by Pegaz
When John used the map icon and skill to teleport, he arrived inside a small room with a teleport rune inside. He rushed onto the rune a few seconds before his Explosion blew up all the small teleport rooms in the mission hub.
After arriving on another planet, John immediately destroyed the teleport rune. Taking a moment to catch his breath and let the adrenaline boil over, John walked to the middle of the room and sat down. He was still weak and exhausted from the overuse of Life Power, needing to rest for a little while. He checked his stats while he relaxed.
Name: John
Title: A Selfish Punisher.
Age: 31
Idlers: 0/225
Skill Points: 1
Life Pool: 132.2M
Sin: 9M
I used so much Life Power. That last attack depleted 5 million units. It’s like a last resort secret weapon.
Then, there are the Sins... Michael had over 600,000... Those roughly ten thousand assassins, if I remember right, the average Sin from them was 830-835 points. That totals to 8.3-8.35M.
Another thought struck John as he went over the numbers in his head. Where had those guns come from? They were like the old muskets they used in the 18th century on Earth. He wondered if a planet came up with the technology and sold it. He would have to try to find out on his travels.
First, he had to get 101M Sin points, then travel to one of the biggest sects out there. He boiled his options down to either the Sword sect or the Death sect.
While I use swords now and then, they are not my main weapons. Though, by the description of the sect that was in the library, they have techniques and factions for all weapons, not just swords. Meanwhile, the Death sect is all about killing people and robbing as much of their Life Power as possible. It’s more than likely that if I go there, I’d want to kill them all for their Sins. Since they kill for greed, I’m sure they have accrued many. Mental note to visit the Death sect at a later date.
And so, the Sword sect it was. Now, all he had to do was get there. John closed his eyes and concentrated on the map he remembered from the mission hub’s ceiling.
‘Ding!’
Discovered another Rogue’s Key in the area.
Before he could map out his path, the system went off. A member must have teleported in. Without opening his eyes, John formed a gun with his threads and pointed it at the door. As soon as the door opened, he shot.
‘Ding!’
For killing your first sinless person, the system has rewarded you with 1 skill point.
Gained 25 Sin points.
Oh? I killed him because he was a member of the sect that betrayed me. Did the system give me Sins because I killed him out of wrath? As long as it adds to my points, it’s fine.
John inspected the body of the person and placed it into his Storage Space. He didn’t want the Rogue sect to know he was still alive just yet. Then, looking at the doors, he picked the number he needed and walked in, disappearing.
Two months later, John was halfway through his travel. He stopped to see if he could collect 101M Sins to buy the remaining items in the Sinner’s shop. He was in the capital city of a country. While he wandered around in search of Sin points, he came across an orphanage.
Remembering how he had lived in the orphanage in his past life, he checked it out. However, when he saw the person in charge, he was utterly shocked.
???
Rank: 0
Level: 0
Sin: 928,480
It was a middle-aged man, about 40 years old and only a mortal. John wondered what the hell he did to have that many Sins in such a short life-span. Looking around, he found a young man in his teens looking after the smaller children. He waited until the young man finished. Once he was alone, he grabbed the young man and disappeared with him.
They were on the roof of the orphanage. The young man was instantly terrified, looking all around him in panic. He dropped on his knees, fearing he would fall from the roof.
“Relax, I won’t hurt you,” John said coolly. “I’m here to help. I have one question about the person in charge. What crimes has he committed?”
“Who are you?” The young man was lying down now, clutching onto the roof tiles. He must have been afraid of heights.
“I’m a person who punishes people who have done wrong,” John replied with a grave look in his eye. “People like the man in charge of this place.”
At those words, the young man began to cry. “Thank you, thank you, sir! He’s part of a noble family in the capital. The only reason he’s in charge here is so he can sell the girls between the ages of 10 and 15 when any of his relatives wants to have fun.”
John had his poker face on, but inside he’d just decided to murder each and every noble taking part in this trade. He smiled at the young man, the smallest hint of his killing intent showing on his face.
“The nightmare is over.”
John grabbed him by the belt on his trousers and flew down off the building, placing the young man down. Without another word, he disappeared.
Arriving behind the man in charge, John grabbed him by the nape of his neck and teleported. They reappeared in the sky. John had his arm out, making the man dangle in the air.
“Tell me all the girls you’ve sold and to who,” John muttered darkly into his hear. “Tell me and you might get to live.”
It did not take long for the man to confess everything. He had kidnapped a lot of girls, then sold them off to his family.
Kidnapping is 5 points every hour, and he kidnapped more than one girl at a time. But it still didn’t add up. To get 928,480 Sins, he would have had to have held them for 185,696 hours between them all. He’s not telling me the whole truth.
And so, he killed the man using Crush Grip. Still flying, he brought the body on top of the man’s family mansion and dropped it. The body picked up speed until it travelled at its maximum velocity with the gravity of this planet.
BOOM!
