The long awaited announcement came a little over a week later.
The doom of a city and the people within came down on a familiar chime.
“Stand by for announcements.”
“The fuck you mean announcements,” Cal snapped.
He was flying over the North Atlantic.
“Slashers’ Spree begins. Consult world event and personal pages for details.”
…
…
…
“World Event Announcement.”
…
“Vukylokyr the Eternal has arrived in search of the vitae of the strong. Can the defenders of this world stop the beginning of a Crimson Era or will they join? Reap the rewards or be reaped. Consult world event and personal pages for details.”
…
…
…
“World Event Announcement.”
…
“A Tremgarog Titan has appeared. Can the defenders of this world stop its earth-cracking rampage? Consult world event and personal pages for details.”
…
…
…
“World Event Announcement.”
…
“Bonus spawn.”
…
“For 24 hours once a month a random monster type will be selected to populate all encounter challenges and spawn zones at increased strength and/or number. Consult world event and personal pages for details.”
…
…
…
“World Event Announcement.”
…
“Bounty system unlocked. Details available at your nearest spire.”
…
…
…
Cal didn’t have to imagine the dismay rippling across the entirety of the planet.
He could hear their thoughts.
Eron’s voice came over the comms.
“Yo, so, I found Tremgarog.”
That was fast.
Cal’s first thought had been to calibrate the satellites for something kaiju-sized going from the description.
“Where and can you patch me in to your camera?”
“Antarctica and give me a second.”
The video shook, showing nothing but snow, ice and bright sky for a moment as Eron put the glasses on.
His youngest brother still wasn’t wearing them all the time.
Titan was a fitting name.
The monster resembled an enormous insect, like a pill bug, but jagged like a moving mountain.
Eron flew around it, gathering data.
Close to 1000 meters at its tallest point and only a little less at its widest.
It tapered from front to back.
“Almost looks like those weird crabs, you know? The ones without claws, but has a tail,” Eron said.
“Can you kill it?”
“I mean, yeah, but what if that makes it mad and it goes wild and starts flying or shooting lasers everywhere?”
“We can’t let it crack the earth. What if you lift it into space?”
“No idea, I’ll try, but again… wild lasers…”
“I’ll get Rayna, I think we could do it together for sure.”
“Hold up on that. This thing isn’t going anywhere specific, right?”
“Not enough data for the algorithm to predict a track.”
“Yeah, so, it can wait. This Vukylokyr sounds more dangerous.”
“I’m going to call a couple of people for that. Seems like a magic thing.”
“Dude, ‘vitae’? ‘Crimson’? It screams vampire. Quick and easy fix. I find it, him, her, whatever, and look it. Done.”
“We don’t know if that’ll work.”
“Why wouldn’t it? Works on vampires.”
“This thing rates a world event.”
“Fair. But, it’s better to locate it right away before it can start on its era thing. So, I’m going to look for it.”
“Fine, just keep your distance until I can check with people that might know more than us.”
“I’m not watching while it goes for ‘vitae’, fucking pretentious bastard, seriously, I know you’d never ask that.”
“I didn’t. Just shoot it with eye beams from max range.”
“Okay.”
“And be ready to come back for this thing,” Cal regarded the mountain-sized monster. “I need to read the Slashers’ Spree stuff.”
“Shit! That’s right! Me too!”
“Do it, but then focus on Vukylokyr. You were back up on the evac anyways.”
“Stand by for announcement.”
The brothers cursed.
More events to pull them in many directions.
Crises engulfed the world.
----------------------------------------
The spires had pulled a fast one.
Anyone with a class could complete the first Quest in the chain with a simple word and enter the competition as a slasher.
In lieu of the class since she already had it, Holly got a point.
Most points to win?
It wasn’t clear.
There appeared to be a minimum number that at least one contestant had to reach to win the competition.
8 hours to start time. 8 hours to accept.
She held off for the moment as she read and listened.
World Event: Slashers’ Spree.
Location: Vancouver
Duration: 720:00:00
Where was this ‘Vancouver’?
A map would be useful.
She tapped a request in her smartphone.
30 days was a long time.
She scrolled down for details.
Only the barebones for now.
The spires would only release more information if she joined and when it officially started.
Travel wouldn’t be an issue.
Slashers would get transported.
The how wasn’t mentioned.
It looked like she and her kind weren’t the only ones competing, earning points.
Everyone else on the other side had their own Questlines.
She didn’t have to be a big thinker to imagine what that entailed.
Kill for one side.
Survive for the other.
It mentioned something about the city being locked down once it started. No one in or out. Again, the how wasn’t specified.
Points for Quests and points for kills.
