Players' Point of View
"Come on, regroup! Everyone in three rows! Use all your damage skills and then fall back to wait for the cooldown. Let the next row take the front!"
Bert's voice thundered across the field as the players followed the order with surprising coordination.
Before them, mountains of demon beast corpses piled up endlessly. The town's barrier shattered every few minutes, and in those brief openings new creatures forced their way inside, roaring and devouring whatever they found. The ground was already covered in dark blood, sticky puddles, and twisted limbs. And yet, to the players it felt more like a festival than a tragedy. Every kill was EXP. Every strike, progress.
At that moment, an announcement appeared in the air: Emergency Mission.
Reward: deliver one demon beast core = 2 entries.
The news spread like wildfire. Several players shouted excitedly; others already saw the opportunity to make business.
While Sia absorbed energy from the fallen corpses to craft more entries, a pair of players took advantage to expand their own trade. With an enigmatic smile, the ghostly woman offered core loans, while her ghoul boyfriend stood guard, intimidating anyone who dared get too close.
"How many cores do you have to lend?" Evan asked with a serious tone. Behind him, several underworld bosses waited in silence.
"Mmm… I think about twenty," she replied, baring her teeth in a sinister smile.
"The usual deal?"
"Of course. Always a pleasure doing business with you—you pay on time."
The transfers were made in seconds. Other players, however, weren't interested in inviting friends or taking loans. They knew a simple trick: deliver one core for two entries, then resell those two entries for one core plus nine large mana stones. The profit margin was obvious. And for some, the real temptation was selling them later in the real world.
Amid the commotion, Loli appeared, panting, carrying a huge pile of cores. "Silvia, here you go!"
She barely lifted her gaze, too focused on reinforcing the barrier. Each time she inserted a core, the wall glowed briefly before being hammered again by waves of corpses trying to break through.
The spectacle was both grotesque and glorious. Players rushed outside the protection just to slaughter as many as they could before dying. Then they reappeared in the middle of town, laughing, and charged at the horde once again, repeating the cycle.
Liora, raising her staff, cast a healing spell over a wide area. The light bathed injured allies… and when it fell on the corpses as well, they writhed, burned by the sacred energy. A second later, several exploded into pieces.
"Hahaha, this is way too fun!" roared Joe, transforming into a gigantic minotaur. With each punch against the ground, spikes of rock wrapped in fire shot forward, impaling and burning dozens of beasts.
Alfred, wielding his spear, unleashed a jet of crimson blood that burst forward like a projectile, skewering multiple corpses before detonating into a rain of corrosive purple.
Dean, summoning shadows, raised a spectral bow and shot an arrow into the sky—when it fell, a Molotov bomb was tied to it, bursting into flames upon impact with the ground.
"We don't have mana stones or cores, but the EXP for skills is insane!" shouted Sig, laughing excitedly as her illusion magic made the corpses attack each other.
System messages wouldn't stop popping up. Skills leveling up one after another, some even unlocking intermediate versions.
In the sky, a titanic battle unfolded. Lua was fighting against two demigods at once, her blows toppling trees and splitting the earth as if gods themselves were clashing. None of the players could watch without shuddering. They knew they were still far away, but also that one day, they could reach that level.
"Miss Silvia said that when a basic skill reaches its maximum level, it evolves into two intermediate skills. And if those also reach the maximum, they merge into an advanced skill. They're much more powerful!" Bert explained loudly to encourage the others.
"So start with the ones you got in your first evolutions! They're weaker, but they require less EXP," added Sig with a broad grin.
The corpses kept coming. From within the horde emerged creatures with more mana in their bodies: elite beasts, deformed and glowing. Even a skeletal dragon appeared, roaring as its bony wings shed poisonous dust—though it seemed to engage the demigods in battle rather than join the corpse swarm.
"I hope Lua is okay," murmured Liora as she cast another healing spell on the allies.
"Don't worry. She's incredibly strong," replied Sally with a calm smile. Neither of them liked the battle much, but even they couldn't deny they were having a bit of fun.
The slaughter grew even more chaotic. Each fallen corpse accelerated skill leveling. The barrier, which had once broken every few minutes, now held longer thanks to the massed strength of the players.
Joe, wreathed in flames, was the first to reach level 80. The message appeared before him: Evolution Available!
"Mmm… what's this? A special evolution for unlocking an achievement," he said, intrigued as he saw an option glowing in deep red.
"Elemental Fire Emperor… sounds perfect." Without hesitation, he pressed accept.
