System of a Down (3)

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Desolate Mage: A Legend Reborn!

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* * * * *

Smitten by her beauty, the gods male and female alike strove one with the other over the man's sister.

Eventually, the valiant and mighty god of lightning prevailed.

He took her away, to the powerless brother's anguish.

"I will save you," he swore to himself.

And surrendered himself to the fall into depravity.

* * * * *

The transmigrator Sato Adams cursed.

He was enjoying his NEET life at home, snacking on chips while reading novels on wetnovel.com when a prompt had appeared on his phone, asking him if he enjoyed reading books. Thinking it was the usual developer's prompt to rate their app, he had absent-mindedly clicked yes - and immediately switched to the point of view of the character in the novel he was reading. Problem was...

[System notification: Ding! Congratulations! You have--]

Sato screamed and choked as his face was burned and scarred from an incendiary explosion, then he was sucked out of the hole in the side of the planes cabin.

As he drifted in and out of consciousness due to the intense and sudden pressure change and low oxygen, he could only retain consciousness long enough to shout one word.

"F***!!!!!!"

Shortly afterwards, he crashed into the ground with a splat.

...Problem was, his character was Dustie from Final Destiny 1.

As his spirit floated above his scattered corpse, he was paralysed from the trauma of the horrendous death. He was so disturbed he barely noticed the notification continue, only able to follow it due to no longer having a sense of pain.

[--been selected by the benelovent and loving god of Altruistic Kindness, Loki!] Sato wondered if it was just his imagination, but he was sure even the robotic voice was blushing as it spouted obvious nonsense.

"You mean the god of tricksters, right?"

Ignoring him, the voice continued; [...You will now be resurrected in a top-tier main characters body! Prepare, infidel! 3, 2, 1...]

And so he had been resurrected as a baby Bob Joe.

Which was fine, he guessed. His body was not very talented, but the system gave him bonus stats he could invest, which quickly brought him up to the stat cap for his level. Otherwise the system didn't seem to have any other features.

So he lived a comfortable life with a loving and well-off family, his training progressing rapidly in martial arts, magic and combat techniques due to his experience playing RPGs, reading wuxia series and his maxed-out stats (level 1).

He was looking forward to his future as a Weak-to-Strong System-Story protagonist; ready to level up and shock the Urth as a world-shaking talent. Until he hit his 12th birthday, that is.

Halfway during his birthday party, time froze as he received the system notifications - and 3 choices.

[Ding! Congratulations on unlocking the Divine-level achievement: Survive 12 years!]

(...Divine-level? Either the systems levels are worthlessly cheap or...) Sato had a bad premonition as the notification continued.

[For being the first out of 1,877,294,563 participants to unlock this achievement, you will receive your first quest!]

Wait, almost 2 billion participants and he was the first to survive 12 years?!? How dangerous was this world and system?!? Sato frantically searched for the "quit game" button but to no avail.

[Ding! Quest choice 1 (Easy): Murder and hang Mr and Mrs Magda's bodies from the temple district gate, and paint your name on the mayor's door with red paint.]

[Quest reward: Painless execution. ^_^]

"...In what way is that Easy???"

Not to mention it was insanely evil to ask him to murder his own parents; why was the "reward" not actually a reward; but a punishment instead?!? And what's with that overly cheerful smiley at the end???

Feeling that the system was actually a sadistic evil god, but also realising that getting angry at the system was meaningless, he sighed inwardly and continued listening to the quests. Maybe quest 2 was better?

[Quest choice 2 (Medium): Ascend to godhood as the god of lightning within 500 years.]

This one seemed better, despite the difficulty rating looking to be far, far, far too low compared to the quests actually difficulty. Maybe there was a loophole or cheat to complete it...

[Quest reward: Painless death by the current god of lightning and king of Greek gods, Zeus.]

(...Was he actually all along in a horror genre story...?!? Was death the only objective of this darned system?!? Looked like the first story of Final Destiny reflected the intentions of the system...)

