He walked out of the dungeon and into chaos. The sharp cracks of gunfire snapped through the air, followed closely by the screams of the dying. A house to his left was on fire, its front door half-crumpled and swaying on its hinges. The flashing blue lights of a police car sat in the middle of the road in front of him, two familiar faces aiming over the car’s hood with their handguns.

“Help! Someone…” The man scrambled back away from the shambling statue, his back hitting the street’s curb. One of the cops’ bullets pinged off of the golem’s head, moving it slightly. Its foot came down a moment later, and a shrill shriek pierced the air only to be cut off a moment later. Sirens filled the silence like the quivering cries of a wailing banshee.

Hell had come. Statues wandered the streets and broke into homes. Men and women died screaming throat-rending cries and weeping pitifully to the divine. In the middle of it all, Grey walked up to the police car, waving his hand slightly. He was their messiah, their hope, the man who would wipe away these terrible horrors and bring them salvation. He was also expensive.

“You,” Officer Jennings said. For the first time, he seemed to really look at Grey’s belongings. “C-can you kill these things?”

“I can.”

“Please help us. Please, man.” His face was flushed red, and his hands shook on his gun. Guns. Obsolete weapons. Or they would be, as human bodies began to produce Chi fields that could only be pierced by Evolutions. Between Minor Telekinesis and Chi Breathing, he felt no threat from them.

Grey lifted up two fingers. “First of all, I want the location of every place in the immediate area where this is happening. Secondly, I want transportation to those areas with all haste. Is that clear?”

The man nodded. “Whatever,” he said. “Just save these people.”

Battle plan started.

With the limited Chi in the air, monsters who exited their Dungeons would be weaker than they would otherwise. They also couldn’t wander very far, meaning that certain neighborhoods would become dead zones while others remained undisturbed. It made his job much simpler.

Grey withdrew the club from his inventory, and his skull filled with beautiful tones of an opera. He stepped towards a statue and began to sing.

Some time later, he was finishing the last of the statues in the immediate area. They were weaker outside of the Dungeon than they were inside of it, their bodies unused to the thin Chi in the air. After he was done, the female cop, Officer James, walked up beside him. Tears had left trails down her cheeks.

“How… how did you do this?”

Grey shrugged. He would give her this much for free. “Do you feel that pressure in the air around you? It might even feel like a light shock, something that is trying to enter your body through the skin.”

She looked away for a moment and nodded slightly. “I-I think so.”

“Imagine it as a gas, one with a distinct blue color. Breathe it in, mentally pull on it and condense it. Do this over and over again and… you’ll be able to do more than you thought possible.” Cultivation was one of the less efficient methods of Ranking up Evolutions, but it was perhaps the least dangerous. He hoped it would serve her well.

He left her in the remains of the shattered house, walking instead towards her partner. He sat in the driver’s seat of the car, staring blankly into the street in front of him. Grey cleared his throat, and the man glanced up.

“Locations,” he said. “I want them written down as soon as possible. As for transportation, would you be bothered if I took one of these people’s cars?”

“I don’t know.” The man’s words came out in a mumble, and he pulled a piece of paper and a pen from his glove box, turning up the police radio in his car. His eyes vacant, his fragile life dropped on rock bottom and shattered into a dozen pieces like a cheap vase. Grey walked away as he scribbled.

He walked into one of the empty homes, looking for a set of keys for one of the cars in the driveway. This first part of his plan was simple. He would hone his strength before the government contacted him, and then he would use them to reach a large city where more highly Ranked Dungeons would open. That was the quickest way to get the Golds he needed.

The Dungeon had been Bronze Rank only, and he did not have the time to gather the eight Bronze Keys needed to make a Gold. Even Silver was hardly worth his time, though he would target the ones he could find in the area.

Rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen of the home produced a key, as well as some money. He shrugged and pocketed it. It was not as though the dead could use it.

The key unlocked the new silver truck that sat in the driveway, and after a few minutes spent reacquainting himself with the act of driving, he had pulled up beside the police car and hopped out. Officer Jennings handed over several pieces of paper with bloodshot eyes, their lines scrawled over with addresses he faintly remembered.

“When your partner gets back, ask her to tell you what she’s been doing. That is the way of strength in this new world. Good luck to you, Officer Jennings.”

The streets of his town were crowded with honking vehicles. Screams and cries rang through over homes, and several times, people burst out of their homes, monstrous beasts chasing after them. It was not only monsters, however. He saw other Returnees using their Evolutions and interfering. The police had brought out their heavier weapons and established concrete barricades where they could. He suspected the military, too, had been deployed. Eventually, Grey abandoned the truck, the streets too clogged to make any reasonable speed.

The next Dungeon he found had emptied its horrors into a neighborhood not far from his own. Two police cars sat there, but the officers in them seemed to be… Well, everywhere. Something had torn them into bits, painting their cars in red.

Past the police cars, a woman in leather armor wielded a sword that seemed to be made out of blue light against several humanoids with gray skin. Goblins. She cut down one and spun, driving her sword into another. The entrance to the Dungeon sat to her left in the driveway of a relatively intact home. He started to run.

Battle plan started…

Grey’s spear punched through a goblin’s chest, and he pulled the corpse in front of him, letting it take a chop in his place. He hurled a bone dagger over the body’s shoulder. Minor Telekinesis guided it into the attacking goblin’s eye, snapping its head back and dropping it stiff.

A single raspy voice filled his head with a roaring song. He jerked his spear free of the goblin, stuck it in the chest of one approaching the Returnee from behind, and left it, drawing his short sword and a dagger. He moved towards one of the last few goblins and stumbled over one of its brethren’s corpses, turning his jog into a falling charge.

