“What in the world?” said Brooke, staring unfocused as she gazed at her System message. Around him, the others did the same.
Shit. Logan gulped, his pulse racing, a lump in his throat, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he tightened his grip around the handle of his sword. By throwing the bodies of Asthea’s guards inside his spatial collar, he thought he’d hidden the evidence. He hadn’t left one item, looting everything. And yet there had been one thing that he’d overlooked.
The Leaderboard.
There was no hiding that. When Asthea and her guards didn’t return, the Silverdagger Clan must have assumed the worst.
Thinking about Asthea still made him feel unsettled. It was only through constant fights and worry for Lara and the kids that he’d avoided that unsettled feeling from escalating into something worse. He’d made a difficult decision, a horrible decision when he’d killed Asthea, but he’d done it for a reason. [Foresight] had shown him what Asthea would do to humanity; she’d go to war. By killing her, he’d thought he’d saved humanity from that fate.
Although war wasn’t yet on the horizon, the Silverdagger Clan had managed to figure out that Asthea’s killer was on Earth and for whatever reason, they hadn’t yet invaded.
Instead, he had to be wary of every single person around him.
Brooke and Chase were weak, but if they ganged up with others, they could create a genuine problem for Logan. It wouldn’t be a life-threatening problem, but it would be a moral problem.
He didn’t want to become a murderer.
“The System is giving us bounties now? Who the hell is ‘Idiot’?” muttered Chase. “What a name! Someone’s parents sure hated them.”
Logan blinked, hissing in realization. Chase hadn’t leveled up [Identify]! That meant he couldn’t view people’s hidden names yet. As far as he was concerned, Logan was just Logan.
Logan worried his cheek. “Probably not someone you want to go near. Anyone who has a bounty must be up to no good.”
“An XP harvester?” questioned Brooke.
Logan held back a grimace. “Sure.”
“Hmm,” said Chase. “It’s not like you can do much with KarmaCoin anyway. It’s a useless currency.”
Logan suspected that it wouldn’t be that way for long. Either way, the conversation was over. The ground shook as the rats surged. The nearest ones were practically on top of them, red eyes narrowed in on Logan and his clones, their expressions full of the need to kill.
The Cursed Rope had jumped away from the new three-headed rat and was soaring through the air in search of better prospects.
Logan looked up at it with a clenched jaw. The next time you attack, you better be going for a body shot.
The rope listens, the rope will obey. It sounded panicked. For the first time, it might have a sense of how close it was to becoming bonfire fuel.
As if putting its words into action, it jumped down on a dive on the nearest two-headed rat and tried to wrap itself around its body. The problem was that the rat was the width of a horse, and it didn’t fit all the way around. Screaming, the rat bucked like a bull, trying to dislodge it, a noxious, burning flesh smell wafting through the air.
Holding his sword and getting ready to swing, Logan launched himself forward with his Pink Sock, slashing at the nearest two-headed rat using every ounce of his frustration and anger. With a twang, the sword carved through the torso like butter, slicing it clean in half.
Ding!
[You have defeated a Level 32 Two-Headed Rat!]
Shocked, Chase, Brooke and the others could only stare.
***
Ding!
[You have defeated a Level 32 Two-Headed Rat!]
[You have defeated a Level 30 Two-Headed Rat!]
[You have defeated a Level 38 Two-Headed Rat!]
[You have defeated a Level 31 Two-Headed Rat!]
[You have defeated a Level 33 Two-Headed Rat!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
This time, it wasn’t just Logan doing the killing. He had five clones going at it at the same time, slicing with their swords like running a wire through butter. Thorin’s sword was that sharp—sharper than even Logan’s diamond crusted talons. The rats screamed in pain, blood flying as if he were in a slaughterhouse.
The clones held the line, protecting the lower leveled humans, while Logan went to town. Jumping on top of the back of the nearest rat, he threw his sword into his spatial collar and then dug into its hide with his talons, blood gushing and his grip turning slippery as it bucked like a bull.
Logan’s teeth clanged together, his chest and legs bashing against its back as the rat squealed in anger. Its spine was bony, so bony and sharp that it would have cut through his skin if Logan hadn’t been wearing armour.
“Now, Ernie!” he screamed.
