Chapter 1

Being dead had its advantages. The feeling of flouting was quite relaxing, and I felt neither hunger no cold. Some may dispute me on this, but I think that being dead had more pros than cons, at least from what I had experienced of it. however, being dead didn’t seem to cure insanity.

“Hey.”

“…”

“Hey.”

“… (maybe he’ll go away if I ignore him for long enough)

“Hey! Listen to me! Stop ignoring me and look over here!” He was extremely irritated, from what I could tell. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a strong chin. He looked like a super model injected with beauty steroids.

“I do not do steroids! Now stop ignoring me and pay attention!”

“… (I wonder if he was a doll before he died)

“… that’s really offensive, you know. Calling someone a doll.” When he said this, I looked at him, and for some reason, we wiggled his eyebrows, and it was so distracting that I was momentarily hypnotized by them. But when I realized what I was doing I managed to snap myself out of it.

“now, I know you must be confused, seeing as you were just flouting around, but-“

“I died and am now in the midst of my fate being decided.”

“… ☹ How did you guess? Can you also read minds? :{}”

“Nope. Lucky guess.”

“:| You got my hopes up for nothing.”

“That’s not my fault. You just assumed.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No its not.”

“Ahh! Dealing with mortals is so aggravating. First off, tell me your name.”

“I only tell my friends my name.”

“…”

“…”

“Well, can I be your friend?”

“No.”

“Ahh! Stop sidetracking me! Your dead, and I am going to tell you something, so just, SHUT. UP.”

“Well, what do you want to talk about?”

“Ah, good, your going to listen. First off, my name is Jordan. I am a god. You can bow whenever you feel like it. and, you’re going to be reincarnated!”

“Oh, cool. Looks like even my insane hallucinations are crazy. That makes me feel a whole lot better.”

He continued while ignoring my muttering. “First off, the world that you’re going to is a bit different from the one you came from. First off, the technology is waaayyyy less advanced, like, steel age, and there exists many creatures that you won’t be familiar with. Oh, and theirs magic.” He added this last part like it was really unimportant.

I decided to humor him since I would have to learn to live with whatever hallucinations my insanity conjured up. It would be good to get on good terms with this one, that way when more showed up I could introduce him to them and he can bother them, leaving me without anyone to bother me. Win-win. At least, for me.

“I see, what do I need to know to survive within this world that I’m being sent to?” I asked with a humble look. I saw the gleam in his eye, and immediately regretted asking him.

“Well, my champion, what you need to know can be summed up in several thousand pages, but for conveniences sake, I sum it up in a couple minutes.”

Jordan’s guide to survival and whatnot

“First off, there are two different ways to survive, depending of whether you are born an animal or within civilization. If you are born in the first, your only choice is to attempt to evolve and master the advantages that come along with your race. If you are born in the second, what you have to do is master your craft, whether it be death magic or snail collecting, without mastery you will die.”

“Second, have you ever played R.P.G.s?”

“If you mean the rocket launcher, I have extensive experience with firing them.”

At this, he looked at me like I was some kind of alien. “You mean that you have never played video games before? You at least know how they work, right?” he was looking desperate, so I lied and told him yes. At this, he looked like he had lost all hope. “I can read your mind, I know you’re lying. sigh, look, in many video games there is a level based system. What it does is tell you how powerful your opponent is. Us gods found that by giving all champions the ability to read levels has increased their survival rate by a huge margin, and they are less likely to die in stupid ways.

Basically, the stronger you are, the higher your level. Does that make sense?”

“Sure, but how much stronger?”

“It depends. Beings that are raised within civilization have the ability to learn jobs, and whereas beings that are born as beasts have the option to evolve. This includes monsters, humanoids, and everything that has no concept of taking something and perfecting it. and then, there are the demi-humans. They can learn jobs and also evolve, but they evolve at half the rate of regular beasts. And of course, depending on their physiology their jobs could become useless.

Anyway, jobs have various strengths, all depending on what it is. When a jobs level reaches 100 then it has been mastered, and the more advanced form of the job is unlocked. For evolution, when a creature reaches level 100 then it has the ability to use the maximum power contained within that form. The creature in question gets the option to evolve, and if it does, it is reset to level 0, however, after evolving it would only get stronger, and if it reaches level 100 again, it can evolve again and become that much stronger. Each evolution grants strengths in the form of speed, muscle, and claws or the like. Do you understand this fully?” he questioned me with the look of a school teacher testing his unruly student.

