Menacing, blue eyes carefully observed a rabbit hopping from one place to another, slowly approaching a thicket of leaves. The prey hopped once, twice, thrice and landed right next to the hunter, unaware that something was stalking it from behind. It stopped right before the thicket, finding something off about it, but it couldn't tell what. As it moved its eyes up and down, from the thicket sprung up a snake, launching itself towards the frightened rabbit like a flash of lightning. The snake quickly constricted the rabbit, obstructing its blood flow. As much as the rabbit tried to struggle, it couldn't escape the snake's grasp. The rabbit drew its last, short breath, stopping its frantic resistance, laying limp, bound by the snake. The snake opened up its mouth and devoured the rabbit whole, not leaving behind a single drop of blood.

The snake, of course, was Orou. He has lived the past month here in the forest, hunting small critters to fill his stomach, trying his best to survive. Orou had changed unnaturally growing both bigger and taller, enough to prey on a rabbit. His daily routine consisted of eating and sleeping. Even if he wanted to do something else, once he saw prey, his instinct would take over. As for the incident a month back, he had thrown to the back of his head, forgetting it entirely.

As Orou was slithering around, digesting his meal, he felt something inside of him growing, slowly awakening bit by bit. Right after the incident, Orou wandered about, looking for food. When he first saw a rat scurrying out of its hiding place, he spiraled out of control. He lost control of his body as he instinctively shot towards the rat, eating it alive. The rampage went on for a whole day, devouring everything he could fit in his mouth, almost losing his life many times in the process thanks to some bigger animals in the forest that went after him, but thanks to his small size he could escape unscathed.

After Orou was done rampaging, he felt drowsy. He wanted nothing more than to lay down and slumber for eternity, but he knew that if he dropped to the ground right here, he would never wake up. He slithered over to a suitable hiding spot and dropped dead, no sound in the world could wake him up out of his sleep. He dreamt of soaring through the sky, overseeing the world from up above. He felt like a god, capable of observing every living being on this earth. His whole being was filled with boundless power. If he felt like it, he could destroy this world without much effort. This feeling was intoxicating, but just as Orou was starting to get used to omnipotence, he was snapped back from his dream, returning to his mortal form. He noticed that he had grown substantially, both physically and in appearance.

Orou continued to live like this, lurking in the shadows and preying on small animals. He had to learn how to hold himself back from charging straight towards his potential doom. Just because he had been lucky to not die during his rampage doesn't mean that he had nothing to fear in this forest. He vaguely remembered that he was attacked by a giant hawk with more than a 5-meter wingspan. He was truly horrified at that moment, but his body kept going on without the hint of fear.

Just as the hawk was about to swoop down and grab him, something in him seemingly exploded, his speed reaching a whole new level for a split second as he slithered away from the grasp of the hawk. Both parties were surprised by this outburst before the hawk decided that hunting Orou wouldn't be worth it and flew away.

At the current moment, Orou was still residing on the outskirts of the forest, fearing to go deeper inside. During this month, he saw a battle between a bear and wolf for a deer carcass. The bear was about 4 meters tall, it's body resembling a small mountain. The wolf on the other hand was much smaller than the bear, but the wolf's fur stood up as if a hedgehog's. They moved so fast that Orou could only see phantoms. He watched the battle in awe from the distance. Eventually, the bear inflicted a grievous wound on the wolf's abdomen. The wolf decided that it wasn't worth risking its life for a mere deer carcass and retreated deeper into the shadows, disappearing from view. Orou was shocked and he only regained his bearing a few seconds after the end of the battle, swearing to never provoke those kinds of creatures.

This cycle of eating and sleeping continued for two more months.. Today, Orou was stalking a bird, seeing if the bird would lead him to its eggs. The bird was being uncooperative, looking for his own meal. After several minutes of no success, Orou flickered his tongue and picked up on a scent. He picked up a scent he had not sensed in a while, the scent of humans. Staying still for a few seconds, he felt the vibration of movement and battle in the distance. Even though his instinct was warning him to run away and find a place to hide, his curiosity got the better part of him. Orou quickly lunged towards the bird and made short work of the bird, killing it with no problems.

