The hide of Nagas are the best training equipment to discover an attack's penetrating power. Their thick skin and hard scales make their skin incredibly hard to slash or pierce. A soldier can only usually pierce their skin with a spear, and not with a sword, for only the spear has such powerful piercing power.

  Leon positions himself in front of a naga’s hide, braces his feet, swing his waist and torso, and deliver an uprising claw slash. Easily tearing four gashes on the hide.

  “Wow” he examined his claws, they looked pristine, the hide barely slowed his hand's momentum, showing that he could cut even harder things.

  Looking around he finds a towering shield. A two meters tall shield of steel.

  Placing his claws on the shield's surface, he started applying pressure. The steel holds up till the point where he applies 90% of his power. Then his claw starts to tear the shield, opening a gash one centimeter deep.

  “That's really strong.” A voice comes from his back.

  “Sir!” Leon looks back to find the general standing some paces behind.

  “At rest.” The general says as he walks closer. “Look son, even though we've never talked, I still remember you working your hardest every day to protect us, so I hope you've truly not changed and continue to be the Leon that everyone knows.”

  “Let's go there,” The general looked around, found a seat and walked over.

  “The world is a crazy place nowadays, there's so much I miss. It's been 8 years since I've had my last coffee... *Sigh* And now there's things like you. What we think happened is that you somehow mutated, maybe it's just you, or we all are about to start mutating as well we don't know.” The general said in a tired voice.

  “It's a good thing that we are managing to evolve, actually. Imagine if we had the same power as we did before the Gates. We would have died long ago. I just hope that this thing that happened to me is a good thing.” Leon says while looking down at his hands.

  “Keep on training and completely understand your new powers, we shall rely on you more in the future.” Said the general as he got up and walked away.

  Walking back to the middle of the field, Leon tries to remember his little unarmed combat lessons, thinking of what he can adapt to fit his claw attacks.

  The army focuses more on teaching the spear, sword and shield tactics, but once in a while they teach unarmed combat as well.

  Leon spends the rest of the day training his footsteps technique, focusing on ways to move and place his whole body weight behind each attack. Trying to come up with a good claw technique.

  In no time the sun goes down. Bringing peace to the seventh day.

  Never before has there been a second wave on the same day, but nothing is impossible. So people still has their guards up the whole day, but with the night, all the monsters that come through the portal that are still alive will vanish in smoke.

  Leon is walking back to his room with the two soldiers when he sees in the distance a man on a horse coming through the road that connects to the nearest city.

  He is clearly in a hurry, forcing the horse to give its all in a mad sprint.

  “Help! Help! The River Town has been overrun by a huge Drake.” Screamed the man as he saw soldiers in his way.

  Seeing as the two soldiers that were looking after Leon forgot their duty and went to take the man to see the general. Leon goes in the direction of the only battalion that stays ready on the day after the wave.

  Their commander is a short man, probably 1,50 meter tall, bald and ugly, with a headstrong personality.

  “Commander Smith, the general is calling for you.” Leon lied, but he knew the order was gonna come anytime.

  Arriving at the general's office they hear the general talking to a man.

  “Go call commander Smith, quic-” Says the general, but is cut by the door being open and commander smith entering together with Leon.

  “I'm here sir, what are your orders?” Says the small man, sending a quick look at Leon.

  “Oh, great. Take twenty men and horses and go to the River Town, help anyone you can, and protect them for the night, a caravan shall go after you with supplies to bring everyone that they can. The River Town has fallen, we need to help any survivors.”

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  “Yes sir!” The commander salutes and walks away quickly.

  “Sir, may I go as well?” Leon asks the general.

  “Not yet, we still need to keep an eye on you for the tim-” BANG the door of the office is pushed open violently, interrupting the general.

  “Sir another man came from the River Town, he claims the giant monster did not vanish without sunlight.” The man almost yells the news, with a desperate look in his eyes.

  “Sorry general, I need to go, maybe we still can save some lives.” Leon says and sprint in the direction of the River Town.

  The town is not that far away, just twenty five kilometers. Even before the transformation, Leon could run that in five minutes. But now, with his clawed feet giving him more grip, and his new strength, he can easily go twice as fast as before.

