Prime System Champion [A Multi-System Apocalypse LitRPG]

Lucas transmitted our acceptance to Vayne with a message that was a masterpiece of feigned, reluctant duty. He spoke of the "heavy but necessary burden" and reaffirmed our "commitment to a peaceful, prosperous future for all people of this world under the Governor's wise guidance." Vayne's reply was immediate and effusive, praising our courage and wisdom. Access codes were granted, a generous operational budget was deposited into a shared account, and the next morning, we were stepping onto a translocation pad in Nexus Delta-7, our destination keyed for the western frontier.

Nexus Delta-5 was a stark and brutalist echo of its more established cousin. It had the same core of Kyorian efficiency — the perfectly gridded streets, the silent, gliding transport skiffs, the towering blocks of functionalist architecture — but it lacked all of the opulent polish. This city was clearly less developed, a freshly established ulcer of Imperial order bleeding into an untamed wilderness. There was no gleaming Spire here, no parks or plazas filled with prosperous merchants. The central tower was a squat, heavily fortified command bunker of unadorned grey material, bristling with automated defense turrets and sensor arrays. The air itself felt different, tinged with the metallic tang of new construction and the acrid smoke from the vast refineries and processing plants that churned on the city's outskirts, devouring the land.

The atmosphere was not one of placid, comfortable subjugation; it was one of tense, martial occupation. Heavily-armed Kyorian Justicars patrolled the streets in pairs, their expressions grim, their armor scuffed and practical, not polished for parade. The native populace here moved with a hurried, furtive energy, their heads down, their eyes avoiding the gazes of their overlords. There were no smiling S'skarr merchants or jovial Dweorg smiths. This was a frontier, and the Gilded Leash was still a raw, chafing chain.

We moved through the city as a ghost of our true selves. Our Epic-grade gear was a secret, a light hidden under a bushel. Lucas' [Oathsworn] and my own gear were tucked away in our private System storage. Marcus' [Aegis of the Stalwart] was a treasure far too valuable to display. Silas' [Umbral Thorn] and Lena's [Venom's Kiss] vanished into hidden sheaths and pockets, indistinguishable from mundane daggers. Anna's magnificent [Silent Song] was replaced by a simple, unadorned yew longbow. We were dressed as a band of moderately successful adventurers, our armor a mix of sturdy but unremarkable boiled leather and chainmail, a plausible collection for a team that had won a decent prize purse at the Conclave but hadn't yet been outfitted by an Imperial patron.

Our story, for anyone who asked, was simple: we were champions from Bastion, leveraging our newfound fame to seek out other independent settlements, hoping to forge new trade alliances. It was a perfectly believable lie, rooted in the very fabric of our public persona. And it was tested almost immediately.

As Lucas was bartering for supplies at a gritty outpost near the city's edge, the grizzled human proprietor looked up, his eyes narrowing in recognition. "Hey… I know you. You're that shield-guy. From the Conclave broadcast. Team Bastion, right?"
The effect was instantaneous. The low murmur of the marketplace died. Every eye in the crowded square turned to us. The natives looked at us with a mixture of awe and suspicion. The handful of off-duty Kyorian troopers and Guild mercenaries looked at us with a different kind of interest — a hungry, appraising gaze that sized up our strength, our gear, our potential threat level. The pressure was a sudden, suffocating blanket.

Lucas handled it with the effortless grace of a born leader. He just grinned a tired, weary smile. "That was us," he said, his voice carrying just enough to be heard over the renewed murmur. "Felt like a lifetime ago. A lot of luck and a good healer." He clapped a hand on my shoulder, playing our roles to perfection. "Now we're just trying to make a living like everyone else. Heard there was a settlement out west called the… Norenki? Thought we might see if they had any hides to trade." The mundane simplicity of his statement, delivered with an air of open, honest commerce, was a masterful piece of misdirection. The tension eased. We were no longer legendary champions; we were just ambitious merchants. We bought our supplies, loaded our packs, and melted out of the city gates, leaving the curious stares behind us.

The journey began. We were now truly in the wild, in a part of the continent that was not just untamed but actively hostile. The first day of our three-day trek took us through the Boneyards, a vast, desolate plain where the ground was a fine, grey powder of pulverized rock and ancient, fossilized bone. Here, monolithic ribs of colossal, long-dead creatures, some larger than any building in Bastion, jutted from the ashen earth like the pillars of a forgotten god's ruined temple. The only plants that grew here were twisted, skeletal trees with bark the color of old blood and leaves like shards of obsidian. They didn't grow towards the sun; they seemed to drink the ambient despair from the air itself, and my Gaze could feel the faint, malevolent sentience slumbering within their roots.

Day two brought a new, alien landscape: the Murk-spore Mire. It was a bioluminescent swamp, but the light was not the gentle, welcoming glow of the dungeons we knew. It was a sickly, pulsating phosphorescence of purples and greens that emanated from immense, fleshy mushroom-caps and the slow, meandering swamp water itself. The air was thick with shimmering spores that, as Eliza quickly determined with a captured sample, were mildly hallucinogenic and highly corrosive to non-organic materials. We moved through the bog in a tight formation, Lucas and Marcus in the lead, their shields wrapped in oiled cloths, the rest of us with damp rags tied over our faces to filter the worst of the spores. It was here we had our first significant encounter.

