Two hundred and thirty-five employees. For a businessman, that was the size of a middling company. Yet in a world that held a billion souls, could that truly be all Hermes had gathered in six days?
Hardly. Each streamer under him had come to command a following of her own, some only a few hundred strong, others a thousand or more. Taken together, they amounted to a staggering force of roughly sixty thousand.
Hermes had claimed no vows of loyalty from any of them. He left those people in the women's hands. While they handled their own followers, Hermes had already told Gabby to make certain the entire settlement rested on a single bed of hard, dense stone.
"Master, this is a very risky move, and you may die. If I am left without an owner, I will die with you," Gabby said.
Hermes simply gave a hum of affirmation. He had studied the Records of the Longest Worlds Collide Series long enough that his mind held them as if he himself had lived through them.
Every settlement that rose above thirty-five thousand souls had been wiped out in the first Event. The reason was simple. They had no one like him, no one with attributes at fifty across the board. Hermes did not think this out of arrogance.
[Next Event – 00:00:00:03]
[Next Event – 00:00:00:02]
[Next Event – 00:00:00:01]
[Next Event – 00:00:00:00]
[System Message: The Seven-Day Death Protection is now lifted.]
[Event I: Pestilence Catastrophe]
[Act 1: Infinite Undead Emergence]
[Mission: Personally eliminate 20 zombies within 3 days.]
[Possible Rewards:]
[(Common) WCP Points]
[(Common to Epic) Treasure Cache]
[(Common to Epic) Shelter Seed]
[(Common to Epic) Settlement Seed]
[Failure Penalty: Regression of personal intelligence and a global increase in zombie intelligence.]
Crackle. Crack. Rumble.
The land shook, and fissures burst open below. From the Sky Fielder, Hermes looked down as the ground split apart, glowing green cracks running through the world like fresh wounds. High above it all, he watched Gabby work beneath the towns, adjusting the solid stone under their feet and making certain they stood on firm ground.
Across the globe, though, not everyone was so fortunate. The mere breaking of the earth sent the death toll climbing into the millions before it finally began to slow.
"The ground split open! Run, run!"
"Stay away from the cracks! They're still spreading!"
"Why is the earth glowing like that? What is that?"
[World Population: 990,956,561]
Soon, different kinds of zombies burst from the earth, and the death toll kept rising.
Swish. Swoosh.
The moment the first of them rose, Hermes unleashed a storm of spears from both hands. His arms blurred into afterimages, each throw so fast and clean it seemed the air itself was being torn apart.
One zombie fell, then another, then ten more before the first bodies had even finished collapsing.
Above the shattered land, a great voice boomed across the sky, announcing Hermes's feats one after another as though the world itself had begun to take notice of him.
[World Announcement: First Blood Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: Second Evolution Zombie Kill! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: Third Evolution Zombie Kill! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 100 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 250 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 500 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 1,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 2,500 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 5,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 10,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
Hermes did not so much as spare the rewards a glance. He passed from spears to fifteen kinds of bows, then to a hundred throwing weapons, with a few slingshots mixed in for good measure. What he wanted first was not loot, but experience.
He had already devoured Basics of Aiming All Long-Ranged Weapons, and now the knowledge was turning real in his hands.
Gabby stood behind him, feeding him weapon after weapon. Some she placed with neat precision. Others she sent at ugly angles meant to jar his rhythm and test whether he could recover without thought.
She kept the pattern shifting, never once letting him settle, and each exchange came faster than the one before, until the changes were so quick they looked less like training and more like instinct sharpened into slaughter.
[World Announcement: 25,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 50,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
This was the strength of the two greatest powers in the universe laid bare. Money and knowledge.
"Gabby, start collecting the stones dropping from the zombies," Hermes said.
He meant to seize every advantage the system offered while making certain no one discovered that his class was nothing more than an F-Rank Trash Peddler.
