Alan felt like he had solved the problem at hand very easily, but his newfound confidence fell when he saw that Dominic did not change.
"You said it yourself, they have people who can track better than you can. If they want to find out what happened here, who will they track first?" Dominic pointed out the flaw in Alan's idea with a simple sigh.
Alan looked as if thunder had struck him on the head. He froze for a few seconds before awkwardly laughing in despair, realizing that he really might not be able to escape death.
"I… You can't do this… It's wrong… I really won't tell!" Alan mustered his final desperate plea.
However, the forced stoic expression on Dominic's face dashed the last of his hopes on the wall. Immediately, Alan felt a surge of fury enter him as he glared at Dominic with bloodshot eyes.
"Why?! Why do I have to die just to keep your secret! I tried to help you! I tried to help you!!" he roared out his indignation.
Dominic closed his eyes sadly and squeezed them. This was the exact conundrum he was stuck in and why he hadn't resolved this problem yet. The struggle was extremely intense for him, who had been a normal, morally sensible youth just three days ago, to kill not only an innocent but an innocent who aided him.
"No, I don't want to die! Let me go!" Alan roared as he scrambled to his feet and tried to run away.
Unfortunately, he was easily captured by one of the freer death clones and brought back before Dominic. The Death Clone raised its head and made eye contact with Dominic, almost as if it was telling him to get this over with.
After all, they were emotionless beings that considered things from a purely logical perspective and did not share the same dilemma as he did.
Dominic envied them.
He glanced at the struggling Alan and sighed deeply. That sigh seemed to decide everything as Dominic lifted up the shotgun and aimed it at Alan's head.
"No! No!! You motherfucker, I helped you! I hate you! I hate you-"
BANG!
The roars came to an end as Alan's head was turned into a broken mess, his body slowly slumping as all life functions ceased one by one. The Death Clone that held the body slowly let it drop and glanced at Dominic.
The young man's face was thoroughly numb and devoid of life. Looking at that body that was leaking blood and body juices from the stump of his neck, there was not a single coherent thought in Dominic's mind at the moment.
Rather, he simply turned around after a minute or two and glanced at the destroyed car that definitely could not move anymore. He sat on the ground as one of the death clones rushed back to the police station and fetched another pickup.
The death clones energetically carted the goods from one car to another, and Dominic entered the backseat silently as he was driven home by one of the death clones.
Eventually, they reached his driveway, in which the car pulled up. Dominic got down and entered the house after glancing at the load that was being taken down and brought in by the death clones who were hard at work.
Dominic went upstairs to the bathroom to first wash his face and then entered his bedroom. He placed the shotgun down beside his computer and then lay on the bed, feeling his rapidly moving thoughts slow down as he began to fall into the embrace of sleep.
Meanwhile, his death clones still worked hard to bring everything and make sure the home security was up to par. The three of them then checked on the sleeping Dominic before sharing looks.
Death Clone 3 seemed to be the loser as it went downstairs and began preparing a meal while death clones 1 and 2, the original dynamic duo, armed themselves with shotguns and pistols before rushing out to hunt.
When Dominic woke up, he blinked his groggy eyes and sat up. He had not dreamed of anything, just a typical black void of sleep. Now that he was up, he felt much better, as if the events that happened a few hours ago happened years ago.
He cricked his neck and stood up, walking to the bathroom to take a shower since he noticed that it was slightly bright out, meaning that it should now be dawn of the 3rd day since the apocalypse began.
After taking a long and silent shower, Dominic returned to his room to see that Death Clone 3 had come upstairs with a full serving of basic dishes. Steamed rice, tomato stew, boiled sausages, and peas adorned the tray, and Dominic nodded in thanks to the death clone.
He ate in silence as he glanced at the notifications from the Omega System overnight about the hard work of clone 1 and clone 2.
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29 F- kills, 20 F kills, 17 F+ kills, 23 E- kills, 30 E kills, 29 E+ kills, 12 D- kills, and 4 D rank kills!
What an illustrious lineup!
Truly, having good weapons made all the difference. What assault rifles and pistols could not do, you could be damn well sure a pump action was willing to do. It was one of the best 'basic' guns for penetrating armor and breaking defenses so even the tougher D rank monsters could not survive.
The total amount of soul points gained overnight was a whopping 32,600!
[Participant Name: Dominic Addison
World: Gaia
Talent: Death Clones (A Grade - 2 Clones)
Potency: 4.8
Vitality: 3.6
Acuity: 4.5
Available Points: 17
Soul Points: 2,200/2,800.]