Orou traveled to the site of the battle, carefully avoiding the nesting places of known predators. As he was getting closer, various beasts in the forest were being awoken from all the commotion, as they opened their eyes, they shot towards the battle as if enraged, throwing all defense to the wind in exchange for speed in order to make it there faster. Orou made his way out of the forest in post haste, excited about the thought of making his way there, something that could make the beasts in the forest behave like mad was surely important and would provoke a bloodbath.

As Orou was making his way out of the forest, he saw multiple beasts rushing forward. Though none were as scary as the bear, Orou felt that he was too insignificant in this forest. When he finally reached the edge of the forest, he saw the pile of rubble where a magnificent tower once stood. This was the very place he was created at, the very same place the great battle had occurred.

Slithering behind the rubble and looking forwards, Orou saw about 10 men fighting off a horde of beasts. They were completely covered with blood and a huge mountain of corpses was piling up. Despite that, beasts were still rushing to their deaths as if mad. The strategy seemed to be effective because the ten armed men were growing weaker by the second. More intelligent and cunning beasts were sitting on the sidelines, waiting for an opportunity to strike. There seemed to be an inexhaustible amount of beasts of all variety. The soldiers were attacked every direction, even from the air and underground, leaving them no chance of escape.

"We've got the flower, retreat!" A man at the lead of the formation yelled loudly while cutting a wolf in half. The mercenary mumbled some words to himself and the sword in his hand lit up with a bright light, blinding the beasts in front of him but not affecting the man himself. Seeing that the men were escaping with their prize, the beast pushed themselves even harder, trampling over some of the weaker beasts that got pushed over.

The man who looked like the leader shouted a few more words as his sword brightened and dimmed, cutting apart a beast with each swing. Despite his best efforts, it seemed that only half the party, the ones closest to the leader were going to make it out. With each swing the two halves of the party were getting wider apart, eventually the party which was left behind was encircled by beasts, leaving no space left to retreat.

"Markus, you can't leave us to die here, we've been together for years," angrily shouted a female while getting surrounded by beasts. Her swordplay was excellent as she fought back hordes of beasts, but for each beast she slew, the beast would inflict an injury onto her. She was bleeding profusely from multiple spots on her body, her efforts weakening by the second.

"Goddamni..." She started to shout once more, but mid sentence, one of the beasts hiding in the shadows decided to strike. It was a gray wolf, about 2 meters in size. It moved with unbelievable speed and agility, avoiding crashing into any beasts as it charged towards the woman. Once it got close enough, one could see the fangs of the wolf elongate as a wolf paw struck towards the woman. Her face went pale as she held up a shield to block the strike. While she did successfully block the strike, she went flying a few meters back, her shield having five long indentations in it.

The woman scrambled to stand up but it was too late for her, the various beasts around her took the opportunity of weakness and pounced on her. "Please, please, save me, I don't want to die!" the woman shrieked with a horrified voice, but those were the last words she uttered before getting torn to shreds.

The other 4 remaining men encircled by beasts saw this ghastly scene and hesitated for half a second, but this half a second was enough for the beasts. From the ground erupted a giant worm, bigger and larger than any one of the men. It opened up it's mouth and Orou could feel something gathering towards its mouth, something invisible yet tangible. A second later, a spray of acid struck towards their backs, corroding through their armor and lastly, their flesh. They screamed and flailed and thrashed on the ground to no avail before stopping any signs of resistance and dropping dead on the ground.

While the amount of beasts encircling the now deceased half party was great, the majority of them chose to madly dash towards the leader still holding a blood-red flower in his hand. "Damn, I didn't think this would have to be used so soon, it was prepared for the damn beastmen." Markus shouted in irritation and quickly sheathed his glowing sword, nimbly dodging an eagle's swooping attack.

