Jack hummed a song only he knew while pouring gasoline in a circle. Satisfied, he took the rest of it off to the side and placed it next to the shovel. He was doing science! Today’s experiment: does mixing gasoline and diesel still burn?

No need to hypothesize, let’s find out!

Jack lit the match and tossed it into the grassy circle. It WOOSHED to life in a very satisfying manner.

Excellent! Jack giggled. He watched it burn completely away, making sure to pay extra attention so it didn’t spread. Wouldn’t want that, now would we?

Once that was over, Jack got to work.

The first step was lugging water bottles, barrels, and whatever other bit of water he could find into the giant burnt circle. Then, he collected gas cans from every garage and shed in the subdivision, setting them in a rough circle around his giant target. The final step was finding a container big enough for him to lay in. No kiddy pool would suffice!

He chose a metal tub from a farmer's plot not too far away. That was tricky to wheel over, but it was his ideal option.

Step two involved filling the tub with water, and setting the many extra bottles around some folding tables around the tub. Except in the direction of the target, of course. Oh! Couldn’t forget the sunglasses!

Step three, start pouring gasoline and diesel around the target. Use as much gas as possible!

Step four, drag a line of gas back to the tub.

Step five, wash himself off, change into a bathing suit, apply sunglasses and hearing protection, and strike the match.

Step six, enjoy.

The reflection in Jack’s sunglasses flared orange as fire raced down the track he laid out. It climbed up the sloped plastic siding of the multiple buildings, detonating in the most satisfying explosion Jack had ever heard. Even through his construction mufflers, it was loud enough to set his ears ringing. He held his glasses out of the water and plunged, shaking his head to get rid of the noise.

When he came back up, the show was well underway. The massive greenhouse turned dungeon would be the unwilling participant of the second science experiment of the day. Mainly, Jack just wanted to see how powerful the limits of ‘unbreakable’ went in regards to dungeons.

He tested the strength of the walls using all manners of things. Generally, the results came back with some manner of ‘supernaturally sturdy’, but Jack didn’t believe in unreachable limits. Everything had a breaking point, a fact he was intimately familiar with. The bruises on his shin proved it again and again when he trusted a piece of wood he shouldn’t have. Construction wasn’t for the weak.

Jack had entered the greenhouse dungeon full of animated, carnivorous plants and decided he wanted none of that. After clearing just enough space out front, he conducted a series of tests on the flexible plastic that made up the roof and ceiling of the thing. His interest in the stuff spiked when he managed to stick the knife in the wall enough that a small one could hang from it. From there, he found a gun and shot the stuff. It nearly made it all the way through. That was enough proof for Jack to believe that these things weren’t as unbreakable as he used to think.

Hence, the fire that was fighting to consume the three greenhouses in a row.

Jack drank some bottled water as he watched the blaze, feeling very satisfied with himself. It was rare that he felt pride in his work. Oh, but it wasn’t over yet. He was expecting guests!

“Geh!”

And just on time too!

Jack rolled his head back to stare upside down at the small group of goblins that had come to see what all the fuss was about. The ten starving stragglers were the only monsters within ten blocks of here. Jack checked.

He rose out of the tub, startling the monsters. It didn’t last long, because when they saw the first bit of easy prey they’d seen for days, they just acted.

Jack accepted them as he was. Wearing nothing but a bathing suit and sunglasses. The fire would take a while to actually do something, so these chumps would serve as entertainment in the meanwhile.

Jack didn’t fight to kill, especially not right away. The purpose of this fight wasn’t to fight. It was to survive. To hone Jack’s instincts beyond the point where he needed to consciously think about his surroundings. He’d already accomplished that in one on one battles, and to a limited degree when facing a horde, but it was different when they came at him from all directions. If Jack wanted to survive, he had to learn.

Both sides gleefully combated against each other, though neither managed to hurt the other. Jack found an effective form of crowd control to be shoving one body into another, so he pissed them off with that. One of the goblins, the smallest one, wielded a stick like a shaman, though it didn’t have the dressings of one. It wiggled its stick around, chanting stuff in a pattern.

Jack had seen that behavior too often now. Not just in goblins, but in the lizardfolk and other random monsters as well. They’d wave a stick or their hands around for no reason. With the semi sentient races, Jack could attribute it to religious beliefs, but when a dog deliberately stood ten feet away and breathed in Jack’s general direction, suspicions began to arise.

The small goblin snarled, yabbering angrily and stomping its feet when nothing happened. Same as usual.

Jack parried a couple of knives away with backhanded blows, forcing an opening for him to escape from the mob of goblins. He bolted for the small one, pinning it down with a well placed foot to the chest. He was gearing up to kick it unconscious so he could study it later, but then something happened behind him.

