"Th-that's... that's too many!"
Vance swallowed hard, frozen in place. The sheer number of Level 2 Ogres was staggering, outnumbering the players present several times over and far exceeding his worst estimations. A suffocating tide of muscle and crude weaponry flooded the grounds.
Worse, standing sentinel behind the monstrous horde was a colossal Ogre, nearly two and a half meters tall. Its presence was a suffocating aura of dread; one look was enough to know it was in a league of its own.
Cliff shrank back, his voice trembling. "Vance, what do we do? Should we even try to push?"
Vance’s jaw clenched. "We push. First to strike gets the spoils. Get a few squads to run interference for us. The priority is getting our main force to the core. Our target is that Ogre boss in the back!"
Cliff nodded grimly. "Right. I'm with you, Vance."
In moments, Vance had assembled his elite assault team.
"With me, brothers!" he bellowed, swinging his arm forward and leading the charge.
The commotion didn't go unnoticed. Ray and Caden, seeing his squad bee-lining for the boss, immediately caught on.
"Move up, you lot! We're taking that boss!"
"Charge! Kill steal!"
"Hahaha, that boss is mine!"
In an instant, the battlefield erupted as all three factions tore through the lesser monsters, carving a bloody path toward the colossal Ogre.
Half an hour later, a system notification echoed through the chaos:
【Ding! Congratulations to player Vance for successfully killing the Large Ogre. Reward granted: Silver Cache x1】
"I got it! I got the kill!" Vance roared in triumph, his voice cracking with ecstasy.
"Vance is a beast!"
"Holy hell, the man is a powerhouse!"
Cheers erupted from the players around him. Vance's Divine Gift, [Stormfire], had seized the perfect moment, unleashing a final, devastating blast that vaporized the Large Ogre's remaining health.
He stared at the Silver Cache in his inventory, a fresh wave of excitement coursing through him. He never imagined killing a Beast Surge boss would yield a treasure chest on top of the leaderboard rewards.
When the notification reached Ray and Caden, they cursed in frustration. They were simply outmatched in numbers, and both their Divine Gifts were melee-based. Unable to break through the dense wall of monsters to the core, they couldn't land a single effective blow on the boss.
"Hmph. Just you wait," Ray sneered, his eyes burning with resentment.
But as the players argued over the boss's spoils, the Beast Surge system delivered another, far more terrifying announcement:
【Ding! The Large Ogre has been slain. The fifth wave of the Beast Surge will now commence. All players, prepare yourselves.】
【10, 9, 8...】
"What? A fifth wave?!" Vance and the others stared in disbelief.
The boss was dead, yes, but The Surge Grounds were still swarming with more than half the Ogre horde. The monsters still outnumbered the players. A sense of dread washed over the ordinary players as they heard the countdown.
"What the hell? Are you kidding me? Another one?"
"This makes no sense! Shouldn't the wave only refresh after we clear the field?"
"Yeah, and there's no rest period this time!"
As the players cried out in protest, the Summoning Nexuses surrounding The Surge Grounds pulsed with renewed energy. The countdown hit zero, and a new nightmare spilled forth.
Mummies, wrapped in stained white bandages, shambled out of the portals. They were smaller than the Ogres, roughly human-sized, but the sharp, yellowed teeth visible through gaps in their wrappings gave them the look of ghouls clawed up from hell.
【Mummy】
【Level: 3】
【Skill: Binding Wraps (Increases Defense by 10%)】
This was a disaster. The Level 3 Mummies were clearly a stronger force than the Ogres, and there were even more of them.
"Fuck! How are there so many?!" Even the normally composed Vance couldn't stop himself from swearing.
The Mummy horde was immense, easily rivaling the Ogres in number, if not surpassing them. The already crowded Surge Grounds were now choked with monsters, packed so tightly they were a single, writhing mass. The fragile balance the players had maintained shattered in an instant.
"Aaaah! Help me! God, help me!"
"Too many monsters! I can't—get me out of here!"
"Please, let us through! My girlfriend is hurt!"
All across the battlefield, players were breaking. The front lines buckled and then collapsed into a frantic, disorganized rout.
Vance, propped up on a teammate's shoulder, bellowed over the din. "Hold the line! Don't you dare fall back! Push forward! DO NOT RETREAT!"
For a fleeting moment, even his rivals, Ray and Caden, echoed his desperate commands.
"No retreat! Anyone who runs, I'll kill them myself!"
"Fortune favors the bold! With me, brothers!"
The three of them fought desperately to regain control, but the situation had spiraled far beyond anyone's ability to manage. After the front lines suffered catastrophic casualties, panic became the only commander. The formations they had so carefully organized dissolved into a terrified mob.
In the blink of an eye, the entire battlefront had collapsed. Not Vance, not Ray, not anyone could stop the tide of this doomed war.
"It's no use, Vance!" Cliff yelled, his face slick with sweat. "There are just too many! We have to retreat!"
Vance's face was a mask of bitter reluctance, but seeing his own forces already starting to desert, he could only grit his teeth and nod. "Go! Gather all the core members. We're pulling out!"
