Commander Alden Trellot was furious.

His eyes were wide, and he felt a vein in his forehead throbbing wildly. He hated that vein. It always served to show his anger to anyone whom he was interacting with, not matter how expertly he tried to hide it. It was fine if his anger was obvious when dealing with those inferior to him—which, on this backwater planet, was everyone—but when he was speaking to his superiors back home?

It often served to get him into trouble.

Today, his anger was more than justified. Someone had rung the damned base alarm! The entire camp had been alerted, and as per protocol, they’d gathered in front of the building where it had originated—the food stores.

What’s the bet some idiot set it off by accident. Probably by stealing food or something equally stupid.

Nothing could have truly compromised his base’s security. And surely nothing constituted setting off the base alarm. They were the strongest invading entity in the area—perhaps in the entire world.

Well, at least, he’d thought that was the case until that damned Earth-Wide System announcement had said something about someone starting a base.

An official base.

Clearly someone got lucky. They probably established it in the middle of nowhere where there were no dungeons, or maybe the dungeons were weaker than they usually would be in a land-claim quest.

Standing in front of the building with the food stores, Commander Alden Trellot placed his hands on his hips. “If I have to come in there to find out which idiot set off the alarm—”

A man stepped out of the building. A man wearing dark robes and carrying a vicious looking scythe-staff. He had his hood up, his features draped in shadow, and there was something about the way he walked. Too casual.

This man wasn’t one of his. Trellot had over a thousand troops on-planet, but he was certain he knew every single one of them.

The appearance of this man had left Trellot’s mouth hanging open. He closed it, then cleared his throat. That stupid vein was still throbbing, but now a headache pierced his mind as well. A worry headache.

When he’d arrived, he’d noticed that while the majority of his troops had arrayed themselves outside the building, their lines had looked a little thin. Though he’d doubted anything could be truly wrong, he’d planned to note who hadn’t arrived and find some punishment for them later.

Now, he wondered if the ones who hadn’t arrived were dead.

“Who are you?” Commander Alden Trellot demanded in a booming voice. “Surrender now!”

The man threw back his hood. There wasn’t so much as a hint of fear on his face.

“Surrender?” the man said, saying the word almost as though he didn’t understand it. He released a sigh and shook his head. “No.”

Commander Alden Trellot’s fury reached its peak. He could no longer contain it to the single throbbing vein in his forehead. Now, his face was likely burning red. His fists were clenched. Teeth, too. He spoke, spitting his words. “Don’t you know who I am? I am Commander Alden Trellot of the Bellaran Confederation! A born Commander bred to serve in the War Council’s invading armies! Bred to lead them! My father took hold of an entire planet during his command. I shall not achieve anything less!”

“Bellaran,” the dark-robed man muttered. “Sounds like the name of a drug company.”

Commander Alden Trellot didn’t know what a drug company was, but he could identify when he was being insulted. He pointed a finger at the insolent enemy. “Capture him!” He wished to order the man dead, but his execution could come later.

First, Trellot needed to discover how this man had gotten into his camp.

He tried to scan the man, but some enchanted item was blocking him from doing so.

Must have acquired a special item through a quest. There isn’t even a System-Shop here. Not that he could afford anything from one…

A purple mist shot from the man. A mist Trellot recognised—it was a mental compulsion spell. Willpower Infusion, if he wasn’t mistaken, and he rarely was.

He wasn’t worried, however. There was no way, what with his equipment that enhanced his Willpower attribute, and his level being high for this world, that he could fall prey to this man’s no doubt weak attack.

The mist didn’t even come for him. It flowed past him, to his soldiers. He’d just commanded them to attack, yet they weren’t even moving. He turned around and—

Every single one of his troops stood, staring directly at him.

Over nine hundred troops were under the dark-robed man’s control.

“Tha-tha-that’s impossible!”

In that moment, fear like he’d never before felt struck Trellot. He accessed his Communication Stone. He needed to report this. This shouldn’t be possible.

I was supposed to rule this world! And now… and now…

-His Communication Stone wasn’t working. It was as short-range stone, able to work across worlds only because there was a portal open on the base.

The dark-robed man couldn’t have closed the portal, could he?

With all those faces staring at him, Commander Alden Trellot felt frozen. He wanted to bark orders at his troops, but that would be futile.

“Surrender now,” the words came from hundreds of mouths, spoken in unison.

A shiver ran up Commander Alden Trellot’s spine.

My life was not supposed to end up this way!

The dark-robed man raised his scythe-staff. Pure bolts of white lightning lit up the mountaintop. Ghostly apparitions of several different types of beasts appeared. They made no sound. They appeared to have no material bodies. Yet when they swept through his soldiers, every one of them died in an instant, falling to the ground. Not a single one of them had a wound.

They were simply… gone.

