I had found myself sitting on the ground with my head tilted to look toward the sky.
My eyes seemed to have lost their previous glint. They had become lifeless and empty as if everything I had ever lived for was no more.
Still, if one were to look deep into my eyes they would see an unwavering fire in the middle of a cold antarctic, facing off and fighting the piercing cold winds with enough fervor and energy to go on like this for years.
However, to the passing observer, it might seem like I was simply looking into the sky and reminiscing something, I was looking at a brightly lit screen that floated in front of me and did not disappear even after I blinked or closed my eyes.
It had been almost 2 days ever since I had been rebirthed into this world with a new body that I could recognize as mine, yet not mine at the same time.
My eyes were telling me that nothing other than my muscle definition had changed, yet my mind and heart were telling me that the body I was now inhabiting was nothing like the one I had left behind barely 3 days ago.
I continued to look at the notification before finally looking toward the ground and letting out a heavy sigh that had been weighing down on my chest for as long as I could remember, yet I knew that letting it out would not fix anything since the weight would always be there.
It was something similar to feeling the weight of your sins, a weight that would always be there no matter how much you tried to forget. It was a weight ingrained into my very soul.
Over the last two days, all I had been doing was running, hiding, and eventually being forced into fights that I would easily dominate in.
I did not have to face anything like the treant, skinwalker, or even the creature that closely resembled a T-rex.
It had only been 8 hours ago that I had found a sign of shelter in the distance giving me a glimpse of hope that I did not hold on for more than a second.
I knew how cruel this world could be now, and therefore holding any semblance of hope would only equip you to have them shatter before your very eyes.
On the way there I met one reptile and got a weird pop-up from the system after killing it, but even though it had given me almost 90 EXP from killing it, it was nothing compared to the 6400 I had to collect to move up to level 8.
It took me about 6 more hours to find the shelter that I had seen before, yet from up close, it looked far different from what I had imagined it to look like.
Rather than being a random cave on the side of a mountain, I could see two holes in the upper middle of the structure as well as an enormous opening at the bottom.
It was all made of this grey-colored rock that seemed like it has been weathered into that color rather than being like that naturally.
I could tell that the material was supposed to be a milky white, yet here it was as a dark grey.
Before I could walk into it, I finally got a good look at the entire structure, and what I saw left me frozen and wide-eyed.
A shiver went down my spine while my breathing became erratic and quick.
I felt my heart drop while a distinct buzz resounded within my mind.
I could see a distinct hole in the middle of the entire structure... Well, I couldn't even call it a structure anymore.
It was a corpse.
A skeleton the size of an entire mountain.
I didn't even know if this highrise of a natural formation could even count as a mountain, but the thing in front of me certainly was a titan when it was alive.
I could imagine scenes of it walking and destroying everything within its path.
However, while I might have been temporarily scared and frozen, that did not last for very long.
I did not get a sense of dread when coming close or even being on the verge of entering the skull, so I simply did not see any point in being scared anymore.
No matter what this thing was, in the end, it was just a death assemblage stuck in a mountain. I can't hurt me, and neither can I hurt it.
It was then that an idea struck me.
"What if I use bones as weapons!" I exclaimed to myself with excitement visible on my face.
I was like a child that had discovered candy, yet instead of it being candy, I had instead thought of something revolutionary.
My excitement didn't last long, however. The moment I felt the joy sure within me, a sense of grief and guilt overcame me, yet instead of both emotions clashing, I simply felt the joy dissipate while the only emotion left inside me was the feeling of a cold energy swelling in my chest as well as the guilt...
How could I be happy while everyone I knew and loved had died? How could I feel joy when I had been put in such a cold and uncaring world?
As my mood dramatically plummeted, I found myself once again sitting, yet this time I was in a place that I had assumed was safe for me to stay in.
I sat there for hours waiting for something to happen. I didn't know what I was waiting for, but eventually, I found myself having looked at the ground for hours while my hands held my head in place.
At certain points, I would start laughing out of nowhere, while other times I began to cry for minutes or even close to an hour. my emotions were rummaging and causing havoc within my mind. Everything had become a blur including the message that had appeared in front of me.
It was like my mind was purposefully trying to delay me from seeing it. I didn't know why of course, the mind is quite the mystery. However, one thing I knew was that as seconds passed, I was beginning to lose my sanity.