With a squee of glee, Ernie clambered out of his pouch and crawled down Logan’s side, clinging to his armour with his suction cups as he touched the rat. Like a parasite, his diamond filaments spread, leaching into the rat.
The monster shivered in alarm and bellowed like an elephant before bucking like Logan had jabbed it in the balls. But gradually, its fur changed from black to silver, then to white.
“Yes yes yes!” Ernie chanted.
Stilling and shivering as if the rat had been electrocuted, all two mouths gaping wide and saliva dripping to the ground, it stared unseeingly as Ernie’s transformation went to work. No longer bucking, no longer doing anything but standing as if it had been stunned.
Ernie climbed back onto Logan’s shoulder, his mouth in a wide grin. “Minion minion minion! More, more, Logan! More for my army!”
Logan didn’t know what he’d done, but somehow, he’d forced the rat to obey his commands, overriding its will.
As they jumped off the back of the rat, Logan used his Pink Sock to launch into the air and onto the next. Digging his talons into the back of this one and letting Ernie infect it, he monitored the other transformed rat, which had shaken off whatever Ernie had done and turned on a dime, its pale eyes staring down at the other charging rats.
It was under Ernie’s control.
Logan laughed as he let Ernie infect the next, his nerves on fire with excitement. “Keep going, Ernie!”
Ernie cackled as his diamond filaments leached into the next. This time, Logan didn’t wait. As soon as Ernie had jumped back onto his shoulder, he went for another rat even before the latest had finished transforming.
Three minions.
Four minions.
Five.
After the fifth, Logan jumped over the swarm and used his sock to scale the nearest building and climb onto the flat roof. Panting, he looked down on the scene of carnage below. His clones were still at it, slaughtering everything that dared to get close, their swords flashing like five sword berserkers, blood flying in torrents, so much blood that it streamed down the road and gurgled into the storm drains like pouring rain.
System message after System message flashed across his eyes as if he were in an arcade game, again and again. Ding! after Ding!
[You have defeated a Level 32 Two-Headed Rat!]
[….]
[You have defeated a Level 33 Two-Headed Rat!]
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
Logan cracked his neck, what he expected was a wide, unhinged grin on his face as the high of the level increases surged through his body like nothing else. It was all he could do to prevent himself from jumping back down and going to town, but he wanted to see what Ernie’s minions could do first.
He’d transformed five of the two-headed rats, their albino fur pale, blue eyes making them stand out from the hundreds of others. Unlike last time, Ernie didn’t let them laze around while the others attacked.
Instead, he had them turn on a dime, stampeding through the swarm in the other direction. The albino rats didn’t attack; rather, they darted back and forth, dashing around a two-headed rat, then jumping over the back of another.
They were creating chaos.
As they stampeded, the regular rats became enraged and darted at the albino rats as they streamed past. The albino rats were too rabid and fast for body shots, but their necks and heads were in reach. Two of the regular rats teamed up and latched onto a neck, digging in with their teeth and shaking the albino rat like a crocodile. With a snap, they severed the neck clean in half.
The albino rat stumbled, but it didn’t stop. As it screeched and poured past the swarm, something… happened.
Just because they were minions didn’t mean cutting off a head wouldn’t result in the same regeneration. With a deluge of blood, two more heads formed out of the stump, like a gross, mutated nightmare.
They formed like worms, thickening and swelling, until skulls formed, and white, silver hair spread across the newly formed heads. On a tail that gleamed like polished bone, barbed, white ends formed, like knobbly, sharp spines.
As if the thing had swallowed a mutated watermelon, its body swelled, growing until it reached the same size as the three-headed rats.
Logan used [Idiot’s Inspect] on Ernie’s new monster:
[Three-headed Undead Rat Level 35. An undead variant of a three-headed rat. Bred for its offensive capabilities, this rat has spraying venom that paralyzes its victims, as well as a stabbing tail with a barbed end. Chop off a head or its tail and two more grow back.]
[Highest Stat: Agility. Characteristics: Loyalty. Hidden name: N/A.]
The rat was the same level, but it had mutated into a three-headed rat. Now, when it ran in the other direction and charged past the other two-headed rats, it could snap its tail, gouging eyes and biting as it passed. Against the other two-headed rats, it was an even fight, but now that it was double their size, it could outmatch them.
