Infinitium

Valeria Celeste Xeli looked at the data on her terminal and frowned. A beautiful woman by many standards with her emerald, green eyes, and light brown, almost blonde hair. She had an exquisite figure that she maintained without fault and knew that when she frowned it could turn her natural beauty into something ugly.

She brought her thoughts back to the terminal in front of her. The event she was sponsoring should have generated a lot of goodwill with several influential factions in her Sector. Instead, all one million hunters from Stage 1 were dead and Apolyn, one of the rising stars of this era that she’d been keeping an eye on had died. Well, he hadn’t died yet. She knew his tricks and had placed a temporal tag on him. The version of him that had just arrived for the hunt was probably getting the lay of the land. The version of himself from one day in the future had just died.

As she watched the counter for the total number of hunters that had opted to stay for Stage 2 it dropped by 1. 20 seconds later another hunter was killed, and another. After 5 minutes the counter had been reduced by 15 with one hunter disappearing every 20 seconds or so. Everyone knew that The SYSTEM broke combat down into 10-second Combat Rounds. It looked like the target of the Apex Hunter quest that had been offered to her guests was taking one combat round to move to a target and the next to kill them.

As soon as the quest had dropped she’d tried to purchase information on the target of the Apex Hunter only to find out that the information was so expensive that she’d have to pay more than 100 times the worth of the Xeli Corporation, which held dominion over one Sector and had major interests in two others with branches in at least five other Sectors. No one that she knew of had the kind of capital she’d need to get that information. Just one man was doing the damage to her Company. With the amount of prestige, they were losing on this venture, as well as the capital, the investors that wanted to silence all of the shadows might not invest in their next sponsored “Hunt”

Who was she kidding, this was a PR nightmare. 1 million hunters had been wiped out and almost half of the Tier 2 Stage 2 guests had reneged on the hunt of the Apex Predator that had killed all the Tier 1 Guests. Something had to be done. Some had clones and there were a few that had their minds backed up in one form or another because they thought they could cheat the rule of Primes, but she knew each of those copies would just be Shadows of the original, just like everyone on the planet her Corporation had tried to sanitize. Now? Now it was time for damage control.

She sent a flurry of commands into her terminal. At the current rate of 1 hunter every 20 seconds it would be 13 Days, 19 hours, and 17 minutes until every hunter on the planet was dead. Most likely sooner if he was able to catch a couple of groups working together.

Valeria smiled. Maybe she couldn’t get information about this Apex Hunter from the SYSTEM but what she could do was this.

Authorize the Creation of Stage 3 Hunt to registered guests. Tier level limit: Unlimited, Yes or No?

Valeria chose “Yes” and smiled. If Tier 1 and Tier 2 hunters couldn’t handle the problem maybe bringing in better hunters was the answer. Additionally, she’d set the quest prize as 1 trillion credits. She might not be able to afford the information concerning the Apex Hunter but a bounty of 1 trillion credits with no entry fee and transportation to and from the world in question covered by The Xeli Corporation.

While The SYSTEM would usually stop any overmatched encounters like the one she was setting up due to balance and its goal to remain as neutral as possible while elevating individuals to become stronger it did not normally interfere with the choices of its users toward one another. It only made sure that there was a cost and that the cost was paid.

There had been a cost to her Corporation and Family, Now there was a response to that cost. The credits were transferred from Xeli Corporation as more and more participants accepted the quest. Some of the Tier 4 and Tier 5 people that might go on such a hunt that she expected would accept declined while names she’d never seen before, accepted the quest. At the very least Xeli Corporation would get information on some individuals they’d never seen before.

This quest had gone out to the whole SYSTEM, not just her Sector after all. That meant they could see Shadows from other Earths. She would need to make sure a network was set up that could identify and hopefully track such Shadows back to their origin for later targeting and removal. She had a special team for such endeavors if her clients were willing to pay the fee.

