Realization

Moving together, we walk throughout the hallways as Saeko climbs on an open window and simply jumps out of it, she crosses a great distance and lands perfectly fine on the walkway of the second floor. Such thing surprises everyone but we don't make a sound. We exchange looks and everyone is shocked.

"(No one was expecting that. She's just like I said, as strong as everyone combined or even more. Of course, not counting with Yuuki and the giant Amane. Yuuki's way stronger than, I dare say, the strongest human. From the Old World obviously. Now Amane... Something tells me she's stronger than everyone combined, Saeko and Yuuki included. According to Yuuki's gun, we're in a game-like environment so Amane being a barbarian must have some barbarian traits other than their dumbness like their berserk rage. I can't even imagine the trouble it'd be to control an enraged creepy girl.)"

After putting our heads back in place, we continue on our way. Passing by the headless corpses Saya left in her wake to the faculty room, to which she makes a smug face, we descend the stairs to the second floor and then to the ground floor. However, we are forced to stop, as soon as we turn to descend the last couple of steps because of a zombie that is standing motionless on the last step. We look at each other and Saya comes out in the front, eveyone looks at her.

"(She's gonna do it?)"

She points her hands forward and swipes her right hand in the air, the mana she controls slices the zombie's head off but with the other hand she manipulates the mana around it to quietly place the zombie's body and head on the ground. She turns around and smirk proudly, I feel like that expression is being directly pointed at me.

"(And what do you want for it? A candy?)"

I roll my eyes and we resume descending the stairs shortly after. But we can't take even a step further because the hallways are swarming with zombies. So much I can't even see the exit of both ends.

"(Time to head back. But where do we walk out of here? Think about it later, first we have to go back from where we came.)"

We do exactly that and slowly and very carefully go back up the stairs. The group exchange looks, everyone if confused wirh where to go but then Kyoko walks in front and points at the fire escape through a window.

"(She's smart. Nice.)"

Everyone nods and carefully walk all the way to the walkway of the second floor. In the middle of it, we see the river of motionless zombies on the ground floor. There is, somehow, much more than before. Everyone looks at each other, they are confused and have fear and anxiety written on their faces. It's clear their thoughts: "Are we going to die here? How do we get out of here? It's useless, we're going to die." Staring at all the zombies, standing still and waiting for someone to alert them, gears inside my head suddenly clicks together and I feel like I'm extremely dumb.

"(Just... why am I trying to escape? Why am I worried about running away? Fuck! I have a super-fucking-power! I can summon fire and flames made of fucking plasma! I fucking ate the Orb of the Living Sun! I AM THE LIVING SUN! I'm not even considered human anymore! So... why?)"

Turning my attention to the others, I see Kyoko trying to calm everyone down without making a sound.

"(This place is full of zombies and each and every single one of them can drop something. So instead of running, why don't I monopolize all their drops? If I could get my hands on some Strength Orbs, beef jerkies and god-knows what else they can drop... Even if the drop rate is low, from all these hundreds of zombies at the very least I'd get a couple things. Hell, I got a super-fucking-power, killing them is easy. Earlier, I thought it was impossible to kill all of them but that was me imagining a scenario where I had to kill them one by one. But that's not the case. My plasma flames don't die out unless I put them out so all I have to do I surround myself in flames and wait for them to come at me. The overwhelming heat will take care of them like it did to Taki. And the best of all is that the school is pretty secluded, up the mountains, and it takes a while to come here from the city so there's no need for me to worry about any more zombies arriving, the noise won't reach them too. This...)"

I clench my fist.

"(... This is perfect. I can't go away and leave it to someone else. The world has changed... No, God has changed the world, and power from now on will be the only thing that matters. Those who have it will reign or live freely and those who don't will be enslaved or die. That is the nature of humanity: power above all. I may have a strong superpower but if I ate something like the Orb of the Living Sun, I am absolutely sure that someone else must have a superpower that is on par or is even greater than mine. And if I, for some reason, were to fight that person and my power came out to be weaker... I'd either die during battle or die because I'd never submit to someone else. It may be a hypothetical scenario but it is something that could, and most likely will, happen sooner or later.)"