***
3 days before, under the canopy of the forest stood a beautiful woman. Her ears were pointed at their ends, yet unlike the sharp pointy ears of an elf, her ears were a lot more round and gradual.
Vines covered most of her body making it so that the only thing uncovered was her face. Her facial features were round yet sharp in certain places. Her eyes were slightly small compared to what was normal, yet it had only added to her charm, even making her look a little bit 'cuter' in the eyes of many men.
Her skin was a tinge between olive green and oak-brown, making her seem more like a plant that had come to life rather than a sentient living being.
However, the most captivating thing about her was her emerald eyes which shone like two stars in the semi-lit sky.
She was simply standing on one of the larger leaves at the top of the canopy without causing it to move even a little bit. Her body seemed weightless to everything around her, and her graceful movements only made her seem like a butterfly landing on a nearby leaf.
Yet, unlike her graceful movements, her facial expression had been morphed into a scornful one, her eyes peering down at the person responsible for the destruction of more than half of the forest.
However, she could not stay angered for very long as she knew that the person responsible did not intend to burn down the entire forest and instead just wanted to make sure that the things that had attacked him were fully dead. She could sympathize with him, yet at the same time, she didn't want to do so.
He was not one of her planet's creations after all.
He was a human... A retched human that dared enter her planet without her consent.
She watched the human boy dash around from tree to tree dodging the attacks of the dragon-hybrid after having failed to kill it with the ax he had created.
She didn't know how the human had gotten into her planet with such a weak physique, yet that was the smallest of her problems. Humans were not supposed to exist on her planet and if one were to try and infiltrate, she would have realized almost immediately.
'I don't have much time left... This vessel is losing its power too quickly and I need to keep some of it to stop the forest fire.' She scratched her chin with her right hand and stood there pondering her next move.
'Hmm?'
Her eyes quickly widened before darting toward the unknown human. It was only then that her eyes narrowed down to his figure and began to scrutinize every cell and atom of his being.
Through her eyes, she could see that a red hue had begun to seep out of the boy's body while several strands of his hair became red as well as a crimson-halo forming within his iris.
She was left frozen in place with an agape expression. It was the first time in her life that she couldn't understand what was happening. No... It was the first time in the last billion years that she felt energy she hadn't seen before.
'Blood? No that can't be it. It feels like death with the scent of blood. He smells like a human and even had the aura of one, so what the hell is this crimson energy coming out of him?! Did he unlock some kind of genetic mutation when he ate the golden fruit? But that only happens in lesser races. He is a human for god sake!'
She could not wrap her head around the fact that she could not recognize the energy, yet it seemed like she didn't have to.
She watched as I wrapped my hand around a wooden stake, enveloped it within my crimson energy, and threw it towards the open maw of the creature before me, allowing it to deeply impale the back of its throat.
However, her eyes turned dim when she saw that the sound wave was still coming toward me. Her mind was conflicted one whether or not she should save me from the attack, yet in the end, she still held a small grudge against me for what I had done to her forest.
She simply watched as the wave hit me and destroyed the entire front side of my body before throwing me into the, slamming me into a branch and allowing me to fall to the ground where I would once again be injured.
She could see my soul slowly leave my body as I lost the energy within me. She saw the fire within my eyes the moment I had been hit, and she saw the determination I had to not die, yet she still did nothing.
She believed that it was better to watch and do nothing rather than help me, and in reality, she had every right to do so.
Who would help a person who had invaded their territory, burnt their forests, and killed its inhabitants?
She began to turn away knowing well that I would most likely die of blood loss or drowning in my blood.
She didn't look back for a second as she flew into the air, a strange surge of energies coming towards her in the form of visible specks. Her hands had been lifted and her palms were pointing towards the sky.
*Snap*
*Rumble*
With the snap of her fingers, she caused lightning to thunder and the skies to shower the earth with its tears. Countless lightning strikes could be seen hitting the highest trees, yet the rain had immediately extinguished them with the only trace of their existence being the scorch marks they left behind.
----------------------------------------
To interact with the author, report mistakes, and see what the characters look like, join the discord Server: https://discord.gg/PtzXQBvAj5
----------------------------------------