Earth, 18/03/2034

  Ten years ago, on a normal day.

  Gates the size of skyscrapers suddenly appeared all around the globe. One thousand and eighty majestic pieces of art, with the frames being two thick pillars with thousands of creatures engraved on them, and the double doors made out of gold. With its three hundred meters height, they must weigh thousands of tons each.

  The whole world stopped to discuss what those things were. Some thought it was the aliens invading earth, others thought it was god returning. But no one expected what would happen exactly one week after the gates appeared.

  The gates that stood immovable throughout the week, even with millions of people touching, banging, shooting, and even bombarding, suddenly started to open, all one thousand and eighty gates, opened as the light of the seventh day touched its doors.

  The double open doors revealed to the world an earthy brown energy at the other side. Some sort of portal, swirling like water.

  And out of it came the monsters. Thousands and thousands of all types of creatures flooded out of each gate.

  Giant snakes, orcs, golem, nagas, every single creature that humans had ever theorized or dreamed came out of the portal, and all they did was kill humans.

  Billions died that day.

  Fortunately at the end of the seventh day, the Beasts all vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving behind only the destruction and the corpses of the dead.

  In the weeks, months and years that came after, humanity started to understand a little of what the gates are.

  Every seventh day they would open, and waves of enemies would come out, but after 12 hours they would vanish without fail, leaving only the bodies of those that the humans managed to kill.

  Every time a human killed a monster a small ball of energy would fly out of the beast and enter the human. Giving them power and strength.

  A human that managed to kill a hundred monsters would be stronger than any human has ever been before.

  Apparently the energy from those monsters can turn humans into superhumans.

  Unfortunately, with more than half of the population dead, the production of bullets and even gunpowder came to an almost complete stop, so people had to go back to using swords and spears in the battlefield.

  And this takes us back to today.

  An army of ten thousand humans is waiting for the sun to rise in formation on an open field in front of one Hell Gate, as they have started to call them.

  As the sun starts rising, its light shines on the top of the doors. Slowly making its way down.

  The army, one thousand meters away, ready their formation, commanders walk from one battalion to the another, making sure everything is as planned.

  In the middle of one of those battalions is Leon, 1,8 meters tall, wearing full body light plate armor, with a spear on one hand and a 1,6 meters tall shield on the other. He is the second in line, right after the heavy shield wearing soldier, made to withstand the fist collision of the army.

  At the back of the army a set of drums start to play. A group of ten men is spread behind the army, each with a giant drum playing a crescendo synched with the rising sun.

  Finally as the sunlight touches the ground, completely shining on the Hell Gate, the double golden doors open, and an unending torrent of monsters start to run out of it.

  The music of the drums keeps on playing, keeping a rhythm.

  The first line of soldiers ready their shields, anchoring them on the ground and holding with all their might.

  “Archers!” Yell the commander.

  The last line of soldiers set their bows ready, aiming at the charging horde of monsters.

  “Fire!!” Thousands of arrows are set free.

  Even though the beasts can see the cloud of arrows coming at them, they can't do anything, for more and more are coming out of the gate, pushing the first ones forward. So hundreds are killed in an instant.

  But thousands more take their place.

  Leon takes a deep breath. In ten seconds the first wave of enemies are going to arrive.

  He goes through the memory of all his fights, the memory of his loved ones, and prepares his body for this battle.

  Three.

  Two.

  Boom!

  The first line of shield closes as the fastest beasts finally arrive.

  This time it was some sort of wolf. With bodies as big as bulls, their charge packs a punch weighing tons, but the shield barriers hold. And nagas, half human half snake beasts.

  Leon doesn't waste time, and thrust his spear through the gap in the shield formation in the eye of the huge wolf in front of him. Creating a hole one meter deep. A little energy ball enters his body, giving him even more strength.

  This is not his first, not even his thousandth kill, so he doesn't even bat an eye. He takes the spear out of the wolf's head, and thrust it into another one's temple.

  Not even one minute in, the first line of shield bearers is struggling to keep their formation, even though they are now enhanced humans, they still tire out quickly.

  “Forward!!” Yells the commander.

  Leon braces his shield, and as the first line of shield moves sideways, the second line jumps forward, hitting the monster in front of them in the face with the shield, and taking the place of the first line.

