Defiance of the Fall

Zac woke up with a jerk, which caused a pained groan to escape from his mouth. There was not a single part of his body that didnt feel battered and broken. A quick look around showed that he was halfway down the hill, his whole body full of scratches. The snake lay lifelessly a few meters away from him, seemingly having uncoupled from him somewhere during the tumble downhill.

Not daring to take any chances due to negligence again, he ignored the screaming protests of his body and dragged himself towards the snake. There was a rock roughly the size of a head on the way which he ripped out of the ground. Finally he arrived in front of the beast, and with a snarl grabbed the stone with both hands and slammed with all power he could gather right in the forehead of the snake. The long body convulsed slightly but seemed not to react further than that. Zac wasnt done however, and with guttural grunts from deep within his throat he kept slamming the stone down again and again, each time eliciting a wet thud. After a few hits the bodys death throes stopped, but Zac kept going until the bloodied stone finally slipped out of his hands. By then the head and neck was only a mess of broken flesh and brain matter.

The grunts gave way to sobs as Zac collapsed next to the headless snakes, his whole body shaking. He had messed up, that had been way too close. Not finding any more demons the last two days had made him complacent, barely looking around for threats. The Stargazer had even warned him just yesterday about the world changing due to absorbing cosmic energy, but he hadnt even reflected on what that meant. There shouldnt have been snakes of this size in the woods where he was, but the energy in the world had not only increased its size and strength but made it more aggressive. Had that been a venomous snake instead of a constrictor he would be a bloated corpse by now.

He finally understood that there was simply no such thing as safety in the wild, and he had to start taking things more seriously. Not even the last near-death experience had really woken him up, as the stats and quests made him subconsciously consider it all a game. But this was life and death, and he had to treat it as such.

Zac shakily got on his legs and started to make his way to the top of the hill again. His hatchet was still left in the tree, and he refused to go anywhere without it again. It felt like he had been hit by a truck but he could only grit his teeth and trudge on.

At the crest there were fallen leaves and broken bloodied branches all over the floor. Luckily it seemed that the snake had taken the brunt of the damage from the fall, otherwise, he might not even have survived just from the height. He didnt want to linger at such an exposed location, so he quickly ripped the axe out of the tree and made his way back down the hill.

When he reached the snake once again he hesitated for a few seconds, but then gripped the reptile and wired it around his torso a few turns then put the end up on his shoulder. He had to think like a survivor now, and the snake might both give food and its scales could be fashioned into some sort of protection.

Any other exploration would have to wait, he needed to get back to base. On the way back he walked with much higher care, trying to avoid stepping on twigs and staying close to the trees for shelter. However the only sounds from the forest were the sleepy rustling of the trees, only occasionally interrupted by a distant roar. After another 15 minutes, he was finally back in the camp.

He had planned to go over his strategy for the town once more but currently felt intensely unsafe right now, and decided to not drag things out any longer. He brought up the base building interface and bought an [F-Grade Small Scale Illusion Array] for 2000 Nexus Coins. Suddenly as if it had always been there a small wooden box appeared in front of him. Zac opened the box and inside were 8 intricately carved wooden poles. They were each roughly 30 cm long and 3 cm thick, in a glossy black coating. One end was sharpened down into a needlepoint while the other was completely flat. The carvings were in a golden hue, and it seemed the carvings were depictions of intricate fractals rather than words or pictures.

When Zac picked up the poles suddenly 8 small yellow pillars lit up around the camp. He wasnt surprised at this as the shop had mentioned the usage method. When holding the poles, or flags as the system had called them for some reason, the system would guide him where to place them. As soon as all the flags had been placed the formation would activate. There also was a cheaper alternative of the same array, but it wouldnt have the guidance system, leaving the user to figure out correct placement according to energy-flows and ley-lines. Zac quickly placed down the flags according to instruction, and suddenly a translucent dome shimmered into being around the small camp-site. It initially looked like uneven glass, distorting the outside, but soon turned invisible. Not sure if it had any effect, he walked outside of the camp and took a look.

What met his gaze was just a normal-looking forest, albeit slightly denser than around it. The trailer, campfire, and car were completely gone. Even the bloody smell from the snake was removed, replaced with only the fresh earthy smell of the forest. There were some thorny bushes between the trees looking almost like a natural wall, which would hopefully encourage nearby enemies to walk around the camp rather than straight through.

That was the disadvantage of the illusion array, and why it was so cheap compared to many other defensive options. Anyone could simply walk through it if they desired as it provided no stopping power. As soon as someone knew where to look or just was passing by it simply had no value. Also, it didnt work on stronger individuals, as they could sense something was wrong with the cosmic energy in the area. However, it was a cost-effective alternative right now which left Zac with more coins for other buildings. Later he would see if he could get some physical bushes transplanted at the edge of camp to dissuade any roving animal or monster from taking a path through the camp even further.

Zac was not done with that though and he made another purchase which spawned a box similar to the first one, but slightly larger. Inside were 12 poles, this time white but still engraved in gold. They were slightly larger than the illusion flags and had a different fractal engraved, but obviously they had the same purpose to create an array. It was the [F-Grade Small Scale Mother-Daughter Gathering Array] and cost Zac a whopping 7500 Nexus coins, almost cleaning him out. The gathering arrays for sale in the shop was designed to gather cosmic energy from the void and increase the density of it within its borders. This would improve the cultivation speed of the cultivators, and was likely a must for any town of repute in the multi-verse. This normally was of no use to Zac, as he wasnt a cultivator and instead had to kill monsters to gain levels. However, the array he had bought had a special function which was highly desirable to Zac. The Mother-Daughter in its name referred to the fact that it actually was two arrays.

One of them was the normal gathering array, which was referred to as the mother array. The other array was actually a necklace which looked a bit like a small ships wheel from a medieval ship attached to a silver chain. The unique function of the Mother-Daughter Gathering Array was that most of the energy that the mother-array gathered did not increase the density of cosmic energy within the array, but was actually transferred to the daughter-array.

As long as Zac wore the amulet and was within 50 kilometers from the mother-array, cosmic energy would continuously be transferred to the amulet, and from the amulet into Zac. In other words, the array essentially turned him into a cultivator who continuously drew energy into himself, as long as he was on the island.

The downside of this type of array was that the gathering efficiency was far lower compared to a similar F-Grade Gathering array, which would result in a far more sparse concentration of cosmic energy in a town. However, this didnt matter to Zac as he had no citizens that he needed to take into account, at least not for now. He quickly followed the instructions and placed the 12 flags around the camp.

This was Zacs main plan to have a chance to get strong enough to survive against the incursion. He had no experience of combat from his earlier life and needed to gain power from stats and levels to simply be able to overpower his enemies, at least he gained some actual combat experience.

There were more things Zac wanted to buy, but he simply had run out of coins. Finally, Zac Took a look at his status screen once more and saw that even though it had been a harrowing experience, killing the snake had not given him another level.

Name Zachary Atwood Level 16 Race Human Alignment Human (Earth) Titles Born For Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer Strength 31 Dexterity 25 Endurance 27 Vitality 27 Intelligence 29 Wisdom 29 Luck 44 Free Points 30 Nexus Coins 600

After checking out the menu he looked down on his battered and bruised body and felt embarrassed with himself. He had 30 stat points he still hadnt allocated. If he had done that this morning he might not have been in such a precarious situation as he was.

It was time to upgrade.

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