As I looked at the horde of unmoving monsters and the few friendlies, I found it odd that everything stopped when I showed up. I put the thoughts away since thinking hurt, and moved on to more important things. Like a weapon. Or 20.

  "I'm going to borrow these for a bit." I said out loud to no one in particular as my mental hands grasped all the spears in sight. I let the Jipio keep their small primitive weapons. I wouldn't need them anyway.

  I didn't count how many guards there were but I had gotten good at determining the amount of 'hands' I was using. 23 spears, so probably 23 guards. Give or take a few. As the weapons floated up into the air, that seemed to wake up the monsters. As a few screamed or roared and charged. They were the guineapigs then. I never did find out how fast I could accelerate something now. So I of course put every single point of Energy into a single spear.

  It broke the sound barrier, went straight through the random target, and decimated the monsters and ground behind it. The air wave that followed blasted the first monster into pieces, and sent the front line of monsters flying backwards. The ones farthest from the cone weren't knocked back but did fall over. In the middle of the monster wave, where the spear ended up hitting the ground, was a massive crater. It was about 40 feet across and few feet deep. The spear was gone, and so was a large number of monsters.

  "Ok that had to have been around mach 1 instantly, and with the spears these people use which are 25~ish feet long, the resulting explosion is similar to around 250 sticks of dynamite? That sounds about right. Probably shouldn't do that again." I mentally chastised myself because I could have hurt the friendlies with that. It definitely damaged the wall. I couldn't see it through the dirt and dust. Also there was a lot of glitter and pink glue.

  Turning to look at the friendlies, I was pleased to see that they were running away. Which was good because I still had 22 spears of wrath. Not like I was going to use them like missiles again. Definitely not. I was totally not flying higher to save myself from the debris. Noooo of course not.

  "I AM THE DARK LORD AZURATH! THE ELDRITCH INCARNATION OF WAR!" I yelled out with glee. I didn't even know what I was saying, I was just having fun going full edgy 'dark lord'. Being cringe is fun, fuck off.

  I put 60 points into 2 spears and sent them down toward the opposite sides of the wave. The monsters were still reeling, but they seemed to not care all that much since they kept making their way toward town. A few did look up as I yelled my ramblings, then the glitter bomb went off.

  Glitter, pink glue, dirt and dust went flying into the air. I saw some other bits too but they were also pink and glittery. I was laughing like a loon. The explosions weren't nearly as strong as the first one, but they were half as strong. leaving 20 foot craters compared to the 40.

  They still kept storming though. Stomping and clawing over the corpses and craters. I had gone from a siege weapon to a fucking artillery cannon. I was almost tempted to drop the remaining 10 skill points into Energy just to see what I could do then. I still had 20 spears left.

  Was I taking this situation seriously? No. It's very hard to when everything feels like a game. The monsters bleed glitter and glue. I know it's not their real blood, but it's not easy to keep that in mind when they die so easily. I have a system for fucks sake. I have an XP bar, and quests. How could I not slip into a mindset of "I'm freakin' gaming" every time a monster explodes?

  So I used 2 more spears to blow up more monsters. Aiming for the spots closer into the wave instead of the edges. More glitter, and more pink glue. There was hardly any left now. Some still going strong and making a break for the town while most were crawling or just screaming on the ground. I should probably feel bad, but I don't. Instead of using the spears like bombs, I used them as melee weapons. Using 20 Energy on 6 spears. Stabbing monsters, slashing them, and even just bashing them on the head. I cleared them up with just those 6.

  I still had 18 spears since the 6 didn't disintegrate like the others. I kept watching for any more, and as the dust settled I saw no more movement. The wall was cracked. Badly. It would likely collapse soon. That I did feel bad about. I lowered myself to the ground, the spears floating along with me.

  'Shit... I might have gone overboard.' I let the spears fall to the ground. The 6 I had used were glittery and pink. Dents and deformations in the metal. Pretty much unusable scrap now.

  Looking behind me I saw the town. Along with a bunch of horrified faces. 'I'm not welcomed here anymore. It's my fault too. Damn I'm stupid.'

  That made me feel even worse. This wasn't a game. No matter how much it felt like one. There were people living here. The best thing I could do for them is to just leave. I'm not sure if I'm becoming more mentally unstable or if the system is altering my mind.

  'Maybe one more gaslight before I go?' I refrain from slapping myself, since I'm wearing a space suit. 'You heartless bastard. Just leave.'

  I give a wave, and then simply fly away. Slow enough so I don't cause any more problems. A horrible feeling in my gut.

  --------- Keji ---------

  Blood. Blood, organs, limbs, were everywhere. The screams from the monsters is all anyone could hear along with the few explosions that drowns them out. Only for the screams to come back, just quieter. Like many voices snuffed out in a mere second.

