Finding a house in the middle of the forest is easy, given that it used to be a suburban city before the Gates, so after running some kilometers, Leon stops at an old house and goes to sleep.

  His transformation placed a huge stress on his body, making him feel like he has gone a whole week without sleeping.

  But after barely sleeping for two hours, he is suddenly awakened by an incredibly loud roar and the sound of trees falling in the distance.

  Leon immediately ran in the direction of the noise, easily spotting a burning lion in the distance. Its mane is made out of orange flames, its whole body looks like it has been bathed in fire, but it is completely fine inside the flames.

  The lion is not huge, at least, it is barely six meters tall, and is fighting a man.

  The man is on the shorter side, being pounded from one side to another, breaking old houses and snapping trees in half. But always getting up again and charging the beast.

  Looking closely, and by the sound, Leon could see that the man is apparently made out of metal, and a metal so dense that the lion's claws cant pierce him.

  Sneaking up on the lion's back, leon waits for the moment before it launches another attack at the metal man, and goes for a claw attack on its rear leg tendon.

  The lion wasn't expecting another attack from behind, so it never saw it coming. Even the pain from having his tendon ripped took some seconds to register.

  Taking advantage of the lion's distraction, the metal man punched the lion's jaw, sending it spinning to the ground.

  And without giving it time to rest, Leon clawed at the beast's face, opening its eye and shoving his whole arm inside its head.

  The metal man finally took a deep breath. Even though the lion couldn't pierce his skin, every hit still placed a huge burden on his body.

  “Are you also a mutated human?” Leon was the first to ask.

  “Yeah. Thanks for the help. This Lion incinerated a whole city last night. I'm Zack from Last Stand City, what about you?”

  “I'm Leon from Dreaming Town. We also had an encounter with abnormally stronger beasts. A huge wolf and a city nearby was broken in by a huge drake. I already killed both of them.” Leon explained.

  “So you also got your powers after killing one of those beasts?” Zack asked. “What are they, you can shapeshift, is that it?” He finished, looking at Leon's huge size and draconic scales.

  “I don't know yet. Maybe. I just know I'm like this after killing them. Oh, and this reminds me.” Leon says, and looks at the now cold lion.

  He pierces his claw again on its brain, takes a piece out and easily gulps it down, not caring for Zack's disgusted look.

  This time the effects are much more manageable. All Leon felt was his body heating up, all his scales turned a tone more red, from the previous brown. And a strong burning came from his throat, as if eating flames.

  Instinctively he knew a new organ had grown there.

  Trying it out he breathes out fast, and a small tongue of orange flames comes out of his mouth.

  Its heat is incredible, easily reducing a small broken tree to cinders.

  Experimenting on himself, Leon breathes out the smallest flame he can on his forearm, not feeling anything wrong, he turns the heat up, increasing it more and more, to the max he can but still nothing happens.

  “That's good.” He thinks out loud.

  “Good? Only good? You can copy other beasts' powers, that's way too op. Why can't I do that?” Zack almost screams.

  “Who knows, maybe you can, have you tried eating its brain?” Leon asked.

  “Oh, right. Let me try a piece.” Zack says as he walks to the lion, place his hand inside its head and take a small piece out.

  “Please work!” He yells and eats the brain piece as if eating bitter medicine.

  Fighting the urge to puke, Zack waits expectantly, looking at his metal hand. But nothing happens even after ten minutes.

  *Puke* “Man, I hate you. Overpowered son of a bitch”.

  “How is it my fault? It's not like I chose this power.” Leon says with a smile.

  Walking to the lion, Leon cuts one of its rear legs off, and with five quick bites the leg is completely eaten by him, leaving only the bone and skin.

  “Eww man, are you sure you're not a monster?” Zack asks.

  “Yeah yeah, very funny. Now, I imagine that everyone that manages to kill one of those unique monsters is gonna get powers.” Leon says.

  “Yeah, I also think so. But who knows how many gates managed to kill all the humans, and now we have hundreds of mutated monsters roaming the world.” Zack finishes with a heavy tone.

  “I should go back to my general and explain to him all that I know. They need to prepare for the worst. See you Zack. don’t die.” Leon says and walks away after a handshake.

  Following a river nearby, Leon ran almost a hundred and fifty kilometers in minutes. His enhanced muscles and strong clawed feet give him an enormous speed.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Arriving at the encampment, Leon walks slowly towards the gates of the army, both hands pointing up in a sign of peace.

  The soldiers at the watchtower beside the gate easily spot him hundreds of meters away from the gates, giving them time to send word up about a four-meters-tall scaled humanoid being getting closer.

  Even before Leon got to a hundred meters from the gate, he could already see the general at the top of the guard tower.

  “Leon, is it you?” Asked the general.

  “Yes sir. I came in peace. I have news from other cities that I think you should know.” Leon said after a quick salute.

  “Sorry son, but i cannot let you in, you look too much like a monster, and there's nothing to prove you're not one. You can say what you want and then please go away.”

  “It's ok sir. In the last attack, from all the Gates of Hell came a special monster, some huge, others with strange powers, and apparently every person that got the monster's energy got some type of power. Another man that I encountered has the power to become completely made out of metal.” Leon explained.

  A heavy silence took place inside the gate. Then the door started to open.

  “Come in Leon, let's talk privately.” The general says.