Valeria glanced back at the counter of hunters left and realized that in the five minutes she’d been setting up the Stage 3 Event over 100 hundred hunters had been killed. It looked like the Apex Hunter had found a grouping somewhere. One hundred though? She rolled the counter back and sure enough it looked like he’d killed 100 hunters in 20 seconds. Wait that was 5 hunters every second and he’d done that for two combat rounds. Three combat rounds? Four? Valeria watched as 1,247 hunters were removed from the total in the space of 13 Combat turns or just over 2 minutes.

She considered for a moment. She knew how much stamina that cost. She’d looked into the breakdown a long time ago. To make 50 attacks in a single Combat turn would cost 3,100 stamina unless he was toying with time. She checked to make sure. Nope, no one had adjusted time since Apolyn made his move, so this was straight-up skill and attributes, the kind of skill and attributes one usually saw on high-level Tier 4 or Tier 5 combatants.

As Valeria thought about what she’d just learned, she started to question her decision to purchase a Stage 3 Event.

***

Adam was plowing through the hunters like they weren’t even there. Even in the limited Astral Form his attributes far surpassed any of the hunters he encountered. Only two things had surprised him over the last 12 days. The first had been that group of 1,247 hunters that had been coordinated and working together. None of them could keep up with him. While his Chaos Blade was static and didn’t improve with use, it allowed him to use his full strength and burn through any shielding; physical, magical, or energetic, like it wasn’t there. It wasn’t fair and Adam didn’t care. Maybe he should make that his new catchphrase. No, because then Karma would make him eat that idea with him on the other side of the “Not Fair” equation.

The Second thing he noticed was that after 6 days some of the hunters had run to a SYSTEM Shop and purchased a Safe Zone Node. Adam had found himself inside a Safe Zone looking at a smug hunter who was sitting at a campfire. He’d looked up and pointed at a nearby log, “Have a seat Stranger, There’ll be no killing her today,” he’d said. A moment later a new Notification had appeared in Adam’s vision.

Would you like to purchase Immunity to the Battle Creek Safe Zone? Cost 1 million credits per attack within the boundary of the Safe Zone.

NOTE: You can toggle this cost to pay out automatically. If you do so you will be charged 1 million credits per attack. If you do not have the funds to make the attack The SYSTEM will block the attack and you will be ejected from the Safe Zone to a random point 25 miles away from your current location.

Clarification: If a single attack affects multiple individuals protected by the SYSTEM you will be charged 1 million credits per individual affected by that attack.

Clarification: Multiple attacks against the same target require a separate charge each time.

Adam smiled viciously as he toggled “Yes” and altered his settings to pay the fee automatically, and then brought his blade down on the smug hunter, cutting him in two from his left shoulder to his right hip. The look of surprise on his face was priceless as Adam moved on to his next target inside this Safe Zone.

1 million credits per attack was pretty steep but there hadn’t been a single person that had required more than one strike yet. Also, the Green Pillars had turned off so the only individuals he’d have to pay that fee for were the ones that tried to circumvent the Event by purchasing a Safe Zone. He’d turned off the notifications for the expenditure; he’d look at it later. Adam had work to do.

Not many beings could keep up the pace he set. At least 1 person died every 20 seconds. The only reason he paused was because he had to swap back and forth between his Astral Form and Physical Astral Form when he activated Spiritual Strength every time he moved between target areas. He popped into existence, killed the target, and then Ray’s voice would whisper a longitude, latitude, and elevation. He’d pull the memory of the place from his memory and head there.

One thing that sucked about being Astral, couldn’t recover his Psychic Energy while he was in this form but he could convert his mana, stamina, and chaos into Psychic Energy with Chaos Conversion. However, he couldn’t convert his Health right now, probably because his body and mind were currently separated, even if they were still linked in a way.