I feel Yuuki gently tugging on my hand. Looking at her I notice that the group began to move to the classroom building. Her face is basically telling me: "What are you doing? Come on, let's get out of here." Shaking my head, I smile at her and release her hand. Looking at the railing, I walk at it and climb over it.

"(I'm about to do something crazy. I don't even know if it'll work. It should but... if it doesn't then I'll die. Whatever. I never feared death anyways.)"

I feel arms wrapping around me but not mustering any strength to pull me. It's Yuuki and it seems she doesn't want to hurt me with her uncontrollable strength.

Yuuki: "<whispering > Hey! Now's not the time to get suicidal!"

Grabbing her wrists, I force her arms open.

"Release me, I'm not trying to kill myself. In any case, go down the fire escape and get to the gate. Once you're there, tell Saya to cut the gate with her power and rest it on the ground. Without making any noise."

Yuuki reluctantly opens her arms while I support myself on the railing. I look at her and she nods.

Yuuki: "<whispering > A-Alright. But y-you'll come with us, right?"

I shake my head.

"No. I've got something to do and I don't know if it'll work. If it does then I'll live. If it doesn't then this may be the last time we talk. Now go. If I die, know that I really like you."

Yuuki nods and bites her lips before turning around, she slowly walks across the walkway as the others glances at her and at me.

Kyoko: "<whispering > Tony, what are you doing?!"

"Kyoko. The whole place is full of zombies and there's no way any of you will get out of here. You know it too..."

She purses her lips, her face has worry.

Kyoko: "..."

"But don't worry, the plan remains the same but take the chance I'll give you to reach the gate... and take care of Yuuki if I die. She's quite rough but not that bad. That's it, all of you, go now. Get out of here. Things are going to get real hot and none of you will want to stay close."

I turn around. Looking down at the countless zombies on the ground floor, I take a deep breath.

"It's all or nothing."

Putting my foot forward, I throw myself off the walkway and dive down. My body reaches closer and closer from the ground.

"(Think of the sun... and burn!)"

I get really close from the ground when plasma flames bursts from me and my body turns into fire. I stop falling and float in the middle of the air as the heat vaporizes the concrete and every zombie around me in a wide area. To keep my body burning, my mana gets consumed like crazy while I feel extremely lightheaded.

"(Alright. Not enough. I have to... burn bigger. I... need to be like the sun.)

I clench my fists and push the flames out with all my will.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

The plasma flames from my fiery body blaze strongly and they spread more and more, further into my surroundings. A couple of seconds pass and my mana depletes completely. My body stops burning and I resume falling, however, I feel like I'm gonna faint.

"(F-Fuck.)"

My eyes feels extremely heavy and my mind is empty so I can't even think. Against my will my eyes close and everything turns pitch dark. Slowly opening my eyes, I see a huge sphere of floating plasma flames burning incessantly. I don't know how long passed but the flames are still burning strong. Moving my hand, I point it at the ball of plasma flames and put it out, the flames immediately disappear as if they weren't even there to begin with.

"(Using all mana made me pass out, how dangerous. I should be careful from now on.)

Looking down, I see I'm completely naked and submerged from my chest down in a pool of incandescent molten rock. I get up and the goo-like substance sticks to me, quickly cooling off and turning into a solid black crust.

"<click tongue> Fuck. How do I take this off now? Do I heat it again?"

Still waist deep into the lava pool, I ignite my body, however, I notice the plasma fire composing me is different from before. I can feel it much clearly and my mana isn't getting drained like crazy. I'm as hot as usual so, since my body is now made of fire, the black crust rapidly becomes liquid and simply falls through me.

"(It feels... different. What happened?)"

I feel like I can manipulate the plasma fire of my body and the plasma flames I produce much easier than before. Focusing on my hand, I visualize a sword in my mind and my hand turns into a fiery double-edged sword, exactly like what I have in mind. Changing it, I visualise the head of a hammer and my hand turns into it. Repeating the same process again and again with a multitude of different shapes and forms, I smile.

"(Earlier I had to will it now a simple thought is enough. It's like they hear me. Then...)"

Making my hand return to its normal five-fingered state, I focus on my feet and release a jet of plasma flames from them and fly out of the massive crater at high speeds.

"Woooo-hooooo! Holy fuck! Hooo-hoooo!"

I fly across the air, leaving a trail of flames behind me.