  After some hours talking with the general and the commanders privately. The general calls for an assembly, explaining to all soldiers what happened to Leon and how this is a sign of the beginning of different times, and that they all need to prepare themselves.

  The general also announces the promotion of Leon to a commander of a special squadron.

  This new special force is going to fight with the special beasts and are the first ones to attempt the transformation into super humans.

  After the announcement all soldiers in the field start talking, breaking protocol and asking themselves if they should go to this new squadron or not.

  “Silence!” Yelled the general. “Let's make it easy. Who of you wants to get into this new squadron? Raise your hands.”

  Hundreds of soldiers raised their hands.

  “Ok, i should have predicted that. But we can't have you all join him. His squadron shall have only ten members, you all know which one of you is the strongest, so now only the strongest of you that want to get in raise your hands.”

  The number of raised hands went down to twenty five, but it's still too many.

  “Sigh, ok, the twenty five of you follow commander Leon, he is going to do a small competition, the ten best of you will enter the squadron, now the others disperse!” The general finished and walked away.

  Leon quickly set up a normal one versus one competition where the top ten entered the new squadron.

  With the squadron now organized, Leon starts talking to them about ways to prepare for these special monsters, and what type of training they should do.

  They all come up with ways to train for huge monsters and elementals, spending every awake moment of the day preparing.

  Soon the seventh day comes again.

  The army prepares itself in the open field in front of the Hell Gate. They are in the same shield formation from always, and Leon's squadron is in the backline, just waiting.

  No one knows if an unusually strong beast is going to appear this time, but the uncertainty is even worse than knowing. Almost twenty percent of the soldiers are fighting their fear at this moment, and as the sun rises their fear does as well.

  In the past week they've discovered that almost half of the nearby cities have fallen to these powerful monsters.

  As the sunlight finally touches the ground, the double golden doors open.

  Instantly come running a horde of Orcs from within. All easily three meters tall, naked but armed with giant clubs that look more like a whole tree they just ripped out of the ground.

  Their huge body and great strength take the soldiers by surprise, but with the quick thinking and great coordination of the general and commanders, the army manages to stand its ground, and defend.

  Not even ten minutes after the opening of the gate, a ten meters tall Orc comes out. This time wearing the hide of another huge beast as clothes, and wielding a huge metal mace.

  Immediately, Leon and his squadron runs to the frontline. Waiting for the huge orc to get closer.

  The Orc's huge legs and incredible speed makes it so barely ten seconds after crossing the gate, he is already upon the army.

  Leon doesn't wait anymore, and takes advantage of the fact that the Orc just raised its huge mace above its head. Sprinting between its legs, and delivering two quick claw slashes, one on each Achilles tendon.

  The Orc is taken by surprise, and can't stop moving quickly enough to stop its momentum, and now with the lack of grip on its feet, falls face first into the line of soldiers in the frontline.

  Every soldier near the monster instantly pierce or slash with whatever they have in hand. Instantly transforming the Orc in a pincushion.

  Leon and everyone stops for a second to see if it is dead, but Leon quickly notices that not a single wound is bleeding. In fact the Orc only bled in the first second of him tearing its tendons, and it quickly stopped.

  “It's not dead!” Leon shouts and jumps in the orc's huge back.

  In the same instant the Orc swipes with both its arms, sending dozens of soldiers flying, instantly killing and crippling some of the weaker ones.

  Leon, now on the back of its neck, brings down dozens of claw slashes in seconds, tearing its skin, muscles and reaching its bones. But even this focused attack only manages to prove how fast the orc's regeneration ability is, given that the second that Leon turns the frequency of his attacks down even a little, the flesh instantly regenerates almost as fast as he tore it out.

  In a scream of rage, Leon doubles his attacks frequency and spit fire out of his mouth, incinerating the flesh at the same time as he tears it open.

  The Orc swipes his arms at Leon, trying to push him off. But the soldiers that were only looking up to now, instantly jumped into action, managing to stop both of its arms.

  Nero, a member of Leon's squadron, remembered his order to always try to steal the last hit from him, for only the one to hit last got the power.

  Waiting for the right moment, he waits for three seconds and as soon as the Orc turns its head to one side, to try and look at who is on top of him, a spear comes from the other side, aimed at the Orc's ear. Entering the cavity and easily piercing through the eardrums, entering the brain.

  Nero spins and shakes the spear inside the head as if trying to make an omelette.

  The Orc stops all movement other than the shaking of its whole body, as if having a stroke. And after almost ten seconds, finally dies.

  A huge orb of energy flows into Nero's body.

  “Did you get it?” Leon asks Nero. Who responded affirmatively with a nod.

  Leon reaches out and pierce his hand on the Orc's eye, all the way to its brain, taking out a piece and eating it in two bites.

  Now much more used to this feeling, he easily feels a wave of freshness run all over his body. Healing his sore muscles from the sudden explosion of force he just did.

  ‘Looks like I can take the power from any mutated beast. Even if it did not get the kill credit. That's huge!’

  “Nero, do you feel anything?” Leon asked, and seeing Nero shake its head, continued.” If it's not an obvious change, try looking inside of you, have you ever tried meditating? Just do that and try to search for something new, but not now. Everyone, evacuate to the backline and let's see if more monsters come out.”

  Getting back to the backline, Leon approaches Nero and asks. “Do you feel anything? Fall back and try to meditate.”

  “Yes sir.”