I jumped over to the bridge and crossed to the other side of the river. The distance from that side of the river to the island was a few meters longer, so I couldn't jump directly. After that, I activated the Stealth on my bracelet and started running from one corpse to the next, collecting money, potions, and purple things. Oddly enough, quite a lot of junk 'fell out' of the players as they died. Most of it was weapons. There was so much of it that I basically couldn't carry it. And since the toad and the hamster were actively gnawing in my brain, I decided to collect the weapons, and then banally throw them into the river. As the saying goes, neither for myself nor for people. It is absolutely impossible to fight opponents without weapons, so in one stroke I slowed down the development of a whole bunch of people.
By the way, how's my quest going? I looked at the interface and made sure that my quest to accelerate my profession was safely completed. Moreover, I exceeded it tenfold, because the 'body count' showed 10 103 / 1 000. Eh, where am I going to bury you guys? Considering the number of players I killed in the dungeon, I stopped destroying weapons and switched solely to collecting money and purple items. Surprisingly, I hardly ever encountered any purple items. I found plenty of blue items, but only a couple of purple ones. This was most likely due to the fact that players tried to tether really valuable items to themselves. I tied my bracelet on the first chance I got, too.
The caves on this side of the river were quite spacious. Otherwise, there simply wouldn't be room for more than ten thousand people. The 'Chaos Breakthrough' began to gradually dissipate, but the influence of the Air energies was still too strong for the players to return here. So I spent the next three hours collecting just an insane amount of money. I had fifty gold before. In those three hours, I collected over eight hundred gold coins, plus completely stocked my inventory with purple equipment. What's more, I got the 'gold' boots for the Ninja, which I decided to save for the future.
Finally, after three hours I was so tired of looking for the corpses of the players that I decided not to waste any more time collecting loot and headed for the exit of the cave. Although the passages here were a real maze, the map function allowed me to find the 'shortest' way to the exit. It might not have been the most convenient, or really the shortest, but it was a guaranteed way out.
As I approached one of the entrances, I found another pile of corpses. Apparently, it was because the players had stumbled in here and died from the effects of the air before they could return. I looked through the corpses as usual, and made sure that I could get out of the portal without attracting attention. As long as I had invisibility, all I had to worry about was colliding with other players and getting attacked. Although there were a lot of people outside, waiting to go back into the cave and collect the players' items, the crowd wasn't too dense, so I was able to slip through without touching anyone, though I had to wander around a bit.
Finally, when I got to the buzzing outpost, the first thing I did was to visit the local bank and dump all my looted treasures there. Fortunately, it could be done without coming out of invisibility, so no one even saw me. When I looked at the future options where my disguise would fall off, real hell was starting to break loose around me. Literally everyone present would try to kill me. There was a safe zone inside the outpost, but even so, people were starting to look at me with wolfish eyes, clearly planning to strip my skin alive.
Commandant Sneaky Cunning Tail met me in his office. This time he was enjoying his solitude, because with the destruction of the Seed of Evil, the entire quest in the area was over. There was nothing left to investigate, so all players who wanted a new profession had to return to the capital and get a new quest. Only those who still hoped to sneak into the caves and collect items from the corpses remained here.
In spite of the invisibility that hid me, the NPC immediately spotted me and spoke to me as if I were his kin.
“Oh, Cheater! Come, sit down. I confess, I didn't think you'd be able to do the job. But you exceeded my expectations. You not only killed the players, you solved our problem. All of the earthworms in the area are dead, and when the players disperse, this place will be quiet and cozy again.”
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“Good for you.” - I smirked, taking off my invisibility. – “What's the reward for completing an epic quest by ten times?”
“Let's see.”
With a clear look of anticipation on his face, the commandant opened his desk drawer and pulled out an envelope. A plain paper envelope.
“Wow! You're in luck. Here you go.”
I took the piece of paper handed to me. It immediately disappeared into thin air, and a system message appeared in front of me instead.
