A lonesome boy ran as fast as he could, his fear for death was none existent, his desire for change greater than anyone elses.
Beyond the great stretch of grass there was a crowd of trees huddled up, defeating the sun's light.
Midas attempted to reach the group of greens, his attempt faltering. The lack of nourishment has caused his legs to give out.
His desire to reach the trees was beyond his fatigue, so he began crawling, slowly, increasingly slowly. His nails snapped as they dug into the dirt, pushing through no matter what.
The chaos behind him was at a gradual decrease as many began their own ascension, causing most of their strengths to be at a stalemate. Surprisingly, after the first kill the strength of the ascended stopped. The difference between strength is equal to their state on earth.
Midas was scared, confused and overstimulated, he randomly began understanding all the words of the other humans. The immediate learning of speech would be a cause for celebration at another other time, but due to the environment the only thing he was hearing was pleas for mercy.
He didn't know what to do, he was tasked with killing a single living thing, but for a young boy this would be a difficult task. The current humans were too powerful, he hadn't seen a single animal and even if he did, he didn't know their strength either, he was left with a gamble. Midas had two options, return later when everyone was asleep and look for humans who haven't died yet, or discard the total idea of ascending by using humans.
The voice wouldn't have given them this strength if it wasn't needed, meaning that if he had chosen not to ascend he was practically begging to die.
He had thrown away those thoughts for a moment, the only thing he could concentrate on right now was crawling, ever so slowly he made his way to the trees.
Hours passed, during those hours he had been drenched in blood countless times and pretended to he dead dozens of times.
And finally, the coolness of the trees's shade enveloped him. Under the shadow of the vast trees his eyelids gave up, letting him fall into a deep slumber due to the mental and physical exhaustion today.
…
Midas had finally woken up, it was dark, his previous slumber was during the early hours of the day. The sun was hidden masking the world in the perpetual void. the previous spawn area for the human race was mixed with the crimson juice of life and mangled parts of viscera.
Light infrastructures were built, such as tents out of leaves and logs, and foundations of houses made out of comically large logs.
Due to the absence of money, fruits are the payment, some who couldn't attain fruits spoke promises of future payments, those foolish enough to still have hope in humanity after this slaughter, believed their promises.
Even after the extreme slaughter and the death of families and cities, everyone reverted to the old societal capitalistic structure simply meaning one thing. money is god.
Or in this instance, fruit.
Midas, due to his extreme exhaustion had overslept an extreme amount, he had woken up during the night.
He slowly rose, his body trembling, begging for food. The previous days blood had dried on him, giving his hair a red tint.
He continued his previous crawl but this time, back to the spawn area where others were sleeping.
Midas crawled slowly after a few hours he got close, he saw things he was familiar with, the black and blue marks across the bodies of those without 'beds', their bodys scarred with symbols that refer to ownership.
Some were missing limbs or eyes, this would cause most from approaching this location, seeing these unfortunate souls as an example of who retaliates but due to Midas's previous life on earth, this was seen as normal and expected.
It seems that groups have formed, those who survived the chaos joined together, in groups of those who have ascended and those who haven't, this didn't seem like an equal group though, those who have ascended are practically slave masters.
The camp was 3 km in front of the forest. The size of the spawn area was similar to the size of London , Midas was lucky to have spawned near the edge.
As he reached the inner area of the camp, he spotted a scrawny boy, his left arm twisted against the joint but that was the better of the two arms. His right arm was nonexistent but what remained wasn't bleeding as the stump had been burned to prevent the boy from dying. Truly the work of wicked wolves. The work of those who betrayed their humanity for power.
The poor boy's eyes were constantly closed, as if protecting something. blood continued to drip from his eyelids, he continued to jolt and shift, attempting to make noise, he wanted help-no… he needed help, but his teeth and tongue had been ripped out causing the pleas to turn into nonsensical screams.
At the sight of this, any parent would cry.
The young boy wanted his soul to be liberated, the pain was unbearable.
Midas delivered just that.
Midas sat on the boy's chest, feeling the boy jolt and shake out of fear. If all the injuries on the boy were inflicted at the same time, he wouldve died from shock. Proving the sadistic nature of the attacker.
Midas carefully placed his hands on the boy's crimson emaciated neck before pressing with all his might, blocking the blood from reaching the brain. He had known what to do due to seeing that same tactic being used on people from his home town against a theif who had stolen water.
If it had been anyone else Midas's strength would have been insufficient, but due to the boy already being close to the gates of death it was way more doable.
With one last push, Midas squeeze harder than he ever has, what remained of his nails bled furiously. The young boy gurgled on blood before his body went limp.
Midas didn't stop, his hands still squeezing the boys neck, until he released and resorted to hitting the boy with punches, bashing the boy's head into the ground.
After numerous punches, Midas finally stopped as he realized, the boy was already dead.
You, Midas, have ascended
A beautiful voice spoke to Midas, he was told of his new achievement, however his attention was elsewhere.