  In no time he arrived. From afar he could already see the giant beast, easily thirty meters tall, killing dozens of people in each attack.

  It's giant tail, covered in armor that looks like it could withstand a shot from a cannon. Each scale is as big as a heavy shield.

  As Leon quickly makes his way towards the beast, he looks for a way to kill it. But the only place that the Drake doesn't have scales are its eyes, mouth and nostrils.

  Deciding on using the same attack as he used on the wolf. He rotated to the back of the beast, used a broken house as a step, and jumped on the drake's back.

  For a beast of this size, Leons weight is nothing, so it didn't notice at first.

  Waiting for an opportunity, it doesn't take long for the beast to plunge down to bite on someone inside a house. But as it is coming back up, with big pieces of the house still on its head, falling as he ascends, he takes some seconds before opening his eyes.

  But as he opens them, in front of one of them is a weird shadow, too close and sudden for the drake's mind to understand.

  As soon as the drake opens its eyes, Leon jumps down, using his hands as a pivot point, and pointing the tip of his claws in the feet towards the center of the giant eyeball.

  His momentum and weight, combined with the sharp claws easily pierce the eyeball, bursting it open and easily entering the cavity.

  The same moment as Leon enters the exploded eye, the drake roared in pain, shaking its head to try and shake off the human. But it didn't notice that the human is inside its eye, and the eyelashes are closed, so its attempts to shake it off are useless.

  Leon quickly makes his way to the back of the eye, trying to find the soft membrane that separates the eyes to the brain.

  It's harder to find it this time. But with him clawing at random at the cranium, he finally finds a hole.

  Easily tearing it open and entering the brain slashing madly, in less than a minute the drake finally stops dead. So he makes his way out.

  The drake, in its mad attempt to shake Leon off his head, started running and hitting its head on trees and houses. So as Leon exited the eye, he discovered that he was in the middle of a forest.

  Before even having time to look around properly. He felt his skin burning.

  An incredible pain as if thousands of razors were cutting his skin, in the whole body, paralyzing him in pain. But this time not enough to make him faint.

  Leon fell to his knees, breathing heavily and feeling his body consuming all the little fat it could find, using it to fuel the small protrusions that began to grow on his skin.

  As Leon looked through his hazy eyes, he could notice that the ground was getting further away, his arms growing bigger and small scales burrow their way out of his skin.

  The pain in his whole body was petrifying, but a sudden, new pain started to steal the limelight.

  His stomach, the hunger came suddenly, but incredibly strong. Making him forget the pain in his skin and bones and look around for food.

  Spotting the huge drake, he crawled into the eye socket and started eating the gray, jelly like, meat of the brain of the drake.

  The giant brain is easily bigger than a minivan, so even though Leon's appetite is huge right now, he still only managed to eat a small part of it before the hunger finally stepped out of stage.

  Leon's body now has small triangular scales covering every inch, his height has grown to three meters, and his hands and feet grew wider and stronger. His closed fist is the same size as a human head. It looked more like a paw than a hand, but still had all the fingers in the right places.

  Not so long after finishing his mutation, Leon hears dozens of footsteps getting closer.

  Seeing the soldiers walking towards him through the path of fallen trees, he just waits.

  When the soldiers get close enough to see his claws, scales and huge size, the immediately form a formation with ten shields on the front and the rest of the soldier on the back, with their spears ready.

  “Stop guys, it's me, Leon!” Leon yells, showing his bloody, barely recognizable uniform.

  The soldiers look at their commander, the small bald man from before, who yells. ”No human looks like that, kill it now!”

  The soldiers start walking in Leon's direction. Only fifty meters separate them.

  ‘Fuck, what do i do now?’ Leon thinks to himself. By looking at his size and claws, even he would probably assume it's not a human, so he can't judge them.

  “When you go back to the headquarters, remember to tell the general that Leon says that ‘’I mutated again, but still am me. And I'll be there at the next opening of the gate to help.’” Leon says and sprint in the opposite direction of the soldiers, into the forest.