Explosions and repeated gunfire echoed in the city below, snapping O'Brien out of his reflection.

"There are monsters! Run!" a man cried.

"All citizens please be advised that there is a current situation in the city requiring all residents to stay indoors as much as possible while the military handles it,” someone on a screen neutrally said. “All those currently outside or far from home, please head to the following locations..."

"What the fuck!! It's eating his brains — Th-that giant bug!"

"Mom! Grab my hand, grab my hand!"

"You there! Head to the nearest evacuation point and get out of the way!"

Outside was noisy.

O'Brien wiped his face and dusted himself off. He was tempted to look within his card aperture to see how it had changed. Maybe his card slots increased? If the rumor about the card factor and natal cards was true, then perhaps the one about card slots was also true.

But...

"I don't have time to waste…” he muttered under his breath. “I should hurry up and grab all the cards I can. I need a few sealing and storage cards for everything in the storage lockers. Logging them around everywhere just as they are would be a pain. A few good combat cards and other auxiliary cards wouldn't be too bad either."

His heart was incredibly itchy, even his willpower tempered by fifteen years of the apocalypse was almost broken by hitting his weak spot.

He couldn't wait to see how he had changed in detail due to the still unknown quality natal card. He could already feel some indescribable changes within himself. The best he could describe it was that he was no longer purely 'mortal'.

‘In hindsight, I should've probably gotten a drone or something to monitor where the higher-ranked cards have fallen to better find them now but can't cry over spilled milk.’

O'Brien felt a little embarrassed about such an oversight, even after traveling back in time, but he didn't beat himself up too badly.

He wasn't even a hundred percent sure he would be successful in taming the natal card and even had a backup suicide plan ready.

He was even... slightly looking forward to failing.

It couldn't be helped. No one could be certain about taming such a mysterious natal card. Men on the level of Blue Phoenix and even a tier below her were said to barely match their natal cards in the wild, even with the force of an elite troop behind them.

Once activated, creature cards like the Blue Flame Phoenix, gain higher-level intelligence and they were far more adept at using their abilities than they were. Without humans tying them down, their combat power was several levels higher on their own.

It was clear that in nature the cards many humans wielded, the monster summon cards in particular, were capable of a lot more than they could do using their power.

Killing monsters for cards was very difficult since they knew how to run, plot, and hold grudges. Some might say their intelligence may even surpass humans at times.

There were stories of a few people hunting activated card monsters, only for them to self-implode and commit suicide, preventing their card forms from being formed.

The standard method of obtaining cards was to kill the related monsters or subdue the related supernatural phenomena, but how could you when you were just a weak mortal? To do so, one must gain strength by using cards.

Even if you left your natal card position free and resisted fusing it, you would not be able to surpass the realm of Card Apprentice without a natal card.

Moreover, without fusing the natal card, your basic strength would be incredibly weak, and using powerful cards to fight was that much more cumbersome with their various activation requirements.

Guns affected only low-ranked monsters and aliens. The death rate of doing this was also exponentially higher than one would expect.

And how can a weak Card Apprentice match the power of a higher-ranked being several times stronger than them? Through cards, of course!

Low-ranked cards were ineffective against great beings, so a high-ranked card was needed. But you could only use cards that matched your level, so how could you kill and subdue a high-quality card as your natal card?

Such was the conundrum, almost a carbon copy of the spending money to make money scenario, or getting experience for an entry-level job that also required industry experience.

So to obtain powerful cards without external help, the Genesis Card Fall was the only viable option for humanity.

"Well, everything worked out, so I got to move into the next phase." O'Brien was filled with energy and a new outlook on life.

"All citizens please be advised that there is a current situation in the city requiring all residents to stay indoors as much as possible while the military handles it. All those currently outside or far from home, please head to the following locations..."

He looked down at the city below him before he jumped down from the 41st floor with his newfound epic strength!

Just kidding.

At least, he would have liked that, but the basic strength of a Tier Zero Card Apprentice was not so exaggerated. He just became a Card Master and was in the first realm of Tier Zero's four sub-realms. Without cards, the basic human strength was so-so even after enhancement.

He just fetched his slightly battered jetpack and did a few equipment tests before jumping down through the shattered glass window. The 41st floor was now the top floor after all the above floors vanished into nothingness.

‘The Prime Terraforming Transformation should be happening soon, so I gotta hurry.’

Without being too proud of himself although he was deserving of it, O'Brien quickly got to his feet and began executing his follow-up plans.

Everything beyond this point was a bonus for him; he already had the most precious and vital thing. The natal card was the most important and irreplaceable thing to evolve in the apocalypse.

Battle cards, equipment, food, shelter, allies, and so on were all important, but these were all easily obtainable with a good natal card. To put it simply, everything else could be lost, but not the natal card. It was even more a part of a person than their limbs! People could still cut off limbs but no one can cut out their natal card.

