Cross had been Xavier Jenkins once, but that man had been weak. Willing to compromise. He had been forged in the crucible of another world, and now he had strength. The years away had been long but fruitful.
When he had come back, he had curled his lip at what he saw. The world had ended. It was every man for himself, and yet his nation had fallen to helping the weak? Cross had practically soiled himself laughing when he had learned that the powers that be had decided to put a teenage girl on the top of their elite task force.
Said powers hadn’t lasted very long after he’d brought his strength to bear, and now Sydney was his. The city had been devastated by the emergence of the dungeons during the earlier cycle, but the new Australian government had tried to reclaim it just in time for him to take it over. They had managed to evacuate much of the city, but not enough.
Now, Cross had just under two hundred thousand. Most of them were no more than fodder, but thousands upon thousands of the bronze and unformed-ranks he’d slaughtered had possessed a strong enough foundation to be upgraded all the way to gold.
At Gold 7, Cross knew that he was already at the top tier of this planet. He hadn’t been in his other world, but even then, it had been rare that a platinum-ranker would actually dare to challenge him.
One thing that set him apart from others at his rank was the force multiplier that his necromancy represented. A single gold-ranker was trivial for a platinum-ranker to take down. Even a group of them would be—the jump between tiers was substantially larger than the gaps between ranks.
There was power in numbers, though, and when a single platinum ranker had to contend with a thousand gold-rankers, the story was different.
And that meant that back on Earth, Cross was right there at the top.
…unfortunately, there were still a lot of pesky silver-rankers here that were better at using their powers than the silvers on the other world had been.
This one in particular was really getting on his nerves. Cross had killed his ilk by the tens of thousands. Fast-moving attackers with perception skills worked well to evade his attacks at first, but there were only so many times they could have near misses with death until they got a bit too close. One hit was all it would take to down a bird like that.
Somehow, this bird still hadn’t been hit. For the first few minutes of the fight, he had evaded everything that Cross had thrown at him. Death beams, necrotic wyrm attacks, and even various esoteric skills that his resurrected minions could mash together at gold rank had all just barely missed, and the silver-ranker was making it look easy.
Alongside that, his aura was strange. Cross had been tracking the silver by the rank above his head—32—because every time he tried to use his combined aura powers to suppress him, there was a strangely powerful resistance that felt like a god’s presence.
That had been before the silver had vanished. He’d flashed out of existence, then less than five minutes after, he had reappeared.
There was definitely something wrong with that aura. The silver-ranker looked like he’d come straight out of casting for the antagonist of a superhero film. Cross wasn’t one to talk there, but with the dark wings that seemed to stretch on for hundreds of feet but somehow never took real damage, the iridescent flying eyes that fluttered in and out of existence, and the lightning coursing in his trail, the silver-ranker looked like an angel of death.
Even miles away, Cross could see that this “William” had changed. There was a blazing presence emerging from the top half of his body that had been there before but was now an order of magnitude brighter. It was a type of energy that Cross hadn’t seen himself, but it was powerful and clearly evil-aligned.
A man after his own heart.
When he tried to poke the silver’s aura, Cross’ life had flashed before his eyes. There was something in there that could not be touched at any cost, and he was not so bold in his power to risk that. His aura suppression had never been the strongest, and this was an obviously special silver.
They were at something of an impasse right now. The silver was using corruption, which was obviously strong, but the dark clouds that he spread it through were much easier to destroy than the silver himself.
This was… hmm. Cross wanted this silver badly. It was like he’d been sifting through mounds of horse shit looking for gold and had just found a diamond.
Perhaps direct force was not the best way to accomplish this.
“William,” he said, using his necromantic constructs to amplify his voice. Outside, over a hundred thousand souls spoke as one, an eerie chorus of voices resounding simultaneously. “Should we talk?”
The flying silver paused a thousand feet in the air, crimson sword in hand. “Sure. Will is fine, by the way. So, catch the last season of… I dunno, Sword Art Online? What was out when you left?”
“What?”
“You asked if I wanted to talk. This is me talking.”
Cross frowned. “I was going to propose a partnership. And last season? There was only one.”
