1 1. Strange Awakening

The hollow creepy sounds of the wind, the sense of dread air, and the strangely built trees that seemed like they touched the sky greeted Ryo as he opened up his eyes.

His brows wrinkled in confusion at his current setting. He searched through his memory as he tried to grasp the reason for his current situation. Closing his eyes in concentration, he tried to grasp anything from his memories but soon realized that he couldn't remember anything about himself except his name.

He placed his hands on his forehead hoping it would help release any memories stuck, but was greeted by a smooth surface that felt almost like a ceramic mask. His confusion increased as he looked down at his body, an 18-foot body covered in black and purple scales greeted his eyes. His torso was black with two purple lines running across it, and his forearms and hands were a deep purple with black nails. His legs were also a deep purple with multiple black stripes running all across them with black nails.

Suddenly, while inspecting his body shivers ran through him. His senses screamed of an incoming danger, and is muscles tensed as his pure white eyes flickered left and right trying to find the source of the danger. Just as he was about to relax, his instincts screamed at him to jump backwards. Trusting his instincts he immediately jumped back and found himself about four meters from his original position.

His quick decision proved to be right as not a second later a 22-foot black baboon-like creature pounced on that spot creating a small crater. The creature howled at Ryo while beating its chest, its challenge was unmistakable.

The sight of the creature had awakened something in Ryo. A terrible hunger hit Ryo like a freight train, and he wished for nothing more than to relieve the hunger. The weird baboon-like creature all of a sudden started looking appetizing to him, his stomach aching, begging him to fill it up . A terrible howl ripped from his throat as he yelled back his acceptance to the baboon creature.

Instinct fueling his every move, he took the initiative to attack and dashed towards the creature. The baboon creature locked in on the rushing hollow and raised both its fists, bringing it down to crush the hollow when it came in close.

Watching the fists coming down upon him, Ryo immediately planted and pushed off of his left foot; his body moving to the right and narrowly dodging the fist. Pivoting the same with his right, he moved back towards the creature and stretched out his hand clawing at the mask of the creature, his instincts assuring him it was the most effective spot to hit. The ground under his feet buckled as his claws struck against the face of the creature with all his might tearing off the mask including half of the face of the creature. Ryo howled at the sky while the creature fell down, proclaiming his victory to all who would hear.

After his celebration, Ryo devoured the head in his hands and turned back to the corpse of the creature. He grinned as he jumped on the corpse, enjoying the reward of his efforts. As he was feasting, he felt his power increasing with every bite he took; somewhere along the way, he figured out that eating the mask increased his power more than just eating the flesh of the creature. He ate until the hollow dissipated into dark dust that rose up and blew away in the wind.

His earlier confusion was forgotten as he felt the hunger lessen after his meal. In order to release some of his hunger and feel the exhilarating sensation that came along with his increase of power, Ryo dashed into the forest looking for his next meal.