“You know, by some definition, Will is already an alien,” Caiyeri said.

“That’s just not true,” Will said. “Your planet hit mine. Doesn’t that mean that mine counts as the ‘base’ planet here? That means you’re the alien, no?”

“Well, I never moved from my own planet.”

“That’s besides the point,” Ayla said. Her voice was patient and polite, but irritation radiated through her aura. “Do you know anything about the third planet? The one currently bound for future impact?”

“Not really, no,” Will said. “Most of our preparation has just been for what we think will come. I doubt first contact is going to be peaceful, so it doesn’t really change much what their civilization is, especially since we all have universal translators.”

“An understandable sentiment that I would expect any given mortal to have,” Ayla said.

“You say that like you’re not mortal yourself.”

“That’s besides the point. Until recently, I was still under restrictions created by a soul contract that prevented me from speaking about it.”

“Soul contracts?” Will asked. “I’m assuming that has something to do with the organization you’ve mentioned before.”

“Correct,” Ayla said. “They have a number of preventative measures from preventing their labor from escaping and compromising organizational policy. Because of my unique circumstances, some of those don’t apply to me as much as they did before.”

“I assume it’s rare one of your kind manages to escape,” Caiyeri said. “Not so much a god in the machine as I thought you were.”

Back during the tutorial, Caiyeri and Ayla had shared a healthy dislike for each other—Caiyeri because she’d regarded Ayla, Will’s tutorial helper at the time, as an extension of the system itself and therefore a malevolent entity and Ayla because Caiyeri was exactly the kind of system native from a relatively undeveloped planet that would think that.

“My kind, as you say, were largely put to death for my transgressions against the system,” Ayla said lightly. “Your kind, on the other hand, has never even managed to make it off your home planet.”

Maybe some part of that was still there.

“That’s fair,” Caiyeri said. “I’m working on that part.”

Ayla nodded, her form rippling. “So you are. You’re certainly with the right people to do so, and your growth is nothing short of exemplary given the failure you came from. You’ll be gold soon.”

“I feel it,” Caiyeri said. “One more good fight, maybe.”

Or maybe not.

“Hey,” Will said. “I know it’s partly my fault we got off track, but can you keep explaining what you were talking about?”

“Of course. None of us have unlimited time here.” Ayla’s aura pulsed inwards, then spread out as if she’d just taken a deep breath. “The other planet is from the Inanis star system, originally located roughly two hundred thousand light-years from you.”

“How the hell did they get into our solar system so fast?” Will asked.

“You’re asking this while you and I stand in a positive energy plane where time works in ways that not even sovereign tiers understand and the laws of space are more of a suggestion,” Ayla said flatly.

“You’re forgetting someone,” Caiyeri said drily.

“Of course. You, me, and an elf that by all means shouldn’t be able to be here without her god ripping her soul out. Oh, and an artificially created gestalt that doesn’t seem to want to speak in my presence, but that’s a whole other story. Are you in a place to be asking about a simple two hundred thousand lightyear jaunt?”

Will sighed. “Jessie’s just shy around you. But yeah, I guess not. Continue.”

“Their society is a bit of a special case. They were integrated shortly after you were. I was a tutorial helper for some of them, even.”

“That soon after?” Will asked, surprised. “It hasn’t even been half a year since we began, and you’ve been active with us for a while now.”

“Their integration actually began during your own tutorial,” Ayla said. “I was a helper for several weeks. Inanis, however, has the unique attribute of being a star with a strange kind of microgravity and a truly abnormal lack of movement. Relative to your world, Inanis-5’s time passed faster.”

“Oh, like Interstellar,” Will said.

”Like—are you talking about a movie?” Caiyeri asked. “Do you not know basic astrophysics?”

“You do?”

“This is basic shit!” the elf exclaimed. “I learned this when I was three!”

“Yes, like Interstellar,” Ayla said. “I didn’t particularly care for that movie. Earth’s humans have interesting ideas of space exploration and extraterrestrial life. They’re all a touch… self-centered.”

“You know us,” Will said happily. “Anyway, as you were saying. Time dilation?”

Caiyeri breathed a sigh of relief. “At least you know something. I don’t know why I expected more.”

