somerealnerd

  Nexis City’s nights had gone quiet tely, the kind of calm that felt too still, almost dull. The serial rapist-killer who’d terrorized the streets seemed to vanish after his st strike, leaving the city’s dark corners safe again. High above, on a skyscraper’s rooftop, a shadowed figure crouched, cloaked in the street’s gloom. Moonlight glinted off his eyes, fixed on the crowd below, scanning women with a predator’s focus, hunting his next mark. But tonight, the sharp resolve and twisted thrill that usually drove him were gone, repced by hesitation and a simmering rage.

  His gaze locked on a woman stepping out of the building below, her briefcase slung over a shoulder, her tailored suit screaming office dy, fresh off a te shift, radiating a polished allure. Through the [Eagle Vision] skill’s boost, he could see every detail, down to the sliver of skin peeking through a gap in her blouse buttons. But it did nothing for him. He shook his head, dismissing her, and turned to the next target. Across the street, a prostitute leaned against a corner, cigarette glowing as she waved at passing cars. Her curves popped under a tight dress, makeup heavy, an easy score, the safest bet. He felt a flicker, an urge to tail her, but it fizzled fast. No spark, no pull.

  He couldn’t get it up, not even close. He’d popped a Vigogen2 before scoping the streets, banking on its kick, but his body stayed dead, unresponsive. His fury surged, hot and bitter. He smmed a fist into the wall beside him, pain spiking as his knuckles split. The concrete didn’t budge. And a cold, mechanical voice chimed in his head.

  [Skill: [Body Boost] on cooldown. Cooldown time: 56 minutes.]

  “Fucking useless, just like that dumb bitch,” he snarled, voice low, spitting venom into the night.

  The “dumb bitch” he cursed wasn’t just anyone. It was the High Goddess, the one who had plucked him from his old life and dropped him into Reward World’s chaos. His rage made sense though, in a twisted way. To prime him against John, and to stoke a hatred deep enough to drive him, the Goddess had fed him memories, handpicked fragments from John’s enemies in the magic world, and made him relive them. It worked for the most part. He had seen John’s cunning, his ruthlessness, and the hate burned hot like a furnace in his gut. But the Goddess hadn’t counted on the side effect: fear, cold and paralyzing, worming into him just as deep.

  The memory that haunted him the most was Rheomar Valebrand’s, emperor of the Ashen Empire. Back then, John wasn’t John; he was Velion Lysandre, a minor lordling with a speck of a fief called Bckraven Hold, tucked in a barren canyon. Rheomar barely noticed him at first, just another nobody under his banner. But Bckraven defied its limits, poor soil, no trade routes, yet it bloomed, outshining even the imperial capital. Velion had struck rare magical ore in the mountains, a vein others missed. He didn’t stop there. With his own hands, he wielded raw magic to carve roads through cliffs, pnned trade routes, and brokered deals that turned his backwater into the empire’s economic crown jewel.

  Whispers spread. Velion’s star rising was too fast, too bright. Lords began to murmur: he’d make a better emperor than Rheomar. The emperor, a warrior forged in conquest, who had built the mightiest empire on the magic continent, seethed with envy. He had bled for his throne, crushed armies, while Velion just dug mines, built roads, and traded smart. How dare anyone call him greater? Worse, Velion’s attitude mirrored John’s now: cocky, irreverent, thumbing his nose at authority. Loyal to the empire? Sure. Respect for the emperor? Not a chance. He dragged his feet on imperial taxes, always some excuse, smirking like he knew better. Rheomar’s fury grew, but he couldn’t just march on Bckraven, as it was still empire soil, and Velion’s defiance, however brazen, stayed just shy of treason.

  Rheomar devised a vicious pn to crush Velion’s defiance: if he wouldn’t bend, his legacy would burn. Using forbidden necromantic arts, he cast [Death Pgue] on every grain shipment bound for Bckraven Hold. By the time Velion caught wind, it was too te. The city’s hundred thousand souls were ravaged, the pgue ciming nearly all, including Velion himself. When he finally brewed a potion to stall the disease, Bckraven was a husk: only him, some five hundred elderly or young survivors, and his steward, Sebastian, remained amid the silent streets.

  Rheomar expected groveling, a broken man begging mercy. But instead, Velion, with his pitiful remnant, decred open rebellion. He hurled a public taunt, venomous and bold: if Rheomar, that “pgue-slinging coward,” would “cut off his own manhood and carry it in his mouth” to kneel and apologize, Velion might grant him a quick death. Rheomar almost ughed at this delusional bravado. He then rallied his invincible Ashen Knights and fifty thousand elite soldiers, marching on Bckraven Hold to raze it to dust.

