Fear death. Fear slaughter. Those who desire death have an equal desire to die. Worthless men have no right to draw breath.
-Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Bungou Stray Dog Chapter 4
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"Dragonfly"
As soon as the words escaped my lips, an unseen force burst from my fingertips, hurling the creature backwards. In the blink of an eye, a hole appeared in its chest, and blood splattered across the floor.
Though knocked back, the creature stood its ground, eyes locked on mine. It pressed its hand to the wound Dragonfly had carved, smearing its fingers with purple blood, as if hoping the hole would vanish, as if willing itself to heal.
Realisation dawned as the wound refused to close. The creature's grin faded, and its gaze burned with a fury I could almost feel on my skin.
"Not so funny now, isn't it?"
I had no clue how I'd managed it—my body simply acted, the word tumbling out on pure instinct. Yet somewhere deep in my mind, a strange sensation pulsed, elusive and impossible to name, but undeniably there.
With Dragonfly, I knew there was more to what I could do, and the notion of trying everything out was exciting, to say the least.
But the creature had other plans. It drew its arm back, and between its hands, energy like mine twisted into the shape of an arrow.
Of course, it didn't take a genius to know what was going to happen next. As the creature released that arrow, it moved fast, possibly even as fast as a bullet, but to my eyes, to me in this very moment, the arrow's speed was minuscule, for I could see it travel as clearly as day, as if it were in slow motion.
I tilted my head, letting the arrow whistle past. It slammed into the wall behind me, leaving a jagged crack in the stone.
"Well, that was slow." I glanced back at the creature, surprised it hadn't seized the chance to attack while my back was turned. "I see—you're not eager to get caught by me, are you?"
Despite its lack of speech, the creature seemed to have some intelligence. So instead of rushing me and trying to hit me at close range, it would wait and try to attack me from a distance. Knowing full well that the moment it touched any of my flowers or insects, it would suffer an injury just like before.
"But if you're not gonna move in then..." I smiled, probably the widest smile I have ever had in my life, "Here I come."
A single step.
One step, and I was there—so swift that not a sound stirred, not a petal or wing shifted as I passed. I moved faster than the creature could ever hope to see, faster than I'd ever imagined possible.
It was exhilarating, the feeling of strength, the feeling of this superiority.
I could not get enough of it.
I locked eyes with the creature, now close enough to touch. Shock flickered across its face as, in less than a heartbeat, vines and insects erupted from its body, blooming and crawling where I stood.
The monster screeched and lashed out, but the gap between us was too great. I dodged effortlessly, slipping back to my original spot before it could even register my movement.
To the creature's eyes, it was as if its arm phased through my body, as if I were a ghost.
"Is that really your best?" I thought about how easily I could end this—one Dragonfly to its head, and it would be no harder than crushing an ant.
But what's the fun in that?
I wanted to see what I am truly capable of.
I wanted to see what power, no, how much power I had.
And this creature in front of me would be the perfect test subject for me.
"Let's make this interesting. I won't use any of my... techniques." I watched the creature tremble, frozen in place. "Just this energy and my own body. I want to master whatever this is—and maybe sharpen my hand-to-hand skills too. Sounds fair, right?"
The moment I finished what I was saying, something deep inside stirred; it was as if something was locking down. An invisible force that seemed to be holding on to something inside of me like a chain wrapping around my very body, restricting something inside of me.
I knew, somehow deep inside of me, I could break this invisible chain, but I felt like I would lose something if I returned.
"Interesting, some sort of contract that I made with myself?"
A swinged
Dodged
"Maybe it's some kind of equivalent exchange?" I mused, still puzzling over the sensation from before. But my attention snapped back to the creature. My flowers and insects were growing much more slowly now, and the creature seemed to notice. "How rude. I was in the middle of a monologue, you know. Interrupting me mid-doing so is bad manners, you know?"
"So let's there be punishment."
Pulling my arm back, I gave the creature a beautiful smile that left it in shock.
Before a punch could be thrown straight into the creature's stomach, the impact's shock rippled through the area, sending it back flying and laying it flat on the floor.
As I expected, when I concentrated energy in my arm and throughout my body, I could increase my strength by a wide margin.
Looking at my hand that had punched the creature, then back at it struggling to stand, I waited for it to fully rise as I saw more insects crawling out of its body, while more flowers continued to bloom. The amount appearing on his skin had intensified after I punched him.
"This next one's payback for earlier." As soon as I spoke, the creature tensed, as if it understood, but I didn't care.
In the next instant, I stepped forward, moving just as before, materialising in front of my test subject with my fist cocked back. This time, it reacted, throwing up its guard and blocking my punch. Even so, the force bent both its arms at unnatural angles.
From those injuries, numerous flowers sprouted; at the same time, centipedes, spiders, ants, and other insects crawled out of the wounds it had just suffered.
Purple blood landed on my face, accompanied by my simple smile as I raised one of my legs. The flow of energy became easier and easier to control for me, compared to my previous attempts when I was just getting the hang of things.
Maybe it was my talent, or maybe something else made the learning and control process easier.
But who am I to complain?