“Time dilation,” Ayla confirmed. “A significant amount, actually, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that they had otherworlders returning from the first day. Despite how abnormal their situation started as, their tutorial actually ended up being more typical than yours. It lasted two years by their time, and there were a good number of Users who came out of it silver-rank, with the odd gold-ranker too.”

“Wait, that’s a regular tutorial?” Will asked. “Oh, that’s bullshit. You’re telling me we got scammed?”

“I’ve been telling you that your cycle is extremely abnormal for some time. Their society integrated into the system in a much more usual manner than your planets did. If I had to guess, they’ll maintain course to become a fully integrated system civilization. Whether your planet—more accurately, you—will interfere with that is yet up to question.”

“A regular, integrated civilization,” Will said, pieces falling into place. “So not the kind of people that’ll be happy with me.”

“That is correct. I received some statistics from the tutorial shortly before I was given the opportunity to escape by the Dread Executor Ramiel. On Inanis-5, out of a total of three billion eligible Users, sixty-four were corruption wielders, compared to Earth’s seven. All sixty-four were dead by the end of the tutorial, mostly because of action from other native Users. On Earth, there were three survivors.”

“Wait, there’s others?” Will asked. “Me, obviously, and then two more?”

“I don’t know what happened to them,” Ayla said. “I assume they’re dead or in hiding, because I would have noticed if they had any plausibility.”

“You’re saying that they’re going to come after Will’s life,” Caiyeri said. “Timeframe? Details?”

“Likely before the Contractor carries out Peace’s ritual,” Ayla said. “Your friends in the superdungeon can likely tell you more, since that’s where it’s most likely for early rifts between the two. I can’t see there. Even dreamers have limits.”

“Lovely,” Will said. “Any thoughts on whether or not they’re going to have anyone above ten thousand kills I can take a swing at?”

“It’s possible that they have Reaper equivalents, albeit ones that play nicer with what the organization expects out of the system,” Ayla said. “I wouldn’t count on it, though.”

“So the plan remains the same for the time being, then,” Will said. “I need to find one more 10k-er and rank up to gold, hopefully bringing Caiyeri up at the same time. This just gives me one more pile of shit on the shit plate.”

“That roughly sums it up, yes,” Ayla replied. “One more thing to watch out for. I would also advise coalescing your powerbase sooner or later. It’s good to be able to be as mobile as you are, but with your friends as isolated as they are, you’re practically asking for someone to get to one of them in an effort to reach you. Ask me how I know.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I can guess,” Will said grimly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Take over the next place we hit,” Ayla suggested. “It shouldn’t be too hard to clear everything out and take it for yourself.”

Jessie finally contributed for the first time in its raspy, ethereal voice. “Yes.”

“It speaks,” Ayla said, sounding completely unsurprised.

“It does,” Will said. “Also, can you two not suggest wanton mass murder as the solution to everything? It works for, like, fifty percent of situations at best.”

“Sixty,” Caiyeri countered.

“Fifty-five?”

“More,” Jessie added.

Will sighed. “You two are impossible. Ayla, thanks for the advice. We’re going to go out and look for some more evil to eradicate or whatever now. Hopefully I don’t get too much of the wrong blood on my hands.”

“That’s as much as many of us can ask for,” the changeling said. “Don’t lose track of who you are.”

“I’ll do my best,” Will said. “See you when I see you.”

They dipped out of the Beyond. After a good deal of commiseration with their allies, they’d determined that a good chunk of the other leaderboarders were more sane or had killcounts that weren’t quite high enough to meet Will’s requirements.

There was one option that was still open to them. They were going to visit an old not-quite-enemy of Will’s.

“Next stop,” Will announced to his miniature death squad. “Actually, next stop is probably the superdungeon to find anyone else who wants to go. The stop after that one is what used to be Shanghai, China.”

#

Iridium had been waiting for this moment for years. He’d been steadily rising through the ranks since the tutorial, and he had finally earned his gold rank just about six months ago alongside his brothers. They were elites amongst the elites. Even when considering the returner golds, Iridium and his trio easily outclassed all but the platinum ranks.

It was finally time to spread the Unification Front’s will to another planet.

There had been forward squads deployed already. Some had been peaceful. Others had been less so, especially after those who had been guarding dungeon anomaly on the other planet—“Sol-3,” according to the system—had wholly annihilated and subsumed a handful of the advance parties.