Adam had also turned off his XP Notifications. He was sitting at Tier II Master Class Rarity Level 100. He’d had enough XP to choose his Tier III class, achieve Level 100, choose his Tier IV class, and get to Level 5. Adam struck down the last hunter and quickly checked his total XP, 1.27 billion. If his math wasn’t wrong, and he knew it wasn’t, taking out these 59k Tier 2 hunters would only elevate him to Tier IV Level 37 or 38.

Before Adam contemplated what to do next a SYSTEM Message appeared

Congratulations! Stage 2, Complete. For surviving the continuous attacks of 59,647 hunters…ERROR

…

…

…

You have earned the title “Prey, Not!” Not content to let the hunters come after you or just hide. You have slain 1,059,647 members during an event where you were the Prey.

This Title earns a +10 to all attributes and a +10% bonus per 10,000 continuous kills where continuous is defined as one kill per minute.

Maximum Award Per Title reached.

All Attributes raised by +10 and +100% Efficiency.

Adam quickly checked his Status screen and noted that his attributes had all effectively doubled. However, it looked like his Astral Form did not get the benefits of the Titles as his Body’s effective Strength was over 633k, but the base was 264k. His Astral For only had 55k which was about 8.5% of the higher value and right around 21% of his base attribute value. It looked like his physical attributes were all based on the base values. His mental and social attributes in Astral Form all included the efficiency bonus though so it looked like anything that improved his spirit was effective whether his spirit was connected to his physical body or not.

Adam was drawn from his musings as a new Notification flashed across his vision.

UNIQUE

EVENT

OPPORTUNITY

This Quest has been offered by the CEO of the Xeli Corporation. All monetary rewards are to be paid by Xeli Corp.

STAGE 3 – Slay the Apex Hunter.

Restrictions for Entry: None

Restrictions during Participation: Only Monsters and the Target may be engaged. Attacking other participants or natives will terminate your participation and you will be ejected from the Event. Self-defense is allowed, please limit the use of deadly force when responding to unwarranted attacks.

Benefit: The target has been Marked. The Target is marked. An Arrow to the target will appear in your Heads-Up Display.

Reward: 1 Trillion SYSTEM Credits

Reward: New Title Dependent on Performance.

The Event Ends when the Apex Hunter is Dead or other predetermined criteria have been met.

Good Luck

Adam laughed. That would be just too ludicrous. How many people would be stupid enough to try their luck against him after he decimated every Tier I and Tier II hunter who had come on this little Safari? Of course, if there were no restrictions, did that mean he’d get to see a Legendary or….

A portal opened 100 feet above Adam. He knew he was on the blank, or back, side of the portal when he heard a sucking sound from the other side just before he felt the electrons in his vicinity become agitated, like right before the lighting was going to strike. There was a roar for a split second and then the portal disappeared. With his Perception as high as it was, It was nothing for Adam to follow the hole in the clouds up into low orbit where a ship had a weapon pointed in his direction.

Adam dropped his physical Form and shot up to the ship in orbit in a fraction of a second. What he saw when he arrived was both interesting and astounding. There was a 5-foot circular hole through the center of the ship directly behind the pilot's seat. Ray must have opened a portal directly above him and had the other end come out right against the ship. In fact, now that he looked a little closer he noticed that the only thing holding the front of the ship to the engine compartment were a few structural beams and a couple of panels on each side. Otherwise, the craft's front end had been almost completely separated from the aft end.

Adam also noticed that the pilot sitting in his seat. He was in full vacuum and trying to reach for a button while red circuit breaker lights and flashing strobes went off all around him. Just as Adam was about to act his body, the ship, and the pilot of the ship were all vaporized as they were hit from multiple points simultaneously. Adam, now in his Astral Form sighed. It looked like these idiots could zero in on him as soon as he manifested. That wasn’t good. If he returned to his body and left his Safe Haven the base would be attacked. If he manifested the ships would target and fire from orbit. One thing that was a bit satisfying, whoever had shot at him and also hit the pilot should have been removed from the planet.

