Chapter Ten - Thunderstruck

"What the f*ck is a fragment of sin?"

A strange sphere was floating on top of the queen's corpse, it looked like a purplish black haze trapped in an orb of light.

"The queen was a descendant of Beelzebub, the Demon King of Gluttony, when you killed her the system managed to extract the small fragment of sin that existed in her" replied Tia stoically.

"The sin of gluttony? What am I going to do with this sh*t? "

"If you absorb this you could become a demonic dragon in the future"

"Absorb?" Locke looked at the sphere, a feeling of disgust arose in his stomach, "I'm not going to absorb this sh*t! I feel like throwing up just looking at this! "

"Are you sure? If you absorb that, your strength will increase a lot! "

Locke looked again at the floating sphere.

"I ... I don't want this ... Even if it takes time, I prefer the way I am ... this thing ... this thing seems to be dirty! I don't want it inside me!"

"Very good!" Tia replied with a smile, "If you chose to absorb this cr*p I would be very disappointed! It's good to know that you don't get easily corrupted! "

"So that was a test?"

Tia smiled without answering.

"What do I do with this?" Asked Locke.

"You should destroy it, but as you haven't yet awakened your magic it will be impossible for now, luckily you have an inventory now, so keep it inside for a while"

Locke was going to ask how he used the inventory, but he realized that the use was natural, with a thought the sphere disappeared, Locke opened the System window and a new tab was present, 'inventory', and as a listed item was' fragment of the gluttony sin (small) X1 '.

'This looks more and more like a game,' thought Locke, and proceeded to put other of his things in the inventory.

"Hey, I think we better go"

Locke looked around, the fire had reached the forest and was now burning violently, Locke looked at the experience bar and realized that there was very little left to reach level 10, the fight with the queen had caused him a some damage, his ribs still hurt and his clothes was a mess, his body was also scorched from the last explosion, it would be difficult to face anything while escaping the flames in the forest.

"Yes, let's go back, but I'll take the opportunity to see if I can find anything else to kill along the way, there is so little left for level 10..."

Locke picked up the ax, the blade had lost the sharpness due to the constant use, an idea came to his mind, he grabbed a large stone on the ground and start bluntly sharpen the blade, the sharpening was of poor, but it must withstand a few more uses. The nest was now shattered, the queen's attempt to escape the flames had burst the walls of the nest and the flames were spreading throughout the forest, Locke put on the gas mask and ran towards the abandoned village.

Locke found a dead hunter estirge, but the flames had already claimed his life, cursing, Locke kept looking for possible victims along the way.

At that moment a strange meteorological phenomenon began to occur, at an abnormal speed the sky was covered with black clouds and a heavy rain began to fall, the flames began to subside under the weight of the torrent of water.

"Where did this rain come from? There was no cloud in the sky until-" Before Locke was finished Tia cut his sentence off with a shout.

"SH*T! SH*T! SH*T! SH*T! RUN! FAST!" Tia shouted with palpable fear.

A strong, cold feeling of utter awe rose up in Locke's stomach, his instinct screaming that something very powerful was nearby. The system issued a warning at that time.

[ATENTION! An aggressive creature with draconic lineage has been detected in the vicinity of the host! The creature's danger level is too high for the host sustain a figth! Emergency mission acquired: Escape immediately!]

Locke started to run towards the abandoned village, the easiest place to cross back to Earth, the feeling of dread hammering along with his racing heartbeat, since he found out about his lineage and power, this was the first time that Locke was so afraid.

"What the f*ck is that?" Locke managed to squeeze that question out while running with all his might.

"It is a Raijū!" Tia replied "We have to run, if he realizes that you have dragon blood he will chase you until he devours you!"

Before Locke could answer or question, he felt a strong sense of danger, without thinking twice Locke activated the Dragon Force, and in the same instant a blue lightning bolt hit him full.

"AHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!!"

The lightning lasted longer than ordinary lightning, instead of a single fulminate blow, Locke was electrocuted for a few seconds, when he finished Locke fell to full with his face in the ground, with smoke rising from his body.

"LOCKE! LOCKE! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" Asked Tia worriedly.

"I'm ... still ... alive ..." replied Locke with what was left of his conscience, his health had dropped 400 points leaving him 20 points from the death hands "But ... I think. .. that it won't be for long ... "

Locke lay down in the mud and ashes, the rain continued to fall and he waited for his body to heal, hoping that another ray of those would not hit him in the meantime, he realized that several other rays crossed the sky and fell throughout the forest, with the end of the flames, the rain began to subside.

Locke could see a strange creature in the sky, it glowed blue as a thunder, it was the size of a horse and floated even without wings, its body resembled a mixture of a horse and wolf, covered in glowing silverly blue reptile scales, the beast had three horns, a small horn in the center of the forehead and another two huge horns like that of a deer on either sides of the head, as well as a gigantic mane that appeared to be made of ionized air and eletricity, the mane moved as if it were alive and sparks of lightning appeared from it at every moment. The creature had a golden wheel with lightning patterns spinning around his neck, and gold rings on each of the four legs and at the end of the enormous tail. Even from a distance Locke realized that the creature was looking at him with disdain, as if he was not worth his time, the creature continued to float towards the forest, launching more thunders, probably making new victims.

