Rio woke up in a cold room. The cold wasn't the kind one felt inside the rift or that icy feeling in front of death.
It was the chill of a cheap electric fan blowing inside a small, dark familiar room.
Rio's eyes snapped open.
He didn't move immediately because he couldn't. His mind was still reeling as he remembered what happened to Ellie.
He could still feel her warm heart on his chest after being thrown into the gates.
He laid still on a thin, lumpy mattress, as he stared up at a ceiling with yellow water stains.
His breath was shallow and every time he blinked, he expected the ceiling to vanish and be replaced by the red, opened sky of the Apocalypse.
He held his hands up in front of his face and began to move his fingers slowly.
He expected to see heavy iron chains or blood under his fingernails from clawing at the road.
But his hands were clean, thin and weak.
It didn't look anything like the hands of a low ranked F hunter that was pushed around.
"Is this some sort of reincarnation?" He muttered to himself as his eyes darted to a rusty calendar on the wall.
His eyes almost popped out when he saw the date.
It was ten years before the apocalypse started.
He has somehow time travelled and that means.
His thoughts were interrupted as he saw something blink from the corner of his eye, it was a red light. The same one he saw before he had lost consciousness ten years ago.
Every time he took a breath, the red light pulsed. It felt like something heavy on his chest, pressing down on his lungs.
[System Bound: 1,000x Wrath.]
[Status: Stabilizing...]
Rio groaned and tried to sit up.
His head throbbed as something dawned on his at that moment.
This system or whatever wasn't like a gift, it was a burden.
It felt like he was trying to hold a gallon of boiling water in a paper cup, his whole body was raging as if he would burst.
Then he felt a sudden surge of anger. He thought of Marcus's smiling face.
He thought of the guards laughing as they threw Ellie away.
The anger burned in his gut, and as it grew, the red light in his vision turned into a bright, angry fire.
"DAMN IT!" Rio yelled.
He swung his fist at the wall next to his bed as a way of unleashing some pent up rage.
But his fist never hit the wall.
As his hand moved, the air around his knuckles suddenly turned stiff.
A loud WHOOSH sound filled the room. His fist stopped exactly one inch away from the wallpaper.
For a second,it seemed like nothing had happened.
Then….the sound came unexpectedly.
CRACK!
The air pressure from his swing acted like a physical hammer.
A crack formed on the dry wall first, then it shattered.
A hole the size of a dinner plate exploded inward. Plaster dust flew everywhere, coating Rio's hair and blankets.
Rio stared at the hole and then at his hand. He hadn't even touched the wall.
[Action: Punch (F-Rank Strength) —> Multiplier Applied: 1,000x Kinetic Force.]
[Warning: Your current body cannot handle the reaction of a 100% output. Output has been limited to 0.1% for safety.]
"Only 0.1 percent?" Rio whispered. His voice was shaking.
If that was just a tiny fraction of his power, what would happen if he actually hit someone?
He wasn't a Shield-Bearer anymore, he felt like a walking disaster.
He stood up on shaky legs and walked toward the small, cracked mirror hanging on the back of his door.
He wiped the dust off the glass and looked at himself.
He looked so young. His face was thin. He still looked like the "useless garbage" everyone used to bully.
Then, he focused his mind, and the System window finally opened fully.
[HOST STATUS]
NAME: Rio
LEVEL:1
RANK: F (The Broken Shield)
STRENGTH: 5
AGILITY: 4
STAMINA:6
WRATH: [∞] Infinity
Rio's heart skipped a beat. His stats were trash. He was still the weakest rank in the world.
But at the bottom, the Wrath stat wasn't a number. It was a sideways eight, the symbol for infinity.
It was blinking a violent, glowing red.
It looked less like a stat and more like a countdown.
Suddenly, he heard a sound from outside his door. A light, happy humming. A sound he hadn't heard in ten long years.
Rio's body went stiff. His breath hitched in his throat. The "Infinite" symbol on his screen started to pulse faster.