People… she had to consciously remind herself that each kill was a person that existed with their own thoughts and goals, like her.
Nothing about slashers going after slashers.
Her phone beeped.
The map.
Then it rang.
“Yes.”
“Can you share intel?” Cal said.
She scanned the notification.
“No. Intentionally sharing with a non-slasher competitor will lead to immediate disqualification. It doesn’t say anything about working with non-slashers. I have to accept to view the full rules.”
“Same on this side. Memorize the map. Then join. They’ll keep an eye out for you and help if they can. You do the same. But both of you will keep your distance as much as possible. Focus your efforts on the worst of them, but this isn’t a suicide mission. Be smart about it. Your ultimate goal is to win if we can’t stop the rest. I’ll be there if I can. These world events… good luck. I trust you.”
Cal sounded more agitated than usual.
Understandable.
Some of those other events sounded much worse.
“Understood. I’ll follow orders until I received new ones. Good luck too.”
She studied the map, packed supplies in her bags of holding and accepted the Quest.
Her assumption had been correct.
The full scope of the Slashers’ Spree opened up to her.
Points for kills as expected.
What she hadn’t known was that each individual was assigned a point value.
There was a list.
Name. General location. General class-type. Level range within 10.
The people that lived in Vancouver.
There was a section for people coming in from the outside, not as slashers, but it was empty.
She didn’t know what the parameters of their Questline was. If she had to guess, they weren’t getting the automatic transport she was. They’d have to make their way over there in the next 8 hours.
There was a section for her kind.
The list was randomized.
She found her name near the bottom even though her level was near the top. Something pricked her to know that there were others like her, possibly higher level.
The rules were somewhat convoluted.
Points for kills based on the difficulty of the target— person— she had to remember that.
She saw her own point value.
It would make her a tempting target.
Where it got messy was the bonus points for preferred target— person— kill.
That meant not all people were worth the same amount of points to every slasher.
She hadn’t known how preferred target’s worked until much later.
Cal was the one that had told her.
Slasher’s could fixate on a type of victim. They performed better against them. They gained more for killing— murdering them. It was tied into their subconscious desires or hatreds. She had never done that. She had murdered to satisfy the class’ compulsion and to protect her secret.
Working for Cal had changed that.
It would seem that she had reason to want to win the competition.
A slight smile split her mouth.
She couldn’t help it.
This was going to be enjoyable.
The sentiment was shared by many around the world.
They already saw others as things to be used for their purposes. For levels, for pleasure and any number of reasons.
Others took no pleasure in the impending bloodletting, but saw the opportunity.
To strengthen themselves or to prevent undesirables from gaining the strength to one day become threats.
Loyal soldiers stood at attention beneath her benevolent gaze.
They had been waiting for a quarter hour.
One of her advisers emerged from a side door.
A young man with a familiar face, though startingly boyish.
It reminded her of the previous adviser.
The young man’s father.
Time really flew.
He approached her platform and bowed.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
She glanced at him, giving him the look.
He waited.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
She refrained from rolling her eyes as she beckoned with a crook of her finger.
His father had known what she wanted from a look.
“Eternal Empress,” he whispered in her ear. “It won’t work. They can’t accept the Quest without losing their cultivator class.”
A shame, though expected.
To date, cultivator was a singular class. One gave up all to gain it and once on the path there was only forward.
She had hoped to rid herself of a few headaches in the process of securing the world event’s rewards for her dynasty.
Her true weapons already stood in front of her.
Loyal and pragmatic as proper soldiers should be.
Gaining the slasher class wasn’t without risk, but her most intelligent advisers and class scholars agreed that the compulsion to kill could be controlled and mitigated. After all, was that not what soldiers did? They killed the enemy. A slasher would just find it a lot more personally rewarding.
To that end she had decided to send a select number of her soldiers above Level 40.
Assassins, spies, special forces.
Those that already operated in similar ways to the archetypical slasher.
The whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth.
She had vague memories of the American movies when she was a child.
Her family had lived at times on the west coast.
In one of the large cities.
Los Angeles? San Francisco? Both?
How did it go?
A murderer, sometimes supernatural, sometimes mundane, killing idiotic young men and women one by one until none remained or a single girl did.
They were quite gruesome.
Slashers dressed as clowns, wearing masks, sometimes made out of human skin, while stabbing, cutting or chainsawing their bloody way through the hapless victims.
Well… her slashers wouldn’t be doing any of that.
They could just keep wearing their standard armor minus identifying patches. Some of them already wore masks anyways.
She dismissed her adviser and rose.
“Know this,” she proclaimed. “Go forth! Bring honor and glory to the Phoenix Dynasty!”