It rose from the murky, glowing water without a sound, a creature of pure, alien nightmare. My [Predator's Gaze] tagged it instantly. Tier 3, a fairly standard rating for an alpha predator on our continent. But this thing was different. It was an Amphibian Horror, a bulbous, mottled green body with too many spindly, multi-jointed legs and a maw that opened like a grotesque flower, lined with rows of needle-thin teeth. It spat a glob of viscous, acidic fluid that sizzled and steamed as it hit the ground near Lena's feet.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

A year ago, this thing would have been a terrifying, drawn-out battle. Now, it was a drill.

"Anna, eyes!" Lucas barked.

Anna didn't even need the command. An arrow, nocked before the beast had even fully emerged, was loosed. It wasn't one of her powershots. It was a simple, barbed arrow that slammed into one of the creature's large, multifaceted eyes. The Horror shrieked, a sound like tearing metal, and reared back.

"Silas, left flank! Mavia, right!" Lucas commanded. "Distract! Eliza, core weakness!"

The two of them were blurs of motion, their movements perfectly synchronized, not attacking, but feinting, drawing the beast's thrashing attention from one side to the other.

"Ventral nerve cluster! Base of the thorax!" Eliza called out, her [Artificer's Muse] already feeding her a complete anatomical schematic from the data it was gathering.

Lucas didn't wait. He charged, not to attack, but to pin. He slammed his shield into the beast's side, using his full weight and power not to wound, but to shove it off-balance, exposing its soft underbelly for a precious half-second. It was all the time they needed. Silas didn't even draw a blade. He simply reached out, a focused, unseen lance of pure transparent shadow erupting from his palm. The invisible blow struck the nerve cluster with the force of a battering ram. The Amphibian Horror went rigid, every one of its limbs spasming, and then collapsed back into the glowing water with a heavy splash, its life extinguished.
The entire engagement had taken less than ten seconds. They were a machine, now. Efficient. Lethal. And so we kept moving.

On the third day, the mire gave way to the deep, primordial jungle of the western frontier. And about a half-day's march from our destination, I felt it. A flicker. Not a threat. Not an active attack. But the faint, whisper-soft sensation of a single, focused point of observation. A watcher.

I kept my expression neutral, my pace unchanged, but sent a single, coded empathic pulse through our rune-stones: caution. It was a brilliant piece of scouting. They were cloaked by some kind of natural or arcane camouflage that defeated normal senses and even almost my [Predator's Gaze]. Only my raw, overwhelming Tier 5 Spirit, my sheer, soul-deep awareness of the world, could feel the tiny, hair-thin line of intent aimed in our direction. They were good. Very good.

We emerged from the dense jungle into a large, cleared valley. In the center, surrounded by a high, formidable wall of sharpened logs and packed earth, was the Norenki settlement. It was larger and far more organized than I had expected, more a fortress-town than a simple tribe. Rough-looking guards, their faces painted with stark, jagged black lines, watched us from watchtowers, their bows ready. A heavy gate of iron-banded timber blocked the only entrance. This was not a place that welcomed strangers.

We approached openly, our hands empty, our expressions carefully calibrated to project weary travel and honest intentions. As we drew near, the gate creaked open just enough for a single figure to step out.
He was a mountain of a man, his face a hard, sun-beaten mask of suspicion, a massive, double-bladed axe resting on his shoulder. He looked at the eight of us, his hard eyes lingering on our strange, mixed group. "State your business," his voice was a low, rumbling growl that held no room for negotiation.

"Greetings," Lucas said, his voice calm and clear. "We are travelers from the settlement of Bastion, to the east. We have heard tales of the Norenki, and we have come in peace, hoping to seek shelter and perhaps open a line of trade."

The guard's eyes narrowed. "Bastion?" he grunted. "The name is familiar. From the Kyorian broadcasts… You are one of their champions." He spat on the ground. "We have no love for Imperial lapdogs here. Move on."

"We are nobody's lapdogs," Anna's voice, sharp and cold as a winter wind, cut through the tension. She stepped forward, her hand resting on the simple yew bow at her back. "We fight for our own people. Just like you."

The guard stared at her, then back at us. A long, tense moment stretched. He was about to tell us to leave, to get lost, when an older man appeared at his side from within the gate. The older man was thin, his hair grey and tied in a long braid, his face a roadmap of deep, worried lines. But his eyes were sharp, intelligent, and held a surprising degree of warmth.

He put a calming hand on the big guard's arm. "They have traveled far, Thorgar. Let them have a drink and a warm meal at the very least. Our hospitality is not so poor that we turn away weary travelers at the gate." He turned his wise eyes to us. "I am Bjorn. Welcome to Noren."

We were led into the settlement. The atmosphere within the walls was a mixture of fierce pride and deep-seated paranoia. Every person we passed, from the blacksmith hammering at his forge to the woman tanning a hide, watched us with hard, suspicious eyes. Their clothing was practical, made of hide and homespun wool, and everyone, even the children, seemed to be armed in some way.

Elder Bjorn led us towards a large, central longhouse, its roof thatched and its timber walls dark with smoke and age. "We do not get many visitors from so far away," he said, his voice a gentle, probing question.

"Times are changing, powers are evolving," Lucas replied simply.

We reached the longhouse. A bustling common room, filled with the smoky haze of a great, central fire pit, fell silent as we entered. Dozens of wary eyes turned to watch us. At the far end of the hall, near the hearth, a younger woman with the same grey eyes as the Elder and an air of quiet authority, was ladling stew into wooden bowls.

She looked up as we approached, wiping her hands on her apron. Her expression was neutral, but her gaze was sharp, missing nothing. "Welcome," she said, her voice surprisingly soft, yet carrying an undeniable strength. "We were wondering when the new group would arrive."

She gestured to a large, empty table. "Welcome to my inn. I am Jane. What can I get for you, champions?"