[NSFW]

Oh! I know what would work. If I just ran over there and hugged it while freezing it and poisoning it simultaneously it might just fall asleep and die peacefully. If that didn’t work I could just cook it. I bounded over and hopped into its bite. I tightly wrapped my limbs around it and began emitting cold poison fog from my body while also spewing it from my mouth towards its face.

Alternatively, it was injecting a liquid into my body which I had to admit, felt extremely uncomfortable. Pain and numbness soaked into my body as I was sure the same was happening to the snake. The numbness and pain in my body was quickly fading while the snake was only getting weaker and weaker. Get fucked you stupid reptile!

When it completely flopped to the floor and its jaws released me I bit onto its eyes with my extended jaw and began clenching hard. While doing so I spewed fire from my throat onto its face to make it a little easier to get through. I didn’t care if my teeth broke, they would just grow back stronger. After destroying my jaw for a short period I finally got through and clamped down on its brain matter. For once I enjoyed the flavors entering my mouth, a rich creaminess that overwhelmed the strong taste of iron that trailed along.

Once that warm ice cream reached my stomach severe changes began happening immediately. My skin peeled off in the most painful manner it could and replaced itself with scales, an unknown force drilled small holes into my teeth and a new mechanism appeared in my neck. Aside from that my body was enlarging at a visible rate and I couldn’t help but shove everything around me into my mouth to quell my unending desire to grow stronger.

Oh yeah, wasn’t I supposed to get some kind of reward now? I looked up into the crowds and was once again met with eyes filled with fear. It wasn’t like I had wanted them to see this, they chose to watch this themselves. If anything it was their fault for putting me in a cage. Why were there no barriers to keep people from climbing out of the arena though? Did they just not think of it? I found mister macho man and addressed him directly.

“Ay bro, can I get out of here now?”

After looking at me like a fool for a few moments he stood up and began speaking.

“Congratulations! The bravest warrior has proved himself worthy of joining our ranks!”

He began an immediate round of clapping and the crowd slowly followed behind. I wasn’t used to this kind of applause so I just stood there like a dumbass, plus I was pretty sure my other body was waking up now.

***

“Mother, I have returned.”

“I am aware. I presume that is the man?”

“Yes.”

“I would have preferred that he never entered our sacred land but I cannot fault the choices you have made. I am aware of what you expect from me but it is simply not possible. If I must speak truthfully, his existence is the only thing ensuring our survival.”

“What do you mean mother? Have the others united against us?”

“I cannot tell.”

“Understood. What shall we do then?”

“You have his tears I believe. Drink them. The answers will reveal themselves to you then.”

She removed the bottle of tears from her inner realm and poured them down her throat.

…

“You stupid woman!”

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Fear. She felt an intense fear. She knew exactly why as well. Her mother was being beaten. It wasn’t her mother but it felt as though it really was. A nervous feeling ate away at her gut as her mother came to her and led her out of the house and into her car. Tears immediately gushed from her eyes and her body dived into her mothers embrace.

…

Clank!

The sound of glass shattering reawakened her and she became aware that her mother was once again being beaten. This time, beneath the fear and tears, there was a boiling anger. Upset at her own inability to protect her mother. How she wished she had the strength to protect her mother.

…

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Even as her eyes witnessed this tragedy she silently hid her anger. She was no longer allowed to cry. Despite her best efforts a tear still squeezed itself out of her eyes.

…

This was unfair! Just because they were bigger than her! What gave them the right to mess with her! She was just trying to be a good kid! Tears spilled uncontrollably from her eyes as the teacher consoled her.

…

“Aaaah!”

Should she just kill him? She was tired of letting him think he could keep getting away with it simply because she hadn’t done anything for the sake of keeping the family together. Killing him would be so easy, he never noticed when she crept up behind him. But deep down she knew she wouldn’t do anything and that frustrated her to the point of tears.

…

This time, this time she would kill him! If that club had hit the wrong spot her mother would have died! She had to kill him before he killed them! But she couldn’t, their entire family would break down if she did. Fuck!

…

Maybe I should beat him. This time it’s between me and him. No, I can’t. Things will escalate and I’ll have to kill him. This is so irritating, if only mom would give me permission. Who would even care if he went missing, there wouldn’t be evidence of me doing it either.

…

“Who the fuck gave you permission to touch her!”

For once in my life I recognized my father as a respectable man. He had been right at my side as we beat down the trash that had somehow managed to make the conclusion in their half melted minds that messing with my sister was a good idea. If not for him I would never possess the level of cruelty and ability required to crumple these fools. In a way, he had raised me into the perfect being.

…

Fuck, they really are dead. Fuck! What the fuck! What should I do? Fuck it! I already had a plan for if this happened, time to do it! No limits now! I’ll burn this world to the fucking ground!