The Unification Front had benevolently decided against wholesale erasure of the human species for their transgressions. It understood that more primitive civilizations still operated in clans without purpose or a shared goal, just like their world had in the dark before times.

Thus, Iridium’s trio was not meant for eradication of a race. Nor was it even for revenge.

No, their goal was much more specific. There was a corruption wielder on Earth, and it was one that possessed the power of a demon.

Anathema.

That was a power that the Unification Front knew could not exist. Iridium’s mission, as he’d accepted it, was to find it, speeding past all of the god-aligned clans in the dungeon anomaly. His destination was the other planet, and his target was already as good as dead.

You have defeated the former [Speaker of the Soul].

Your class is evolving.

Evolution parameters met.

[Fear Mage] has been consumed.

Level up!

A burst of energy swelled into him, the body at his feet slowly melting into the ritual circle that he had killed it in.

“Rise, Iridium of the Ninety-Sixth Sector,” a sourceless voice intoned, power rippling through the sound. “Rise, and take your brethren to cleanse this new world.”

Iridium smiled.

Name: Iridium

Level: Gold 10

Race: Hive

Class: Speaker of the Soul

“As you will it, Mother,” he said.

#

Will hadn’t actually been to China in a long time. His mom was Chinese, but they’d rarely gone to the mainland before the apocalypse, and now… well, all Will could do was hope that she was somewhere safe and not dying in forced labor like Ayla had been.

He had indistinct memories of a rapidly urbanizing country choked with smoke and people. Part of that impression was still true, but like most of the rest of the world, it was now largely unrecognizable.

Shanghai had been the most populous city in the world before the apocalypse. While Will wasn’t sure if that was still true, it certainly seemed like it. At the start of the apocalypse, millions of tutorials had been initiated here, and it had resulted in a mess of territorial conflicts as new factions had formed faster than one could count them.

That chaos had proven to be perfect for a strong outsider to step in. Shortly after the end of the trial of the champion, Lu Jie’s Sichuan faction had started moving in, propelled largely by the gold-rank otherworlder who had strong-armed his way into the faction. With Lu Jie’s power allowing for such insane mobility, eliminating logistic problems altogether, they had taken Shanghai with relatively little bloodshed, positioning themselves as the dominant power in southern China.

Fan Laozi, currently a Gold 5 Titan Driver, was now sixth on the leaderboard after Will’s actions had caused it to adjust a bit. Information on him was sparse, since the Chinese factions’ dealings were largely isolated from the factions that Will had better relationships with, but his influence was clear from the outset.

Will had had to run this through his impromptu strike team as well as at least three major nations and Lu Jie before he’d started his flight.

Even from hundreds of miles away, Will could sense the enormous mechanical titans that locked onto the plane that he, Nathan, Hua, Yui, and Caiyeri were using. Jessie had stayed to guard their temporary situation in the superdungeon, though thanks to Will’s Sanctuary skill, the gestalt could theoretically be brought in at any time once he established himself here.

Every major faction that was still in play right now had some kind of X factor to make them capable of holding territory in an age where every idiot possessed potentially explosive skills. Lu Jie’s had been his portals, which he’d used to act as a Big Brother-like figure just like Will could. Now, their faction relied heavily on Fan Laozi’s titans, which were somewhere between summon and engineered construct so far as Will could tell. There were five of them—three here in Shanghai, two in Chengdu where Lu Jie’s faction originated.

Each was a high gold-rank force multiplier in its own right. They were semi-autonomous, confirmed by the ESNA when they’d tried flying in surveillance at each hour of the day and confirmed that even though Fan Laozi was sleeping, his titans were still active and easily capable of shooting down the ESNA’s unmanned drones.

They were also responsible for the deaths of at least a hundred thousand people, which made Fan Laozi a valid target for Will.

Lu Jie had come into conflict with Will during the trial of the champion, promising his death for the grievous sin of killing someone who had sworn to torture Will and all his friends to death. Afterwards, at the global human summit, he’d calmed down on the topic.

The reason for that, Will suspected, was twofold. The first was the one that Lu Jie himself had stated. Xie-ren Jie, his sister, was a Peace sigil-holder and had been amongst the Peace-aligned Users to vanish alongside dozens of abductees from the summit.

