“Oh FUCK!”

Shedding his previous idea of blowing up the section of the trunk within the current building and sliding back down to the street by virtue of the hanging vines, Brock didn’t slow and instead sped his pace up even further. Gritting his teeth, he braced his head with his arms and continued through the window.

Behind him, he felt the air pressure of the car brush past his legs as he smashed through the opposite window and hit the floor rolling. Panting and sweaty, Brock quickly regained his bearings and reached for the actual source of the trunk, his eyes locking onto it with the fervour of a madman.

This went to shit so quickly…

He wasted no time in channelling his Augment to its fullest and feeling its power build up within his paths, his limb heating along with it. As the cackle of monkeys echoed out from the building across, he snarled and released all the pent up energy, bathing the wood in a radiant burst of flame. Its heat seemed to be so immense that it actually bypassed his resistance and seared his skin.

The raw power contained within the explosion sent Brock shooting backwards as the blazing projectile sliced directly through the trunk and continued to carve a smouldering hole straight out of the building. He choked on his next breath as he smashed into a rotted desk, the wood splintering around him.

Groaning and rubbing the back of his head as a throbbing headache took root in his skull, he glanced over in satisfaction, the deathtrap beginning to fall in on itself. A deafening roar assaulted his ears, and dust took to the air, but it got the job done. Unfortunately, his eyes hardened as a small group of monkeys managed to make it across and survive.

Brock ignored the surging deluge of power roaring through him, something he pinned on either being due to gaining a title or the sheer amount of death he caused, and instead found his knife off to the side as an abundance of energy left him in wisps. Hissing out a breath, he reached for it and stood.

He wielded the blade savagely as the beasts charged, proceeding to carve the throat of one of his attackers after dodging a clumsy swing. A spray of gore was his only reward while it choked on its own blood, and he spun on his heel, planting his foot in the chest of another monster and kicking it out the window. Glass shattered, and it screamed as it plummeted to its doom.

Seeing the deaths of their brethren, the others lunged at him, frenzied and rabid. Brock backtracked as their fists pelted him and their claws slashed at his dust-laden skin. Slightly infected by the insanity raging through the monkeys, he took the initiative and stepped forward, snarling.

To his left, his knife entered a monkey’s eye and pierced its brain, sending it spasming to the floor. The others, their attention momentarily upon their fallen companion, were easy pickings. Brock lunged forward, his fist snapping outward and crashing into the skull of the rightmost monkey.

A sickening crack resounded, and it fell, limp. Blood oozed from its eyes, and occasionally, it twitched. The final monkey hooted and screamed as Brock pushed himself atop it and shoved it to the ground. It struggled, biting and scratching as his hands fell around its head and twisted. It went limp, its neck snapped.

Breathing in and out deeply, the bloodied warrior returned to his feet and shot a glance toward the tree the gorilla had once been on. What…?

His eyes widened. It wasn’t there.

A pressure settled over the area, and Brock stumbled backwards. His next breath caught as a gargantuan hand reached up and settled upon the edge of the floor, leathery fingers gripping the floorboards and carving gouges in the wood.

“Oh… shit…” he muttered, taking a step back.

He watched on in horror as the ape’s snarling face rose up into view, a swirling mass of ethereal blue energy licking out from behind its bared fangs. Brock panicked as he realised what the monster was trying to do; hit him with an explosion of its Augment, much like his own method. Feeling desperation take root as he felt the energy building, he searched for any avenue of escape.

Brock grimaced when he found none.

He almost died of relief as he began flickering with black and red lightning, his body quickly becoming translucent. Dropping through the floor, Brock swore with joy, watching on as the area before him was bathed in spectral azure energy. He plummeted down onto the next floor, smacking into the wood painfully as he stabilised.

Hissing in pain, he peeled himself from the floor and clutched what he thought was a broken nose. His head felt groggy as he glanced around, his headache pounding in his skull and his nose a beacon of throbbing pain. That didn’t stop his eyes bulging, however, as he sighted the revealed belly of the ape.

It was illuminated from within by blue, though it was quickly fading as the beast expelled all its stored energies onto the floor above. The entire wall was missing, caved in and leaving its stomach wide open for an attack.

Above him, Brock observed as the ceiling began to twist and deform, lumps and misshapen divots working into the structure, seemingly at random. He wiped away the blood leaking from his nose and gritted his teeth. Resolve steeled within his gaze.

