Eric abruptly cried out and stumbled to the wet loamy ground, overwhelmed by an awful jolt of piercing clarity, as if only now waking up clean and sober after years of being lost in a comforting haze. Or a man who had always been lost in fog, content to move one step after another, could suddenly see past endless forest and fields, to the other side the valley of his life and to the endless horizon beyond, shaken by how clear his thoughts suddenly were, able to examine each and every one with almost superhuman clarity.

It wasn’t that he felt like a different person, rather that he finally felt like himself. His true self. Fully alert and in the moment, with an almost painfully perfect recall of the last ten seconds, closing his eyes with something close to awe at his recollection of each of his last ten footsteps, squishing through thick brown mud barely supported by the lush grass of the field he was crossing, struck by the chilling discordance, as compared to the foggy surreal afterglow of all his earlier memories, thoughts, and speculations.

He shook his head with awe, shaken by what a striking impact those five points to Scholarship had granted him, even as the additional boosts to his three potency pools and his Willpower as well felt like just the slightest brush of invigoration, reinforcing truths he already held close to his being.

But those five points to Scholarship were effectively a 30% increase to the stat closest to the core of who he was, what he was. Or at least, that was what he had thought.

A sudden sense of existential dread overcame him. He wasn’t quite sure how to process the change, wondering if he was even still himself… or just an artifact of the System.

He shook his head with a rueful chuckle. Because in one tragic sense, it didn’t even matter. At this moment who he was, his awareness, his consciousness, was nothing more than the perception and appreciation of the flow of time all around him. That included his analysis of all that had occurred up to this point, as well as the reflections and imagined scenarios this inspired him to contemplate, even if it was no more than a pleasant daydream inspired by whatever was on his mind.

In other words, he was at that very moment the only person he could possibly be. His existential crisis was really no different than the same dilemma suffered by everyone who woke up anew each and every day. In a sense, they were all brand new souls, utterly replacing the person of the night before, who had slipped not into sleep, but death. Only to be reborn anew with all the memories of the days before.

An analogy that made him crack a smile, wondering if, in a sense, the father and child he had brought back from just such a sleep hadn’t been resurrected at all. Two souls with absolutely no connection to him, who he had brought back in a moment of transcendent inspiration, a way to shake his fist at the inevitability of fate, to challenge the grim destiny awaiting both the girl he loved and the sister he would die for.

In a sudden epiphany, Eric understood why he had earned that title. How he had managed a feat that no one had ever successfully accomplished before, at least not here on Earth. Because to dare risk ones very life was a feat only a madman or a saint would do for anyone less than his family, or the love of his life.

His sense of wonder at his own magnificent feat was tinged with despair when he sensed the bitter lining to his sublime wonder. The magics he had dared to embrace would do nothing for his sister or Rica, or anyone else he loved. It was if his heart was the fulcrum, his will the lever, and the farther away a third party was to his soul, a person he could still care for with the abstract love he had for humanity and fae-kind as a whole, was the only leverage that had allowed him to defy the natural order.

Yet in those moments of odd connection, having gained a strange, unexpected glimpse into Lady Arci’s very soul, he had ached for those lost loved ones as deeply as she had. As much as he would pray that any kind stranger would feel for his pain, should he himself have lost someone dear. At that moment, aching for the people he too was desperate to save, he had brought them back in a mad fit of inspiration. Because Eric was more than happy to shatter all the rules of entropy if he could forge just one more happy ending in this realm of strife and pain, even while having no idea of what the true cost of his daring would be.

Simply because he could.

He spent long moments hunched over and shuddering, just trying to get used to a racing mind that remembered absolutely everything he was seeing, thinking, and experiencing with an almost painful clarity that just wouldn’t stop, when a second message blinked across his interface.

This one had him laugh aloud with sheer joy, a welcome distraction, even as he dared set foot within another territory, his third that night, sensing the interface blare with well over a thousand reds just a few miles away, already starting to converge.

