly. The blonde girl walked towards Gab and just looked at Evie coldly. Evie immediately felt a shiver going down her spine. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Tell that to our dead group members whom you ate," the other girl remarked. "It seemed like you really enjoyed eating them, you disgusting monster," she added.

Half an hour later, Gab woke up and moaned loudly in pain. "My whole body hurts," he cursed. By now, the whole place had been drained of every last drop of blood.

Inside the cave, on the ceiling, was a large opening from where the sky was visible.

"The stars shine so beautifully," Gab commented after he came to himself. He slowly stretched his arm toward the sky.

"Someday, I'll grab a star and pull it down to me. My hand may burn, but I won't give in," Gab muttered to himself.