Congratulations! For directly masterminding the death of over a thousand users you have been given the Puppeteer Title!

Puppeteer: (Tier I) Uncommon +3 Control +3 Charisma

Scaling down the wall of the gym, i’m actually thankful for schools’ usual obsession with sports. If there hadn’t had so many banners displaying their many ‘achievements’, getting off the rafters might have presented a problem. I suppose climbing out the way I came in was always an option but what was the fun in that?

I had to wait a while before the last of the rats filed out of the gym to go search for more prey. The wererat told me it had taken it a substantial amount of food to get to his current size…. Something about raiding a daycare while the other adults were distracted? So it will be a while before any other rats get to join their leader at the top of the metaphorical food chain.

Speaking of evolutions, I need to figure out how to get mine. I’m already a corrupted human but whatever that does, the system doesn’t seem keen on sharing. Trust me i’ve fingered Mr. Blue plenty but the guy just doesn’t want to display my information on species. Jokes aside i’m kinda worried about turning into an abomination….

Not that I want to keep human company, but if I start sprouting tentacles left and right how am I going to properly use Aiyla? Then there's the problem of adapting to a new body all the time…. If I kept evolving and getting a new body every other day how could I improve?

With these thoughts heavily weighing on my mind I began to comb through the dead….

For the next half hour I kept repeatedly poking and prodding the remains for anything I might want. As you may have guessed they really didn’t have anything of value, especially after all the rat-wolves had torn through them. Even the most viable carcass looked like a chew toy, and that was saying something for the other thousand bodies. Although I did find a few really cool skulls that had been somewhat cleaned, but more importantly were perfectly preserved. They seemed to be the only ones that weren’t littered with scratches and fractures.

Trying to fit these into my backpack proved to an issue however…. They just wouldn’t fit with Scott and Jessy in the way…. Which led me back to the store! There had to be a bigger backpack or something I could use to carry these cool things I keep finding.

Narrowing the search options to utility quickly brought me a long list of things that could alleviate my hoarding problem.

No hovercrafts, too big…. No, I don’t need a palanquin…. Holy fuck someone made a backpack out of teeth? Why would you ever need that… It does look cool, but again not what i’m looking for…. Bingo! Spatial Storage Ring….. Only problem was that it was insanely expensive, each one requiring over 100,000 FMP… They do seem to scale though, so maybe I could find a cheap one….. And Bingo again!

Poor Spatial Ring

350 - FMP

Utility

Something that can barely be called a spatial ring. Storage capacity is limited to a five foot cube of space. Unable to contain living objects or beings. The Free Market does not insure any items lost to the void if the ring is to break.

Another polite round of finger stabbing later….

You have select (Poor Spatial Ring) for 350 Free Market Points. Would you like to purchase this?

Yes / No

Awww hell yes.

Upon confirmation a white ball condenses in my right hand before dissipating, in its place stood a rather plain looking copper ring. Closer inspection reveals some rather crude looking words, almost similar to the egyption hieroglyphs inland on the outside of the ring. The inside also had my name for some reason, maybe it was locked to me now? Kinda like Aiyla I guess…..

I quickly slipped said ring on to my index finger before immediately throwing it off…. That was weird….. Something just probed my brain. Nothing says sketchy like a good old brain scrambler….

But I really need this ring, and I can’t get a refund so im stuck with it……

Here goes nothing….

Hrrggggnnnnnnnn…….

Ok, quick note. Spatial rings give hella bad migraines…… It only lasted for a few seconds before I began to be able to actually imagine the inside of the ring but those few seconds really sucked…. Maybe that was another drawback of buying the cheapest option? Like a cheap drug almost, you get what you paid for….

Chucking the skulls in my new headache inducing spatial ring I head towards the pioneer and her squad. I hadn’t actually checked them at the time, which seems dumb in retrospect. Always gotta get the loot. Always.

Can’t let some grubby scavengers get my loots just because I forgot about it.

Luckily I only told the giant wererat to enter through here so their bodies should be untouched…..

Walking through the door i’m greeted by the sight of five bodies….

Ah, it's always nice to see proof of my greatness! Alright enough basking in my glorious victory of Glass Cannon and her squad of chimps. I quickly shove the pioneers corpse into my ring before searching the others for anything useful.

Sadly, besides sports equipment and jewelry, the others had nothing of real importance. Luckily I got some nifty new black gloves from the girl.

Reinforced Bruiser Gloves: Rare

The Pioneer Juliana Denmark had previously imprinted upon these gloves, do you wish to overwrite her authority?

Yes / No

Definitely!

Reinforced Bruiser Gloves: Rare

+8 Strength +4 Constitution +2 Resistance

Growth type of weaponry that combines the practicality of equipment with the deadliness of brass knuckles to the face!

Well that was so kind of her. To give such a precious gift to a complete stranger!

I’ll make sure to treat her corpse right as soon as I find out that deceased pioneers don’t go for a boat load on the market. Hopefully the spatial ring works as a good container, I don’t wanna open it one day and have the smell of a rotting corpse rolling off all of my items…..

….

….

….

You know for some reason I could’ve sworn there were six of them in all….

To my right I hear faint moaning…. NOPE!