Cliff paled. "Vance, what about the others?"
Vance's expression darkened. "How big do you think Southpeak Academy is? If everyone retreats at once, where do you think we'll lead the horde? You want us all to die together?"
Cliff hesitated, then gave a slow, grim nod. Vance's ruthlessness was brutal, but it wasn't wrong. In this new world, your own life was all that mattered. Sacrificing others was a better alternative than sacrificing yourself.
"What a waste..." Vance muttered, casting one last look back at the seething mass of monsters and screaming students on The Surge Grounds. He had thought this would be the glorious start of his reign. He never imagined it would end before it had even begun.
From his vantage point, he saw Ray's and Caden's forces also beginning to fall back. Ray, at least, was a smart one, pulling back with only his core team. Caden, however, was a fool, trying to shepherd all his followers to safety.
Good, Vance thought with a cold smirk. You can cover our escape. Kill a few more monsters for us. I'll be back for the rest once I've recovered.
Just as they began their retreat, enormous characters of golden light blazed across the sky for all the world to see:
【World Announcement: The Ember Republic Novice Zone 14059 has been overrun by monsters and has fallen into The Unclaimed Wastes.】
【World Announcement: The Sakura Federation Novice Zone 4568 has been overrun by monsters and has fallen into The Unclaimed Wastes.】
【World Announcement: The Beacon Union Novice Zone 14355 has been overrun by monsters and has fallen into The Unclaimed Wastes.】
【...】
Perched on the rooftop of the tallest building, closest to the sky, Calder watched the world announcements appear. His expression was flat, unsurprised, as if he had been expecting this all along.
His gaze drifted to the fleeing crowds and the endless ocean of monsters on The Surge Grounds below. A cold, thin smile touched his lips.
"The hunt... can finally begin."
【Upper Right Limb Blighting +0.1, +0, +0.1...】
【Upper Left Limb Blighting +0, +0.1, +0.1...】
The notifications pulsed in his vision. The Level 2 Ogres yielded a significantly higher chance of increasing his Blight Index compared to the Level 1 Knorr Aberrant Fiends.
Calder's hands, shifted into their Ossein Sword form, plunged repeatedly into the corpses littering the ground. Power surged into him. The closer he got to The Surge Grounds, the more bodies there were—both monster and human.
Of course, the tide of fleeing players was even thicker.
One of them saw Calder walking against the current and shouted a well-intentioned warning.
"Hey, man, what are you doing? The monsters are that way! Don't go over there!"
"Are you trying to get yourself killed? Turn back!"
Calder ignored them, his focus absolute. He continued his steady, unhurried pace toward The Surge Grounds, Devouring corpse after corpse along the way.
Seeing him unresponsive, one of the runners scoffed. "Freak. Guess he can't take a hint."
"Probably lost his mind trying to scavenge. The top three players on the leaderboard already bailed, and this idiot thinks he can go scoop up some EXP?"
"Whatever, let him die. We need to run! The monsters are right behind us—Holy shit, Ogre!"
The words had barely left his mouth when an Ogre, appearing from a side alley, swung its massive club. Its first and only target was Calder, who was still bent over a corpse.
"Look ou—"
SHHIIINCK!
Before the warning could even form, the Ogre's attack stopped dead. A clean, vertical line appeared down its center, and its entire body split perfectly in two. The halves crashed to the ground with a wet thud.
Throughout the entire exchange, Calder hadn't even lifted his gaze, his movements repeating the same fluid motion of plunging his Ossein Swords into the dead.
The group of players stared, their jaws hanging open. "What the... He's a pro!"
By the time they snapped out of their shock, Calder had already vanished into the panicked sea of people, leaving them to stare at each other in bewildered silence.
The deeper he pushed into The Surge Grounds, the fewer players there were and the more numerous the monsters. Calder was finally forced to pause his scavenging. His right arm, a blur of white bone, lashed out.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
The sound of cleaving air was followed by the heavy thuds of Ogre bodies hitting the pavement. For all their size and decent attack power, the Level 2 Ogres had poor defenses. Their massive bodies were nothing more than walking targets for Calder. He needed no complex techniques, just simple, brutal slashes that reaped one Ogre after another.
【Time +15min, Time +15min, Time +15min...】
His Chrono reserves climbed rapidly. The Level 2 Ogres awarded 5 more minutes of Time than the Level 1 Knorr Aberrant Fiends, which translated to 0.01 Chrono per kill. A small amount, but the sheer number of monsters made it incredibly lucrative. Killing a hundred of them would net him a full Chrono point.
Before he even reached the epicenter of The Surge Grounds, Calder had already slain over a hundred Ogres. His Chrono value blew past 1.0 and was rapidly approaching 2.0.
"Level up."
With enough Chrono accumulated, he didn't hesitate, dumping it all into his level.
【Ding! 32 hours consumed to level up. All attributes +1.】
【Ding! Congratulations, you have reached Level 5.】
Two notifications chimed as his status panel updated.