It’s now or never, mate.

Breathing out, he grasped the last knife he had at the ready, his singular meat cleaver, scarily sharp and intended for a situation such as this. Brock’s eyes fell upon its belly with razor focus and he charged forward, teeth bared. A low growl resounded from his throat.

It served to make his pounding headache reach the levels of extreme pain, enough to make his sight blur, but Brock screamed out as his cleaver adopted a radiant orange glow, the very air hissing from its dormant power.

As his foot planted before it, Brock swung sideways, his blade tearing into the belly of the beast. Its keen edge continued to carve a gash through its thick hide, spraying him with a rain of bubbling violet blood, before finally stopping midway through, his momentum spent.

The man grimaced and tried to pull his weapon out, but it was firmly stuck within. The ape roared in agony, and for a second nothing happened. Then, without warning, Brock was met by a tsunami of blue as the contained energies within exploded through the fresh wound he had created.

The world became white as Brock was assaulted by boundless agony. It felt akin to having his body shredded apart then reassembled wrongly over and over and over until finally, it settled into something just remotely right. Through flashes of blues and whites, he saw the world spinning around him as the raw force sent him skimming across the floor, his spine creaking dangerously as he finally smashed into a stone support beam.

An overpowering tinnitus consumed his hearing, but vaguely, he could feel his throat going hoarse as Brock frantically screamed out his seemingly endless anguish. The majority of the floor and its contents, although he could barely even compute what he was seeing right now, were bathed in hungry ethereal energies, slowly being twisted and corrupted from their original forms by the raging flow of power.

The building shuddered wildly beneath him, all but ready to give in if not for the tree growing through its centre, though in time, that too would fail. Brock felt his body racked by spasms as the pain continued to climb. In seconds he had passed out from the pure anguish and reawakened dozens of times.

Finally, the chaotic world around him began to settle down, and the shudders of the building reached their peak. Weakly, through his twitching muscles, Brock reached for the shattered remains of a floor-to-ceiling window, his shaking fingers grasping the edge and completely ignoring the pain as the sharp remains of glass cut into his palm.

...Oh... shit...

It served as the right choice, however, as the structure ever so slowly tilted to the side, desks, chairs and any other sort of loose item sliding down and flying out the windows. The groaning of the tree desperately supporting the place was almost deafening as it finally gave way. It sounded distant to Brock’s ears, but he could make out the sound of a screeching gorilla somewhere in the cacophony of sounds he attempted to parse apart.

Soon though, the building leaned beyond what it could comfortably support, and it rapidly collapsed, dust and rubble smashing into Brock’s barely conscious body as he smacked into the ground. A sharp pain flared up in his side, but he paid it no mind, focusing on just trying to return to his feet. It was a difficult endeavour, and he could see absolutely nothing through the dust, but he managed to force himself to get up.

I've... gotta finish... this...

As the destruction began to settle, Brock realised absentmindedly that the structure was relatively intact, having just fallen sideways. The pain in his side had turned out to be a loose piece of rebar piercing directly through his flank, resulting in a grisly looking wound. But the man’s weary mind paid it no mind right now, only focusing on trekking forward toward the bulky form masked by rubble and dust, its chest rising and falling weakly.

Not all that much better off, Brock slowly approached the wounded ape and took full stock of its wounds. It was covered in gruesome gashes all over, with a large rod of rebar puncturing directly through its shoulder and tearing out cartilage, though he doubted it would impair the beast much. The biggest injury on the monster actually happened to be the brutal incision he had made on its stomach prior.

Though now, instead of the thin gash it had once been, it had widened into a gaping hole, wisps of gentle blue energy steaming out from within. Various organs had burst out, having slopped down the side of the ape’s body, oozing swathes of violet blood. It was a revolting sight, especially as he saw the beast’s stringy intestines sluggishly begin to tear from the influence of the remaining energies.

All the previous righteous fury had faded from the creature’s face, instead being replaced with an expression of sorrowful agony. Silently, Brock met its six eyes, just under half being gummed up with blood and dust. Within he could see the embers of rage directed at right him, along with a desperate wish for the victor of their battle to finish it and end its pain.

