Some were even more efficient, such as the mages who managed to skewer multiple wolves with each earth spear attack or create multiple fried carcasses with a large fireball. But the most efficient was clearly Ogras. Any shadow on the ground created by the wall or a wolf was a weapon for him, and shadowy needles kept poking up from the ground, hitting the throat or heart of the wolves. Wolves kept keeling over wherever Ogras turned his outstretched hand, and he was creating patches of utter death down on the ground.
Zac tried to keep up by throwing rocks he had prepared in a few pouches. Each rock he threw slammed into a wolf, the force almost always enough for an instant kill. Still, he couldn’t keep up with some of the stronger demons, let alone the sneaky spears of Ogras, and knew his contribution ranking wouldn’t be too great if things kept going this way.
He paused after killing a few and checked his status screen. It looked like each of the normal mottled wolves awarded around a hundred Nexus Coins, which seemed very generous for helpless targets. The feeling of seeing an endless stream of money slipping out of his fingers was extremely uncomfortable, and he knew he needed to switch up his tactics.
Alea looked annoyed as well as she stood next to Zac.
“They keep dying before my poison kills them. I only get a small part of the money. You’re supposed to be the Lord; do something, and I’ll give you a reward,” she whined as she looked entreatingly at Zac.
Zac ignored her with a roll of his eyes, but he agreed that something needed to be done. After a few seconds of hesitation, he took out one of his axes and simply jumped out from the safety of the wall.
As he fell, he imbued himself with the Dao of Heaviness, and he slammed into the ground like a meteor. A huge shock wave spread out as Zac punched into the ground ten meters away from the wall. Any wolf in the vicinity was killed or at least badly maimed from the impact. Zac stood up from the crater, and he summoned [Chop].
His plan was simple. Even though his pathways weren’t completely healed, they were in far better condition compared to a month ago. Together with his improved attributes, his recovery might even be higher than before he’d ruined his body with the Cosmic Water. He planned on going on a rampage as long as his energy allowed, reaping as many wolves as possible before swapping back to killing without using any energy. With his stats, he wasn’t afraid that some of these weak wolves would threaten him, even if they came in droves.
He started to weave a net of carnage around him as he moved full speed ahead. His energy would only last for a short duration at full power, but that should hopefully be enough to thin out most of this wave and perhaps a few more. He headed straight toward where he had seen the huge wolf, hoping that killing the boss would offset his slow start.
No demon dared to shoot their attacks in his vicinity, with the exception of Ogras, who kept summoning spears at some wolves around him. Zac glared angrily in the demon’s direction, but Ogras simply looked back innocently and waved.
Zac wasn’t the only one who jumped down from the wall, as some of the stronger melee fighters followed suit. They generally stayed close to the wall to keep their backs free, not daring to wade into the thick of it like Zac.
Zac was soon drenched, as every wave of his axe created a fountain of blood and a few bisected corpses strewn around. He realized he had actually missed this feeling, and relished letting loose after over a month of being stuck in the mines, mindlessly chipping away at the walls.
He steadily progressed toward the portals, and soon not even Ogras could kill steal his wolves due to the distance. Each swing created a swath of death in front of him, but it was quickly filled with new wolves. He truly felt like the description of the Hatchetman class; Their army is an endless forest, and I’m the lumberjack was an apt description at this moment, as he methodically cut everything down like lumber as he waded forward.
The wolves desperately tried to bite him, but the few that managed to get close couldn’t even puncture his skin. A few tried to rip open his robe, but the clothing was even more durable than Zac himself, and not even a scratch could be seen on the green overcoat. Even so, the animals pushed forward toward their death, heedless of anything else. Zac started to suspect that the System had done something to these animals, as they were completely frenzied. Wolves should be smarter than this, especially evolved ones like these guys were.
After a few minutes of swinging away, he was in close proximity to the portals. It should have been even faster, but he took some detours to kill the even larger wolves that were peppered around the horde. They only gave two to three hundred Nexus Coins each, but Zac thought they might be more valuable in terms of contribution points, as the System might consider them mini-bosses.
Wolves had stopped pouring out of the multiple portals a minute ago, and the area was getting a bit thin, as most wolves headed straight for the wall. There were some exceptions, though, most notably the hill with the leader. It looked almost identical to the smaller versions, apart from the fact that its eyes had a silver glisten compared to the duller brown of the others.
Zac approached the hill and started to kill the larger alpha wolves that surrounded their leader, but a movement in his periphery made him infuse his axe with his Dao of Heaviness and launch it at the wolf leader in a surprise attack.
The wolf’s reactions were quick, but not quick enough, and the axe ripped a hole in its throat, instantly killing it. Immediately after, two large spears of shadows rose from the ground and impaled the corpse. However, Ogras was too late, as the energy entered Zac’s body as the spears rose, confirming his kill credit.
Zac grinned at the demon, who emerged from the shadows with a tsk as he took out another axe from his bag. This one was different from the ones he had used lately and looked like a misshapen monstrosity.
