It all started after his human form died of hunger.
[Human Host is dead]
...
[Beast Host is awoken]
[Beast rage mode activated]
[Your hunger has made you a monster]
[Crazed beast in search of mana...]
[...or blood]
Immediately, the notifications stopped displaying, Eric's physical form started a wild and painful transformation. With a sudden jerk, he sprang up from his dead position, breaking a part of the bed's frame as he rose forcefully. His eyes had turned deep red, fierce-looking and with a deadly focus befitting a crazed beast, just as the system had announced.
His bones and muscles started readjusting themselves to almost twice their normal size, in a process that sent stabs of pain all over him. He gave a deep, bone-curdling growl as he struggled desperately to keep the pain in check. It might have been easier to endure if that were all, but the pain in his belly had become so unendurable it felt like his stomach had begun eating itself to survive.
[Your hunger grows]
With all sense of human reasoning gone, Eric had only one thing on his mind.
"Ma...na."
Raaaaarh!
A monstrous yell escaped his mouth, one filled with a ravenous hunger for whatever was available to ease the pain in his belly.
Baring his teeth and lowering into a crouch, Eric jumped and lunged at the door from where he stood, clearing the distance with a dashing speed that rivaled the skill, Killer Dash.
The locked door gave way instantly, breaking apart at the hinge. With one final blow, it went flying down the passageway, with Eric chasing after.
His beastly instincts kicked in as he sniffed the air, searching for potential food. Alone, he sniffed all the rooms in the building without having to open the doors. For some reason, he just knew no one was behind those doors, as if it were a part of him, like something he had been doing since birth.
With another loud roar, he rushed out of the residential building and into the streets. He pounced about, searching the empty roads for any sign of a living being, but even his wild beast senses found it strange that all was empty. Just then, his ears picked up faint sounds coming from the southern end of the colony. Faint as they were, Eric knew they came from humans—and there were lots and lots of them.
Like the beast he had become, he rushed toward the direction of the noise, yearning to get there faster. After a while, he dropped to all fours, gaining extra speed and balance.
The noise grew deafening by the time Eric arrived. He growled, taking a brief look at the chaos before him in disbelief, as even his beast senses could not fully comprehend the scene. It didn't take him long before he joined the madness.
A man whose eyes had just been forcefully removed rushed blindly in Eric's direction, carrying one of somebody else's lower limbs and yelling with all his might.
"Ma…na…" Eric growled as he saw his first chance to finally get himself involved in the purge—and at the same time, satisfy his hunger. As soon as the blind man staggered a few feet past him, Eric pivoted on his feet to face his target and, with a powerful jump, landed on the man's shoulder.
Eric's crushing weight bore down on the man's shoulder, toppling him to the ground, and Eric went down with him still on top. He snarled hungrily as the man struggled to free himself, raising his arms, trying to find Eric's face.
Eric grabbed the man's thick arms and forced them down with ease before snapping them in the opposite direction at the elbow. For a moment, the man's yell of acute pain rose above every other sound, almost deafening Eric's sensitive ears.
"Raaaaarh!" Eric moved swiftly and immediately sank his teeth into the man's neck. Everything that followed came naturally to him. He drove his longer-than-usual canine teeth deep into the man's flesh and, with his tongue, began drawing the rushing blood into his mouth. The sweet taste of thick red liquid coated his tongue and sent a troubling sensation to his stomach.
As soon as the man stopped struggling and released a final breath, Eric disengaged his teeth from the man's neck and rose with renewed energy, glaring at his handiwork. His human senses were still locked away in some thick enclosure, completely out of reach for now, but it seemed a tiny bit of that enclosure had been torn open. He knew he was supposed to do something with this dead human, but he saw no option for it now.
Suddenly, the system messages popped before his face:
[Beast Host has successfully consumed first mana]
[Beast Host can only draw mana by sucking victim's blood]
[Your hunger has been temporarily lightened]
[Your hunger remains]
[Consume more mana]
Thrilled, Eric dashed away from the dead man with a gust of speed. Even though he did not fully understand the system's messages, he knew there was a reason he was feeling this hungry. He knew he was doing this to release something else within him. Something calm and normal, something that wouldn't dig its teeth into a human to suck their blood. Yes, he knew that was what he was releasing from where it was locked away.
And what better way to awaken this normal being than through an act so abnormal? To stop himself from becoming a serial blood-sucking monster, he had to be a serial blood-sucking monster. He had to rip limbs, smash skulls, litter the streets with blood. His beastly carnage would be his fuel. He must consume mana.
"Consume… mana."