A part of the greenhouse opened up, bulging for a second before a spray of green doused a large amount of flames. The noise attracted both Jack and the goblins' attention. The hole in the wall of the plastic grew, and then seeds, chunks of plants, and dirt flew out in rushing chunks, flapping the greenhouse walls to make them sound like it was shitting out its content.

A golden text box floated above Jack.

“EEEE!” All ten goblins screamed.

Jack swiftly kicked his hostage, accidentally putting too much power into the strike. The goblin beneath him vanished into black smoke and embers. But the rest of the starving monsters just bolted past Jack, running for the houses in the distance.

“HEY!” Jack shouted. “Get back here and fight like men!”

They did not heed his words, continuing to run for what Jack could only presume was safety.

Jack’s interest returned to the spewing rush of plants coming out of the greenhouse. The hole was slowly growing, and one of the plant monsters from inside flung out in full. It landed on woody tentacles, flailing for purchase on the gravel parking lot. It slammed into a car, righting itself. Dozens of flowery tendrils rose up, spiraling around like they were looking for something to grab.

Jack glanced up at the golden text box.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"You have achieved something Awesome."

Awesome…

He was so not equipped to deal with this. Jack ran after the goblins. This fight wasn’t over yet. He’d be back with an ax. And maybe a flamethrower, if he figured out how to make one.

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Jack did end up discovering the wonderful world of propane flames. And with hundreds of barbecues around, it wasn’t hard to arm himself to the teeth. He dealt with the remnants of the greenhouse dungeon with little worries, and then moved on to other things.

There was a dungeon with human sized ants occupying where his elementary school used to be. That was fun.

After that, he cleared out a large number of subdivisions entirely, creating whole dead zones within the city. But by then, winter was around the corner. Rather than continue his slaughter of every monster he could see, Jack decided to set up a base camp for the winter. Securing a good, warm place to sleep for the night might not be guaranteed after all, and Jack had earned the break.

He did kill things during the summer and fall of course, but as soon as the roads turned icy, he mostly stopped. He had picked a tall building surrounded by short ones as his base. During the four and a half months of snowfall and ice, Jack steadily worked on increasing the fortress that would be his home. He set traps out the wazoo, from pitfalls, flamethrowers, gun turrets when he found some, and all other sorts of cool things. Nothing ever triggered any of the traps, of course, since Jack cleared the surroundings so he could work in peace. But it was still fun.

And come spring, Jack even set up enough generators and speakers on the rooftop to piss off an army!

Which, of course, was the goal.

Jack lounged in a deck chair, hundreds of buildings away. He flipped the switch in his hand and let it fall to the ground. In his other hand, he gnawed on some homemade monster jerky. It was getting harder and harder to find edible vegetables, but he managed just fine on a mostly meat diet anyway.

The speakers blared their siren. Jack didn’t know much about electronics themselves, but he knew how to create feedback loops. The irritating noise annoyed him even all the way over here, even through his hearing protection. And then the fireworks started.

Jack sipped from his blue potion. It was no fancy cocktail, but it was better than water.

He watched for a few hours, just enjoying the show, when the building finally blew up and the noise stopped. Well, the mechanical noises at least. He could hear hundreds of monsters in the distance battling it out in the distance.

Jack smirked, picking up his good weapons to start the hunt all over again.

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Jack slammed his mace down on the skull of the creature. It wasn’t a weak spot, but at this point, it didn’t matter. The giant beast fell silent. And its body didn’t disappear! That was rare. It was also unfortunate, as that meant he’d have to clean the weapon after this.

Jack looked around calmly. This was the last beast in town, as far as he was aware. A giant coyote turned were-creature the size of a small building.

Two golden text boxes appeared in Jack’s vision.

Two?

“You have achieved something Legendary!”

Legendary…? That’s new.

“Everyone within this city reveres you as its leader. Would you like to claim this city as your territory? Y/N”

Everyone? Jack narrowed his eyes, looking around again. The final battle had taken a toll on the surrounding forest and hills. He was in what used to be a semi-central dog park, so he had a pretty good view of the surrounding area. And with a lot of the skyscrapers downtown turned to rubble, he could practically see the whole city. It was covered in blood, rubble, ash, and whatever else was left behind Jack’s destructive wake. There was nothing left alive but…

Wait, does everyone just mean me?

Jack thought about it for a while, even as the first text box vanished. The second one awaited him in comfortable reach.

MY territory sounds nice and all, but there’s nothing here. I wonder if I’ll get a bonus if I say yes though… or do I get a bonus whether or not I say yes?