Congratulations! You have achieved Journeyman Status daring the Path of Endless Bounty! You may now further define your path:

Savior’s Grace: A true hero of the people. A champion that shines as bright as any Contender seeking to reforge the world. The sips of strength you take from your territories gives you the fuel you need to press ever onwards, even as your blessings far surpass that of almost all other Contenders. You’re now able to infuse each territory you claim with one additional Lesser Bounty!

You will additionally receive a significant reputation bonus from all those able to savor the boons and benefits you grant the territories that prosper under your grace!

Crimson Balance: You could claim it all. Every last drop. Instead, you gift the lands you conquer with a single blessing far greater than what any other conqueror would care to give. Even if your own reason for doing so is to camouflage yourself so perfectly that not even the most diligent System Sentinels will be suspicious of your presence.

It is enough. More than enough. Every advancement you make on the path to your own crimson ascension will be focused on one thing, and one thing alone.

Power.

As much as you can tear free, without tearing apart the land itself. For you are both ruthless and just, tough but fair. And smart enough not to alert even bigger predators who might otherwise look your way. You choose to strike a Crimson Balance. So that even if you rise as the fiercest, most savage predator of all, the flocks under your care are still far better off under your domineering gaze than they would be under the care of any other monster.

Each territory feeling the bite of your Necromantic Consumption now gives you a 50% bonus to baseline Strength and Vitality earned, while expertly coaxing the territories to spring to new, desperate life, still granting the same boon of Lesser Bounties as you had gifted before!

The Bitter Chalice You once dared to embrace the hero’s mantle. Now you choose your own. You will feast upon the nectar of your conquests, and you will drink them utterly dry of all their potential. You are a predator with a purpose, and will grow strong in ways your enemies can scarce conceive.

Yet you are neither psychopath, nor fool.

The territories you drain are the farthest thing from the lifeless husks that galactic administrators so rightly fear. They are lands that will be just as fertile or as impoverished as they were long before you ever took your first steps as a Contender. For you will eagerly claim every drop of potential the System and Terra herself grants the would-be conquerors of this realm.

And not one drop more.

Each Territory you claim will grant you a full 100% Boost to the Baseline Strength and Vitality you would otherwise earn as you drink deep of its potential. Yet when you abandon the scraps you leave behind, you will do so with impunity from any Bronze or Silver tier Hunter that might otherwise look your way. For no Galactic Court may try any Sylvan, or Ravager in Sylvan form, when no crime has been committed.

A bounty was earned. A prize plucked.

You chose to keep it for yourself.

That is all.

Eric flashed a bleak smile as he read the Interface messages. He chuckled ruefully, shaking his head as the chilly winds whipped the locks upon his brow as he raced across the plains to face countless hundreds, perhaps thousands of foes. He didn’t know how many times he had played the paladin in his favorite RPG Campaigns. How truly wondrous it sounded, to think that the golden branch before him might one day evolve to the point that the boons he could give the lands he devoured might be even greater than the blessings he could bestow if he took no sip from his claims at all.

Idealism he could so easily afford to embrace in the comfort of his leather couch, shooting ideas off his laughing sister after a day pretending he was an A-list anything in his mother’s latest movie.

But now, racing in the dead of night, preparing himself to engage what were countless hundreds of red blinking dots in what he sensed was a well neigh impregnable fortress, Dominion map blinking all the brighter as he sensed fresh troops beginning to trickle through from the neighboring territory twenty miles to the north, he knew the choice he had to make. The only one he could afford to make.

Power at all costs, just like the interface had said.

Not because he was a ravenous beast, though he sensed that to a certain point he was just that, but because he’d need every bit of Strength and all the damage resistance and all around durability that added Vitality would grant him. Because when all was said and done, the most warmhearted and noble idealist was worth no more than a pile of bloody mulch on the ground if he was killed by the most savage and ruthless of foes before he could ever put his grand dreams into action.

Because, in the end, survival was everything, and absolutely nothing he did would have any meaning at all, if he fell to his enemies’ knives. Sadistic goblins and orcs would then gleefully undoing absolutely everything he had worked so hard to create.

But if he was strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, he might just last to the final realm of this most ruthless of all games, affecting the fate of an entire world.

His own.

