There’s only a few minutes left overall of the stop ability before he’ll need to devour quite a few things, so he wants to use it sparingly if possible as it’s not an instant recovery.

Sam peeks from the bushes at who shouted. He spots Victor coming in from the direction of the plane. He’s already hurt and bloodied, yet he’s still holding a spear and charging at one wolf as the other beasts gather.

Nearby Sam can see a group of soldiers, well equipped and surrounded. Most of them have noticed Victor nearby taking care of a large group by himself, yet they do not move and stay in their spot behind their large shields.

Victor stabs out at a wolf, it leaps back easily dodging this spear stab..

A wolf from another direction takes a bite at him, Victor is able to dodge it with nimble footsteps.

The old man redirects his spear and pierces the head of the wolf that just bit at him, the move is impressive even to Sam who can barely see it.

He’s not done yet as the atmosphere crackles, Sam stares with wide eyes at what’s going on. A large form appears behind the old man, the atmosphere goes dark as most other people look on at him.

A large gorilla stands above him, its form isn’t solid, but it doesn’t stand still as it suddenly pounces forward and slams down the wolf.

“You thought you could take me alive? Ha, I’ll show you the butcher of kustchez.”

Victor leaps forward as the gorilla acts on its own, his body is enlarged as the muscles and veins bulge out of his skin.

His spear stabs forward, piercing a wolf through the middle and coming out the other end.

A painful yet instant death.

He doesn’t stop there, finding the spear stuck in the animal, he punches his fist out towards a cat creature, the black panther pounces upon him but Victor punches out.

*BOOM*

The panther flies back into other creatures, Sam struggles to pay attention as the effects of the mana coming out has impacted him heavily. His skin is covered in black blotches as small dots appear on his skin all over.

Sam grits his teeth and watches the scene unfolding.

Several creatures suddenly pounce at Victor, the gorilla is dealing with other animals leaving him exposed. He punches out at a few of them, each of them flying back, but there’s simply too many.

They overrun the old man, Sam grits his teeth but when he hears the man’s screams he cannot bear it.

‘Stop’

Sam stands up when suddenly he spots some light approaching him quickly. He watches it, yet it doesn’t stop.

*ROARR*

The light transforms into the figure of a wolf and takes a snap at him.

Sam holds out a sword and intercepts the light, yet the sword just passes through the light, where it leaves a wound on his arm and chest. The light travels through him before disappearing from view.

He doesn’t have time to look at it as several other forms approach him before a larger figure appears stamping down on the lights, it’s another block of light but in a different form.

*OOOWA*

It makes a call like the gorilla before leaping around and crushing more of the light. The light seems to be able to reform shortly after being crushed, yet it does seem slightly dimmer.

Sam is finally left alone as the gorilla has distracted everything.

He doesn’t have time to worry about what’s going on as he approaches where Victor is, there’s 5 beasts clawing and biting at him. He’s able to hold his ground despite losing an arm already, part of his face is missing creating a gruesome scene.

Sam looks at the scene for a moment, he’s unable to move anyone and anything he places will act just like normal so he needs to work out how to cause the most damage to these beasts in this single moment, luckily practise makes perfect.

He sets to work placing knives and arrows inside the creature's mouths and ears before grabbing several spears and digging them into the ground, the beast's motion will force them into the spear. Finally, he runs over to the soldiers who seem fine in the mana-field while Sam is still under its effects even now.

Their position is solid as they hold a defensive perimeter, over 90 of them are in the group, yet they’re unable to advance against the group of beasts before them.

The only person able to move at the moment, Sam, gathers several bottles and weapons before walking back over to Victor. He sprinkles some of the bottles' contents on the old man’s wounds before making some more traps.

These weapons against the ground traps are the most effective, extensive testing has found.

Sam looks internally and then at the timer. It has nearly reached the end, so two things need to happen soon. He exits the inner space and looks around on the ground where he easily spots what he’s after.

‘Devour’

Sam points to the dead creatures on the ground, the bodies shake and vibrate. There’s no time to waste, the bodies disappear into dust, but Sam doesn’t have time to marvel at the sight as he looks at the short man near him..

‘Stop Stop’

Everything comes back to life, a bloody and gruesome scene unfolds as creatures impale themselves on the swords, spears and other weapons. They’re unable to even roar in pain as many of their mouths are filled with weapons.

The old man’s situation isn’t safe but Sam rushes forward, “Come on old man.”

“Sam…”

“Hurry.”

“Fine.”

Victor grabs Sam’s hand and follows his footsteps, keeping pace as they dodge and weave between the animals as they’re trying to work out what’s going on, exiting the encirclement into some nearby bushes.

Sam collapses on the ground as his skin has almost completely become black. He splashes some healing potion on him and looks around at the scene.

The animals that were attacking Victor are mostly dead, the rest are in a confusion about what happened and seem dispirited for some reason. The soldiers are reacting strangely, but Sam just ignores them completely as his attention returns to Victor.

The old man is badly wounded and missing an arm, while in the distance his monster is still carrying on.

The large glowing fully formed gorilla is slamming about beasts, killing many of them in a single blow or throwing their bodies about, but for every beast it kills. There’s more to take its place.

The gorilla’s movements are slowing down as time goes on.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re here to help these guys,” Victor retorts plainly.

“So?”

“Who else are we going to get to sort out these collars?”

Sam is stumped, Victor has a point. It’s something that he always knew but saving this group of people never occurred to Sam. They might be grateful, but most likely they’d judge him based on his appearance.

“There’s no guarantee they’d help, they’d just as likely strike you down.”

“If they’d strike me down after helping them then, that just shows how callous they are. ”

“I don’t think they care.”

