Chapter 32: Reap and Grow

  It was through Seth’s memories that I learned the truth about our society.

  About the four tiers that carved humanity into neat little boxes.

  I’d belonged to the fourth.

  The drudges.

  We weren’t citizens. We weren’t even considered human.

  Just biomass.

  Livestock to be monitored, drugged, and drained for output.

  We kept the lights on. Cleaned the waste. Pushed the buttons.

  Our only purpose was to maintain a critical mass of bodies—so the rest could enjoy the system they’d built.

  They didn’t see us.

  And when they did?

  They looked down.

  Like farmers watching cattle.

  Did you know that cattle kill more people than sharks, lions and bears combined?

  —

  GLOBAL WAR-WORLD MESSAGE:

  A CHAMPION HAS FALLEN

  Priorita had never sounded so excited—not even when I unlocked the Hatchling Predator perk during my first blood-soaked minutes on this stinking world.

  She screeched the notification. The WARGAMES! theme song exploded around me. A million voices roared like a grand-final stadium crowd.

  Then the level-ups hit, rapid-fire.

  My ears blew out and whatever Priorita was yelling dissolved into static. My vision vanished. My body seized. Whatever the alien implant pumped into me during a level-up overloaded everything.

  Holy.

  Shit.

  No sight. No sound. No touch. Just pure, uncut pleasure. If I had to die, this was a hell of a way to go.

  I wanted to scream, or laugh, or sob. Instead, I spasmed like a puppet with its strings dipped in acid. Time no longer held meaning. I lay there, twitching in bliss atop the titanic corpse of a monsterous boss.

  Eventually, the static faded. Priorita’s voice had gone quiet. I’d missed her announcement, but I was conscious. Still alive. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think straight. My mind was a puzzle spilled on the floor. These level-ups were like a drug—and I’d just overdosed.

  I knew that. On an intellectual level, I knew this was dangerous. That I should be afraid.

  But all I could think was: I want another hit.

  A ragged breath tore into my lungs. Sound returned.

  The cavern was silent.

  But not peaceful.

  It was the kind of silence that stalks you. That leans in too close.

  Not just watching.

  Waiting.

  And then I heard it: her breath.

  Priorita.

  I was never truly alone here, was I?

  Sight came back in a blur of neon and blood. Colours made no sense. My HUD—barely legible in my blurred vision—overflowed with pop-ups: notifications, achievements, awards. Too many to count.

  Bloody hell.

  I’d done it. Killed a level 30 boss monster. I knew I should have felt triumphant, instead, I felt dread. Nothing in this place came without a cost, and I had to be ready for it.

  A spray of liquefied brain and skull jetted from the boss' skull as I tore my arm free. Like foam from a bottle of champagne. Even with the sabre in my grip, it was easy. Too easy.

  I tried to sit up, but to my surpirse, I instead launched up and away, landing on the quadrant boss’ snout. I tumbled, struggling to right myself as I fell to its chest, right between its limp, vestigial arms. The damn things were larger than I was, with claws that looked like stalactites.

  For a moment I just lay there, wondering what the hell was going on, opening and closing my hands experimentally. I’d been strong and capable of superhuman feats in the reduced gravity of this world, but now it was on a different level.

  My inventory opened, and I pulled out some random chunks of sandstone. I held them in one hand and squeezed.

  They crumbled to dust.

  Bloody hell.

  I swiped the achievements aside, letting them collapse into a list where I could inspect them more easily.

  This first change was obvious. I looked up. “Seriously? Level twelve!?”

  I’d jumped seven levels—from five to twelve—and my stats had absolutely skyrocketed. I couldn’t remember what exactly I had started with, the old me having no interest in the numbers. But I was pretty sure they’d all been in the single digits.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Ariel had made the whole team look at our stats and used that information to develop our roles and attack formations. She’d figured out that each level up, we received a base increase of one point to five different stats, plus a class-specific bonus.

