The pulverizing pain kept getting stronger with the growth of the lump in his chest. After a few seconds it already reached the size of a kid-sized basketball. Then, it seemed to stop growing, but the pain hasn't gone anywhere.
While this was happening, he looked down at the gaping wound on his stomach, still in agony, what he saw made his eyes widen.
A strange light was filling up the wound in the place where his flesh should have been. As this continued, he could see that the strange flowing light started to turn into his original tissue of muscle, nerves, fat and skin layered on each other.
After half a minute, all his wounds were healed and he looked as if he never even received them in the first place. The crushing pain from his chest slowly faded as well, leaving him with newfound strength coursing through his veins. He felt stronger, faster and lighter than before. He also felt a strange energy flowing throughout his entire body.
He wanted to explore what had just happened to him, but looking up, he realised that he had no time for that.
"Hey, bastard!" Shouted Zane at the monster, who was slowly approaching the unconscious tall young man.
The Warden stopped and turned its head with a hint of surprise and astonishment. It looked at his perfectly healed body up and down, then tilted its head. The zombie's eyes lit up again, but this time, it looked as if it was starting to get excited.
The petite girl was still just watching from the sidelines. With her eyebrows pinched upward in the middle and her gaze dropped to the floor, she knew that even if she wanted to help, she would just probably get in the way. She could only hope, that whatever happened to Zane, is going to be enough to defeat the dreadful abomination.
After getting the Warden's attention, Zane quickly tried to recover his weapon, which was lying on the floor around ten meters beside him. He felt much more powerful than before, but he still didn't know his new capacity, so not relying on chance, he wanted to have every advantage.
The monster ferociously followed him, but now it couldn't catch up with Zane.
As he reached his weapon, he instantly turned on the zombie, which was still carried by inertia, straight into his arms. But instead of embracing it, he began a downward slash with his dagger.
The zombie reacted in an instant, blocking the strike with its forearms. What it did not take into consideration though, was Zane's power-up. With his newfound strength, he completely severed one of its arms, and cut halfway into the bone on the other one.
'Wow..' Thought Zane, but he didn't have much time to marvel at his strength.
Jerking away its arms, the zombie jumped back and glanced at Zane with disdain. Its pupils narrowed.
Viciously lunging forward, it tried to bite out a piece of its opponents neck. Zane sidestepped the assault. Immediately, a counter-attack followed, which left a deep incision on the zombie's side. Its blood was pouring from several places. That's when Zane felt something quaint about the flowing blood. He ignored that emotion momentarily, because he had to finish the job.
The weakened monster was slowly recovering every second that passed by, so he had to act quick.
"Let's finish this!" Exclaimed Zane in a cold voice.
In the next moment, both of them lunged toward each other. The zombie attacked with its almost fully healed arm in front of him, preparing to tear Zane's flesh apart. However, it could not get far, since Zane pierced both its hand, and its core in a single, powerful thrust.
As the Struggler's core shattered, Zane could feel himself get a tiny bit stronger. Looks like one of the ways to grow stronger now, that he became an awakened, was to slaughter more and more enemies. Although, now that he defeated the zombie, he was more curious about the weird sensation he felt during his fight. To engage in that feeling again, he looked down at the corpse of the zombie. He concentrated on it. What he felt caused the sensation, was the gushing blood, flowing from the open wounds of the Struggler and pooling under its dead body.
He also noticed a different kind of energy flowing through his veins, since the awakening. With curiosity, Zane tried to get a hold of that power.
While attempting to do so, he tried to gather it and directed it towards his right palm. This was his first experience with something like this, so the weird power accidentally overflowed, out from his palm, and that's when he noticed, the pool of blood under the dead Struggler moved.
He thought he was hallucinating. Trying it again, this time more controlled, he realised he could move the pool of blood with exerting his power on it.
His jaw dropped. 'What on earth? Is that my ability?' wondered Zane.
He willed the pool of blood to take a shape of a rod, wondering if he could make some weapons with it. As he tried to hold it, his hand just grabbed through it, smearing it with the slightly sticky blood. Looks like the blood was still liquid.
'Damn, I thought I'll be able to shoot spike from the ground and kill tons of enemies at the same time. Looks like I... Wait a minute, what if the blood was coagulated?' He thought curiously.
Still holding the shape of the rod, he tried to exert more of his weird power on the top third of it. Just as he expected, the blood started coagulating, then it hardened far beyond anything natural. Zane's smug face was decorated by a smirk. This time he could grab it, and hold it in his hands, as if he was holding a rod made of stone.
"This is cool as hell!" Thought Zane, impressed by his awakened ability.
In this world every Valiant, which is how people call awakened ones, has a different and unique power. Some can control the elements, like wind, fire or water. Some have incredible speed or inhumane strength. Some can even predict the future, control other peoples' minds or evolve their pet dog into a horse sized vicious monster. The possibilities of what your awakened ability is can be endless, and as long as you are clever enough, they can all be very powerful.
Zane wanted to explore more of his new powers, but he suddenly felt light-headed.
Looks like the fight, loss of blood, awakening, and already using his power took a toll on his body. As he dropped the blood rod and was about to faint, he heard the petite girls' steps towards him. However before he could say anything, everything went dark, and the last thing he saw after falling on the ground, was the worried face of the stranger.
Zane closed his eyes.
'Well, let's hope she doesn't murder me while I rest a bit.' He thought.
The next time he opened his eyes, he was in a completely unknown room, but it strangely had hint of familiarity.