The Birth of a Monster (Part 2)

Finding the wolves wasn't too hard, and making one of them rush me was even less of a challenge. I simply picked up a rock and threw it at the things massive head.

I missed it's head and hit it's body but that seemed to have the better effect, honestly, as the wolf turned to look at me before charging. It didn't even bother to tell it's pack but I just considered it as it's own arrogance and turned around, activated my ability and ran.

My ability was useless for the combat against these beasts but agility and nimbleness? It made me much better than a wolf which was slightly too big to freely move in these cavern walls.

I continuously looked back at the wolf and whenever it made the movements for a lunge, I started to run in a zig-zag pattern. I lost speed but so did the wolf when it tried to go for a lunge. When it tried to begin sprinting again, I was already a step ahead of it and running in a straight line again. For some reason, I felt my brain working on a more...bestial level. Like my more human thoughts were fading away in this moment and only leaving the most essential things.

It especially allowed me to put my enhanced reflexes to better use. There was barely any lag between what I wanted to do and my body actually doing it.

It was a wonderful mode I'd entered but right now I couldn't appreciate it.

I just kept running, kiting the wolf to where I wanted it to go. Finally, I saw the small entrance to my cave. Even I barely fit in it, so I knew only the wolf's head and maybe it's shoulders would fit.

Smiling once again, I kicked up my speed even more, blasting toward the hole and once I was within range, I slid across the ground and into the hole. Once in the hole I spun around and looked to the wolf that was still charging this way. Me showing my smile seemed to aggravate it as it just continued to run at me despite seeing the small size of the hole.

Dumb mutt.

I backed up a little before picking up something I'd prepared earlier once I left the hole. Gripping it, I waited for the wolf.

It slammed into the hole, it's jaws slapping up and down as it tried to reach me. I felt a distinct lack of fear, honestly. Just a desire to kill this wolf and then eat it. Survival was the only thing on my mind right now.

So as it's jaw came within inches of me once again, I slammed the sharp rock into it's tongue, through it's tongue and into the inside of it's mouth. Because of the sudden action and it's compromising position, it couldn't stop me from slamming the rock and therefore it's mouth into the floor. The rocked pierce through the bottom of it's mouth and into the ground below keeping the wolf's head down.

"Didn't expect that, did you, mutt?" I spoke out in a whisper, my voice cold and sharp. I pressed the rock into the ground further, my enhanced strength not being much compared to the wolf's but that didn't mean it was negligible. It was definitely enough to do this.

As it was stuck to the ground, it could only look at me with fear in it's electric blue eyes. I could hear it trying to get itself out of the hole but I didn't give it the chance to get itself free as I leaned forward, my hands clasping the side of it's temples, right under it's ears, with my thumbs right over it's eyes.

And then I squished into the fleshy sacs, bursting them.

The wolf roared and whined, it's head convulsing and twitching as I dug into where it's eyes used to be. I found the holes at the back and pushed my fingers into them. This would be impossible to do with a human, but with a wolf that was around the size of a car? The holes at the back of it's eye socket were big enough for my fingers to get into.

I dug through the flesh and connective tissue and scratched at it's brain, making mush out of what I could get a hold of.

But it wasn't enough. The wolf was weakening but it wasn't dying. So I ripped the sharp and spike-like rock from the bottom part of it's mouth before slamming it into it's mushed up eye. With a sickening crunch and spurt of blood, the wolf went completely still and with a few final whimpers...it died.

Yet I felt no pity. No remorse.

This was survival of the fittest. I outsmarted it, so I deserve to live.

Grabbing it's neck and the fur surrounding it, I placed my feet against the rocky entrance of the hole before pulling the wolf into the hole. Each foot of traveling to the end of the hole was hard but now that the wolf was dead, I could pull it without struggling. Why? Because it couldn't possibly have a body stronger the rock surrounding us, so if I pulled it in, it's bones would break and it's fur would be sheered off, making it fit the dimensions of the hole.

Anyway, when I got to the dead end of the hole, the space opened up quite a bit, allowing me to pull the entire wolf into it and put it to the side.