“Yes, I do.” (It’s interesting to know what kind of delusions my delusion has)

“Alright, now onto abilities. Abilities are what define what you can do, and what the cost for doing it is. If you are a swordsmen, you can learn cross-slash, which lets you add a phantom swing to your attack. Basically, they allow you to do things that would otherwise be impossible. Just like jobs and evolutions, they have levels that can be raised, and when they reach 100, they have been mastered. Some abilities can have higher forms of themselves be learned when you reach level 100 with the original. You can learn them by having them taught, given, and you can unlock it from evolution, or a multitude of other ways.

Finally, I have to tell you about champions and myself. Champions are beings chosen by us gods to represent us upon this world. Some champions are chosen from the moment of birth, some are chosen in the midst of battle, some are taken from another world like you. Champions can have various strengths, but the thing that they all have in common is the blessing from their god. And this is where I come in.

From me, the blessing you will receive, is-“ he paused for dramatic effect, “The awe-inspiring-“ even though I new it was just a figment of his imagination, or, rather, my imagination, I still leaned forward.

“Completely unique-“ he kept pausing, and I lost any excitement I had felt, and I just wanted him to get on with it. “And powerful ability-“ I could make out a drum roll, and I had no idea where it was coming from, but it went like this.

Dodododododododo

“Flee!”

he said in an impressive voice.

“…”

For a second, I didn’t register what he had said, but when I did, I laughed. And it felt great. Guess insanity was good for something. (Just then I realized that I was laughing while being insane, and I wondered if it was an insane laugh, and if I could scare my delusion with it)

Sure enough, he looked really creeped out. But he soon looked hurt, and told me: “its not my fault, I was the apprentice to the disciple of the follower of the old god.”

“Wait, so you’re telling me that you’ a third generation god?”

“I guess you could call me that.”

“And, what percentage of gods are second and first? And who’s the old god?”

“Well, in the beginning, their was nothing, then, the old god cam from a different world where he was too weak to have any power. So, he created his own world. After that, every so often he would acquire disciples, and in exchange for power they would be his servants. The old god divided up the world into territories for his disciples and after a couple thousand more years he got bored and went to sleep. He has been sleeping for, oh, twenty thousand years or so? Anyway, after awhile, the old gods disciples wanted to take each other’s territory, and they fought. However, the disciple’s power was too much, and they nearly destroyed what they were fighting over. And so, the champion’s agreement was made. Any god can make a champion, give his or her blessing to him or her, and these champions will represent their own god, and fight to keep their masters territory. If a god is in a good mood and he believes that his champion deserves it, he will be granted godship. However, they will still remain under their master’s authority.

Oh, and to answer your question, I am the only third generation god in existence. Basically, each generation is leagues weaker that the one before, so I am pretty much a mortal compered to the other gods. Have fun, my champion!”

“Well, I guess I can play your game for a little bit.”

At this, he smiled evilly, and chuckled like I had a few moments ago. “Oh, you will soon find out it is no game.”

Then he was all cheerfulness and sunshine, and said, “be a good champion! Oh, and your body may not be up to your expectations, but don’t let that get you down! Bye!”

“Goodbye to you too, delusion of mine.” I said as my vision was obscured in blackness once more.

---

When I awoke, the first thing I noticed was that I felt cramped. When I tried to stretch out something brittle and tough stopped me. After a couple hours of work, I managed to break out of my prison, and what I found astounded me. I had been in a egg. A egg. I really wanted to thank my insanity for giving me such realistic experiences, but thought better of thanking something that made me hallucinate.

When I looked around, I saw the inside of a cave, and I felt a hunger that made conventional hunger seem like an ant compered to a horse. I took one last look around, and saw that it went four or five meters back, and was one or two high, it gently sloped down, so instead of a cave, it was more like a large cleft in the rock.

I walked out of the entrance and was momentarily blinded by the light, and I had to wait for my eyes to adjust. Once I could see, I looked down on my ‘god’s’ territory. It was essentially a forest with a somewhat large lake in the middle. The trees were green, and from what I could tell it was late spring or early summer.

Still feeling the hunger, I made my way down. Also, I wanted to check my reflection. I didn’t trust that Jordan. However, as I moved I could tell that I was walking on four legs instead of two, and since I could not see any signs of civilization I guessed I was a beast. That meant that I could evolve, gain abilities, and whatever Jordan had forgotten to mention. I bet he forgot some things on purpose, just to make things interesting.

When I had reached the bottom of the hill, what first stuck me was that there were strings of webs that were strung all over the entrance to the trees. When I saw them, I realized that: first, there were predators within this forest, and second, my eyesight was greatly improved from when I was human. It was apparently just after dawn, yet it felt like it was full light out.

