Before Ben realized what happened a bright flash erupted from John, engulfing the group in a blinding light. An imploding thud echoed throughout the halls followed by the wails of the terrified wolves.

BOOM

John exploded. Ben tried to open his eyes to see what was happening, but the blinding light prevented him. The explosion resounded throughout the alleyway and into the storage room. The sound was deafening, as Ben covered his ears with his hands.

‘What did he do?!’ Ben thought.

Ben dumbfoundedly let John walk past him when John started speaking as if he was uttering his last words. Then he started glowing and threw himself into the pack of wolves. Was he sacrificing himself to save them? Why would he do that? And how?!

The aftershock of the explosion spread through the basement as Ben felt his hair get rustled by the wind. When the rumblings quieted down, Ben took a look around him.

When he opened his eyes, he saw a seemingly unharmed John collapsed on the floor in front of the storage room, surrounded by two mangled corpses of wolves. The wolves had punctures of varying sizes covering their bodies. As if a grenade had exploded in front of their faces.

‘But why are we okay?’ Ben thought as he took a good look at himself and the group.

Ben and the group were completely unharmed. Physically at least. Besides the mild aftershock of the explosion and the flash, he didn’t feel anything else hit him. The storage room was also mostly fine. Some items were displaced by the aftershock, but those displacements were minor compared to what he’d expect an explosion of this magnitude would do. He wasn’t an expert, but from the sound of it, it should have swept them away with it.

‘’DAD!’’ Nathan shouted as he stumbled past a dazed Ben and Rolo.

He squatted down next to John and grabbed his face. When that didn’t wake him up, Nathan grabbed his wrist. Growing increasingly troubled, Nathan moved his hand to John’s chest. There was no pulse.

‘’Don’t do this to us…’’ Nathan mumbled as tears started rolling down his cheeks. Nathan wept.

Nathan’s cries woke Ben and Rolo from their stupor as they quickly went to aid Nathan. They had to check if the wolves were still alive. If they were they might attack Nathan any minute now, while he was mourning his dad.

With his halberd raised, Ben walked out of the storage room and inspected the basement. What he spotted was a room full of what should be over two dozen injured wolves. The wolves were scattered all over the room, a result of the explosion John caused. Ben was about to sigh in relief when a stack of wolves started moving.

After a moment, a paw extended out from the pile. Seemingly trying to get out of the stack. It looked like this wolf somehow survived the explosion, because it was on the other side of the room. Its brethren took the brunt of the explosion. The wolf kept struggling when the wolf finally managed to uncover the corpses from his face, allowing it to look around him.

Ben walked up to the struggling wolf. The wolf panicked and tried to run away when he saw the approaching human, but it was stuck. With nowhere left to go, Ben finished it in one strike.

Checking the rest of the wolves scattered in the room, Ben finished off 2 more remaining stragglers when he heard a notification.

[Congratulations! You leveled up!]

Ben aggressively swiped the notification away. He wasn’t in the mood for the notification’s acclaim in this depressing situation.

Ben was about to walk back to check up on John when he stopped and laid his hand on his head. He felt dizzy and he had a headache. Probably an aftereffect of the explosion.

Ben approached Nathan and Rolo who were both crying over the lifeless body of John. Rolo performed CPR on John, but it didn’t look like it worked. Nathan started hitting his dad’s chest out of frustration, but nothing worked. John was dead.

‘’Let’s go, we need to leave before any more wolves come,’’ Ben said. ‘’We can’t let John’s sacrifice be in vain.’’

Nathan started heaving when he heard Ben’s words but soon calmed down again. For a second it looked like Nathan was going to hit him, but he changed his mind at the last second.

‘’Rolo, can you get Kara? We’re leaving. Wolves must be on their way to this location right now.’’ Ben said.

Realizing they had to leave, Nathan squatted next to his dad’s body and tried to lift him. He collapsed, after which he decided to drag his dad to the escape door. After just 3 feet, Nathan collapsed and started crying again. Even with his enhanced stats, he was too injured to carry his dad’s body with him. Nathan looked at Ben.

‘’Benjamin, carry his body for me,’’ Nathan said.

‘’I can’t,’’ Ben replied.

‘’Benjamin, I’m not saying this again. Carry his body.’’ Nathan said.

‘’Nath—‘’ Ben was interrupted.

‘’As your team leader you have to listen to me, and I’m telling you to carry his body! Now!’’ Nathan said with tears falling down his face.

Ben didn’t know what to say. He completely understood why he wanted to take John’s body with him, but he just couldn’t. What if they were attacked again? Who would protect them? Nathan couldn’t, he already had a hard time stumbling through the basement. And Rolo had to carry the unconscious Kara. The only one left that could actually fight was him. If he also had to take John with them, they would be easy prey for any enemy they might face. And looking at the situation, they were sure to find more enemies in the forest they were going.

‘’…’’ Ben just stared back at him.

It didn’t look like either side was willing to concede.

‘’We’ll die if we take him with us. That’s the last thing your dad would’ve wanted, Nathan.’’ Ben said.

Nathan started gnashing his teeth. Ben noticed the bandages on Nathan’s arm started bleeding again as well. The strain of trying to carry his father must have opened up his wounds.

‘’That’s easy for you to say! You barely even knew him! You don’t even care that he died.’’ Nathan replied.

Nathan was right, he barely knew John. It was obvious this wasn’t as hard for Ben as it was for Nathan. But that didn’t mean that Ben didn’t care. John had saved his life. And that’s not something he would ever forget.

Thinking back, John must’ve known he’d save them like this. Probably from the moment Ben spotted John grimly laugh while looking at some notification. It was obvious John knew what he was doing when he threw himself into the wolves.

But they had no other choice.

