The transition to the Parallel Dimension was usually instantaneous. A blink, a shiver of cold, and then the sterile gray void.
This time, it was different.
When Zack opened his eyes, he wasn't standing on a flat, gray floor. The air was thick, humid, and smelled of wet earth and ancient decay. A dense, unnatural fog swirled around his ankles, clinging to his boots like cold hands. Above, the "sky" was a churning vortex of dark charcoal clouds, lit by silent flashes of purple lightning.
He was standing in the middle of a ruined, sprawling graveyard. Cracked tombstones jutted out of the mud like broken teeth. Twisted, leafless trees clawed at the sky.
[Welcome, Host.]
[System Rank Detected: E- Rank (Peak) / Unofficial : D (Beginner) ]
[Scaling Difficulty... Adjusting to 'Horde Mode'.]
[Objective: Survive the Legion.]
Zack's breath hitched. Horde Mode?
Before he could ask what that meant, the ground beneath him began to tremble. It wasn't an earthquake. It was movement.
Everywhere.
From every grave, from every patch of mud, from the shadows of the twisted trees, hands were emerging. Skeletal hands stripped of flesh. Rotting hands with long, yellow nails. Hands holding rusted swords, cracked shields, and broken spears.
Click-clack. Squelch. Moan.
The sounds merged into a low, terrifying cacophony.
Zack spun around. They were surrounding him. Ten. Twenty. Fifty.
Hundreds.
[Wave 1: The Restless Legion (E-Rank to D-Rank Mix).]
[Boss Entity Detected: D-Rank (Intermediate) Necromancer.]
Far in the distance, atop a small hill in the center of the graveyard, a figure stood. It was draped in tattered, moth-eaten purple robes. It held a staff topped with a glowing green skull.
The Necromancer.
It raised its staff, and the green eyes of the skull flared.
"KREEEE-AAAAH!" it shrieked.
On command, the army of the dead turned their empty sockets toward Zack.
There were easily three hundred of them.
Zack felt a spike of genuine fear. He was strong. He was fast. But he was one man. Even an ant can kill a lion if there are enough of them.
"Okay," he whispered, his hands trembling slightly before he clenched them into fists. "You want to test my stamina? Let's test it."
He didn't wait for them to crash over him like a wave. He attacked first.
He activated [Shadow's Cloak].
A veil of dark, smoky energy wrapped around him. The sounds of his breathing, his heartbeat, and his footsteps vanished instantly. He blended into the gloom, becoming a shadow among shadows.
He sprinted at the nearest cluster of skeletons. His 45.7 Agility was explosive. He hit the line like a cannonball.
CRACK!
His fist, backed by 45.0 Strength, didn't just break the first skeleton; it obliterated it. The skull shattered into powder. The impact sent the ribcage flying backward like shrapnel, tearing through the three zombies behind it.
He didn't stop. He spun, a low sweeping kick taking the legs out from under a massive, armored zombie. Before it hit the ground, he stomped its head into the mud.
SQUELCH.
You have killed...
You have killed...
You have killed...
The notifications were a blur in the corner of his vision, but he ignored them. He couldn't focus on loot. He had to focus on moving.
If he stopped for one second, he would be buried.
A rusty spear lunged from the fog, aiming for his kidney. Zack twisted, the spear tip grazing his side. His 45.1 Defense turned what should have been a deep puncture into a shallow scratch, but it still stung.
He grabbed the spear shaft, yanked the skeleton forward, and drove his elbow through its spine.
"Too many," he grunted, ducking under a clumsy sword swing.
He had killed twenty. There were still hundreds. And he could feel his Spirit draining. [Shadow's Cloak] cost 5 Spirit per minute. It wasn't much, but in a fight this long, every drop counted.
And his muscles were burning. Swinging his fists with enough force to shatter bone took energy.
He looked up at the hill. The Necromancer was laughing, a dry, rasping sound. It raised its staff again.
Green bolts of magic—[Bone Spears]—shot from the staff, arcing through the air toward Zack.
Zack rolled forward, diving through a gap between two zombies.