"(It's like I'm weightless! This is so fucking fun!)"

I feel something I've never felt before as I fly through the sky. It's a completely new sensation. Limitless freedom. It's a little difficult to control myself but I quickly get used to it and in no time I'm flying as if I was born doing it. When I stop, I see the countless flame trails I left as I flew around. Erasing them, I turn to look at Tokonosu City from a point of view I had never seen. The vast blue ocean surrounding the island, the countless buildings and trees of the city, and the smoke coming from many places.

"(So beautiful. But so pitiful. For how long was I knocked out? The city's devastated.)"

Descending from the sky, I stop dozens of meters high into the air and overlook the school grounds. Since I released all my flames in the middle of the courtyard between the main buildings, the two buildings collapsed and everything around the, at least a dozen meters wide crater, was left utterly destroyed. The heat it exuded extended across many meters and melted anything in a wide radius. I can sere dozens and dozens of floating items hovering centimeters above the molten rock that covers most of the ground. But many items could be buried under the rubble. And no zombie is in sight.

"I... did all this? Fuck. I'm sure people died. But it was for a good reason. I mean, they escaped right? I don't see them at least. Not like I would considering how everything is."

Controlling my plasma fire body, I reduce the flames and slowly descend from the sky and land on the ground. My body then reverts to its normal form when I extinguish the flames.

"(I think I understand how this power works a bit better than before. Unlike what I first thought, it isn't like a flip where I can turn on or off whenever I want. It's different. When I activate it, I have to make a conscious effort to keep it on or else my body will return to normal and the flames will stop coming out. Kinda like flexing a muscle or using strength to lift something heavy, I have to focus on not turning it off to keep the fire on. Kinda weird but I got used to it. Though what is truly weird is that even after using the flames for so long, not even a quarter of my mana was used up. I'm sure something happened while I was out.)"

Back on the ground, I crouch and extend my hand to grab a beef jerky, however, as I hold it, from the corner of my eyes, I see something on my wrist. Looking at it, is a VII roman numeral. I rub it and try to clean it with my other hand but, like a tattoo, it seems to be marked in my skin and won't come off.

"(What is this? It looks like a tattoo. Is it related to my mana and flame control?)

Staring at it for a little while, I give up on trying to understand what it is because I simply don't know and begin to rummage the ground. Munching on the jerky, I collect all the things I can find and separate them. There are several orbs and all of them have different colors raging from red, yellow, green, purple and blue. And very few of them, about four have things inside of them.

"Looks like I've hit jackpot. <laugh >"

Peeking from under a large chunk of rubble, I see what looks like the sleeve of a jacket.

"I should give up on that. It looks too heavy to lift... but why do I feel like I can lift it when I clearly can't? Well, it won't hurt to try, right?"

Crouching, I find some places to grab the rubble and then try to lift it but when I do so, I find out that I can lift the large chunk of rubble effortlessly. Throwing it to the other side side, I immediately stare at my wrist.

"Alright. What happened to me while I was out? Why am I capable of lifting something that should weight at least a couple hundreds of kilos so easily?"

Looking at myself, only then I notice that my body is completely different from before. I've always been of a thick build but I was never this beefier. I look like those fat, bulky powerlifters. My arms, legs, chest, back, waist and hips feels way thicker and harder. I can clearly see my muscles and how swollen they became. I pinch my arms and legs, and find out that there is basically no fat in them, just muscles. It if as if all that fat was turned into pure muscles. Even my hanging belly and saggy chest are different. They became rounder and much firmer. I even feel quite taller but that may be my mind playing tricks on me.

"This can't be right. Can it?"

Grabbing a hand-sized rock from the ground, I look around and spot a large tree quite far from here, one that hasn't been burned by the heatwave of my flames. I frown a little because I'm seeing the tree with much more detail despite the distance.

"My eyes too? <sigh > Anyway, it shouldn't reach that far, right?"

Preparing myself, I enter in a throwing stance and bring my arm far back.

"Here it goes."

Twisting my body and aiming at the tree, I throw the rock with all my might. It makes a booming sound as it pierces the air with with so much power and speed that I can see a shockwave forming around the rock in the split second it flies. The rock reaches the tree and obliterates its trunk.

"... The. Fuck?"