“For the Eternal Flames! For the Eternal Empress!” They chanted in unison.
“I trust each of you.”
She did… up to a point.
She had briefly considered going herself.
The distance was well within her flight speed to get to Vancouver before the event started, but for obvious reasons she couldn’t leave.
Same for her brother.
The war with the Stone Lords was ongoing. The tenacious bastards had dug into the mountains all over the Hong Kong area. They had reached as far north as the mountains near Yantian. There were so many mountains south of her capital. She had never really given it much thought.
Her brother fought to hold the region. Shenzhen and Guangzhou were large modern cities from the pre-spires days. There were no other places in the south of her territory with the infrastructure they required. To lose them was to lose the entire south because, once again, it was all mountainous land to the north.
Then there was that world event in the Himalayas. Some kind of storm that carried unknown monsters rather than snow and rain. She would need to respond if it moved toward her territory. Perhaps, she’d be lucky and it’d move to the southeast and trouble the Indians. Northwest to the Stans was also an acceptable route. North less so, but her hold on Tibet and the Xinjiang desert was tenuous at best. A devastating monster storm could prove to be advantageous.
Old China was too large.
Perhaps she had erred in trying to hold on to the entire territory with only a fraction of the people.
Her children and nieces lacked the speed and stamina to cross the Pacific on their own. She could’ve loaded them on a plane to take them part way, but she didn’t trust their ability. It would’ve been a waste.
What she needed was stronger children.
Of the possible candidates she could only stomach two.
Never with the Japanese man.
Her children would never be monstrous.
What use was power if they lacked elegance?
Her boys would be handsome and her daughters would be beautiful.
The Phoenix Dynasty would accept no less.
On the same continent as the world event a soldier stared at his brother in arms with disbelief.
“What the fuck, man?” Lt. Nicholas List said.
“Orders, bro,” the other lieutenant shrugged. Rico by birth, Johnny by call sign.
“You can’t take a slasher class.”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t.”
“Relax the nerds figured it out. All I need to do is pick a preferred target that we’re killing anyways. That way no one that doesn’t deserve it gets hurt.”
“They got that info from slashers. Remember that clown that liked to paint his face in human blood, piss and shit?”
“Yeah, we kicked his ass…”
“That’s the kind of dude they’re taking advice from.”
“It’s accurate. You can’t lie to truth spells and Skills.”
“The insane can.”
“Sometimes…”
“What about your levels? You’re almost 50. You add another class at 1 and you can forget about that for a long time.”
“I’ll level during the contest, plus the nerds think the rewards will get me somewhere close. Already trying to manifest a consolidation. They figure that they have to be good to make it worthwhile for people to take another Level 1 class.”
“The fuck you gonna consolidate soldier with murderer?”
“Dunno,” Rico shrugged. “Any ideas?”
“No.”
“Then quit bitching. You’re throwing off my vibe.”
“So you got orders?” Nicholas tried another tack. “Who else is all on the team?”
“Can’t say. Top secret.”
“They’re not sending you alone are they?”
“Top secret.”
“Fuck! Okay, hypothetically, if I were to ask you what the melanin content of the team was what would you say?”
“Seriously, bro. It’s top secret. Deep red level shit. I say anything and it’s straight to prison.”
“The captain would’ve never let something like this happen.”
“Yeah, well, she got transferred.”
That was just about all Nicholas knew.
Command had made it clear to him that any questions or any chatter about what had happened with the Eidolon of Sut wouldn’t end well for either of them.
All he could think was that she had taken the blame for him like she had told him just after they had killed the monster.
The official story was full of shit.
Anti-American terrorists threatened by their freedoms had secretly infiltrated the eidolon’s sanctum. In desperation, the eidolon had magically teleported the two greatest American soldiers to defend him.
It had been a fierce fight, but in the end the anti-American terrorists had completed their objective at the cost of their dirty lives.
He didn’t miss the immediate changes to the animal-human hybridization program.
No more kids, volunteer and voluntold.
Only adults that volunteered.
Racial distribution had evened out too.
The failure rate had reversed too.
Turned out they could get close to a hundred percent success rate at the cost of the final product not being as strong as the ones the eidolon had made.
Fuck that guy.
Nicholas would’ve done it all over again just to make sure that none of those poor abominations would ever exist again.
Poor bastards didn’t deserve that fate.
He remembered the Eidolon of Sunor speaking to him in the aftermath and occasionally in the years since.
He knew a grooming when he saw it.
Not in the pervy way though.
More like as a valuable tool.
Didn’t sound much better, but that’s what he was to the government and the combined armed forces anyways.
Shit.