“Well done, Ernie.”
Ernie had clambered out of his pouch and was leaning over Logan’s shoulder, staring with his eyes gleaming in satisfaction as he took in the scene.
“Of course,” he preened. “What do you expect from a being that rivals all?”
Jumping through the air, the Cursed Rope was on a mission. As if it were trying to prove itself to Logan; prove that it could obey and be good.
Its rope fibres were soaked with blood like an oversaturated sponge. Somehow, that didn’t cause it to slow down; rather, it fueled the rope, making it swell even more and double in width.
Taking strategic jumps, it targeted the rats’ feet, snapping and wrapping around their limbs and severing them with sizzling flesh. A rat charging down a road in a stampede that suddenly lost a leg? There was only one result.
It slammed to the ground with a crash, the other rats soon stampeding over it and crushing its skull into mush.
Ding!
[You have defeated a Level 32 Two-Headed Rat!]
It was slower going than his clones or Logan, but every little bit helped.
Good job, rope, Logan sent.
It jumped to attention, sending a frantic thought back to Logan. It wanted to impress him. The rope can obey, the rope can be good.
Farther down the line, Chase, Brooke and the others paced behind Logan’s clones.
Paced in vain.
Brooke jumped, trying to look over the clones’ shoulders and push one of them aside, but they were like unmoveable mountains.
Her mouth in a thin line, she swung Logan’s old baseball bat over her shoulder. Farther back, the others seemed relieved to be out of the fight. So far, his clones had stopped anything that reached them in an unending killing field.
Logan’s mouth watered. He willed out his sword, impatience shooting through him the longer he watched. He felt like his insides were vibrating in excitement. He wanted to jump into the carnage. He wanted to be the carnage.
“Get back into the pouch,” he said to Ernie.
As soon as Ernie settled, Logan moved to the edge of the roof and pushed off with his Pink Sock, launching himself into the air and soaring over the swarm. As he hurtled to the ground like a rocket, he swung his sword, the metal clanging and singing through the air.
Blood splashed his facemask as he cleaved his way through the body of the latest rat, so much blood that it covered his facemask like sleet in a snowstorm. Logan tried wiping it away with the back of his glove and only ended up making it worse.
“Fuck!” He was blind! With a moue of concentration, Logan dissolved his helmet, letting the blood-soaked sandstone fall to the ground so he could see. As soon as he did, it was as if he’d opened his senses even wider. With the facemask, Logan was convinced that his senses were more acute, but nothing replaced the raw sight and sounds of battle.
Ernie’s minions were acting like bulls, purposely letting the other rats chew off a head so they could double in size and continue swarming and bashing aside the other rats.
On top of that, his clones were still at it, killing just as many rats as Logan.
Maybe more.
Ding!
[You have defeated a Level 32 Two-Headed Rat!]
[….]
[You have defeated a Level 35 Two-Headed Rat!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
As yet another level increase surged through his body, he screamed in euphoria. Panting, bloody sweat pouring down his face, he searched for his next victim.
The nearest rat needed only one jump of his Pink Sock, and he was on it, slicing it to hell, one side of its body flopping to the ground, guts and viscera falling in a sick slump. It was like slicing a cow clean in half, only this time, it was a rat, and the reek of its perforated bowels smelled like nothing else.
Ding!
[You have defeated a Level 32 Two-Headed Rat!]
[….]
[You have defeated a Level 33 Two-Headed Rat!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
Yes, yes, yes. The pleasure was immense! Holy hell, he’d killed snake after snake above Rattlesnake Island, but it had never been like this! It was as if he were high. High on killing.
Ernie cackled as Logan soared past the front of the army and jumped further into the swarm, burying himself inside a pile of rats. The nearest rat tried to bite his shoulder with both of its mouths, its teeth scratching against his exoskeleton, forcing cracks in the sandstone, but Logan deployed [Mimicry Armour] to reseal them. Another bellowed and then rose up in the air onto its hind legs, leaping and trying to jump on top of Logan and crush him to death.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Logan screamed as he pivoted on his heel, swinging his sword like a death machine, slicing off ears, legs, stabbing deep into bellies, and grinning as more System messages poured in, levels surging and making him groan in pleasure.