  As the entire second line of warriors moves in the same second, following the rhythm of the beat of the drums, the first shield bearers go to the back to rest.

  Now in the front, Leon must move differently. He places his spear vertically with one tip on the top of the shield and the other on the ground, to help him withstand the impacts.

  In the next second one wolf and a naga bring down their claws from both sides on the shield.

  The impact sounds as loud as a bus hitting a wall would. Pushing Leon one step back, and bending the hard metal of his spear shaft into a crescent, almost deforming it past its break point.

  Even though Leon is as strong as a bull used to be. Being able to easily lift half a ton, both the naga and wolf are just as strong.

  The same second as he takes the two attacks, a spear comes from each of his sides. Piercing the naga's chest and the wolf's head.

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  Leon once again takes a step forward, but now with force, hitting his shield on his enemies faces, sending the corpses back, and going back to his stance, waiting for the next attack.

  His first minute in the frontline finishes quickly. After defending from ten or twelve times he is completely spent. Hearing the command to switch, he moves sideways and walks swiftly through the line of soldiers waiting for their turn.

  Now in the back, he can look at the battlefield with calm. The Hell Gate is still sending out monsters, and is gonna continue for at least an hour.

  This wave is almost entirely of Nagas and Giant wolves.

  The wolves are just bigger than the ones earth already had. But the Nagas are completely new. Their bodies are ten meters long, with powerful tails and extremely heavy punches, their upper bodies are twice as big as a humans, with scales covering every single centimeter, making it extremely difficult to pierce.

  Thankfully it's nothing that this army has not seen. He remembers that the previous wave was much harder, being made entirely of earth golems.

  But as soon as he thinks that, the whole battlefield is shocked by a sudden and incredibly loud roar.

  Out of the gate comes a wolf head that is fifteen meters off the ground.

  It's black fur and bloodthirsty eyes sending shivers down Leon's spine.

  With quick thinking, the commander calls Leon and other fifteen soldiers.

  “Wait to be sure where it is going to attack, and get there first. As soon as he attacks, I want every single one of you on top of it. Now go!” the commander says.

  Leon leaves his shield behind, deciding to go only with his spear in hand and sword in the waist.

  Predicting the wolf's path was pretty easy as the giant beast just charged in a straight line.

  Arriving in the frontline, Leon stops one of the shield bearers in the third line and explains to him what's going to happen and what he needs him to do.

  The man just listens and nods his head. Giving his back to the front line and making a ramp with his shield.

  With a quick look and pointing, Leon makes his idea known to the rest of the group, who just nods.

  In less than three seconds the twenty meters tall wolf is about to pounce forward into the line of small humans in front of him.

  But as he is about to jump, he notices fourteen humans flying at him, past its head and falling on its back.

  The wolf manages to bite one that flew too close to its head. But all the others manage to land on its huge back. Using the momentum of the fall to pierce their spears into the wolf's back.

  The giant monster comes to a stop, trying its best to shake or bite the humans off of its back.

  Leon is the last one that didn't jump just yet, he wants to see the wolf's reaction.

  With the biting and scratching the beast only managed to kill two humans, so it stopped to brace his body and started shaking as a dog would do to shake off water.

  ‘Now!’ Leon says to himself, and sprints into the shield, launching his body into the air.

  The shaking is successful, sending all humans to the ground.

  Noticing it, the wolf stops shaking and opens its red eyes.

  But its bliss is short lived, as the first thing he sees is Leon, one meter away from its huge red eye.

  Spear in one hand and sword in the other, Leon takes a deep breath and plunges into the beast eye. Using the spear and his momentum to burst the eyeball open, and enter the cavity.

  Remembering the biology classes, he struck down, tearing through the muscles and arriving into the skull.

  The effects of tearing through the beast brain are instantaneous. The giant spasmed for some seconds, running around, but not even three seconds later it fell head first, dead.

  The ball of energy that entered Leon was the biggest he has ever seen. Giving him as much power as a hundred kills.

  Leon took some minutes to find a way out of the wolf's head, but once he did he noticed he was in the middle of the enemy lines, with wolves and nagas running through and over the dead giant's body.

  Looking for a way for safety, he calculated that he would need to run through three hundred meters to go back to his side.

  Deciding to wait, he sits on the bloody eye cavity, abusing the fact that he is drenched in blood and brain juice, to mask his scent.

