Marcus was starting to get a better feel for how the system worked, how to read it, how to manipulate it. If all of his stats went up by 1 as a Hybrid, that meant if he put 1 ‘Free Point’ in Endurance, the only stat that would actually go down was ‘Stamina’. He didn’t know just how that would feel… he might want to dedicate more points to that, going forward.

So. First step; 1 point in Endurance, so it didn’t go down, just stayed the same. 2 for Stamina, so he only lost 9, instead of 11; make it less of a precipitous drop. In fact… it’d make it so, considering he got 9 from the four levels before 5, and 1 from a level of Hybrid, he had the same stamina he did naturally, and could go up from there if he thought he needed it.

He apparently didn’t get any choice, at level 5, for his ‘Hand of Death’ class, so he’d have to hope whatever base abilities it came with were useful.

Marcus Jonah Grey

Serpentfolk(Human)

Hand of Death(Hybrid)

5

Strength

12

Endurance

16

Stamina

17

Agility

21

Mind

20

Power

16

Abilities

Intimidating Shout(Insects), Undead Animation 0.5, Undead Control 0.5, Curse 0.5, Venom Magic 1, Stealth 0.5, Assassin’s Strike 0.5

Skills

Minor(Melee Weapons, Persuasion, Automotive Repair, Examine, Mana Manipulation) Moderate(Survival, Sales, Ranged Weapons)

Titles

Insect Slayer III, Ranged Slayer, Vehicle Slayer(Front-Runner)

Boons

1 x Vehicle Upgrade

He blinked. ‘0.5’? That… was interesting. It didn’t sound good. He queried his new Abilities.

Intimidating Shout

Create an aura of fear that impacts anyone you have a ‘Slayer’ title for. Consumes ambient Mana, then that of the user.

Undead Animation

Ability to take a corpse and shape it into an Undead form of at most 1/3rd the user’s level(Current: 2). Extremely mana intensive. Permanent until destroyed. Can also, temporarily animate a corpse far more cheaply; which will collapse as soon as energy is no longer fed into it.

Undead Control

Ability to control Undead, whose total level cannot exceed the user’s whether those created by the Hand of Death, by others, or formed naturally by Mana infesting corpses. Intelligent undead can resist this power. Low mana cost unless resisted.(Max 5 levels)

Curse

Ability to curse a single victim with Weakness for several minutes, reducing their Strength and Agility by 10%(Maximum 5). Low mana cost.

Venom Magic

Expend personal mana to generate venom from the claws or mouth. Can be injected directly into a victim, spat or flung as a ranged attack, dealing minor acid damage and significant venom damage, or coated onto bullets, blades, arrows, or other weapons to augment them. Serpentfolk venom will paralyze unaugmented victims within seconds, leading to inability to move or breathe and resulting in suffocation shortly thereafter. The higher the ‘Endurance’ or ‘Poison Resistance’ of the victim, the more reduced the effect is. Some victims are immune to a given poison; higher levels of this skill can open up access to more intense varieties of poison and/or new means of delivery.

Stealth

For a minor Mana cost, become very difficult to perceive while standing still, or somewhat less difficult to perceive while moving slowly.

Assassin’s Strike

For a minor Mana cost, imbue a weapon or unarmed strike with additional power, causing it to deal +50% damage when delivered. Takes a few seconds to place, discharged with the first attack that connects.

Some of these were useful, albeit others being underwhelming. Most likely, combining two classes had just given him weakened versions of powers from both… and he’d need to upgrade them to par with time.

He looked over the image of himself; he was able to alter it a bit, and there was no longer a burn scar; he looked… like a cousin of his, bald, hairless, with… a tail. And patches of greyish scales; the tail being entirely scaled, alongside his arms, his legs, and shoulders. He sensed that it wasn’t too late to back out; to stay human and become just an Assassin, or Necromancer. But… this felt like the right choice.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Your body is being largely rebuilt from the ground up at this stage. Among the various races of the Committee, this transition is generally considered adulthood, and where children are allowed to choose their adult name. Your transition will be complete when you choose the name that will appear on your status sheet going forward. You are not required to actually use this name, but those who ‘Examine’ you will see it if they have sufficient skill.

Made sense. He didn’t particularly care what his name was, so long as ‘Marcus Grey’ didn’t show up. Swapping faces and names should make sure that nothing he’d done would come back to haunt him; and his victims would have no idea why he was killing them until they saw the revolver pointed at them.

He almost made up an entirely new, random, name… but considering the wording of the revolvers, it might be best to keep ‘Grey’ in his name.

If he were trying to inspire fear in others, he might have followed the route some of the Chosen apparently did, and created a ‘handle’, or ‘Callsign’. ‘Grey Death’ would be amusing. Dorian Grey would be equally amusing, for different reasons.

Hmm. He had a wallet, taken from the belly of that lizard, that should have Nathan’s ID in it. Considering he’d just transformed, he could go by Nathan, easily enough. Nathan Grey. He just realized he had no idea if that wallet was Nathan’s, or the truck driver’s. He… should have checked. Still.

Nathan Grey it was. He’d just go by Grey, but if anyone picked his status, they’d be looking for the wrong man. He might want to start using that Glock when around others.. Build a new identity.

***

When Grey awoke, it didn’t seem as if much time had passed; he was laying on the bed, still wearing his boxers… and just felt a slight chill in the air. He looked down at himself, studying the very faint claws; they weren’t retractable, but they didn’t stick out any further than fingernails; and then rose to his feet… heading into the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror.

He felt… different. The air felt cooler, he felt lighter on his feet, faster… and he could actually see, and feel, the mana in the air around him.