He had to consume as much blood as possible before this coerced innocence disappeared and was replaced by the real Eric's guilty conscience. A faint voice at the back of his mind hinted that he was not doing this only to fill himself and silence his hunger. He was doing this to become more powerful. He had to consume as much mana as possible. He had to grow stronger, to farm, to cultivate… And the southern end seemed to be his farmland. The purge had served him this opportunity on a bloody platter.
So…
[Consume more mana]
He couldn't waste time.
Eric dashed into the center of chaos with renewed vigor. Starting with the already dead purgers, he knelt over, biting them in the neck and drawing as little blood as possible before moving on to the next dead victim.
No longer needing to fill his tank with blood, Eric soon realized he was hungrier for mana than for blood. So, he sucked only a little, then the mana from his victims would waft toward him, after which he opened his mouth to consume it.
Soon enough, he was done with the dead humans and turned to the raging living. He leapt and moved with overwhelming speed and agility, sinking his teeth into their necks and leaving them to die in their pools of blood. Since he had taken just a little of their blood before they died, their mana always ended up flowing toward him after their last breath.
The more he killed and consumed mana, the closer he came to regaining his human senses—and the more his dulling emotions began to bother him. A few corpses ago, he had hesitated before biting into a victim, and another time, he had thrown someone aside instead of snapping his neck outright.
After what felt like an hour stretched into a year of rampage, the 2,543 humans who lived on the southern end had dwindled down to a pitiful few. Eric opened his eyes after consuming another batch of hovering life force and was about to continue his killings when he saw that the remaining humans—about a hundred of them—suddenly collapsed as if shot in their vitals all at once.
The moment he realized they had become easy targets, he dashed toward one who was still breathing weakly. His thirst for power made him bare his teeth, ready to dig in, but his beast instincts pulled him back. As a beast, he was designed to attack humans who posed a threat. Mass killings like this were not the work of a beast. As long as he was filled, he had no business preying on vulnerable humans. Also, Eric's true senses were beginning to kick in. His confusion had been all but smashed.
"Please… spare me," the woman he was about to bite begged, with all the breath she could muster. The other humans who had collapsed groaned in pain, clutching their heads. The woman under Eric gazed up at him weakly as he opened his mouth and consumed the remaining mana hovering around him. She saw the young boy in bloodied clothes struggling to keep himself together. He thrashed about, grabbing his hair in fury and pain as Eric's human senses began to push back over the beast's.
Softly, the woman shifted her left hand and placed it over Eric's bloody hand.
"You don't have to be hard on yourself," she coughed weakly. "We all feel the same way. They have done something to our brains. That's why we all acted that way. It's not your fault. You couldn't have fought it. No one could."
As soon as she finished speaking, Eric's beastly senses gave way and were replaced by his normal, system-infused humanity. He looked around to see a sea of bodies covering the streets of Southern End. A wave of deep guilt washed over him and a tear dropped from his right eye. He started whimpering.
"It's really not your fault. They have control of our brains…" the woman whispered.
"No, you can't get it," Eric said through tears. "This one is really my fault."
The woman opened her mouth again to calm him, but was interrupted by hurried footsteps coming from a corner near the end of the street. Eric glanced up and immediately made out the silhouettes of military men running straight toward them, rifles and other arms glinting.
Eric turned to the woman. "Hurry. Let's go before they get here."
"No. I don't think they mean to kill us anymore. They must be here to pack the rest of us still living," the woman said.
Adamantly, Eric stood and helped the woman to her feet with surprising ease. Despite the slight slowdown from her weight, he navigated the littered road, vaulting over dead and living bodies alike.
Gunshots followed them as they fled toward the opposite end of the street.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Go! Go now! Get that little monster! Now!" Glick barked, shouting commands to the soldiers on the Motherbase. The amount of sweat he had shed today could have lasted three people a lifetime. He flicked more beads of sweat off his forehead as he watched the soldiers depart.
"You seem deeply engrossed in this," Styl said from behind. "See, I know that boy is your lab experiment. A successful one. I'm sure you have plans to make more of that monster. You plan to invade other colonies with your creations, isn't that right? Quit trying to impress me. The more you do, the less impressed I am."
"For the last time, Styl, I don't know anything about that kid. If he were our experiment, why would I let him take part in the Purge? Even though we plan to cut the population in half, have you seen the number of people he's killed? If colony reduction is the goal, wouldn't I need those casualties? Styl?!"
"Hmm. Good point. But I'm still not impressed," Styl said, turning to walk away.
Once the dark old man was out of sight and earshot, Glick turned to Petyr.
"Before he leaves, send the best mechanic from the base to get some work done on his helicopter. We can't afford to let this get to the U.C. Styl must die… by accident, of course. Now, go."