Fed-up with the systems obvious trolling (he hoped it was just trolling him), he said, "Show me quest 3."

[Quest choice 3 (Suicide): Be a big meanie-meanie. Act stupid. Hide your talents until 18 years old. Bully Sam.]

[Quest reward: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

"...there must be a catch. And the creepy pedo-smile at the end gives me chills..."

As he was hesitating, he started to hear a countdown.

[15, 14, 13... Attention to user: User will be reincarnated as every character in the entire Final Destiny series if choice is not made before countdown ends... 2, 1...]

"3!!! I choose 3!!!"

* * * * *

And so here he was, lying strapped to the sacrificial altar of Nadal-dug waiting for his life force to be sucked out. He had ignored his bad feeling about this "teacher" and that this "field trip" was a death flag...

His last thought before dying was, "F*** you system!!!!!!"

[Ding! Congratulations! You have been resurrected as a demon captain... Rejoice, plebeian!]

[Quest choice 1 (Easy): Kill all the gods of Urth.]

[Quest reward: The end of the world.]

[Quest choice 2 (Medium): Collect the skulls of the 1,111 royal heirs.]

[Quest reward: The end of the wo--]

"Shut up!!!"

* ​* * * *

The handsome and paramountly masculine man shook his head angrily. He couldn't accept the change of plans. He paced back and forth in frustration, twiddling his thumbs out of habit while thinking about his options.

He had already prepared to strike in each of the 4 capitol cities of the empires of the middle continent. To unwind the plans now would leave an irreparable black mark on his reputation.

He cursed under his breath. He was already losing support due to the impatience of his supporters for radical results; and for calls for a change of leadership to counter the heavy criticism from their opposing House of Lords. And if that happened, he would likely be ousted before the next years elections...

"Tahaha! You're so cute, why not just give me 1 kiss...?" The revolting demon said something that sent tremors of disgust across even the level 28 knight's body.

"Shut up!" He subconsciously stepped back 5 paces, his face pale from the trauma-inducing image triggered by the towering demons proposition. He really wondered how they managed to seduce anyone with their repulsive appearance... Maybe with lots of drugs and illusion magic.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he spoke firmly; "Regardless of what the NDLDG is doing, it will only make our work easier."

Pausing to phrase his next words right, he continued; "The chaos from that event will be our prime opportunity to strike. We might not be able to take down Rome, Barcelona or Aachen, but Turin and Berlin should fall easily. As for Paris... Our work here will weaken them, and I will personally lead the team to take down the House of Valois."

The abomination stood, swaying as it floated in the air. Then it bent down, and reached out its hands to draw a contract mark.

Seeing Malcan's agreement, he reached out and affixed his own mark onto the contract; a signet of an unsheathed sword hanging from a belt.

Having concluded their business, the picturesque man turned to leave, when the demon spoke.

"Oh, and my children will take care of the snooping insects." Malcan smiled.

Nodding, the man disappeared in a blur as the demon dissipated into the portal. The portal then started to stretch, before dozens upon dozens of long limbed, red-skinned humanoid demons poured out. They looked like bug eyed, horned insects with a humans body but running with their arms and legs. Soon the quasits numbered in the hundreds, if not exceeding a thousand.

Sam felt a chill run up her spine as the horde of 60cm tall creatures all looked at her simultaneously...

And the ravening horde of demons charged over.

Sam felt relieved that she had been smart enough to keep a distance.

"Phew!" She petted Snowie whose fur stood on end as she tried to escape Sam's clutches. "I'm glad we didn't walk too near-- Huh? Since when did I walk all the way over to the portal??"

Seeing that she was suddenly only 50m away and in plain sight, Sam had a look of surprise on her face while Snowie clambered onto her head in panic.

"...Let's fight it out...?" Sam smiled sheepishly; and was bitten on the head by Snowie.

The girl urged her worn out and sore muscles onwards and charged forward to take on the horde; while a howling white and grey cat desperately tried to hang on to the top of her head.