17 NOOOOOO!!!

As he sat atop the smooth stone slabs, leaning against the strange archway, he enjoyed the coolness of the dark stones beneath him and the gentle breeze that leisurely flowed through the leafy branches of the valleys forest strangely massive trees.

Opening his status window, he looked at the various tabs at the top of the screen before he quickly selected one on the far right labeled [MAP]. Instantly a flashing message box appeared before him.

Beginning startup process... startup complete.

Linking with main Deity System.... link established.

Beginning STS synchronization process.... synchronization complete.

As the last message faded a new screen instantly blossomed in its place displaying a square screen completely black except for the center were their appeared a small circular area of color which depicted in perfect detail his surroundings in a top-down overview.

Enlarging the image with a focused thought he discovered that he could even see himself. Lifting his hand he waved it at the same time as his counterpart mirrored his actions precisely. With absolutely zero lag between his actions and the displayed actions he realized the map was basically a high-definition spy satellite displaying in real-time.

As he examined the border of the map he noticed some tiny white, faintly illuminated icons along the edge, a plus and minus sign, and a icon shaped like a pair of angel wings.

"The plus and minus are obviously the zoom, however what is this other icon" mused Salvatore curiously?

Pressing the wings button with a whoosh the screen instantly zoomed into his exact location and moved upright displaying the area directly in front of him from a zoomed in third person view.

Turning his head slowly around, the map screen displayed a image which was the same as his POV (Point-Of-View) precisely. Stopping, he attempted to manipulate the image with a thought causing it to shoot quickly forward in a shaky manner through several obstacles until it suddenly stopped upon colliding with the edge of the darkness.

Seeing how the image had moved so quickly he realized the wings icon activated a sort of free-fly camera mode that allowed him to explore the revealed portions of his map.

Almost instantly he mastered manipulating the maps free-fly mode enabling him to use the slightest of thoughts in order to zoom around the maps discovered area. This single map feature alone which allowed him to effortlessly explore his surroundings in perfect precise detail would prove to be invaluable in the future.

Having mastered the maps free-fly mode he turned his attention towards something that had been subconsciously bothering him for quite awhile.

Since he had arrived on Goldstar he had been caught up in the excitement of coming to a new world. It seemed his only bad trait of becoming obsessed with something that catches his interest, and then focusing his attention on it entirely, until he had forced it to divulge all of its hidden secrets, had reared its ugly head again, causing him to ignore what his highly trained senses were desperately trying to tell him.

Now however as he finished with the map the nagging sensation that something was very wrong with him suddenly became apparent to him, causing him to rise to his feet in order to examine his body closely.

Moving his limbs he finally realizing what was wrong, noticing his body felt weaker, stiffer, all the years of hard work and suffering he had endured to train his body to the peak of physical perfection, that allowed him to have complete control of every aspect of his body was gone.

Removing his PJ's he closely examined his naked body shockingly discovering he now had zero muscular definition. Running back and forth between two trees he angrily discovered that he quickly tired in less than 5 minutes showing he had lost his monstrous endurance that once allowed him to chase a private jet 10,000 miles on foot across Eurasia nonstop in order to kill a target who was on board.

In fact now that he was examining himself he noticed that all of his senses were greatly reduce, and appeared to now be barely at the level of a regular person. But worst of all, his greatest asset, his PRIDE, the part of him that made him a man above all other men, had actually shrunk, appearing to have transformed from a shaped that easily towered over its peers into something that would cause a newborn's PRIDE to look massive.

Ignoring everything else this singular fact caused the greatest amount of damage to his psyche. It was so destructive that he suddenly coughed up a wad of blood as his face turned a deathly shade of white.

Falling to his knees he screamed aloud to the heavens unleashing a cry of anguished from his very soul, "DEAR GOD NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

This heart wrenching cry of sorrow echoed through the entire valley.

At this exact moment, on the other side of the Valley was a large father squirrel monster, standing atop a branch, high above the ground, holding a pair of large golden nuts, talking to his three small squirrel monster sons proudly, about the importance of nuts and how big his pride was because he had a pair of prizewinning golden nuts like these.

As Salvatore's cry of anguish suddenly reached them the father squirrels hands suddenly opened in shock causing him to unconsciously drop the nuts. Seeing their father drop the nuts, one of the small squirrel monsters asked, "Father what was that terrible sound, it was so scary you dropped your prizewinning nuts?"

Shaking his head, with a sigh of sympathy he said "Boys, that is the sound someone makes when they lose either their pride, or their nuts."

The youngest squirrel hearing this quickly covered his ears. Noticing him covering his ears the father asked with a laugh, "Son, what are you doing?"

"Protecting my ears dad" he calmly replied.

Confused by his answer he curiously asked again.

"But why are you protecting your ears son?"

"Duh, because you just lost your nuts dad!"

Hearing his sons answer, the fur on the father squirrel monsters face turned white as he quickly looked around for his prizewinning nuts. Seeing they had disappeared he collapsed to his knees and screamed towards the heavens.

"DEAR GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"