Trellot sunk to his knees. A part of him was screaming that he needed to fight this. That he could beat this dark-robed man. That none of this could be real—it had to be some sort of trick.

“My father will hear about this,” he whispered. “He will come. He will avenge my death.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

The dark-robed man stood directly above him. The man looked at ease. Out of place in this world. Too powerful for his surroundings to bother him in the slightest.

A monster.

I should never have come here.

~

Xavier breathed in deeply as he harvested the souls of every invader he’d just killed, replenishing his stores and using the rest with Soul Harden.

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The commander kneeling before him was older than he’d expected, considering how young people gained the System if they were from already integrated worlds. He looked as though he were at least in his early thirties, which meant for roughly fifteen years he’d gained barely any levels.

The man must have done that on purpose.

Glancing around at the other invaders, he realised this man mustn’t have been the only one to do such a thing.

Xavier wasn’t sure how to question him—Commander Alden Trellot, as he’d called himself. He tilted his head to the side, staring down at the quivering wretch. Trellot’s face was white with fear. Sweat dotted his brow. His head was down, not giving Xavier any eye contact.

Xavier had always looked down on torture whenever it was used in books, movies, or on television shows. It was a quick-and-dirty way to get information and punish a bad guy at the same time, but all it ever did for him was show that the “good guy” had morals that could be twisted at a moment’s notice.

Studies also showed that torture was, in fact, not the best way to get information.

Xavier took a few steps backward. He summoned one of his chairs and sat down. He needed to think his next actions through. This man had come to Earth in order to rule it, and would no doubt enslave or kill the populace to achieve that goal. Xavier didn’t care about the man, or his troops. He found a small part of him wanting to do the man damage. Wanting to make him hurt, to be more than just afraid.

I can’t let that part of me grow. I’ll turn into a very cruel person if I do. If I’m out here, living for hundreds or thousands of years, or even hundreds of thousands, justifying abhorrent actions along the way, I’ll turn into something I never wanted to be, and cause more pain than good.

He recalled an article he’d read about torture. Some 400 years ago, the Duke of Brunswick had two Jesuit scholars visiting to oversee his Inquisition’s use of torture for the purpose of extracting information about witches.

The scholars reported the Inquisitors were doing their duty, only arresting those accused of being witches by the confession “other witches.”

The duke grew suspicious of these results, figuring people would say anything to get the torture to end. He made the two Jesuit scholars join him in the dungeon where a woman was being tortured, stretched on a rack.

The woman—through torture—was a confessed witch. The duke gestured to the two scholars, told the woman he suspected them of being warlocks, then threatened to have the rack turned again. The woman instantly confessed that they were warlocks and told fanciful tales of them being at the sabbat, turning into goats, wolves, and other animals.

The duke then turned to the scholars and asked if he should have them on the rack until they, too, confessed.

One of those scholars then went on to write a book about how torture didn’t work—in 1631—yet the idea still prevailed that it was the best way of extracting information.

Xavier looked again at the quivering wretch of a man. If he tortured Trellot for information about the sector, about his home world, about whether his father truly would come to avenge him, he might get some useful information.

He might also get a pack of lies. Anything to make the pain stop.

Willpower Infusion, unfortunately, wasn’t something he could use to extract information. At least, if it was, he wasn’t sure how to do it. Yes, he could control this man’s actions. Even see through this man’s eyes and feel the man’s emotions if he were to split his own mind and shove half of his consciousness into the man’s head.

But he couldn’t access the man’s memories. He could compel him to speak, and the man would open his mouth and make words, but they would either be nonsense, or words of Xavier’s choosing.

Would I be able to know if he’s lying or not?

“Are… are you going to let me go?” Commander Alden Trellot said. He was still staring intently at the ground where he knelt, as though there was something interesting hidden in the dirt.

“I can’t do that.” No point lying to him about it.

Trellot shook his head. Scrunched his eyes shut. “You’re too strong. How are you this strong?”

“I’ll be the one asking the questions.”

“I w-won’t betray my w-world!”

“I wonder… do you actually believe that?”

The man swallowed but didn’t reply.

Xavier put a hand to his chin. Feeling this man’s emotions with Willpower Infusion, asking him questions while using Split Mind… it felt like he’d be guessing lies from truths based on emotions alone.

I wouldn’t know where to begin.

Then Adranial’s words came back to him, words he’d boiled down to killing and contracts. Those were his two options to use upon enemies, at least according to her. Contracts could be forced, or at least one could threaten someone into signing one.

That sounds an awful lot like torture…

But a System-contract would force this man to tell him the truth, wouldn’t it? The only thing was… how would Xavier get this man to sign a contract with him? Betray his world?

Xavier blinked as something occurred to him, then he smiled. “Do you think I’m a threat to your world?”

“What?” Trellot sounded confused. For the first time since he’d fallen to his knees, he raised his head and looked at Xavier. Defiance brightened his eyes. A vein in his forehead throbbed. “You are nothing compared to the Council. The Bellaran Forces would crush you like a grape. You are stronger than you should be, but that does not make you strong!”