The abilities he’d acquired… they’d become part of him. He could just feel the ability to ‘stealth’.... And when he tried it in front of the mirror, he could see the wall behind him, just a hazy grey outline of a person. If it were dark, or he wasn’t looking for himself, he might not have noticed; undoubtedly, the level 1 ability, or perhaps 2, would make him invisible while standing still.

He could feel the ritual he’d need to perform to animate an undead… and that there wasn’t some sort of divide between skeletons or zombies in process or type; simply that more intact corpses would take more to disable, and ones with missing bits of flesh would weigh less, and move more quickly; but dealing enough brute-force trauma would break apart the magic binding them.

This…. All worked out well. Between his revolver, the Assassin’s Strike, and his venom, he had a nasty combo that would be excellent for taking out or crippling a target with a swift strike. And while he would be perfectly fine with just killing the Golden Boy… he would be far more satisfied if he could make sure Nightfire suffered before she passed.

He checked through his storage space, his old clothes, and started getting dressed; starting, of course, with that simple black concealed vest… and this time, only putting on one of the holsters… and the Uncommon Glock he’d looted off that giant raccoon.

He was still warm-blooded… but the complete lack of body hair made everything feel slightly colder… so he went with a long-sleeved shirt… and, after a moment’s consideration, he added on a hoodie, planning on disposing of it later.

He finally checked the wallet from his storage.. It was… damp. He’d actually unintentionally ruptured a bottle of something on it in the storage space. Ooof. Smelled like….. Apple juice. Lovely.

Sorting through its contents, while it had credit cards and cash, the ID… was not Nathan Davis, or a Nathan at all.

It was the truck driver; a Martin Collinson.

The whole wallet was filled with business cards for different companies, it had pictures of a house, with a woman and a dog…

Hmm. He could pretend to be Martin easily enough… nobody had likely found Martin’s corpse. But he had no idea what Martin’s PIN was for his debit card, or anything of the sort. He could probably guess a few times; most people used some variant of their date of birth or their social, and… he thought for a moment.

He nodded.. And pulled the hoodie over his head… awkwardly tucking the tail down the front of his pants, and making some awkward discoveries about Serpentfolk anatomy… and then slipped out of the hotel in stealth.

It took him some time, walking carefully… the cameras shouldn’t be able to make out much detail, but if he moved too fast, the effect vanished.

Once he was outside… and out of view of the cameras… he tossed the hoodie in a trash-can, slid his tail free of his pants… it was awkward, and pushed the waistline down.

Alright. He had his objectives. In order to accomplish them, he needed more levels. More power. To kill more humans to get a title that would help kill the Chosen. And of course, a good supply of corpses to turn into undead. These things would all work together.

On the one hand, simply wandering around killing people would get the job done. That could, however, attract the attention of a Chosen, or the police, too early, and lead to him getting arrested, imprisoned; all sorts of unfortunate possibilities.

That sort of approach wouldn’t be viable until social order broke down.

…On the other hand, once social order breaks down completely, some small town in trouble wouldn’t be enough to lure in the Chosen. This… was problematic. He needed to murder enough people to get the title without getting noticed, and also level up.

Fortunately, the world he now found himself in presented easy options, and even ones the locals would encourage; back to Ant-killing. Or monster-killing, whatever he found in the wilds; so far, all he’d found were giant versions of normal animals. It would be interesting to see what else he might find.

He leaned against the wall of a nearby gas station, checking his tablet to see if it had wifi; and if these oh-so-helpful Chosen had managed to fit any guides on locating monsters into their apps.

***

The ‘Guild’ app was surprisingly useful for his purpose. It was made to help people looking to level together organize and find nearby monsters that needed slaying; and contained nice, simple places to put in data of monsters you found but couldn’t handle, monsters you killed…

The El Paso region had hundreds of people who were out hunting, as well as looking for allies for the hunt… complete with requested level ranges and skills of the hunters.

Completely unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of people had chosen some sort of spellcasting, damage-dealing class; but they would still take anyone they could find.

It was less than thirty seconds after registering for the app that he got a notification.

~Got a giant Ant nest on a farm outside town, looking for a few to help clear it and kill the queen. Interested?~

He nodded to himself. ~Yup, though I need a ride; currently at the… 7-11 by the Best Western. Lost my car to another ant nest by the interstate; but I did get the Title for killing over a thousand ants, so I can make them run away for a bit if I get backed into a corner.~

~That sounds incredibly useful; none of us have killed more than a few dozen ourselves. We’ll be by to pick you up.~

He examined the app, looking at its function, how it was clearly well-planned and designed. The Chosen were simultaneously trying to get humans to level up as much as possible, and deal with threats before they got out of hand.

~Just look for the grey-scaled lizardman with the long-sleeved Nirvana shirt, a red print.~

~Armor is generally recommended for this stuff; I don't know what this sort will have, but most shoot darts, or acid, or even explode.~

~I'm wearing armor, just under the shirt. The scales count as armor too, just... not amazing armor.~

He considered whether it would be a good idea to take advantage of this situation to kill off whoever came with him, get a bit of extra mana, and some progress on his Human-Slayer title…. But no. They might track that sort of thing. He could only get away with it, at best, once or twice.

He considered for a moment. This wasn’t a normal way to think about possible allies. Was he now a psychopath?

He had no idea what he would do once the job was done. Perhaps he’d take advantage of apps like this and just keep getting stronger. But that didn’t matter. Right now, he had a purpose. A drive. Perhaps it was because everything else, anything that might have normally stood in the way of that goal, had died off? Was he brain-damaged? He certainly didn’t think this way before.

Well. Whatever it was, it would keep. If need be, he could get himself fixed once the job was done. Being a psychopath was likely a benefit for what he needed to accomplish.