I have become Legion - 4 - Progenitor

[Your health has reached 0]

[You have di…]

[Legion activates – You cannot die]

I had seen that message over and over again. Yet I continue to get up. The undead had called for backup. All twenty undead were tossing me around. Causing great pain. I had gotten an injury in every single part of my body.

Both legs slashed, my heart stabbed, head lobbed off, brain blown to bits by the pommel of a sword. Suffocated under a shield. I even bled out once, as they seemed to not want to get close to me. One of them used a fire spell, and I burned alive. They threw all forms of curses at me. I could feel it. I probably had over 30 minor curses at this point. That’s a problem with the undead. They have tons of those annoying features.

Yet rather than anger, I felt surprisingly calm.

I guess that was because.

[Species: Human (8%)]

With each death, with every time that I use my supernatural willpower to exceed my limits. I feel my humanity leave me. Cold and emotionless, that’s how I feel now.

But I’m not afraid of that.

[Species: Human (9%)]

That’s because the [Legion] trait regenerates all damage and injury. Loss of Humanity seems to be included in this damage and injury.

So I push myself even further. Putting all my willpower into all attacks. With each strike I perform, it destroys my body more than it does the enemy. My muscles burst, my organs scream out in pain, my heart beats shake my entire body. My vision is completely red, yet I am completely serene.

And then, everything goes dark.

…

Mangled and deformed. My hand was mangled and deformed. Holding the knife had become too hard, so in some insanity, I had healed my hand around it. It had become part of my body. And it hurts. It hurt fuck loads. My mind screamed out in pain at the pain of just my body existing. All the muscles in my body were screaming. This was what I felt when I came out of my trance for just a second. But I couldn’t just exist in the pain. I had to push further, fight more.

The blade of the knife was in the neck of one of the undead. I had killed the first undead in my trance of non-existence. But that was just one undead.

My muscles ached as I stood up from above the undead.

I was surrounded by more.

I’d need to kill them all.

It was going to hurt.

I didn’t know how many times I’d have to go in and out of that trance.

But I’d do it all.

To save the world.

And so I took a step. It was the biggest step I could take. Then a second, it was bigger than I could take. It was going beyond my limits. My everything screamed out in pain as I was overcoming all limits. Yet I couldn’t stop.

The undead I was heading towards had a spear. Instead of blocking, parrying or dodging the tip. I let it go through me. It hurt when it stabbed me. But I wasn’t over. I continued to take steps forward, pushing the spear deeper into myself. But the undead was trying to pull it out. I couldn’t let that happen. So I tried to hold on to the spear. But he was stronger.

So instead, slamming the edge of my knife to the shaft of the spear, I tried to cut it. Unfortunately for me. That was not the only undead. I was stabbed by the gladius’s of the others, smashed by shields, and pierced by spears. Each attack rung out through my head as pain. It was all-consuming. And finally, they separated me from the spear. I had failed to take out one of their weapons.

But I did notice one thing.

There was slight damage to the spear.

So, I’d eventually win.

And so I did it again.

I rushed at the undead, to die more, to fight more, to damage more, and then they’d eventually fall to the ground. Dead. Like I had been. So many times already. But that path was the path of pain. All-consuming pain. My entire existence would be pain for this brief moment. But I’d eventually win.

Because.

I’ll never lose.

And so I entered the trance of pain and non-existence once more.

…

Pain screamed out in my mind. A dozen spears impaled me. If I was to have to describe what I looked like, I’d say a porcupine. In my trance I had gotten the Bulwark of Empire, and so I was smashing my hand to that. The blade was between the plates of a heavily armored enemy. Like chisel and hammer, I was pushing it deeper. But each strike broke apart my hand. It was a dangling mess.

But I couldn’t give in to the pain.

I’d need to go further. So I struck again.

Pain.

It was fucking painful, though. Any many of my strikes just simply did nothing. Even though my hand was healing at a rapid rate, it could not survive this kind of usage. But I still did it. Each strike would bring me one step closer to victory. And that was the dominating wish in my mind. Only two things existed there.

Pain and Victory.

Victory through Pain.

And so my mind fell to darkness again.

