8 Hun

Micheal looked at the small room he had set up in, feeling an odd sense of familiarity.

There was a small bed, a desk with an office chair, and a window that faced the outside. It was a cramped room, barely enough for a single person to live in, but it was a place he planned on calling home for the next month.

He sighed, rubbing his forehead,

'If I recall everything accurately, this Cluster will only connect to the Main Cluster after a month or so, maybe a month and a few weeks. From there, reaching The Towers and finding one of the Subways to the Second Layer will probably take about as long.' He ran the idea through his head, nodding.

The First Layer was set up as a very unique world.

Spread across it were tens of thousands of 'Clusters.' Each Cluster had tens of thousands of skyscrapers in it, all connected with a variety of bridges. At the edge of each Cluster, however, the skyscrapers stopped.

Leaving nothing but barren space, all the way to the dirt ground.

In the distance, one might be able to see other Clusters, spaced miles apart. These Clusters would never connect to each other. Trying to cross the dirt ground from one Cluster to another was suicide due to the presence of the Morenkai.

There was one special Cluster that existed, a unique one. A Cluster much larger than other Clusters, bigger in its size and scale. The Main Cluster.

And at the center of the Main Cluster were The Towers. A set of massive skyscrapers that seemed to pierce the heavens, towering above all else. There were around 100 Towers, all standing tall and proud.

Micheal's mission was to reach one of these Towers and then descend through it to the ground floor, exit, and find a Subway entrance. The entrances looked like normal subways on Earth. However, the moment anyone walked into one of the Subways on the First Layer and sat down on one of the waiting benches, they would be transported away, teleported to the Second Layer.

Reaching the Subway was the trial or goal set for those on the First Layer, something the Spirit announced as soon as the Clusters connected with the Main Cluster.

'And the only way to reach the Main Cluster is through the Great Bridge that appears in about a month or so.' He nodded his head, the memories all flooding back.

'I know what's going to happen. I know all, or at least most, of the secrets of this Layer.' He clenched his fists, nodding again.

'I can do this.'

After the envoy for the Saru Group greeted everyone, back atop the roof of the skyscraper, he had given a short speech explaining how to survive in the First Layer.

According to him, the Morenkai came out at random times. They had poor senses and if you were quiet, you could usually avoid conflict as long as you didn't get too close to them.

Once they latched on to your trail, though, they would pursue you viciously till you lost them or killed them.

The Morenkai were strong, durable, and difficult to kill. They possessed powerful regenerative properties, deadly pointed fingers, and an unwavering appetite for human flesh. They were like zombies out of a horror movie, only much stronger and harder to kill.

The Morenkai usually only stalked the rooftops, the bridges, and the ground level and actual ground outside. It was very rare for them to descend into the skyscrapers themselves, at least not in the many scattered Clusters spread out across the planet. On floors that were close to the ground level, it was slightly more common to see the Morenkai.

As long as one stayed inside, one would be mostly safe.

However…

There was one problem with that.

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Humans had to eat and drink to live.

Water was not a problem. All of the faucets in the skyscrapers worked, providing clean fresh water, as did the lighting and air condition. How or why exactly they worked, no one knew.

In this strange, foreboding world there were only 2 ways to get food.

The first was to randomly find food stashed away in unexplored rooms in the various skyscrapers. The first few Waves had largely cleaned out most of this food, making this option one that wasn't very viable.

The second was to spend Points.

The Artifacts section of the Shop contained tons of actual Artifacts, magical objects that contained odd or mystical effects, some that were overwhelmingly powerful and in limited supply.

It also contained much more normal objects, like common weapons and armor. One could even find guns, cannons, or a variety of vehicles within it.

As a part of those rather normal objects it also contained a pair of special slots.

.

Food Selection - Custom

Liquid Selection - Custom

.

By tapping on one of these options, it was possible to call up a large assortment of foods and drinks. Almost anything one could imagine could be purchased here.

To get anything at all, though, one had to spend Points.

And how does one obtain Points?

In the First Layer, there were only two ways.

One was to kill a Morenkai.

The other was to kill a fellow human.

Researchers theorized that the Shop somehow transferred life energy from beings into the mystical 'Points' that the Human Race could use to grow stronger. The Morenkai have a powerful life force, and this translated into Points.

A normal Morenkai, when killed, would give off around 10 Points. Stronger Morenkai could drop more, but were a much rarer sight and much harder to kill.

A single Point was enough to buy a full day's worth of food from the Shop.