In this early period, many people, other than 'Blessed Ones' or 'God's Favored' whose natal cards had sought them out from afar, did not know how to awaken the card aperture. So this first set of Card Masters was destined to monopolize a lot of the good cards. Therefore some individuals argued that the Gold Rush period was actually until normal people began awakening their aperture. Based on this he had a lot of time.

*

The decaying buildings groaned ominously, soon to be mere shells, ready to crumble after endless days of this waking nightmare, with added shock from the terraforming that was soon to happen.

Below, unearthly horrors skittered through the streets—monstrous beetles the size of cars relentlessly hunting the screeching and fleeing humans. The largest were as big as cars, and the smallest, the size of dogs.

Their rounded, three-part heads were revolting, but the curved, sickle-like mouthparts were the stuff of pure nightmare fuel, serving only the most sinister purpose.

Darkly iridescent shells shone in the dim light, reflecting wavering colors that made the skin crawl. Segmented blade-like legs carried them with unnatural speed and agility, streamlined bodies built for hunting.

But their most depraved and terrifying aspect was not the mouthparts, instead it was their gruesome rapid reproductive methods.

"Ahhhh! No, please!" Blood-curdling screams echoed through the streets, drowning out the constant gunfire rattling off their shells.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Dad! Oh god, Dad!"

"It tore his head open! It's laying eggs in his brain! I can hear them squirming!"

"Mom! Mom, where are you?!"

"Somebody save me!"

The beetles pinned people with their bladed legs, splitting their skulls with sickle mouths. They regurgitated eggs from their pulpy abdominal cavity. The eggs swiftly hatched within seconds, bursting heads in a shower of gore, and greedily devouring the corpse remains.

At the sight, many doubled over, retching as they cried for their mothers, both young and old. None were spared from the paroxysms of horror.

Over the madness rang the endless gunfire of military vehicles—their only chance for survival. In reckless desperation, people hurled themselves towards the barrage, even into the line of fire.

"Get back, you fools! Priority is extermination, no matter the cost! If you rush the line, your death is your own doing! Back up!"

The squadron of armored vehicles mounted with guns unleashed a thunderous storm of bullets upon the chitinous demons, heedless of collateral damage.

"Fucking unbelievable. Not only do we have to deal with these alien bug-like creatures with turtle shells, but we still have to try and not slaughter the fools who jump in our line of fire to help.”

“And still no fucking word from HQ. What are those pencil pushers doing? Where are the choppers? The tanks! The damn missiles!" A middle-aged man smoking a thick cigar dressed in a standard military outfit bit his cigar in frustration.

"Captain, Second Lieutenant, Those larger bugs..." one soldier cautiously began after observing a few bugs still in the process of laying eggs in human skulls outside of their current firing range.

"Yeah, we see it. After laying eggs those bigger ones get a bit slower, a tad smaller, and their shells soften a bit making them easier to kill. But their armor strength is already exaggerated enough. The fuckers can stand heavy machine gunfire for more than five seconds before they start breaking apart from the barrage of rounds."

Having served for over a decade, being deployed on various battlegrounds, the platoon commander could still make observations himself.

But what made his skin crawl was the solemn look on his second lieutenant's face, a man with a background in biology and medicine serving as the de facto field medic in many cases.

"How bad is it?" The captain asked.

In the background came the reoccurring announcement. "All citizens please be advised that there is a current situation in the city requiring all residents to stay indoors as much as possible while the military handles it. All those currently outside or far from home, please head to the following locations..."

"Very bad,” was the lieutenant's grave reply. “The period from laying eggs to hatching is too fast, and the combat ability of the hatchlings is too strong. The speed is not unprecedented but is usually only seen in tiny bugs, mostly ant-sized or less. The big ones are big enough and the babies are already way too big upon birth.

“Even these little ones can withstand a round of machine gun fire,” The second lieutenant surmised. “They are reproducing too fast, but considering the extent of the reports we have about the presence of these creatures... I imagine there were initially only a few, but... the ones in front of us, even the larger ones, were likely eggs not long ago."

"Fuck," the captain vocalized what every man was feeling right now.

They already had an inkling as to why HQ had not given them proper instructions other than to eliminate all invaders. And why HQ had minimal contact with them even now, save for some inquiries.

Their city probably wasn't the only one suffering from this monster.

"It's not all hopeless, although the hatchlings seem to be able to reproduce themselves after reaching an estimated size. If we find and exterminate Bug Zero, we might be able to better suppress the outbreak," the lieutenant guessed.

"Are you sure?" The captain jumped up in half-excitement.

"No… I'm as blind as the rest of us in this matter, but it's a way to start." The second lieutenant felt bad, dousing all their excitement as everyone looked toward him, but he had to be truthful. He had too little info to make a good enough conclusion. This hypothesis was the best he could come up with from his observations.

Their mouths were busy, but so were their hands and they continued to fire.

Elsewhere, on a building just out of the reach of the main line of rushing beetles, a white-haired man with a jetpack held the straps as he looked over to the tense battleground.