Victor shakes his head, “Ah youth.”

Sam sighs under his breath, “What now? I don’t think I can hold out much longer. ”

Sam nurses the cut on his arm from the light beast-shaped thing, it’s healing slowly compared to the rest of his skin.

“Well, we need to rescue these people.”

“How?”

“Kill everything”

“There’s over 90 of them, they outnumber the beasts already but they still aren’t moving. The soldiers are useless, we should just leave them to their own devices, they’ve had plenty of chances to attack.”

“Don’t judge them by your standards. You need to only consider your feelings, can you walk away from them knowing you could have done something to help their situation?”

Sam clenches his fist, his skin cracks open spilling blood on the ground before healing quickly, “What is your plan?”

“I already said, kill everything.”

“You already nearly died. You can’t do that again.”

“Hahah, that was living, young man, truly living.”

“Fine. I can’t promise anything, unlike you I’m not stage 1. I cannot just move freely as you spread the mana about.”

“True, you’re looking rather worse for wear.”

*ROOOAR*

In the distance, more creatures pile in through the forest attacking the group of soldiers, they lose a few people for several hundred beasts yet the attacks don’t stop. Shortly after this attack, another one happens.

“What do you do?”

“Kill.”

Victor leaps out from behind the bush, the gorilla reappears and roars drawing attention to the bush. Sam pulls out a sword and sets to work quietly, devouring the creatures and taking them out from the sides.

Victor is in the middle drawing attention to himself, the large gorilla is right beside him roaring and bellowing. Each punch they make takes out a beast, but there’s always one to replace it.

Sam throws out the occasional knife but they’re unable to cause much damage, he’s forced to stay on the sidelines and watch as Victor tears through the creatures with his bare hands. The monster by his side causing a lot of damage.

Sam feels useless, but he isn’t ready to take on this sort of crowd, it’s already a big ask of him to survive in this area. Let alone move about and kill creatures.

The beasts don’t stop, Sam is getting tired yet Victor and the soldiers continue on as they defend against the onslaught, but unfortunately all of this effort is for naught.

*boom* *break* *crack*

Everyone suddenly turns to pay attention to unfamiliar noise, loud footsteps as a large creature breaks through the trees. It looks like a giant elephant, Sam takes one look at it and knows that he cannot do anything to it.

This creature is beyond stage 3, a giant war elephant towering near the tree line.

*pfffbt*

It makes a loud noise before its trunk flickers about, thousands of tiny little needles fly out from it.

The elephant charges forward as the people realise the needles pierced their skin.

*pffT*

The elephant charges forward; it doesn’t care about what’s in front of it as weapons and arrows fly at it.

It charges forward.

Sam watches in the distance as over half the soldiers are tossed into the air at one moment, he forces his eye to stare at the scene unfolding before him.

The soldiers are obliterated, unable to defend at all.

Sam looks to Victor and notices that he seems fine striking at creatures and dodging needles, when suddenly from nowhere a black flash comes from some shadows, Sam wanted to stop and give him a hand but there wasn’t a chance to do anything.

Sam watches the old man’s body slump over, all these new creatures who seem much stronger than the last, leaving him with little option but to retreat. He looks on at the new creatures in anger as the final person is killed then looks towards the direction they came from.

A distant bright light shines in the sky, acting like a beacon for everyone to see in that direction.

All of these new unidentifiable creatures are much stronger, they’re all over Stage 2 and they’re fast. Even if he were to use the devour ability and risk the worm-creature getting stronger, he would have to be able to bear that energy too and at this stage. He cannot.

Sam grits his teeth and walks away, the crunching sound of bones and bodies being ground up is all he can hear as he. The beasts are eating the bodies where they are and he cannot do anything about it, if he were several stages higher or had access to a lot of explosives he might be able to do something.

Right now though, he hasn’t even reached stage 1. He doesn’t have any ability to use mana actively, he can only attempt to force it out clumsily all over his body.

Sam creeps away hoping that he isn’t noticed by these newcomers. The crunching and chewing sounds remind him that he’s weak and a failure.

He wasn’t able to help even with his powers, they’d still die and he’d be dead too.

Sam pulls out the metallic tube that Victor passed him, 'I will make sure to look up your daughter, I will also use this key to settle your grievances... rest in peace you annoying old bastard', he mutters in his mind before placing the item away and walking away.

A short time later, a bright light in the distance is seen, it travels high in the sky in a bright blue flame with sparkles; it looks beautiful as Sam looks up at it.

*BOOM*

Moments later the sound is heard as the wind rushes by, Sam recognises the noise as the finale of the plane. It has crashed.

There goes the hope that it’d lead him in the direction of the people, this whole base is destroyed and there’s no obvious path leading anywhere while all of the soldiers in the immediate vicinity are either killed or running away scared.

Sam touches his neck, the collars are still there and there’s not much he can do to take them off. The only thing he can do is try to find whoever can reset the timer on this thing.

The forest he’s going through is mostly normal, there’s the occasional pocket of dead forest but it seems to be alive and normal plants for the most part allowing an easy time through the forest, the shrubs allow easy hiding yet as he crawls along he doesn’t spot anyone.

There hasn’t been a single soldier nor ‘volunteer’ like him hiding in any of the bushes and shrubs, a worrying sign that the positions might be completely overrun leaving him alone out here waiting for the collars timer to expire.

The dusky sky tells him that it hasn’t been too long since he left, yet he cannot count on it being less than a day…

*rustle rustle*

Sam pauses his movements and looks to the sound, *crack*

A branch snaps.

Sam widens his eyes as he spots a large cat creature standing there, it sniffs the air several times just metres away from him.

Its eyes suddenly turn to Sam.