Even as they approached now, Will could sense traces of Peace’s magic lingering in the air. Information from Australia and correspondence from Lu Jie had confirmed that beyond the encampments in the superdungeons, Peace sigil-holders were using hit-and-run tactics against existing settlements wiht increasing frequency, largely focused on causing structural damage and abducting further targets over simply killing. Lu Jie had decided that his enemy’s enemy could be his temporary ally, and he’d realized that he had bigger problems than one of his idiot family members dying in a messy attempt to save face.

The second reason was Fan Laozi. The otherworlder was reportedly deranged in a very human way. While many others had gone insane thanks to the reception of their powers and whatever horrors they’d undergone in their other worlds, this one had the good ol’ problem of purity.

In a way, he was similar to the Iron Boys that Will had dealt with way back in the beginning. Fan Laozi appeared to respect two things: people who looked, spoke, and acted like he did, and absurd amounts of power. Will partially fell into the first category, but the otherworlder had really only indirectly showed him deference because he’d witnessed Will kill hundreds of Users in the span of two minutes.

Unfortunately, the category of people that were neither was large enough that it was becoming a sticking point for Lu Jie, who was at worst a regular amount of evil. As someone who relied on the otherworlder to protect his people, he hadn’t been able or willing to make a real move, but he’d acknowledged that the number of dead had piled up too far. On top of the fact that the titans were currently actively in use to protect them from the Peace terror groups spearheaded by his own sister, Lu Jie had found himself paralyzed.

Will had brought in two other gold-rank leaderboarders, both of whom had been critical in past large-scale maneuvers. Now that they were here, they had the opportunity to kill several birds with a single stone.

Well, by “stone,” he meant “superheated balls of plasma, corruption, and various kinds of death from above,” but it was close enough conceptually.

“It’s been a while,” Yui said to Will. “I don’t believe we’ve had the chance to work together in combat very frequently.”

“Not particularly, no,” Will said. “You know how to work with Nathan though, right?”

Yui made a face. The two of them had gotten over the initial awkwardness that had resulted from Nathan being a little bit of a high school boy over his former relationship with her, but they still preferred not to speak to each other when possible.

“Noted,” Will said. “Anyone have opinions on who we should go after first?”

“Peace,” Caiyeri voted. “I guarantee that if you don’t, they’re going to involve themselves at the worst possible time.”

“They do have a nasty habit of doing that,” Hua agreed. “They’re awfully persistent. Plus, I’m not far from reaching gold, and I’d like to hit that against people I know how to fight against. I’ve never fought one of those mechs before.”

“I doubt the Peace sigil-holders here are doing the same thing they are in the superdungeons,” Caiyeri said.

“There’s an awful lot of them,” Nathan said. “Seriously, we’re at, what, a thousand kills now? More? How do they still have more?”

“You should know why,” Will said drily. “Gods cheat.”

“Fair.”

They were still a hundred miles out from the edge of the city proper, but Lu Jie had received notice of their arrival and was preparing for them. Fan Laozi had expressed a desire to “learn from” Will at some point, so the otherworlder was ready for him—though admittedly not the others on board, who were currently being obscured from observation skills through Yui’s Void Reaver class.

Just to be safe, Will had Sen’s eyes rotating in and out of the plane, monitoring about a quarter mile out.

They were ninety miles out when the message came.

???: China, eh? Not a bad choice.

Will recognized the chat immediately. That was the Contractor on the other end, using whatever system fuckery he used to hide his name.

Will: The hell do you want?

???: Say hello to my comrades.

Roughly five seconds later, Sen’s eyes detected an incoming projectile.

Will cursed, activating Time in a Bottle to speed up his senses.

Gold rank. Supersonic. It’ll be here in under a second.

No, he realized. Not it.

As the first of Sen’s eyes began to crumple from the mixed effects of the missile, sensory information reached Will in the nick of time.

It was a barrage. Thousands of missiles, all well on their way towards them. From their trajectory, they’d been in motion for a while already.

Caiyeri’s words came to mind. The worst possible time, huh?

Will shook the thoughts off.

The game was on, and he had no intentions of letting them lose.