Little mortal found himself sitting on a small boat, drifting on a vast, endless ocean.
Rain pours heavily, tapping against the wooden planks of the boat.
He raised his head.
The sky was dull, covered by a gray blanket with no sign of the sun.
He looked at the dark and murky water around him.
The surface was rippling with each raindrop.
Beneath the waves, something suddenly stirs.
Faint, shadowy shapes moved slowly, too large and too deep for him to fully see.
Now and then, a long, dark form glides just below the surface — gone before he can make sense of it.
From time to time, the water trembled, and a low, distant sound, like a deep groan, seemed to rise from the depths.
Little mortal gulped nervously.
The boat rocks gently and peacefully, yet there was an uneasy feeling in the calmness, as if something massive was watching from below.
He looked in front of his feet.
A card with a picture of a lantern was on the wooden planks.
He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
Feeling the texture of his suit, he nodded.
Even the suit was just a normal suit now, not equipment.
The Crystal vibrated at this moment, saying,
All of them drifting on a boat, alone, without making a sound.>
Lilith chuckled,
"I think you aren't supposed to talk, because of the monsters below.
All of them are sensitive to sound.
Looks like this planet is trying to force 'loneliness' and 'silence' on its participants."
Little mortal only scratched his head in return.
The message was clear.
'I don't know what to do.'
Lilith pointed at the same path their boat was drifting,
"If your boat continues that way, you will see another participant in 1 or 2 hours."
And so, the quiet trip began.
On the way, Little Mortal took out his notebook, which was still working, because it wasn't a 'magical' treasure, and wrote on it.
[ - What the stupid system said :
Endure 1000 years of loneliness, or be truly lonely.
The choice is yours!
Final words:
Your silence is crucial.
- What is the use of the Lantern card:
It helps me to be alone for once and feel the real loneliness.
- what the planet says:
Don't make a sound, or there are monsters below that will eat you.
Conclusion:
First, make it noisy.
Second, make it quiet.
Third, feel the true loneliness.
Fourth, congratulations, you win the game.
Final words:
Let me tell you, you stupid system, your games are so easy and simple that it is embarrassing.]
Lilith and the two birth treasures, who didn't know how he reached this conclusion,
"O_o"
.....
Time passed.
Little Mortal finally saw another boat drifting on this quiet ocean with only rain as background sound.
A young man was sitting on the other boat.
When he saw Little Mortal's boat getting close to him, he slightly changed his boat's direction.
It seems he didn't want to interact with him at all.
While the two were going to pass by each other,
The young man took a glance at the little boy on the other boat and became surprised!
The little boy was actually looking at something behind him with eyes wide open in shock, as if something horrifying was getting close to him!
The young man hurriedly turned and looked at the other side of his boat, but there was nothing there!
Only then did he find out that the other party was messing with him.
He gritted his teeth and turned his gaze back to the boat with the little boy, but to his surprise, he wasn't there anymore!
The boat was empty!
Then he felt something and looked down.
"!!!"
The young man's brain stopped working for a moment...
He saw a small hand coming out of his chest, holding a beating heart!
His confusion didn't take long, and soon he recognized the heart.
It was his own!
"Did you forget about this planet's rule, you stupid brat!"
The young man shouted with all his might.
His sound was so loud that it seemed to be his random ability that he received here, and he activated it to take down the opponent with him.
Ripples spread on the surface of the ocean in every direction!
*Bam*
A huge tentacle suddenly shot out of the water and went straight towards the young man!
Seeing the newcomer, Little Mortal took his hand out of the young man's chest and jumped into the air.
The tentacle, though, wrapped around the young man and dragged him under the water.
Lilith said,
"The 'monsters' down there are all as strong as level 7 creatures.
You aren't supposed to be stronger than them."
She was warning him not to kill any of these hidden monsters, because he wasn't supposed to have the power for that.
At this moment, a hand suddenly rose out of the water surface underneath Little Mortal.
It was so huge that he was like a grain of rice compared to it!
But Little Mortal, as if he didn't care at all, tightened his grip, and the heart that was still in his hand exploded.
Blood splashed everywhere.
Before the blood fell to the ocean, he started waving his small hands like a Tai chi master, and started drawing a symbol mid-air with the blood.
The Crystal, who understood the meaning, immediately told him where the closest participants are.
A moment later, the blood-magic that Little Mortal pretends to be using showed where the 'sinners' are, and pointed in a direction that was naturally the same as what the Crystal told him.
The hand at this moment almost grabbed him, but he kicked the air and slipped out from the gap between its huge fingers.
Flying was disabled here, but for him, who couldn't fly anyway, moving mid-air was always easy.
*Woosh*
Soon, he landed on the water's surface and started running on it.
Behind him, the huge hand rose higher and higher until the upper body connected to it was revealed.
It was as if a colossal giant was slowly standing up!
