However, they had no choice but to comply with the order. The hierarchy and rules were extremely strict. Both they and their families would have a miserable ending if that happened. They could only bitterly nod their heads and try to stay alive. He could only hope to garner some type of merit during their invasion, which would allow him and his family to live a bit more comfortably in the clan.
The blast of different colors around him felt stressful and disorienting, and even though they had been briefed on this type of terrain, it was hard to adapt. They were in a constant state of unease, as they had no idea what might jump out from the bushes at any moment.
As if summoned by his thoughts, Azzun heard a subdued rustle, followed by a wet thud and grunt. He immediately drew his weapon and turned around, only to see one of his companions topple over with a crushed skull.
Their assailant was already mid-swing toward his other companion, and she was killed before he managed to even react.
The attacker was a walking horror, completely red and covered in blood. Its body looked like a maze of crudely sewn together body parts, and Azzun’s first thought was that the attacker was an abomination or ghoul from the Undead Hordes. If the world they attacked had an empire of the undead, their invasion would be a nightmare. There were few enemy factions in the Multiverse that were more annoying to battle than the undead.
He quickly discarded the idea when he noticed that the patchwork was actually extremely rudimentary armor rather than its actual skin, and he realized he was battling some manner of barbarian warrior.
He didn’t have time to analyze the situation further, as the man attacked with a swing of his odd weapon. Azzun quickly lifted his war-axe to intercept the swing, but quickly regretted it when their weapons clashed.
Horrified, he realized the monstrous power that was contained in the swing, and he quickly circulated his Cosmic Energy and activated his defensive skill. An earthen layer quickly covered his arms and torso and stabilized him. Thanks to his quick reaction, he didn’t break his arms, but the force still threw him down on the ground, and his defensive skill shattered.
Disoriented and hurting, he threw a wide swing toward his enemy, but only hit air. He tried to get back on his feet and meet his attacker. He didn’t get far, however, before he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and then everything turned black.
Zac stood panting over the unconscious demon, a sheen of perspiration covering his face. The sweat came from pain rather than exertion, as his charge had opened up some of his wounds. He finally dared to use his skill on the demon, which showed [Azzun, Level 33].
Luckily, these demons didn’t seem very strong, even if they were higher leveled. He started to go through their bodies and looted anything that seemed useful. He ended up carrying two sets of gear and had two backpacks slung over his back.
He ignored the protests of his ribs and then dragged the two looted corpses into the bushes and hid them there. He was too tired to bury them, and he didn’t want to linger here too long. Hopefully, some beast would sniff them out and eat them before their compatriots found them.
Zac was somewhat surprised at how calm he was with his actions. These three were clearly sentient beings, to the point that Zac had mistaken them for humans for a second. Still, he had butchered them without any mercy or hesitation. He had been slaughtering nonstop for a month, but those had generally been beasts, with the exception of the imps.
He had thought that he still would have some trepidation when dealing with humanoid beings, but it seemed that something deep and primal had changed in him during the last month. He was harder and colder compared to before, and he felt that he likely wouldn’t be able to go back to what he was.
Just as the world had changed, so had he.
23
Do You Understand My Words?
Zac sighed and slung the unconscious Azzun over his shoulder, and the action caused him to whimper in pain. He would have preferred to drag him, but he didn’t want to leave a trail straight to his campsite.
He wasn’t far away from home now and slowly walked the last bit. When he was a hundred meters away from the camp, he stopped and put his captive down. After making sure that the demon was still unconscious but alive, he got a few vines and tied him up. Then he slowly made a circle around the camp, looking for any sign that there had been foot traffic in the vicinity.
A drawback of the illusion array was that he had no idea if ten demons were waiting inside his camp without him seeing it, so he wanted to make sure that his surroundings were undisturbed. He couldn’t find any signs of anyone having walked through here lately, so he quietly skulked toward the camp and took a peek inside the illusion array.
Luckily, the camp was undisturbed, so Zac went back and got his demon and then walked back into the safety of the illusion array.
Finally back, he let out a long sigh that had felt lodged in his chest for the past few days. A growl from his stomach reminded him he had only eaten nuts and leaves in the last few days, and he quickly went over to his car and snatched a handful of dried meat he had hung on a line between the trailer and SUV.
He sat down in his camper chair with a grimace and started to devour the meat while staring at his new captive.
He truly looked exotic, with skin that was tinted a grayish-red. The skin looked coarse and almost like a cross between scales and normal human skin. Red tattoos, which reminded Zac of the fractals from the skills and arrays, adorned his upper arms.
He was wearing formfitting leather armor, which seemed to be made for an agile fighter or scout rather than a fighter. It had vambraces inlaid with a metal plate, which covered his forearms but left the upper arms bare.
The chest plate was formed by a woven mesh of leather strips, which seemed both pliable and durable. He had on a belt, where he had kept his weapons until Zac stole them, and a pair of dark gray leather pants.