  My Stormprowler class gave me a big per-level boost—something like fifteen stat points per level—and that had been doubled until level ten by the First Blood title. Stats were auto-allocated to the four in the physical category. But I’d also gotten hefty boosts to my Willpower and Wit, every other level. I guess that made sense, considering what I’d been through.

  None of those primary stats were under forty now. Strength? Almost seventy. Bloody hell. I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but it had to be terrifying for anyone on the wrong end of my fist.

  The fact that my Intelligence was by far my lowest stat, stuck at seven, concerned me. I mean, I was no genius, but I didn’t think I was a complete dumbass.

  Several new counters blinked into view on my HUD. As I focused on them, Priorita burst back to life with the enthusiasm of a game show host on amphetamines. Behind her voice, the cavern echoed with the roar of unseen spectators.

  Unallocated Stat Points: 10

  “Congratulations on reaching level ten! Oh wow—and eleven, and twelve, for that matter!” she squealed, like it was a surprise party and not the aftermath of a slaughter.

  “You know, in all the magnificent, blood-soaked history of WARGAMES! there has never been a solo kill on a quadrant boss?!”

  She let out a cheer that sounded suspiciously like those deranged, quokka-faced Uzbecki. I wondered if any of them were still alive. Somehow, I doubted it.

  “We’re going to have to come up with something really special for this achievement!” she sang. “But more on that later!”

  Her tone shifted into faux professionalism, like she was explaining how to set up a direct debit.

  “Until now, your stat points have been allocated automatically. We learned early on that most of our contestants are too dumb to use them properly. But by the time you reach level ten, we expect better!”

  A smug pause.

  “From here on, 75% of your stat points will be automatically assigned… and the remaining 25% are yours to waste as you see fit!”

  Soul Points: 11

  Her voice dropped deep and menacing, raising the hairs on my arms.

  “You carry a portion of another life within you, and as you grow stronger, so do they. Ten percent of the stats that they would have gained, per level, are given to you.

  Reap and grow, contestant, until it is done."

  Evolution Points: 2

  “Now prick up your ears and listen to this one really close! It’s a big one!”

  She paused for a long moment, but I could still hear her there.

  “Are you listening? Allan?”

  I cleared my throat, darting a look up and around. I still didn’t understand how they could see me.

  “Uh, yeah, Priorita, I’m listening,” I said. “Paying rapt fuckin’ attention, I promise.”

  A strange scent filled the air around me, overpowering the charnel-house stink of rotten flesh. I didn’t quite know how to describe it, except that it gave me the impression of satisfaction.

  “Okay! You are the product of your planet’s history. Your species was smart enough to figure out that much, right? A lineage that stretches back millions of years. Now, unless we scour your planet to harvest you all for food, you will go on. And over time, your species will change, adapt, and become greater than you are now. The Evolution Point system… accelerates things.”

  A glowing blue wireframe of a human appeared before me. As I watched, the figure twisted and changed.

  “At levels 10, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500, you will receive a single Evolution Point. And with these points, you can take the next step in your development!” She sounded absurdly excited, and that made me eye the wireframe human warily.

  The human's spine bent backwards. Tentacles unfurled from its arse. I recoiled.

  “Next step… Right…” I muttered. “Looked more like the next mistake.”

  “It’s all a matter of perspective! You do what you must to survive!” Priorita giggled.

  There was a pause and the roars of the cheering spectators cut out as though we’d jumped onto a different channel, and then I distinctly heard her mutter, “We all do, Allan.”

  I had no bloody idea what that meant, and had no desire to ask. Maybe she meant it like a joke, but it sure as shit didn't feel like one.

  The audio cut back in. "Focus on those first few evolutions, they're super important and can lay the foundations for your future growth. It's pretty rare to reach level 100, even by the end of a season of WARGAMES! Hit level 250 and you will be considered a powerhouse on the cosmic stage... Reach level 500... Well the only confirmed entity at or above 500 is our own Priorita Prime!"

  She let out a spectacularly ominous giggle.

  "Though there are always rumours of others..."

