Void.

  Where every vile beings resided within its eternal darkness. Worlds devoured by perpetual night are considered infectious. Spreading madness like a virus and affecting all living, devolving them into aberrants based on their twisted desires and personalities.

  It is said that not all monsters are born equal. Most are made to be foot soldiers or slaves to be spawned as swarms, others became elite showcasing their battle prowess, some can even give birth to multiple beings of their own right and only selected few rise up to the top--each known to be a disaster of mankind, a one-man army.

  The guide explains in detail the different rankings between each monster. This is just a rough idea of what most of them are capable of, so take it with a grain of salt. There are six known Void rankings so far:

  [Pawns]

  Mindless beings consumed by their insanity to kill and devour. Most pawns, if not all, are driven by their instinct of madness due to the trait 'Touch of Gokgok'. Although the weakest beings beyond the Void, they can spawn by hordes in a split second and can easily overwhelm anyone unprepared.

  [Rooks]

  Muscle without brains, only capable of rudimentary thinking. With a bulky build, they are the vanguards with brute strength even tanks seemed like papers to them. They all share the same trait, 'Blood of Behemoth', which makes them an unstoppable force of chaos as their skin becomes tougher than steel.

  [Knights]

  Elite monsters that demonstrate sufficient self preservation and thinking. Powerful and very resilient, with humanoid characteristics, they commandeer the waves, with each may often have one of them leading.

  [Bishops]

  Elite monsters with inhumane speed. These types of monsters are very agile and fast and as resilient as a knight, with a lanky build, their prowess surpasses every void being other than the Kings.

  [Queens]

  Queens are summoning-type monsters that can spawn low ranking beings by way of regurgitation. They have a massive body, and a thick skin. As heavy as they seem, they can run and move faster than a normal human adult. They are usually protected by bishops and knights. When in danger, they can call upon swarms of void beings.

  [Kings]

  These are the strongest known monsters, devolving to become a natural calamity. With unfathomable strength, vitality and unending stamina, these freaks of nature are the only beings that eat their own kind beside humans. Most of them are capable of speech and rationality--but of course, these beings are born from darkness so expect nothing good from them. They are very territorial, no monsters and humans within their proximity can be seen roaming.

  Usually, these monsters fall into one of the categories mentioned, but some outliers--special and unique beings, tend to exceed their counterparts. As mentioned, these are just general descriptions of each ranking, monsters evolve further when being exposed to the Void for far too long. The rate of devolution is tied to their rank inherently. The higher they are, the slower the growth rate. But there are other ways to speed up the progress, that is..

  Eating other living things.

  By consuming flesh and soul of another, monsters can inherit partially or fully the traits and attributes their victims possess, depending on how much their body can absorb. Though these monsters are more inclined to consume anything other than their kind, as their meat is already tainted by madness. Not only does it taste horrid and putrid, the madness lingering within the flesh will further devolve their minds into insanity.

  Of course, aberrants have different levels of tolerance. Some succumbed easily to madness, while others take time to break down. Yet, no being is immune, all will fall to madness sooner or later--all will become a part of the Void!

  Taking my time preparing for the inevitable fight, I waltz my way, hunting and grinding along my path, straight to the south where the black tower resides. I gained a lot of experience but still haven't leveled up so far. My evolved traits have proven to be a more reliable source of power than the attribute points I get from leveling. That's the reason why I min-max my traits as much as I can, continuously using them whenever I can.

  My [Void Cloak] is partially activated, racking up points as time passes by. It acts as an outfit, covering my nakedness when I only have a torn short left. The cloak also hides me from being discovered and repels the chilly air sweeping my whole body as I run fast, blitzing swarms of monsters blocking my path. It doesn't consume mana unless I want it to transform into another shape. I still don't have the means to restore my exhausted mana aside from resting, which takes time to fully recover.

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  I could also jump to another world, rinse and repeat. But after unlocking and absorbing that memory shell, I found out that monsters are slowly gathering near the origin world. Which means the closer I get to Earth-0, the stronger the aberrants will be. So rather than risk being killed in the next world, I have to make sure that I am strong enough to handle such monstrosities.

  "How long will it take for me to reach the origin?" I mumbled, now exiting the gloomy forest and entering a barren land with dead trees splattered across the horizon.

  The land is full of broken human and monster bones sprinkled across the whole terrain, a sign of bad omen for those who dare to enter its territory.

  "So this is where you feed and sh*t." I snarked, casually trampling the old bones in my path.

  Reaching beyond its border, I could finally see clearly how high this massive structure loomed over me, rising up above the dark clouds. As high as the Eiffel tower, maybe more. The entrance seems opened intentionally with no doors to be seen on the far side within the darkness, enticing me to enter while giving off malicious aura.

  Stepping forward, an invisible pressure almost instantly brought me down to my knees and made me sweat cold for just being stared to death coming all the way from the ruined summit.

  "Hahahahahaha, what do you think Hunter, do we have a chance to kill this devil?" I chuckled, gulping the uneasiness rising up again.

  "[My Lord.. if I may.. based on what I analyzed from the unsurmountable interwaves emitted from that being pinning us down here from afar and with our current total stats, we only have a 10% chance at best to defeat that monster even after using the cloak's boost.]" Insinuating clearly its opinion.

  "10% huh... that's enough for me to bet my life." I half-heartedly replied, trudging my way with burdened footsteps.

  "[If you say my Lord... Playing our cards right might bring us a miracle.]" Hunter chimed in, uplifting my half-baked confidence.

  "Thanks buddy, if we survive this battle, you can eat all these vermin to your heart's content!" I muttered to rally ourselves, as different aberrants, far and near, are rushing madly towards us in swarms.

