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CHAPTER START---
Walking through his home with a small wooden box under his arm, covered in paper talismans plastered all over it, Taiyo holds his phone to his ear while walking to the backyard.
He was currently only wearing his track pants and shoes, having just stepped out of the shower after returning home.
"Yes, so in three days you'll need to be in Tokyo for the photo shoot," the man he's on the phone with says.
"That's perfect. I don't have anything to do aside from train at the moment, so this is a nice distraction."
"Well, I'm glad we can give you something to do, and really, we are very happy that you accepted our sponsorship. We'll have your new custom equipment ready within the next few weeks. Until then, we'll send you some of our high-end gear."
"Perfect, I have a tournament in six weeks, so this will give me time to get used to it," Taiyo says as he steps out into the backyard with the box. "Now, if that's all—"
"Oh, of course, I'll let you get back to your business," the man says. "We'll be in touch with your agent later tonight to finalize the contract details."
"Thank you, and I appreciate how quickly and easily this process went. Now, have a good day," Taiyo looks over to see the sun beginning to set. "Oh, I mean, good night."
"I hope you have a pleasant night as well. Goodbye."
"Goodbye," Taiyo hangs up, and sets his phone down on one of the chairs in the backyard.
At the opposite end of the yard from the house is a small lake, and on the shore, roughly 150ft from the house, just in front of the lake, are six archery targets.
Taiyo then sets the box down on the grassy lawn, retrieves his archery equipment, and goes through the motions of knocking an arrow and aiming 150ft -50m- down range at the targets.
Then a thought crosses his mind, remembering earlier today when he lifted the weights in the museum.
He eases the bowstring to a resting position and removes the arrow, gently placing his bow on the chair.
"I couldn't try this out with all the cameras there, but…" he looks around and picks up a rock from the ground, roughly the size of his palm. "Let's try something new."
Focusing on the rock, he feels the energy flowing through him, and with a thought, the rock is shrouded in a translucent blue energy.
"Wow," Taiyo quickly takes a picture of it with his phone, but the blue energy doesn't appear on the camera. "So it's invisible, just like my fire…"
He then flows the energy through his body, envisioning it flowing like his blood, into his skin, bones, and muscles, making him stronger.
Then, he throws the rock with everything he has.
POP!
The rock shatters the sound barrier and punches a hole through the thick straw and cotton target, causing a massive splash in the lake as the water ripples from shore to shore.
"Ok, so I have a magical invisible fire, and I'm really strong," Taiyo smiles. "Now to see what that old woman was so determined to have me retire from sports to inherit."
With that, he turns to the box and attempts to open it.
He tries to tear the paper talismans, but can't, so he then enhances his body with his energy, and can feel the box resisting him.
But eventually, he opens it, noticing a change in the energy around him as it opens.
As if the entire area just got colder, sending a chill down his spine, and causing the hairs at the back of his neck to stand up.
"What the hell is this?" he asks while removing a strange, mummified finger from the box. "Is this even human?" he holds it in his palm and notices its size, which leads him to wonder how large the person or thing this belonged to must have been.
As he's observing it, he hears stone breaking and water splashing, then senses an evil presence behind him.
Taiyo turns around to see an 8-foot-tall rat climbing over the wall to his backyard, breaking part of it, and further away at the shore of the lake, a massive snake with fangs and gills slithers toward him.
"What the fuck?" Taiyo quickly gets to his feet as a purple puddle appears in the middle of the backyard, and from it, a 7ft tall, pale white humanoid creature with one large eye in the middle of its head crawls out of the ground.
Taiyo immediately shoves the finger back into the box and closes it, and feels the evil presence locked away once more.
Except, the evil that had already been released lingers, and he could sense more creatures would soon be upon him.
"Okay," Taiyo sets down the box and takes one step forward, then, as if finally noticing that he could see them, the creatures rush toward him. "Shit!"
He runs away from his home, not wanting them to destroy it, and thankfully, they give chase, unable to sense the finger sealed in that box.
"Alright, maybe I shouldn't have killed her before she explained," Taiyo mutters as he leaps over a stream of venom the snake creature spits at him. "What the hell was grandma even doing with something like this? A monster magnet, seriously?!"
Before he can steady himself to launch a counterattack, the cyclops monster appears in front of him and punches him with all its might.
Taiyo instinctively reinforces his body with energy and crosses his arms in front of him, taking the hit and being launched through the stone wall of his backyard and a few trees beyond it.
"Ouch," he groans as he pulls himself up from the dirt, seeing the rat and snake monsters charging toward him. "Fuck off!"
As he screams, he directs his energy into his hands and aims his palms forward, and from each, a stream of blood-red fire rushes outward.
Two flamethrowers incinerate anything in front of him, including both creatures.
"Okay, that's…useful?" Taiyo looks down at his palms in surprise before he senses a malicious intent approaching.
He looks up in time to see the cyclops creature charging toward him, and he raises his right hand to fire another stream of fire at it.
As he fires, the creature is less than a dozen feet away, and sidesteps his attack, landing a kick to the side of Taiyo's head.
He's sent tumbling through trees, dirt, and even a boulder, leaving a path of destruction and splatters of blood in his wake.
A hundred feet away, Taiyo rolls to a stop against a tree trunk, feeling aches and pain all across his body, before a cooling sensation floods him.
He looks down at his chest, seeing the deep gashes, which his instinctive reinforcement could not prevent, are healing at a visible rate.
And seconds later, they're completely gone, but he can now feel that some of his energy is gone.
'Well, I always assumed I didn't have infinite mana, now I know,' he thinks as he gets up.
'Now I need to kill this thing,' Taiyo rushes forward, faster than even he expected, as his instinctive reinforcement is accompanied by instinctive body enhancement.
His mind immediately adjusts as he approaches the cyclops monster, which rushes toward him with its hands open, fingernails growing and sharpening to blades as it swipes at him.
Taiyo digs his heels into the dirt, destroying his shoes. He suddenly stops his momentum, just an inch away from the monster's range.
The claws just barely miss him as he swings his hands forward, releasing two streams of blood-red fire at the monster, burning it.
But unlike the others, this monster was tougher, and it lunged forward to swipe down at his head.
'Shit!' his eyes widen as he leaps to the side.
As the monster's attack lands hits the ground, he's already launching a strong right hook at its side, his flames and instinctive physical enhancement crashing into its arm, ripping the limb in two.
Then, with a sickening crunch, his fist pierces its side, into its chest where its heart should be.
But to his horror, the creature turns and opens its toothy maw to bite his head.
Taiyo's eyes open wide as his fear spikes, and he releases a pulse of energy from the fist inside the creature, causing it to explode into flesh and purple blood, soaking him in its stench.
He's stunned for a moment, then he stumbles back, away from the corpse as it begins burning with purple fire, taking away every trace of it.
Then he looks down at his body, bathed in blood and guts, and he smiles.
He wipes the blood from his face, and laughs.
A joyful, relieved laugh, like a child who just got a new toy.
"I have so much to learn!" he screams, cheerfully. Excited at what this new adventure will bring, at what it will take to become King in this arena.
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]