Its handle was roughly a meter long and the edge itself was almost two meters, formed in a rudimentary facsimile of his axe when he used [Chop]. It was something Zac had ordered a blacksmith of the demon town to create for him, meant to be used to retain some kill speed while he restored his energy.
It was ugly and completely unbalanced, but it got the job done. Unfortunately, none of those remaining had the skills to add the self-repair inscription on a weapon, and instead this one had an inscription that slightly increased its durability. Still, someone would need to fix it up every now and then after Zac’s onslaught.
“I’m starting to see why you guys were so excited,” Zac remarked at Ogras as he started to swing at the remaining alpha dogs, heading to pick up the boss carcass and his axe.
“Don’t get complacent. This is just the warm-up. If some mangy dogs were all that the Ruthless Heavens threw at you when creating a monster horde, then it would be a reward, not a quest. It’s going to get much worse than this,” Ogras retorted, obviously a bit irritated that his kill steal hadn’t worked out. As if to confirm this, the remaining wolves in his surroundings died by being impaled by multiple shadow blades rather than the usual one per monster.
As if they responded to the demon’s words, the portals pulsed and started to spew out another wave of wolves, but these ones looked quite different.
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Super Brother-Man
Zac turned toward Ogras, a bit confused.
“Why are there already more monsters pouring out? How does the System decide?” he asked hesitantly. He felt that it was too big a coincidence that new monsters just started spawning after Zac and Ogras arrived here and killed the boss.
“You ask me, but who am I going to ask?” Ogras responded. “I think there might be certain triggers that push out new waves. Perhaps killing the boss immediately sends the next one through. There may be a limit of how long you can stall, even if you keep the leader alive. The Ruthless Heavens has its name for a reason, and it won’t let you breathe too easily by finding a loophole.”
If what Ogras said was true, the System really created a conflict of interest. Killing the boss would spawn more monsters, but it also probably awarded a good numbe
r of contribution points. Greedy warriors would hunt it for the points, not caring about the results. Soon the whole camp would be overrun by waves upon waves of wolves.
“We need to set some ground rules,” Zac immediately said as he turned to Ogras. He didn’t mind the demon killing the odd wolf around him, as that was only playing around. There were almost an endless number of targets, and Zac didn’t worry that he wouldn’t be able to hunt his fill. But running for the bosses in greed for contribution points couldn’t be allowed.
“The boss is off-limits until only a quarter of the wave remains,” he said as he stared at Ogras, who only grimaced but nodded after some deliberation.
He didn’t have time to keep thinking up plans, as the new wave was upon them. Zac first thought it was large rats when he saw them exit the portals. They were a lot smaller compared to their brethren, the normal ones only reaching his knees in height. They also looked completely wretched, with their mangy fur fallen off on large patches of their bodies. Their eyes were a sinister red, and the feeling he got from them was that they were putrid cursed creatures.
Ogras seemed to agree, as he started backing away as he kept throwing out shadow blades at anything approaching. He even seemed loath to use his real spear, afraid it would get dirtied by the new beasts.
“These things look pretty disgusting. Try not to get bitten. I am willing to bet an arm these things carry some weird diseases in their bodies,” the demon said with a wrinkled brow. “If you capture a few live ones and gift them to Alea, I’m sure she will be delighted. I bet she can create some sinister concoctions from these things after some experimentation. Anyway, I’m off. Good luck.”
With that, the demon was gone, using his escape skill to move through the shadows. Zac was left alone, pondering whether to stay here right by the portals or to head back. The gnarly wolves didn’t wait for him to make a decision, and they stormed him with speed belying their small shriveled frames.
As they scurried close to him, they launched themselves in the air toward his face in order to rip into more vulnerable areas. Zac turned his huge axe and, with a horizontal swing, smashed multiple wolves into broken pieces of flesh with the broad side of the edge. Even their blood smelled rancid, and Zac didn’t want to get any of that on his face. He rapidly backed away and quickly put a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.
Next, he swapped out his huge unwieldy axe for two normal ones. The new foes were too small, so he couldn’t easily kill them with the giga-axe. A wide swing would simply fly past above their heads, and he felt that using two normal axes would be more effective. He kept swinging away, decimating anything that moved close as he gradually retreated toward the walls. His kill speed wasn’t as great as when he used [Chop], but it was respectable.
Since he’d upgraded his Race, he found that his body’s coordination improved noticeably, and it had made him resume his training with two axes. The first time he’d tried it out, he felt it was too unwieldy, but by now, his arms moved independently from each other, each creating gouts of putrid blood wherever they hit.
Soon enough, he was closing in on the wall and saw that most of the first wave was dead by now. A perimeter of melee fighters had been erected, and Zac saw some scared noncombat demons scurrying about the battlefield. They were throwing the wolf carcasses into Cosmos Sacks, to be dumped and burned further away from the camp after anything of value was stripped from the bodies.
It was to avoid pestilence spreading, but also to not allow bodies to accumulate to the point that they started to form a ramp up the wall. Their work was extremely efficient as they rapidly moved along, barely stopping as they threw the carcasses into the Cosmos Sacks. Obviously, the melee fighters had done a do-over of the corpses first with quick stabs, ensuring that everything was dead.
