“Praise our mighty future savior,
For he is our only chance to save us from our doom,
For he is our only chance to save us from greed and groom,
Praise is my only accepted behavior”

I have heard that text now a thousand times, but I can’t seem to stop recalling it in my head. After the test of tomorrow, the horror of the year, I can forget about all of this savior nonsense. I can forget about how we have to sing about a powerful hero, who will supposedly save us from whatever comes at us. Yeah, you heard that right. We have to sing about it and praise him. My ancestors sang for him, their ancestors sang for him, yet they have never seen him, nor have they ever needed him in a world that’s ruled by peace and unity, with the angel of light keeping all darkness locked in Death Valley. I guess it has simply become a tradition to praise him.

“Leonard”, I heard my mom scream “Dinner is ready!”

Not having moved a single inch this day, I slowly crawled out of my room. My tail kept pulling me back in, keeping me from getting to the dinner table.

My mom seemed to get impatient “Leonard, are you coming?”
“No, mom, just bring me my Kobold Meat down here!” I said, as I laid back in my spot.
“Leonard, you’re coming down here. Right now!”, but I’m not going to. Why would I?

It took a couple seconds, then an earthquake turned my room into a shaking cove. There my mom was, angrily coming down my room. What seemed like ages of horrible earthquakes was now turned into one second of flying. A couple seconds after, I sat at the dinner stones, where my mom kept shaking her head slowly, whilst throwing as many kobolds in her mouth as she could. Even the sweet spiders and blunt butterflies, who always love to hang out with us, didn’t dare entering our house now.

She kept talking about how I could never make it with such an attitude. That I would be excluded from society and captured by the realm of darkness. “You won’t be that savior, you’ll be its enemy” was the last thing I heard before I started ignoring what came from her.

The next day, it seemed like everything was back to normal again, but boy, I couldn’t be more wrong. Just when I wanted to make my way across the street, I heard sirens going on. A group of three Enchantresses of the night appeared in the sky. A black cloud crawled down on our town. I ran inside, but there was no running away from it. As the cloud hit the ground, others started falling to the ground and not long after, I did the same.

Ashes, that was all I could see. Our town was no more. A thriving community brought to the ground in a matter of seconds. Other dinos seemed to be scattered around randomly. Some were searching for survivors at what was once a school, as others were preparing for a war. I didn’t care about them. I didn’t care about the attack all too much. My room was a mess before and the assault only changed its already randomized mixture.

I walked to the kitchen, where my mom was preparing her breakfast at the time of the attack. But no mom was there anymore. I searched through the house, through our garden and found everything I didn’t know I had, but no mom. Tears propped up in my eyes, but I had to stay strong. I couldn’t let them win.

My instincts told me what I should do. I should descend to Death Valley and destroy what they have.

And so I did. It didn’t take long for me to reach the entrance to Death Valley. The beautiful crystal mountains I just passed, had strengthened my powers and nothing, not even the lord of darkness himself, could stop me now. The apparent size of an entrance to a suspiciously creepy looking cave slowly grew as I approached. I entered.

A pack of haunted spiders immediately climbed on to me and started biting me with their small jaws. I walked a bit further, not paying too much attention to whatever they were trying to do. After a while it started itching a bit, so I threw them off and tasted my first spider leg. It didn’t taste good. It didn’t even seem edible in the first place.

The haunted creatures crawled back into their holes, when the ground started shaking a bit. I ran to what I believed was the epicentre and found a remarkable show. Zintar mortalis was hovering around a cage in which I saw no one else than my mom, together with a bunch of cages further into the cave where plants seemed to thrive. But I had no time to unravel such mysteries, as I ran towards my mother, which didn’t go unnoticed. A sudden pain first entered my feet, then my legs and then the rest of my body. I tried to get up, but no longer was I able to. A laugh could be heard, when Zintar mortalis slowly hovered towards me. Relaxed as he seemed, so dead was I deemed.

Then there happened something I could’ve never imagined. Mom started an earthquake once again and the cage broke. She threw herself on Zintar Mortalis. For a couple seconds, she kept lying there, making sure Zintar Mortalis was gone forever. Then a dark substance started making its way out through her skin. She screamed in agony and gave me the worst sight a dino could ever have. She then faded into the black cloud rising away from the substance. Zintar Mortalis slowly rose down from the cloud, laughing just as relaxed, as my world collapsed.

Emotions put aside though, I stood up. Filled with fear and Zintar at my rear, I threw my tail in the direction of the summoner. It went right through it, which in turn, rotated me directly towards him. With death in his eyes, he stood there, a couple meters away from me, when he planted his staff in the ground. Hands started grabbing my feet, as they tried to pull me to the ground. The hands turned into arms and the arms into full animates corpses, as they crawled out from the ground. I ran back, towards the cages where plants could be seen. Nature was my only chance. Zintar seemed to back away and the ground around him turned black. A new presence could be felt, larger than a simple summoner.

I jammed into the biggest cage, after which I saw a spirit of the forest at the other side of the bars of the cage. Trying to get it open, I noticed the bars turning black. The spirit slowly flew backwards, telling me to run. But I didn’t want to. So I didn’t. I turned around and wanted to face whatever was there to see. A large black monsters with red wings stood there, grabbing my neck with its strong claws and lifting me slightly from the ground.

I could sense the forest smell getting larger. The lord stood there talking about things I didn’t listen to. I could only listen to the sweet sounds of the spirit behind me. They became louder. They became me.

I was now stronger than what I believed I could’ve ever been. I roared to the lord, turning his anger into pure fear. His claws weakened and I jammed into him. My teeth entered his dead flesh and my tail kept slamming him to the wall. I let go of him and looked back at the spirit of the forest, but she was there no more. I went further with the lord of darkness, now starting to bite pieces of him. But that was not enough, as his flesh must be gone. I started eating him. It was minutes of agony from his side and pure pleasure from mine, but he was gone.

I opened the other cages and was welcomed by the rest of the forest. But I felt no need to love me. I felt no need to praise me. I knew that deep inside, I became a monster I shouldn’t have become.

“Praise our mighty future savior,
For he is our only chance to save us from our doom,
For he is our only chance to save us from greed and groom,
Praise is my only accepted behavior”

So they said, so I knew.

It has now been three weeks, since I ate pure darkness and I’m back at our forest town. A student is for me something of the past. Now I don’t want to live a life of education anymore. I want a life of catching. A life of eating what I catch. So I shall fight what I can fight and eat what I can’t fight.

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Is that a tree? Is that a bush? Wait, why does it put its teeth in me?!? Rexxie is an opponent you should not underestimate!