Shackles Of Reality

He entered deeper into the ruined city and arrived at the other side in approximately an hour but didn't meet anyone else, after he left the city, he encountered two more people one at the early silver rank and the other at the mid silver rank. He swiftly eliminated them, taking his kill count to seven.

Though the one at the peak silver rank took him some time to deal with as the guy had a particularly troublesome ability. He was fast and could turn any thing he touches into explosives as well as turn his footprints into land mines.

As he continued on his way, his eyes suddenly narrowed as his body suddenly flickered to the side leaving behind an afterimage, and at the same time, a massive beast tore through the afterimage.

"I'll be damned" Adam muttered looking at the massive beast that towered over him. It was standing on four limbs at six meters and had the head of an eagle, a feline body with talons on the limbs and a pair of wings spanning twenty meters. It was basically a griffin.

'Though in the briefings about the test, it was never said that there were going to be beasts in the test, it was common sense to expect otherwise, I mean I'm literally in a forest, even if it's a virtual world, it has to act the part' he thought.

As he was inner monologuing, the beast rose a few feets off the ground. It moved to attack as it swoon in mid flight to attack him with it's talons, he hurriedly ducked barely escaping it's talons. But the beast wasn't finished, it let out a screech as it swooned in again but this time lower.

He barely dodged it again but this time it's front limb managed to graze his chest sending him flying, though it also lost it's balance crashing into a few trees. "Damn that hurts" he groaned clutching his chest. Yep, in the virtual world people feel each and every pain delivered onto them just like in the real world.

As he saw the beast crash, Adam was already thinking of ways to defeat it, because even from the slight graze, he knew that if it manages to deal him a proper attack, he might as well say goodbye to the test. 'lets see, if I'm eliminated now I'll probably end up in the top one thousand nine hundred, not a bad rank' he chuckled inwardly before he began to seriously began analyze the beast.

"Okay first, it's in peak silver rank, second, it seems to have no apparent weakness apart from let's say it's size and maybe eyes..." but he froze as he looked into it's eyes.

'This mother'f*cker' he thought.

it's eyes was gleaming with intelligence, now what was wrong here was, the virtual world might be able to create an extremely life-like virtual beast in appearance and all and even make it show intelligence but, the emotions, the way the it's eyes was showing pain after crashing into the trees.

His/her bloodline probably..... no most definitely had to do with transformation. 'The Atlas family then' he thought recalling details about said family.

The Atlas family were a bloodline family, though not at the same level as the seven great families, they were at the power rank just below the seven great families much like the Snow family. Their bloodlines had to do with transformation but each individual had a type of transformation they could take.

For example, the patriarch of the Atlas family could transform into a continent sized winged serpent. Soon, the beast shook off the pain and lunged towards him again, Adam struggled to get out of it's way and barely dodged it's wings and thought 'its too heavy for repulsion to push away, it can only slow the beast down, not completely stop it or push it back' he reasoned and started thinking of a way to win without getting injured.

"But still" he said raising his right arm towards the beast as it lunged at him once again and thought 'repulsion', a massive force blasted forward blasting towards the beast slightly overwhelming it's balance but alas,the force wasn't enough as the beast pushed through it and headed towards Adam at a still considerable speed.

Seeing this Adam's lips curled slightly, it was all his plan. The plan was to slow the beast just enough for him to not have to barely 'dodge', then as the beast got closer to attack him, Adam ducked slightly making it seem as if he barely evaded it's talons, but then suddenly leaped up and held onto the beasts left wing with his hands.

The beast feeling that wriggled vehemently to rid itself of him and even flew higher, but Adam was relentless and held it's wings even tighter. He then freed his right hand before constructing a repulsive bladed energy around it and slashed at the wing, he faced some resistance at first but he was relentless and kept striking the same spot amidst the beast's cries and fury and even as the sound waves from it's cries assualted him until finally;

"CRACK!" a loud crack echoed from the beast's wing, followed by a tearing sound as Adam and the beast tumbled towards the ground from a height of ten meters, the only difference from when they got to that height was that this time Adam was holding a wing while the beast was missing one.

Soon the beast crashed on the ground while Adam stopped himself just two meters short of the ground and then gently descended.

After he touched the ground, Adam looked at the beast only to see it squirming and squishing as it began to morph into a human or back to a human in this case. "That's got to be pretty painful" he muttered. Soon the beast had transformed into a guy featuring brown hair and chestnut eyes.

But there was another thing, the large laceration he had on the left side of his back and his morphed face spoke of the pain and anguish he was currently feeling.