The decision took much longer than Jack thought it would, but eventually, he decided against accepting the territory. With the confirmation that the city was well and truly conquered, he had no reason to stay here. There were no survivors other than him. But the same might not be true for other cities. If Jack left, he might find others who were still trying to survive like he was.

He didn’t even have to touch the text box when it vanished. Hopefully that meant it recognized his decision. Jack yawned, stretching. Thankfully, for this final battle, he decided to use all of his best gear, just because he hadn’t done so before and he wanted to see how easy it was. Even against an army of thousands of randomized monsters from every genre, he wasn’t all that bad off. Sure, his armor had taken a number of large blows, but Jack hadn’t received anything fatal. The few cuts that he did have would go away with a quick… health… potion.

The ground around Jack was slowly rising.

And not just nearby either, the whole city was rising into the air, pieces at a time. Housing debris, ashes, huge chunks of buildings all slowly raised into the air.

Jack dashed for his nearest cache, hidden long before the battle had started. Practically diving under the tree he hid it under, he found a health potion and topped himself up. He kept close to the tree as he duct taped his armor back together, all the while keeping a close eye on the sky as the rubble rose higher and higher.

It conglomerated in two distinct areas. Seemingly restricted by something unseen, Jack witnessed as the two floating chunks of rubble expanded both up and down, meeting each other at a pointed top and the ground below, forming an arch. More and more rubble floated into the air, now including pavement, roads, and whole buildings. They all made horrendous crunches and crashes, along with the occasional explosion as the thin arms of the arch thickened, further and further. Shadows passed over Jack as houses passed over him to join the others.

Only when every man-made structure in the city was a part of the arch did things quiet down. Jack hid at the ready, staring at the giant, thick arch.

Walls formed on the inside. They came from dark voids within the arch, slowly grinding along the ground until the two met in the middle, resembling doors. They were made of pure, solid stone, each looking like they had been carved from mountains. And they were carved, because on either door, Jack could see carvings depicting two individuals, each standing between the other and a planet behind them. One was the elf from the murals, with four eyes and excessively long ears, standing before a generic looking planet.

And the other was him. Standing between the elf and Earth.

Both figures had their hands placed against the crack of the door, with the elf looking like it was trying to pry the door open, and with Jack looking like he was trying to keep the door closed.

Jack stayed there, just observing the monolithic stone doors for hours, trying to think of what he was supposed to do. He noted, with a small amount of contempt, that his figure was smaller than the elf. If the carvings were proportional, Jack would most likely lose his fight against the larger elf. And if it was trying to open the door, Jack wasn’t sure he’d appreciate what was on the other side.

Well, I was just leaving anyway. Jack thought bitterly. But I’ll be back. Just in case.

His decision made, Jack picked up his cache and set off. He already had a destination in mind.

Then, a new golden text box appeared.

What now!?

“You have achieved something Great.”

…Great?

The text changed.

“You have grown accustomed to the Universe. All messages will be easier to read.”

“For surviving the first year of Apocrypha, you have gained the skill: Apocrypha Survivor!”

“Apocrypha Survivor has granted you the trait: Predator!”

Jack’s jaw suddenly hurt. His teeth clicked in place, shifting. Jack dropped his weapon and shield, hands immediately reaching for his mouth. But then his fingertips started aching too. The pain wasn’t too bad, so Jack was able to keep standing while he witnessed his fingers change slightly. A slit was digging its way down the center of his fingers, starting from beneath his nails. The nails themselves were also growing darker, like something was forming beneath them.

It didn’t take long, and soon, the pain stopped altogether. Jack stared at the new slits at the ends of his fingers with confusion. His tongue rolled around his mouth.

His teeth were pointed.

Jack blinked. Hesitatingly, he brought a finger up to his mouth and he touched his teeth. Sure enough, they were pointed. His bottom row had shifted slightly, to center the bottom row. Now, his teeth slotted together nicely.

Glad to have confirmed his sense of touch, Jack returned his attention to his hands. Curious, he tried to split open one of the slits to look inside. After turning his hand around to the right kind of light, he could kind of see something reflective inside. He tried pressing it to the pad of another finger. Whatever was inside was sharp. Like…

A claw.

He instinctively flexed muscles he didn’t know he had, and out popped five sturdy looking claws. His regular fingernails were still there, which made for an interesting feeling as the claws slid out beneath them. Jack studied both hands, one with the claws out and the other normal. He released one set and flexed the other. After playing with his new claws for a while, Jack just decided to chuckle.

These would make his job of killing things one hell of a lot more personal.

With that, he collected his things and began his next journey.