But Little Mortal didn't care about the big, shadowy creature behind him rising in an awesome way as if a boss was awakening, because he had other problems to take care of.
As he ran on the water, his footsteps made sounds too, and each step was like a signal to the creatures down below that someone didn't want to play the 'game' by the 'rule' and stay quiet!
So, different 'things' started rising from the water, trying to stop him!
A huge horn, a huge sword, a monster head with an open mouth...
*Rumble*
As Little Mortal dodged everything on his way and even jumped up from time to time, and continued his journey in the sky by kicking the air,
Even the sky seemed to become dissatisfied with his actions!
Loud thunder echoed, and each one brightened a certain part of the sky!
Little Mortal gasped!
When the lightning lit up the sky and made the clouds above his head turn visible for a moment, he saw a huge bird lurking inside a certain part of it!
*Boom*
And to tell him he isn't the only one who saw the other party, the cloud above him split open, revealing the big head of a bird like an owl that was coming down towards him with an already opened beak, as if ready to swallow him whole!
It seems making noise anywhere on this planet would be punished by these monsters lurking in the ocean below and the clouds above!
Little Mortal kicked the air and went down to the water surface again.
The chase continued.
But none of the monsters could catch the small figure, causing more and more of them to join the team of pursuers!
Farther away, Little Mortal finally saw another two participants, sitting on their boats quietly.
When they noticed the commotion behind them, they slowly turned around and almost had a heart attack upon seeing the scene!
A little boy was running on the water towards them.
Behind him was a big 'sea wave', tens of meters high, as if ready to devour him.
Behind the big wave were a couple of tall, shadowy figures chasing after him.
And in the sky, huge bird-like creatures within the clouds were moving their way while lightning kept rumbling around them within the clouds!
Just one look and the two could tell who was responsible for this 'end of times' scene!
The two looked at each other's pale faces and didn't know what to do!
The participants, before entering this planet, had already met and made an agreement.
They were supposed to stay quiet the whole season and 'endure' the loneliness so everyone can advance together from this boring planet!
But what was this?
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Who was this crazy kid making sounds?
Neither of them recognized him because the infopad was disabled here from the start, and they didn't know anything about the 'underworld minion' and the bounty on his head.
Either way, the two shook their heads helplessly and made their move based on the 'protocol'.
What was the 'protocol' you ask?
First, abandon your boat.
These boats had the role of 'temple of solitude'.
It could only host one person, and if that person was silent, it would drift away on the ocean without any problem.
Second, 'eliminate' the 'noise-maker' that the monsters were locked onto.
Which, in this case, was obviously the little boy in front.
And third, they needed to get back to the boat 'quietly'.
The boat + silent participant was equal to safety.
So the two left their boat and let it go by itself.
One of the two with an ice ability caused part of the water to freeze, allowing both of them to stand on it.
Then the other one disappeared, while the ice user quietly started making two ice spears.
Little Mortal, who was on the run, suddenly raised the index finger of his right hand up, as if he was going to say 'Quite' to someone without saying it.
The next moment, the guy who had just disappeared appeared here, with his right hand attacking Little Mortal's face.
He was using two fingers to jab at his opponent’s eyes.
But the two fingers were blocked by the small index finger.
Little Mortal then bent his index finger, grabbed one of the man's fingers, and,
*Tatatatatat*
Started kicking his chest with bicycle kicks while making a weird sound that seems to be exactly matched with this move!
The opponent's finger, though, couldn't handle the pressure of its body being pushed back by the kicks, and it was severed.
The man with the ability that seems to be related to speed crashed from the sky to the water while spitting blood out of his mouth.
He smashed to the water's surface so fast that it felt like he hit a solid surface.
Little Mortal, as if he felt another attack, spun thrice.
In his first spin, he caught an ice spear that was going to penetrate his head.
In his second spin, he caught an ice spear that was targeting his nonexistent heart.
And in his third spin, he threw the two ice spears back to where they came from with the maximum power allowed on this planet, which was level 6.
The participants from the first to fifth planets were supposed to advance by 1 level after each planet, and after that, 1 level per 2 planets.
Which means after the fifth planet, the participant would become level 6 at the start of the sixth planet's event, and only at the end of the seventh planet's event could they advance to level 7.
As the two ice spears were thrown back to their former address, a certain ice ability user panicked!
They planned to force their opponent to first 'lose his sight', a task for which the speed ability user was responsible.
And then he would finish the job with his two ice spears so they could go back to their boats silently, with the 'source of noise' being dead.
But the little boy, as if he were never a law user but a martial artist who didn't care about having his original law or not, dealt with them easily!
The ice user tried to reflect the ice spear, but it turned out that there wasn't only one of his ice spears coming back to him, but both of them.
Just because they were thrown exactly back to back, he only saw the one in front...