When they saw Zac and the putrid wolves approaching, they all scurried through a gate to safety. The gate wasn’t some thick wooden door like in a medieval castle, but a section of the wall itself even thicker than most other sections. It was created in conjunction between some craftsmen and earth mages and required ten Nexus Crystals to power every time it opened and closed. It was a bit slow, but it didn’t present a point of entry or weakness like classic castle gates did.
One exception to the escape through the gate was Alea, who gleefully charged straight toward Zac.
“I heard you’re bringing me gifts?” she exclaimed, looking absolutely delighted. She heedlessly ran straight into the frenzied pack of the mangy wolves, and Zac’s eyes widened in alarm. It was one thing for him with his huge Endurance to be running around in the midst of the beasts, as these small ones couldn’t hurt him either.
But even he was wary of their blood, as it looked positively unclean, with a grayish murky color instead of red. Luckily, his clothes had a self-cleaning feature, and the blood just slid off after a short while. But for the slender demoness to do the same approach seemed suicidal. He wasn’t sure on what stats a poison master focused, but it didn’t feel like it was Endurance at least. He quickly changed direction and ran to help her out.
Soon he realized he was worried about nothing, as the beasts that got too close to her simply melted into pools of goop. Zac immediately stopped in his tracks, afraid to get caught in whatever poison the demoness had surrounded herself with.
Next, she quickly threw out a small needle at one of the beasts that looked extra wretched, and it powerlessly fell down on the ground immediately after the needle embedded itself in its throat. She walked over to it and picked it up, and for some reason, it didn’t melt like the others around her. Zac first thought the beast was dead from the needle, but the frantically whirling eyes of the beast told another story.
“It seems its condition is due to living in a weird environment. The Ruthless Heavens calls its race Blackswamp Wolf, so it probably lives in a miasmic swamp. Something in the waters is corroding these wolves, and over time, they have transformed into these cute little things. Perhaps it’s possible to extract whatever’s the cause and add it into a concoction,” she started to mutter mostly to herself, seeming eager to try to weaponize the wolves’ affliction.
“People with less than 80 or so Vitality shouldn’t come in contact with their blood, or they will probably get sick,” she added with a louder voice up toward the walls before she started to continue to examine the beast. She quickly broke all its limbs with a deftness that hinted that this wasn’t the first time she had done experimentation on animals, and started to retreat to the wall while she flipped it over to look at every detail of the poor creature.
Zac simply moved away without a word and kept killing wolves with his two axes. These small wolves were a bit more annoying to kill since they were so small, but he wouldn’t stop. Each one gave around 110 Nexus Coins, even better than the last wave, and he was accumulating wealth and Cosmic Energy at a terrifying speed. It was barely more than a barghest, but they were everywhere. If the density of barghest was this crazy, he would have finished grinding for his first class quests in less than a day instead of a week. Of course, with his stats at that time he might just have died from being swarmed rather than just having more targets to kill.
Less than thirty minutes had passed since the start of the quest, but he’d already managed to accumulate something like 30,000 Nexus Coins. He had only used less than a quarter of his Cosmic Energy so far and could keep going for a long time. The attacks from the wall had reduced somewhat, though, as some of the demons were sitting down and absorbing energy from Nexus Crystals that Zac provided.
Some of the other demons kept blasting away, greedily farming some money, and a few burly-looking demons even dared to jump down from the wall as well, apparently trusting Alea’s judgment. This wave was starting to thin out as well after the furious melee continued, and it gave Zac a brief chance to catch his breath.
He had been busy with the monsters, so he’d ignored the prompt from the System that had entered his ears just before the monsters arrived. It said that a L
adder was activated, and he was curious to see what that meant. He kept killing any beasts who approached with a quick swing of his axes, but it was mostly by instinct as he focused on the new screen that popped up.
[Ladder System initialized. Enter pseudonym or real name?]
That gave Zac a start. He started to feel that the Ladder System was akin to a ranking that he could see in many games, where his level was listed against others. It sounded like something the System would do. It wanted to force people to get stronger, and a Ladder would generate competition amongst the elite.
Entering his real name would let his friends or family know he was alive and fine, but it might also cause them trouble. He was pretty sure he should be up there in the rankings if the Ladder was only for Earth, even after his month of not gaining levels. Someone might want to exploit his family, or even kidnap them to threaten him if such a connection was made public. He already had created a beacon with the name Port Atwood, which should hopefully be enough when the town gained some fame in the future.
After coming to a decision, he chose a pseudonym, and a new problem presented itself. What should he call himself? At first, he thought of just using his class name, but he didn’t know if people learning of the name Hatchetman would have some implications. Suddenly, he had an idea, and he chose “Super Brother-Man” with a nostalgic look in his eyes. He could only pray that MacKenzie, his little sister, would remember.
She was only five when he played pretend-superheroes with her, using the name Super Brother-Man. He hadn’t thought about it for over a decade, and no one but her should know about it. As soon as he chose it, a large window popped up, and he quickly realized that he was right; it was a ranking Ladder containing various names and their accomplishments.
As he went through the list, his mouth started to widen into a grin.
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