Reincarnated With The Degenerate System

Some of them dropped to the ground and stayed there. They didn't run. They didn't cry out. They just sat down in the dirt and closed their eyes, waiting for whatever came next.

An old man spoke up. His voice didn't shake at all, even with the ground moving under his feet.

"We're done running," he said. "We don't want to be scared anymore. Just make it quick."

Near him, a woman pulled her husband against her chest. She said something quiet into his ear.

I looked at the group. Maybe five hundred or six hundred people total. Nobody was screaming at me or grabbing at my clothes, begging for a spot in my world. They made their peace.

"Very well."

I raised my hand and let the lightning fall. This time it wasn't the harsh kind I'd used on the crowd earlier. It came down soft and fast, turning each of them to ash before they could feel much of anything.

No pain. No noise. Just an end they picked for themselves, given exactly the way they wanted it.

The rest of the crowd took off running the moment the light faded. They scattered in every direction, even though there was nowhere left to go. The world had stopped having safe places a while ago, but most of them hadn't figured that out yet.

"You should have chosen a faster death." I turned and flew up higher and higher.

From up there, I could see everything.

The ground was splitting apart in long black cracks, tearing through fields and roads and rivers like paper ripping.

Lava pushed up through the gaps in thick orange streams, lighting up the whole sky in red.

Mountains that had stood forever were folding in on themselves, disappearing into the cracks like they'd never existed. Forests burned down in seconds, gone before the fire even had time to spread properly.

Way off in the distance, past where the land curved out of sight, I saw the wave. It was bigger than anything I'd ever seen, taller than buildings, taller than the mountains that were still standing.

It was swallowing the coast whole, and from this far away I couldn't even hear it, but I knew it had to be loud.

This world had minutes left. Maybe not even that.

But down below all of it, standing untouched by the lava and the shaking ground and the wave, was Hexor's tower. Still standing tall. Still building higher, like none of this destruction mattered to it at all.

I called my clones back through the Hive Mind, one by one, pulling them into my artificial world until only my real body was left. Then I flew straight for the tower.

The air was hot and full of ash, but it didn't bother me anymore.

Hexor felt me coming before I even got close, like always.

"So you actually pulled it off," he said, and there was something like respect in his voice, mixed in with the amusement. "Impressive."

"I told you I'm special," I said, landing at the base of his tower. Even here, the ground trembled a little, though his tower didn't move an inch.

He laughed, telling me to come inside. I listened for any sign that he was lying to me. There was nothing. Besides, If he'd wanted me dead, he could have done it many times already and never bothered with any of this.

Inside the tower, there was a portal glowing against the wall. It didn't look like any normal magic I knew, but the language used was the same as in the Artificial World.

"You're finally here."

An avatar of him appeared, but his monstrous form was gone. In its place stood a tall, lean man around eight feet tall, with pale skin, white hair, golden eyes, and pointed ears that reminded me of an elf's. Even so, I could still make out the faint outlines of multiple closed eyes across his face.

"This leads to a liberated world. The architects have no influence there."

"Is that your real face? It's definitely an improvement over the last one, but I'm still more handsome." I chuckled.

Hexor smiled. "Sorry to disappoint you, but you're the least attractive out of all my disciples by a wide margin."

I almost threw up after hearing that. Why did it sting so much more coming from him now? Was it because I was starting to feel insecure?

I mean, I could technically change my face whenever I wanted, but I'd grown attached to this one. It was mine.

"What do you mean by a liberated world? Does that mean it survived the Architects?"

He shook his head. "It's simply a world that was destroyed before but somehow repaired itself. It rarely happens, but it's one of the safest places out there."

Before I could speak further, he raised his hand.

"We don't have time for talk. Take this." He held out a small emblem and pressed it into my hand.

"When you get there, find my sect. Show them this, and they'll know you came from me."

"Can't you just send me directly to the place?"

He shook his head. "No. The journey from here passes through unstable spatial route. You'll need to protect yourself with the strongest barrier you can muster, or you will end up somewhere completely random. Worse, you might be stranded floating in space forever."

Yeah, I didn't like the sound of that, but staying here would also lead to death. It wasn't like I had much of a choice.

"Hurry up. Once this world is finished, the architects will come looking for me directly, and you will be a liability."

To think that even after becoming this strong, I was still being treated like this. It really put into perspective how terrifying the enemy where.

"And what about you?" I probed.

"Once I'm done taking all the resources here, I'll transfer my consciousness to another world they've infected and take more from there. When I'm ready, I'll return. So I expect you to grow strong enough to be useful in the war too."

So that was his whole strategy all along. Steal resources from the Architects, make himself stronger, and make them weaker.

I had to admit, his dedication was terrifying. No wonder even the Monkey God spoke so highly of him. This guy had been fighting a war of attrition for who knew how long.

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