00D: 00H: 10M: 20S
King and Eli had just had dinner and were now seated on the mansion rooftop. The tiles pressed cool beneath them.
Eli’s spirit eagle circled overhead, cutting through the evening air as it patrolled the building’s periter. The translucent bird glowed faintly, as it scanned for movents below.
Eli gripped the Calamity Long-Shoulder across his lap, resting his fingers near the trigger guard, while king leaned back against the sloped roof, with one knee bent as he opened his interface. The private chat with Vi sat at the top of his ssage feed, tistamped hours ago.
He said one last ssage.
KING: It’s near, hand in there Vi.
Then closed the chat without waiting for her reply.
The First Penance wasn’t the toughest challenge if you knew your way around it.
King had survived it dozens of tis across different playthroughs, while using different classes and character builds.
It wasn’t an impossible feat, but it reshaped everything.
Entire topographies would be rewritten, different NPCs would flood the world, taking over infrastructure and settlents.
The world map itself would fracture and reform, rging cities, shifting landmasses, splitting oceans.
Seven distinct regions would erge, six outer regions surrounding one central elevated zone. Each one, the size of a continent.
The barriers separating starting zones would shatter, granting players free movents between zones. And the monster population would explode.
King had told Vi everything. Shelter locations, safe zones if her crib got compromised and he hadn’t arrived. What creatures to avoid. How to recognize environntal triggers before they killed you.
Now all he could do was wait.
He opened his profile one last ti, scanning his remaining rune count.
[RUNES: 31,100]
The count had dropped after his recent purchases, but it was still enough for two more level ups.
King navigated to the level-up prompt, clicked it twice and confird, the system deducted 11,000 and 12,000 runes for both level ups.
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 12]
[ 20 STAT POINTS AVAILABLE]
He distributed them quickly.
[ 5 STRENGTH | 5 SPEED | 5 CONSTITUTION | 5 MIND]
The stat boosts settled into his body imdiately, spreading warmth through his limbs, and his character details displayed before him.
CHARACTER DETAILS
NA: King
RACE: Human
SKILL: God’s Hand: 100x Reward (SSS)
CLASS: Mage
RANK: F
LEVEL: 12
ITEMS:
-Grand Magus Oathcloak (equipped)
-Basic Construct Spelbook
-Arcbearer’s Hello
-Gauntlet Of Ruin [Legendary-Grade]
-Arcbearer’s dallion [100]
-Basic Health Potions [5]
-Basic Mana Potions [5]
-Antidote Vial [3]
ABILITIES:
-Basic Construct Spell (C)
-Ruin’s Touch (S)
_____________________
STATS
Strength: 35
Speed: 35 ( 5)
Mind: 45 ( 10)
Constitution: 35
____________________
HP: 350
MP: 450 ( 100)
Runes: 8,100
POWER POINTS: 1,300
POPULAR POINTS: 1,000
FANDOM LIST: 1
King observed his new stats, his power points had increased as well, he closed the interface and looked up at the sky, waiting for a sign.
Then,
It ca...
TUNNNNNNNNNN.
A deep hum tore through the air.
The sound reverberated throught the entire ga world, thrumming in King’s chest and rattling his bones.
Eli tensed imdiately, snapping the rifle up.
[DING]
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCENT: THE FIRST WOE BEGINS IN...]
The countdown tir appeared in King’s vision, burning red.
00:00:10
00:00:09
00:00:08
00:00:07
00:00:06
00:00:05
00:00:04
00:00:03
00:00:02
00:00:01
...
CRACK!
A red line tore through the sky.
It split the horizon from east to west, jagged and glowing, carving through the clouds with a sound that made King’s ears ring.
RUMmBLLLllEEEE!!!
A hard earthquake began.
The rooftop shuddered beneath them. Tiles rattled loose, tumbling down the slope and shattering on the ground below. King braced himself, pressing his hand flat against the roof to steady his balance.
