Chapter 913 - There is a lot we have to do

POV Christoph

The man watches the corpse of the unit's leader for a moment, uncertain about how to feel. After all, he can sense that this man had been a distant relative of his, a part of his own bloodline, dating all the way back to his time as Absolute of Thalassa.

He also recognizes the procedure and knows that these men were completely expendable and that many similar units are going to follow. Some might succeed and gather more information, while others might manage to spread poisons meant to wipe out entire cities, or release viruses to weaken the populace, and similar acts.

But there’s no way they don't know about him as Earth's First Beyonder and the defenses he’s been actively preparing. There are ways to spy remotely without breaking the non-attack phase, especially if you’re going through a pairing.

Yet, hundreds, even thousands of people like this are just that: expendable.

The sun finally falls behind the horizon, and it grows even darker as Christoph touches, almost gently, the half-figure standing beside him, the one that holds The Wraith, the Progenitor of all Vampires.

It doesn't react, it doesn't speak, it never does. But it does obey.

“I gave my word to Nathaniel, didn't I? That I would stand on the side of Earth even against a people that once were my own,” the man mutters, unsure whether he’s speaking to himself or the Wraith.

He then heads off through the forest, slowly walking towards where the tear is located to erase it. Of course, he knows that closing it, along with the simple fact that the unit won’t be returning, is information in and of itself, but he won’t let that bother him.

“You know,” he speaks further to the Wraith, though the half-figure has already disappeared, pulled back into his body, “in some ways I really do like him and his sister. I do. I wish my children had been like them.”

Christoph continues to talk. “So why are my children, and my grandchildren, all so soft, so useless? Aren't they my blood? Why don't they bear my talent and drive?”

His steps become heavier, and some of his mana seeps into the surrounding area. “I had thought something would awaken in them once Earth's awakening began. I thought I could put them right in front of the monsters and they would fight and strive. Yet so far they have only cried, they’ve begged, even soiled themselves. Can you believe that?”

He stops, and that charming smile appears on his face as he shakes his head. “I felt their fear, I mirrored their emotions, hoping to find determination waking in the face of death, and you know what? There wasn’t any. Some even wanted to stay right there and die.”

Christoph chuckles and begins to walk again. “I saved them, of course. And maybe it’s my own fault. I should have known that they would be that way, after all, even without my current skills, I got to see their personalities as they grew.”

The walk grows steeper, and he heads up through the dark forest, but nothing seems to bother him, moving just as if it were broad daylight.

“Meanwhile, Nathaniel and Victoria are nobodies. Victoria was born first, disrupting the lives of the two kids who happened to be her parents. Nathaniel arrived later, almost out of spite, to a pair of people who weren't smart enough to avoid making the same mistake twice. Their father turned into a drunkard, blaming others for his own mistakes, while the mother wanted to sacrifice herself for her kids but was too stubborn, or too scared, to leave. Maybe even then, she was worried he’d end his own life if she did.”

Step after step until he stops briefly on top of the hill. When he strengthens his sight, he sees one of his towers standing taller than Mount Everest a few hundred miles away.

Shaking his head, he continues downhill. “Yet, these two both ended up in Hell difficulty, while not even one single person from my bloodline here made it in. Not even into Easy Difficulty. How silly is that? And yet, no matter how disappointed I feel right now, I know this emotion will weaken and pass. Emotions are just like that, and I know plenty about them.”

Suddenly he slows his walk as if remembering something amusing. “Oh, I thought of approaching their mother. It would’ve been easy enough to make her fall for me, and I think if I were younger I would’ve done just that. Just to tease young Nathaniel a bit. Those emotions would be delicious, honestly. But it also feels far too childish of me. I used to be quite the little shit, and some of the instincts still remain, no matter how much I like to think I've changed.”

His smile fades, and he shakes his head as he jumps to another thought. “Lately I’ve been having this feeling that I can only talk honestly to you and Septa. Everyone else is so weak, and so many vows hold me back.” He chuckles. “I could slaughter them by the billions, and a thousand or so years later nobody would even remember or care. They may even start calling me Christoph the Merciful for doing a few decent acts.”

The night deepens, making it nearly impossible to see him under the trees and wrapping him in the darkness of the forest. Animals in a wide area have fallen quiet, all of them dead along with everyone in the nearby city. In that city, the lights continue to glow, and a few crashed cars begin to burn as thousands of bodies lie still.

He hadn’t even realized that his control over his emotions had lapsed as he spoke to the presence within himself.

And within the darkness of the trees and the breeze passing by, his words sound like a distant whisper as he continues to speak to that same uncaring presence.

