SlaughterBot

233: Information Guild

Buildings rose around them, streets disappeared away. Hulking undead beings with huge arms and legs, but no heads, lumbered slowly through the area.

Nicolai took it in all in through cameras and out through his helmet’s visor, while slipping through the crowd around him

The majority of them were standing still, staring at the City. They started to gradually move around, slightly complicating his speedy manoeuvring around him as they drifted about, staring around like tourists as...

232: The Phantom City

The Earthborn laughed incredulously. He glanced around, realising he and the Cultivator standing across from him were increasingly the centre of attention. Nicolai saw a flash of pridefulness on the man’s face. Then he gripped and aimed his auto-shotgun, levelling it at the Cultivator. ‘Hand over your valuables, beg for my forgiveness, and I’ll leave your family a somewhat intact corpse.’

The Cultivator sneered and a shield shimmered around him. He rai...

231: Assembler

Nicolai looked the Assembler over carefully. It came packed with raw materials, all of its vats and bins full, and was thus able to create a huge variety of items.

He looked at the crack in the wall and his thoughts spun on, into matters of security, which as always were a priority. The cave was a risk. Threat Analysis and Simulations presented a simple solution; some explosives, placed after careful analysis of the cave rock, should be able to cause a series of collapses. With that he ...

230: Cultivator's Grotto

In the side of a gigantic tree, a person-sized divot had been carved out—a little cubby, just big enough for Nicolai to sit within. The trees branches, heavy with leaves, formed a screen around it.

He doubted the tree was happy about this, but it was large enough to not be particularly bothered by the comparatively tiny hole he’d made in it. And anyway, that was the risk of being a tree. Small things might dig their way into you.

Around the outsides of this divot he’d carved...

229: Looting

[Author Note: just a quick note, I realised I should've been using Clan, not Sect, earlier when talking about Hao's people ;o I've changed those references now, but just for you to keep in mind - he's from a Clan, not a Sect

aaand another Author note I just realised I should put here - I also fixed the plothole of him never getting Kleos' quest reward, by sliding that into the first chapter of book 2, 217 - now that's how he got the Burst Shield which I originally described him as "maki...

228: Hunted

Nicolai dodged frantically to the side, a lance of green energy crackling past him and blowing a hole in a tree with an eruption of splinters and chunks of wood.

A Silver Arrow streaked at him and he raised the Artifact Blade, holding it like a shield. Point up, fist behind the flat. His movement was already committed and he wasn’t able to dodge. He twisted his body, shoved with his arms, and the flat of the blade caught the arrow. It screamed along the metal with a spray of white spa...

227: Game Over

[Author Note: Hope you enjoyed the RTS stuff, I'm afraid it ends here cuz I need to focus on writing the rest of the story lol. I didn't expect ppl would enjoy it so much, so originally didn't write very much of it - before I saw your comments, it was literally, "this is how the game works..." followed by "and then they played the game and this is how it went." I expanded it as much I could in the time but with how it's setup, it's difficult to add more and I'm worried going even more detaile...

226: Busy Busy

Session end. Game state will be paused, and players are given a chance to rest.

Nicolai’s podium gained a new option. It read: Enter rest area. He tapped it, and the ground he stood upon shifted then began to sink. As the area his podium occupied sank into the ground, Nicolai watched the other Cultivators disappearing into their own underground areas.

Soon he found himself in a small room, cut off from the others

Here there was a bed, chair, table, and wa...

Author Note/Retcon Alert!

Don't forget to read new chapter, which released a minute ago below this ^_^

Note/Link:

Today is the day that the final Chapter of Book 1 has gone live on Royal Road.

If you recall, I said I’d ask some questions/do a poll/and give more details on the big note I’m putting on RR at end of Book 1. It’s the same as the one I did here but with questions and a poll and a summary of book 1 plus summary of Nicolai’s power/equipment etc as he goes into the jungle. So p...