【Calder】
【Level: 5】
【Time: 0.01】
【Strength: 6.6 + 20.5】
【Speed: 6.7】
【Constitution: 6.5】
【Spirit: 7.1】
【Blight Index: Strength: 20.5】
...
His average upper limb Blight Index for Strength had surpassed 20, and he had reached Level 5.
"Good. Finally met the requirements."
A faint smile played on Calder's lips as his arms suddenly trembled. The rigid Ossein Swords warped and twisted, melting into something new. In the blink of an eye, they had reformed into two long, wicked weapons resembling Chain Scourges.
"ROOOAR!"
As if on cue, several Ogres chasing a group of students charged straight at him.
Calder gave his right arm a casual flick. The Chain Scourge lashed out, its spiked tip punching through an Ogre's skull with a sickening squelch. It retracted just as quickly, pulling back a spray of white and gray brain matter.
【Ding! Time +15min!】
The Ogre's face went slack as it toppled forward, undeniably dead. But the Chain Scourge didn't stop. It whipped sideways, striking the adjacent Ogres with the same lethal precision, executing them one by one.
"Dude, you're a legend!"
"So strong! All one-shot kills!" the nearby students yelled in amazement.
But their cheers died in their throats as they witnessed Calder's next action. After killing the Ogres, he didn't move on. Both Chain Scourges plunged deep into the fresh corpses, and the bodies began to rapidly wither and desiccate.
Watching the Ogre carcasses shrivel into dried husks, the onlookers' faces went pale with horror. The praise they were about to shout caught in their throats. This wasn't some "ace" player. This was a human Ogre.
The Ogres eat us... and he eats the Ogres.
A single glance was enough. They turned and fled, their terror of Calder now greater than their fear of the monsters.
Calder, of course, paid them no mind. His Chain Scourges continued to lash out, Devouring every corpse in the vicinity—Ogre, Mummy, or player, it made no difference. Bodies and monsters were the two things The Surge Grounds had in abundance.
With his upper limb Blight Index over 20, his arms could now perform more complex Aberrant Shifts. In his past life, it had taken him a tremendous amount of effort to master the [Aberrant Weaponform] to this degree of fluid control. The Chain Scourge form was brutally efficient for harvesting.
【Lower Left Limb Blighting +0.1, +0, +0.1...】
【Lower Right Limb Blighting +0, +0.1, +0.1...】
With his level requirement met, the Blighting finally began to spread to his lower limbs, and his Speed stat started to climb.
He wove through the battlefield like a phantom. Soon, two more Chain Scourges sprouted from his arms. With four tendrils of bone now at his command, they lashed out in every direction like a nest of vipers—faster, more precise, and utterly lethal.
Ogres fell, Ogres were drained. Nothing survived where the Chain Scourges passed.
"What's the status? Did the monsters follow us?" Vance asked anxiously from the relative safety of a barricaded dormitory.
Cliff shook his head. "Only a few Ogres. The guys took care of them. As for our people..." He sighed, his voice thick with self-reproach. "Not many are left. Besides the core twenty, we've got less than a hundred of the outer members."
He ran a hand through his hair. "It's all my fault. If I had realized something was wrong sooner, we could have pulled back earlier. Fewer people would have died."
Vance was silent for a moment. Truthfully, he bore the lion's share of the blame. If he hadn't been so greedy, so determined to snatch the boss kill without understanding the rules of the Beast Surge, the casualties might not have been so severe. He'd traded hundreds of lives for a single Silver Cache. It was a terrible bargain.
But what was done was done.
"There's no point dwelling on what's already happened," Vance said, clearing his throat. "And you heard the announcements. We're not the only ones suffering. Novice Zones all over the world are falling. Our job now is to preserve our strength and make sure Novice Zone 911 doesn't become another Unclaimed Waste."
Cliff sighed again. "I guess you're right. By the way—"
"Holy shit! Vance! There's a ghost outside the window!" The shout from one of his men cut Cliff off.
Vance frowned. "Marcus, this is no time for jokes."
The student, Marcus, turned from the window, his face pale. "Vance, I'm not kidding! Come look! There's something... some thing out on The Surge Grounds. It... it has too many legs!"
Vance's first instinct was to dismiss it as nonsense. The fourth wave was Ogres, the fifth was Mummies. There had been no announcement of new monsters. But the genuine terror in Marcus's eyes was convincing. He stood and walked to the dorm window with Cliff. They had chosen this particular men's dormitory precisely because it offered a clear view of The Surge Grounds, allowing them to monitor the situation and adjust their plans.
Vance peered out the window. In the distance, across the monster-infested battlefield, a single figure was slaughtering monsters. No, "slaughter" wasn't the right word. This was a massacre.
It was a humanoid shape surrounded by a whirlwind of writhing tendrils. The tendrils lashed out continuously, effortlessly reaping the monsters swarming it from all sides. Ogres, Mummies—it didn't matter. Nothing survived in its presence for more than a second. It was a demon on the battlefield.