Not even daring to speak, blood already welling up from his throat, Brock stumbled over to the ape’s head and crawled over the rubble separating them, his arms screaming in protest, the flesh discoloured, bloody, and charred. In the end, grunting in pain, Brock slumped over next to the massive head of South, The Ape of Pride, and he wept silently.

Why... is all of this happening...

The monster did nothing to interfere, nor could it, as the human sobbed quietly, his throat incapable of making the pained sounds he so desperately wanted to make. A minute later, with two trails of tears carving through the clumped mask of dust and blood on his cheeks, Brock laid his hand upon the beast’s temple, and with a sharp increase in the pain of his headache, the head of the beast was torn through by flame, ending its life.

Brock could only watch it happen listlessly, before darkness soon claimed his sight, the pounding anguish of his headache too much for him to viably handle.

**

“Velum. We cannot hand out these Compendiums.”

Velum, the larger of the two Treants, turned his attention from the newly initiated humans as they fought, and ebbed his glow in confusion at the words of his companion, Tynel. The Compendiums were a mainstream item out in the Multiverse, a requirement to advance a civilisation with the shared collection of both Titles and beasts they contained.

Without them, while it wouldn’t guarantee the failure of a race, it would definitely make the event far more likely without the collective knowledge each human would add with their individual experiences. Although for now, the sharing of information was restricted to those that belonged to this instance of the Tutorial.

They were a strange item, the Compendiums. They were created long ago by the Great Root itself and possessed the boundlessly useful ability to automatically record both the beasts that the holder encounters and the Titles they gain as well as the method through which the reader can gain them. This information is made readily available to anyone of the same originating planet, as long as they too held a Compendium.

But for his companion to suggest that they shouldn’t be handed out. Was he insane? Did he want to decrease their chances of having a Standout and being rewarded for it?

Velum’s voice came out deep and slow, more curious than anything, “And why would that be?”

Turning his head about as he glanced from side to side, Tynel formulated a transparent barrier of green around them, allowing Velum to keep an eye on the initiates as they battled the weaker throngs of monsters, allowing them to increase their level and build combat experience for when the Tutorial finally ended. When that happened, there was a fair chance they’d be plunged right into monster-infested territory. Out of them all, the blonde-haired woman who carved into the creatures with quick, precise cuts especially caught his eye.

If only she could lose that merciful hesitance when she fought, “The… the Compendiums are broken. I have no idea why, or how, but they must-”

“You DARE suggest that the Great Root supplied us with faulty goods?!” Velum dug his pointed fingers into the woven chest of his companion, his echoing voice tinged with an edge of fury at the blasphemous behaviour he just bore witness to.

“Just look.” Waving his arms placatingly, a Compendium, a golden book depicting ever-shifting majestic landscapes and mythical beasts on its cover, flickered into existence and floated over toward Tynel’s angered counterpart. Still filled with fury, Velum let his companion go and snatched the book from the air, absentmindedly noting the mechanical words engraved into the spine.

‘Earth C-137.’ It read.

Glancing up at the neutral face of the other Greater Treant, Velum opened the book and was immediately met with the existence of a menu-esque screen. Out of the four separate options read as, Beasts, Titles, Locations, and Items, Velum chose that which caught his eye first and mentally commanded for it to access Earth C-137’s collection of Titles.

What he didn’t expect, was that the section wasn’t empty, “What… how?”

It was only a small amount, but there were unmistakably Titles there, with a common Title known as Masochist being the most recent addition. Velum checked and was left dumbfounded when he found it had only been added a few minutes ago. Muttering to himself, he quickly checked the other sections and was shocked to realise they too had contents, if not as much. 'Items' was the only one without any entries.

“Tynel? How is this possible?” he spat in disbelief.

No section in the Compendium told the user of the other registered users, but Velum dearly wished there was such a feature at this current juncture.

His companion shrugged his shoulders hesitantly, “My best guess is that there’s a human presence on Earth, one who didn’t get inducted into the Tutorials.”

Velum didn’t respond for a long few seconds. Opting to just stare at the book in his hands, the Greater Treant reread the contents over and over. While the whole situation was quite frankly impossible to occur, the fact that the Compendium already registered two of the somewhat powerful Alphas guarding one of the planet’s many Sources as being slain left him utterly dumbstruck.

“Maybe the Great Root really did give us faulty goods…”