  The emperor’s army encamped on the mountain facing Bckraven’s ridge, a deep chasm between them. Spanning the gap was Bckraven Bridge, Velion’s engineering marvel, wide, sturdy, made of some mystery material. To Rheomar’s bafflement, it was just steel and concrete, mundane on John’s Earth but a wonder here. The odd thing was, Velion didn’t sabotage the bridge or block the path. No barricades, no traps, just the open span, ft and inviting, like a dare: Come and get me.

  Rheomar, battle-hardened and wary, sensed a trick. Why leave the bridge intact? It screamed ambush, a lure to draw his forces into a meat grinder. He held back, watching, probing for Velion’s py. And Velion? He acted. Every day, his catapults unched volleys at Rheomar’s camp, not stones, but corpses. The pgue-riddled bodies of Bckraven’s dead rained down, each a festering bomb of disease. In any sane world, such corpses would’ve been burned to halt the pgue’s spread, but Velion, in Rheomar’s eyes, had gone mad for sure, weaponizing his own dead, risking his city’s further decay. Rheomar didn’t know Velion’s potion had already tamed the pgue, turning his desperation into a calcuted strike.

  The emperor countered fast, ordering his three thousand elite mages, led by the Ashen Knights, directly, to erect a massive magical barrier. The spell held strong, a shimmering wall that caught each hurled corpse, letting them smash harmlessly and tumble into the chasm below. Rheomar smirked, safe behind his shield, but Velion’s defiance gnawed at him, a splinter he couldn’t pull.

  Then, for the first time, Rheomar id eyes on Velion himself. The man looked broken, ravaged by the pgue he hadn’t fully shaken. His face was unremarkable, buried under a scruffy beard, skin tanned but sallow, his body frail and slumped in a wheelchair. A tall, striking man pushed him forward, likely Sebastian, his steward. Dark circles ringed Velion’s eyes, and he coughed weakly, blood flecking his lips. He seemed a mb ripe for sughter, sickly and spent. But what he did next left Rheomar’s entire army gaping.

  Velion raised a trembling hand, fingers twitching faintly. A massive cluster of [Arcane Missiles] roared to life, smming into the magical barrier upheld by three thousand elite mages. The shield shattered like gss, the bst’s shockwave triggering a ndslide on Rheomar’s mountain. Rocks tumbled, dust choked the air, and all three thousand mages reeled, blood streaming from their mouths as magical backsh tore through them.

  Rheomar’s forces froze, stunned. That [Arcane Missile]’s power was unlike anything they’d witnessed. It was catastrophic, untouchable. With the barrier gone, another strike could rip through their camp, killing thousands. As fear gripped Rheomar’s men, Velion lifted his hand again. They watched, breathless, as new missiles formed. But this time, they moved slower, drifting toward the camp like a taunt. Rheomar’s soldiers shouted, scrambling to scatter, until Velion flicked his fingers skyward. The missiles veered up, soaring into the night, and detonated in a dazzling burst, sparks raining down like a mocking firework show.

  Yawning, Velion waved zily, signaling the man behind him to wheel him back to rest. He vanished from the ridge, leaving Rheomar’s army rattled.

  Shock wasn’t all Rheomar felt, as confusion gnawed deeper. Why had Velion held back? That second strike could’ve crushed a thousand men, no cost to his own petty forces. It was a blow that would’ve tilted the war and cemented his menace. Rheomar repyed Velion’s earlier tactics, flinging pgue-ridden corpses daily, a grim but petty ploy to spread disease. It made absolutely no sense. If Velion wielded magic this devastating, why bother with bodies? The corpses seemed like a desperate gimmick, not the work of a man who could shatter a mage legion with a gesture.

  But still, the days bled into a grim routine. Velion’s catapults hurled pgue-ridden corpses at Rheomar’s camp; Rheomar’s mages raised their magical barrier to block them. Velion would unleash his [Arcane Missiles], shattering the shield, sometimes pausing to unch the missiles skyward in a mocking “firework” dispy, sometimes just wheeling away to rest. The corpses kept coming. For Rheomar’s elite mages, life became a brutal grind: mornings spent erecting barriers, only to be bsted apart, suffering magical backsh that left them spitting blood; afternoons burning Velion’s tossed bodies, a nauseating, monotonous task; evenings nursing their worsening wounds. Their bodies weakened, their spirits frayed, crushed by the relentless cycle of sickness and toil.

  Rheomar watched Velion’s pattern and grew convinced it was all a bluff. Why else would he never strike? Those [Arcane Missiles], so devastating on the surface, had to be an illusion, a parlor trick to hide Velion’s weakness. A real attack would expose the ruse, so he held back. The shattered barriers? Easy to expin. Bckraven Hold was filthy rich; Velion could’ve bribed some of Rheomar’s mages to sabotage the shields from within, staging the colpses to sell his act. It fit, as money was Velion’s game, not raw power.

