Zotrel's life ended with one clean bullet through the skull, thanks to the police who had finally caught up to his trail. The notorious serial killer slumped onto the pavement, his eyes wide but unseeing, the chaos of sirens wailing off into the distance.

  But death was not the end for him.

  Deep in the forest, a huge boulder erupted with a rumble, loud and powerful enough to eject fragments into the air, and a beam of energy shot from the center of the rupture towards the sky.

  Out of the blinding light stumbled a naked boy who isn’t older than thirteen, jet-black hair, soulless black pupils, and skin dull white-as-moonlight. He staggered slightly, surveying the area with sharp eyes devoid of emotion; inside of him, confusion swirled, but it never threatened to touch his cold face.

  "Where… am I?" were his thoughts. He noticed his fingers were a lot smaller and had a frailer form. Somehow, he was alive.

  Before he could delude himself any further into thought, the blue screen appeared right before his eyes, ringing with a mechanical chime.

  [Welcome, Zotrel. You have been chosen by the Destroyer System. You are now the New Destroyer of Worlds.]

  He gazed at the screen.

  "What...?" He did not speak; no question would ever shake that eerie emptiness out of his eyes to make him human.

  [First Mission: Kill a living organism.

  Reward: Super Strength.]

  So simple, it seemed bordering on absurd.

  Zotrel glanced down at the mossy ground-and there, on the ground, was an ant, crawling along.

  Without hesitation he lifted his foot and crushed the ant without much noise.

  The screen flickered in rapid succession.

  [Congratulations! First kill confirmed. Reward granted: Super Strength.]

  Then there came the sounds of claws scratching hard against bark with sudden rustling.

  Zotrel narrowed his cold black eyes and turned in the direction of the sound.

  Without notice, they pop out from the untagged vegetation - a wild pack of goblins shrieking in savage hunger.

  "RRRRAAGGHHH!!" they howl with crude knives and jagged spears and leap toward him.

  A flicker of surprise crossed Zotrel's face for the first time.

  A goblin lunges for him, trying to impale the rusted dagger straight towards his throat; twisting aside, Zotrel hears another blade whistle past his ear, and his small hand shoots out like a striking serpent, grabbing the goblin's wrist and squeezing.

  Crack!

  The bone snapped like a brittle twig, followed by a howl of agony by the goblin. The creature is pulled close to Zotrel before it could even fall back, knee crashing into its crooked face. Teeth flew out from the shatter-faced goblin, blood spurting like a fountain.

  The other goblins slowed but not for long.

  "KEEEL HIIIIM!!" a one screeched in a half-choked language of rage.

  They came rushing in together.

  Zotrel awaited theirs with no reaction.

  He sidestepped the first, caught the second by the throat, and ripped its head clean from its shoulders with its spinal cord trailing grotesquely behind it. Blood gushed in a hot spray, staining his face and chest.

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  Before the others could respond, Zotrel threw the head into the goblin's face. Stunned, it froze in place. He grabbed its arms and wrenched them forcefully in opposite directions-he tore the creature apart along its flesh and muscles, tearing them up with the sound of sickening pops and nasty wet snaps.

  The forest's floor was immediately smeared with blood.

  Zotrel slowly turned, searching for the last one. It tried, however feebly, to escape, squealing pathetically.

  He moved like a phantom overtaking the goblin. He got hold of its leg and swung it like a club, smashing its skull against the tree. Bones splintered, and the body crumpled like rotten fruit.

  The System wasn’t lying about Super Strength.

  But questions still crawled through his mind.

  "What in the hell were those creatures?" Zotrel muttered quietly as he stepped out along forest clearings, barefoot against bloodied earth.

  The forest began to thin out, and beyond the canopy of gnarled trees, Zotrel spotted wisps of smoke rising up into the evening sky. A village, nestled between trees, wooden cottages with cobblestone paths, lanterns flicking to life as dusk crept in.

  He stepped silently towards the burrow, naked and crusted with blood as the locals peered at him suspiciously. Some lunatics stared, but they did not pay him any due attention. After all, he was just a boy, or so they thought he was.

  He walked by a clothesline and stealthily snatched a portion of the garments: a simple brown tunic, black trousers, a cloak with a hood. They fitted decently. He pulled the hood low over his face and fell into the peasant life of this odd new world.

  "Medieval attire…" he muttered to himself while examining the villagers' rustic garb, the blacksmith's forge open market, livestock pens and everything. "And those creatures… I think they were called goblins… something straight out of the Lord of the Rings."

  Then, with a soft ding, the blue screen appeared again before his eyes.

  [Main Mission Activated.

  Objective: Slaughter all the inhabitants of this village.

  Reward: Instant Regeneration.

  Time Limit: 20 Minutes.

  Warning: Mission failure will result in a penalty.]

  "As you wish," he said flatly.

  He pulled the cloak shut, walked calmly into the center of the village square... then stopped.

  Zotrel had the same youthful thirst back when he was on Earth. His first target was a nearby blacksmith forging in his smithy. Zotrel slammed his head with a sickening crack against the anvil and crushed the head into halves under the force of the blow, like a melon. A scream rang out from a woman behind. Zotrel hurled the corpse at her like a sack of meat, pinning her spine against the stone wall of the well.

  He then walked towards her, and without any sort of hesitation stomped her face into pulp. A wave of panic descended. Women and children ran, scrambling villagers going in every direction. Zotrel began moving like a predator, dashing to any target with utterly obscene speed.

  He tackled a man holding a pitchfork, tore the weapon from his hands, and rammed it into his mouth—out the back of his neck. A pitchfork was no match against his frame.

  “This is quite fun," he growled, eyes wide with hunger.

  He ripped down a wooden door and began bludgeoning the father and son, who went scurrying about screaming, until they beheld a quagmire of dismemberment and blood.

  One tried to flee on horseback. Zotrel leapt onto the horse's back, grabbed the rider by the scalp, and ripped, tearing the man's face off like peeling a fruit. The horse reared in terror as the faceless body collapsed.

  Blood poured down onto cobblestones. A group of villagers sought shelter in a chapel, quite unexpectedly. The door is kicked open by Zotrel. They were praying. Crying.

  An old priest holding a cross shouted "D-demon! BEGONE, vile creature!"

  Zotrel, however, said nothing. He tore out the tongue of that man with his bare hand, thrust it into the mouth of a woman, and smashed the heads of both individuals together until all was red against the stone altar.

  Zotrel sat silent.

  Bodies fell like wheat under a scythe.

  He mutilated without pause—gutting, bashing, tearing—fueling a frenzy of carnage. He crushed a child’s skull under his boot. Snapped a man’s leg in half and beat his wife to death with it.

  One girl, in tears and sitting in the mud, pleaded with him to stop. "You aren’t real," she said softly as Zotrel knelt beside her and ripped her heart from her chest with indifference.

  When the timer ticked down to zero, not a single trace of life remained.

  Zotrel sat on a throne of dead corpses, bloodied hands and all. He bent down, picked up a severed arm that was twitching, and bit down on its flesh calmly,chewing it with ecstacy.

  [Mission Complete. Reward Unlocked: Instant Regeneration]

  Zotrel wasted no time in yanking out his own finger, to test his new ability. No screaming, no hesitating, just silence—a vicious, black silence. In a moment, muscle, skin and bone reappeared before his eyes, the finger reformed in seconds, perfect, unblemished.

  “Interesting…” he thought.