Luke cursed helplessly as the man named Graves unleashed a hail of fireballs down on the caravan.

"SHIELDS UP," Duncan called out.

Immediately, dozens of glowing magical shields popped up around the vehicles. The fireballs impacted the shields, waves of fire washing over them all. Luke felt the sudden change from the biting cold winds to blistering heat as the hair on his arm burned. Hope cried out, terrified as she tried to move away from the flames.

"Shoot them down." Sam's voice cut through the chaos as she unleashed an arrow directly into the murder of undead crows.

Luke was distracted as [Third Labor] went off. Spinning around, he blocked an orc's attack with his spear. Smacking the attack away, Luke stabbed into the orc's chest, his spear tip catering to the wound as he shoved it into the orc's heart.

"Duncan!! This guy is a beta-tester. Any ideas!? Duncan?!"

WOOOSH

Luke turned around just in time to see a gout of fire shooting out of Duncan's hands and into the swarm of undead crows. But what really surprised him was that Travis was standing on the roof of the van, motioning to Graves to come at him.

"How the hell are you doing that?" Luke asked in astonishment as he kicked the warg away.

"Using magic to make my feet stick to the roof," Duncan shouted over the whistling wind as he launched another burst of fire into the undead crows.

"HELP!!!" Duncan screamed.

Luke turned around, finding Duncan no longer in the vehicle but hanging on to it for dear life as two undead crows tried to pull him out.

Giving Hope a nudge, Luke slowed down, coming abreast with Duncan. His spear shot out, impaling the side of one of the attacking crows.

The bird didn't even react as it started to burn, but that was fine with Luke. Swinging his spear around, he slammed the bird he had impaled on his spear into the remaining crow. The two crows were knocked to the ground quickly, and the minivan behind them ran over them.

Luke reached down, grabbing Duncan and pulling him up so he could resaddle his horse.

"I officially hate this," Duncan muttered as he tried to get back into the car.

Luke looked around them. The undead birds were attacking the minivans and the mounted combatants indiscriminately. Graves didn't seem to be distinguishing between the orcs and humans. Instead, he was just trying to kill everyone.

"Keep the birds away from the vans!" Luke warned as he skewered a third bird as it tried to descend on them. We need to keep the fighting away from the caravan!"

Luke raced over to one of the vans being attacked. The children inside were screaming as the bird ripped and tore at the roof of the van. Luke stood up in the saddle, stabbing the bird with his spear before pulling the bird off the roof and flinging it to the ground. The crow screeched as its bones shattered and was then turned into road kill by the minivan behind him.

He rode over to where an orc was trying to reach into one of the van windows, and he hamstrung the warg's back legs. The orc's mount collapsed, leaving the orc clinging to the window. Luke shoved the spear tip into the orc's side, piercing the orc's heart and killing him instantly.

A scream tour through the cold winds, causing him to look up just in time to see one of the horses get their throat torn out by a warg, and the rider, Gareth, was sent tumbling onto the frozen road. Without a thought, Luke all but fell out of his saddle as he leaned over to catch the man's collar as they rode past him.

"Hazay, I'm saved," Gareth cheered as Luke strained to pull him upwards.

With a grunt and a shove, Luke tossed Gareth through the minivan's broken window, throwing the heavily armored paladin into the passenger's seat.

"What the fuck?" the people inside screamed as a man was tossed inside.

"Take care of him!!!" Luke called out as he charged towards the Warg rider who had killed one of his horses.

He charged forward, stabbing forward with his spear. The orc blocked his strike with his shield. The wooden circle was blackened as his incandescent spear tip impacted the surface.

The orc knocked aside his spear and tried to stab him. Luke brought the butt of his spear around and knocked away the blade. He then brought around his spear, the burning tip, scouring a nasty hit across the orc's sword arm. The blazing tip caused the orc to drop its sword with a snarl.

The orc warg tried to jump up to bite him when he was off balance. Then Hope moved. She pulled them both back from the Warg, then leaned down and bit the Warg, tearing out a chunk of flesh from the Warg's neck.

"What the fuck?!" Luke asked, staring at what he thought was a peaceful animal.

Was the system turning even the horses into bloodthirsty monsters? Hope didn't give him much time to process the information before she leaned back in, taking another bite out of the Warg's neck even as the orc tried to stop it.

The orc broke off from Luke, turning away from the stunned Luke and a blood-soaked Hope.

"You aren't going to try and eat me, are you?" Luke asked.

Hope whinnied something at him that sounded like, 'Of course not.'

The orcs retreated as the undead started to swarm the caravan.

Luke had to block and attack as one of the undead crows tried to scratch his eyes out. Grabbing the bird's claw, he tossed the bird under one of the minivans, turning it into roadkill.

He looked around, trying to find the next fight, when he found Graves. The edge lord was standing on the roof of the leading van, facing off against Travis. The two beta-testers showed off what actual mastery of the system could unlock, and even Luke had to admit he was out of his league compared to those two.