  "[Oh.. but I don't have a heart...?]" It curiously interjects before we dove in at the dead center, as waves of monsters enveloped my view.

  Letting out solid blurry jabs that somehow bent the space of reality for a brief moment, a never ending strikes showered and annihilated rows and rows of the approaching mindless beasts. There are humanoids with different abnormalities like those with no eyes yet having bat-like ears and those running in fours, like apes with a head of a carnivorous worm. I saw some mutated animals too like the rabbit with two heads or the bull with one long horn like lance speeding its way to pierce me. All of them exploded from just being brushed, as waves of sonic boom coming from my endless punches--wiped a third of them in an instant.

  "Hahahahahahaha, come you all! Don't waste my time!" Getting riled up again, my blood burning--the passion for carnage.

  Multitude of monsters have been obliterated, tons of dead bodies and chunks of meat piled up as the meat grinder continued the wanton massacre. For some reason, they are desperately obstructing my path forward. These pawns, dumb as they are, were sacrificing themselves willingly to tire me out before reaching the tower which is still miles from where I stand.

  "Whoever you are trying to scheme behind... Bring it on, hahahahaha!" I blurted loudly, my raging gaze swiftly swept across the never ending waves seeking the master hiding amidst the chaos.

  [Truthseeker]!

  Spotting a dozen humanoid pale aberrants with stitched leathered faces, just standing behind and not engaging at all. At their back, an imposing figure that exudes malice--clad in radiant black armor like skin and sitting on a dark bicorn horse with three pairs of legs. For some reason, these lots really want to stop any attempt of advancement from my end. I also noticed ten dozens of bloated abominations nearby, regurgitating monsters nonstop from their mouth as if there's a portal inside each of them.

  [Gluttonous Pinguis Mulier Lvl 12]

  Queen-rank Aberrant

  Health: 250-------Mana: 500

  Str: 5---------------Int: 30

  Agi: 10-------------Vit: 8

  Def: 300-----------Mor: -56

  "So you guys are the culprit, with all of you gone the waves will cease, right? Let's see how fast you all can puke before I stuff my knuckles inside your mouths." I concluded, running faster than these fodder spawns.

  "[Void Cloak] warp into my will!" I roared, my floating black cloak instantly transformed into arms mirroring mine, doubling my stats and veins popping as blood surges outside my orifices. Twice faster, twice deadly--unchaining me from the tethered force pushing me down.

  Crushing and obliterating everything in front of me in one fluid motion, the bloated pukers are left dumbfounded. Now with a big opening, I dashed at full tilt, leaving afterimages and dust with booming sounds following afterwards. I guess I have now evolved too far beyond what humans and machines are capable of.

  Landing straight in front of these colossal monsters after leaping my way forward, I sent a screeching flying punch at the belly fat of one of these chubby pudge. The sudden strike instantly created ripples in its loose skin and buried my fist deep as the plump monster couldn't evade in time--just standing still and eyes now rolled behind its small skull before bursting to pieces.

  Ting!

  [You earned 250 experience points.]

  These aberrants might have high defense and gigantic bodies. But lucky for me, my damage is blunt-type. With my attack stat far exceeding their defense, they'll just instantly explode from impact. Focusing on my strength and agility stats to enhance my damage and speed might be my next goal.

  Waiting no further, I lunged again faster than they could react. Cocking my gauntlets behind, aiming sight to the nearest flocks of prey. I launched a barrage of fists, raining down towards the unwary victims.

  "Oho~ seems like you lot can't summon while running huh." I deduced after carefully watching the other tubby chubs standing yards away forcefully regurgitating higher tiers of aberrants. On the other hand, the ones running can't even open their mouths. These mounds of fleeing flesh balls are surprisingly fast! Seemingly odd seeing how big and tall they are, they can somehow run faster than an average human adult.

  "Hunter! Extend our fingers and claws as long as you can. We'll whip the sh*t out of these monsters!" I shouted, gritting the forthcoming pain from my fingers being torn and stretched apart.

  With powerful swipes endlessly lashing in their direction, crackling sounds can be heard as their bodies are being shredded into lumps of putrid meat, mincing each blob within my whips' reach.

  Ting!

  [You leveled up +1]

  Ting!

  [You leveled up +1]

  With how many monsters I have killed so far, it's unsurprising that I leveled twice. But now I have understood that the more I level up, the more experience I need to climb further--almost five times more than the previous. Making my experience cap to level up once again be around 600,000 points.

  "Come on.." I cursed my system for giving me a hard time after learning that each emissary has a unique system laid out to them.

  I turned my lamenting thoughts towards the newly born aberrants rampaging their way in my direction. All of them are roughly the same as the one I encountered in the forest with a big bulky body but having more rigid appearances, higher levels and attributes to boot.

  Retracting my whips and claws, I went back pummeling these fools to death. Already severely reduced in numbers, from ten dozen down to only six queen aberrants, the remaining blots hastily tried to turn tail and run to the monsters waiting yards from where we stand.

  "Not gonna let that happen!" letting off a warning punch and blasting two in half--leaving the rest feet planted as dispassionate fear crept into their thick skins. Tensing my four arms to their limit, I let go of the immense force stored within my fists, springing straight to the surviving abominations--Simultaneously bursting and exploding the four like fireworks, ending their fiasco with a resounding thuds of meat and blood falling from the sky.

  My red eyes burned deep at the unmoving group of monsters, looking upon them with contesting glare. Watching the emotionless face of a knight behind trundled forward twisted with its wicked smile widened, oozing its own kind of madness.

  And I stared back smiling with my own burden of madness.