Thinking of my hunger, and the predators, and the risk of death, I found that if I died I would hardly care. So, I took my appendages that took the place of my arms, and batted a rock onto the webs. The creature that had made them would feel the vibrations and think he had caught a small animal. However, this wasn’t perfect, I would have to wiggle the rock on my own, otherwise the creature would be suspicious of a prey that got caught and didn’t try to escape. So, I carefully climbed up the tree and slightly wiggled the branches that were attached to the web. Hopefully, the creature wouldn’t notice that the vibrations were in different places. If he did, it was o big deal. It would just mean a more interesting fight.

With my excellent hearing, I could tell there was a scuttling noise coming from behind me. I wasn’t worried, the creature would be fully intent on his ‘meal’ and I would pounce on him and devour whatever was edible. when it revealed itself, I saw that my suspicions were right. It was a spider, but set on a scale where it would be a tall as a ten year-old if stood upright. When it saw the rock and was confused, since it could smell prey nearby, I waited until it paused, trying to analyze the situation. When it was deep in thought I dropped down, and used my claws to rake all eight of its eyes out. It hissed, and jumped backwards, but deprived of its sight, I new it was not nearly the threat it used to be. But it was still a threat. I licked the eyeballs off of my claws and proceeded to circle around the spider.

It followed me with its excellent senses, so I hooked a rock with my claws and threw it to the opposite side of the spider, while crouching and making no movement at all. When the rock hit the other side, it assumed that I had jumped over it, and quickly turned around. I came up behind it, and used both my arms to snag the two back legs. They mad a snapping sound as they came off, and I quickly used my fangs and teeth to strip whatever meat I could from its bony legs.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to take the edge off of my hunger. No longer desperate, and seeing the spider starting to fear for its life, I tried to sneak around it, but only got half way behind it before it could make out the subtle vibration I made. I scuttled forward on six legs, but its speed was nothing compared to when it still had eight. I sidestepped, and used both my arms to hit the spider in the side with a lifting motion. As I’d hoped, it flipped over, and I saw its carapace was much weaker on its belly. I didn’t hesitate, but pounced onto its chest and began using my claws and teeth to rip its organs out of its body. When I had feasted, I tried to wipe my mouth, but my claws were so stained with green blood that I just made my face messier.

When I got up, I was feeling quite proud of myself. Of course, that was when I saw the dozens of other spiders. And they didn’t look happy.

Authors note: from here on, it is going to get quite gory. If you have a weak stomach, just skip until you get to the next authors note.

When I saw how many of them there were, I new immediately that if I didn’t fun away I would probably die. In this case, ‘flee’ the ability that I got from my blessing would actually come in handy.

But just the thought of using something that Jordan gave me made me want to throw up the meal I had just had. So, I did something that came with a beast’s body.

Instinct.

For the first time, I lost myself. I let my instincts take over, and set all thought toward killing them all. I smiled.

The first came at me, the others followed, but he was the closest. I jumped onto his back, and vaulted over him, allowing me to sail threw the air over the dozen spiders. When I was behind them all, I decided something.

This isn’t hunting. This, this is a fight.

I fully extended my claws, and I heard a faint snap as they came out. I reached under the belly of the spider that was furthest behind the leader. When I racked my claws along the soft, or, compared to the rest of the body, softer carapace, the spider quickly lost his stomach, and all the other organs.

I snagged one or two, and munched on them while backing away. when the spiders ha all tuned

toward me, their friend I had gutted finally died.

“One.”

It came out as a growl, but that was okay. It was the thought that counts. I ran forward and clawed the eyes off of one of them, and jumped back when they shot a web at me. That was quite amazing, as I had never seen a spider shoot its web. “This will be interesting.”

Then one jumped at me, as it was coming at me, I almost laughed, but withheld it, as laughing insanely as an animal would be kinda weird. I also jumped, but I jumped forward, and held my claw vertically, and spilled his guts all over the ground behind him. I was still smiling.

“Two.”

They, seeing two of their dead, would have two options. They chose the wrong one.

They became enraged, and rushed me all at once. I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing. The first to reach me had strange patterns on his back, green and black, and he spat something at me, which I assumed was either poisonous or toxic. I ducked, and his momentum carried him over me, and I rolled onto my back as he passed over me, and gutted him the same way I had the other two.

“hehehe… three.”

I quickly regained my feet, and tuned to face the thirteen remainders. When they saw what I had done to yet another of their companions, they became even angrier, and I thought one of them was actually glowing red. Holy crap! They can glow!