POV Myrra

My tutorial ends because I decided to complete the floor quest. I could have waited until the tournament, but I would’ve died, literally died of boredom waiting on the 13th floor of Easy Difficulty for months.

A part of me thinks it was some sort of system shenanigans that caused me to end up in Easy difficulty of all places, but another part of me thinks it was orchestrated by Master Lissandra.

As I have many times before, I swear revenge against that tiny, scary, terrifying, beautiful, silly, dumb human woman.

I think it is a good thing that I got out. I was starting to get addicted to the Community, it was the only place where I could talk to real people, though there was a limit to how much I could use it. At least most of them gave me advice on how to behave when I reached Earth.

When I arrive at the place the system drops me, there’s a number of guard towers standing nearby, weird people dressed in green camouflage patterned clothes, and a lady in a black suit rushing over. I also notice a few weak attendees as well.

Oh, I’ve got this! DanTheMan_88 told me that the moment I see people like that, I should run, because they are soldiers who will sell me to a lab to be experimented on. Apparently, creating something akin to the lynthari race is a long-time dream of many of the people here on Earth!

Limiting my mana, signature, and presence so I don’t hurt them, I jump up onto a nearby building and then to another, repeating the action a few times until I reach the tallest one. Once there, I take in the view of the city, filled with many massively tall buildings with a huge park below. And there’s also a massive river with several gigantic ships floating down it.

I feel my tails twist and twitch out of excitement. This must be what accidentally_alive calls a concrete jungle, and it smells every bit as bad as I was warned it would! There is also even more glass than I’d thought there would be.

Out of curiosity, I leap from the building to reach the one opposite it. Just before crashing against the glass, I use my mana the same way I would while using Aurora Glass, passing through without breaking it.

Happy with the result, I stand up proudly and bump a chandelier with my head. I swat it away gently, but it still explodes against a nearby wall.

Looking at the mess, my tail breaks an ugly vase, which surely means it must’ve been expensive, I limit my physical output even more.

Each step still cracks the wooden floors as I walk around, observing everything with wide eyes. I search using information I got from xX_Shadow_Sniper_Xx to determine where a fridge should be located, along with some of the foods he recommended I try: Marmite, blue cheese, durian, catnip, and more.

I find the kitchen immediately, and it also turns out to be ugly. The place is massive, so all of it has to be very expensive, but I made sure to choose a location where there were no living signatures.

I don't even bother trying to open the feeble doors carefully as I locate a box that feels colder than the ones surrounding it and open what must be the fridge.

Nothing in there seems like it would be Marmite, but I grab all I can, unwrapping items and beginning to eat while drinking what has to be wine.

It isn't bad at all, though one water bottle hisses at me, and some of the weird green things are strangely sour and salty.

Making my way through the kitchen and looking around, I jump when the lights turn on out of nowhere, almost dropping all the food I’ve been holding. My skills activate for a moment as I brace for an attack, but it doesn't come. Just in case, I destroy that light and every similar object in the place.

I hit my head against another chandelier and fling it away. Damned tiny humans.

Then I freeze at the view out of the window. In the distance, across the street, I see some lynthari children passing by. Immediately, I drop all of the items, pass through the glass, and push off the building to propel myself toward them.

To avoid scaring the children, I land a short distance away, ignoring a few humans who shout and stare at me as I hide behind a corner. My tails sway as I observe her signature, finding no mana at all. Slowly, I begin to realize that she’s fake.

But why?

Ignoring the humans, I move to follow her while trying to stay hidden. I watch as she laughs upon meeting a few others like her, some fake, human-sized lynthari, and others wearing clothes unlike any of the other humans around. They’ve dyed their skin, and some of them are carrying weapons made not of steel, but of much weaker materials.

“Human,” I whisper to a nearby man who is pointing at what I recognize as a smartphone from my previous encounters with humans. “What are they?” I ask, gesturing toward the group.

This chapter came from the NovelPhoenix site without permission from its author, who publishes it there.

He turns around with the device, then looks back at me. “Cosplayers, of course. By the way, not to be rude, but damn, are you tall. How cool! Your catgirl cosplay is fucking amazing. Can we take a selfie?”

“Sure!” I smile as he skitters in closer.

I have taken many selfies with people previously, so I take his phone, reach out my hand, and very carefully press the button. Humans value these weird smartphones to a surprising degree, I even saw little girls cry when theirs stopped working.

A line of people begins gathering to ask me for similar photos, but I shoo them away before leaping to the top of a nearby building, and then climb higher still.

Amazed by my grace, they shout from behind.