“A grape?” Xavier released as swift puff of air from his nose. “Well, then, you wouldn’t be betraying my world by giving me information on yours, would you?” He touched his Storage Ring, then summoned another chair for the man to sit on. “Kneeling like that must be hell on your knees.” He patted the chair, feigning friendliness.

“Come, sit with me. Let’s have a chat about our respective futures.”

Xavier summoned a table. From the supplies he’d taken from the last leader of an invasion force, he placed an assortment of different fruits and things that looked almost cake-like on its top.

Commander Alden Trellot glared at Xavier, that defiance still burning in his eyes. “If this is your idea of a bribe, it’s not a very good one.”

“I’m not trying to bribe you, Alden.” Xavier paused. “May I call you Alden?”

“You can call me whatever you damn well please.” Though Alden had looked disdainfully at the chair and the food upon the table, he still rose from the ground—swiftly, and with some amount of grace; he was superhuman, after all—and took a seat at the chair.

He even plucked one of the small cakes off the table and gobbled it in one go.

“You strike me as someone who doesn’t want to die,” Xavier said.

Commander Alden Trellot almost choked on the cake he’d just eaten. “Of course I don’t want to die. Who wants to die? I’ve barely gotten a start! I’m only thirty-five years old!”

Xavier raised his chin. “What if I were to offer you a deal?”

This got the man’s attention. The vein in his head still bulged, but his face smoothed out, as though trying to mask his feeling. “A contract?” He stared at Xavier. “What world are you from?”

Xavier suppressed a smirk as he leant back in his chair.

Interesting. Does he not think I’m from Earth?

Xavier weighed the risks of his next words. They were within the radius of the Subspace Communications Area Blackout Array, which meant this man wouldn’t be able to communicate with his home world—or anyone else, for that matter.

There will still be a portal active. I should deal with that soon. That will complete the quest—I might even gain another level…

“I’m from Earth,” Xavier said. “I have just returned from the Tower of Champions.”

Commander Alden Trellot of the Bellaran Confederation lost all control over the emotions visible on his face once more. “That’s impossible. This world has been barely integrated for—”

“Two weeks.”

There was a long pause. Trellot swallowed again. “I don’t want to die.”

“You don’t have to die.” Xavier leant forward in his chair. “Not if you’re willing to work for me, under certain conditions.”

“A slave contract.”

Xavier creased his forehead. “I don’t like the word slave.”

The man scoffed. “You are from Earth, aren’t you? I can feel your mistaken ideals.”

Xavier held back his reaction. He didn’t want to take slaves. It was another thing he abhorred. But what was he supposed to do? If he wanted to let this man live to gain information from him, he couldn’t just… let him live freely.

Could he?

All these damned moral questions plagued him far too much in this new reality. He wanted clarity of thought—clarity of action—so he could just get this over with. The heroes in the books he read never struggled like this, they just fought the bad guy.

If only it were that simple. Maybe it can be.

“You won’t survive, you know,” Trellot said. He sat straighter in his chair. The vein in his forehead no longer bulged. He still looked a bit pale, but otherwise he seemed in control of himself. “You’re powerful. I can see that. But in five years the System’s walls will come down, and with them, the restrictions stopping the strong from gaining access to your world. You will either die, or become contracted to another entity.” He lowered his head. “I don’t want to die. But I can’t sign a contract with you. Even if I wanted to, it isn’t an option. I already have another one.”

“Ah,” Xavier said. Why hadn’t he considered that before? “That makes sense. Does that mean you’re of no use to me? When you said you won’t betray your world, that was because you couldn’t, wasn’t it?” He could have summoned Charon’s Scythe to his hand, but there was more than enough threat evident in his voice that it didn’t seem necessary.

Commander Alden Trellot blinked. “You could trade me. The Bellaran Council won’t pay for me, but my father… he would.”

There was a hint of doubt in the man’s words. Perhaps he only wanted to believe his father would do such a thing.

“Unfortunately for you, I don’t think that would be wise.” Xavier waved a hand. The man’s neck snapped. Commander Alden Trellot of the Bellaran Federation died instantly.

Xavier shut his eyes and sighed.

That’s not how I wanted this to go at all.

[Adranial,] Xavier said through one of his Communication Stones, once he had deactivated the Subspace Communications Area Blackout Array. [Yes, Xavier Collins?]

He envisioned the next few hours, days, weeks, months… years. He wanted to do something more… definitive then simply clearing the mass of invaders off his world.

Something more challenging, too. For these invaders weren’t close to strong enough to pose a threat toward him.

[How do I show those invading Earth that it’s not worth their time?]

[Oh, Xavier,] Adranial’s voice crooned in his mind. [I thought you’d never ask.]