  Rheomar turned his fury on the Ashen Knights’ mage commander, berating him to root out the traitors. The commander swore there were none, but his protests only deepened Rheomar’s paranoia. Suspicion festered until, in a heated csh over the “betrayals,” Rheomar snapped. His sword fshed, and the commander’s head rolled, blood pooling at his feet. The act chilled the Ashen Knights to the bone. They had fought and bled for Rheomar, forged him into the continent’s greatest emperor, yet now he turned on his own. They clung to a thin hope, though. Maybe the commander was a traitor. Stay loyal, and they’d be spared.

  The mages under the commander’s lead saw it differently. Their loyalty had been repaid with a bde, and they burned for vengeance. In a fsh, they mutinied, turning on Rheomar’s forces in a bloody melee. The rebellion was crushed swiftly, but not without cost. All three thousand mages were sughtered, each taking down at least three soldiers in their fury. Before even cshing with Velion, Rheomar’s army shriveled from over fifty thousand to under forty thousand. Worse, morale crumbled. The Ashen Knights, once ironcd, whispered doubts, questioning if this war was worth fighting. Fear and distrust poisoned the camp.

  Velion knew it all, every fracture, every waver. Yet his routine never shifted. His catapults kept lobbing corpses, day after day, nothing more. Without the mages’ daily burnings, the pgue began to creep into Rheomar’s ranks, a silent killer spreading through coughs and fevers. The Ashen Knights urged retreat. Pull back, regroup, hit Velion ter. Bckraven was a doomed city, they argued; no need to bleed here.

  But Rheomar saw it differently. He was an emperor, and bowing to a petty lord like Velion was unthinkable. Worse, retreating before Velion’s ragtag five hundred, barely an army, would make him a ughingstock across the empire. Other lords would smell weakness, and their own rebellions would brew. This war wasn’t just a fight; it was his legacy. He had to win, and win big, crushing Velion so thoroughly no one would dare whisper his name again.

  If Velion was bluffing with illusions and dragging this out with pgue corpses, Rheomar decided, the answer was simple: storm Bckraven Hold, crush him, and leave no trace. He should’ve done it from the start. So with nearly forty thousand men, he marched, a thunderous wave descending on the city.

  His army’s morale had been gutter-low, but seeing Velion on the city’s ramparts sparked a collective exhale. There he was, frail as ever, slumped in his wheelchair, pgue-ravaged. His left hand clutched a potion bottle, sipped weakly, his face bloodless, eyes sunken. He coughed, blood staining his fingers, looking every bit a dying man. Beside him stood Sebastian, his steward, pale, handsome, rumored to be a male succubus. What could one charm-demon do against an army? No one else was there, no soldiers, no defenses.

  “Where are your men, Lord Velion?” Rheomar bellowed, voice booming, a mocking grin splitting his face.

  Velion’s reply came loud, defiant despite his sickness, though his nerdy tone cked the deep growl of a warrior. “I sent them away. They’re healing with potions. Staying here risks reinfection.”

  “Surrendering, then? Bit te for that,” Rheomar sneered, throwing Velion’s old taunt back. “But if you carve off your own dick, hold it in your mouth, and kneel before me, I might let you die quick. Ha!” His men roared with ughter, the jest fueling their scorn.

  Velion’s ugh answered, rough and grating, like sandpaper scraping, broken by coughs. “My city’s full of traps. Turn back now, swear fealty, and you might still die quickly.”

  Traps? He’d just admitted his men were gone. Where were these ambushes? Rheomar saw only a desperate man, babbling nonsense at the end of his rope. His soldiers jeered, their ughter echoing off the walls, mocking a fool. With a sweep of his sword, Rheomar ordered the charge. His army stormed Bckraven’s gates, breaching them effortlessly. Inside, no traps waited. Just empty streets, once-thriving, now littered with the corpses of the city’s dead. Velion’s wheelchair sat among them, his gaze cold and unyielding. He drew a dagger, sliced his palm deep, and flicked the blood across the ground.

  “System, activate [Deathmarch] and [Wail of the Damned],” Velion said, words cryptic, unheard-of spells to the soldiers’ ears.

  The corpses stirred, rising slowly, a legion of the undead born in an instant. Driven by Velion’s will, they lurched toward Rheomar’s men, a tide of rotting flesh. The soldiers braced to fight, but a piercing, horrific wail erupted from the undead, sharp, anguished, carrying the pgue’s torment, the victims’ rage and despair. It burrowed into the living, bypassing covered ears, searing their minds. Men felt the pgue’s agony as if it were their own, their resolve crumbling. Some froze, others pissed themselves, weapons shaking in their hands. Even Sebastian, at Velion’s side, grimaced, pain flickering across his face. Velion alone remained unshaken, expression bnk, coughing softly as he fumbled with trembling hands to light a pipe.