“Oh, I thought you were a politician,” Will said. “I didn’t expect you to actually watch anime. It wasn’t even cool back then, was it?”
“That time doesn’t matter anymore,” Cross said, changing the subject. “I left that part of myself behind. Killed it. I forged myself anew in the flames of another world. You have, too. I can sense the stench of death on you. We both knew what had to be done, and we’ve done it. We could work together, you and I. You’re the first I’ve seen who looks like they might actually know the truth of this world. Come with me, and we can push this planet into a new era.”
“Wow, you really did watch SAO,” Will said. “Have you been practicing? That was a pretty great evil monologue.”
Cross rolled his eyes. “If you aren’t going to take this seriously—“
“Oh, this is me taking it seriously,” Will said. “Look, I came here to do a couple of things, but it’s taken a bit longer than I expected, so—whatever, you don’t need to hear about that. The long and the short of it is that I have this whole thing about doing justice for the world, yada yada yada, kill the evildoers and make things better, that kind of stuff.”
“You don’t seem to hold those convictions very strongly.”
“Things have changed,” Will said, slowly gliding towards the ground—and Cross’ towers of bone—on dark wings. “I realized recently that there’s a lot of pretty terrible shit coming Earth’s way, and I’m pretty willing to let a lesser evil slide to support a greater one. If I can get you on the side of humanity to fight back against what I know is coming, then sure, we can work.”
Cross grinned, knowing Will couldn’t see him. He hadn’t realized that Will would be a nice person, but it seemed that he was.
Nice people were so easy.
“Come on down, then,” Cross and his city said. “Let me meet you in person.”
As Will descended, Cross prepared his ultimate skills. With the amount of power he had established in this city, he would be able to focus a truly incredible quantity on evacuating Will’s soul from his body, giving him what was sure to be a fantastically interesing addition to his powerbase.
Will touched the ground, and Cross activated a skill he’d used over a hundred thousand times by now.
Extract.
He reached out for Will’s soul—and then wavered, because Will was no longer where he’d been.
You have been marked for death.
Inside the castle Cross had erected for himself, an eye appeared, and with it, so did William Li-Brown, a sword in either hand. One glowed a bloody crimson, while the other was so dark it seemed to suck the light out of the room.
“I forgot to mention something,” Will said, voice cold as ice. “The second reason I was here.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
He raised the dark sword. At the same time, Cross became aware of a thousand eyes manifesting throughout his city. He sent necrotic energy at all of them, but they weaved out of the way before the attack even started, easily threading through the gaps of his attack.
“I have a rank up to get to,” Will said. “And if the people in my way are unredeemable pieces of shit, all the better.”
[Eclipse] has spent the echo of a Peace-aligned user. Skill selected: [Pacify].
The aura of a god exploded from the sword—then from each and every eye as well.
Cross froze, the pressure exerted on his soul stopping him from moving.
How could a silver-ranker be this powerful? What kind of monster had this powerful of an aura?
Will advanced, slowly but inexorably. His swords scraped against the ground as he walked, throwing up sparks.
Cross refused to die like this. He drew on his necromancy, sacrificing constructs to feed himself more power, and he empowered his soul enough to break through the aura and teleport elsewhere in the city.
Will was just behind him, that same dark cloud sprouting from the impossibly agile eyes as well as the corruption wielder himself.
Now that Cross was closer, he could see the blazing blue eye through the darkness, the one that had been carrying the ominous, evil power.
Demon.
For the first time since he had landed in the other world, Cross knew fear.
He immediately pulled out all the stops, commanding his skyscraper-sized towers to expend as much as their power as possible. They would damage each other in the process, which he had strictly avoided in the past but no longer cared about. Terror gripped his body and soul, which was even now barely throwing off the effect of what Will was doing.
“Oh, is something wrong?” Will asked, following Cross with each teleport the Necromancer did. “Seems to me like you only want to take a fight when you think the other person’s not watching, you fucking COWARD.”
The last word came accompanied by a blast of sonic energy and a dark beam. The latter was easy enough to absorb, since it was a same-rank necrotic attack, but the former clipped Cross, echoing in his head and increasing in volume until he could hear nothing but screams.