He had already possessed 2 points in waiting after killing his way to the police station and had filled up his bar when he killed the guard dog. He did not gain any points from killing fellow humans, as that did not seem to be a feature of the Omega System.
Through the night activity, another 15 points came on top, which were a godsend. With them, Dominic could truly take himself beyond the limits of mortality and be ready for the revenge of the high school students who had gone mad with power.
Looking at his current layout, Dominic pondered and did what he thought was wise. He first allocated one point to Potency, one point to Acuity, and two points to Vitality. He wanted to break through what he thought was the superhuman threshold in all his stats simultaneously sothat none were lacking.
Immediately, he felt a searing heat in his body that came from his brain, his abdomen, and his limbs. However, Dominic's face soon changed to horror as he fell limp on the ground while twitching, frothing from the mouth as the intensity of the sensation soared past levels he could bear.
Spontaneously, his body exploded into blood mist, his bones and innards splattering all over the room in a gory manner.
10 seconds later, Dominic came back to life with a pale face, looking at the now messy room which was marked by all his body parts in truly mind-numbing ways. If he hadn't already gotten used to gore somewhat, he would have burst out vomiting.
Before that, though, his mind was taken by how much better he felt. No, he did not feel better; he felt entirely different compared to before as if the him 10 seconds ago and the him now were two different beings altogether.
Dominic was confused by the responses and sensations from his body but was soon given an answer by the Omega System.
[Aura Warrior: A special breed of being that can manifest the surging power in their bodies into a semi-corporeal matter that can be used offensively, defensively, or even miscellaneously to achieve various tasks. Aura Color is based on innate elemental affinity.]
[Bastion: A special breed of being that can converge the titanic vitality and toughness in their bodies into a special ward that blocks external influences stably while also enhancing regeneration.]
[Soul Master: A special breed of being that can manipulate the ebbs and flows of the world around them using their will and thought, yielding unknown abilities that can only be explored in depth by the user themselves.]
Dominic's mind buzzed as he took in this short information and seemed to understand. Across the universe, each species must also have its 'base form' and 'super form', with a certain amount of points from their base (1 point in all fields) as a threshold.
Some species might be gigantic, so their Potency was innately high and allowed them to unlock Aura earlier, while some races had fiendish vitality and could unlock their Bastion state earlier.
Humans had average potency, poor vitality but exemplary acuity… it sort of lined up. After all, if one were to look at humanity's 'tech tree' of evolution, more points had been invested in intelligence and the soul overall compared to the body or lifespan.
Dominic pushed himself up from the floor and summoned 4 death clones. One thing Dominic immediately noticed was that his death clones were more corporeal than before and seemed much more solid as well as defined.
Then he remembered that his talent not only halved his stats for them but they gained all his current abilities as well. This meant that even though the death clones had less than 3 points in all fields, they could use Aura, Bastion, and Soul now.
Dominic was now beginning to see the full extent of an A rank talent and just how game-changing it was. He was extremely thankful he drew this ability and could not help but wonder what others who had similar A rank or even S rank abilities were like if his was already so good.
He also glanced at the ruined room and had his death clones begin to clean up. Since he had resurrected, he was currently spotless, but he couldn't help but be silent.
Dominic realized his foolishness. Because he saw 'system' and 'stats’, he couldn't help but think of things with video games in mind. A balanced build was definitely the best way to go unless classes were involved, but there was no such thing with this system.
However, every single point upgrade was taking his body and mind to higher heights. To upgrade multiple at once was suicide, especially when undergoing a 'breakthrough' like this.
Dominic couldn't help but guess that most people in the world, no in the universe, min-maxed according to their race's special trait as well as their talents. Since humans were exemplary in Acuity, it was likely that all those who reached here would focus on that path.
Strengths and weaknesses.
Only a fool would spread their points out evenly when this was a race to the death. If Dominic had 5 points in all 3 fields but another person had 15 potency, 1 vitality, and 1 acuity, he could punch Dominic's head open and completely ignore his vitality and acuity due to power suppression.
There were definitely others who probably allocated like Dominic had, thinking it was the right way to go. Unless they had resurrection talents like Dominic, then it was very likely that despite their excellence in coming this far, they had left this world.
Thinking like that, Dominic couldn't help but glance at his computer and walk over to check on the government forum to see if anyone else had reached this point and realized this problem.