Adam looked around and noticed 34 other ships in low orbit, all just a little over 100 miles away, which was nothing for an energy weapon that could travel 186,300 miles in a second. They were not even one-tenth that distance from him. Adam ghosted over to one of the ships and tried to slip inside only to be rebuffed. It seemed that the ship's shields were proof against astral entities. If they had a shield that could block him it probably meant…

A glowing astral entity appeared beside him, “Hiding in The Between, how quaint…”

Adam hadn’t tried to summon his Chaos Blade while only in his Astral Form yet. Sure, he’d summoned it after he manifested. Sure, he knew Chaos was an intrinsic part of him, and Sure enough, when he summoned the Chaos Blade into his hand and swung it like a golf club up through the middle of the amorphous blob of energy that represented the spiritual form of the entity that had appeared beside him and started talking shit, it was split in two as it tried to scream stopped as it died. The two clouds of energy were sucked toward a point at the center of where the creature's spiritual form had been and a whirlpool formed as it was sucked toward a pearlescent crack in reality.

The energy became a changing whirlpool of color as it was sucked into a pearlescent pinpoint. Adam’s Agent of Chaos Class Perk, Sense of Chaos, told him that the pearlescent crack was an opening into an area of chaos which Adam found fascinating. It looked like his Chaos Blade had cut through reality in the pseudo-dimension he was in that was directly adjacent to the Material Plane.

What was even more surprising was when a tendril of chaotic energy lanced from the crack to Adam’s head, and everything went white. Just before he was flooded with information while simultaneously feeling himself returned to his physical body and then felt as if he was sucked out of the pocket dimension as Safe Haven was ended forcibly. This wasn’t done against his will so much as he didn’t consciously allow it to happen before he felt himself become more complete.

***

General Duvall read the notification the SYSTEM had just sent out…again.

SYSTEM Message:

Xeli Corporation STAGE 3 Unique Event Opportunity has ended.

All Guests that chose to participate are now being returned to their point of origin. Please note that all Yellow and Red Pillars have also been removed.

Green Pillars will remain for one week to allow the indigenous people of this planet to purchase any goods or services they might need.

SYSTEM Shop Nodes are still available in all large population centers as well as were purchased.

The SYSTEM is no longer suppress Monster Spawning. The severe influx of mana brought on by so many high-level deaths during Stage 1 and Stage 2 and the two deaths during Stage 3 have radically increased the rate at which monsters will level or spawn.

While not designated as a Dungeon World, this world is now quite similar to one.

Enjoy this opportunity for personal growth.

General Duvall rubbed his forehead and then spoke into the air, “Ray?”

“Yes, General”

“Could you get Captain Clarkson and Lieutenant Baker up here, we have some things to discuss.

“Done. Captain Clarkson is in the dining area; he’ll be here momentarily. Lieutenant Baker was down overwatching the groups that are going over the recovery of Weapons, Armor, and Equipment from the individuals Adam killed,” Ray said from miniature speakers she created with the nanites in the room.

“Thank You, Ray. A question for you, Do we still have full satellite coverage?”

“We currently have 87% coverage. Quite a few satellites were accidentally destroyed when the ships initiated the orbital strikes against Adam in low Earth orbit. The workshops below are creating and replacing those satellites as we speak,”

“How long until we’re back to 100%,” General Duvall asked.

“Approximately 15 minutes.”

15 Minutes. They had a lot to go over before they could take a good look at the planet and what had happened to it while Adam was busy hunting. It was still hard to believe that man could do everything he said he could and more.

“Ray, any word from Adam.”

“No, General. My last sighting had him in orbit above New York right before he and 13% of my sensor network were destroyed by 34 vessels in orbit. 20 Seconds later the ships I could still detect from outside the dead zone vanished.”

General Duvall thought for a moment before he said, “Very well. Please review our current expansion plan. Do not plan for Adam’s involvement. If he returns we can always alter the plans later. When the Captain and Lieutenant get here, we will all discuss where we go from here and how to help every one else that might still be alive outside of the Safe Zone.”