Beast Taming In The Apocalypse

Chapter 1: It Has Begun

[Oh Humanity... You have failed me. You have failed to evolve, and I have wasted 300,000 years waiting for you. For that, I will not make this easy. This is my last gift to you. A brutal one.]

The message flashed across the vision of every man, woman, and child on Earth. For a moment, the world seemed to stop and hold its breath. Then another message flashed.

[Phase One: Weed out the weak.]

Across the world, people over the age of 65 and under the age of 6 instantly felt a strange jolt. They lost consciousness, their bodies twisting and changing, before rising again as mindless zombies.

They turned on their loved ones and anyone nearby with sudden, savage hunger. These zombies craved living flesh, hunting down any living thing to feast on brains, hearts, and intestines.

Those with disabilities were also transformed. In less than a minute, over three billion people changed.

In that same minute, chaos followed. Car crashes, fatal mistakes in operating rooms, planes colliding in the sky.

Accidents of every kind happened all over the world, reducing humanity from eight billion to four billion in an instant. And the number kept dropping fast.

Just when people thought that was the whole problem, the issue grew. The animals began to change, twisting and mutating.

Then, black voids ripped open in the sky above different parts of Earth. Strange, monstrous creatures started to fall from these holes.

This was the beginning of the apocalypse. It was quick, brutal, and it did not care about anyone’s feelings.

---

Kingdom, who was eighteen, was lying on his back in his yard. He was enjoying the sun's warmth and sipping fruit juice when the message appeared in his vision.

"Weed out what weak?" Kingdom muttered in confusion as he looked at it.

He looked around.

The message vanished as quickly as it came. He thought it might have been a hallucination and shrugged his shoulders. He closed his eyes again and went back to sipping his juice.

Bam!

A loud crash made him jump up in fright. He was home alone with his dog, and his dog could not make a sound like that which was why he was alerted and startled.

Looking ahead, he saw a meter-long crack in the ground about four meters away. What scared the life out of him was the small, black creature crawling out of it. It was short, just over a meter tall. It looked exactly like the goblins he had seen in fantasy movies and anime.

In a state of shock, Kingdom barely moved as the goblin spotted him and charged, swinging a crude wooden club. The club grazed his thigh, the pain sharp and sudden. It snapped him out of his daze.

Seeing the creature truly meant to kill him, Kingdom knew he needed a weapon. His eyes landed on the glass juice bottle, now about three meters away. The goblin was standing between him and it.

The goblin screeched and attacked again.

Kingdom jumped sideways, dodging the swing, then sprinted for the bottle. He could hear the creature right behind him. Grabbing the bottle, he spun around and smashed it into the goblin’s face with all his strength. The glass shattered.

The goblin let out a shrill scream of pain, grabbing its bloody face with both hands. It dropped its club. Kingdom grabbed the club, his heart pounding with adrenaline, and brought it down on the goblin’s head. Again. And again. He didn’t stop until his arms were too heavy to lift.

Where the head had been was now just a meaty paste. Kingdom fell back onto his butt, taking deep, shaky breaths as what he had just done finally hit him.

While he was still sitting there, shocked at killing such a strange creature, a small, glowing light floated out of the goblin’s corpse. It flew straight into Kingdom’s chest.

"What was that!" Kingdom yelled, grabbing at his chest as if he could pull it out.

Ding!

A soft chime echoed in his head.

[You have leveled up. Status is now available. Say ‘status’ to open your status.]

“Status?”

A screen, like something from a video game, appeared before his eyes.

---

Name: Kingdom Graham

Level: 1

Vitality (VIT): 5

Strength (STR): 6

Dexterity (DEX): 5

Agility (AGI): 7

Intelligence (INT): 5

Wisdom (WIS): 4

Unassigned Points: 1

Skills: None

---

Kingdom looked at his stats in silence. He felt this wasn’t the time to wallow in confusion. He needed to assess the situation.

"This is like an online game," Kingdom muttered. "Then is there a way to get a tutorial?"

[Tutorial Activated.]

The message flashed before his eyes, shocking him. He didn’t think they could hear his thoughts. But since the information was already showing, and fearing it might disappear, he immediately started to read.

Four minutes later, Kingdom closed the status screen and took a deep, shaky breath from the information he had just learned.

The tutorial explained a lot. Basically, an almighty being was tired of how slowly humanity was evolving. So, it placed creatures called Abyssal Creatures onto Earth.

The Abyssal Creatures were made in a moment by the Creator to look exactly like the monsters from human myths and fantasies. Inside them was a special energy. As they died, this energy would seep into the atmosphere, forcing not just humans and animals, but the whole planet to evolve.

This way, humanity would no longer be at the top of the food chain. Even an ant could evolve to a higher level than a human and gain intelligence.

Great. Now he would be fighting for space with billions of super mosquitoes.

It also explained that the game-like status was made specifically for humans. The words on the screen said: 'Due to you being lowlifes who think everything revolves around you, we made the system in a way you would understand. So you don't get lost.'

What an asshole! Kingdom couldn't help but curse when he saw that part.

Who wouldn't in such situation?

This was like downgrading humanity!