225: Forever War

[Author note:

Normally, I write chapter literally months ahead of the time they are released. But in this case, I wrote this entire chapter yesterday because you guys seem so excited by the Cultivation RTS board-game thing lol. Originally, I just timeskipped/summaried most of this because I didn't think people would be so excited about it. So, I hope you enjoy. I tried to incorporate the ideas you guys shared with me, and give it a proper RTS edge with the strats.]

T...

224: First Round

Nicolai sent out his healthy Defender, sending it towards the rightmost neighbour. Jinxiao had started building a new Defender the moment she’d realised hers was going to die, whereas this man had yet to start doing the same—his Worker was tied up making a second Worker, which it’d almost finished. He was the softer target.

The man’s eyes widened when he saw Nicolai’s Defender trundling toward him. ‘Help me!’ cried the bald Cultivator to the others. ‘The Barbarian is att...

223: Play Time

Nicolai considered his opponents, and how he wanted to approach this game. He was mostly interested in learning and surviving. He knew that the Cultivators would join together against him and attempt to entirely destroy him from early on. With that, he would no longer be able to take part in the game and would win no benefits.

All of them likely had more experience than him.

What was the best way to survive?

The steps within the game likely began the same for everyone.

222: Studying the Game

‘Of course we’re friends.’ Hao gave Nicolai a strained and irritable smile.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Nicolai, rising to his feet, smiling at his new “friend” hopefully.

He was rather enjoying this act, and the opportunity to interact with these people. He was learning quite a bit about the aliens. He wondered how far he might be able to push Hao. The sight of the man attempting to control his rising annoyance was surprisingly satisfying.

Hao Zhang’s face tw...

221: Mork the Moron

Nicolai appeared alongside the other Cultivators. They all shied away from him and him from them, gaining a safer amount of space.

But his worry quickly faded. His Mark was quick to inform him there was no combat permitted in this area, and he felt how his Symbiotes had all become bound; still there, still capable of moving and being interacted with, but their Arts could not be used. He also felt how his Soul Sense was bound up, unable to extend or be used properly.

They stood on ...

220: Why Run, When I Can Win?

Do you wish to enter?

Yes, thought Nicolai.

Preparing to enter… time left: 4:59

He frowned. Five minutes? This was trouble. Or was it? The text said combat was not possible within the circle. Since he’d triggered the Inheritance some kind of faint barrier had become visible around the edge, delineating the circle.

He heard a whistle from above, and turning saw the silver arrow shooting through the air, ahead of the Cultivators. Nicolai sl...

219: Inheritance

Nicolai streaked over the ground, widening the gap between him and the Cultivators. While he fled, he worked to corral and cut back the infection, but his efforts were stymied. He was only able to hold it back, quarantine it to his chest area from which it constantly tried to spread. Even with the dark burning through him, this was all he was capable of. Without the dark and the thrill and the Modules, who helped also, he suspected the infection would already be all through him, freezing up a...

218: Pursuit

Nicolai swung his anti-material rifle into position and squeezed the trigger. The process was effortless, the result of a merging between him and the Aiming Module. Though he aimed and fired with casual ease and fluid speed, the shot was dead-centre on target.

The gunshot blew the shield that sprung up around the Tier 2 into a great cloud of smoking Oma; as though God had leaned close to the man and breathed out a mist of pale blue. Nicolai thought it beautiful, as did the Aiming Module...

217: Meeting the Neighbours

The jungle was an endless expanse of vicious life, teeming with Spirit Beasts and monsters. Everywhere a site of conflict, as plants and trees wrestled with one another in a slow, gruelling war for sunlight and nutrients, as insects roved over the ground in tiny streams, and as creatures lumbering and large moved with stealth or brash confidence through the brush.

In a clearing, a monster curled tight around a tree was watching a spirit beast.

The Redback Toothbearer, a two-ton li...

Book 2 notice

Note:

If you haven't read the final chapter, 216: Treasure Binge, then go down and read it first then come back here.

Hey ^_^

So, that concludes book 1. You really cannot imagine how happy I am to have completed it, and finally have him out that castle. I honestly was so tired of the goddamn castle. It was cool at first but yh, there’s a limit. I swear I only intended him to be there for like the first 120ish chapters, 140 max.

Err, anyway, overall I’...