Seeing the back end of the wolf, I saw that it was completely ripped up by the sharp rocks lining the hole's walls. But that wasn't what really got my attention. What got my attention...was the blood, the meat, the fat...it made my mouth instantly water and my stomach rumbled with such hunger that I could barely hold myself back before I started tearing into the meat.

I ate and I ate, gorging myself on the muscles and blood in front of me. I didn't stop eating until I'd devoured over half of the corpse, and it was only until then that I...

"Argh!" I clutched at my chest, feeling my heart beat spike upwards as my muscles began to convulse. Originating from my stomach...came the worst pain I'd ever felt. Even worse than being ripped into by a pack of giant wolves. Even worse than the pain from being starved days on end. Worse than anything I've ever felt.

I felt my bones cracking as a violent energy originated from my stomach. I felt my muscles tearing and splitting under the energy's tyrannical flow.

As this pain wracked through me, splitting my entire body apart, I thought of one thing:

The blue crystal and the water.

Crawling despite the pain, I saw that there was barely a mouthful of the liquid and quickly slurped it up. Despite it stopping the pain, it was only for a few seconds before the pain came back even stronger. The pain was slowly driving me over the edge and I only had one way out - the blue crystal above me.

But as if to answer my need, the crystal began to release a steady stream of the liquid. Not even bothering to thank it, I just kept drinking mouthful after mouthful.

Thus I entered another cycle of hellish pain, different from my hunger-fueled one before.

Now, all I felt was my body getting destroyed and rebuilt over and over again. This truly is hell, isn't it?

. . .

At some point I must have blacked out as I suddenly opened my eyes and on instinct, winced. But I quickly realized...I didn't need to wince at any kind of pain.

In fact...I felt great. I felt really, really fucking strong.

But the second thing I noticed, was that I wasn't in the hole anymore. "W-what?" I let out a shocked voice, looking around and seeing that I was back in my room. For a second I had thought that everything I'd experienced had been a dream but those memories were far too clear and real to be from a dream.

To prove my point, I looked down to my arm to check for the scars I knew would be there but what I saw was kinda shocking.

If before I had a decently toned and athletic body, then now I had the body of a god. I lifted my shirt and saw a defined 8-pack and obliques that were so defined it was like they were cut from rock or something.

Taking off my shirt I went to look in my full-length mirror, only to see that my upper body had undergone a complete metamorphosis, and if I wasn't wrong...it seemed like I'd grown a few inches as well. If before I was 5'9" then now I'd put my height around 6' or 6'1". What the hell happened? Was it that wolf's meat that caused this challenge?

Hold on.

How come I'm home as well? Didn't I have to kill that Minotaur before I could leave?

As if to answer my question, a small card appeared in front of me, dropping down to the ground. I grabbed it before it went too low and brought it up to eye-level so I could read it.

[Your performance allowed an exception to the rules. You are our weakest host as of yet but you still survived. We understood that what we asked was too much of you so we changed the conditions.]

"...What?" I asked and the small card quickly burnt up in a plume of blue fire, another card taking it's place.

[Hello Ikki Nagumo, we are The Dungeon Master, an incomplete Longinus Sacred Gear. We allow our hosts to gain strength via killing creatures in a pocket dimension we make. This pocket dimension can be entered once every week for as long as it takes to complete the objective. We will upload an information packet to your head now that we have established communication with you, Master.]

The card said as such but none of these words made any sense to me. Longinus? Sacred Gear? Pocket Dimension? What does all of that mean?

Before I could ask anymore questions, I felt a prick on the front of my head, like the beginnings of a minor headache and then information started to fill my head. I instantly knew what a Sacred Gear was, then I knew what it meant to be a Longinus Sacred Gear. I was then shown that God was real, that Devils, Angels, and Fallen Angels are also real. Monsters, Dragons, Yokai - they're all real.

...But I didn't panic. Whatever that meat had done to my body, it had effected my mind as well. Or maybe it was that hellish scenario that's taken away the ability to be surprised by such things.

Who knows.

I just sat down on my bed and looked at myself in the mirror as I went through all this new information. It was at that point that I saw that my once brown eyes had turned a bright, luminescent blue, while my dark brown hair had become raven black. I could see that my features had grown sharper and had a wild feeling to it, the same as my eyes which shone just like that wolf's eyes.

I wonder if I'm a monster like that mutt now?