With a rumble, the corpse hit the roof of the mansion where it caused more damage than John was expecting. Looking down through the big hole it created, he could see the body crashed through at least one more floor. John descended through the new hole. With his Scan, he found and killed everyone in the mansion, including guards, maids, and even the chef.
He decided that if a person knowingly worked for someone who had sinned, by association they shared that person’s sin. His feeling of guilt did not come up even once—he didn’t care anymore.
There were about four hundred people in the mansion, and more than half of them had over 10,000 Sin points.
After he killed all the nobles in the capital that were involved with the purchase of the girls, he went to the Adventurer Guild to meet the guild master. John walked into the office without an appointment. Obviously, the guild master was an immortal too, but John still didn’t care.
“I will give you £10 billion to look after the orphan children of the city,” John said before the guild master could say anything. “If you use the money for anything else or fail to help the children, I’ll come back and do the same thing I did with the nobles to you.”
John released his killing intent, causing a layer of frost to form over everything in the room. The guild leader was speechless. John didn’t want to hear any questions or remarks. He simply transferred the money and went back to the orphanage.
The young man that John spoke with earlier was strolling the grounds. Finding him, John called out to him and tossed him a bag with a few coins.
“I’ve gotten rid of the nobles and left a warning with the guild master,” John said with a smile. “He should send people to come to help the children in the capital from now on. Those coins are for you to spend on the kids here.”
Without another word, John disappeared.
Chapter 43
Delicacy
Two weeks later, John was travelling by teleport rune again. He needed another month and a half to get to the Sword sect’s public planet. There was no direct lin
k there.
While travelling, the 2nd Drain skill had completed. John checked his stats.
Name: John
Title: A Selfish Punisher.
Age: 31
Idlers: 0/225
Skill Points: 2
Life Pool: 134.6M
Sin: 11.3M
Misc List:
Defence - Idlers 225/225, Repair - 0/3, Drain - 2/5, Time - 3mo 12d
Killing all four hundred of those nobles and staff had earned John over 2M Sin points. During the two-and-a-half months travelling, he’d fully recovered from the depletion of his Life Pool units. John was saving his skill points for the final Defence skills, which would take 4y 6mo 24d and 9y 1mo 20d to complete.
He checked the Drain skill’s ability. At Level 1, it brought the cost of Defence’s Wall down from 2.5 per minute to 2.1, and the second level lowered it again to 1.7 per minute. At Level 5, it should be at 0.5 per minute, which would be less than the scan.
I need a holiday. If I only focus on cultivating, killing sinners and plotting revenge, my mind will break. I remember a few novels where the main characters made their breakthroughs because they got rid of their stress. Something to do with inner peace and a calm mind. I can’t make a breakthrough right now, but I am stressed and maybe even a little emotionally unstable. Maybe, a vacation is just what I need.
John stepped through the teleport rune and went to the surface of the planet he was on.
Earth was something like 60 miles of air until it reached outer space. So while holding his breath, John flew 40 miles up to look around. When he reached his desired height, he spotted a giant lake to the east. He sped over to the body of water.
Once he arrived, he landed on the shore which had white sand. He took his shoes off, took a chair out of his Storage Space and sat down next to the lake. For hours, he relaxed in the chair, watching the small waves on the blue water. Eventually, he drifted to sleep.
When John woke up, he checked the time in the system and found he had slept for over fifteen hours. To his confusion though, the sky was still bright.
Either I slept through the night or this planet’s daytime is much longer. Does the system’s time alter depending on which planet I’m on? I never thought about it before, but from what I remember it shouldn’t do.
He noticed a fishing boat on the lake while he was thinking. It was further out than his Scan skill could reach, so he activated Life Vision and Immortal Eye. There were four people on the ship, all mortals with no Sins. However, upon further inspection, what he noticed next made him jump out of his chair. There was a fish under the boat, and it was massive, large enough to swallow the boat whole.
Damn, that’s a huge fish! Hey… I hope it’s edible… I suppose I can help them out, since they’re right in front of me.
His true motive was the food, of course.
“Hello!” John appeared on the boat within seconds. All four people jumped in fright. Turning around, they saw another person on the ship. Smiling, John lifted his arm up and waved at the startled fishermen.
“What are you—?”
“There is a fish around 100 feet below your boat.” Putting his arm down, John looked over the boat into the water. “Its size is about 300 feet long and 50 feet wide. I came here just in case it tried eating you.”
Rather than fear, he noticed all four people’s excitement. The oldest among them smiled and grabbed what looked like a spear gun from inside the boat’s storage. Seeing John’s confused face, the person who looked like the youngest out the group explained.
“What you described is what the locals have called the slob of the lake. It’s a giant version of the fish we eat in the villages around the lake.”
“It’s edible then?” John felt his mouth watering. “Is it any good taste-wise?”
All the men laughed. The man with the spear gun spoke up, still loading his weapon while talking.
“The fish in this lake are delicacies. Even immortals come and buy the fish from time to time. The slob of the lake could keep our village wealthy for many lifetimes.”