While thinking, 'Who in the world is this guy?' he was pierced by the second ice spear and then pinned to the ice surface.
A moment later, a tentacle came out and dragged him under the water before he could react.
On Little Mortal's side, he first did his Tai chi move to draw another 'blood-magic' symbol and track his next target, and after finding the direction from the crystal, he left again.
The group of monsters behind him saw that the two useless guys couldn't stop him for more than a second or two, and chased after him helplessly.
Soon, reinforcements joined them, too.
More monsters came out of the water, making huge waves while chasing him.
The chaos continued, and not only did it not get better, but it got even worse.
As Little Mortal disturbed more and more monsters, more of them joined his hunt.
The dumbfounded participants didn't even know what to do with this mess that was escalating rapidly.
All of these monsters were level 7, and they were level 6.5 at most.
It was close to impossible to deal with one of them, let alone so many!
The best they could do was to run, but even that wasn't a good option because an unknown little boy was hunting them down alongside these monsters!
They even suspected that he is a monster himself, and someone triggered a special event that caused him to wake up and lead his army to clear the planet!
*ROAAAAAR*
A peculiar big giant, that was bigger than all of the monsters, suddenly roared towards the sky.
With the giant as the center, ripples spread through the ocean surface while lightning rumbled through the dark clouds above!
The roar was like a wake-up call for all of the monsters residing on the planet!
*Ding*
At this moment, to everyone's surprise, the infopad made a sound.
The participants immediately checked their infopads.
If the infopad was 'on', then they could at least use their cards.
But what they saw made them feel despair!
[ Special event has been triggered: Appease the planet's Wrath. ]
The infopads turned off again after showing this message.
The participants felt like crying...
Why did the easiest planet suddenly turn into this mess?
In normal circumstances, they only needed to be silent for 500 years.
At that time, the sixth planet's event would be over, and rank 1 from there would come up here immediately, because this planet didn't have a cool-down time at the start like the rest.
Any time you joined was fine.
But the most important thing was what the rank 1 participant would bring over.
The lantern card!
This card could 'erase' the monsters in an area, allowing the rank 1 to be 'lonely' without anyone disturbing him or her.
However, after activation, the card would act like a 'lighthouse', making it easy for everyone to see its location and join the holder.
This way, they could just stay together until the end of the 1000 years of loneliness in an area without monsters, where even making noises was fine.
But all of that was ruined because of a certain someone who forced so many monsters to take action and made so much 'noise' that the planet itself got so angry that it triggered a special event!
....
Seventh planet - Day 23.
The participants faced a massacre.
The whole planet came to life and went against them.
Monsters from below and above surrounded them, and even those who survived found themselves all in one place, surrounded, fighting shoulder by shoulder against the monsters' riot.
More than 200,000 participants, out of the original 380,000, survived and were forced into one area, fighting for their lives.
But how could they stop these level 7 monsters while their own power was locked on level 6?
By now, everyone knew a little boy was the leader of these monsters.
Many who ran and survived saw him standing on the head of the tallest giant, looking down at them with an arrogant expression.
He would even point at them sometimes as if telling his underlings to attack specific targets.
Some participants thought that if they killed him, the special event might stop.
But even the few participants who managed to get close to him were beaten up by him.
It turns out, while small, this peculiar monster wasn't weak at all...
...
Seventh planet - Day 28.
Little Mortal, with an 'invisible' presence to the system, was naturally the little boy who got tired of running around and hid atop the giant's head.
The system could only lock onto him if it 'saw' him.
But he found out that all of these monsters, which were cyborgs in reality, never looked at the biggest giant.
It seems this giant was like a leader that wasn't supposed to be looked at, as if it were an unbeatable existence that they didn't need to worry about.
That's why he just stood on its head, and while 'out of sight', he watched other participants getting slaughtered and going back to the waiting room in batches.
Until today, when all of the participants died, and he nodded in satisfaction.
"Good job, boys."
This was the first time after his arrival on this planet that he spoke.
The whole planet suddenly turned silent.
All of the monsters in the ocean or in the sky paused for a moment.
Only now, due to them being sensitive to sound, they detected another target on the head of the giant.
After a brief pause, they realized the one who said 'good job, boys' wasn't their boss, and all of them suddenly rushed towards the giant.
Even the giant raised both of its hands to clap them above its head, where the sound came from.
Little Mortal ignored the monsters and took out the Lantern-card before activating it and saying,
"No more monsters. No more people. Let me experience the true loneliness, little lantern."
And the card in his hand with a blinding flare erupts, spreading like rippling fire across the water and sky.
The light wasn't a burst of heat, nor an explosion—it was erasure.
The monsters rushing towards him froze, their roars turned into distant echoes, and the light swallowed them whole.
Little Mortal felt the giant underneath him disappear, and he fell down.
A brief moment later, the light disappeared.