As for killing humans: the Point totals varied, but most humans would drop a small number of Points. Those with stronger Abilities would drop more, as would those with Points saved up but not spent. There was a great deal of inefficiency in this method, and more than 90%, oftentimes up to 96% or 98%, of the Points spent by a human would usually be lost.

"So that is the basics of how life works around here. This is the south side of the Stardust Cluster. The Saru Group controls a third of this cluster and works to protect everyone here. If you join the Group, you will be required to work with our Hunting Teams every other day, to ensure that everyone has enough to eat." The Saru Group recruiter's words echoed in Micheal's mind as he recalled them.

The first time around, Micheal had joined the Saru Group. He'd remembered how terrified he was, but also been rather excited. This was a strange new world and a strange new life.

Who wouldn't want to live it to the fullest?

It had taken him several months slaving away in the Saru Group to grow to any level of strength, slowly building up his own supply of Points. Eventually, he gained enough to get the Mortal Ki Cultivator Ability. The Saru Group held true to its word and did indeed protect them, but it also prioritized making their leaders and older warriors stronger over people like Micheal.

From then on, he had grown in strength at a decently fast pace. He'd begun to intensively practice using a sword, knowing his survival depended on his might.

'But I was still far too slow.' He shook his head at the memories. While it was true that he'd made relatively fast progress, even with all of his effort, he'd still only barely managed to catch up to some of the middling members of the 50,000 strongest humans.

This time around, things had already started to play about differently.

Micheal hadn't joined the Saru Group.

Instead, he'd chosen to become a solo hunter.

"Let's get moving." After he finished scanning his room and setting it up securely, he walked out of it into a long, narrow hallway. It was dimly lit by evenly spaced white lights up above. A plain grey wall could be seen on either side, with doors to mostly empty rooms interspersed at normal intervals.

He was on the 30th floor of one of the skyscrapers close to the center of the Cluster.

After listening to the speech by the man from the Saru Group, Micheal had slinked off on his own. There had been a rush to sign up and join the Saru Group after the man finished talking, something he took advantage of to leave unnoticed.

Well, supposedly unnoticed. He doubted that they actually didn't see him leave. It was likely that they didn't want to anger an 'Irregular' outright and just let him go.

He had then begun to travel through the Cluster, crossing bridge after bridge.

The feeling of crossing a rickety bridge set between two massive skyscrapers, looking down on a huge and certainly fatal drop, it was something Micheal hadn't experienced in a long time.

It had been the safest hour to move and he didn't hesitate. The Morenkai were inactive when the new Chosen were arriving.

Even more importantly… all the different organizations and groups were busy snapping up new recruits. There were so many new people arriving, it was a given that they would all temporarily focus on that.

This meant he was able to cross through more than 80 skyscrapers unobstructed, till he found himself at an area close to the center of the Cluster. Most of the groups welcoming recruits had descended into their various skyscrapers, leaving him free to cross each area. This particular skyscraper was one of the ones that relatively few people chose to live in. In fact, it seemed entirely abandoned, which was to his liking.

The central area of every Cluster was known to be more dangerous than the outer reaches. The Morenkai were more active here.

'I could stay behind and help the Saru Group grow stronger… but that would just waste the lives of every other group of people. I can't focus on a single group, I need to focus on the whole, but also my personal strength. I must become a champion that can fight off the champions of the Gods…' There was no point in ensuring humanity survived if they were just going to die again, after all.

Micheal shook the thoughts from his head as he began to move.

He quickly found the staircase he had descended to reach the 30th floor, moving up it till he found the roof. The stairs were drab but well spaced, leading all the way down to the ground floor.

When he reached the door that exited onto the roof, he paused. The door was a plain metal one, in a dimly lit shed atop the roof. The walls and roof were the same drab grey that covered most of this skyscraper.

'It's been quite a while… the special safety period for the new Chosen is bound to be over. It should be around now that the world goes back to normal.' His eyes flashed.

'The Morenkai should be active…' He thought, nodding.

He wasn't afraid of them, at least, not any of the basic Morenkai. He was certain he could handle that.

'The most dangerous thing about the First Layer isn't necessarily the Morenkai, though…' He thought, his eyes cool,

'It's other humans.'

Micheal stepped forward, putting his head next to the door. He listened carefully for a few moments before cracking it open and peering out it.

He didn't see anything, at least, nothing atop this skyscraper roof.

Slowly, he stepped out upon it.

It was time to hunt.

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