Gabby moved at once, gathering the leveling stones as they fell. They came in every color, some heavy with elemental force, others steeped in spirit qi or mana. The moment she had enough, she fed them into the Hyperion Crafting Table and began refining them into six kinds of energy.
Even that was only the outer layer. Buried within each crystal was a flower. The three petals at its heart raised all attributes. Around that inner bloom spun colored rings like a little gyroscope, and those strengthened the Constitution Rating.
Her hands and wings blurred as they moved across the Hyperion Crafting Table. Fifty thousand became seven hundred fifty-two perfect crystals.
It was costly work. Wasteful, even.
That was the furthest Hyperion technology could go. It could move the forces of the universe and combine them, but it could not reproduce the fundamental laws the way the Cosmic Chronographic System could.
From the guides Hermes had bought, he knew a crystal synthesis feature would appear later. When it did, ten ordinary crystals could be turned into one perfect crystal with far less waste. The trouble was that the feature might come as early as the Second Event or as late as the Fourth.
If he waited that long, his edge would fade, and the other participants would have time to catch up to his attributes while he stayed at level one. But swallowing a regular crystal now would be just as foolish.
Each level up came only once, and the gain in attributes would depend on the quality of the crystal he consumed. Hermes would not cheapen his growth for the sake of haste.
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 2! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 3! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 4! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
Gabby frowned as the booming announcements rolled across the sky one after another. She could read the meaning in them as plainly as if the numbers had been whispered into her ear. Her master's crystal consumption was far too high.
By her reckoning, an ordinary human needed only three crystals to gain a level. A hive-ant, blessed with finer genetics, might need six.
"Master, how many crystals do you need to level up?" she asked.
Hermes did not stop. He kept bombarding the zombies below as he answered.
"Sixty-five. Then one hundred twelve. Then one hundred seventy-eight. Then two hundred seventy-six. I thought it would only rise by one to ten each level."
"Master, this may be the system's compensation for your genetics. Check how much you gained," Gabby said.
Hermes looked.
He did not stop attacking, but the sight still hit him hard enough that he stumbled where he stood, tripped in shock, and nearly hurled himself off the platform.
[STATUS WINDOW]
[Username: Randomizer]
[Age: 6 Days] [Level: 4]
[Next Level: 272/393]
[Race: Devil]
[Class: (Rank-F) Trash Peddler]
[Constitution Rating: 81.00]
[Strength: 81.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Agility: 81.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Dexterity: 81.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Reflex: 81.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Tenacity: 81.00] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Intelligence Rating: 81.00]
[Processing Speed: 81.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Comprehension: 81.00] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Analytical Logic: 81.00] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Internal Energy Rating: 83.01]
[Qi: 83.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Mana: 83.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Elemental: 83.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Divine: 83.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Cosmic: 83.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Eldritch: 83.01] (+3.25) (+5.06) (+8.90) (+13.80)
[Karmic Rating: 97.00]
[Luck: 388.00]
[Faith: 0.00]
[Fame: 0.00]
[Enmity: 0.00]
[Trash Peddler Skills]
[Summon Peddling Tool]
[Make a Loan]
[Sell Personal Assets]
Elation, joy, fervor, and above all greed. That was what ran through Hermes. For a moment, it seemed to him that the zombies had grown slower, that their weak points had become easier to find. Then he understood. It was not the dead that had changed. It was his attributes.
A lesser man might have savored that feeling. Hermes crushed it as soon as it rose. He threw harder, faster, and with greater precision, honing himself with every kill.
This was only the beginning. Somewhere out in the dark, there were still cosmic beings who could erase him so completely he would never even know how he had died.
[World Announcement: 75,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 5! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 100,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 150,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 6! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
"Gabby. Build me a fly swatter. As big as possible. We're wasting time. Make it useful for excavation too."
Gabby gave a quiet nod. Nanomachines swept over Hermes at once, measuring reach, grip, and weight tolerance, while she turned to the alloys used for spacecraft hulls, the sort best suited for ramming through fields of rock in open space.
