Defiance of the Fall

Only wind and creaking from leather armors interrupted the silence as Zac stared out from his fortified position, a steely glint in his eyes. He was trying to gain any hint of what was to come when the timer went to zero in ten minutes. Everything that could be done to prepare was already finished during the past month, and the only thing remaining was to actually fight the hordes.

The once lush forest next to his camp was gone, replaced instead with a forest of jagged spears jutting out of the ground. Thousands of poles that reminded him of his first fight with the Herald was embedded in the earth, and moats ran along the wall at various distances. Apparently no one would get any Nexus Coins if an enemy impaled itself or fell down a trap while they stood up on the wall, but from what Ogras had told him about beast hordes it wouldn’t matter. What made the beast horde a horde was the seemingly endless amount of beasts, more than anyone could possibly finish by himself. No one would have to worry about not finding targets, even after the traps did their job.

He wasn’t alone on the battlements, as roughly two hundred demons stood on the wall with him. Most had eager expressions in their eyes, while some looked quite pale. Down at the ground the rest of the demons were at the ready, preparing to serve as various types of support. Zac was at first confused why the demons happily agreed to man the walls without any persuasion needed, but Ogras explained it with only one word; money.

A beast horde was extremely dangerous, but it could also be considered an endless stream of Cosmic Energy and Nexus Coins. The demons who stayed on had lost most of their wealth and needed to refill their pockets. Many of them were mortals just like Zac and needed millions and millions of Nexus Coins to be able to advance past their bottle-neck.

The cheapest method to become E-Rank Race was a medicinal bath that you took over and over that incrementally improved the constitution. But this method took years and cost tens of thousands of Coins each bath, making the monster horde a prime chance to be able to afford some more ingredients.

The method Zac had used with the Fruit of Ascension could be considered an extreme luxury, as the fruits were prohibitively expensive if you could even find a seller. The baths did however incrementally improve the attribute limits though, meaning that none of them would ever be in the same awkward position as Zac was earlier.

“Are you ready to make some money?” Zac heard a voice from his left, and saw Ogras approaching. With him he had his four underlings, each with enough power to contend with the top tier warriors of the invasion. Zac sparred a bit against them the last few days as he waited for the monsters to arrive and was surprised to see that none of them used classes from Clan Azh’Rezak’s heritage.

They were Ogras’ hidden ace that he recruited and trained using his family’s wealth in order to have some back-up against the main branch forces in case it came to blows. He had smuggled them in after killing a few of his clan-mates without any strong connections or close friends, having these four take their places. In fact none of the four were actually real members of clan Azh’Rezak.

Ilvere was a burly man who had masqueraded as a farmer when he entered through the incursion. He fought with a flail whose chain could extend to over ten meters according to his will. He was actually trying to gain insight into the Dao of Heaviness in order to combine it with the Dao of Lightness. That would apparently create the Dao of Momentum which could imbue the spiked ball with a terrifying force as he swung the weapon. When the demon heard that Zac actually possessed the Seed of Heaviness he plastered himself next to Zac, to the point that Ogras finally had to kick him away due to the annoyance. His class was only an uncommon class called Strongman, and it didn’t give him any class skill that helped him with the Dao, and he desperately wanted to observe and feel Zac’s Dao in order to gain some insights.

Janos was a thin dignified-looking man who compulsively adjusted his spectacles as he looked around. He was quite terse in his communication and seemed to enjoy solitude over any company. That made it a bit surprising for Zac to learn that the demon actually was a support-mage that couldn’t really fight on his own, making him require teammates to fight. He walked the path of illusions, and used skills that confused and weakened his enemies. When in battle Janos would continuously mess with the senses of the enemies. It wasn’t enough to kill them, but it would completely disrupt their rhythm and making it hard to fight properly.

Namys was whirling her blades as she looked provokingly at Zac. She was one of the few in the camp who was a truly willing follower of Ogras. She even had a class that looked similar to his, as it utilized darkness and shadows to create an assassin-type combat style. She was extremely unhappy that Ogras was placed as a sort of second in command behind Zac, and his spars with her were the most dangerous. More times than one Zac felt that she truly tried to hurt him with her large daggers.

Alea was his largest headache though. The beautiful demoness looked at him with a slight smile as she winked her large eyes at him. She wore what looked like an old-fashioned dress from the 60s. Apparently she had asked Ogras what humans from Earth wore, and Ogras had explained in detail, armed with outdated information from old-timey movies on Izzie’s device.

Alea liked the strong and ruthless, and Zac fit the bill nicely as being able to single-handedly thwart an incursion made him quite the dashing figure in her words. Furthermore, she possessed a class related to poison, and the fact that Zac essentially poisoned two armies to death was a cosmic sign that they were compatible in her eyes. The fact that one of the poisoned armies was her own clan members seemed to be completely irrelevant to her. Zac wasn’t sure if her interest was real or whether Ogras tried to plant a honeypot by his side, but in either case Alea was a continuous source of exasperation.