Graves wasn't just faster than Travis. His movements were savage, and each attack was aimed at being lethal. The guy was constantly moving, dancing on top of the roof of the car like a madman as his scythe spun around his body like a windmill. The weapon itself seemed to glow with ghostly echoes, with faces and hands pressed against the inside of the metal, as if the scythe were a pane of glass looking into purgatory. If he wasn't so cringy, Graves might have looked like death incarnate.

Travis, on the other hand, was just better. He was a bit slower, but he made up for it with the ability to teleport. Any time Graves started to gain the advantage, Travis would just teleport out of the way and attack him from the rear.

Travis was also a lot stronger than Graves. His blows sent Graves staggering backwards while he didn't move at all. It took Luke a moment to realize that it wasn't just stats but skill. Travis was anticipating and predicting Graves's moves.

Every time Graves attacked, his scythe missed Travis by the barest of margins, almost looking like Graves had been trying to miss. More than that, every time Travis dodged, he counterattacked, his sword blasting with flame and lighting strikes as he anticipated Graves' movements and got closer and closer to a direct hit.

Luke quickly realized what he was looking at. While Graves was an example of the power someone could get from the system, Travis the lizard wizard was an example of what someone could be when they mastered the system. This was a battle of stats vs. skill, and right now, that fight was an effective stalemate as the two beta testers danced around each other.

"Why can't you just all die." Graves shouted as he swung at Travis's head.

"This is a refugee caravan, you dolt. We have kids with us. I understand that you might want to edge lord, but you realize that this is really right?" Travis shouted as he launched a burst of fire towards his face. "No respawn, no making a new character. Hell, we got kids here!!"

Graves sneered as he brought his scythe down, ripping through the roof of the minivan.

"Of course, I know this is real; that's what makes this great!" Graves said, a purple aura starting to grow around his body. "I can kill whoever I want, and they stay dead. And I am going to enjoy killing each and every one of you!!!"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Travis's reptilian blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "You actually want the infamy titles. You ssick fuck. You actually want the Child Murderer title? The Butcher of Humanity? Serial Killer? That's what you want to be?!"

"Of course. Blood for the blood god and skulls for the skull throne," Graves laughed like a madman as he leapt up into the air, his black wings snapping outwards to keep him aloft as he pointed his scythe down at Travis's mana gathering at its head.

Luke didn't need his skills to know what would happen next. Nore, was he going to wait? Now that Graves was away from Travis, he could attack. Flipping his spear up into a javelin position, he activated both the [First Labor], [Sixth Labor], and [Molten Lead Lance]. His spear quickly turned into the ballista shape, energy from [Sixth Labor] causing the orange construction to hum with power as [Molten Lead-lance] swallowed his entire mana pool, turning the entire thing into a bomb. No, scratch that. He was holding a God's damned missile in his hand now. With all his strength and minimal skill, Luke launched his attack. The first sign something was wrong was when his abilities forced his arm to move. It yanked his arm forward with more force than he could take as his skills pushed the javelin to its maximum speed. There was a sickening crack as he felt his right arm break under the force of his own throw. He cradled his arm as he watched The Javelin streaked through the air towards its target like an actual missile straight into Grave's undefended backside.

BOOOOOOOM

Luke realized then that calling it a missile had been accurate, painfully so. The blast shattered the nearby windows. The heat and pressure nearly knocked Luke off of his horse, and the blast left spots in Luke's vision as molten lead splashed onto the asphalt.

"What the fuck was that?!" Sam's voice cut through the ringing in Luke's ear.

Luke looked around for Graves but was distracted as all of the undead crows fell out of the sky as if they had all had their strings cut. Luke looked around, finding they were finally free of attacks.

<[Kin of Horses] has Reached Level 17>

<[Kin of Horses] has Reached Level 18>

…

<[Kin of Horses] has Reached Level 20>

<[First Labor] has Reached Level 22>

<[First Labor] has Reached Level 23>

<[Second Labor] has Reached Level 20>

<[Fourth Labor] has Reached Level 19>

<[Fourth Labor] has Reached Level 20>

<[Sixth Labor] has Reached Level 21>

<[Sixth Labor] has Reached Level 22>

<[Poseidon's Sea] has Reached Level 21>

<[Natural Born Leader] has Reached Level 17>

<[Natural Born Leader] has Reached Level 18>

<[Master of Death] has Reached Level 17>

<[Greek Tragedy] has Reached Level 14>

<[Molten Lead Lance] has Reached Level 13>

<[Molten Lead Lance] has Reached Level 14>

<[Molten Lead Lance] has Reached Level 15>

"We've Won!" Gareth called out.

Luke let out a whoop, and then a house they had passed exploded.

