Alex kneeled on the ground as he stared bitterly at the small squirrel in front of him.

‘A damned squirrel! I killed a giant laser tortoise and a damned squirrel freaking downed me in one hit!’ Alex thought wryly.

Alex knew that the two beasts couldn’t really be directly compared. The tortoise sacrificed all of its speed for pure destructive power while the squirrel was the direct opposite. Still, Alex felt like a joke.

If the tortoise was like a giant bunker filled with devastating artillery, the squirrel was like a special ops hiding in the dark. The tortoise had frightening defensive capabilities and was completely devastating at range, but it can be taken down through strategic maneuvering at the right moments. The squirrel did not have even half of the tortoise’s destructive potential, but its speed allowed it to strike unexpectedly and evade attacks easily. The only surefire way to kill it is to be as defensive as the tortoise or to be faster than the squirrel, neither of which Alex was capable of.

The squirrel suddenly moved. Alex immediately tensed up as he braced himself for the squirrel’s attack. He had already put his arm up to guard his head.

Bang!

Alex felt something small and hard colliding with his stomach and forced him to fall on his back. Just as he was about to get up hastily, he felt a burning sensation on his stomach. When he looked down, he immediately regretted it.

‘Is that the mac and cheese I had this morning?” Alex had a strange thought.

There was a small but deep hole on his stomach. Not only was blood flowing out, Alex saw a yellow bile coming out of it. The squirrel had hit Alex so deep that undigested food in his stomach poured out.

The squirrel itself was standing just a few feet away from him. It was munching on blood red meat that was covered in yellow bile. Strangely, Alex felt like the squirrel was looking at him with derision, as if it knew it was in control of the situation and Alex was just a prey that it could toy with.

“You FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!” Alex shouted as he flew into a rage and charged at the squirrel.

Alex do not like anyone looking down on him at all, even if that someone is a frighteningly fast predatory squirrel.

Alex immediately body tackled the place the the squirrel had been standing on. The force of his body that was fueled by rage actually cracked the ground and broke some of his ribs, but Alex didn’t really care. With his mind clouded by rage, the only thing he cared about was ripping the fucking squirrel to pieces.

“Uuh!” Alex said as he felt an impact on the side of his face.

By relying on its speed, the squirrel rushed and slapped Alex flying to the ground. The squirrel didn’t seem to expect Alex’s sudden charge, as it didn’t manage to attack deep enough into his face. The only thing its attack managed to do was create two bloody cuts on Alex’s left cheek. It seemed like the slap was mostly the beast’s version of a reactive counter attack.

‘So it gets easily flustered when attacked? Perfect,’ Alex sneered in his heart.

Despite Alex’s two grievous injuries on his abdomen, Alex still screamed as he kept charging at the squirrel. The squirrel still dodged and smacked Alex away like before, but after ten times of doing that, the squirrel started slowing down.

“Hahaha! You’re just a dumb animal after all! You do the same thing over and over again,” Alex said as he laughed sinisterly.

On his 11th charge, Alex could finally somewhat see the squirrel moving towards him. Due to that, he actually managed to dodge the squirrel’s charge by a hair’s breadth. His hand that was wearing the claw gauntlet actually managed to smack and clawed the squirrel’s abdomen.

Squeak!

The squirrel screamed in pain as blood poured out of its body. The squirrel turned out to have a crap defense as Alex managed to inflict a sort of serious wound on it just by grazing it a little. Red blood was pouring out incessantly as the squirrel squirmed on the ground.

‘That thing get downed that easily?’ Alex thought in disbelief. He was expecting more fight from the little monster, but the squirrel just kept squirming on the ground. It was as if the squirrel had suddenly turned from the predator to the prey waiting to be slaughtered.

‘That makes things easier. I’ll rip you the fuck apart!’ Alex sneered in his heart.

Just as he was about to charge at the squirrel again, Alex suddenly fell down.

‘Huh? What the hell? What’s going on?’ Alex thought as he looked down at his body that just gave way at the critical moment.

It was then that Alex realized that he was already on his last breaths. Back when he kept on charging at the squirrel, he had pushed his body too much because of his overwhelming anger and desire to kill the little bastard. If it wasn’t for the adrenaline keeping him up, Alex’s body probably could not possibly endure fighting or even standing up with all the wounds that it got.

After the squirrel was downed on the ground, the adrenaline disappeared and various pain flared up across his body. When he charged at the squirrel, Alex had overstrained his whole body as he bruised his body and broke some of his bones. Couple this with the fact that the squirrel would leave deep cuts all over his body whenever it smacked Alex away, it was very likely for him to die at any moment from blood loss.

In fact, when you compare the squirrel’s and Alex’s body state, it was obvious that the one closer to death was Alex. His face was badly mangled up to the point of showing bone while some of his joints was pointing in the wrong direction. It was a miracle that Alex was still conscious at this point.

‘D-damnit! So...close!’ Alex swore as he tried to crawl towards the squirrel that was still squirming on the ground.

Miraculously, Alex managed to crawl his destroyed body over to the squirrel. The whole process was painful and Alex could not help but think that death would be better than this, but he still pushed on. His pride won’t let him to just give up and die.

‘At least if I am going to die, I have to take my killer with me to hell!’ Alex swore in his heart as he plunged his claws at the dying squirrel.

Smack!

Alex felt an impact on the center of his face as his broken body was sent flying yet again. This time, Alex felt a burning sensation on his face as he felt like his nose had been burned to ashes. Alex couldn’t even react to it at all as he only truly felt the effects after he was already lying half dead on the ground.