It wasn’t only the craftsmanship that was far superior in the gear, the materials were as well. When Zac tried to cut through the leather with one of his kitchen knives, he couldn’t even make a scratch, even after applying pressure. Zac assumed the leather came from some strong beast on the demon’s home planet.
Oddly, neither this demon nor the others wore any shoes, but after an inspection, it made some sense. The demon’s feet looked like a slimmer version of the barghest’s taloned paws, with three sharp claws in the front.
Finally, the pair of horns that had warned him from approaching them. They were a blood-red color and looked like an artist’s rendition of fire. They started in his upper forehead and were bent backwards along his skull. It looked like tongues of fire were reaching upwards along the horn.
It did not seem that they used them for goring enemies; rather, they looked largely ornamental.
The demon was still out cold, so Zac took the opportunity to go over his status window while getting another helping of dried meat.
Name: Zachary Atwood
Level: 25
Race: Human
Alignment: [Earth] Human
Titles: Born For Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer
Strength: 59
Dexterity: 39
Endurance: 42
Vitality: 48
Intelligence: 29
Wisdom: 29
Luck: 44
Free Points: 4
Nexus Coins: 14,030
Active Quests:
Unlimited Potential (Normal): Reach level 25. Reward: Unlock class system. (25/25) [COMPLETE]
Dynamic Quests:
Off with their heads (Unique): Kill the four heralds and the general of incursion within 3 months. Reward: 10 E-Grade Nexus Crystals, E-Grade equipment, unique building depending on performance. (2/5)
Incursion Master (Unique): Close or conquer incursion and protect base from denizens of other alignments for 3 months. Reward: 5 E-Grade Nexus Crystals, outpost upgraded to t
own, status upgraded to Lord. (0/3)
Zac had gained two levels from killing the herald and the other monsters while escaping. From how thick the Cosmic Energy felt, he wasn’t far from gaining another level either.
He also noticed that he had gained roughly eight thousand Nexus Coins from his attack on the herald and the subsequent escape. His quests had also been updated, and the quest called Unlimited Potential showed [COMPLETE] at the end. His demon slayer quest had just disappeared after completing, but Zac guessed that this quest remained as he still hadn’t chosen a class.
Zac immediately placed 4 points into Strength. He had noticed during the last month that each additional point in a stat had a greater effect than the earlier points. It was like the gains were exponential. This had made him feel that specialization was more highly rewarded compared to putting points in every stat.
Besides, with his large number of titles, all his stats were quite high in any case, affording him the opportunity to go deep in a specific attribute.
Since then, he had put all his points from level-ups into Strength unless he felt that some other stat was truly lacking. He thought about placing some more points in Vitality due to his condition, but discarded that idea after a brief hesitation.
He was extremely eager to choose a Class, but barely managed to contain himself. The reason was the unconscious captive in front of him.
Zac had already stumbled along for a long time, using guestimation to guide his choices. He was hoping to use Azzun to get some answers about the System and many other things before he did something irrevocable to himself. He didn’t even dare to touch the Nexus Node, as he was afraid some class change process would start that couldn’t be stopped.
Zac felt a lot better after having finished his meal. With a grunt, he got back to his feet and filled a bottle with water from the water array.
He walked over to the demon and poured the contents over his face, resulting in the demon sputtering and waking up.
Azzun had a look of shock and horror on his face as he woke up to the sight of Zac, who still hadn’t bothered to change or remove the blood that was caked all over him.
“So, uh… I guess I am sorry about your friends. Do you understand my words?” Zac said with a coarse voice. He realized that those were essentially the first words he had spoken in weeks. In the beginning, he had muttered and mumbled things to himself, but soon he had grown accustomed to the silence.
Zac didn’t know if it was because of what he said, but the demon snarled and desperately tried to get himself free from the vines. Zac sighed and brandished his hatchet, and with a grunt, he slammed it straight next to the tied-up demon. It produced a loud thud, and a small crater was formed. Had he swung just a decimeter to his right, then one of Azzun’s legs would have been mutilated by now.
The demon immediately stilled, as it perhaps remembered the ending of his two companions thanks to the hatchet.
“Do you understand my words?” Zac repeated. He wasn’t really expecting the demon to actually speak his language, but rather that the System provided some translation feature. Language would be a pretty large issue if the System connected endless numbers of worlds.
The demon simply stared at him then abruptly closed his eyes.
“Hello?” Zac prodded once again, unsure what the demon was planning. Suddenly, Zac could sense how the Cosmic Energy in the surroundings proceeded to move toward them, and the demon’s body started to shake.
Zac got a sinking feeling in his chest and didn’t dare hesitate. He immediately swung his hatchet down on the skull of the demon, crushing it like he had done with the other two.
The body slumped down, and blood gushed out of his nose. Zac received a confirmation that the demon was dead from the influx of Cosmic Energy, but the uneasy feeling did not disappear. Suddenly, the body started expanding, and Zac’s eyes went wide with alarm.
