Rewriting Reality(End)

Two hours and fifty minutes before the monster release…

The amount of progress Vin and I made surprised me. 

Vin kept the speed at a minimum of thirty kilometers per hour. If we continued like this, the city center was only 15 minutes away. 

This proved that having access to skills made the first scenario relatively easy.

Initially, I wanted to make the first scenario interesting for the readers. I wanted Ray to be a character who struggled as monsters appeared on Earth and fought with them.

Unfortunately, this was quite overused amongst Apocalypse novels. I wanted to do something different which led to me creating the free days.

I had planned to show Ray fighting hordes of monsters at midnight on the second day as he tried to enter the safe zone.

However, my plan consisted of two flaws. One, Ray lived extremely close to the university which was the safe zone. Two, the readers pointed out that literally 90% of the people could enter the safe zone in this way.

It was then that I realized that trying something new wasn't a good thing, especially when writing novels. Sticking to cliche might have allowed the novel to succeed.

There was a chance I could have earned more, allowing me to live a lavish life. 

"Ha…" I sighed, trying to forget the past.

One thing was clear, I was not going to write a new novel for a long time.

"Michael, how much time do we have left?" Vin asked, coming closer to me so that I could hear her.

This reminded me of a skill that I had been wanting to use.

+

[ Gamer's Chatbox has been used ]

[ Chatbox created ]

[ Who do you want to invite? ]

+

"Invite Vin."

[ Invitation sent! ]

"Vin, accept the invite. I think you know how this skill works."

"Yeah, I know."

[ Vin has been added to the Chatbox. ]

With a smile, I tried using the chatbox. Another blue window with the title 'Michael's Chatbox' appeared beside me.

I tested it by sending a message to Vin. It was a simple process. While keeping the chatbox open, you thought of the message you wanted to convey and it would be displayed to the other person.

In the future, if I met the creator of the skill, I could ask her to upgrade the skill. Once upgraded, the chatbox could be used telepathically no matter the distance.

[ Michael: Hey, Vin. 

 Vin: Hey, Michael. ]

With a satisfied nod, I took out my phone and looked at the time. 

[ Michael: 9:14 is the time right now. Yeah, you should slow down. Conserve your energy. ]

I wanted Vin to conserve her energy in case something bad happened at the safe zone. That was why I wanted her to conserve her energy by going slowly.

[ Vin: I guess I should do that. We have plenty of time. ]

We, in fact, did not have much time.

As soon as the time changed to 9:15, another window popped up in front of us. My jaw dropped down to the ground when I read the contents of the window.

+

[ Attention Please! ]

[ The free days are now over. Prepare for the invasion. ]

+

What the fuck?!

The free days could not end earlier than the specified time limit. This was something that could never be changed.

The only reason I rewrote the part about the return of magical powers was because it could actually take place on other planets too.

It had happened before and could happen again. However, the ending of free days before the time period was definitely new.

Could it be a butterfly effect?

The butterfly effect essentially meant that a small change could affect a much bigger thing.

For example, imagine a guy went to a restaurant to eat and ordered pizza. However, the cheese was poisonous and the guy died. This led to the closing of the restaurant and numerous people losing their jobs.

Now imagine if the guy had ordered chicken instead. He would enjoy his food, pay the tip, and leave happily. He would go on with his life. His tip might have helped a student working part-time time in paying his or her education loan leading to another happy life.

This signified how a small decision could alter the course of the entire future.

Perhaps the section I recently rewrote led to a drastic change in the timeline. Though two and a half hours didn't make any major changes, I hoped that the main characters could survive it.

Wait, why am I worried about the main characters? It's not like I made them weak or something. All of them were overpowered.

Instead, I should be worrying about myself.

|| Portals appeared all over the Earth, bringing in the true horrors of the apocalypse. Monsters belonging to various myths had appeared in reality. With their arrival, humans finally realized what was happening.

The apocalypse was not a joke. ||

'I know this. Also, this window looks so poorly prepared. It literally says, "Hey, monsters incoming! Good luck!". What happened to the formal messaging?'

Gritting my teeth, I stared at the sky. Dark clouds covered the atmosphere, blocking the stars and partially hiding the moon.

"Vin, get us down on the ground!" I shouted.

Above us, dark mist gathered together to create swirling portals. A red glow could be seen as the portals came to life, bringing forth the first wave of beasts.

Vin brought us down to the ground just in time for me to see Pterodactyls flying through the sky, screeching with enough power to shatter glasses.

Pterodactyls were ancient dinosaurs that could fly in the air and snatched their prey by diving down. After being infused with mana, their strength doubled and their screeches were terrifying.

Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to observe the other flying creatures in the sky.

Dark mist gathered on the ground as well to form the portals. They slowly powered up to life in front of my eyes.