You have been afflicted with a gold-rank level of [Despair].
You have been afflicted with a gold-rank level of [Wither]. [Necrotic Resistance] has absorbed [Wither].
You have been afflicted with a gold-rank level of [Weakness].
Will didn’t give him any time to let up, blurring into motion. Though Cross used his skills to defend himself against the physical attacks that assailed him, he couldn’t stop some of the phantasm from slipping through the cracks and touching him.
You have been afflicted with a gold-rank level of [Corruption].
A bell tolled, and Cross’ mind crumpled in on itself.
Fire, he commanded, not caring that he might be in the blast zone. Fire everything.
Gold-rank towers fired the built-up energy of the souls he’d put in them, sending scouring beams of pure white and midnight black light wide enough to absorb a neighborhood in every direction.
There was no way anything could sruvive this. Cross was giving up months of progress and tens of thousands of kills just for this one attack. He would be forced to rebuild, but that was fine, because he could always—
A sword pierced the small of his back.
“See, here’s the thing,” Will said, bringing a second blade to Cross’ neck. “Your skills are pretty strong as a whole, but they’re all made up of stolen power. You know what that means? Plenty of weak points, which means plenty of ways to kill them.”
Cross was at a point where a mere stabbing alone wouldn’t be enough to kill him, but Will’s words gave him pause. He extended his senses outwards, and his heart sank as he realized what had come of the energy he had expended.
Corruption crawled over the beams, weakening them, diluting them until there were areas that could be survived.
Even then…
“What kind of monster are you?” Cross croaked, focusing on gathering his power to teleport again.
As Will opened his mouth to answer, Cross attempted to blink away, but Will thrust a hand out, and dark, hungry energy swirled around the Necromancer. Their souls connected for the briefest of instants, and Cross began to scream in agony.
The skill dissipated, sucked into Will’s magic.
“I’ve been thinking about that myself,” Will said. “Here’s a thought. I’m the one who doesn’t know when to stop.”
Cross’ eyes widened, recognizing the tone of finality. “Wait, wait, we can—“
His vision tumbled, rapidly fading at the corners.
The last thing Cross saw was his headless body collapsing to the ground. It tried to reach him, his emergency skills kicking into play, but with every inch of progress it made, the corruption devoured more of it.
“No, that doesn’t sound right,” Will mumbled to himself. “Too edgy? Nah. I’ll have to think on it.”
He looked over to where Cross’ head was, then made a finger gun pointing at it.
“Bang.”
Cross died.
#
Progress to [Eternal Throne]: [522/1000]
Special quest: Gold Challenges (Reaper)
Sub-task advanced.
- Kill 7 beings with a killcount of 10,000 or higher [2/7]
Special quest: Pre-Impact Leaderboard
Maintain your position on the leaderboard. Eliminate threats to it.
- Stay within the top 100 of the world leaderboard.
Reward: 1,000 gold credits per day. 14 gold-rank monster cores per day.
- Bonus: Kill others on the world leaderboard. For the duration of this quest, you can see the leaderboard ranks of everyone you encounter.
You have killed leaderboard rank 3.
Reward: 1,000 platinum credits. Platinum Attribute Potion.
Will: Hua. Is now a good time?
Hua: We just wiped the floor with a bunch of silver-rankers and one gold. You’d be surprised how effective a regular sniper rifle is. Nobody’s looking for Liam.
Will: I’m assuming that’s a yes, then. Sydney is… free is probably a bad word for it. Cross is dead. A lot of the pieces of his necromantic empire are still there, but they’re operating independently now. I’ll leave that up to the rest of you.
Hua: Heard loud and clear. I’ll pass it up the line. I might ask for transportation to help with cleanup, if that’s alright.
Will: Sure thing. Give me the call whenever.
Hua: Are you coming back?
WIll: No. There’s at least five more names on my list, and I’m not going to stop ‘till they’re gone. I’m not sure how long I’m going to be out, but it’ll be a while. Weeks, at least, if not months. People are hard to find.
Hua: Good hunting.