…

I was holding the Bulwark of Empire now.

I had done some insane shit to get it. Jumped right into an enemy’s attack and abused the fact that my body would be reformed to move behind him. It hurt like hell, probably, but I can’t really remember. Memory is not essential to fight. So I just fight. I don’t remember when the fighting began. I don’t know when it will end. There are too many corpses of slain enemies, and yet there are still too many enemies still left to slay. But I still do it.

The killing has become faster. The Bulwark of Empire allows me to turn my willpower into a supernatural power. It gives the blade a purple glow. And with it, I can actually kill these undead with just a couple good hits to crucial spots.

It still hurts.

Fuck, it still hurts.

It’s a different kind of pain, though. It’s pushing my mind beyond its limits. While before I was pushing just my body to the next level, now my mind was becoming white with the choir of pain. Static. But I could never give in. I’ll never lose.

Pain beyond all imagination screamed out in my mind as I kept pushing myself beyond all limits.

I didn’t have another choice.

This world would be destroyed if I was not better.

If I wasn’t more than what I am.

So I pushed all my muscles. My willpower. Heart and lungs. Fire of the soul. A spear pierces through my chest, a miss. It didn’t hit anything important. Yet I pushed it further. I closed the distance to my attacker, forcing his weapon deeper into my body. My hands grasped onto his shield, and my gladius sought out his neck.

An arrow struck through my neck, and so I couldn’t breathe. My attack still did not cease. The shield lowered and lowered till I could see the undead. It was fear. That was what I saw, and in its eyes I saw a corpse. That corpse was me.

I slit his throat.

And then I pulled out the arrow from my own throat.

It was a hot pain. Yet it was also cold. My blood was leaving my body.

I was dying.

But that wasn’t allowed.

I wanted to give up.

But that wasn’t allowed.

I just wanted everyone to survive.

But I’d be the only one who could allow that.

And so I fight. Fight more. Fight more and more again. Each death and each pain built up on the last. Till the corpses of my enemies would stop appearing before my eyes, when I had built a mountain of death with my own ocean of pain. Then, when I had done all that, I could rest. But that day wasn’t today.

A blade opened up my back. The pain took my breath. It felt like fire, yet it was cold.

A hammer blew open my head. For the briefest moment, I had died, but I was restored.

A spear pierced through my stomach. It felt empty. I felt empty. It was all so cold.

And so I fell into the darkness again.

I became a Legion of one.

===

Born from a demon’s vile magic, the shadow demon had always considered humans a weak species.

Yet…

In front of its eyes, it saw something else.

All light had gone out in the eyes of the human. Yet his actions, repeated, repeated, and repeated once more. Each time that human experienced a death, it become something more, yet as much something less. The shadow demon could not consider that thing human no longer. With precision it took forth injury, ignoring pain as if it didn’t exist. Continuing what was supposed to be a futile struggle.

Then the first undead fell.

After the undead had realized that the human didn’t die from an injury to the heart, they all joined in beating him up. Yet it did nothing to change the situation. The human kept coming back from death, and each time more ruthless, more efficient, learning a hundred lessons with each death. Even though the level difference should’ve made the fight impossible.

The undead were slowly getting damaged. The human was relying on critical hits. With only around 3% of his attacks being critical hits, and each critical hit only dealing the minimum amount of damage. It would take over five hundred critical hits to kill the undead. Yet the human did not consider that. It had only one thing on its mind. That was victory.

With his dagger destroyed, he bashed the undead with his fists.

The shadow demon was unsure how long it had taken…

Eventually, that human was the last one standing.

‘Maybe he will retreat now?’

The demon thought for only a moment, as the human began sprinting into the fort. As if the human knew there was something it needed in the fort. A goal that dominates one’s own existence.

Quickly, though, the undead surrounded the human. The human showed no hesitation as he kept running towards one undead. The undead slashed the human in two, and the human did not resist. Rather, it was as if he helped with it. With his body in two, some force beyond understanding restored it. The restored body was behind the undead.

‘Did that human plan his own death like that?’ The shadow demon thought in horror.

The human, now out of the encirclement, continued running.