Unfortunately, it seemed like two of his party members were not as successful during this brief period of weakness. Without them noticing, vines had grown around their feet. As they tried to dodge the lunging attack of a massive viper, their feet got obstructed, causing them to fall over. One of them died immediately thanks to the poison the viper injected in him. The other tried to desperately cut at his feet and get rid of the vines to no avail. He looked in despair as the same eagle which attacked the leader came swooping down at him, two sharp talons striking towards his eyes. A scream later he was lying on the ground, blood pooling below him.

Few tense seconds passed as Markus finally pulled out some sort of crystal. It had the exact same color as the flower, a deep shade of red. As soon as he pulled out this crystal, every single beast stopped what it was doing, looking towards the stone with greed in their eyes.

When he pulled out the crystal, something stirred within Orou. He felt the same kind of attraction towards the crystal as he did towards the flower, but as he continued to stare at the crystal, his mind went completely blank. He felt something inside him rolling, resisting a foreign presence. Orou writhed in pain as the two forces clashed, the invading force felt like it was corroding him from the inside while the force resisting was like a great wave, washing over the corrosion and easing the discomfort. Eventually, Orou felt the invading force weakening before completely disappearing. His whole body relaxed as he opened his eyes, completely ignoring the crystal, his eyes still locked on the flower.

As it turns out, the rest of the beasts didn't have as much luck as Orou. After a period of silence, every single one of the beasts let out some kind of noise. Whether it was a howl, a screech, a hiss or a roar, they did so without withholding anything. The wave of sound that was rippling out from the horde of beasts was a cacophony of various noises. While Orou wasn't affected as much, it seemed that the three remaining men were staggering back, one almost falling onto the ground.

Markus grimaced and chucked the crystal into the horde. As soon as he did that, fierce fighting broke out in the area around the crystal. The beasts didn't hesitate to unleash various abilities of various colors, dyeing the battlefield in blood in mere seconds. Using this chaos, the three men started to rush out, surprisingly not running towards the plains to the north but back into the forest. The leader was still holding the flower in his hand gingerly, as if afraid of anything happening to it.

Keeping the flower in his sight, Orou started to slither towards the trio with rapid haste. Inside of him, he felt the waves retreat and gather in a single spot inside his body, but while the waves were still spread throughout his body, he used this chance to unleash a sustained burst of speed to rush into the forest. Coupled with the fact that the men were badly injured and exhausted, Orou could momentarily outpace them, rapidly closing the distance between them. Orou felt his speed diminish as he continued to slither towards them. He had closed enough distance that he could keep an eye on them, keeping himself hidden from their sight and keeping up with their pace.

The three men continued to run and run for a while until one of the men shouted: "Let's stop here, I can't keep going without taking a quick breather." Markus seemed to agree as he nodded and slowed down to a stop. Taking deep breaths, he sat down with his back leaned against a tree. He set down the flower next to him and started taking out bandages from his backpack, bandaging wounds that were still bleeding.

"That was way too close for comfort, who could've expected that the flower would provoke such a reaction from the beasts." Markus sighed as he finished bandaging his wounds. He stood up, dusted himself off by habit before taking a glance at the flower.

"We'll be rich in a week, no more of this adventuring life, we can buy a decent house in Belor, though I don't think I'd want to stay here next to this forest anymore, maybe travel to a different kingdom and start a new life there." Markus was grinning halfway through that sentence as he continued to look at the flower.

His face was still pale from excessive blood-loss, but he could almost imagine the future by staring into this flower. As he continued to stare at it, he saw the blood-red flower darken in some spots, it seemed to absorb something into it for a moment before regaining its usual color.

It took Markus a second to realise what caused the flower to darken. He looked down towards his heart and saw a blade running through his heart. The color of his blood on the blade resembled the flower, before he saw the blade disappear and another burst of pain come from his back.