  Someone throws up to my left. I can't blame them. I had done the same just a minute ago. The smell of raw meat and blood was so strong that a few of the Jipio had fainted.

  The scene was so horrific before us. So wrong. What is a Human if one at level 4 could kill hundreds without even moving? Level 4! It was LAUGHING. Like it was playing in a sandbox.

  'Is that all we are to it? Just bugs in a sandbox to be played with?' The thought sent a shiver down my spine. It had called itself The Dark Lord Azurath, the Eldritch incarnation of war.

  Regret bubbled up inside me. 'If I had just asked for it's name, I could have known. I could have had the town evacuate. Now we're forced to do whatever it wants.'

  I wanted to hate it. To hate the unknown creature slaughtering the creatures like it was playing with dolls. I couldn't. Every feeling I had was being overwritten with fear. I couldn't even look away from the scene.

  A single bipedal form, clad in an off white suit, hovered above the ruined earth. It's arms outstretched to it's sides like it was reveling in the suffering. It hardly moved when the spears fell upon the monsters. It would occasionally point one of it's hands, but I knew it wasn't needed. It was doing it for no reason other than it enjoyed it.

  I felt sick again, but I had already thrown up. The only thing to come up was that stinging stomach acid. I spit out what I could, tears in my eye.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I don't know how long it took for it to finish off the last of the monsters, but at some point it had turned to look at us. That golden visor looking right at the town.

  It was over. Everything. We would die here. That thing wasn't sapient. That had to be an intelligent monster. There was no other way. I felt so stupid. Of course it was a monster. It had told me that it had a Mana Core. Only monsters had those.

  Looking around I could tell everyone else thought the same. That we were going to die. Except some of the Jipio looked like they were... worshiping the Human. The look in their eyes as they stared at it gave me chills.

  Could they really claim that thing was divine?! It had slaughtered the monsters like it was knocking over a sand castle!

  When I looked back, it was gone. A small form shrinking into the distance, and leaving the mess behind.

  "An ancestor still lives!" A hushed whisper from one of the praying Jipio. They prayed with their tails in their hands, holding it against their forehead.

  That broke the dam as everyone started speaking to each other. The Jipio had segregated themselves, making a small group and whispering to each other. I couldn't hear them over the crowd.

  Though people were talking, most couldn't look away from the devastation. I was one of them. I found myself repeatedly looking back at the corpses and the cracks in the wall.

  Before I knew it I was standing amongst the collection of spears. I don't know when I started walking. The last few minutes were a blur. I was standing there though. Looking at my ruined spear.

  It was heavily deformed. I doubted I could still use it as anything but a stick. A few of the guards ended up following me. A hollow look in their eyes. No one cared about the monsters. Why would we?

  No. What we cared about was how close we had come to dying. To sharing a fate similar to the monsters. If the Human had decided for any reason at all, it could have just erased the town. The spear isn't even needed. It could have just used a rock.

  Our weapons weren't anything special after all. I don't know what the human did to turn them into... whatever made those craters, but the spears were just metal. There was no magic in them.

  We were alive though. We were also completely unharmed. Some small part of me wondered if the Human was really that dangerous. All it had done to us was merely float around us. Sell some ruined leather, bought some stuff, and gloated about it's species. Was it hostile at all? Why had it just left without saying anything? Will it come back?

  ...

  Several hours later and there was a work crew cleaning up the field. Using the craters as a mass grave for the monsters. Some were still harvestable, but most were ruined. Torn apart. The insides becoming outsides. It smelled awful.

  It needed to be done though. I was helping with the effort. Someone made a joke that it was because the Human knew me and so it was my punishment. I know no one blames me for what happened. It would have been a different story if someone died, but that didn't happen. Now that everything has calmed down, plenty of people were happy it came to help. Even if it did make a rather... large mess.

  I wasn't the only one who felt the weird horror when I looked at it. Everyone apparently had. Some speculated it was a skill, while others thought there was an odd energy about it. One of the town magicians had said something about "The nature of eldritch things is horror" but no one really understood him.

  The Jipio had left, but a few stayed to help with cleanup. A few did stay pretty close to me for some reason. Asking the occasional question about the Human.

  "When did you first see it?" Was one of the most frequent questions. The Jipio spoke with a weird hiss to their voice, though it wasn't unpleasant.

  "8 days ago. It came out of the forest with speed then slammed into the wall by accident. It couldn't understand our language until after we, my partner and I, spoke a few sentences." Was the response I gave each time.