"Damn it…"

I began cursing while noticing the area I was in. It was one of the two community libraries of the city that managed to survive the earthquakes.

The surrounding area had not been that lucky. Telephone poles were lying on the road or whatever was left of the road. The road had numerous holes in it along with the remains of dried-up lava.

Buildings near the library no longer stood straight. They had crashed down on top of each other, spreading debris and rubble around them. Humans present in the building also died with its collapse.

The presence of a limp-hand-like structure proved my point. I could see many dead body parts but it was better not to describe them. Seeing such things on the internet and in real life were two vastly different experiences.

If I decided to walk, the city center was fifteen minutes away.

Flying would have taken five minutes but the beasts in the sky prevented that from happening. Other than the beasts, another problem emerged in the sky.

Flashes were seen all around the dark sky, followed by the loud rumbling of thunder. Cold wind and rain brought by the dark clouds made the entire atmosphere gloomy.

Rain hit the ground with loud pattering noises, similar to someone banging a drum. Wind blew the rain across my face, forcing me to close my eyes occasionally.

A storm had appeared in a matter of seconds. Flying was a risky option in such circumstances.

"Michael… look around us," Vin said grimly.

Turning around, I saw a portal about ten meters away from my current location. Raising my hands to fight, I slowly stepped backward.

"Grawr!"

"Wrar!"

The red portal shone brightly as zombies sprawled out. 

Mind you, there were not the slow brain-eating zombies from Zombie#and or the ones from the TreesVSZombies game.

I wanted to go beyond and create the fiercest zombies possible.

These zombies closely resembled humans.

The white part of their eyes had turned completely blood red. Mutations around their mouth destroyed their lips, forcing saliva to slowly drip outwards.

Instead of nails, razor sharp claws capable of piercing through skin like it was paper were present on their hands. Their flawlessly white skin was infected with a black fungus growth at certain spots.

These zombies were created when mana mutated an entire planet, causing the living beings there to turn into zombies. Their brains had been infected by a virus, explaining their lack of vocabulary.

The virus only focused on one goal and that was to spread amongst a larger population. It programmed the brains of the zombies to attack and bite the nearest living creature, forming the black fungus on the spot where the zombies had bitten.

One might ask why I gave such a detailed description of a zombie. The answer was quite simple.

While reading other novels, I was often annoyed how female characters would get a huge 200 words plus description whereas a low level beast like a zombie or goblin would receive about 20 words max.

This was unfair. The zombies, goblins, and other low leveled beasts deserved justice!

Not to mention the fact that these descriptions increased the word count…

|| Their first instinct is to run towards the first source of life they see. Once they get familiar with the environment and realize that they could be killed, they will start evolving. ||

I currently wanted to see whether I could get the stats of the zombies similar to how I could view the stats of the humans I encountered so far.

I tried calling out to AS but no response was heard. With a sigh, I tried summoning the status panel of the zombies myself. 

Since I had read many system novels and gave Ray a similar skill, I had experience in summoning system status panels.

Looking at the zombies who were sniffling the environment and getting wet by the storm, I imagined a blue window with the zombie's stats appearing in front of me.

It took a few seconds but the window finally appeared. A smile appeared on my face as I read the contents of the window.

===

Infected Zombie [Tier 9]

Race: Zombie (DUH)

Skill: Infecting Bite

- Not your normal everyday zombie. It can bite and will bite.

- Once bitten, if nothing is done to heal the wound or cure the infection, the bitten will be turned into a zombie as well.

===

Every living being in the universe could evolve with the help of mana. Therefore, a system of classification had been designed to separate the different levels of beasts.

Monsters classification was quite simple. They went from Tier 9 up to Tier 1, with 9 being the lowest tier and 1 being the highest tier.

One might imagine the Tier 9 monsters to be extremely weak but that was not the case. You needed at least one offensive D ranked skill or a peak F rank skill to deal with Tier 9 monsters.

The gap between the skills and the monsters would keep rising. Tier 8 required a strong D ranked skill whereas Tier 7 required at least a C ranked skill.

This gap was not proportional to the rank of the skill. For example, even if you had multiple S ranked skills, you would still face trouble against certain Tier 3 monsters.

In the end, many factors came into play. The type of skill you had, the type of monster you were fighting with, your environment, etc also played a crucial role in deciding who would win.

Since I already possessed an S ranked skill, it would be fairly easy to defeat these low level monsters. Despite that, I did not want my guard.

"Be ready," I warned.

Suddenly, the zombies shifted their gaze in our direction and started howling.

"Ghurr!"

"Rugha!"

"They have locked on to us." I smiled, raising both of my hands in front of myself to fight.

With another round of growling, the zombies charged forward with the intention of infecting me.