Not a day went by that he didn’t think of trying to find out where the captain was.
But he had to obey her last order.
And they had kept him busy.
Bountiful Decade sucked shit.
“You know what? You want to throw your life away, fine… but I’m not going to let you do it.”
Rico raised a brow. “That’s like you’re saying mutually exclusive shit.”
“This spree bullshit is one giant assassination clusterfuck and who’s the best assassin we’ve got, huh?”
“Bro, you can’t just invite yourself like we’re hitting the bars.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
7 hours to start time.
Nicholas could guess at how the op would go.
The team would accept at the last possible minute to buy time for support elements to get to Vancouver. They’d set up outside the territory and inside, playing both sides of the blood game.
Kill the other slashers to pave the road for their own.
Then have the forces outside to generously offer protection from monsters in the bloody aftermath.
The survivors wouldn’t have much choice if their best defenders had been killed in the 30 days of the contest.
Boom! Instant valuable territory secured for the nation.
It was going to be a race.
He couldn’t imagine the guys on the west coast not doing the same thing.
Shit, this sort of clusterfuck was sorta their thing.
Kansas, Florida.
They were always in the middle of big events.
He couldn’t help but think of the other world events.
None of them seemed to be happening close to their territory so command had been quiet.
“Well… shit… I’m stupid.”
The other world events meant that those guys would be busy as fuck.
They might not make it to Vancouver before access was closed.
Good.
There was an opening to pull it off.
Plus, he had another arrow to add to his quiver to convince her to put him on the Quest.
After all, he knew who really ran the country.
----------------------------------------
A kraken somewhere in the Atlantic?
Cezi had been evasive and reticent on the call in regards to who was going to handle it.
For an arrogant, battle-hungry dragon child she had demurred, claiming that she didn’t want to overstep the boundaries of her territory.
What had happened to the same dragon that had once laid claim to all the oceans and seas and lakes and rivers in front of his sister?
The satellites’ performance was mixed.
They couldn’t detect the kraken, nor Vukylokyr.
Eron was still looking for the probably vampire.
They had eyes on the monster storm hovering over the Himalayas and on the Tremgarog Titan.
The mountain-sized monster moved a lot faster than it looked, fortunately it didn’t seem to have a destination in mind as it zig-zagged over ice and snow, crushing glaciers that had been there for hundreds of thousands if not close to a million years.
They also detected a sudden burst of energy that Cal recognized.
He had used his own powers as a template for fear of outworld invaders like him appearing.
Mother Madrigal had left a deep impression on his psyche.
He descended on South America.
What was once Brazil to be exact.
The famous statue of Jesus Christ was partially obscured by the spire sharing its space or rather taking it over.
He found his target right away.
An old humanoid lay on the ground near the base of the spire and statue in the middle of the path tourists once used to flock to the statue.
They, for like the Threnosh gender was indistinct, were clad in rags dirtied by dried sweat and blood.
At first glance this didn’t look like a threat equal to the other world events.
The outworlder’s pink skin was pale and faded, like a red shirt washed too many times or a white one washed with the red one.
Their face was uncannily like an Earthians, except for the tentacle-like tendrils that hung from their chin and sprouted from their head instead of hair.
Their body was thin like a scarecrow.
Had they been on their feet, they would’ve toward over him much like the eidolons, though not as tall as a cragant.
Long fingers and toes lacked nails and looked so fine and delicate that a handshake seemed a dangerous proposition.
He reminded himself that, as always, looks deceived.
Psionic power roiled inside the outworlder’s head.
He pushed tentatively and located an organ that he didn’t have containing said power. He traced the lines in the outworlder’s body to the same organs in each of his limbs for a total of 9.
It appeared that said psionic energy had spread to the rest of the body like radiation. And like radiation, it was killing them.
He probed their memories for they lacked any defenses.
“Well… this is messed up.”
The outworlder opened their eyes.
That simple act had taken all their effort.
“You know you’re dying.”
“Yes… you must flee… must warn all.”
“I understand.”
They, for their people lacked gender as humans saw it, were a priest of sorts.
A select chosen of their people were born with the luck of having those organs.
The psionic power it granted was narrow in scope.
It could take emotions from their people and store it for later use in their technology.
Negative emotions were used to power destructive devices from weapons to tools, like drills and automatic hammers. Positive emotions powered devices that created and protected like the energy shields around their cities.
It had been a peaceful, harmonious society.
They only ever fought against monsters and outworld invaders.
It was one of the latter that had done this.
Cal saw them in the outworlder’s memories.
Invaders clad in plain white, never revealing what lay behind their blank face masks as they crushed the outworlder’s city with spells, Skills, high tech weaponry and what looked like powers. They bore no identifying symbols on their armor, vehicles, animals and even their flags.
