Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 94: Humans

Megan glared at their captors as she was stomping around in fury. Something was clearly wrong in the head with these people, as they silently stood like zombies with a blank stare in their eyes. The only time they moved was when she or someone else tried to leave the pier they stood on. They even blocked access to the ship, stopping them from leaving.

The only reason things hadn’t come to blows was the polite man from earlier who said that he would fetch the so-called lord of the island. Megan already disliked this mysterious person, what kind of jack-ass named himself a lord? She decided that he would get a proper lesson in manners when he arrived.

Of course she knew that her anger was simply a coping mechanism. The last months had been like something out of a horror story. She and her friends were in Vietnam on vacation when the apocalypse came, just as they were visiting a fisherman’s village. Suddenly they found themselves stuck on some island with a group of fishermen who barely spoke any English. Two of her friends had also simply vanished into thin air, and she still didn’t know what happened to them.

The shocking changes were only the first trouble that appeared. The animals on the island slowly turned insane, and they grew way too large. In the beginning they could fight them off, which was how they learned about levels. But the monsters grew too strong too fast. Hundreds of rats as large as Labradors charging their small village was what broke the camel’s back, forcing them to set out to sea on one of the dingy fishermen’s vessels.

It was a risk, as two boats had already set out without coming back, their situation still unknown. But those rats simply tore through anything and they were extremely aggressive. Mr. Trang saved their lives by fending them off while they started the boat, and he still wasn’t recovered from his wounds as he sat down nervously on the pier.

Finally she saw movement in the distance as three men were walking toward them. One was the polite man from earlier, but he walked back to his house after bowing to the other two. One was a completely bald man who looked like a monk, while the last one looked extremely weird, with greyish skin and almost white hair. He even wore some odd crown on his head with horns jutting out. Megan was feeling pretty confident that he was the so-called lord.

She was getting ready to blast off a salvo of vitriol at the two, but as the duo closed in her flame of rage snuffed out like a weak candle in a storm. Something about the monk forced her attention on him. It was as though she was facing a mountain as he approached. Every step he took was like a sledgehammer hitting her, and she felt suffocated from just being in his presence.

Most of the other castaways were faring even worse, as they backed away with pale faces. Some even knelt down on the floor, unable to stand in front of the monk’s towering aura. The pressure was so all-consuming that Megan only noticed that the grey man wasn’t actually wearing a crown when he was right in front of her. She was looking on a bonafide demon from mythology, and her terror only intensified.

What kind of monsters inhabited this island?

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“Control your aura human, you will kill these weaklings,” Ogras said with a subdued voice.

Zac started before quickly taking control of the energy naturally coursing through his body, making sure that nothing leaked. He had forgotten about that lesson from Alyn after spending time with the demons for so long. As a warrior got stronger their presence intensified as well, and if the discrepancy in power was too large it could even be considered a weapon. It wasn’t something like the Dao Field, rather just an effect of beings in different stages of existence. There wasn’t any point in controlling his presence among the demons, as most of them were actually higher level than himself and immune to its effects. But against low-level individuals with weak willpower he might actually be harmful.

The fact that these humans were ready to keel over was quite telling about their power. Zac quickly used his [Eye of Discernment] on the twelve people and to his surprise, the highest leveled person was only level 21.

“Pathetic,” was the only comment from Ogras who obviously performed the same type of scan, and Zac had to agree. How could people survive with such low power? If these humans were representative of the average population then Earth was well and truly doomed. His image of the outside world was maybe skewed from looking at the ladder which only showed the powerhouses. Maybe the average humans were as weak as these people who probably couldn’t even kill a barghest.

“Ahem… Welcome to Port Atwood. I’m Zac. What brings you here?” Zac tentatively asked, unsure how to proceed from here.

The group only stared fearfully at the two, no one daring to step forward. Zac was starting to think that his language skill wasn’t working with the humans until a thought struck him and he turned his companion.

“You’re scaring them, go away,” Zac said, making a shooing motion.

“Yeah I’m the problem, why don’t you blast off your Daos as well while you’re at it?” Ogras retorted with a roll of his eyes, but he walked some distance away and picked out a chair from his pouch. Next he took out a piece of fruit and started eating while pointedly ignoring the humans. The Creators also took this as a signal their work was done and wordlessly headed toward the huge warehouse.

It seemed to calm the people down somewhat to be left alone, but they still looked very warily at Zac. Finally, a woman who was the second strongest in the group stepped forward. The strongest person was actually an old Asian man sitting down, clearly still nursing some old wounds. That revelation only lowered Zac’s opinion of the youths in the group, letting an old man stand on the front line while they cowered behind.

“I’m Megan. We’re from an island two days’ sailing from here. Um… what’s going on with your friend?” she said as she fearfully glanced at the demon loitering in the distance.

“That’s Ogras. He lives on my island.”

That answer seemed to only make the group more fearful, but Zac couldn’t be bothered to explain any further. Going into the demon’s origins would be too troublesome, and Zac and Ogras long ago decided that they were going to pretend the demons were natives who were brought here during the integration. That little lie should hide the fact that there had been an incursion here, and that the demons were actually invaders. At least for a while.

“Young man, how come I can understand you? I don’t believe you are speaking Vietnamese,” the old man sitting on the pier said with a weak voice.

Zac willed the screen for the language skill into being, making it hover in front of the group.

“It is a skill I have that allows me to understand and be understood when speaking with anyone,” he answered.

“Skills, what’s that?” the girl called Megan asked as she looked at the screen in wonder.

That question made Zac realize that these people were even worse off than him during his first months on the island. They obviously had no idea about many aspects of the System, not even knowing about skills. He realized he only knew about skills because of Abby and the Nexus Node where he bought [Eye of Discernment].