But even here, there was a balance to be struck. He would take advantage of the bitter fruits of conquest to grow stronger than he ever could before. But he would not allow himself to become so scarred and bitter that he was no different than a thousand mega-corporations or warlords behind him.

Hell no.

No matter how fierce and furious the pace of life and Conquest got, history itself would be forced to concede that he had always left the lands he strode upon better than it had been before.

You have infused the Path of Endless Bounty with a Crimson Balance! You will enjoy a 50% increase to the boons of Strength and Vitality you will receive with every territory you feast upon. Yet your crimson blessings will still force it to spring to new life with two Lesser Bounties to shelter countless millions that might one day call that territory home.

Eric smirked, oddly relieved both by the snarky rejoinder and his own decision, knowing that it was exactly the one he would have made before his unexpected surge of pristine recollection.

He was still the same person he had always been, he was almost certain of it. Still, he was grateful that the +5 to Scholarship to his most carefully guarded stat had been thanks to a title boon alone, a gift of Terra herself, and not a direct infusion of System directed transformation.

He then shook his head and chuckled ruefully at his own pointless meanderings as he raced across the still-damp waist-high grass. Because however he had gotten to this moment, the Eric of right now was the only one there was. And if he wanted to continue being himself in any form, his only focus should be on surviving the next 24 or so hours and tearing as much territory free of his enemy’s ranks as he possibly could.

Such was his resolution as he raced towards certain peril, his run becoming a loping jog as he caught sight of a distant edifice of stone, a towering fortress of fortified walls, battlements, and multiple cannons he could make out surprisingly well, even at nearly two miles away.

He slowly sunk into the waist-high grass before summoning his beloved Tusker company, giving careful thought to the Necromantic his leveling up Necromancer to Rank 14 had earned him, more grateful than ever for his Master Necromancer class that granted a perk every other level.

He then began urging his Tusker company forward at a light canter, carefully positioning himself to be shielded from even the most unexpectedly accurate cannon fire. As to whether the 24-pounders in this fortress were manned by low level orcs or truly elite classers that should utterly terrify him, that was the question he now needed answers beyond any others. But since the chances of classless orcs hitting what would be fast moving Tuskers racing around the keep for maximum transversal speed would be close to nil, they’re continuing survival, or sudden collapse, would tell him everything he needed to know.

Fortunately, there was a counter for even the deadliest sniper or marksman.

Overwhelming odds.

And that was a military doctrine he had every intention of embracing, using a class all but made for putting that path into effect.

Synergism between Necromancy and Path of Blood detected! Mimimum skill tiers have been achieved! You have chosen the Necromantic Perk: Vampiric Restoration! Any damage to any of your undead revenants will automatically be healed relative to the damage they inflict upon their targets! (Arcane equilibrium maintained!)

Undead Legion is now Tier 4

Undead Legion is now Tier 5! You may summon up to 1,600 of your fallen foes to serve in your eternal legions after their death in any battle where you are triumphant! Zero cost to summons, all bodies up to the maximum will be fully restored upon their eternal enlistment!

Summons behave as one disciplined unit that obeys basic commands. Undead raised in this fashion may be stored as a single unit within any necromancer’s Elite Summons ring.

Eric flashed a satisfied smile, feeling like he was almost cheating the system, choosing a perk that both allowed him to heal his tuskers and legions by injuring their foes, while at the same time further boosting his troops by up to 1,600 fresh recruits after every battle without paying the astronomical costs that should normally entail, and with the bodies fully repaired besides.

As weak as those revenants may appear at first, at least compared to his tuskers, both weak and slow, with his measly hundred or so not even tested in combat yet, an entrepreneur was nothing if he didn’t respect the power of compounding. Eric couldn’t quite hold back a savage grin when he thought of the number of fallen revenants that might soon be under his command before too long.

Assuming he could survive the battles to come, of course.

DUCK AND COVER!

Or even the next five minutes, as a cannonball exploded into the ground just feet away from his madly sprinting from, almost two full miles away from the keep.

Quickness check made!

You have successfully dodged artillery fire!

You have suffered 3 Medium wounds from explosive shrapnel.