…

I really miss them…

…

She snapped awake with tears flowing down her face. It felt… so real. All the chaos, anger, and violence was still there with her. But deep beneath the many layers of cruelty and twisted conditioning a simple desire was buried. The desire to have a happy family. Everything else revolved around that single desire. The ability to kill was only a means to keep the family safe, the ability to control people was only a means to gain enough success to make the family happy, the willingness to die was only meant to save the family.

But then the family was gone and all that she was left with was the violence and capability. The sadness and the pain. The switch had been activated and it was time to act. It just made sense. Explaining why she wanted to cause so much pain and suffering was difficult. Did anyone question why they needed to eat? Did anyone question why they needed to sleep? There was no how or why, it just simply was.

“How did it feel?”

“Strange, even now I wish to bring chaos into this world.”

“We are a product of our conditions. With the right conditions anyone can become anything. Perhaps if you took his place and he took yours he would be the one speaking to me now.”

“What is your desire?”

“I wish I knew the answer to that question. All I know is that he is the key to the survival of our world. As for how he is meant to be used I leave that to you to find out.”

“As you wish.”

***

Should I even open my eyes? What if I get knocked out again? Why are these chains so damn strong?

“Just open your eyes.”

Was I in heaven? I had never heard a voice that immediately made me think of a goddess before.

“I am not a god.”

“Hello, kind woman. I will most definitely not cause any harm to you if you release me from these chains.”

“I know.”

I was one hundred percent going to attack her as soon as she released me from these chains. Maybe she wasn’t reading my mind?

“You are not capable of causing harm to me.”

Ok, nevermind. Guess I’ll be a good boy then. The chains fell off immediately and I stood there as still as possible.

“So what is it you want from me? My powers? My death? My body? My services? Ask for anything, as long as it’s not anal I’ll do it.”

“I’m not sure what I need from you.”

“So… am I free to go?”

“No, I still need you.”

“Uh, ok I guess. Do you mind if I go exercise over there?”

“Go ahead.”

“Oh. Very epic.”

“…”

I walked to the other side of the cave that was straight out of a fantasy movie and began attacking the wall. Lucky for me the strength did transfer over. If this was the case then I really could achieve super training!

…

A squad of black haired guards cautiously approached and only relaxed when I returned to my human form. Now that I had my other self training I could relax a little bit. This time I would not allow myself to fall into a situation where I missed every chance to gain strength. But if that was the case then I should just kill Elaine’s whole family right now. Fuck… nevermind. Maybe I could spare these guys, hypocritical, I know. But I’m still human too. Plus who wants to read a story about a guy killing everything he sees? I mean, if this was a story then I should at least make it interesting.

I followed behind the guards and was led into a building filled with others who were clearly not part of the clan. It was a strange form of racism based on hair color. Everyone kept to themselves and the only groups that existed consisted of people with the same attributes. There was a particularly large group of people giggling in a corner. Oh, they were no longer in the corner now. They were walking towards me.

“Welcome to the death squad!”

“Uh, yeah. Glad to be here.”

“Someone alone like you won’t be here for long.”

“I agree.”

“…You’ll need someone to watch your back if you want to keep your life.”

“Oh cool. Is there a training field around here somewhere?”

“…Through that door over there.”

I walked through the door he pointed me towards and emerged into a large field where other shifters were sparring against each other. I was already breaking my bones assaulting the cave wall so I could just overwork my muscles with combat training. It was a simple principle, train your body by doing what you were going to do with it. As long as I put every ounce of strength into it I would damage something.

While I launched my offense on the air I realized that there was no air drag on my body. Even as a normal human there was some level of drag on my body. I cycled through everything we had done and traced back the reason why there was no drag… the wind hawk. I had forgotten that we had eaten one of those. If I could receive benefits from the air, maybe I could turn them against myself.

I imagined all the air I could control constricting my body. Without pause my body was hit with a constricting force, kind of like I was wearing weights on my entire body. This was good, the other body was also able to use the same level of air manipulation. The only difference was that I was using it to accelerate the speed my bones slammed into the wall. I had worried that the power of my special abilities would remain stagnant while my body grew stronger, but they too grew along with my body.

While training I had learned to concentrate the constrictive and accelerating forces on specific parts of the body to maximize the effect of training. Over the course of the hours I had trained my body my capabilities had slowly progressed to being five and a half times that of a normal human. The rate at which I grew slowly decreased as I became stronger and it was getting harder and harder to damage myself. This was fun though, the steady increase in power hit like a drug.

