Only wind and creaking from leather armors interrupted the silence as Zac stared out from his fortified position, a steely glint in his eyes. He was trying to gain any hint of what was to come when the timer went to zero in ten minutes. Everything that could be done to prepare was already finished during the past month, and the only thing remaining was to actually fight the hordes.
The once lush forest next to his camp was gone, replaced instead with a forest of jagged spears jutting out of the ground. Thousands of poles that reminded him of his first fight with the Herald was embedded in the earth, and moats ran along the wall at various distances. Apparently no one would get any Nexus Coins if an enemy impaled itself or fell down a trap while they stood up on the wall, but from what Ogras had told him about beast hordes it wouldn’t matter. What made the beast horde a horde was the seemingly endless amount of beasts, more than anyone could possibly finish by himself. No one would have to worry about not finding targets, even after the traps did their job.
He wasn’t alone on the battlements, as roughly two hundred demons stood on the wall with him. Most had eager expressions in their eyes, while some looked quite pale. Down at the ground the rest of the demons were at the ready, preparing to serve as various types of support. Zac was at first confused why the demons happily agreed to man the walls without any persuasion needed, but Ogras explained it with only one word; money.
A beast horde was extremely dangerous, but it could also be considered an endless stream of Cosmic Energy and Nexus Coins. The demons who stayed on had lost most of their wealth and needed to refill their pockets. Many of them were mortals just like Zac and needed millions and millions of Nexus Coins to be able to advance past their bottle-neck.
The cheapest method to become E-Rank Race was a medicinal bath that you took over and over that incrementally improved the constitution. But this method took years and cost tens of thousands of Coins each bath, making the monster horde a prime chance to be able to afford some more ingredients.
The method Zac had used with the Fruit of Ascension could be considered an extreme luxury, as the fruits were prohibitively expensive if you could even find a seller. The baths did however incrementally improve the attribute limits though, meaning that none of them would ever be in the same awkward position as Zac was earlier.
“Are you ready to make some money?” Zac heard a voice from his left, and saw Ogras approaching. With him he had his four underlings, each with enough power to contend with the top tier warriors of the invasion. Zac sparred a bit against them the last few days as he waited for the monsters to arrive and was surprised to see that none of them used classes from Clan Azh’Rezak’s heritage.
They were Ogras’ hidden ace that he recruited and trained using his family’s wealth in order to have some back-up against the main branch forces in case it came to blows. He had smuggled them in after killing a few of his clan-mates without any strong connections or close friends, having these four take their places. In fact none of the four were actually real members of clan Azh’Rezak.
Ilvere was a burly man who had masqueraded as a farmer when he entered through the incursion. He fought with a flail whose chain could extend to over ten meters according to his will. He was actually trying to gain insight into the Dao of Heaviness in order to combine it with the Dao of Lightness. That would apparently create the Dao of Momentum which could imbue the spiked ball with a terrifying force as he swung the weapon. When the demon heard that Zac actually possessed the Seed of Heaviness he plastered himself next to Zac, to the point that Ogras finally had to kick him away due to the annoyance. His class was only an uncommon class called Strongman, and it didn’t give him any class skill that helped him with the Dao, and he desperately wanted to observe and feel Zac’s Dao in order to gain some insights.
Janos was a thin dignified-looking man who compulsively adjusted his spectacles as he looked around. He was quite terse in his communication and seemed to enjoy solitude over any company. That made it a bit surprising for Zac to learn that the demon actually was a support-mage that couldn’t really fight on his own, making him require teammates to fight. He walked the path of illusions, and used skills that confused and weakened his enemies. When in battle Janos would continuously mess with the senses of the enemies. It wasn’t enough to kill them, but it would completely disrupt their rhythm and making it hard to fight properly.
Now that he knew the System wouldn’t punish him for failing a quest or fleeing for his life, he wasn’t as ready to risk everything just to finish the quest and become a Lord. He had confirmed that what Ogras said was true from a few sources, and that Abby had in fact lied. The largest punishments for failing quests were that he couldn’t get them again.
However if he failed too many quests he risked not getting awarded new ones for a while. For example Ogras would likely not get any quests for a couple of years due to eating The Coward’s Escape-pill. But for a cultivator whose life could be counted in the thousands, it was a small price to pay for escaping with his life.
That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t diligently try to complete the quest and rebuff the three monster waves. The more he learned about cultivation and the multi-verse he knew he was sitting on a rare chance. The island was likely one of the safest places on Earth right now. There were no dangerous beasts skulking around apart from the salamanders, and they kept to their caves. The reason for this was simple, it was the hordes of barghest. They had hunted everything that started to evolve since they arrived, stopping any species from gaining strength.
That made this island a haven, and an amazing source of wealth, for himself and his family. As he was the lord that wealth would turn into further safety as he could keep buying defenses if some force meant him harm. To give up this would mean he would turn from a so-called progenitor to another refugee without a place to call home.
Alea walked over and greeted him with a smile and a light touch on his arm, and Zac could only bear it for now with a grimace. He knew from experience that telling her off or pushing her away wouldn’t work, and if he got too insistent she might poison him in a rage. Nothing lethal, of course, but something strong enough for him to be puking his guts out for a few hours.
So they stood at the top of the wall surveying the battlefield looking like an old couple until the timer finally the timer went to zero.
[Ladder activated, struggle for supremacy.] The emotionless voice of the System entered his ears just as the third month ended and the timer went to zero.
“Huh, what’s this ladder that the system mentioned?” Zac said as he turned to Ogras. But immediately afterward he turned back toward the forest as he saw tens of grey pillars flash into existence roughly a kilometer away. They looked just like the incursion, just in a different color and a lot smaller.
“The Ruthless Heavens spoke to you? Ladder? Must be some function it is using on this baby planet. It has all types of modes that it can activate that changes how -“ Ogras explained but was interrupted by the System itself, this time speaking so everyone was hearing.
[Special Dynamic Quest activated. Defend what’s yours and vanquish the hordes. The strong will be rewarded.]