‘There’s no way he could move that fast.’ The shadow demon felt another discomfort. He had woken up with his first visions being the human using the holy embers to burn off curses, and the shadow demon had analyzed his body then. The human was beyond weak. It was at the very limit of what a living person required to keep living. And the shadow demon confirmed again. The body was at the very bottom in all metrics.

Yet…

It was moving like a normal person. Shedding off the limits of the body through some power that the shadow demon could not understand. And the shadow demon had noticed something else during the endless fighting. The thoughts of the human had gotten colder and colder over time, as if he was losing what he himself was.

And now it was quiet.

There was no sound.

It was completely still.

Even the dead have regrets, yet that moving corpse did not even hold those. It was wholly empty, as if it had burnt everything away in order to act as barely a normal person. It moved without hesitation. Stopped again and again. Each time, it came up with the fastest path towards its goal.

At the end of its path.

A corpse wielding a gladius, which glowed with a purple light.

The human took the gladius, and instantly the shadow demon felt a shiver. While the shadow demon already felt afraid of that being, it called human, now it was a more profound fear. Whatever that weapon was, the shadow demon could not run away from it.

An undead soldier had reached the human, and like before, it was about to stab him with his sword. And like before, the human accepted the attack. Yet the difference was that the humans counterattack now contained a great power. Instantly slicing off the head of the undead, it collapsed on the ground.

The shadow demon watched in horror as the corpses piled up. That human, over the course of an eight-day battle, had killed over five thousand undead.

===

I wake up from the darkness.

[You have recovered 100% of your humanity. The state of mindless undeath has been lifted.]

And I see that message in front of me. Around me are thousands of corpses. In my hands is a gladius glowing a purple color.

Bulwark of Empire – Weapon, Gladius [B-20]

— The damage of this weapon scales off the wielder’s willpower stat.

— All pain resistance traits of the wielder are improved by 20%.

— The wielder gains damage resistance scaled off their willpower stat.

Yes, this was the weapon I was after. It seems it was buffed since I’m in Hell difficulty. Items in Quest have both a grade and a level. Their grade is determined at creation, and is very hard to change without completely remaking the item. While the level can be increased by sacrificing magical crystals, or by specific smith npcs in exchange for money.

And the Bulwark of Empire is the perfect weapon for me, as it scales off my willpower stat, which has the highest growth rate, considering my combat style. Now that I think about it, I wonder what my willpower stat is at?

[Willpower: 102]

What?

What the hell?

Wait, what the fuck?

How did it get so high? What the fuck was my body doing while under the mindless undeath condition?

It exceeded 100, which is the soft cap for uncapped stats. Ah, to explain, Quest has 2 types of stats, capped and uncapped. Capped stats have a hard cap at 10 times your starting stat. Strength, for example, is a hard cap stat, meaning no matter how much training I do, my strength will never exceed 10. But there are also uncapped stats like willpower or faith. These don’t have a hard cap, but they do have a soft cap, which is 100 for all of them. After this point, it takes 10 times more effort to advance forth. Yet somehow my willpower already exceeded the willpower soft cap.

I wonder what’s my level is? It shouldn’t be too high. As repetitive actions have diminishing gains in Quest, and the difficulty settings reduce the amount of xp one gets. It should be around 3 or 4 I think?

[Class: Progenitor – 5]

Huh? Wait what, it already picked a class for me, and I’m level 5? Exactly how many undead were there in this fort? On hard difficulty, there was supposed to be around a thousand or so.

Well, there’s an easy way to figure that out.

I open the logs, and search for the phrase [You have killed a creature exceeding your level.] And it returns me 5322 results. So I killed 5322 undead, that’s a fuckton more than I thought. On hard difficulty this fort had around a thousand or so undead, so I guess hell difficulty will be having 5 times the enemies.

And the class itself. Progenitor. I know it, but I’ve never played it. Simply put, it’s the class given to the first person to create a new class. A little complicated, and it’s not actually in the games code. It’s only a thing in the lore. Like the first swordsman ever was the progenitor of the swordsman class, meaning all the class skills in the swordsman class were created by that progenitor, and people who use that class are just following in their footsteps.

But why was I given a Progenitor class?