  What he didn't expect was that his body would get paralyzed by a sudden pain through all his body, specially his hands, feet and mouth.

  Finally an hour goes by, the horde of enemies stop flowing out of the gate.

  The human army managed to withstand the attack thanks to their planning and perfect execution. Only a hundred or so died.

  Immediately hundreds of kids, old people and all the non combatant others came to the battlefield and took the monster's body. Taking them to the city to start treating the meat and hide.

  After the Hell Gate appeared humanity has been dwindling at a fast rate, so there's barely any people able to rear animals for food. Almost every food that is easily available are the dead bodies of the monsters.

  At first humanity were afraid of eating them, but after letting some animals try and seeing that nothing happened, they quickly adapted.

  The meat from the monsters still carries some power, so when eaten it still strengthens the body. To a much lesser effect, but it's already enough to make kids that grew up eating it stronger than some grown man from before the gates.

  After the thousands of people carried away all the bodies, hundreds of them pile together beside the giant wolf, making a plan on how to start dismantling its body.

  But as they were about to start, out of the wolf's head came a bloody man screaming, scaring everyone, making them flee.

  Leon gets out of the giant head, finally having back his mobility, in the last hour he has felt the worst pain he has ever felt. His bones were being rearranged, his hands grew to double the size, what once were fingernails now are claws, his feet too have grown out of the shoes, revealing ten sharp claws. Even his mouth now has sharper teeth.

  Once he finally calms down and looks around, he notices he is now surrounded by shields, with the tips of hundreds of spears pointed at him.

  “Calm down guys, I don't know what happened, but I am completely sane, I'd never attack you.” Leon says.

  “Identify yourself!” The voice of the general came from behind the shield wall.

  “Leon Freeman, tenth squadron under the orders of commander Maria, sir.” Leon answered.

  “Someone go call commander Maria here. While we wait you better not do anything rash lad.” Says the general.

  Not even one minute later commander Maria arrives, talks to the general for some time and walks through the line of shield.

  “Soldier Leon, tell me what is happening to you.” Maria says.

  “ I don't really know as well ma'am. I entered the beast's brain to kill it, and got out, but noticed that I was in the middle of the enemy lines, so I just waited here for the battle to end. But for some reason my body got paralysed by pain. A pain harder than I've ever felt before. And as the pain subsided, I was like this.” Leon explained.

  “Tell me your parents' names, as well as your whole battalion's names.” Maria said.

  “Marta and Clark Freeman. My companions are Michael Reeves, Peter Harrison…….” Leon easily named all the fifty soldiers.

  “Is it really you?” She asked, looking into his eyes.

  “I think so ma’am. My hands just mutated for some reason.” Leon answered.

  “Ok, we shall give you a spec of trust for now, but we will have two soldiers keeping an eye on you at all times, you shall follow the rules, I need a written explanation of everything that you remember, am i clear?” Maria finished.

  “Yes ma’am.” Leon saluted.

  The encirclement opened and everyone walked in the direction of the army grounds.

  Not even five kilometers away from the gate is a city with almost fifty thousand people. The city is clean and thriving with people working, kids playing and chicken walking around, but still has marks of the first wave of monsters from years ago. Some houses are broken, with claw marks and broken debris around.

  The rest of the day of the wave, and the day after are the only rest days the soldiers have. So immediately after arriving at the city, they go wash, change out of the soldier uniform and go back home.

  “Leon, you're to stay in the headquarters and stay in line, we still need to think what we are going to do with you.” Said the general.

  “Yes sir!” Leon saluted.

  Entering a room, he takes the uniform off and takes a shower.

  After cleaning out the blood and pieces of brain from his body, hair and even eye, he finally has time to look at himself in the mirror, searching for any change he can find.

  He used to be 1,80 meters tall, with a lean body, a goatee and short curly hair.

  Now he looks pretty much the same, but his jaw looks bigger, with powerful muscles defining his jaw line. The muscles from his whole body are twice as big, and his hands, now with small claws, probably five centimeters long on the tip of every finger.

  Even when slightly scratching the ceramic bowl of the sink, his claws are sharp enough to leave marks.

  “What the fuck happened to me?”

  Deciding to test his limits, he finishes the written report, delivers it to the secretary and walks towards the training grounds.