God of Destruction: Living Among Mortals

The musketeer hurled a bolt of lightning at her, but Elesch remained calm and composed, sidestepping at the last moment, and pressing her hand against the bolt perfectly, erasing it from existence.

The musketeer snarled irately at her. But Elesch returned it with a smirk. He ran towards her and vice versa, their fists colliding, sending a ripple through the space, as they skidded back. They both stood straight immediately, not letting the other sense any weakness.

Elesch, for a moment, closed her eyes, slowing her breathing, focusing her mind, tapping deeper into consciousness. Then, she appeared in front of him, her eyes sparkling with determination, no smirk, only a serious tone, a sense of self-respect, to not laugh at the guy.

The musketeer was taken aback, barely able to dodge it in time, but that was just a feint from Elesch. The musketeer felt a sharp pain echoing throughout his body, and he felt his bones fracture, kneeling on one leg in front of Elesch, who radiated pure estrogen.

The musketeer's snarl was more vicious this time, jumping backwards. Then, he grinned at her, leaving her dumbfounded, as he took a crystal from his pocket. It wasn't a mana crystal, nor was it like any other crystal.

The diamond-shaped crystal radiated with chaos energy. Such a vile, black, and chaotic red that it brought about a thunderstorm in its wake. Black clouds set right on top of the field, making Elesch's hair tingle, sensing an abnormal amount of danger, as the crystal she saw was death itself.

From her perspective, the crystal wasn't just a crystal. It was throbbing with energy, throbbing like a heart that had been ripped out and left to rot. Its surface looked wet, like muscle without skin, glowing with that chaotic color that seemed to be in some sort of rhythm, breathing manically.

She could hear whispers in her mind, voices crying, screaming, begging.

The musketeer no longer looked like a man to her. His arm had twisted around the crystal, skin melting into bone and claws, his face stretching into a hollow mask, his teeth sharp like a megalodon, somewhat uneven, dripping with black sludge.

His eyes weren't human anymore, just pits of fire that wanted to burn everything down, even itself.

The air around them turned bad, rotten, heavy, like she was breathing ash mixed with rotten blood and tears of flesh. The grass withered and died at her feet, curling in on itself.

Above them, the sky violently started to fold in on itself, the clouds full of mouths and teeth grinding against each other, spitting out red lightning as if the Earth itself was angry.

Her skin tingled again, not from static, but from something ghostly clawing at her, scraping her bones, like a vulture. She clenched her fists, forcing herself not to flinch.

Elesch steadied her breathing again. Since this wasn't just power, this was a nightmare given a definitive form.

The musketeer grinned at her, though now it looked more like the grin of a demon than a man. He stepped forward, the crystal pulsing brighter in his hand, and the ground cracked beneath him with each step.

The musketeer lifted the crystal higher, its chaotic energy sinking into his skin like a wildfire in California. His veins lit up black and red, spreading across his body in lines that burned through his skin. But he didn't scream, he just simply laughed, low and broken, the sound gutturally twisting her ears as if she was eating broken glass.

The crystal dissolved completely into him, piece by piece, atom by atom, until nothing, absolutely no traces of it, was left but its light searing inside of him.

His body snapped and warped with every pulse, bones cracking out of place, then fusing again in grotesque shapes. His spine stretched until he was towering over her, hunched like a beast, his shoulders splitting open to reveal spiked limbs that weren't arms anymore.

His facial skin peeled back, leaving half of it a skull, and the other half a mass of writhing flesh. His jaw unhinged, splitting wider than humanly possible, filled with endless rows of uneven teeth that kept shifting and grinding as if hungry for existence itself. His eyes were gone, replaced with two hollow sockets where fire burned endlessly, staring at her without blinking.

The storm tumultuously roared above as if reacting to him. The mouths in the clouds screamed louder, spitting down red lightning that danced across his massive, monstrous frame, but instead of harming him, it wrapped around him like chains of energy, continuously coursing power to him.

He grinned at her, transforming from a F-rank nobody into a towering, monstrous C-rank. He had automatically gained three pillars in a matter of ten seconds, brimming with nearly an endless amount of energy.

He lunged at her; he was too fast for her to even blink, grabbing her by the throat. She didn't even know when he got there, only that he had her by the neck. He summoned the red lightning, electrifying it into oblivion. She screamed as distant police sirens echoed throughout her head.

Her vision blurred, her eyes fading slowly, but the musketeer tightened his grip, as blood poured from his eyes.

Then, a sharp claw cut through the musketeer's hand, making him skid back in confusion, as the guy she had seen before came to her rescue. He was a brand-new E-rank Adventurer, shy, but working on it. His hands had transformed into claws, his skin hardening, his senses refining to be more primordial.

It was Adam.

Adam turned back, picking up Elesch, who was sprawled on the ground, her vision barely staying alive. He rested her in a nearby tree, about a couple of yards away, so that he could take out his frustration on the monstrosity that agonized Elesch.

He cracked his neck, turned around, looking at the monster with red, demonic eyes, as if he was possessed, anger filling him past his limit, since he was following Elesch, but lost her midway through, wanting to ask her out. But now that he saw her in this condition, he couldn't do anything but feel the burning rage of death against the musketeer.