Chương 19: Extortion & Leveling

[Pov Julius]"It's just Julius." He corrected the rascal who was likely the one responsible for many of his puppets getting destroyed. [You know, it's pretty dark of you to desecrate the dead by stitching up their bodies.] Julius felt a pang of annoyance gnawing at the back of his head at that.

"And you don't think it's pretty disrespectful to kill the dead again?" He countered. [Not if my life's on the line, no.] He smirked, "Conditional morality, huh. You're the same as me then." The person on the radio seemed to go quiet for a bit, Julius kept his focus sharp. Making sure to maneuver his battle tank around the field, keep up the firing while simultaneously controlling his puppets so they don't get turned to minced meat while dealing with the wolf up front.

If not for his puppets working at the frontline, and keeping the wolf distracted, it would certainly have jumped on their vehicles one at a time. The wrecked RV beside the wolf's feet was proof of that. With a single sweep of its claws, that vehicle had been turned into a pile of mangled steel and iron. The voice eventually responded after the prolonged silence. [Yeah, I suppose. You and I aren't that different.]"Would you get to the point? I don't have time for this philosophical jargon."

Julius said, steering the tank's main cannon to point just between the zombie wolf's charge and one of his dolls that was firing away with a gatling gun. The shell fired exploded in the space between the two, making the zombie wolf take a large step back. The voice on the radio continued in a nonchalant manner. [Well, I have all the time in the world now.] He heard the voice huff. [Well, just kidding. But I do wonder how the people around the plains would react to finding out that the captain of Green Ghost Fleet forges homunculi from the corpses of his own crewmates.] Julius gritted his teeth, clenching the handle of the tank, firing another shot from his main cannon that exploded at the wolf's head, eviscerating half of its face, as the creature howled in agony.

"You really think those desperate fools could resist their urge to join my fleet just by hearing your made-up story?" [Hmm, probably not. But I'm sure anyone with even half a valuable unique skill or piece of equipment would love to keep their distance from you. And considering your current position, offering large sums of benefits for new hires, you seem quite eager to expand.] Julius snorted at that, just as he expected. Him appearing nonchalant and uncaring about the secret getting out wouldn't work.

And right now, if even a small rumor about his skill were to spread, it would make competent survivors keep their distance from his fleet and join the Heavenly Fleet instead. Normally, he wouldn't have cared, since the central plains contained many desperate folks with amazing skills who'd love to join him. But recently, new fleets had been recruiting those guys by the dozens, especially that Astral Treasure Fleet.

Although it appeared easy for him to deny this person's blackmail and let the rumors spread, and he could make do with fewer competent skill holders in the short term too. But the lack of good recruits early on would affect his fleets strength later. It would also give room for any would-be recruits to join other fleets, allowing them to expand, and once they gathered sufficient resources, they'd certainly come for his fleet's territory.

Holding onto a mountain as valuable as this required more than just an average military. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. So far, he'd kept his own fleet members from thinking too deeply about the use of this skill. And by turning their own dead teammates' corpses into puppets that marched to the frontlines in their stead. So even though it was morally wrong, his subordinates were accepting it purely out of self interest.

But once things became a bit more peaceful, he was certain their morality and sense of justice would rear its ugly head, leading to a lot of potential future trouble. Especially so if they found out it was his skill and not his vice captain's. Julius sat with his thoughts for a while as he blasted the zombie wolf's husk of a body into an even worse state.

Half of its face was gone, and the hammering of bullets on its body and limbs had torn off large sections of its muscle and fur, revealing quite grotesque glimpses of its skeletal structure.

"Okay fine, state your price." he finally said to the voice in his radio. [Three hundred and fifty gold coins, and I don't want your crewmates or anyone you hire chasing after me using their skills or anything of the kind.]"The fuck you mean three hundred and fifty, huh?" Julius kicked the metal structure in front of him, making Clara at the back jump in fright.

"You've already gotten your slimy hands on a huge amount of spirit stones. You think I'm not seeing you still pouring a bunch of spirit stones into your inventory by the bag full?!" Julius said, his pupils glowing with a violent gleam. [Oh, I didn't think you could do that. Man, y'all are advancing too fast... But I can't really lower the price. Come on, don't be stingy, you guys have a complete monopoly on the only source of spirit stones in the entire plains. This much should be nothing for your fleet in a day or two.] A blistering shot rang forth from Julius's battle tank, breaking off the zombie wolf's left foot from its torso.

"Fine. Sign this contract and get lost." [As you command, Julius Caesar!] The voice replied with a mocking cheerfulness that made Julius nearly want to turn over his tank and shoot at the mountain instead"Slimy bastard." The wolf in front of him finally turned its head toward him after he'd broken its leg. And ignoring all his puppets, it launched itself into one final charge toward his battle tank.

"You really think you can defeat me, don't you?" Julius opened the vehicle advancement panel.

"Try and see if you can even touch me, worm." he said, while simultaneously pressing the advancement button as his vehicle was instantly covered in white light. As the wolf's claws tried to dig into the advancing vehicle, it was immediately shredded to bits by the light of advancement as it jumped back. And as the light receded, a new holographic panel appeared in front of him. [Advancement completed. Tier 2 Heavy Battle Tank has been upgraded to Tier 3 Extreme War Tank.] The first shot rang out from the only Tier 3 vehicle in the endless plains. The earth trembled with the aftershock as blinding light engulfed the tank's surroundings. When the light faded, the wolf was gone, disintegrated in a single strike! …. [Usurpation Successful] [Acquired Gold x100, Skill Shard (Rare) x5] Nyx looked away from the disintegrated corpse of the zombie wolf. He'd been able to reach the mountain cliff just in time to use his skill.

Boarding his vehicle, he turned it away from the place where the Green Ghost Fleet was still mesmerized by their captain's tier three vehicle. He sped away from the mountaintop, leaving behind a broken, caved-in mine devoid of any structure, with a few sticks of dynamite still flinging rocks around.

"Today really might be my lucky day." He said, enjoying the cool breeze that drifted in through the window to his left.

"I've not only gathered a huge amount of spirit stones, but also got to blackmail the fleet captain, and even steal part of the loot they'd gotten from killing that thing." And it wasn't limited to just that, because, as it turned out, one of the rewards for killing the big bad zombie wolf was experience points. And he'd gotten himself a sizable chunk of it, as was apparent from the notification panel in front of him. ['DING!' Race: [Human] has reached level 2 – Stat points allocated, +5 free points] ['DING!' Race: [Human] has reached level 3 – Stat points allocated, +5 free points] ['DING!' Race: [Human] has reached level 4 – Stat points allocated, +5 free points] ['DING!' Race: [Human] has reached level 5 – Stat points allocated, +5 free points] With a satisfied smile, he closed the panel and opened the exchange tab. He'd gotten himself a huge amount of spirit stones. On the exchange, a single lower-grade fire elemental spirit stone was going for half a gold. Eyeing the price and quantity, he simply closed the tab.

It wasn't a good idea to sell them right now. Mainly because of the demand. Most people were still unable to afford even the basic upgrades for their vehicles. How could they have the money to spend on something like a spirit stone? Sure, there were still a few around who could probably afford it. But he'd been watching the listing put up by the Green Ghost Fleet on the exchange for a while. And in all that time, only about half of the thousand stones they'd put up had sold.

Meaning the demand was there, but it wasn't high enough. Nyx held off on selling.

"It's best to wait until more people can afford them, and the demand surges." For now, he opened his status panel instead to allocate his newly acquired stat points.