THOOM! THOOM!
The magic spears slammed into the mud where he had been standing, exploding in a shower of green fire and dirt. The blast knocked him sideways, right into the arms of a waiting Ghoul.
The Ghoul, a D-Rank (Beginner) monster with rubbery gray skin and long claws, shrieked and clamped its jaws onto Zack's shoulder.
"GAAH!"
Zack roared in pain. The teeth couldn't pierce his muscle deeply, but the pressure was immense.
He was trapped. The horde was closing in.
I need energy. I need health.
He remembered his new skill.
He jammed his left hand onto the Ghoul's head. He didn't punch. He grabbed it.
"[Energy Drain]!"
A thick, purple tether of light exploded from his hand, drilling into the Ghoul's skull.
The effect was instant.
The Ghoul's shriek cut off. Its gray skin turned ashen and cracked. Its muscles withered.
Zack felt a rush of cold, electric power flood his veins. His fatigue vanished. His Spirit bar, which had dropped to 80%, shot back up to full.
The Ghoul collapsed, a dried husk.
Zack stood up, his eyes glowing with a faint, purple light.
"Oh," he whispered, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "That changes everything."
He looked at the ocean of enemies surrounding him. He didn't see a threat anymore.
He saw a buffet.
"Come on!" he roared, dropping his [Shadow's Cloak] to reveal himself. "Come and get me!"
The horde surged forward.
Zack met them with a brutality that would have terrified Emily.
He punched a zombie, blasting a hole in its chest.
He grabbed a skeleton by the neck. [Energy Drain].
WHOOSH.
The skeleton crumbled to dust, and Zack's stamina refilled.
A sword cut his arm?
"[Heal]!"
He burned 20 of his stolen Spirit points. The wound knit together instantly.
He was an engine of perpetual destruction.
He fought for ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Thirty.
The ground was carpeted in broken bones and rotting flesh. He was covered in gore, his clothes tattered, but he wasn't tired. He was wired.
He was constantly draining, constantly healing, constantly killing.
[Skill Proficiency Reached Max!]
[Skill Leveled Up: Heal (Lv. 1) -> (Lv. 2)]
(Effect: Healing speed increased by 50%. Cost reduced to 15 Spirit.)
[Skill Proficiency Reached Max!]
[Skill Leveled Up: Energy Drain (Lv. 1) -> (Lv. 2)]
(Effect: Drain rate increased to 2% per second. Can now tether two targets simultaneously.)
[Skill Proficiency Reached Max!]
[Skill Leveled Up: Shadow's Cloak (Lv. 1) -> (Lv. 2)]
(Effect: Stealth effectiveness increased. Host moves 10% faster while cloaked.)
Zack felt the knowledge of the upgraded skills flood his mind.
"Two targets?" he laughed, kicking a zombie's head off. "System, you spoil me."
He looked up at the hill.
The Necromancer wasn't laughing anymore. The army of three hundred was now an army of fifty. The "trash" mob was annihilating its legion.
The Necromancer shrieked in rage. It slammed its staff into the ground.
The remaining fifty undead stopped attacking Zack. They turned and ran... toward the Necromancer.
They piled onto each other, fusing, melting, bones snapping and reforming.
In seconds, the fifty undead merged into a single, massive monstrosity.
A Bone Golem.
It was fifteen feet tall, made of hundreds of skulls and ribcages. It roared, a sound of a thousand screaming voices.
And behind it, the Necromancer channeled a massive spell.
"Finally," Zack said, cracking his neck. "The main course."
He activated [Shadow's Cloak (Lv. 2)].
He vanished.
The Bone Golem looked around, confused. It swung its massive arms, smashing the ground, trying to hit the invisible enemy.
But Zack was already moving. His 45.7 Agility, boosted by the 10% speed buff of the cloak, made him a phantom.
He ran up the Golem's arm.
The monster felt the weight and tried to grab him, but Zack leaped off its shoulder, soaring through the air toward the Necromancer.
The Necromancer saw him appear out of thin air, mid-jump. Its eye sockets widened. It tried to raise a magical shield.