"God dammit!" Luke swore as Graves shot out of the rubble, his black wings snapping outwards ominously. Luke braced, ready for another fight, then Graves turned and flew away at top speed.

"What the hell?!" Luke wondered. "Why?! How the hell did he even survive that?!"

"Bloodline of the Corpse Eating Maggot!" Travis called back.

Luke and Sam rode up near the van Travis was standing on.

Travis wasn't nearly as uninjured as Luke had thought. His body was littered with small cuts, and his clothes were stained with blood as he looked like he was ready to pass out.

"He has a bloodline!" Travis called out over the whipping wind.

It was a struggle to talk while the horses galloped to keep pace with the vehicles, but it was doable, especially as the horses seemed to be gaining abilities to increase their top speed.

"What do you mean?" Luke called out over the wind.

"That man has the Bloodline of the Corpse-Eating Maggot," Travis explained. "It's a common choice for necromancers because one of its effects is the ability to displace damage to their undead. That's why when you threw that javelin at him, all of the birds died. They took all of the damage for him, and he just needed to deal with the secondary effects like getting knocked out of the sky."

Sam turned on her horse to look at him in stunned silence.

"You did that? How? That thing looked like a god's damned missile."

Luke gave a pained shrug. "I combined [First Labor], [Sixth Labor], and my newest perk, [Molten Lead Lance]. I think I broke my arm in the attempt, though."

"You need more endurance. It's a short-term problem. Good combo, though. On any non-Beta tester, it would have been lethal. At this level, at least." Travis said

"Wait a minute. Are you saying you could survive an attack like that?" Sam asked, amazed.

"No, of course not. Taking a direct hit from that attack would have killed me," Travis said with a twinkle in his eye. Luke got the hint that he would actually need to hit Travis in order to kill him. As they moved out of Newton and towards Surrey, Travis let out a sign.

"You know, for all the horrors of this new world, I really do love it," Travis chuckled as they rode onwards to the Awoken myths guild.

You may skip to the next chapter.

Name: Luke Graceson

Race: Demigod

Type: Humanoid

LVL: 13

SubRace: Human

Age 18

Health: 985 / 1045

Stamina: 2020

Mana: 1700

Health Regen: 12.4 per hour

Stamina Regen: 16.3 per min

Mana Regen: 5.2 per min

Titles: Awoken Myths Member

Immune

N/A

Resistances

Physical 10.5%, Elemental 10.5%, Mental 9%

Weakness

N/A

Bane

Manslayer, Godslayer

Classes: Heir to Theseus 10, Heir to Beleiraphone 3, 2 Unassigned

Total

STR: 156

AGIL: 13

DEX: 57

CON: 85

END: 39

PER: 71

INT: 85

WILL: 13

SPIRIT: 39

EGO: 27

CHA: 74

LCK: 14

Base

STR: 142 +10%

AGIL: 13

DEX: 52 +10%

CON: 78 +10%

END: 39

PER: 65 +10%

INT: 78 +10%

WILL: 13

SPIRIT: 39

EGO: 26 +5%

CHA: 65 +15%

LCK: 13 +10%

Personal: +4 PER, +3 STR, +3 DEX, +2 CON, +2 CHA

Racial: +3 CON, +2 STR, +2 END, +2 SPIRIT, +2 CHA, +1 EGO

Bloodline: +5 STR, +5 INT

Level Bonus: +1 to all stats

Bloodline:

[Bloodline of Poseidon] - Legendary: Your father is Poseidon, the god of the sea, the earthshaker, Stormbringer, the father of horses, the guy you named the eighth planet in your solar system after. As the son of the sea god, you gain the following Benefits.

- [Power of the Sea God] - Level 1

- [Poseidon's Sea] - Level 20 >> Level 21

- [Kin of Horses] - Level 16 >> Level 20

- [Born Sailor] - Level 1

- [Natural Born Leader] - Level 16 >> Level 18

- [Master of Death] - Level 16 >> Level 17

- [Greek Tragedy] - Level 13 >> Level 14

- [Divine Assistance (Guide)] - ErR0R#4!!*!%!$

- +5 STR per level

- +5 INT per level

Skill Slots 11/60

Personal Skills

- [Endless Brawler] - Level 15

- [Storage] - Level 10

- [Meditation] - Level 1

Heir to Theseus 06/11

- [First Labor: Periphetes' Crippling Strike] - Level 21 >> Level 23

- [Second Labor: The Charming of Sinis] - Level 19 >> Level 20

- [Third Labor: Hunter of The Crommyonian Sow] - Level 21

- [Forth Labor: Vision of Sciron] - Level 18 >> Level 20

- [Fifth Labor: Father of Wrestling] - Level 22

- Capstone - [Sixth Labor: Procrustes Just Deserts] - Level 20 >> Level 22

Heir to Bellerophon 2/6

- [Legacy of Misfortune] - Level 2

- [Molten Lead Lance] - Level 12 >> Level 15