‘’Hide his body. We can come back later and give him a proper burial.’’ Ben said.

This was the only option they had. More wolves could be coming any minute now and as harsh as it sounds, they were wasting time. Survival was behind that door, and death was coming from the other one. They had to move quickly.

‘’Nathan…’’ Rolo said.

Nathan was clearly conflicted as his head turned red out of frustration. After a few seconds, it must have dawned on Nathan that Ben was right. They had no other choice than to leave his body in the basement. This at least gave them the possibility of finding him later on.

Nathan didn’t say anything when he started walking to a large storage bag on the floor. Nathan opened the bag and tried to remove the large wooden poles inside it. Probably equipment for some kind of game at the camp. Realizing what Nathan wanted to do, he helped Nathan remove the wooden poles, while Rolo picked John up and carried him to the bag.

Nathan held the bag open as Ben and Rolo carried John’s body into the bag. Witnessing John’s dead body inside of a bag left Ben with a sour taste in his mouth.

‘’Do you want to pray?’’ Ben asked Nathan.

Nathan was already stumbling to the storage room when he shook his head.

‘’Would God exist if he let something like this happen to my dad?’’ Nathan said with spite in his voice. He signaled them to store the body in the storage room.

Ben and Rolo couldn’t believe what they heard when Nathan spoke those words. To Ben, Nathan had seemed like the most devoted out of all of them, but he was fuming. He couldn’t forgive God for what happened to his dad.

Rolo realizing they were running out of time hurriedly chanted a short prayer and signaled a cross sign, before closing the zipper. Ben dropped his halberd and walked up to one end of the bag to pick it up when he noticed sniffing sounds behind him. The sniffing got louder as the pile of corpses started moving.

‘’FUCK!’’ Ben shouted.

Ben hurried to his halberd, but the wolf already pounced on him before he could arm himself. The wolf’s claw had almost reached him when Rolo pushed him to the side and took the hit. The force had thrown Rolo all the way back against the wall near the storage room, leaving him unconscious.

Looking at the wolf still in front of him, Ben only saw death. He had no means to grab his weapon in that short moment, nor did he have any other means like John had to attack the wolf. He was powerless.

The wolf furiously bit Ben’s shoulder as Ben screamed. Ben hit the wolf, but the wolf wouldn’t let go. The wolf kept gnawing until he punctured Ben’s muscle. Then Ben’s bones cracked. The wolf swung its head back to finally sever the tendons in Ben’s arm.

‘’AAAHHHH’’ Ben screamed.

Ben fell on the floor and looked at where his right arm should have been. His arm was gone. The wolf had severed his arm and was gnawing on it. Ben’s screams grew fainter and fainter as Ben’s head grew heavier and heavier.

‘So, this is how it ends.’ Ben thought. He thought he’d die in the storage room, but then John gave them a second chance. Only for him to die minutes later by some stupid wolf that hid under a pile of corpses. Looking at his missing limb, Ben lost all hope.

In the corner of his eyes, he could see his halberd still laying on the floor. If only he hadn’t dropped his halberd. If only they had left immediately after John saved them. If only he was stronger.

Ben noticed his headache had returned and was even stronger than before. How could he notice some minor headache when his arm had just been severed? His arm should be hurting, but somehow that pain was now eclipsed by this headache.

It almost felt encouraging. Like the headache was encouraging him to keep going. To keep fighting. For a second he thought he saw John in the corner of his eyes edging him on. To keep going. Waving at him to keep struggling for survival. In this situation, Ben smirked. ‘Watch me.’ He thought.

The wolf had already left to chase after Rolo and Nathan. If he didn’t do anything now, they would also die.

Ben’s left arm slowly moved to the halberd. Bit by bit he moved his arm forward. He completely stretched his left arm out but was short by about a foot.

Grab it! Ben gnashed his teeth as he willed himself to grab the halberd. Take it! Grab it! If I don’t do it now, I’ll never will. He had never desired anything more in his entire life than he desired to grab that halberd right now.

CRASH

[Soul manifestation awakened: Soul Arm]

[Soul skill awakened: Piercing Grasp]

***

- POV Unknown -

Somewhere on earth, an entity was sulking. The unknown entity was squatting in the corner of its room with his hands on his head.

‘’Aaaaah, why did he have to kill himself?! A genius like him had to go out like that? ’’

The being walked to a nearby box and kicked it out of frustration. No scraps were left, the box just disintegrated into oblivion, never to be seen again. The other items in the room suffered the same fate as the being pummeled everything he could see.

‘’He was already a genius after unlocking three skills within an hour. But then he even awakens his soul skill shortly after! And then the soul skill he awakens happens to be a fucking self-destruct?! Someone must be playing a joke on me. This isn’t funny.’’

‘’Aaaahhh, I’m going crazy,’’ The being said with his hands in his hair. ‘’If we want to survive, we need people like him.’’

The being’s rant was interrupted when it jerked its head in the direction of the recently fallen genius. The being wasn’t anywhere close but could see exactly what was happening as its eyes opened in shock.

It recovered from its shock as it started hopping in place and looked at the situation with its mouth still open.

‘’A soul manifestation?! On day one?! Day one!’’ The being exclaimed.

Taking a closer look it noticed the human was still bleeding profusely. If this kept going the human would bleed out in a minute. The being started chanting in an unknown language, with sweat dripping from its face. A strand of energy emerged from its head and flew to the man with the severed arm. Once the strand of energy arrived at Ben, it closed all his wounds. The wound that severed his arm closed and stopped bleeding.

The being leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. Still heaving from the exertion of his feat. Its arm moved to its face and wiped the sweat off.

‘’It cost me quite a bit, but it’s worth it. If he survives and reaches his full potential…’’ it ruminated as it walked off to find a resting place.