He was lucky in a sense that an incursion spawned on top of him. If he didn’t get to build an outpost he would have been as ignorant as these people, fumbling around in the dark. The first time they came in contact with skills would be at level 25 when they got their class. If they could even attain a class on a deserted island.

“You still haven’t explained why you people are here,” Zac said as he ignored the question.

“The animals became crazy on our island. They kept growing and even the rats were as dangerous as wolves in the end! We couldn’t stay anymore, so we left to find a safer place. After two days at sea we saw your harbor and thought that there might be a town here,” the girl explained.

“We’re from Chicago. Is there an airport close? Have you had any contact with the government? Why hasn’t there been any rescue operations?.”

The girl kept peppering Zac with questions, giving him a headache.

“The governments have likely fallen. You should have heard the voice in the beginning. The world has been integrated into the multi-verse, Earth got fused with a few other planets and everything got mixed together,” Zac sighed.

The castaways looked ready to explode from that declaration, but a voice cut through the mounting chaos.

“Can we stay here, young man? There is safety in numbers”.

It was the old fisherman. The 3 other Asian men looked at Zac with some hope, whereas the Caucasians looked confused, prompting Zac to translate the question.

“Mr. Trang is right, there’s safety in numbers! We have become quite strong over the past months, and were only forced to leave the island due to the huge number of rats!” one of the young men said.

The proclamation elicited a derisive guffaw from Ogras in the distance. He obviously was listening in on the conversation using some skill, and he looked very entertained.

Zac pondered what to do about the small group. It wasn’t really any problem to let them onto the island as they didn’t lack food or water. But there also were many secrets on the island, things that he didn’t want to make public to the world. Besides, he wasn’t sure that letting them stay was doing them any favors, with the next beast wave coming in less than two weeks.

“You can’t let them leave. This place can’t be discovered yet, there are too many treasures here, so you need to solidify your position as Lord first. You either need to kill them or let them stay on the island,” Ogras’ voice could be heard from the shadows.

“What if they leave and they tell the story of the island with demons and superpowered humans? People will rightly think that there’s some secrets on this island and set sail in search of treasure,” the demon continued. He used some sort of skill that projected his voice from a distance, and it didn’t seem that the other people could hear him at all.

Zac sighed as he knew that putting them back on the ship was out of the question now. Ogras would likely sink it with a shadow spear the moment it left the pier in order to protect his interests. Besides, he agreed with his points. He wanted to turn this island into a true sanctuary for those close to him and didn’t want random people to come here for some sort of treasure hunt.

“You can stay here. But you should know that this island is likely far more dangerous than your old home,” Zac said after some deliberation. “We don’t need freeloaders. You will have to work to earn your keep. There are some areas that are off-limits on the island, and this shipyard is one of them. I’ll show you the way to the town.”

When told that this place wasn’t safe as well the group started to hesitate. But the old fisherman got to his feet with a grunt and unhesitantly followed Zac who turned to leave. The other fishermen followed suit, and soon the Caucasian youths followed as well.

Zac saw Ogras flash over and put the boat in his pouch, which caused some alarm and shock to the refugees, but he only said a few comforting words and continued on. As they walked some way the people started to find their courage and started pelting Zac with various questions. The asked about everything from what amenities the island had, to how the system worked and the situation of humanity.

These people were thirsting to know what was going on, just like Zac was before he finally got things explained by Alyn and Abby. He tried to answer as much as possible, but by the time they arrived at the tent-town, he was thoroughly tired of answering questions.

The refugees were dismayed to see that the whole population were demons, and two actually tried to run away in panic. Zac could only sigh and flash over with [Loamwalker], and carry the struggling people back. It took some time to settle the refugees, and Zac couldn’t be bothered with them anymore afterward. He pawned them off to Alyn and Zakarith, who both had the language skills that could help them acclimatize. He also had a few warriors keep an eye on them just in case they tried something stupid.

Zac held mixed emotions as he walked away from the inquisitive group. It almost felt like he was robbed of something from the encounter. One of his largest wishes over the past months was to reunite with humanity, but he didn’t expect it to be like this. A group of listless people who barely scraped by the past months. Obviously none of them had left the safety of their village overly much. Otherwise, they’d be at a higher level by now.

His own countrymen were the worst. They clearly were mainly concerned about their own well-being, focusing on questions such as food and lodging for themselves. None of them asked of how they could help or listed things they could do for a town. The fishermen mostly kept quiet after a few questions about humanity. Zac had hoped that his first encounter with humans would finally allow him to get some news about the state of the world, but it looked like he needed to switch back to his original plan.

He informed Ogras of what he was about to do, and the demon seemed to think that it was truly foolish. Zac didn’t care. Almost four months had already passed since the world changed, and it felt like ants were crawling all over his body by now.

He opened up the Town Shop interface as soon as he arrived at the spot designated by the city planners and unhesitantly bought an [E-Grade Teleportation Array] for 10 000 000 Nexus Coins. A new interface opened up, and his heart sped up when he saw that there actually was a destination available.

[Winterleaf Village. Public. Fee: 0 Nexus Coins]

After making sure he had everything he needed in his Cosmos Sack he took out a hooded cape that covered his elaborate clothing and a pair of leather shoes that one of the craftsmen made for him. Ogras told him that it was easy to see that his gear was valuable, and something provided by the System, and since he didn’t want trouble he simply covered it up. Next he set his own Teleportation Array to private in order to make sure only he could use it. He didn’t want anyone using it either to teleport in or out while he was gone.

Finally done, he gazed around at the island that had been his home, and prison, for four months. With a sense of trepidation and excitement he stepped on the engravings on the floor with determination in his eyes.

With a flash of light, he was gone.