John had a big grin on his face when heard that. “I’ll make a deal with you. I can guarantee I can capture it. I’ll give a quarter to you for telling me this information, that’s more than fair.”
The young man was angry at this. “How is that fair? We can catch it ourselves.”
“But I’m the one who told you where it is.”
Sadly, they realised John was right. He could guarantee capture of the slob of the lake, and he was the one who told them where it was. The only reason he was paying them was because of the information they’d given him.
The man with the spear put it down, looked at John and spoke.
“A third.”
“Fine, a third,” John nodded. “But you and your people will process it in return.”
“Deal.” The two men shook hands.
“Which way is your home from here?” John pulled his hand back after the shake.
All four people lifted their hands and pointed in the same direction. John looked that way and saw a village at the other end of the lake. He could see a number of people through his Life Vision. Turning his head to the fishermen, he nodded.
“I’ll meet you there then.”
He walked to the bow of the boat then stepped off, which stunned the fishermen. What happened next would remain in their memories for life.
John stood on the water and walked further away from the boat. When he got above the fish’s tail, he released some of his Life Power which pushed the water away from him. As the water got pushed away, John sank into the lake with no water getting close to him. He sank until he was less than 70 feet away from the fish. With a silly grin, he used all one million threads, twisted them together like a rope, and wrapped it around the fish’s tail.
When the threads wrapped around the tail, he made the end of the threads form a hook and attached itself to a part of the thread rope already around the fish. When he had a good grip on the fish with the threads, he pushed Life Power under his feet and rose.
John got to the surface of the lake and continued to hover. Taking a deep breath, he then grabbed the threads with his hands and pulled.
The fish’s tail was initially about 20 feet under the water. The fish itself was almost in a vertical position, as if trying to dive deeper into the lake. John put 5 units of Life Power into his feet and rose while he was still pulling the rope with both hands. The tail was shaped like a blue whale’s, about 80 feet wide at the end. The threads wrapped around the thinnest part, which was only 25 feet wide.
After a firm tug, the tail surfaced. With the tail out, the fish could only put up half the struggle it had been doing a while ago. John kept rising until he was about 100 feet in the air and the fish was 85-90 feet. John hovered where he was and pushed Life Power out of his back to travel towards the village.
With the strength of the threads, John could lift the fish out of the water, but he knew the food was best when fresh. He wasn’t sure how long it could survive out of the water either. So, he sped toward the village like a madman.
Arriving at the village thirty minutes later, he picked up the whole fish and placed it outside the walls. The fish had the tail of a whale, the fin of a shark, and the head shape and teeth of a large barracuda, each tooth taller than John. Seeing his chance, John flew on top of the fish’s head and punched downward, instantly killing it.
The people of the village all came and gawked at the spectacle. The fishing boat had come into port at the front of the village. The fishermen ran towards the giant fish, and they were gawking at it when it came into view too.
John jumped down from the slob of the lake, landing in front of the people. He found the fishermen he made a deal with and approached them.
“I’ve kept my end of the bargain. It’s your turn to process it. A third is the village’s. Because I’m in a good mood now, I’ll treat everyone to a feast with the meat from my share.”
Chap
ter 44
Maps
The villagers came out of their shock and cheered when they heard that John would treat them. It took half a day with the whole village helping out to dismantle the giant fish. Every person who helped was fed out of John’s share. The rest of John’s share of the fish was put into his storage to save for later.
With the meal over, John asked about any maps in the village. The village chief had a map of the world pinned up on the wall in his house and was more than happy to let John see it.
With the map imprinted on his brain, John said goodbye to everybody and left. He was going to the capital of the kingdom. After all, what better place than the capital to make up the remaining 89.7M Sin points that he still needed?
Though his holiday was only one day, he’d slept for over fifteen hours, gone fishing, and might have caught the world record breaking fish. The creature had weighed over 600 tons and made a whole village wealthy. They would remember him for years to come. Not bad for one day.
A few days later, John arrived at the capital. He turned Life Vision on and scanned the people while he was shopping for food. There were no immortals at all, so John considered the existence of a secret sect on this world. That would explain the lack of immortals on the surface.
After scanning the capital, John flew above the city and removed all icons with less than 25 Sin points. Opening his palms, he put his arms in front of his chest with them straight out, angling it downwards. With a deep breath, he created a ball of Life Power in front of each palm, about 8 inches in length and width and silver-coloured. Inside the Life Power sphere, he was creating single-unit bullets. When they were ready, he launched them towards the very centre of the capital.
To the bystander in the capital, hundreds of streaks of silver light travelled out in all directions. It almost looked like fireworks. In a matter of minutes, 50,000 people met their deaths in this manner. On average, they had about 130 Sin points, earning John over 6M.
A few days later, he teleported to another world through the Rogue sect’s teleportation system. Once again, he saw a world map pinned on the ceiling when he appeared on the new world.