#
The time since the first human summit had been a tumultuous one. Supreme Commander Regina of the ESNA had spent much of the ensuing month and a half on damage control. As it turned out, suddenly losing top members of every powerful nation to Peace—both as kidnapping victims and as traitors—was severely damaging towards humanity’s ability to operate as one.
Regina had, at least, secured cooperation from the all-native Australian faction, formerly the Human Defense Force, as well as some of the west European factions. Together, they’d been able to form some kind of response to Peace, but they’d encountered new problems every day. Monsters escaping the superdungeons were abnormally powerful, and Regina suspected that the sigil-holders within them had something to do with that.
She had spent the bulk of her time trying to shore up the ESNA’s presence, taking control of more land and eliminating threats to her people amongst it. This was still her home country, no matter how much it had changed, and she would be damned if she let it fall to the dogs while she controlled it.
The world was not making that easy.
“Supreme Commander,” now gold-ranker and Commander Charlie said, walking into her office and snapping her a sharp salute.
“I told you to stop calling me that, Charlie,” she said. “What do you have for me?”
“Bad news, sorry to say,” Charlie said, pulling a lit cigar from his inventory behind his ear and puffing from it.
Regina waved her hand, confining the smoke into a small sphere so she didn’t have to breathe it in. She was reasonably certain that she no longer had to worry about detrimental health effects from tobacco, but she had never quite gotten used to their scent.
“The news is all bad these days,” she said. “Lay it on me.”
“Jacksonville,” he said. “Lance hit it.”
Regina clicked her tongue. “Damn it. How bad?”
“Better than it could have been. We got about ten minutes of warning when the sea pulled back. When the tsunami hit, I think we got more than half the city out. Lost everything there, though. I had a couple of birds sent in. High fliers. Lance shouldn’t be able to hit them.”
“Good,” Regina said. “I want eyes yesterday.”
“Patching you in,” Charlie said. He tapped the air, fiddling with the system. “Dreamcatcher 1 flight, this is Command. Patching the SC in.”
You have joined the [Dreamcatcher] communication group.
“Roger that, Command,” the Pilot said.
“Give me eyes,” Regina said, closing her own as she identified which of her people this was. “Dreamcatcher 1, taking your right.”
“One moment, SC,” Dreamcatcher 1 said. “Okay. Ready.”
Regina used one of the skills that had propelled her to the heights she was at today, linking with her people to share their senses. Using Dreamcatcher 1’s right eye, she was able to see what was happening in Florida all the way from her base up in New Jersey, and she could even use her own senses to some extent.
Twenty thousand feet below the jet, the situation was as bad as she’d feared. The ocean had reclaimed Jacksonville. Lance had moved the coastline in by miles, and the city was fully flooded, brown water surging through the streets. The water had already obscured much of the city from view, only the roofs of what had been two-story buildings peeking out above. Downtown was collapsing in on itself—it hadn’t been built for a flood of this proportion.
In short, it was the worst-case scenario, saved only by the fact that they’d evacuated a fair chunk of the city before impact.
Except, Regina realized, that there were survivors. Groups of them were in vessels ranging from dilapidated speedboats to full-on ferries. Cars floated above water, somehow buoyant, and in areas, there were hovering platforms that were clearly magical.
“SC, you seeing this?” Dreamcatcher 1 asked.
“I am,” Regina said, disbelief creeping into her voice.
The flood continued to rage, but even as she watched, parts of it were slowing. That wasn’t what was surprising. There were plenty of skills that could do that or something similar, and it was possible that it was fading on its own.
No, it was the manner in which the water was being pushed back that shook Regina to her core. Dark, twisted energy that she recognized as corruption crept over the waves, seemingly freezing them in place before the water simply dissipated.
Atop the raging waters, a single figure flew, dark wings spread to each side.
Do you even know what you look like right now? Regina thought.
If she didn’t know better, she would have said that William Li-Brown was killing the flood.
“Hold the fort,” she told Charlie, keeping an eye on Dreamcatcher 1. “I’m going to Jacksonville.”
On the other end of her connection, the corruption wielder looked up to a seemingly random point in the sky.
Will: You could’ve just asked me what I was doing.
He winked, and Regina shuddered.
I’m glad he’s on our side.