"I'm sorry leader, but your future happiness has nothing to do with us. If you could kindly drop dead, that would be the best for both of us." As Markus turned around, he saw one of his party members holding a bloody shortsword, talking with a sly grin on his face. The second one was approaching closer in the direction of the flower, holding a longsword and a buckler in his hands.

After the shock had passed, Markus roared in pain and rage, his hand moving towards his longsword by his side. Even while rapidly bleeding out, he could feel another strike approaching him, already at a dangerously close distance. Markus twisted his body in an unnatural position, his gem-encrusted longsword heading straight towards the attacking man's throat.

While Markus twisted his body in order to avoid any more critical injuries, the blow was still aimed at his left arm. In a desperate manner, Markus stared down the attacker, seemingly mocking him.

"I've always known that you were too much of a coward in combat, if it were Melissa, she would always take the chance to injure her opponent, even if it meant sustaining some wounds. It's no wonder people always call you an inferior version of her."

The man saw Markus' longsword striking towards his throat and just as he was about to retreat, the words Markus spoke seemed to aggravate him. He continued to strike towards Markus' arm while moving his body, trying to evade the imminent death if the longsword pierced his throat. His blade struck first, it stabbed right through his left arm while Markus screamed in pain.

His eyes seemed to glimmer, trying to convey something to Markus but before he got the chance, his eyes went wide, blood gushing out from his throat. The now bloody longsword shone with a dim light as Markus staggered, more blood spilling from his now useless arm.

"What about you, are you just going to stand there like a turtle in its shell?" Shouted Markus, slowly walking towards his former party member, who was staring at all of this with bemusement in his eyes. His buckler was raised up and he held his sword in a defensive position, as if ready to parry any blow Markus might make.

"I don't listen to words of dying men, I'd be generous if I said you have half a minute left to live before you bleed out," said the other man, his eyes showing his respect for Markus. As Markus staggered forth, he was retreating, always keeping a distance of 10 meters between them.

"Even if you had to fight a rabbit you'd never underestimate it," laughed Markus.

"It's all thanks to you, leader. It seems ironic that your own teaching keeps you from killing me." As he said that, he saw Markus tossing something the shape of a small rock at him. Without any hesitation, he raised up his shield to block it, but as he did, he saw a blade flying towards him, light concentrated on the tip of the sword. He looked over to see Markus 10 meters away from him, lying prone on the ground with a smile on his face. Once more, he didn't hesitate to roll out of the way of the sword. He sighed with a sense of accomplishment as he saw that he had avoided the sword flying towards him.

"Fool."

Just as Markus said that, a horrible explosion came from the distance. The sword which was streaking through the air completely dimmed before a blinding radiance exploded from the sword, evaporating the ground, the grass, the trees and most importantly, evaporating the man who had avoided the sword.

Orou was watching all of this excitedly, still confused about why the humans were fighting when they had just successfully escaped. As the sword exploded, Orou got the scare of his life as he instinctively hissed, but his hiss was drowned by the sound of the explosion.

A few minutes passed by in complete silence as Orou observed the surroundings. He wasn't what to make of this before he caught the sight of the flower. It was as alluring as before, maybe even more so than before. For the last time he made sure that there was nothing hiding in the shadows before stealthily making his way over to the flower.

He looked at the man who had thrown the sword with curiousness. His gaze lingered for a few seconds, but he felt the calling from the flower grow ever stronger. He could no longer resist the alluring scent and dashed towards it as fast as he could. It didn't take long before he was right next to it and the next second, it was in his mouth.

As he devoured the flower, it seemed to melt in his stomach into a warm liquid. It resembled the pulsing that has been present in him ever since he was born. The warm liquid seemed to spread through his body and cover every single part of him. As he looked around and at himself, he saw a thin layer of blood cover him before rapidly becoming thicker, enveloping him in a cocoon in a few seconds. His entire body felt comfortable beyond belief and the urge to sleep overtook him. As he dozed off to sleep, he could hear a voice in his head saying something to him...