I immediately launch Aiyla in that direction not even giving myself time to look.

I should’ve picked up on that immediately, oh god I hate jumpscares! I’ve loved horror games for as long as I can remember, but I always lose my shit when a jumpscare suddenly comes out of nowhere…. It had gotten so bad I had to resign completely from that genre after I almost punched my monitor…. So when I heard the moaning, my body moved on its own. Not requiring a shred of thought before it threw Aiyla with enough force to cause a miniature whoosh to sound throughout the room.

As Aiyla catapults through the air, the thin coat of Bloodlust that's almost constantly around her now lights up the area to reveal a gruesome image…… It was human… ish…. It had all the prominent features of a human, but they seemed wrong. Like someone tried way too hard to make their face and body symmetrical… Whatever it was, had flawless skin…. Easily ignored in favor of the mouthful of bloody teeth…. Its eyes were a deep black and it had long black fingernails- also covered in blood mind you.

Seems I caught him mid meal and he was pissed. That doesn’t seem to matter though as Aiyla crashes into him immediately drilling a hole through his chest. The monster looks down in surprise, before collapsing and foaming at the mouth… Then IT started crawling out of his mouth.

It looked like a hairless mole but way bigger. Something that shouldn’t have been able to fit inside the relatively small human was now removing itself from the equally small mouth of said human. I watched in fascination as the tendons holding the jaw together snapped one at a time.

The veins on the human’s neck were pulsing at an irregular rate as the thing forcefully removed the last of its enormous body. After the last of it was finally removed from the human skin puppet, it let out an ear rending screech before charging at me.

Even its movements seemed alien as it simultaneously slithered and ran, at the same time. I don’t even know how that was possible, alien knees are so fucking weird. If I saw a human trying to do that, no doubt they would be in a hospital very soon afterwards. Maybe some freaks with double joints could pull it off, but I know for a fact I don’t bend like that.

Regaining focus once the creature was within arm length I quickly prepare to retaliate.

…

…..

……

Everything seem to freeze as I unloaded every ounce of blood lust at once before lightly tapping the creatures… forehead? I don’t know, it didn’t have eyes or an identifiable nose so it was kinda hard to tell…

As my finger connected with its forehead, its entire body lurched backwards.

Crude Blood Dominion: (Tier 0) Rare

Can variably control the blood of others within one's Aura.

This ability can fluctuate and sometimes flat out not work on certain beings.

A crude attempt is better than none at all.

The monster crashing into the wall opposite of me barely even registers as I fall to the ground feeling like a puppet with its strings cut…. What happened? Suddenly my body feels too heavy to even lift…. Is this what happens when you completely drain a pool? Holy fuck that was a dumb idea.

Ohhh shit and the monster is getting back up.

If I could read alien, I would definitely say it was pissed. The foam dripping down was a pretty good indicator.

My limbs are still not responding, this is really not good.

It came closer.

Why did I do this, this was such a stupid idea! Fuck me it's one thing after another, i’m like a goddamn broken record. It's because of all these Stupid things. ALL OF THESE LIVING BEINGS.

THEY JUST KEEP GETTING IN MY WAY. I TRY AND HAVE FUN BUT THEY WON’T GET OUT OF MY WAY. I NEED THEM TO MOVE. MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE.

THEY JUST ALL NEED TO DIE.

DIE.

DIE DIE DIE DIE!

Something deep within my brain snaps and reality distorts as I lose consciousness.

🅆🄰🅁🄽🄸🄽🄶

Error! User has exceeded debuff regulation limit.

🅆🄰🅁🄽🄸🄽🄶

Insanity: (Tier VII) IMPOSSIBLE

One of the original debuffs created by the maker himself. Developing even the first tier of this can reduce many people to mere vegetables. Even beings with God level wills are fallible when faced with the max tiered fury of insanity.

WARNING: Get this exercised immediately. You will die.

YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE ME.

Mark chuckled.

His previously limp form easily rising to stand once again.

“So it carried over huh? Thats a shame, it was worth a try but I guess nothing can truly separate me from this.” Mark glanced towards the approaching monster who had begun to hesitate after seeing him.

“It's fine my child, come. Embrace the end!” An ethereal spear manifested next to Mark before disappearing. The next instance the room had been coated in the monsters viscera, nothing remaining in its original spot other than a slightly charred dent in the wooden floor boards.

“Truly, monsters of this era are so weak. Nonetheless I can’t inhabit this form for too long, it’s slowly climbing to its original value. At Least with this kid at the helm, I can let my body recover.”

“Fucking system. I crossed too many universes for this to be a coincidence. At this point even I have to face it. That old bastards trying to kill me!”

Something happened to Mark’s face.

Unlike his previous images of evil incarnate, this certain expression was different.

This was a smile that was not fit for the face of a human.

“Well if he wants to play….”

Its lips stretched from ear to ear as ghostly red eyes trailed through the air, speaking of all the atrocities it would commit if only it could. Merely looking at Mark’s current expression would make weaker men immediately collapse from fear while the stronger struggled to pray to whatever gods they believed could save them from whatever Mark was.

But what could save those men from something even the gods fear?

“Lets play!"