"He must have mistaken you for a lost human, he must think you are on the verge of death with this attack, a human would certainly not survive long after so much damage" said Tia "Luckily I can still hide your aura , but if he had come close... It seems that he is killing everything that still lives, we think that this rift had no owner but it seems to be this damned hunting ground, he will gather a number of bodies to devour, you have to run away before you come back "

Locke did not have the strength to respond, he could feel his body healing and the sensation was not pleasant, his burnt skin was tearing and falling, slowly appearing new skin underneath, his muscles and internal organs are scorched and burning hard, healing slowly, Locke wanted to stay there, lying down, until he was healed, but he knew it would be his death, gathering all his willpower he struggled to get up, even with all the absurd pain Locke felt up off the floor.

'Im going to kill this motherf*cker!' Locke thought with bloodshot eyes, Locke was angry, not just angry, Locke was furious, not for being hurt until he almost died, but for the creature's contemptuous look. 'No matter how strong this thing is, I'm going to rip this motherf*cker head off someday!'

Locke started to walk back to the village with difficulty, luckily he was not so far away when the lightning bolt hit him.

"Come on Locke, just a little more!" Concern was apparent in Tia's voice.

Locke could feel the creature at a distance, the Raijū was making no attempt to hide its enormous aura since there was nothing that could present any danger to it, the creature seemed distracted in its rampage, lightning lit up the horizon and Locke felt it was a matter of time before the beast returns to eat the 'dessert'. 'Damn, it's taking too long to heal' he thought, Locke gritted his teeth hard 'Damn, I let myself go, I'm still so weak, I almost died in a single attack' Locke was mad at himself, mad at his lack of strength.

Locke's mind was racing, as he dragged himself to the abandoned village Locke kept asking himself, 'Did my mother die to save me in vain?', 'All I can do is kill insects?' Why I doing all this?', 'Why i'm so weak?' 'I... I... '

"I want to be stronger..."

"Hmm? What?" questioned Tia in the face of this sudden statement by Locke

"I'm tired of being weak! I don't want everything my parents did for me to be in vain! "

Locke was furious, his anger burned in his chest and was growing hard, he wanted to go back and rip that thing, he wanted to tear it into pieces with his own hands, he wanted to devour the creature's flesh and blood as he roared to the sky, he wanted to stomp his head and break his neck, his eyes began to glow red and his chest was burning more and more.

"HEY! STOP NOW!" Tia screamed in front of Locke's face, "Hey, look at me!"

Locke forced himself to look at the little fairy, his eyes slowly returning to normal.

"Hey hey hey, take it easy buddy, it's still too early for that, come on, we're in this together, breathe, your mana core is almost hatch!"

Locke took a deep breath, the fairy was right, he felt the sphere in his chest vibrating, the mana core who refuses to hatch, in now vibrating, Locke felt that the cracks were bigger and with a little more effort the sphere would break, his little explosion had almost released his mana.

"You can't wake this up here! Not now! not in the situation you are in! If you wake up your mana now you will be like a beacon for this thing to devour you!"

Locke forced himself to calm down, Tia was right, this was not the best place for this, he felt that there was so little left to wake up the mana but he agreed that his body was not in the best condition for a fight at the moment.

He finally reached the village and started to cross back to his dimension, just before he returned Locke looked up at the sky, even without being able to see the creature Locke could still feel the Raijū in the distance.

"One day you will regret this day"

Locke crossed and sat down in the alley, his clothes ruined by the lightning.

"Are you sure he can't follow me?"

"Yes, a creature like this would need to spend a lot of power to manifest itself in the main dimension, and even if it were willing it would be very dangerous to draw attention in the middle of the city!"

Locke pulled out his cell phone, luckily he had put it in the inventory before the lightning hit him, or else it would be ruined by now, he called an ub*r to take him home.

The car arrived in a few minutes and Locke got in, his skin had already healed and only his muscles and internal organs were still not a hundred percent.

"What happened to you, man?" Asked the driver, a short, fat man with a bald head.

"I got thunderstruck" replied Locke.

"Damm boy, wanna go to a hospital?"

"No, just take me home"

The man shook his head in a nod, after driving for a while he left Locke at the door of his home, when Locke got out of the car the man found himself thinking 'What was the last time it rained?'

Locke entered the building and found the doorman asleep, Locke smiled and started heading for the stairs, when he changed his mind, he never used the elevator due to his old bad luck, but now there should be no problem.

"Let's go to the roof, the magic circle that I used to awaken your blood can be used to mask your mana awakening" says Tia.

Locke nodded and took the elevator to the top floor, Locke went out onto the roof and, after confirming that no one sat on the floor, the invisible circle started to turn red.

"There, now it's up to you"

Locke began to meditate, the sphere in his chest began to vibrate again and with a little pain, Locke felt it shatter, in its place a black sphere of incandescent energy burned in his chest, Locke felt the energy running through his body and making its way through the muscles and nerves,

[Atention! It was detected that the host started the mana awakening process! The system will adjust the user's mana circuit ...]

Locke felt the black energy running throughout his body, forming paths and knots, like a great circuit running from the top of the head to the toes, the sensation was both painful and pleasurable. After a few minutes the sensation started to disappear, and in its place Locke felt that his body was full of a new energy.

[Congratulations! The mana awakening process has been successfully completed!]

[Congratulations! The Secret Mission: Awaken your mana before reaching level 10 has been completed!]

[Congratulations! The emergency mission has been completed!]

[Level 10 has been acquired!]

[Congratulations! The Mission: reaches level 10 has been completed!

[The system protection period has been revoked! New system features have been released]