“hehehe…”

I went to them, and for the first time, they got a good look at me. When they saw me, covered in the guts and blood of their fellows, they wasted no time. However, I jumped into a tree, and the first to try to follow was batted away. Some tried crawling up, but I used my back claws to anchor myself while reaching down to the defenseless spider and clawed its eyes out. It fell back screeching. Then the started to jump up in earnest, and as five of them tried to jump up at the same time, I waited until they were firmly attached to the branch I was on. Then, since the branch I had chosen was nearly rotted away, I jumped further up the trunk, and used the trunk further up to propel myself at speed to the base of the branch. Using gravity and momentum, I snapped the branch off, and the five spiders and me fell. However, there was a difference between us. They were attached to the branch while I wasn’t. I hit the ground, and it barely hurt at all, but before any of them had the chance to react, I leaped over to the stunned spiders and went through slashing their belly’s.

“hehehe, four. Ha five. HA six. Ha! Seven, HAHAHAHA!”

I licked the spider gore off of my claws, and looked at their slowly emptying corpses. It was a shame that spiders didn’t taste very good. Otherwise I’d have feasted on the guts and blood sprayed all over the ground.

Now the one that had glowed red leaped at me. I saw it also had strange patterns on its back, but they were black and red, not black and green. I dodged back, and analyzed my opponent. And found he was nearly as crazy as me. He was frothing at the mouth, and looked like he’d rip off his own legs just to kill me.

“hehe, looks like this world actually has some decent fighters in it, hehe.”

He hissed at me in what I assumed was the spider language, and charged. Even if he was crazy, he wasn’t stupid, and when I feinted like I was going to slide under his belly he immediately dropped his body and used his legs to cover his eyes. Ii was no faced with an impenetrable wall of carapace, and no sledge hammer to destroy it with. However, there are different ways of defeating someone than brute force. “If they defend from the front, attack from the rear. If they defend the rear, attack the side. If they defend everything, you sweep them and get them on the ground. Then you hit them where they are weakest.” The words of my master echoed in my head, and I smiled at the thought of that old geezer.

“Well, I don’t think that works here, but it can be applied.”

I ran to his side, and snickered at some of the other spiders, making them run over here. When they jumped at me, I used my claws to intercept them in the air. Green gore fell from above me, and I bathed in it.

“eight, nine, ten. Hehe.”

The other spiders were his weakness.

Then, when I was soaked through and through with green blood, I smiled at the red patterned spider. He started glowing again, and when he came at me he had become much faster. His fangs barely missed my side, and he pulled his legs away from my claws, and pulled his head back so I could not claw out his eyes. As I danced around him, he got a darker and darker shad of red, growing faster and faster. The thing is, what he gained in speed was lost in tactics. I led him over to a tree, and when he lunged at me, baring his fangs, I sidestepped and let him crash into it. When he got a mouthful of tree instead of a mouthful of me, he was surprised. At this point, the other five spiders were watching to see which of us would prevail. It seemed that they saw leadership, as the strongest one should be in charge. That meant they wouldn’t help him if he was losing, cause that means that on of them could be leader.

“hehe, you’ve got some problems, don’t you? Hehe.”

I tore both his back legs off.

Then I went underneath him and started digging. I ate his guts, and drank his blood. It was red, unlike his brethren, but it wasn’t human red. It was more like red sludge. However, he tasted a lot better than his brethren. After I had finished the insides, I made my way to the front, he was still alive, and I was impressed with his vitality. Then I speared through his eyes, snagged the brain, and ate it hole. When I looked at the other spiders, they had scuttled far, far away.

“hehe, guess its only eleven today, hehe.”

Authors note: well that was fun. Hope you liked it, if you didn’t, go cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it. Now, onto the rest of the story!

Now that I was full, I wanted some sleep, but first I had something to look at. I made my way through the forest, but nothing bothered me. It seemed like most of the predators were nocturnal. Once I reached the lake, I looked into it and wasn’t surprised to see whiskers and bright green eyes, but what I was surprised by was my fur. Now that the spider blood had dried and began to flake off, I could see that my fur was black. Now, I now that cats can have black fur, but somehow I had never imagined myself being so naturally camouflaged. I could easily blend with the shadows with this fur. For a second, I wondered why Jordan thought I would be unhappy with this body. After all, it made killing easier.

While looking at my reflection, I wondered what my purpose should be. I had nothing I needed to do, so what should I set as my goal? In my first life, everything I was was working for the agency. So what should I do? What could I do?

When I thought about it, I realized that there was something that I was craving, after getting a taste. I wanted a friend.

And so, I would set out on my quest for friendship. And if anything got in the way, it would be eliminated. I headed back to my cave and slept until night. As I slept, my claws grew longer, my fur thicker, and my muscles thicker. My eyes also got red pupils. But this fact was unknown to me.

End of chapter 1