Everything was clad in plain, unadorned white.
They subjected the pink-skinned people to the worst torture, forcing the priests to take the resulting emotions and hold them in for much longer than was safe.
It created a feedback loop within the unfortunate priests. Amplifying the psionic energies exponentially until they could no longer contain it.
When they burst the energy expanded outward for many miles. Any sapients caught in the blast experienced those emotions as their own.
Most instantly died from the strain of sharing in thousands and thousands of torturous experiences in a single instant. Hearts burst and brains fried.
Those were the lucky ones.
The few that survived would go on to develop the same organs.
The white-clad invaders took those to repeat the process.
“They turned you into bombs.”
“Yes… I am shamed.”
“You carry so many echoes inside you.”
“It was not meant to be… this way… they… know nothing in service… without… they know only pain…”
“You’re one of the first. I think you shouldn’t be ashamed. You’ve lasted so long.”
“To spare… innocent… failed… in end…”
“Agree to disagree.”
Cal created a mindscape.
“What… is… this?”
The outworlder stood as he once was.
Skin vibrant with a slight sheen in unadorned robes of exquisite quality.
They stood in a flat, empty plain.
“I… feel… good.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s temporary. You already knew this, but you’re going to die.”
“Yes and I am prepared. My only shame is that I will fail to contain it.”
“How far will it spread?”
Cal built psychic walls around them while they spoke.
“They showed me the others. Prokala, my friend, lasted 5 decades before he could contain it no longer. The spread reached 300 kilometers. They lasted longer than any other but myself.”
“How long have you lasted?”
He already knew the answer, but hoped to prolong the time they had by giving them a reason to keep holding on.
“Almost three centuries.”
“Like I said, nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Stranger, I am ‘Drendala’. May I ask?”
“‘Cal’. And you may.”
“I know not what this place is, though it feels familiar. And I, we don’t have much time. You must flee and warn others. I will hold as long as I can.”
“We have time. Hours even.”
“I— then I would ask for as long as I can. I had thought myself prepared long ago, but now that the time is near…”
“No shame in that. And don’t worry about it. I think I’ve got it figured out. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear your story and your people’s. Your the first… well… you I’ve ever met.”
“You are human?”
“I am.”
“Yes, I thought so. Though… this,” Drendala looked around the empty space, “you are doing this? No human I’ve ever met could do such a thing, but such is the spires worlds.”
“Here, why don’t I take you on a little tour of my world while we talk. You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.”
They talked for hours with the backdrop changing periodically to one of the many wonders of Earth.
Great cities and structures.
Wonders of nature.
Small places of personal value like the basketball gym where he won his first tournament as a child.
When the end came Drendala went not with despair, but with relief and hope.
They arrived as Drendala departed.
Negative emotions made from centuries of the torture and suffering imposed on Drendala’s people manifested as howling psychic entities driven insane.
They filled the mindscape. An army that spread farther than the eye could see.
This was a new thing for Cal.
He had never waged a large scale war battle, let alone one in his mindscape.
They came for him.
Tried to breach the walls.
He shredded them by the hundreds.
Then created his own army.
His positive emotions as embodied by his loved ones, family, friends and every good person he had ever been acquainted with.
The living and the dead.
Memories stood by his side.
They didn’t let a single one leave the mindscape.
When he emerged night had fallen.
He was surrounded by mountains of monster corpses.
Vague memories of tearing them apart or snapping their bones with telekinesis drifted back.
He had been mostly focused on the psychic war.
He spread his thoughts to the surrounding city.
Some injuries, but no deaths from the monsters’ mad rush to get to him.
The energies being released had attracted them like bugs to a zapper.
They always seemed to know when there was death in the air.
His armor was dead.
The hardware had been damaged and in some cases completely fried or shredded.
Panic started to swell in his chest.
The moon wasn’t in the sky. He couldn’t tell the exact time.
He reached out to the people in the city.
It had been one of the places they had hooked up with Omninet access due to the size of its population.
His heart dropped.
Over 8 hours had passed.
But he had been so sure that the mindscape war had been well within the time frame.
He checked the world event page with a thought.
The Slashers’ Spree had started.
He was locked on the outside while his wife and son were on the inside.
“Stand by for announcement.”
…
…
…
Was it doing it on purpose?
…
…
…
“World Event Announcement.”
…
“Adrelhit the Raper and his horde of clone-sons have set foot on verdant green. Can the defenders of this world stop him before all is Adrelhit? Consult world event and personal pages for details?
Cal flew straight to the closest satellite.
He had been gone for far too long.