His body shone intensely and began to transform. The minotaur was engulfed in flames, as if his entire being were burning alive.
But in the middle of his glory, another notification appeared:
You have reached a turning point that will greatly alter your soul. Since your real body might not withstand it, the system will intervene to modify it.
Outside the game, Joe—connected within the small mana dome flowing out from his computer—was suddenly wrapped in a crimson glow. Mana burst from the machine and seeped into his body. The scars marking his skin slowly vanished, and even the wrinkles of age faded away.
Outside the house shared by several of them, the land began to change. Where once only yellowish, dry grass grew, like a sponge exhausted by millennia of drought, now the leftover mana from Joe's body slowly seeped into the soil. Stalks timidly sprouted, spreading in a green circle around the house. Even the dark clouds covering the sky seemed to disperse for an instant above the roof before closing again heavily.
In the virtual battlefield, Joe completed his evolution.
He was no longer a minotaur. Not even comparable to his previous forms.
Standing before everyone was Joe, his hair transformed into orange flames, swaying like living fire. His rolled-up sleeves revealed muscular arms engraved with tattoos that looked like burning runes, each line vibrating with heat.
Every breath he exhaled came with small bursts of fire.
"This feels incredible…" he muttered with a fierce smile. Then, raising his hand, he let out a roar, and a blazing column of fire shot forward, incinerating a wave of demonic corpses trying to break through the barrier.
Next came Dean. Wrapped in a whirlwind of shadows, his body shifted under everyone's expectant gaze. Darkness consumed him completely, and when the evolution ended, he wore armor made of pure black mist. There were no clear edges; it seemed he could vanish from sight at any moment, even while standing right in front of them.
Dean raised his hand, and a shadowy bow materialized between his fingers. He fired into the sky, and a dark magic circle opened above. From it rained down spears of black arrows, striking the horde without pause.
"Now this is a rain of death!" a player shouted, laughing.
The others cheered and redoubled their attacks. Joe and Dean's new forms were spectacular, and the frenzy of everyone else only grew. Some clapped, others shouted how amazing it would be to reach that kind of evolution.
"This is what I'm talking about! EXP, madness, and free spectacle!" Sig exclaimed, making her illusions drive more corpses to slaughter each other.
Notifications kept popping up. Skills maxed out. Evolutions unlocked. It was glorious chaos—the festival of experience.
…
Meanwhile, on Earth
"Sir, a massive amount of mana has been detected being released into the open air," reported a soldier, rushing into Donovan's office.
The ship had landed in a ruined forest, one of the few that remained. Most of the oaks were rotten, hollow trunks that looked like ghosts of what once had been alive.
Donovan looked up in annoyance. "What are those idiots doing? Throwing mana flasks into the ground? Trying to revive this wasteland like they did on other planets? Pathetic."
"Tsk… amount?" he asked coldly.
"If we measure it in flasks, about five hundred units."
"Only five hundred." Donovan clicked his tongue. "I don't care. It won't make any difference."
Without another word, he grabbed a mana flask from his desk, uncorked it, and drank it down in one gulp. The liquid glowed in his throat like molten fire.
"Sir…" the soldier murmured cautiously. "You know that mana of earned origin, not pure planetary mana, can cause rejection… and addiction."
"Yes, yes, I know." Donovan smiled with arrogance. "But remember: I am a pure-blooded elf. Don't compare me to you lot, who can barely drink one flask a month without tearing yourselves apart. I can consume ten times more and grow even stronger. That's the difference between us."
The soldier lowered his head in fear. Even so, he noticed blue veins marking Donovan's neck, glowing across his skin like burning scars.
The elf opened another flask and drank eagerly. This time, something was different. The taste was strange, less harsh, almost… pleasant. The veins on his neck began to fade, and when he rolled up his sleeves, he confirmed that his skin had returned to normal.
"See? I told you we're different," he laughed proudly, opening another flask and drinking it without pause. But when the liquid entered, the effect shifted again: the veins reappeared, softer, but still visible. Donovan frowned for a moment, but quickly ignored it as more soldiers arrived.
"Sir, another massive mana discharge has been detected," one of them announced.
"Again? Where?"
"In Central Student City."
"It's the same point as before, sir," added another.
Donovan closed his eyes and sighed in irritation. "Send patrols. Find the culprits and eliminate them."
"Do you want us to send the hunters?" asked the soldier.
"No. Those parasites are useless to me now. From now on, you'll handle everything. We'll do a complete cleanup."
With that, he signed a couple of papers without even looking at them and sealed them with a sharp stamp. His lips curled into a cold smile.