Eli dropped into a crouch on one knee, holding the rifle tight.
The red crack widened.
More lines began to appear, spreading outward and fracturing the sky in every direction.
Then, like a curtain, the heavens parted.
The barrier tore open.
A scene familiar to King as he recognized it imdiately.
The sky had always been false placeholder. The ga’s way of containing the starting zones before the real world map activated.
Now it was breaking.
The cracks spread wider, peeling back layers of simulated atmosphere to reveal what lay beyond.
A dark, strange heaven.
Vast and endless, dotted with faint points of light that looked nothing like burning stars.
And then they fell.
A third of the stars cast down, descended as massive balls of fla streaking through the torn sky, their path trailed in arcs that painted the world in deep crimson. They burned bright, trailing smoke and embers as they plumted toward the earth.
DOOOM! DOOOM!
The first impacts hit.
The ground vibrated violently. King felt the shockwave roll through the mansion’s foundation, quaking the walls.
One fireball struck sowhere to the east. Then another to the west.
They kept coming.
Dozens of them, then hundreds, crashing into the earth with enough force to crater roads, flatten buildings and ignite forests.
King had seen it all before.
And in ti, he knew the occurrences varied by region. So areas got floods. Others typhoons. Lightning storms. Earthquakes. Blizzards. Plagues and pestilence.
But they all served the sa purpose.
Seeding the world with new dominant species.
Monsters, that thrived in the new habitats.
King opened the World Chat, as it was he regular information hub on world news.
It was already filled with nurous ssages.
"HOLY SHIT FIREBALLS EVERYWHERE"
"The entire city is flooding wtf is happening"
"Lightning just struck my apartnt building twice"
"ZOMBIES. ACTUAL ZOMBIES. THEYRE COMING OUT OF THE GROUND"
"typhoon winds just ripped my roof off"
"I see green monsters. theyre killing people"
"WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE"
"This is the end lads, God’s judgent is upon us"
King scrolled through the ssages, scanning for useful intel.
As he’d rightly thought, each region was different.
But the outco was the sa.
The world was being overrun.
"Master King."
Eli’s voice cut through the noise in all urgency.
King turned to him.
"Twelve o’clock."
King looked up.
A massive fireball was descending directly toward them.
It burned brighter than the others, larger, roughly the size of the mansion itself. Flas roared around its surface, trailing smoke that blackened the sky behind it.
FROOooaaAAAHHH.
The sound was deafening.
It was heading straight for the compound.
"Master King?"
Eli’s voice called out again. He slid his finger near the trigger, but his posture remained unfazed.
King didn’t move.
He kept his expression neutral, his gaze calm.
He’d seen this before.
CRASH!!!
The fireball slamd into the ground just ters from the mansion’s front entrance, carving a deep crater into the earth. The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, flattening grass, cracking stone, shaking the entire building.
Smoke billowed upward.
And the flas began to die out.
Eli aid the barrel directly at the center of the target.
The flas began to cool.
Slowly.
The smoke stirred.
And then, sothing moved inside.
Two massive wings parted from the top of the smoke screen, each one charred black.
A hamr erged from the left side.
A massive, brutal weapon. The head alone was the size of a car, forged from dark iron and wrapped in chains that clinked and rattled as it moved.
The smoke cleared further.
And the figure stood.
Twelve feet tall.
Humanoid, muscular on he arms and back, but bloated on the belly. Its skin burned red and cracked, glowing faintly from within as if molten blood flowed beneath the surface. It stretched its wings wide, the feathers were burnt and patchy, their size, although large for a human, was disproportionately smaller for the giant.
It gripped the doom hamr in both hands, the weapon’s weight causing the ground beneath it to crack.
And then it raised its head.
Two eyes burned crimson, locking directly onto King’s gaze. Above its head, a floating na appeared.
Written in deep, blood-red text.
[FALSE NEPHILIM]
User Comments
0 comments from readers