With one single move, my kick landed on the side of the subject, but it was still blocked by the injured arm; as a result, even more flowers and insects immediately sprang from it.
The subject, as a result, tried to kick me away, but I simply raised my hand and let the kick land squarely on the side of my body. I could feel the impact shaking my whole body, but I stood strong, and despite being hit, the pain was not that severe compared to the one I felt earlier.
The energy enhanced my strength, so it naturally strengthened my defence.
Quickly, the pain I felt subsided, and the injuries, as little as they were, healed to the point that there was no pain left for me to feel or even a mark behind.
Before the subject's leg could be moved away, I lowered my arm, caught it under my armpit, and simply gave the creature another smile.
"It actually works." I was ecstatic as I looked the subject right in the eyes, its arms hanging lifelessly at its sides, and I could see the energy being concentrated on those injuries, the wound healing, albeit slowly.
"So you can heal yourself? Yet you left that chest wound untouched. I wonder why?" I mused, studying its arms with fascination. The leg in my grip squirmed, but my strength dwarfed its efforts—I barely noticed the struggle.
But now I was fully focused on the subject's body, I quickly realised that its whole body was covered with flowers and insects, some blooming across its skin, while the vines were crawling like worms in and out of its body and skin.
Insects burst from its skin like chicks from eggs—a centipede slithered from its mouth and vanished into its neck, ants marched in lines between inside and out, and a spider, unbelievably, crawled from its eye and scuttled across its face.
Clearly, the subject was in enormous pain.
"So just being near me makes it worse, huh?" I muttered, noticing the leg's frantic movement slowing, though my thoughts were already drifting elsewhere.
How troublesome. If this were normal, living a normal life would be next to impossible, as if there were no normal life for me to go back to the first place. Maybe there was a way to control the effect I have on the surrounding area?
If I remember correctly, these things didn't start to appear until I tried to control the energy and stop it from leaking.
The leg under my armpit finally stopped moving, but my mind was still too occupied for me to finally notice it.
When I looked back, the creature's body was sprawled on the ground, buried beneath a blanket of flowers—only the leg in my grasp still visible above the bloom.
It had died by simply being near me.
How disappointing.
I was expecting much more from it, at the very least a struggle or maybe even a fight to the death between him and me, but yet the moment I have a fair bit amount of control over this energy of my, everything quickly turned upside down and the subject in front of me was no longer good or strong enough to be registered as a thread to me.
What a shame.
No more words needed as I let go of the leg, as I take a look at the dead body that slowly crumbled away into ash, leaving nothing behind except for all the flowers and insects that were the only evidence that was left from its body.
Now, when I looked around, I could see that all the darkness had dispersed, as if, when the subject died, everything had become much clearer, and that feeling of wrongness I had felt before quickly disappeared.
Now that I had a better look around, I was in a forest, in the middle of nowhere, with no sign of civilisation in sight except for the bridge above me and the road I could see off in the distance,
I guess I could just follow the road till I reach a civilisation, I suppose.
Taking a deep, tired and disappointing sigh, I was about to start walking, but my senses picked up something first.
The feeling of that disgusting energy came back to my senses, but it was not from the one I produced; no, it was something near my feet, in the midst of the flowers and insects, a single one stood out like a tree in the desert.
My curiosity was, of course, better than my own survival instinct as I reached down to grab hold of whatever that was producing the energy. With my hand going past all of the flowers, I finally grab hold of the object before pulling out from the sea of flowers.
A finger.
A rotting, disgusting, decaying finger.
A finger that even if I were dying from hunger, I would never try to eat it.
A single finger that was producing that disgusting energy similar to mine, and yet more potent and much more vile and disgusting than mine, despite its quantity being much less than mine. Not to mention that not even a single flower was growing on it, despite it growing even from a rock. Clearly, this thing was something special.
A curious object, how could something so small produce an energy so vile and disgusting at the same time?
In the end, all I could do was wonder who this finger once belonged to.
"Well, I be damned, he even dropped loot like a mob in a game. He truly is a tutorial boss, no wait, mob would probably be more fitting."
My musings ended abruptly as that same disgusting energy surged again—this time, so vast it blanketed the entire forest, overwhelming even my own power.
And I could see it coming from one direction, so without even a delay, I turned to look at the source of the energy, which was in the sky, apparently.
The figure, obviously a human, wearing full black clothes, standing in the air, and, despite the distance, I could see it looking down on me.
What stood out most, however, was this person's snowy-white hair, which contrasted sharply with the night sky in the background, and their piercing blue eyes, which seemed to glow unearthly blue and looked directly past my body into my very soul.
Despite all of the appearance, however, one thing was very clear to me the moment I saw him, and that was, of course-
He's strong.
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A/N
Second chapter done.
Of course, he's here. I mean, he might as well be the poster boy of the series, so not having him in the early part of the story felt wrong to me.
As for the fight, it's not really a fight, more like a test, but in the future, you will have an actual proper fight, don't worry about it. This is JJK after all.
As for the protagonist's strength, I might have made it seem quite op to you all, but trust me on this, I could made this work.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and feel free to leave a review if you like!
Ciao~