“*** For the simultaneous killing of over ten thousand players you get the title God of Massacre. Bonus upon title activation: God of Massacre aura, +30% to damage against players. ***”
“Hmm, that looks good.” - I assessed my appearance after activating the title. This aura surrounded me in a bloody mist and made my eyes glow a bright scarlet glow, plus my face took on a fierce expression of a man who kills people for breakfast, lunch, and dinner just to listen to their dying screams to whet an appetite.
“Glad you liked it.” - Nodded the NPC. – “And now, I declare you a Druid! Go and kill all those who hang around, disturbing the peace of this place.”
Again, another message popped up in front of me.
*** You gained a basic Druid profession. ***
*** Quest description: Kill 10000 people in the vicinity of the outpost of the Western Hills. Reward: none. ***
Heh, no reward for the quest. I don't think I'll try it. I don't think there'll be that many people here. Who knows, though, maybe I can do it. I pressed the 'accept' button and received a notification that the quest had been accepted, as well as a new system message.
*** The Path of Massacre God. You agreed to kill thousands of people just for fun. Quest changed. Personally kill 10,000 players who are members of the guild. Destroy the guild castle. Mission Class: Epic. Reward: Epic. Time to complete: 30 days. ***
Here's another goodie. However, this time I have to kill ten thousand people personally. Okay, that's 333 people per day. Overall, the task doesn't look completely impossible, although it clearly requires a lot of hard work. I think it's worth it. Plus 30% of the damage as a reward for the previous quest looks really good.
Nodding to the commandant, I turned invisibility on myself and went outside. I was about to head back to Crab City, when I noticed a trio of players with 'Age of Glory' inscriptions hanging over their heads. They were arguing furiously about something, so I decided to follow them and eavesdrop on what they were talking about. I wondered how my rival was doing. The trio walked down the street and turned into the woods away from the outpost. They were discussing my deed in destroying the Seed of Evil and the countermeasures for my 'taming'. Judging by the hatred in their words, my achievement was worse for them than a stab in the balls with a sickle.
I followed the three of them literally on the heels of each other, and I paid the price for it. One of them turned around, looked at the ground just where I was walking, and shouted.
“Invisible!”
The second player immediately cast an area spell that shattered me from invisibility.
“Cheater!!!!!!!!”
There was so much expression in that shout of recognition that I thought they were going to have a heart attack right there. However, I did not rely on heart, but grabbed my spear and began to attack. To my surprise, the battle was over very quickly. The Healer and Ninja died from just one blow, and Berserk from two. After picking up my loot and looking around, I ran away, activating Stealth again.
The answer to the question of why the damage was so high became clear once I looked carefully at the properties of my gold spear. It was now called the 'Cursed Spear of the First Dwarf'. In addition to the word in the name, the spear had a new characteristic: 500 poison damage on strike. So, my spear now did more than 750 damage with a single blow. What's more, the poison damage didn't depend on the target's armor.
Overall, it was a great deal more than I'd gotten. The only thing that confused me was the word 'cursed' in the name of the spear. Cursed, not cussing. Looking at the interface, I found myself under the 'Curse of the Darkness x4'. In other words, for every strike I received, I was awarded one debuff. After examining the curse, I read its description. It said that it reduced the chances of successfully using Earth magic. There were no numbers or explanations, though. But since I was using an air element, this 'curse' wasn't supposed to hurt me. On the contrary. If this curse would protect me from being hit by Earth magic, then it could be seen as a blessing.
But before I could rejoice in my acquisition, I heard the excited shouts of players running from the outpost.
“Cheater is definitely here! He has invisibility, so pay attention to the grass. Don't let him get away!”
Damn! Looks like my invisibility has a critical vulnerability. Actually, why am I surprised. After all, I had figured out the previous owner of the bracelet just by the fluctuations of the grass. I would have to keep that in mind in the future. When I looked around, I saw that there were only five pursuers running. Given the strength of my attack, I could just finish them off. After all, they wanted to kill me.