Snap! The goblin’s axe tasted the air above his head, and Grey’s shoulder rammed into its chest, sending them both to the ground snapping and snarling. His dagger went in the thing’s gut. Its head came up and snapped into his nose. He had pinned his sword between them, leaving it useless.

Grey altered his plan and rolled off of the goblin, leaving them side by side. His short sword- now free- came up, and he slammed it down and again and again, hitting the creature’s face with the flat of the blade, cutting a great gash in the side of its head, burying the sword in the soft skin of its neck.

Then he was up, redirecting an incoming spear with Minor Telekinesis. He grabbed the shaft of the weapon as it passed him by and pulled on it. It ripped free, causing the goblin to stumble, and Grey reversed his grip on it and sent its blade into the goblin’s face, a gargled scream soaring into the air.

“Thanks for the help,” the woman said. Her blonde hair was tied back, and she wore a grimace on her pretty features.

“You’re welcome.” Grey walked past her with a shrug, grabbing his spear on the way to the Dungeon’s entrance. Time was the most valuable resource of all.

“Where are you going? We need to defend the city.”

“Not really.” Grey walked into the Dungeon’s doorway, and the world around him disappeared, turning instead to a jungle. Vegetation obscured much of the ground around him, the leaves gray instead of green.

He moved forward, but a sound behind him made him stop. He looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

“What is this place?” the woman said, looking up at the foliage above.

“A Dungeon.”

“What’s that? How do you know?”

Grey shrugged. “The Tutorial.” He started to move forward, but her hand caught his shoulder. Minor Telekinesis brushed her hand away.

“Who are you?” Her brow was furrowed in thought, the blue energy sword held by her side.

“I am the Player.”

“Oh, my name is Haley.” She scanned him and the bushes behind with a measured look.

“Alright,” Grey said, and he started walking away.

“Do you really not want to save people?”

“The government will handle it.” For now, at least. The impact his individual efforts would make were minimal, and he preferred efficiency.

“If the monsters are coming from this Dungeon,” she said, “And you are fighting here, shouldn’t I come with you? There are strength in-”

“No.” Grey heard a rustle in a bush to his left, and he speared through a leaf, taking a sneaking goblin in the throat. It gurgled and fell limp.

“It’s not your choice. I’ll-”

“If you remain here, there is a high chance you will not leave,” he said, pulling his spear free. They could not know about Keys yet. The government and the other Returnees might know already, but he would not willingly part with that information.

When the silence lingered, Grey moved forward. The woman did not follow. His destruction began, a carpet of goblin corpses soon decorating the jungle’s floor.

By the time night came again, Grey had cleared two more dungeons, two bronzes that posed little threat. When he returned to his home, his part of the neighborhood had fallen quiet. He pulled his Status Screen up.

Grey Shor

Evolution Points: 21

Rank: E

Evolutions (3/7)

Single Player: E (10/200)- Diamond

Chi Breathing: E (20/165)- Gold

Minor Telekinesis: F (19/21)- Bronze

He sat on the edge of his roof, his legs dangling off of the edge. He had thought and theorized in the Desert, trying to figure out a build for himself. Trying to spread himself out to be both a ranged threat and melee fighter would be foolish. No, he had settled on melee long ago, and he needed only to shore up the weaknesses in such an approach.

The first problem was closing the distance between himself and his opponent. Chi Breathing served well enough for the time being, but he would have to save up his points religiously to find something better. The other problem was taking damage. He had already picked an Evolution for that. He needed only a proper amount of points.

Decisions, decisions. His limit was seven, but since most Evolutions could be combined upon upgrade, he could keep open slots if he played things intelligently. What he needed more than anything was not combat related, however. He needed an Evolution that…

“Open Shop.” He spoke into the empty air, and the screen in front of his face shifted, providing a list of Evolutions similar to the one he had purchased Single Player from. The prices on his list were much, much higher, however. “Filter out all options I cannot afford, and show only Evolutions that will allow me to find, detect, or travel to Dungeons.”

Name: Grey

Description

EP: 21

Gate Seeker

You develop a sixth sense that points towards the closest Gate

14

Dungeon Walker

Your body develops the ability to cross into spatial distortions without needing to find the entrance.

19

Chi Detector

Your senses become more finely tuned; grants ability to trace Chi to its source, the Gates

21

He eliminated Gate Seeker. It did far less than the other two for most of the price. Chi Detector looked interesting, but his mind strayed towards Rank ups. Where would the Evolution go? He could imagine some interesting permutations, but in reality, it would only increase his ability to sense Chi to a greater degree. Dungeon Walker, on the other hand, seemed the least like what he asked for, yet it was also the most interesting.

War was movement. One had only to look at chess to see this was true. Every piece moved in a certain way, and their effectiveness depended upon this. Rooks moved in straight lines, bishops traveled diagonals, and so on. Of all the pieces, however, the one that moved the most interestingly was the knight, which moved in l-shaped patterns. Aside from the queen, it was perhaps the most cunning piece on the board because of this unintuitive movement. Dungeon Walker would make Grey the knight.

Not only would the Evolution allow him to access Dungeon’s over a greater area, but further Evolutions could see him transporting in and out of Dungeons to rapid effect. It would be guerilla warfare waged through spatial distortions. The only question was if the Evolution was worth the small deviation in ability. Chi Detector would lead him more directly towards Dungeons, but Dungeon Walker would let him access what Dungeons he did find from a greater range, its other uses aside.

Adaptability was key. Eventually, his enemies would far outnumber him, and he had to prepare as if that time were already upon him. He purchased Dungeon Walker, leaving himself with a grand sum of two Evolution Points.

Evolution: Dungeon Walker gained!