Just like watching the numbers in a bank account go up, or the number of likes on a post increase, or even better, watching bugs pile up at the bottom of a container as more and more of them drown. A simple pleasure in seeing things become more. It was midday now, I hadn’t really bothered to pay attention to what the others were doing but I now saw all of them walking back inside. Even the toughest looking one was going back inside. Perhaps we were going to war?

I stopped training and followed them inside. The moment I walked through the door I was blasted with the smell of a delicacy I had never before smelt. A rich herbiness, mixed with a gentle sweetness, and the natural capability to make my mouth water. Everyone was crowded around a pot of what seemed to be porridge with an assortment of herbs and vegetables. I couldn’t believe they fed soldiers this well. The first to get their bowl of food was the tough looking lion shifter, among the rest of us he was the only one who bore black hair and could shift into a feline.

Probably a high ranking soldier before he got dropped to our rank. After him all the toughest looking members took their turns taking food, grabbing as many bowls as they pleased before leaving. Once they finished eating I had run my calculations and come to the conclusion that there wasn’t enough left for the rest of us. As I did the math the particularly large gang I had seen earlier had surrounded the pot of food and were gobbling down food. These cunts were definitely not saving any for me. I shoved through the crowd and walked up to one of the eating members.

“Give me a bowl.”

“Wait your turn.”

Well, they couldn’t say I hadn’t tried to resolve it peacefully. I just wanted a bowl of food to see what it tasted like, overeating wasn’t really my thing. I shifted into my beast form and yanked him away from the pot before turning around and tearing his skull off. I did not want to spoil the food. A flurry of attacks pelted my back so I released a little electricity to throw them off. I used the air to accelerate my speed and took a few steps away from the pot. The crowd quickly split a path for me and I distanced myself far away enough from the pot so that nothing would contaminate its contents.

I turned around to a random assortment of dogs, cats, monkeys, reptiles, and even a bird. They were still piling on to me so I simply began biting away at skulls and tearing limbs off. Anyone who could manage to get through my scales had all their progress reversed as it healed shortly after. Once I got through nine of them they acknowledged that they would all die if they kept going and decided to retreat. I shifted back to my normal form and grabbed a bowl of porridge then walked back outside to enjoy it.

My nose had been completely correct about the taste of the food. A rich savoriness despite not having any meat and many complex and pleasant textures mixing together to give my mouth an enjoyable experience. It was worth killing all those idiots over. With the addition of reheating from my flames the porridge was elevated to one of my favorite dishes. How had I forgotten that I was in some magic forest? Maybe I should go outside and find something to eat.

“Did you kill them?”

Who had come to bother me now? I turned around to find the black haired man facing me.

“No, it was a ghost.”

“The officers will punish you for it.”

“Like, beat me?”

“Something similar.”

“Sounds good to me. When will they arrive?”

“They’ll be collecting the food soon.”

“I should be there to greet them then.”

“…”

I walked back inside and dragged all the bodies together then sat on top of them. I waited for the doors to open and soldiers to walk in.

“Oh no! Look at all these corpses! How very terrible! If only we knew who did it. What is this? There appears to be blood on my hands! Their blood! Please take me away and punish me harshly! I will be sure to not resist.”

They looked at me as if I was a monkey in an aquarium before grabbing my hands and dragging me away. I was taken out into the field and they tossed me into the center before they began stomping on me. My bones continuously crumpled and repaired themselves while I sat there thinking about how smart I was. I had even managed to outsource training to someone else. Using this method I was able to simultaneously strengthen muscles as well.

Sadly good things have to come to an end sooner or later. In my case sooner. When the soldiers discovered that I couldn’t die they decided to just peace out and leave me alone. I got back up and resumed my training.

***

She found it a bit peculiar that he would choose such a self destructive method for training. Most destroyers chose to ensure the highest level of safety they could, even the ones who were unkillable never chose to train by destroying their bodies. The carelessness with which he shattered his bones against the wall made her wonder if he could even feel pain. She had thought that as she grew stronger her tolerance to pain would increase, this was one of the few things she had been wrong about.

Pain never became comfortable, it lingered around like an invisible barrier. Occasionally presenting itself and stopping her for the briefest of moments when she should have been able to push past. Perhaps this was the difference between mortals and immortals. A natural loss of the fear for pain, given to them by knowing the fact that pain represented nothing but that. As for mortals, pain represented death, the more of it you felt the closer you were to death.

[Writers Notes - For those of you who haven’t figured it out. That flashback was a near perfect replication of his childhood and life.

Transitioning to the next topic, imagine how much training you could do if you didn’t have to wait for your body to recover and you never ran out of strength. At that point I wouldn’t need other powers, I’d just train until I conquered reality itself.

Btw, I’ve done a ton of world building outside of the chapters, don’t worry about inconsistencies, this book is going to be perfect.]