Meeting Agony

Faust, emerging from the silvery cocoon, felt like a stranger within a new body. His eyes flicked open, looking around the surroundings, yet everything appeared blurred. 

He closed his eyes, then opened them again, repeating the action several times until his vision gradually sharpened and turned clear.

As he moves around, trying to adapt. His mind spins, recalling his memory, "My name is Faust Mchollen…"

Memories began to pour through his mind like a torrential waterfall, each crashing into him with intense emotion. His teeth clenched tightly together. He slammed his fist into the floor. 

CRACK!

The impact sent fractures sprawling across the surface, "I was supposed to die...How could I survive?"

His eyes look around, finding the laboratory half-burned. 

All the experimental liquids that once filled the space were now gone, replaced only by shattered glass and the husk of former furniture scattered around. 

As his fingers moved absent-mindedly, they grazed a cold, metallic surface. He glanced down and found his firearm.

Grasping the gun, Faust brought it to his temple once again. His finger tensed around the trigger, and with a resolute movement, he squeezed it.

BANG!

An echoing shot rang through the area. However, instead of the death he expected, Faust only felt a sharp, momentary pain at his temple, as if he'd been pricked by a pin.

His eyes, wide with disbelief, followed the trajectory of the bullet as it ricocheted violently off his head.

His legs gave way beneath him, sending him falling to the floor.

An unbridled, manic laughter came from his lips. "Hahahahaha..." 

Yet his eyes betrayed him as tears streamed down his cheeks.

DRIP! DRIP!

"Even Hell rejects me now..."

Looking around, he found one of the glass shards in front of him. Through tear-blurred vision, he looked down at the fractured reflection. 

He has transformed. 

His once blue eyes now turn into a vibrant, fiery amber. His jet-black hair was now streaked with hues of grey. 

His features seemed sharper and more defined, and his skin held more vitality. 

PRAANG!!!

His fist moved almost autonomously and drove into the shard, breaking it into a thousand pieces. 

The action was powerful and fierce, and yet, he felt nothing. Faust slowly brought his fist before his eyes.

What should have been a bloodied knuckle was instead a smooth skin. He flexed his fingers, watching as the muscles beneath the skin coiled and released. 

With a breath half-laden with despair and resignation, Faust lifted the gun once more, this time bringing it into his mouth, the cold metal pressing against his tongue. 

He pulled the trigger. BANG!

Yet, death did not come. There was no pain, no rush of warmth from bleeding out, no darkness closing in. 

It was as if the bullet had struck a solid wall, as the bullet exploded right within the barrel.

"Phuuu….!" Faust spit the scrap from his mouth. 

He then looked around and found a luminous silver cocoon. Standing up, he approached it, reaching out a palm to touch its surface. 

To his surprise, the cocoon quivered at his touch, vibrating with an unseen energy. 

It began to weave and spin around him, its threads wrapping wrapping around his body, caressing his skin with a strange yet oddly comforting familiarity.

Before his very eyes, the cocoon threads reassembled themselves, draping around him and transforming into a set of clothing — a sleek black shirt, a form-fitting jacket, trousers, and shoes.

He felt an inexplicable connection with the cocoon. Guided by an instinctive impulse, he willed the mysterious material to morph.

The sleeve of his new jacket began to unravel, threads winding and twisting into a solid, black blade. Faust then wields this blade against himself.

Pointing it into his head, desperate for peace.

The Blade surged forward… SWOOSH!!!

But it stopped abruptly just inches away from his head.

A deluge of laughter comes from him. "Hahaha..... Oh, Heavens!" 

His voice was a cocktail of sorrow and despair. "What sort of sick joke is this!?"

His words twisted into a scream, "Today, I killed billions of people, wanting to die with them! But this?! To make me immortal instead!?"

He stood there, laughing uncontrollably, while tears carved their paths down his cheeks.

Lost in the abyss between insanity and sorrow.

After a long while, his laughter subsided, giving way to a semblance of calm. Faust began to steady his breathing.

He began to move, carefully navigating across the treacherous landscape of the ruin. The fabric of his clothing rippled and transformed, materializing into a blade. 

As he walked through the debris, these blades sliced effortlessly through concrete and twisted metal that blocked his path.

The structure around him was a ravaged skeleton of its former self, with pillars barely holding on, threatening to give way at any moment. 

Cracks spread along the walls like sinister veins, with pieces of plaster and dust falling.

Without warning, a large section of the ceiling gave way. A massive slab of concrete, intertwined with the steel sinews of reinforcement bars, plummeted towards him.

CRASH!

His bladed attire reacted with a life of its own. The fibers of his clothing transform into a sharp blade. 

The blade met the falling concrete, carving a path through it like a mere paper. It sheared through the dense material, splitting the slab into two uneven halves, each now cleaved. 

Not stopping the blade from continuing its attack, the steel bars were cut to a ribbon, and the Debris was turned into a harmless chunk.

As Faust continued down, a mutated rat confronted him, its eyes a fiery, baleful red. 

The body is enormous, rivaling the size of a tiger. Its fur was dark, with a patch of exposed, raw flesh, granting it a horrifying appearance.

Two long, razor-sharp teeth peeked through its rotted lips. While its small, vicious claws scraped menacingly against the shattered tile floor.

Feeling Faust appearance, the monstrous rats lunged toward him. Its mouth open wide, an array of sharp teeth aiming to sink into his flesh.

Unfazed by the sudden appearance of the mutated Rat, Faust keeps walking forward. His face was emotionless, and his step calm.

As the beast drew near, part of Faust's sleeve unraveled itself autonomously.

Transforming into a sleek, sharp blade. 

The razor edge of the blade swipes through the air. With a straight arc, the blade met the creature's flesh, dark blood spurted from its trail. 

The rat recoiled, screeching in pain and fury, but it was relentless, driven by instinct to attack again.

The blade moved swiftly, slicing through fur and flesh. It clashed against the bone with a sickening sound of scrapes and cracks.

The rat, despite its size, is very agile, a blur of claws and teeth, but the blade is faster. 

It parried a vicious swipe from the creature's paw. Faust felt the smelly air rush past him as the blade blocked another gnash of the rat's teeth.

With a deft maneuver, the blade plunged into the underbelly of the beast, the tip emerging in a spray of entrails and blood. 

The rat's movements became erratic. Its squeals turned to gurgles as the life bled out of it.

With a final, empowered thrust, the blade executed a swift, clean cleave through the middle of the rat, splitting it neatly in half.

The two halves hit the ground with a wet thud, its innards spilling out onto the ground.

The air was heavy with the stench of opened bowels and the iron of spilled blood. 

Faust then paused, looking down at the twitching remnants of the creature, its internal organ now exposed.

The rat's heart was still beating in a slow rhythm, pumping dark blood through the severed veins. Its intestine still twitched and moved.