"Sickle Beetles huh,” O'Brien muttered. “Those fucking abominations. I think I remember those guys mentioning their shit luck…”

There should only have been a normal female beetle at first, but it saw the opportunity to become a queen with so many humans as feed. It split off a part of itself and sent out the order to lay eggs to its descendants after birthing them.

This city sure drew one of the shortest straws possible. Without the undead likely caused by the Grey Dragon, they still weren't completely off the hook.

The normal case would have been one or two activated cards causing trouble, which were relatively easy to handle with few fatalities, but they happen to have won the lottery with a type that could reproduce rapidly.

“Well, at least the male soldiers haven't been produced yet. One could only imagine if the Dragon card had activated as well."

O'Brien hypothesized that his Grey Dragon was responsible for this place becoming a forbidden area feared by even the alien races. With him taking it away, the forbidden area should not form. Of course,

it was just his intuition that felt this likely to be the case.

But even with his interference, the humans of this city had a tough break in a different-themed hellscape; they still had to deal with the Sickle Beetles harvesting their brains to feed their young. Little did they know that they were spared from an even worse scenario with remnant corpses rising from the dead as zombies or ghosts of the violently killed.

The corpses and ghosts of your loved ones appeared and tried to kill you. The stuff of horrors that gave you nightmares years later.

The normal situation was likely a zombie apocalypse in this city due to the Grey Dragon's brief presence. The zombification of humans meant lacking nutrition, so this would-be-queen never dared to try. Or perhaps the Dragon had somehow deterred her. Whatever the reason, now the bug was trying to be Queen, and this city would suffer if it wasn't stopped.

"Well, it has nothing to do with me," He cold-heartedly refocused his attention, not caring too much about the blood-curdling screams. He had heard worse many times over.

Sometimes it was he who was screaming.

Many would die no matter what he did. Cards were his obsession.

O'Brien checked his watch, roughly estimating the remaining time. He whipped out his binoculars before heading towards some other glowing light in the distance.

*

On the other side of the main street where havoc was being unleashed, a broken-off line of fewer bugs was also killing and laying eggs left and right. There were only about a dozen now, but the number was rapidly increasing.

"Leo, baby! Leo!" a woman screamed as a bug snatched her child from her, impaling her right arm to the ground with its blade foot.

The little boy was scared stiff as his terrified eyes zoomed in on the sickle mouthpiece of the bug covered in blood and broken flesh.

As the creature was about to bite his head off, a bloody light pushed it backward.

A woman with blood-red hair and two bat-like black wings appeared, her right arm covered in a bloody light dense enough that it seemed it would drip droplets of blood the very next second. Her body had blood-red roses with thorns tightly gripping her curves, a sight that should have caused pain, but the woman seemed unperturbed.

"Run," the cool beauty commanded.

Her posture warily lowered, eyeing the rest of the beetles.

Huuuak!

The sickle beetle that was knocked away angrily ran back to the insolent food species, daring to touch it.

"All citizens please be advised that there is a current situation in the city requiring all residents to stay indoors as much as possible while the military handles it. All those currently outside or far from home, please head to the following locations..."

Seeing it come back, the mother and child frozen in place seemed to find energy from somewhere and ran away.

"Th-thank you."

Hearing the mother thank her, followed by the low voice of the scared child, the bloody woman couldn't help but smile a little, all the while trying to understand her new reality.

‘What the hell are these things?’

‘And what are these new abilities that suddenly appeared in my mind?’

‘O'Brien you... who are you really…?’

‘Whatever the case, I can't sit idly and let these monsters eat people!’

Mary Rose was confused by the sudden changes within her, foretold by O'Brien. But her body moved as if through muscle memory.

She had already killed three bugs before getting here and was somewhat used to her newfound power. There was a special instinct showing her how to use her abilities.

Channeling the bloody energy to her delicate right hand, she opened her palm to slap the rushing beetle.

*

Elsewhere Roya was similarly baffled, seeing bugs rampage as she took the high ground and set up her custom sniper rifle. Her backpack set behind her was glowing brightly.

"Hurry run this way. Come now, hurry up." Lea tapped her thighs and slightly bent down as she urged the small children to evacuate underground to one of the city shelters.

She had a medical kit on the ground but something was strapped to her inner thigh just below her skirt, its content's bright glow hardly being concealed.

‘That student of Rose… So he wasn't mentally challenged. But it doesn't make this less crazy.’

"Cards, right? They're important." Jules clasped her hand over her pounding heart, seeing the bugs eat another human.

She hadn't collected any cards at first and was busy trying to find where they had been locked up to try and rescue her aunt. Then she encountered her first man-eating bug.

She was tempted to rush out and help the victims, but the size of the bugs and their terrifying mouths discouraged her. She hid for a while, then she remembered what else O'Brien had said.

Seeing the bright lights flickering in the distance, close yet far away like stars, she took a deep breath and sprinted.