James hit the tree and nearly snapped it in half with his momentum.

He couldn’t think straight due to the pain. It felt like every single rib in his body was broken. Additionally, all of the muscles in his body had been ripped apart due to the effects of the Pill of Potential. He wanted to scream, but it would hurt him even more.

“What a dumb idea. Pill of Potential. I guess they wanted to put latent potential, but liked the alliteration more. How am I not dead? I think I killed the tree. No one has ever RKO’d a tree like I have. Although I got help from the bear."

James’ thoughts were completely incoherent, almost delirious. Then, he saw the bear approaching him.

He realized he was in danger, but he couldn’t move his body at all. He tried to think about something, anything that was possible, but his mind wasn’t working. The image of him getting backhanded bitch slap replayed in his mind. If the blond girl survived to tell the story of his death, his friends would laugh at him.

James attempted to clear his mind again. He grabbed a piece of splintered wood from the tree. As the bear approached him and was about to kill him with one more strike, he used his finger to flick the splinter. It hit the other eye of the bear.

James hit the eye of enemy monsters a lot.

The bear stopped in its tracks and clutched its head again. James laughed like a maniac. He knew he wasn’t right in his mind.

“Look at this dumb bitch,” he thought. “This dumbass bear is blind now. James 1 – Bear 0. Wait no, I’m going to die. James 1 – Bear 1. Wait, I got both of his eyes. That counts as two, so the final score would be James 2 – Bear 1."

His vision started blurring. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the tip of a spear sprouting from the front of the bear. The spear was made of earth.

====================

James woke up. He saw a blond girl, a dead bear, and a bear cub. He saw the girl cutting the dead bear like a butcher. His mind was groggy. He couldn’t hear anything, and he didn’t know if he was dreaming or not. Then, he passed out again.

====================

James heard a noise, an alarm bell. He jumped out of bed. The first thing he noticed was that mind was now clear. He wasn’t sleepy anymore. Additionally, all the pain in his body was gone.

The second thing he noticed was that his arms were muscular. Way more muscular than his arms should have been. He looked in the mirror. Instead of his face, he saw a handsome warrior with blond hair and blue eyes. The blue eyes looked strikingly familiar to him, but he couldn’t tell why. This wasn’t his body.

A voice echoed from the hallway.

“The demons have come! Quickly! We must defend!”

James suddenly realized he had no control over this body. His body put on his armor quickly, with a feeling of familiarity, as if he had done this motion thousands of times. After his armor was put on, he grabbed his sword, a blade tinged with red. The pressure and mana radiating from the sword was unbelievably strong, yet James found it familiar.

James walked out of the room. He ran quickly along the familiar yet completely alien hallways.

“Ajartum! They are invading from the west and south gate!”

“Where are there more of them?” His voice, no, Ajartum’s voice, was deep and smooth.

“The south gate.”

James nodded his head. Then, he turned and ran in a specific direction. James somehow knew that he was going to the west gate.

Eventually, Ajartum went outside of the building and ran across a field at an impossible speed. The speed of his running wasn’t inferior to a car. Ajartum tore across the barren fields of dirt, under a sky that changed from light blue to dark purple from one horizon to the other. James felt as if he was in another world.

Ajartum arrived at his destination. He saw a whole legion of troops, all in armor, standing ready for battle. James wouldn’t have called it an army. It looked more like a legion of knights. James would’ve thought that this was from medieval time had it not been for a few things.

All of the knights had wings. Stereotypical angel wings, with white feathers. Their armor was gleaming, and they looked so majestic James couldn’t help but want to stare in awe. He felt as if nothing could even touch these angelic knights.

But then, this feeling was shattered. He felt a change in the air that made him shudder. In the place where the purple sky was the deepest color, a portal opened. Lightning crackled, and countless, shapeless forms crawled out of the hole. James assumed that these were the demons. They were disgusting. Although James had no control over his body, he still felt like throwing up.

There was no real reason why the demons should have been that repulsive. They were a jumble of random parts – eyeballs, fingers, and tails – that, when put together, looked perfectly terrible with each other. James almost couldn’t comprehend how they looked.

One angel knight, whose armor shined a little brighter than the others, raised his spear and yelled.

“FOR ALNOS!”

“““FOR ALNOS!””” The rest of the knights repeated his cry, and then charged.

“Alnos? “ thought James. “What’s Alnos? It sounds like the name of the kingdom that these angel knights come from?”

The angels and shapeless demons clashed with one another. As soon as they collided, no, even before they collided, James knew that they were incredibly powerful. Each time the knights and demons clashed, shockwaves occurred. James felt like just these shockwaves would have been enough to kill them if he was here in person. However, he was in Ajartum’s body, which was much stronger.

The knights and demons fought tooth and nail with one another. They didn’t appear to value their lives at all. Instead, they prioritized killing as many of the enemy as possible. The site of the battle was soon filled with smoke, debris, and blood.

“The blood of angels is the same color of the blood of humans,” thought James

But despite the commotion, James’ body, or Ajartum, didn’t move into help with the battle. Rather, he dashed away to another spot. In front of him, another portal opened, and more demons poured out of it.

“Did they really expect to ambush the core from the north while I was in the south? Drazor would not make such a silly plot like this, unless he had something else in mind. Well, no matter. I have to clean this up anyways.”

Ajartum began circulating magic power within his body. James was almost overwhelmed by simply experiencing the feeling. Yet, at the same time, he learned a thing or two about the way Ajartum used magic power to strengthen himself.

Ajartum’s sword lit up in flames, and he leapt at the. Similar to the magic circulation, James felt as if he learned something about swordplay.

James/Ajartum leapt at the demons, unleashing a giant attack of fire that seemed to cut the cosmos itself. James drank it all in. But, at that moment, James’ vision started blacking out. But, before he fully lost consciousness, he heard a voice.

“Finally, someone was compatible, eh? Interesting…”