The previously bruised and frail body slowly filled out, fixing his injuries and quenching his physical needs immediately.
The jurisdiction of the system was beyond imagination, Midas never felt full before, nor did he ever walk around uninjured. He felt alive, he felt human.
He looked down at the bright light shining in front of him.
A purple screen appeared in front of him.
Title: -
Path: -
Rank: -
Attribute: -
Status: healthy
Even though the overall status was considerably vague, he didn't know what any of these things entailed.
this was the first time Midas had been given a name, was it a personal thing the system gave?
He didn't know if the name was his true birth name or if it was a system given name but nonetheless he felt an emotion he never felt before.
A sense of Belonging, as if the system had seen him as more than just a creature of sorok.
He felt… like a human.
——
Alastair walked with a group behind him, he was walking further into the centre of the spawn area. He wished to gather a large group in hopes of returning humanity to its previous state.
Any person who attempted to attack or harm his people was instantly disposed of, not by him of course.
What king goes out of their way to step on to an ant?
The closer they got to the centre the bigger the group around Alastair was.
A saccharine tongue that infects the mind, planting a seed of ambition and subordination. He caused all to bow to him under the promise of power and fame.
He made sure to not to kill as he wanted to develop the image of carer and good man who cares for the rest. He valued human life not wanting to waste it unless necessary.
"Alstair, we have reached the centre" claimed a short man with a beard, his wrinkles evident across his tanned caramel skin. A clear scar infected his face, spanning from his right ear to the left side of his lips, forever dooming him with a wretched look.
"Good, now those of you who have ascended, organize yourselves into groups based on three categories: information gathering, physical abilities and resource gathering." Alastair commanded, his words carrying an authority that none of them could deny. As if a parasite had taken control of them, they had followed his words to the absolute letter.
The masses quickly began separating themselves into groups, those who haven't reached the required Ascension, were meant to kill each other to reach it. All wanted to be useful to a newly rising empire, the better they do now, the more their lives will be set when the actual empire is created.
Alastair now had an army of thousands of ascenders, yet the person in front of him drew his attention more than ever, he was curious.
"Alstair, apart from apples and cherries, no other fruit from earth could be found. I asked the teams to avoid them for now as we don't know if their poisoness or not," Abraha, the short man with a scar, relaid.
"Very well, Abraha, focus on gathering fruits and animals that we know from our world," retorted Alastair, "you may leave," he muttered.
"One last thing, Alstair, these two attacked me after I killed their father who wanted to overthrow you, Im sure you know what must happen if you attack the second in command." Abraha explained with a sinister smile.
Two young children were thrown before Alstair's, who sat on a throne made of logs and leaves, they were the two Abraha claimed to have attacker him. Wasting the man power of adults was illogical, so he couldn't let them be as Abraha might act up, he wanted to save them from death, but Abraha forced his hand.
"Please… please!" A woman roared from behind the soldier's shoulders. "My boys… don't- don't kill them! I'll do anything, all work harder than everyone… but please… just don't kill them!" She cried, her tears and sniffs clouding some of her words but he had understood the general premise. He wanted to listen to her, her really did. Abraha in terms of strength and intelligence was worth 5 men, the woman and her two boys were barely worth 1.
"Let her through," his words had allowed no negotiation, the ascended soldiers parted perfectly and in unison. Moses would've been impressed at such a display.
She immediately ran hugging her two boys, they were too young to realise why their mother was crying but at how she tightly held them, they also sensed a bit of her emotion. Alstair wanted to save them, he really did, his face scrunched thinking about Abraha.
"Thank god… thank god!" She began repeating, her tears on full release.
THUD*
"Wha-" the mother's tears stopped, Her vision blurred and her arms trembled as she held the lifeless body of her sons.
"Next time, thank the one who let them live you stupid bitch! As it wasn't god it was Me" Roared Abraha, as his hand were covered with the blood of children. Even before the murder his hands were stained, holding a current kill count of 11,213
"AHHHHH!" Her cries had reached the god that Abraha ever so resented. Alstair felt at fault for the deatu, he should've told Abraha to leave as soon as the boys were brough to him. He felt like a monster.
Alstair was stunned, he had understood the love between a mother and her children, but Abraha had killed them over a petty reason whilst defying him.
He hadn't wanted to rid the mother of her children, his face scrunched harder. He wanted to let Abraha know to never repeat that again but before he could raise his voice to object to Abraha's actions.
BAM*
The woman's head rolled to Alstair's feet. "Stupid bitch, can't you see he looks annoyed? Your pathetic screams are clearly making it worse," Abraha's words sounded like he was holding laughter, Alastair was disgusted, Abraha found the death of others amusing.
The death of a mother that was unneeded to his new society, he did not want for it to happen, yet, he felt responsibility. Abraha acted based off Alstair's facial expressions, causing Alstair to feel as if the deaths only occurred due to him.
He felt… like a monster.