Soul Bound armor and mithril armaments have absorbed all damage!

But Eric was no longer paying attention to the messages flashing across his mind’s eye, no matter how fast they came and went, all his focus on trusting his own madly flaring danger sense as he weaved and darted away from the dread keep in a broken path, anything to keep his foes from drawing a bead on him, not daring to take a sigh of relief until he was a good four and a half miles out.

An absolutely absurd range.

“How the fuck?”

He chuckled softly, shaking his head.

That keep had a level 30 gunner on their side or something damn close to it, shooting actual explosive shells which Eric just knew had to be a class perk. And even if the gunner didn’t need to be quite as accurate as a goblin’s anti-material sniper rifle, the fact that they were hitting shells within 20 feet of his location before he dodged like a maniac, at a range of nearly two miles, in pitch blackness, using a long gun of all things, was beyond absurd.

But when he thought about it, it sort of did make sense.

He had seized a prize territory just over a day and a half ago, and blitzed through two additional territories the next night, in just a handful of hours. Even if they had pulled most of their troops forward, leaving only a skeleton crew, Eric had clearly proven himself to be a very serious threat. If they didn’t want him on their flanks as they laid siege upon what he increasingly suspected was his sister’s most heavily defended and perhaps only remaining territory, they needed to set up a bulwark to halt his progression, preferably one like the massive citadel he had fled from.

For all Eric knew, that might just include the top gun sniper in the entire orcish alliance. Because one less cannon fired by a skilled gunner might not make that much of a difference if there were dozens of artillery units being used to assault his sister’s own no doubt impressive defenses… but it might be all that was needed to put a final hard stop on the advancement of whatever mobile force was now chomping at their heels. A hidden dagger sapping morale, and if allowed to close, a weapon that could snipe away at whatever comprised their leadership. So of course steps had to be taken to counter any threat. Such as the massive edifice now confronting Eric, with its twenty feet thick steel beam reinforced stone walls.

Eric ground his teeth, looking down again at the dents in his armor from the shrapnel that could so easily have shredded any mortal not wearing soul-bound lizard hide and mithril underneath, even with his insane 150 Quickness, and Perception that was now exquisitely attuned to the sound and pressure wave of shells ripping through the air.

Whoever was leading the combined orc troops Eric sensed in the fort was clearly no fool, and had judged the situation almost perfectly. Because if Eric wanted clear supply lines and passage to the front without worrying about getting flanked in turn, there was no way in hell he could ignore that citadel. A revelation that made him smile as the obvious finally sunk in.

He was under no obligation to claim this territory or go within three miles of that highly fortified death trap. His was not a massive front requiring supply lines and logistics just to keep moving. Rather, he was the commander of an extremely mobile task force that was entirely self sufficient. And that right there was why light, not heavy cavalry had been ubiquitous in Europe, Asia, and the Middle east for centuries, if not millennia. Their excellent mobility and self-sufficiency allowed them to wreak havoc behind enemy lines, striking soft targets before disappearing like the wind, more than able to outflank and outrun heavily enforced opposition. And if an encounter didn’t favor them they could avoid it entirely.

“And nothing says slipping past unfavorable encounters than racing by myself, able to summon forth a single company of tuskers, or my entire legion, with a single pull of my ring.”

In fact, Eric had done his best to take advantage of the artillery fire, pulling back one squad of tuskers after another until it was just him fleeing at a mad pace. So if anyone capable of using the Tactical Interface map was in command of this territory, and Eric assumed they were, with so many resources being invested in his capture or elimination, it would look like a force of a score or so had just been whittled down to one final survivor, racing to his doom as the massive pincers opened to catch him, at the other side of the territory.

Eric flashed a fierce smile as he raced for the border some fifteen miles north, where he sensed an absolute flood of reinforcements making their way to the well neigh impregnable fortress Eric knew he had absolutely no chance of taking out, head on.

It was time to turn the tables on his foes, using their own strategies against them.

He patted his ring, as if to comfort the puny force resting within.

His infantry forces might be minuscule at the moment, but he was almost certain it would be swelling with fresh recruits very soon.