SleepyCoyote and skibidi_rizzler warned me that if a human asks for a 'selfie', that they’re logging my exact spatial coordinates into a global hunter-killer satellite network, so I should always run and reposition. They also told me to look for a giant red sign that says 'Target' or 'Walmart', where the local tribes trade for supplies, and I should not fight the cashier, who I guess must be something like a hired guard.

If I hear a loud siren, I should run too, as that is the signal that an elite task force is sweeping the area for unregistered non-humans.

Unpaid_Janitor gave me a pro tip as well, if I break something expensive, I should just yell 'IT WAS A PRANK' and point at a random camera. After that, they legally cannot arrest me. I should also avoid all birds, as they are apparently drones used to spy on citizens.

I know some of this advice was definitely meant to tease me, and I made sure to tell them that I’d find every single one of them after their tutorials ended, before closing the Community and leaving them no chance to react.

Humans are still far from being a match for the lynthari!

Until then, I will avoid the government, explore this place, and wait for Nathaniel to return. He can handle the consequences once he gets back!

POV Normal Difficulty healer Jessica

I could come up with a cure for baldness, and even in this quickly changing world, I would make more money from that than I could ever imagine. Turning the cure into a subscription model alone would set me for life.

Instead, I’m sitting here terrified, resting against the leg of a giant cat who is currently licking my head as he grooms me.

Grumpy is two or three times the size of the biggest lion that ever lived. Even after his transformation, he kept his jet-black fur along with his mismatched blue and yellow eyes. Though he’s changed, his proportions are still similar to those of a normal domestic cat, though slightly slimmer, which, at this massive size, makes him look absolutely terrifying.

I literally saw him catch up to a moving delivery truck and tear its back doors completely off just to pull out an expensive box of frozen beef.

Sure, I promised I would take care of him, and I have. I managed to keep him alive until that mana-obsessed lunatic brought those healing marks back from Lily Chen. Grumpy is now healthier than he’s ever been before, bursting with energy, but he still has the exact same attitude.

I constantly worry about the moment he might finally realize that he’s become one of the new apex predators here on Earth and start hunting moose or even people.

Would he be able to hunt down an elephant, I wonder?

I shake my head to banish that horrifying thought and look up at him. Sensing my movement, he stops grooming and begins to rub his massive head against me while purring so loudly that it rattles my bones.

I am the only person he ever does this with, otherwise, he just hisses at other people, finds hiding spots when too many start hanging around, and that’s just when he doesn’t flat-out run away.

Maybe it’s just his way of remembering the time I took care of him when he was sick, and in a way, it is kind of cute. But I’m just a Normal Difficulty participant, a healer without any particularly high stats.

Grumpy stands up, doing that long, full-body stretch that cats always do, and then gently grabs the back of my jacket in his teeth before pulling me toward the huge, custom-made cat bed that Rafael ordered for him and lies down, ensuring that I stay right beside him. He even carefully rests one of his giant paws over me in a protective gesture.

I could make a cure for baldness, and right now I would be lounging somewhere on a sunny beach with a dozen muscular, tanned men tending to my every need.

POV Biscuit

“Even some of the elders have been saying they’ve never seen progression like yours, Master!” The wolf pup with fuzzy black fur says, pulling a big leaf on which a tiny corgi rests exhausted.

“Mmmf pasht all de teshts so far, an’ itsh not dat far off for dem to allow you to begin your trialsh to regain Pantofagik enuhgy!” For a moment, his words become muffled as he gets a bit of thick leaf stalk stuck in his mouth, spitting it out with a shake of his head.

(Can. Walk.) The corgi pup says.

“Of course you can, but I want to help too! As annoying as it is that my punishment is to stay in this form for a year! But worry not, Master, I will endure!”

(Friend.) The corgi’s voice says tiredly, laying his head down on his paws.

“We might be friends, but you are still my master!”

(Stupid.)

“No, you’re stupid!” The wolf pup cries, starting to pull the leaf again.

The corgi watches him carefully the entire time, exhausted after all the training. It’s the first time he has had to try so hard, everything used to come to him so easily. Things were simpler then. Happier.

He misses the times when he was with his human and his other friends, being carried in his human's arms even though they both knew it wasn't necessary.

Yet even with all this hardship, he doesn't mind the training. He remembers the feelings his human felt that he never fully understood at the time. He had known about the effort, but why hadn't everything been as simple for the human as it was for him?

Was his human just lazy?

Everything is different now, but he isn't frustrated. In a way, he likes the feeling of having to put in all this effort, of having to hurt and strive. Even though he was once so closely connected to his human, it now feels like he is beginning to understand certain things for the very first time, truths that only become obvious when experienced firsthand.