  If the mage mutiny hadn’t gutted Rheomar’s forces, their fire spells could’ve burned this undead horde to ash. But that was a fantasy now, and the reality was a sughter unfolding before a man too sick to stand.

  The nightmare worsened. Every soldier felled by the undead legion rose to join them, swelling their ranks, amplifying their piercing wails. The screams grew louder, now ced with accusations, bming Rheomar’s blunders, his arrogance. His army dwindled, fear strangling what remained. Retreat was a dream; the undead had them boxed in, a writhing wall of rotting flesh blocking every path. The Ashen Knights, once unbreakable, were trapped, drowning in the wail’s torment.

  “Fuck you, Velion! I surrender! Stop their screaming!” Rheomar roared, his voice cracking, desperation overtaking pride.

  Velion’s reply dripped with disdain. “If you can’t face the wrath of the dead you’ve wronged, you don’t deserve to take their lives. And this is how you wield necromancy.”

  Rheomar bristled, fury fring. “What about my men? Who gave you the right to—” He cut off, staring at Velion. The man was fiddling with his pipe, trying to pack tobacco with clumsy, pgue-weak hands, his face bnk, as if the wails were just wind. He muttered to Sebastian, “Why do you people bother with this? Why not just make cigarettes?” A cough racked him, blood flecking his chin.

  “Master, what are cigarettes? And your cough’s getting worse. Maybe you shouldn’t…” Sebastian started, but Velion shoved the pipe and tobacco at him, impatient. Sebastian sighed, packed it neatly, and handed it back. Velion lit it, took a drag, and coughed harder.

  The undead’s one-sided sughter dragged on all day, their wails relentless, shredding the minds of Rheomar’s men. Everyone broke, everyone except Velion, unmoved, and Sebastian, grimacing but steady.

  “Please, Lord Velion, let us die!” came the pleas, ragged, from the Ashen Knights and the st of Rheomar’s soldiers.

  Velion sighed, almost bored. “Fine, it’s time.” He raised a hand, summoning [Arcane Missiles], the spell Rheomar had dismissed as illusion. One strike obliterated the remaining thousands, their faces sck with relief, no trace of fear or rage left. With that blow, Rheomar’s defeat was absolute.

  Only then did Rheomar see it: Velion had pyed him from the start. Never using [Arcane Missiles] to attack directly, he’d let Rheomar believe it was a trick, sowing doubt that turned the emperor against his own mages. Rheomar’s paranoia did the rest, gutting his magic forces through his own bde. When he needed those mages most, against the undead, he had nothing. Velion had orchestrated it all, a puppet master pulling strings Rheomar never saw.

  Velion didn’t spare him a gnce. “Make sure it’s timed correctly,” he told Sebastian, turning away. As he went, he hummed a gritty bass riff: “Duh… duh-duh… Duh… duh-duh-DUHH… duh… duh-duh… duh-duh—DUHH!”

  What followed fit Velion, well John’s sick streak to a tee. Sebastian, the male succubus, cast a spell over the corpses. Then every body’s thing shifted, becoming erected and bold, even it was broken, rotten, and they shambled toward a stunned Rheomar, closing in with eerie purpose.

  Slowly, the corpse found every hole on Rheomar. They didn't really know which holes were fit for the “purpose”, since they were only corpses. So Rheomar lost his eyes, suffocating, and stopped hearing anything. He wished he had cut his own penis off, and did what Velion said.

  As Rheomar’s mind frayed, his body failing under the onsught, he felt the sweet pull of oblivion, only to snap back, whole and unharmed, standing again in the corpse tide. He stared at Sebastian, who met his gaze with calm detachment.

  “Your Majesty, my master activated [Time Loop],” Sebastian said. “It traps Bckraven’s undead here, forever, so they can’t threaten other nds. My merciful master even used his own blood to consecrate them all, including your men. But you, Majesty, you’ll have to stay.” With that, he turned and left.

  Funny thing was, the High Goddess, that “dumb bitch”, didn’t cut the memory there. She let her chosen killer, this rapist-murderer transpnt, relive it all, endlessly, until he was gasping, near death. Only then did she mutter “oops” and yank him back.

  No wonder he feared Velion, feared John. His cunning was a bde, but his cruelty was worse. To him, John was a monster, more twisted than he’d ever be. Even that hummed riff, “Duh… duh-duh… Duh… duh-duh-DUHH… duh… duh-duh… duh-duh—DUHH!”, sent shivers through him, a trigger tied to terror.

  Yet this same John, dreaded for his merciless edge, now sat on the bed with his new mother-in-w, Yeong-suk, wilting under a scolding from her. Her voice cut into him, calling out his weakness like he was some soft kid, not the man who had broken empires.