  For some reason, the Jipio seemed really pleased by the fact it came from the forest. Did they know something we didn't? Was there some prophecy? I didn't know, nor did I care. That was their business. Might be some weird cultural thing. I did end up asking why they seemed to happy about that the first time.

  "We come from the forests, while the monsters and our brothers come from the mountains. This means the forests are still pure to have the Ancestor come from it." Was the response I got.

  So I stopped caring. It all sounded like a bunch of crap I couldn't care less about. I wasn't a scholar, so I wasn't going to bother about it.

  A few of the workers started making jokes and talking about the "battle" we had witnessed.

  "Did you see that first explosion?! I thought for sure I was going to die. Man I'm happy that thing ended up on our side." One of the guards who lost her spear to the explosions brought up.

  "I know right? We got really lucky it showed up. There's no way we could have gotten through the wave without losing a few people. I'll take losing my spear and my composure over someone dying any time." A male voice responded. It was the one whose spear was used for first explosion. We found what was left of the metal tip and it had his name on it. He's been boasting about it for a while now.

  They are right though. Despite how scary it was, this was likely the best outcome. We would have lived through the wave, sure, but we also would have lost 1 or 2 people. Even more if we got pushed back to town.

  The community is small so everyone naturally knows each other or at least knows of someone else. I'm not sure why everyone felt the fear. It was killing monsters. The things that would happily eat the children without a second thought. The only person who seemed to know, the magician, is shit at explaining things so no one understood what they were talking about. Nomorro, the magician, had seemed super excited though.

  He kept going on and on about eldritch beings and the veil. Similar to how the Human had brought it up. Turns out Nomorro studies such things for fun. What a weirdo.

  --------- Greg ---------

  I was cringing at myself for the way I acted. The things I said.

  "Uugghhhh, I'm such a fucking 8th grader. I even have the syndrome. It's so over for me if I get a skill called 'The dark blade of Azurath, Eldritch God of War'."

  I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I could never forget the faces of terror looking back at me. Plus my suit still felt crusty from the old blood inside it.

  'Damnit, don't tell me my suit is filled with glitter right now.' I sighed as my mood worsened. Before I could go full depressed emo though, I suddenly felt better. Likely some form of alteration to my mind again. Before I could even have a negative thought about it, I suddenly didn't care anymore.

  "This is... worrying. It should be worrying. Stop controlling my mental state so much system." I wanted to be mad but I couldn't.

  "It's your Environmental Adaptation skill, not I. You leveled it up to 12, so it's quite strong now." The voice said into my mind. I wasn't even annoyed at it anymore. It didn't bother me.

  "I'm not going to become some unfeeling machine that murders everything right?" I ask, genuinely worried this time. Which is good.

  "No. It should keep positive emotions, or even boost them."

  "Okay, good. Can I ask how the town is doing?"

  "They seem to be thankful." That was a relief to hear.

  "Why did they fear me so much? Was it what I was doing or something else?"

  "You are an eldritch outsider with a connection to the energy outside this reality. They can feel it's effects from you."

  "Right. The 'horror element' stuff." I sighed again.

  "It's Horror 'essence', but yes." The voice corrected me.

  "Is there a way to hide it? Or make myself seem more normal?"

  I didn't get a response.

  'Alright. Dick.'

  That wasn't a no or a yes, so I'll take it as a maybe. With my luck stat so high, that maybe might as well be a resounding YES. Speaking of stats.

  "System, did I complete that quest?"

  "No. The quest is timed to last an entire month. If you were to reach 10 kills, you wouldn't have been able to overachieve."

  "Wait, that was helpful. Who the hell are you?" I ask in a joking manner, before I realize the horror in that statement.

  "A FUCKING MONTH?!" I had to wait... at least 29 more days before I could do anything with the reward.

  "I at least got some new skills to buy right?" I asked hopefully.

  "No. You have to buy every skill or throw the ones you don't want away. You will never get them again if you choose to do so." The system kindly tells me something I really should have known a long time ago.

  "Fuck." I really didn't want the astral projection bullshit. It sounded like trash at low levels, and what the hell was I supposed to do outside the veil? Talk to Cthulhu? Harvest was an ok skill to have, just not great.

  'Ugh. My precious Skill Points!' I bit the bullet and spent 2 points, buying both skills. I dislike the skills but I hate the idea of throwing away skills even more.

  "Do I have new skills now?" I ask with dread, already knowing the answer.

  "No. There should be some after your next quest."

  That was just perfect. I already had a boring week, but now I got a whole month to kill.

  "What's the next quest going to be? Waiting a whole year?" I sarcastically ask.

  "Maybe."

  '...'

  That wasn't what I wanted to hear. Not. At. All. I'll worry about it later though.

  'Oh well... I'll find something to do.'