He barely managed to throw himself away and down on the ground before the corpse exploded with a tremendous bang.
Zac slowly got up on his knees, disoriented and ears ringing. Somehow the demon seemed to have made the energy in his body go haywire, and he had actually exploded like a bomb. The camp was in chaos, with the windows of the car having cracks all over, and the closest had completely shattered. Things were thrown around haphazardly, and there even was an indent on the exterior wall of the camper.
Luckily, he had killed the demon in time, or he might have been able to gather even more energy and created a far more deadly explosion, wiping out both him and the camp.
These demons are going to be a pain, Zac thought with a grimace while looking at the mess.
24
Class
Zac slowly moved through the forest. Since the demon blew himself up, Zac had been stealthily roving around the vicinity of the camp. The illusion array blocked sound to a certain degree, but he was afraid that the explosion would have bled through the protection and alerted other demons.
However, he had been moving around the camp in expanding circles for two hours now and had seen no sight of any more of the demons. While he had been scouting, he’d also taken the time to properly bury the two other demons. It wasn’t to properly honor the dead, but rather to avoid the bodies getting discovered.
Finally satisfied that he had caught a lucky break and still wasn’t found out, he returned to the camp.
He spent some time cleaning up the camp. Some of the loot from the demons had unfortunately been destroyed by the explosion. He hadn’t expected his captive to go nuclear as soon as he woke up, so Zac had simply thrown the gear down in a pile not far from him.
The bags seemed to have contained some vials, which Zac supposed were either healing tinctures or poisons. The bags were still whole, but the vials had cracked. Inside was a mess of the different mixtures and glass shards, and Zac certainly didn’t want to rummage through it now.
The male’s leather armor was ruined, but the female demon’s suit underneath seemed intact. But most important was the weapon that Azzun had been carrying.
It was a one-handed battle-axe. It was much longer than his hatchet, reaching roughly eighty centimeters. The head was single-headed, but with a sharp spike sticking out on the other side, perhaps for balance. The edge itself was a half-moon over thirty centimeters long. Zac tried the edge with his thumb and was surprised to see that he immediately started bleeding.
It was hard for a normal kitchen knife to cut his skin now without some effort, which showed just how deadly his new weapon was.
The handle was black, and it appeared that it had some fractals carved into it. However, these fractals somehow seemed far more rudimentary compared to the ones on the array flags. Finally, a strip of some unknown beast hide had been used to create a handle.
This clearly was a weapon for war rather than a tool, as his hatchet was. If he’d had this thing during his fight with the herald, he might even have been able to kill it off with the initial charge.
Zac tried using [Eye of Discernment] on the weapon, as the axe seemed to be somewhat related to the System, with the pattern on the handle. However, it gave no response. Either the skill couldn’t show information about items, or items didn’t work like that. He had a feeling it was a problem with the skill, as it was by far the cheapest skill that Nexus Coins could buy. It would be odd if it was too versatile.
Apart from this, he had scrounged up a hooked sword, a couple of knives, and various bracers and shin guards. There might be something else in the bags, but he would wait until the mess dried out. He didn’t really care for the sword and left it to the side, but was delighted with the small knives. They were small and straight with edges on both sides of the blade, giving them excellent balance. He felt they were used for throwing and battle rather than skinning animals and the like.
They would be a great addition to his arsenal, as he was sorely lacking any ranged attack. Every time he wanted to kill an imp, he had to hurl his axe at it or a bunch of rocks. But this would be a
deadly alternative that didn’t force him to throw away his main weapon. He already practiced throwing rocks and the axe for some time every day, and swapping to daggers shouldn’t be too large an adjustment.
After going through the gear, he finally couldn’t wait any longer and approached the Nexus Node. It was time for him to get a class, no matter if it was the right choice or not. He pressed his palm against the smooth surface of the crystal and mentally tried to access the class system.
A new box appeared in his vision with multiple rows.
[Top 5 Class choices]
[Warrior – F-Grade, Common. Fledgling combatant. Proficient with melee weaponry. Upgradeable.]
[Acolyte – F-Grade, Common. Fledgling wielder of the elements. Initial proficiency with elemental magic. Upgradeable.]
[Marine – F-Grade, Uncommon. Lowest ranked naval combatant. Proficient with battles at sea. Upgradeable.]
[Demon Hunter – F-Grade, Uncommon. Having dedicated his life to the eradication of the Demonic race, the Demon Hunter has attained a high proficiency in locating and eradicating anything of demonic nature. Upgradeable.]
[Hatchetman – F-Grade, Rare. Their army is an endless forest, and I’m the lumberjack. Upgradeable.]
[Random F-Grade Class. 92.9% Common. 5.0% Uncommon. 2.0 % Rare. 0.1% Epic. Roll the dice.]
That was all the information Zac could get out of the System. He tried to get a more in-depth explanation with mental commands such as “details” and “info,” but the short excerpt was all he could go on.
Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure Page 12