Ogras didn’t kick her away as he did with Ilvere, leaving Zac to fend for himself. In private Ogras told him that he didn’t want to poison test every swig of water or bite of food he took due to angering Alea, as she was slightly crazy like all other poison masters. Something about breathing poison fumes for years made their wiring a bit off. That nugget of information only served to increase his discomfort.

Even the schoolmistress Alyn would make a measured but immediate retreat when Alea found him in the mines, and the poison master sometimes took over the role of lecturer. It was from Alea he found out the general rules of grinding beasts. He had asked why she chose poison class when poisoning enemies to death didn’t seem to reward Nexus Coins or Cosmic Energy. If it did he would be quite a few levels higher after throwing out the cauldron up on the mountain. But he was surprised to hear that she actually got rewards from poisoning enemies.

She explained the distinction the system made was whether effort, or skill, was involved in the kill. In her case generated the poisons herself and disseminated them using her class skills. The system awarded her cosmic energy for that. Zac just snatched a bunch of poison and threw it out, and the System didn’t consider it enough effort. For the same reason getting a machine gun or even an atomic bomb couldn’t help you gain levels at all.

The System considered those types of tools not to require skill. It did consider using a bow and arrow requiring of skill though, and would award everyone, not just archer classes, cosmic energy from that type of kill. From her words the System generally didn’t award energy or coins from kills when technology was involved. It was something about the System not liking tools not made with cosmic energy.

Zac thought that many armies in the world would be in for a rude awakening after hearing that. He believed that many would have a hard time letting go of their weapons, and instead fight monsters hand-to-hand in order to gain levels. That would mean that the beasts would get continuously stronger due to the System pumping them full of cosmic energy, whereas the armies stayed stagnant. Sooner or later it would reach a tipping point, where conventional weapons were useless. Zac was pretty sure that he was mostly bulletproof by now for example. It might hurt, but a bullet should barely be able to penetrate his skin. Especially if it hit his E-graded clothing.

“You all seem to be in a chipper mood,” Zac said dourly. He didn’t relish the thought that he would have to spend the next three months continuously fighting for his life. He felt he was on the cusp of finally being able to leave the island and look for his family, but first he was stuck in an endless battle.

“Birds die for food, men die for money,” Ogras answered with a shrug. “If worse comes to worst we can just jump ship and sail for kinder shores.”

Ogras was referring to a small Creator-vessel that Zac had bought for one million Nexus Coins. It was powered with Nexus Crystals and could comfortably house 10 people, or 30 if people covered every inch of the deck as well. It was one of the cheapest creations available for sale at the Shipyard, and Zac planned on using it for exploration, or fleeing if necessary.

Now that he knew the System wouldn’t punish him for failing a quest or fleeing for his life, he wasn’t as ready to risk everything just to finish the quest and become a Lord. He had confirmed that what Ogras said was true from a few sources, and that Abby had in fact lied. The largest punishments for failing quests were that he couldn’t get them again.

However if he failed too many quests he risked not getting awarded new ones for a while. For example Ogras would likely not get any quests for a couple of years due to eating The Coward’s Escape-pill. But for a cultivator whose life could be counted in the thousands, it was a small price to pay for escaping with his life.

That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t diligently try to complete the quest and rebuff the three monster waves. The more he learned about cultivation and the multi-verse he knew he was sitting on a rare chance. The island was likely one of the safest places on Earth right now. There were no dangerous beasts skulking around apart from the salamanders, and they kept to their caves. The reason for this was simple, it was the hordes of barghest. They had hunted everything that started to evolve since they arrived, stopping any species from gaining strength.

That made this island a haven, and an amazing source of wealth, for himself and his family. As he was the lord that wealth would turn into further safety as he could keep buying defenses if some force meant him harm. To give up this would mean he would turn from a so-called progenitor to another refugee without a place to call home.

Alea walked over and greeted him with a smile and a light touch on his arm, and Zac could only bear it for now with a grimace. He knew from experience that telling her off or pushing her away wouldn’t work, and if he got too insistent she might poison him in a rage. Nothing lethal, of course, but something strong enough for him to be puking his guts out for a few hours.

So they stood at the top of the wall surveying the battlefield looking like an old couple until the timer finally the timer went to zero.

[Ladder activated, struggle for supremacy.] The emotionless voice of the System entered his ears just as the third month ended and the timer went to zero.

“Huh, what’s this ladder that the system mentioned?” Zac said as he turned to Ogras. But immediately afterward he turned back toward the forest as he saw tens of grey pillars flash into existence roughly a kilometer away. They looked just like the incursion, just in a different color and a lot smaller.

“The Ruthless Heavens spoke to you? Ladder? Must be some function it is using on this baby planet. It has all types of modes that it can activate that changes how -“ Ogras explained but was interrupted by the System itself, this time speaking so everyone was hearing.

[Special Dynamic Quest activated. Defend what’s yours and vanquish the hordes. The strong will be rewarded.]