But while Logan had a smorgasbord of two-headed rats to pick from, his clones could only kill what came at them directly. Logan continued to exert his will, forcing them to protect the humans.
And like a fragmented mirror, he saw himself through their eyes.
Just like Logan, they wanted to kill; they needed to kill.
It was necessary, thought the clones. It was essential to their existence. And if they weren’t allowed to charge into the swarm and fuel their need with this pitiful surge of monsters, they’d find the next best thing.
The humans were weak, but they housed XP. More XP to fuel their climb. After all, the main host hadn’t told them that they couldn’t go after the weaklings. Only that they had to hold the line. The humans weren’t friends, they were food.
What was one more kill in the scheme of things?
Together, the clones laughed, grinning that unhinged smile that Logan suspected was on his own face. Worst of all, it wasn’t just the clones that were thinking this. As soon as they had the thought to go after the other humans, Logan did as well.
He felt like his nerves were on fire, his feet light, his body tingling as he searched for more carnage, more fuel, more—
“It is an evil ring after all,” Ernie whispered from inside his pouch.
Logan gasped.
Ernie was his bonded companion; they had a mental connection. When Logan went off the rails, Ernie could sense it. But why would a ring…
The skill ring.
Back in the tactician trial, Logan had watched Thorin slaughter his own rock army. The man had been sick with what the Silverdagger Clan had called XP sickness. Back then, Logan had judged him, not understanding how he could turn on his own soldiers.
Logan had reasoned that he’d killed dozens of snakes while fleeing the snake swarm. He’d never lost the plot. But what if it hadn’t been Thorin who had been weak, but a weakness brought on by a skill ring that the Silverdagger Clan had created by boiling a feeling, thinking animal like Ernie alive? Who was to say that there weren’t consequences?
If the Silverdagger Clan were so familiar with something they called XP sickness, it made sense that it was common on their world. And if their people walked around with multiple skill rings, they could be unknowingly creating the problem themselves.
But Logan had a real dilemma. If he took off the ring, that meant his clones would dissolve, and the rat army would turn into a nightmare. There was no way Brooke and Chase and the others would be able to hold back that swarm.
Brooke and Chase.
The others.
Human meat, full of XP to fuel his gain. Why should it matter if he saved them? They were wastes of space, weak. There was no way they’d survive. Why not use their death for something valuable?
Logan’s eyes bulged. He wanted to fall into that pit. A pit of death, and when he tried to pull himself out, it was as if he were tearing himself apart. He knew it was wrong; it went against everything he believed, but level increase after level increase continued to pour in like the tide, hitting him with euphoria and elation. He never wanted it to stop; everything around him would be nothing but kindling for an unending reign of—
Logan blinked.
Ernie had hit him in the face with a tentacle.
“A crazy man is not who I bonded to, Logan! Squishy human must take off the evil! Evil lives on your hand! Evil!”
Ernie had already been slimy before he’d turned into an undead being, but now his skin was cold as well. It was like being hit with a wet fish.
And just like that, Logan knew what he had to do.
With a blink, he dissolved the glove around his right hand and stared at the ring on his finger. Even now, something within him rebelled. It was as if the ring were fighting back. It wanted to remain, for at the other end, was pleasure and power.
But it was false. There may be pleasure and power, but eventually, it would end, and Logan would have nothing but despair.
Somehow, the Silverdagger Clan had managed to capture the power of an animal and create this ring. But instead of just power, had they captured more than a skill? Had they captured the animal’s lifeforce? An animal who had gone through agony, boiled alive, so they could turn it into jewelry? If there was power in this ring, the remains of the animal’s willpower might be there as well. A catch 22 situation. A way for it to fight back and get revenge on its killers.
The hairs on the back of his neck standing up and his stomach sloshing, Logan screamed as he pulled off the ring. Then using every earned strength attribute at his disposal, he pinned the metal between his index finger and thumb and squeezed. The ring was as hard as steel; it didn’t want to bend, but Logan was unrelenting, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
And then with a clatter, it shattered into pieces.
The ring was no more.
Panting, Logan looked towards Brooke and Chase. His clones had disappeared, and now, nothing held back the swarm.