Soon enough, the thing took shape. It was a monstrous swatter, more than forty meters in length and breadth, ugly in design and brutally practical.
Before taking it in hand, Hermes made certain there were no Second or Third Evolution Zombies nearby. Those were the dangerous ones.
They could breathe poison, leap walls, and endure enough punishment to threaten his employees if even one slipped through. Seeing none, he dropped from above and brought the swatter down on the first mass below.
Bang!
Dust burst upward. Flesh and bone flew apart. Green zombie filth sprayed in every direction. Hermes did not pause. He raised the great swatter again and brought it down once more.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each strike crushed the dead by the hundreds, flattening them into the broken earth as if he were beating vermin out of a floor. From a distance, it might have looked absurd, some giant devil wielding a fly swatter against the end of the world. Up close, there was nothing comical in it at all.
[World Announcement: 200,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 7! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 250,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 8! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 300,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 9! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: 400,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 10! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
Hermes stopped at last, not from fatigue, but because there were no more zombies left above ground. The rest were still clawing their way up through the cracks. So he set the great swatter against the fissures and pried them wider.
"Come on now. Don't be shy."
His voice still held that melodic note, which only made the taunt feel meaner.
Once the ground loosened, more of the dead came spilling out around him. Then the press shifted. Some of them seemed to sense there were many living creatures behind him, and soon whole groups of zombies began stacking atop one another, trying to scale the walls.
That would not do. Better to lose an arm than lose the newborn reputation he had only just started to build.
Something older stirred in him then. The blood of the Primordial Space Titan. The blood of the Star Sage Monkey. Both woke at once.
Hermes threw back his head and released a roar.
It was not a skill. It was older than that, the first mockery of the first creatures to walk the universe, a taunt so deep it clung to blood and bone.
The zombies that had been charging the towns with overwhelming momentum suddenly broke course. As one, they turned in a crazed rush toward Hermes, drawn to where he stood.
Hermes met that frenzy with one of his own. He planted his feet, spun in place, and turned himself into a whirling meat grinder in the middle of the battlefield.
Yet his taunt had not called to the zombies alone.
Behind the walls, the ten races waiting for the dead to reach the towns felt it too.
Frowns spread from face to face. Cortisol spiked. Adrenaline surged. In a single breath, their emotions turned ugly.
"What was that? I feel like I want to kill someone," Lena said, her eyes going red as she looked from face to face around her, like a hunter measuring prey.
But Gabby had foreseen it. Through her Boohoo Away add-on, she released an invisible mist of calming agents and nanomachines. The worst of that sudden fury was blunted before it could spill into bloodshed.
Hermes, however, had changed.
The calm sky-blue color of his skin had turned red. He was still in control, that much was plain, but he was having far too much fun.
Hermes leapt from place to place, swinging the great swatter in savage arcs, and laughing as zombie heads burst from their necks and flew.
[World Announcement: 500,000 Kill Achievement! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
[World Announcement: First Level Up to 11! Congratulations to Randomizer!]
The level up calmed him. The color of his skin returned to its old sky-blue hue, washing over the red until the old color settled back into place.
Even so, Hermes could still feel how much he enjoyed the thing in his hand. The swatter was too fun to swing. Some raw part of him even thought he ought to find a bigger one.
Another part took a darker pleasure in the violence itself. Those were the genetics he carried now, and they would not be silent simply because he willed it.
Still, Hermes was only six days old in this new life, a newborn creature with the sentience of an old man from Earth. Habits could still be curbed. The Endermind Draconic genetics gave him enough reason to see the danger clearly.
He only needed to remind himself of one thing. Fun and fighting were tools, not a way of life.
Once he had himself in hand again, Hermes went back to work, methodical as ever, whacking zombies apart in steady rhythm.
Behind him, though, the first wave of smaller humanoid zombies had already reached the towns.