Alex struggled hard to bring his head up to look, and what he saw stunned him.

The squirrel was standing up. The wound on its body was still there, but it was rapidly closing. Furthermore, its body became frightening.

Blue electricity current have cladded all of its body, making it look like a dangerous glowing ball of energy.

It was looking at Alex with its red eyes. An expression of pure primal fury was plastered on its face as lightning kept pouring out and surrounding its small body. Judging by the increasing amount of electricity that the squirrel emitted, Alex guessed that it was charging up for some devastating attack.

Alex knew that staying around in one place was just asking for the squirrel to kill him, so he tried to move his broken body. Unfortunately, that last sudden hit imbued with electricity that pulverized Alex’s nose seemed to be the limit of what his battered could take. Even after Alex tried to push his body, it won’t move no matter what.

‘Is this where I die?’ Alex thought as he stared at the glowing ball of death charging up to kill him.

Two hours ago, Alex had seen two beasts that can call on the elements like the squirrel did. One of them was the giant flaming tiger that can spit out giant exploding fireballs that turned most of Santa Cruz into flaming rubble. The other one was a giant wind raptor that flew past. The bird only stayed in Santa Cruz for less than two minutes, but it managed to whip up a giant gale that ravaged the whole area. If Alex haven’t been hiding underneath the school’s rubble, he would have already been swept up by the gale and fell to his death.

Well, Alex was already close to death anyway. Looks like even if you avoid most of the monsters and pick your fights correctly, there is always a chance for everything to go wrong. Alex learned that in this new world, death lurks in every corner. Unfortunately, Alex had to pay the ultimate price just to finally learn this.

‘Wait a minute. This new world doesn’t work that way,’ Alex thought as he suddenly had a realization.

‘Add all unspent stat points into vitality!’ Alex suddenly thought.

Instantly, he felt a large amount of energy suddenly engulf his body before it disappeared completely. When Alex felt around his body, he was surprised to find out that the pain from his wounds and broken bones have actually started receding slowly. The wound and broken bones didn’t heal, but at least the pain suddenly became bearable. Also, Alex felt like his body was slowly recovering little by little, but not at a rate that would make a difference. If anything, the injuries on his body that would take more than a year to heal felt like it would only take 11 months to heal completely.

At least, Alex could finally sit up and crawl instead of being stuck there laying on the ground.

‘Damn! To think that I forgot to assign stat points!’ Alex cursed at his own stupidity.

He was too hung up on trying to kill the squirrel that he forgot he could have just add more points into his stat. For example, if he added all of his stats to agility at the start of the fight, maybe his chances of winning might be higher? Although Alex doubted that since he felt like the squirrel probably had more than 100 points in agility, Alex still regretted not doing it. Instead, he waited until he was close to the brink of death before he was forced to spent those stat points on vitality just to stay alive.

Alex saw that the squirrel was still charging up energy. It seemed that whatever attack it was charging up for, it was going to be a very powerful attack that would probably kill Alex instantly. That was why Alex decided to leave as he crawled away to hide behind the corpse of the giant tortoise that he just killed.

Boom!

Before Alex was even halfway there, a gigantic explosion sound rang out as giant arcs of lightning filled the whole area. Alex was already screwed because the arcs of lightning was already heading his way, but the situation was even worse. The squirrel who was clad in in lightning reached Alex first.

After that, Alex didn’t know what happened. He was laying on the ground close to the corpse of the giant tortoise while his body was emitting smoke. The only thing he remembered from what happened before was just the feeling of extreme pain as he felt his whole body being hit all over right at the same time. Alex didn’t even want to look down to see his body’s state anymore as he was sure that it probably looked worse than the burnt chicken that he accidentally made for lunch last weekend.

So there he was, laying on his back and pretty much on the brink of death. Even with the added vitality, Alex knew that his time was up. There was nothing else that he could do. The squirrel was too strong.

It was already frighteningly fast to the point where Alex could do nothing to it before. When it started spewing out electricity, the squirrel moved so fast that it might as well be a living lightning bolt. Coupled with its destructive power being multiplied by tens of fold by the lightning, Alex never stood a chance.

The squirrel was standing on top of Alex’s chest, peering down at him with its red eyes like a death god clad in lightning. Alex could only stare at it angrily, as he could not move his body. He was sure that even the slightest hit would send him straight to the embrace of death.

“Aaaaggnnjwo….nifrwlq....olrapwiiw,” Alex tried to curse, but he found out that he couldn’t even move his mouth right. His mouth and tongue must have been blown off after being hit by the squirrel’s attack. He couldn’t even curse the beast that was about to kill him.

Alex only stared at the squirrel hatefully as he thought in his mind, ‘Fuck you! I swear to god! If I have another chance to fight back, I will make sure to rip you to pieces! No, ... I would torture you over and over until you will BEG me for the sweet release of DEATH!’

Of course, that was only his thoughts, as the electric squirrel casually swiped his head off and ended Alex’s life.

Tree of Worlds

"So that was what was supposed to happen? I admit that the strong will that he displayed was definitely admirable, but there are many in other universes that share a will even stronger than he does. I wonder, what makes him special?" Bigwood said to himself as he observed the glowing fruit in his hand.

"Well then, don't you think it's about time we see how that little time paradox changed your fate Mr. Alex?" Bigwood said as he smiled.

The glowing fruit suddenly turned black again for a moment as Bigwood's eyes were completely focused on the mortal boy inside the glowing fruit.