The cheers were a physical force, a wall of sound that followed him from the blood-soaked field to the door of his shack. They chanted the name "Kaelen" like a prayer, a desperate, grateful cry to a god they'd only just discovered. Leo ignored it all. The adoration of the crowd was just noise, a distraction from the real prize waiting for him.
As he walked through the parting crowd, his eyes, cold and assessing behind the mask, swept over the faces. He saw awe, terror, and a dawning, fanatical devotion. Then he saw them. Rolf and his two lackeys, pressed against the wall of the smithy, trying to make themselves small. Their faces were pale, their eyes wide with a pure, animal fear. The memory of their boots in his ribs, their laughter, was a distant, faded picture.
He didn't stop. He didn't even slow down. But as he passed them, he let his gaze linger for a fraction of a second. A slow, deliberate smirk creased the corners of his eyes, the only part of his expression they could see. It wasn't a smile of forgiveness or friendship. It was the look a cat gives a mouse it has decided not to eat today. A look of absolute, effortless dominance.
Rolf flinched as if struck. One of his friends let out a small, choked squeak, a dark patch suddenly spreading on the front of his trousers. Leo's smirk widened infinitesimally before he looked away, leaving them trembling in his wake. The village clown had become the village nightmare, and the joke was permanently on them.
He finally reached his shack, the chants of "Kaelen!" still echoing in the square. He opened the door, stepped inside, and barred it. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the ragged rhythm of his own breath. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the deep, bone-grinding fatigue of the battle and the phantom ache of his cracked rib.
He didn't even make it to the bed. He slid down the inside of the door, his back against the rough wood, and landed on the floor with a soft thud. He pulled the mask down, letting it hang around his neck, and took a deep, clean breath of the dusty, quiet air.
"System," he whispered, his voice hoarse.
The blue interface sprang to life, brighter and more detailed than ever before. It was time for the main event.
[CATASTROPHIC EVENT: OAKHAVEN'S LAST STAND - COMPLETE]
[Performance Analysis: Overwhelming Success. User accounted for 98.7% of hostile eliminations. Minimal structural damage to settlement. Civilian casualties: 0.]
[Calculating Reward...]
Leo's heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. The number in the corner—already a staggering 4.8 million—began to climb. It ticked upwards, faster and faster, a blur of digits that made his head spin. It slowed, stuttered, and then settled with a final, authoritative chime.
[Reward: 7,500,000 Nexus Points.]
[Total NP: 12,387,650.]
Twelve million. The number was so large it felt abstract. He had gone from counting single points to possessing a fortune that could rewrite the laws of reality. A low, disbelieving laugh escaped him, echoing in the small room. It was the laugh of a man who had just won the cosmic lottery.
His eyes drifted down to his new title, displayed in that ominous, blood-red text.
[TITLE: Legion's Bane]
[Effect: Aura of subdued terror passively affects lesser hostile entities. Slight intimidation boost against all sentient beings. Recognition factor increased.]
Recognition factor increased. He snorted. Yeah, vaporizing an army tended to do that.
But titles and points were just currency. The real power was in the shopping cart. His body was the limitation. He needed to remove that limitation, permanently.
He went straight to the search function, his mind already made up. He typed the two words he'd been dreaming of.
[Wolverine's Healing Factor (Atomic-Level) - 10,000,000 NP.]
Ten million. It would wipe out most of his event reward. It was an insane price. But as he felt the dull throb in his side, remembered the wolf's teeth in his arm, the sheer inconvenience of being fragile, the decision was easy.
"Purchase," he said, his voice firm.
The effect was not a wave of pain or pleasure, but a sudden, profound silence from his body. The ache in his rib vanished so completely it was as if it had never existed. The minor cuts and bruises from the battle faded in an instant, leaving unblemished skin behind. He felt… solid. Permanent. A deep, humming vitality settled into every cell, a promise that he would always come back, always endure. He was no longer a thing that could be broken.
[Nexus Points: 2,387,650.]
He was "poor" again, relatively speaking. But he was now immortal. Best trade he ever made.
Now, for the foundation. He needed the best possible chassis for this immortal engine.
[Captain America's Super-Soldier Serum (Perfected) - 500,000 NP.]
Another purchase. This time, it was a warm, golden wave of optimization. His already enhanced muscles tightened further, his senses sharpened to a razor's edge, and his mind achieved a new level of crystalline clarity. It was the peak of human potential, a perfect base.
Next, the energy reserves. The Kamehameha had drained him. He needed a bigger fuel tank.
[Uzumaki Bloodline Limit (Vitality & Chakra Reserve) - 800,000 NP.]
A surge of vibrant, life-affirming energy flooded his core. He felt his Universal Energy Core expand, its capacity doubling, then tripling. The fatigue from the battle was utterly erased, replaced by a boundless, buzzing stamina. He could run for days, fire blasts for hours.
Now, for the crown jewel. The tool that would make his mind, his new greatest weapon, utterly unstoppable.
[Sharingan (Three Tomoe) & Uchiha Bloodline - 1,000,000 NP.]
The world exploded in a new dimension of perception.
A searing heat bloomed behind his eyes, then cooled into an incredible clarity. He blinked, and the world slowed down. He could see the individual dust motes floating in a sunbeam, track the path of a fly across the room with preternatural ease. His deductive reasoning, already Sherlock-tier, felt like it was now being processed by a quantum computer. He could perceive the minute shifts in the air, the tiny tremors in the floor—he could see the world moving in a way he never could before.
He walked to the bucket of water in the corner and looked at his reflection.
His face was the same, but his eyes… his eyes were different. The pupils were now a deep, blood-red, circled by a single black ring. Within that ring, three comma-shaped tomoe floated, slowly rotating, taking in every detail of the world with an alien, hungry intelligence.
The Sharingan. The eyes of perception and copy. The eyes of a warrior god.
He stared at his reflection, at the crimson eyes that promised untold power. A slow, genuine, and utterly ruthless smile spread across his face for the first time since he'd arrived in this world. It wasn't a smirk of amusement or a grin of triumph. It was the smile of a man who had just assembled the keys to his own divinity.
He had the unbreakable body of Wolverine, the perfect form of Captain America, the boundless energy of an Uzumaki, and the perceptive genius of the Uchiha. All built upon the foundation of the Force and the Kamehameha.