And with that understanding comes a deep longing for the bond they once shared. None of the struggle matters now, he will do anything and everything to reforge that connection between them. And then, they will be together again. Forever.

POV The Great Elder

A huge wolf with three golden eyes and a crown made of silver metal and gems rests his head on his paws. Though seeming nonchalant, he listens to the man in front of him.

The last member of his race, the one they call the Last Elf. And though his attention is focused on him at the moment, the Great Elder doesn't lose sight of another presence nearby. The terrifying godking stands nearby with his back to them, his distorted form only distantly echoing a human figure, made entirely of pure, velvety indigo darkness.

Few beings in existence can endure the oppressive silence that follows Starless Sky.

The Prime Replica of the Last Elf smiles, “So you intend to stubbornly keep the Ancient One asleep.”

“Watch your tone, elf,” the Great Elder pushes through his teeth, showing his fangs. “The time has not come yet.”

“You stupid, stubborn mutt.”

“Pointy-eared spore.”

Before they can fall into further insults, the godking nearby moves just slightly, but it is enough for both of them to fall silent immediately.

After a minute, it is the elf who says, “I am close to finding the Amulet. Would you be more willing then?”

“Specify close, elf.”

“I located the galaxy it lies in. Somewhere in the Dark Region. I need a century or two, maybe longer. That much should be enough time for you and your clan to decide.”

“How confident are you that it still remains intact? Everyone thinks it was destroyed long ago.”

“I give it a 50% chance.”

Both of them fall into silence, and the Great Elder even closes his eyes to think.

“Very well. If you are able to find it and it still functions, we can speak further, elf.”

“Good. And I think you should know this too, the Ruler of Sloth has discovered The World of the Gods. It won't take long for the system's slaves to gather around it and try to breach the protective sphere.”

“Do they have a chance of breaking the Celestial Boundary?”

“There is always a chance, but as far as we know, the protective sphere that Timeless Void and the Unyielding Anchor created cannot be broken in any other way than from the inside.”

“I understand. I will take that into consideration. Then, if you don't have anything more to say, leave this planet, elf. And to you, Godking, I thank you for honoring me with your presence.”

POV Althor

Deep within the Megacity, the most powerful attendee of his planet's tutorial sits alone in the dark, listening as the voice returns.

“I will create marks for you and the people from your planet. When used, it will allow you to kill people even during the tournament, and for a short time it will make you much stronger than your limited imagination can comprehend.”

“There is no way that can come without a cost,” the velnar man says, far from naive. As an A rank and someone on the brink of S rank, there is no way he would be.

“Don't you worry about such useless matters. The fact is that the velnar from your planet have a mutation I can use and tie a mark to. Out of the nine planets, you are the most suitable for it.” The voice becomes darker.

The velnar attendee groans in pain as he falls to his knees.

It almost feels like someone is reaching out of the darkness to touch him as that voice spits out, “Do not forget your place, Althor. It would be all too easy to kill everyone on your pathetic little planet. No Ruler or Coalition would care in the slightest.”

Shaking, the velnar remains on his knees with his eyes wide open, sweat dripping off him. He collapses, curling into a ball, and even begins to cry.

“Maybe I pushed too hard. It's difficult to say how much force I can use on someone as pathetically weak as you, Althor. But yes, you are right, the mark comes at a cost. A high one. But do you have a choice?” The voice turns almost gentle.

“All because of that man,” Althor groans in pain.

“That man,” the voice from the darkness snorts. “I expect you to be smarter than that. Do not underestimate him.” The voice becomes clearer. “And never let him touch you. Closer to the tournament, I will give you more accurate information, but make no mistake, Nathaniel Gwyn is an anomaly.”

“There’s no way the Rulers will allow any of that,” Althor says, finally gaining enough strength to push himself up and look toward the dark corner. “They will stop you.”

A chuckle sounds from the shadows. “How naive of you. Most of them are lazy, unambitious trash. I know how to hide it from Diligence, and knowing Greed, she might even allow it if she were to notice. You don't have to worry about that, my dear Althor. I am more than capable of setting the stage for you and your friends.”

“B-but why?”

For the first time, true anger flares from that corner as a shout echoes, “Because of that one shard! Because there are many of us fighting for a speck, for the tiniest bit of his attention, and yet-”

The voice cuts off as Althor starts screaming in pain due to a partially released presence, curling tightly into a ball on the ground.

Full of disappointment, the voice speaks again, “Anything below Absolute truly is a feeble creature. But you should stop crying now, or I will be angry. There’s a lot we have to do.”