  "You mean all of this level up and stat bullshit isn't just for the game?" I asked. But Priorita didn't respond.

  I clicked the Evolutions tab and took a reflexive step back as a wall of text assailed me. Literally thousands of options, descriptions, and effects populating on the screen.

  The part of me that was Seth let out a nerd-squeal of excitement, while the original part practically shut down out of sheer boredom.

  I closed the Evolution menu, and all the others too—Soul Points, Unallocated Points, and others. I needed time to go through it all, and I was still trapped in the slaughterhouse.

  I could count on one hand how many times I’d been allowed to rest since arriving on this hellish planet.

  Peace never lasted. I had to be ready.

  It was darker now than before I had fallen unconscious, the glowing fruits and vines losing their phosphorescence over time. I didn’t have any left, and that made me nervous.

  I stomped my booted foot on the enormous chest of the dead quadrant boss and found that its cooling flesh was still rock solid. Tammy had liquefied and sunk away after only a short time, and I had a horrible image in my mind of sinking into the softening corpse and suffocating.

  Did boss corpses not decompose?

  The climb down was more unnerving than the trip up. It was deadly silent in the dimly lit cavern, and without the adrenaline coursing through me, and a timer to spur me on it seemed to take an eternity. Eventually, though, I found myself standing on the bed of bones.

  The boss’ enormous, discoloured toe-claws rose like standing stones before me. I rested a hand on one. Not that I needed to touch it, but with how bloody big the thing was, it just felt right.

  I triggered Auto Loot—and the boss vanished. Along with the thirty-foot section of corpses beneath me.

  My feet found nothing. I flailed, arms pinwheeling, and plummeted into the dark.

  I hit with a crunch and crackle, deep below. Bones and corpses rolled and rained down on me, burying me alive. I almost hit Auto Loot again, but for once in my bloody life, I thought it through. Looting would have just dug me deeper.

  Instead, I swung my arms like I was swimming at the beach, and with my ridiculous strength, the old brittle bones broke under my hands like waves.

  As I swam to the surface, I could hear multiple Priorita voices, hiss-whispering at each other.

  “Golly! What happened?!”

  “Lootable? Why are they lootable?!”

  “Who populated the chum-bucket?”

  “Don’t point your flagella at me! I used assets she provided.”

  “Hey! Don’t pull me into your mess!”

  I tuned them out, crawling until once more I was at the surface of the pile, panting more out of shock than exertion. I didn’t know which was worse—being buried alive, or being watched by a committee of squabbling game show hosts.

  Guess I was growing numb to some of the horror.

  The cavern had grown noticeably darker. Most of the glowing, sticky fruit had fallen from the boss’s corpse, tumbled into the pit, and been buried beneath the dead.

  What would happen when true darkness came?

  My Auto Loot ability opened a second, temporary inventory window, its soft blue glow the brightest thing in my HUD.

  It was packed. Row after row, page after page of items.

  Seth would’ve lost his mind—he’d lived for this kind of loot—and that part of him still clung to me.

  I peered into the dim, toward the endless bed of corpses stretching into the gloom.

  A near-infinite mass of salvage.

  Hell yeah.

  I’d loot everything. Even if there was no exit, I could convert the haul into BP and build a ladder—or something—to climb back up to the portal.

  But first things first.

  I’d just downed a level 30 elite boss.

  There had to be something really good waiting for me.

  I toggled the loot window to sort by value.

  The top five slots lit up at once—glowing with the cold shimmer of ethereal purple and the blazing gold fire of legendary-grade rewards.

  My recent rapid level-up had turned previously superhuman senses into something even more ridiculous. So the faint crackle of bone sounded like gunshot in the silence.

  I wheeled around, activated Predator, and the world was lit in infra-vision. Without regular light to complement it, the cavern was a confusing cold blue mess.

  Except for one figure that stood out, clear as dogs’ balls in burning white.

  A name appeared.

  Zephyra Belladrix: Lutantha.

  Level 7

  Lithe figure standing tall in the dark.

  Unafraid.

  And she was watching me.