Death Seeking Swordmanship – Class Trait [P-5]

A unique form of swordsmanship that seeks the death of both the enemy and the wielder.

— The closer you are to 0 hp, the more damage you deal.

— Your swordsmanship has increased chance to make the enemy fall into a fear state.

Hmm? I guess this is it. It’s pretty good. Well, for me that is. Normally you’d want to not get close to 0 hp, but for me that doesn’t matter. Fuck it, last fight, I was basically the entire time at 0 hp. I wonder what does the P stand for though? The grades in Quest go from F to A, and then S, and EX, but there’re no mentions of P. Does it mean ending, or maybe personal?

[Pending Grade – Level 5]

Oh, I guess I got my answer by clicking on it.

From what I understood, the progenitors could improve the grade of their class skills by using them. So I guess that’s good. Well, yeah, to be honest, this is awesome. I’m using a class that didn’t exist in Quest. Of course I’m hyped.

“YEEEEAHH!!”

I shout out to show my excitement. I love Quest, and learning new things about it always makes me excited. Thankfully, I don’t feel like I sustained any mental trauma from that fight. I’m not even sure if that’s possible with the legion trait. Is mental trauma considered damage?

“Why are you being so quiet?” I look over to my shadow, wondering why he hasn’t already started talking shit about me. Like come on, you should be praising demons right about now.

“Monster.” It whispers.

What did you say, you bastard? You’re a fucking shadow demon calling me a perfectly normal human, a monster? Well, yeah I am. I’ve become legion after all. Though, umm actually, the calamities aren’t monsters. They’re forces of nature that try to end the world.

Now time to check the rest of my sheet.

First of all. As I thought before, I seem to have gotten a lot of curses. But well, that doesn’t really matter. Because the amount is so high, I managed to get something really good.

If [Pain Conquest] is the best pain resistance trait, then [Curse Conquest] is the best curse resistance trait. And the requirements for that are to get over one hundred curses in one day. Not sure how long that fight took, but I can confirm that I have over five hundred curses, and I’ve gotten the [Curse Conquest] trait. It even says so on my status screen. Look:

[Traits]

Legion [EX-2]

Pain Conquest [B-44]

Curse Conquest [B-10]

Death Seeking Swordmanship [P-5]

Though I wonder what caused my Legion trait to level up.

And I also got a nice ability.

Limit Break — Willpower Ability [A-2]

Overcome the limits of your body with overwhelming willpower.

— Temporarily increase your physical stats by an amount scaled off your willpower.

— Usage of this ability beyond the time limit causes 10 hp per second damage.

It’s an awesome ability that you get at 100 willpower. And with the [Legion] trait, all of its problems are counteracted. Now you might be thinking? Isn’t this already plenty overpowered? No way in hell. The late game fuckers on hard difficulty already break the balance. I wouldn’t be surprised if the demon king was level 500 on hell difficulty. Oh, and 1 level is roughly a 10% increase in your power.

Anyway, next order of business after getting done with this place is to go and kill a demon. That demon not gonna know what hit him. You might be thinking, can’t the demon just run away once it realises it can’t beat you? Well, too bad for him, I’m not so kind. Demons have these things called true names. If you know their true name, then they have to obey certain rules. For example, I can make them fight me in a duel to the death. And since I can’t die, they’re cooked.

Another fun thing with the true names. If you speak their true name to their corpse, well, then you get their primary trait or ability. Normally in a game to get their true names, you need to go through a long quest, but isn’t it hilarious that I memorized the names of all 72 demons? And I think I even know the demon king’s true name, though it was never confirmed.

Ahh, it feels nice. Now that I got the [Curse Conquest] trait, I am immune to the effects of curses rank B and below. Meaning I don’t feel hungry, and the world isn’t grey. Well, actually, I do feel a bit hungry, but that’s nothing a little neck slicing won’t fix.

So yeah, now that I’ve gotten all that sorted out. It’s time to head on over to my next treasure trove. Though it’s under a different name for now.

Activating Limit Break, I run through the forest, now at a slightly above average speed.

It feels like sparks of lightning spreading across my body. It stings a little but nothing that much.