Too late.
Zack landed on the Necromancer, driving his knees into its chest.
They crashed into the mud.
"Your army is gone," Zack snarled, grabbing the Necromancer's wrists. "And you're next."
The Necromancer screeched and tried to blast Zack with necrotic energy from its eyes. The green light hit Zack's face, burning his skin.
It hurt like hell.
Zack didn't flinch.
"[Heal]!"
His skin repaired itself as fast as it burned.
"[Energy Drain]!"
He activated the Level 2 drain. Two thick tethers erupted from his hands, latching onto the Necromancer's essence.
The boss thrashed, its magic flickering and dying as Zack drank it dry. It felt different from the zombies. It tasted... spicy. Powerful.
"Die," Zack whispered.
He squeezed.
The Necromancer's skull cracked. The green light in its eyes faded, sucked into Zack's waiting void.
The monster dissolved into black dust.
Behind him, the massive Bone Golem, sustained by the Necromancer's magic, fell apart, crumbling into a harmless pile of bones.
Silence returned to the graveyard.
Zack rolled off the dust pile and lay in the mud, staring up at the charcoal clouds. He was panting, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer intensity of the high.
He had just killed over three hundred enemies and a boss. And he felt like he could run a marathon.
"I really am a monster," he muttered, a strange mix of horror and pride in his voice.
He sat up. The loot.
The graveyard was littered with tiny sparkles of light, but the System automatically swept the "trash" loot into his storage. He ignored the hundreds of tiny bone fragments and low-level coins.
He looked at the spot where the Necromancer had died.
Three cubes were glowing there.
They weren't Blue.
They were Purple.
They were Boss drops.
He picked them up, his hands trembling slightly.
[You have defeated the Legion.]
[You have killed D-Rank (Intermediate) Boss: 'The Rotting Necromancer'.]
[Agility Cube (Purple) x1 obtained.]
[Spirit Cube (Purple) x1 obtained.]
[Defense Cube (Purple) x1 obtained.]
Three cubes. Each worth 1.0 point. But they were exactly what he needed to round out his stats.
He didn't wait. He crushed them instantly.
The power hit him, settling into his bones, his muscles, his soul.
[Stats Updated.]
Agility: 45.7 -> 46.7
Spirit: 45.0 -> 46.0
Defense: 45.1 -> 46.1
He checked his full status.
Rank: E (Peak) / (System Rank: D (Beginner) - Unofficial)
Class: Healer / God-Eater (Mythical)
Strength: 45.0
Agility: 46.7
Stamina: 45.7
Spirit: 46.0
Defense: 46.1
He was getting there. Slowly. But he was closing the gap to 50.0.
He stood up, the mud sliding off his clothes.
He had survived the Horde. He had upgraded his skills.
He was ready for Saturday night.
"System," he said, his voice steady. "Exit Dimension."
The graveyard dissolved.
Zack reappeared in his study. It was quiet. Safe.
He looked at his hands. They were clean, but he could still feel the phantom sensation of crushing skulls.
He walked to the window and looked out at the street.
Monday was coming. The Academy was coming.
"Let them try to bully me," he whispered, a dark smile touching his lips. "I just ate an army."
[Reader's Note: Zack's Stats - ]
Rank: E (Peak) / (System Rank: D (Beginner) - Unofficial)
Class: Healer / God-Eater (Mythical)
Strength: 45.0
Agility: 46.7(+1)
Stamina: 45.7
Spirit: 46.0 (+1)
Defense: 46.1 (+1)
(Skills: [Heal Lv. 2], [Energy Drain Lv. 2], [Shadow's Cloak Lv. 2])
(Heal Lv 2: Faster, cheaper cost)
(Energy Drain Lv 2: Faster drain, 2 targets at once)
(Shadow's Cloak Lv 2: +10% Movement Speed)
(Storage: 3x Mid-Grade Healing Potions, 5x Low-Grade Recovery Potions, 245 Shop Points)
(Note: Shop points increased due to killing 300+ mobs)