Although shocked by the monster's glare, Leo immediately chose to ignore it. There was no time for him to hesitate, it was either him killing the mutated cat or him being turned into minced meat, which the latter was not something he was enthusiastic about. His hand gripped the warm and beating heart of the beast, the blood made it slimy and slippery.
The beast lashed out with all its remaining strength, but due to the fact that it was still prone, it found it hard to successfully attack Leo. The claws of the beast swiped across Leo's back, deep claw marks that revealed the red flesh underneath Leo's black hoodie and skin appeared on his back. Wincing in pain, Leo tugged on the beast's heart, trying to rip it out. The sabertooth-like beast hissed in agony, trying to retaliate but to no avail.
The arteries and veins that were connected to the heart began to tear one by one, the heart was finally directly torn out from the beast. The beast struggled to get up, but with the wounds it accumulated, there was no way it could live. Yellow eyes wide open and full of disbelief, the beast laid silently on the pavement, finally dead. As the effects adrenaline slowly fade, the sharp pain coming from his back was unbearable for Leo. With the beast's heart still in his hand, he slowly fell asleep on the ground, his wounds closing at visible speeds.
Hours after Leo fell asleep, the whole earth began to tremble again, very few of the buildings that were still standing after the first earthquake survived the second earthquake. Pillars of light descended from the heavens, as weird structures began to sprout from the ground all over the globe. Leo however, was totally unaware of the change, since he was still in deep slumber. However, there were other survivors that had unfortunate run ins with the newcomers, which definitely didn't went well.
Oblivious of all this, Leo finally woke up buried under piles of debris. Luckily for him, the buildings were pretty much burned down, so he had no problem removing the piles of ashes and coal that covered him. Climbing out of the ruins, Leo stood on top of the pile of debris silently, looking around in shock. The downtown area where he lived was once surrounded by tall skyscrapers, but now there was barely anything left. He could see some one story buildings in the distance, half buried in rubble, but what caught his eye was something else. A weird tower with a different architectural style than anything that Leo had ever seen before was now the tallest building in the area. "Weird, I don't recall something like that around here," Leo thought, admiring the grey tower that was roughly ten stories tall.
"Where to now?" Leo thought, perplexed by his current situation. Twelve hours ago he was still studying in his room, now he was just randomly tossed in a apocalyptic world. He sat on the pile of ruins for around ten minutes or so, completely lost. The growl of his stomach snapped him out of his daze, reminding him that he was still alive. To heal the wounds he accumulated wasted a lot of his body's energy, he desperately needed some sort of steady source for food and fresh water, or he will definitely die of thrist in no time.
There were two main goals, one was to thrive in this new world, the other was to find his friends and family. The first goal wasn't easy, but the second one was damn near impossible. He wasn't even sure if they were still alive, not to mention being able to locate them. Taking a deep breath, he climbed off the small mount of debris. Under the warm sunlight, something caught his eye. Although his vision was still impaired, the light reflected by the crystal was still pretty obvious. There was a glistening cyrstal embedded in the beast's corpse, which Leo collected.
Pulling out the other crystal that he collected from the dying coals of the man from his pocket, he studied the two crystals. There was a flickering flame inside the orange cyrstal, which was salvaged from the man. The grey crystal, from the sabertooth-like beast, seemed to have a weird hologram of a sabertooth sealed inside it. But when he concentrated on the crystals, something weird happened. Foreign information suddenly appeared in his mind, a weird sensation that he never felt before. He could feel that if he wanted to absorb one of the crystals, it would grant him the same abilities.
He hesitated, he didn't really want to turn into a flaming pile of charcoal nor a weird mixture between human and sabertooth. And he had a feeling that he could probably only absorb one of the two crystals, he wanted to wait until he obtained a better cyrstal. Judging by how easily the cat and the man got their powers, he was pretty sure that the powers they obtained were probably not the best option for him.
With the new information he obtained, he now had a rough outline for his first goal. He definitely needed to find a suitable crystal soon, or he will be forced to absorb one of the two crystals if he encountered a foe he couldn't defeat.
He also tried to salvage the corpse of the beast for anything he could use, the fangs were the first thing he laid his eyes on. But unfortunately, he had no way of extracting the fangs. He could only abandon the corpse, which the claws and fangs were definitely the perfect materials for crafting a decent weapon.
With his stomach growling, he had to set out right away. His first destination was the shelter a couple hundred yards away. It was an underground shelter constructed to accommodate a thousand people in times of disaster, there was definitely food and water there. The only problem was that Leo wasn't really the best when it comes to sense of direction, he could barely recognize the city in its current state. Having a rough sense of where the shelter should be, he decided to trust his instincts.
He was still barefooted, carefully looking around for anything he could salvage or for potential enemies. But since he lost his glasses, everything was really blurry, so he quickly gave up on scavenging for any useful stuff. Once he exited from the wrecked front gates of the neighborhood, he saw a familiar figure, or to be exact, half a familiar figure. It was the neighbor of his who ran away yesterday, who disappeared into the darkness. The man's bottom half was completely missing. Deciding to take a closer inspection, he walked up to the dead man.
His still had a wide grin on his face, probably from the joy of escaping the deadly sabertooth beast. He was cleanly sliced in half, his guts spilled all over the ground. His lower half was no where to be seen, probably devoured by the thing who killed him. Seeing that there was nothing useful for him to take, he decided to quickly leave in case the monster who killed the man was still wandering around. He was kind of relieved that it wasn't him who had escaped yesterday, or else this could've been his fate.
He quickly walked down the street, on the lookout for any survivors or enemies. Just as he let down his guard, a groan could be heard from collapsed buildings. Thinking that it might be another survivor, Leo quickly searched for the source of the sound. "Are you alright?" Leo asked, in a moderate voice since he didn't want to attract any unwanted monsters. However, there was no reply. Suddenly feel a weird presence behind him, he quickly leaped sideways. Turning around to see who was trying to attack him, he was shocked to see another human.
"Why? We can work together," Leo said, trying to calm the man down. However, the man continued to attack with disorganized grunts. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Leo said, dodging the man's weird attacks. He was moving in a unusual manner, like a drunkard. On closer inspection, the man had a pale face and some blood seeping out of his eyes. "Are you Ok?" Leo asked again, backing up. The man's speed was akin to a normal human, which was considered sluggish for Leo since his body was enhanced. Grabbing a steel rebar that was sticking out of the concrete, he swung at the man, trying to snap him out of his daze.
The rebar struck the man's leg, flesh and blood splattered everywhere. The rebar slightly bent under the force of hitting the man's bones. "Can you calm down now?" Leo asked again. But to his surprise, there was still no reaction even after Leo basically fractured the man's leg. Gritting his teeth, Leo swung the rebar again, aiming for the man's femur bone. Clank! The bone shattered under the force while Leo's hands went numb from the counteracting force. "NOW WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME?" Leo shouted, finally losing his temper.