The ocean grows still,
The storm above quiets, and for the first time since the chaos, there was silence.
Little Mortal nodded in approval while floating on the ocean,
"That's what I'm talking about.
Now I can experience 1000 years of loneliness properly by myself."
Lilith and the two birth treasures only now understood what he did.
The system said, 'Endure 1000 years of loneliness, or be truly lonely. '
So he naturally chose to be truly lonely by getting rid of everything.
The key to all of this was the lantern-card, which had the ability to help him be alone for once and feel the real loneliness.
It seems from the start, the system was directly telling the rank 1 from the previous planet that there is a way for you to not waste your time here.
Just clear the monsters and participants.
While it seems an impossible task for others, it wasn't anything challenging for a certain underworld psychopath.
*Ding*
And to prove their guess was right, Little Mortal's infopad turned on, and the system sent him a message.
[ - System Message -
"1000 Years of Loneliness" was completed early by triggering the special event.
Final Status: Sole Survivor
Planet Condition: Absolute Silence Achieved
Reward: You have claimed true loneliness.
Season-end reward: Skip-card
The path forward is yours — you are now granted access to the next planet and waiting room.]
Little Mortal snorted,
"What a nonsense planet.
What is even the point of 1000 years of being quiet?
The points aren't being calculated anymore after that system crash anyway.
The only good thing is that I got the remains of those sinners..."
Whatever cards that the 'dead participants' had, and after their departure were left in the ocean or inside the monsters' belly, were now being retrieved by Little Mortal's infopad.
What he experienced 7 times until now, with all the leftover cards automatically retrieved for him by the system, was unknown to all the other participants.
They knew if they died, their infopad inventory would be emptied, and the opponent could take it.
But nobody knew what would happen if only one participant remained at the end of the planet's event and won alone, as teamwork was always crucial, and there were usually thousands, if not millions, of participants.
Thus, such an outcome was unheard of.
Little Mortal's gaze stopped on the season-end reward, which was 'unknown' at the start.
"Oh, the unknown reward turns out to be a skip-card? Let me read what it does.
Hmm... It helps the user to skip a stage, and I can only use it once.
Well, I should go to the next planet to understand what stage I can skip with it.
Anyway, it's time to leave."
[....
Seventh Planet (Loneliness) ?
Bullet used: 0
999,900,000 bullets left]
The pillar of light descended as always and took him away.
Another planet now had a secret guardian.
......
Eighth Planet - Day 28.
The pillar of light disappeared.
*Ding*
Little Mortal immediately received a message while sliding on something.
While looking around, he took out his infopad.
He was dropped on a big dome that seemed to be made of some kind of iron material, and he was sliding down from it now.
The dome was so big that it could cover a city...
Looking further, he saw more domes of different sizes, similar to this one, and the area between them was filled with trees.
There were at least 4 more domes in his line of sight.
Looking up, he saw a normal blue sky, with a 'fake sun', nothing special about it.
Then he read his system message,
[ - SYSTEM MESSAGE -
- Eighth Planet: Planet of Excitement, Thrillara
- Current Active Participants: ?
- Stages to clear (Team Mode): 7
- Stages to clear (Solo Mode): 7+1
Warning:
Kicked participants can try the stage again.
Dead participants will be sent to the waiting room.
- Timeframe: 1,100 Years
- How to advance to the next planet:
Finish all of the stages in team or solo mode.
- Point calculation: Depends on your impact in each stage.
- Season-end reward: Only for solo participants.]
Little Mortal rubbed his chin,
"Why is the number of participants a question mark?"
And he checked the ranking.
"Oh, the ranking is empty...
Nobody gained a single point yet.
So that's why no one is registered, and that's why the number of participants is still unknown.
Which means I can't find the possible bounty hunters here either, because they aren't registered, and I cannot see their login time..."
The Crystal vibrated, saying,
There is a big settlement there, with a big sign in the sky, saying anyone who wants to collaborate with the 'tycoons' should gather there in a month for a meeting.
There are 2 days left.>
Lilith, on Little Mortal's shoulder, frowned,
"There are actually participants discussing you.
It seems you are part of the reason for this gathering.
So be careful, everyone here is probably familiar with your face."
When Lilith's sentence ended, she suddenly felt the environment turn bright!
Looking for the source of the 'light', she discovered it was actually beside her.
It was Little Mortal's head that was shining because it was completely bald now.
Lilith gasped.
She remembered this character from two records in World Law's archive.
In one of the records, he appeared on a higher being's main planet, called Assassin God, to break their 'Fate' connection with him.
And in another one, he appeared in a story about the guardian journey.
This character was someone nobody was supposed to see his face, called 'Secret Agent'!
Lilith didn't know why he suddenly changed character, but she immediately jumped on his head to avoid seeing him.
If he really killed anybody who saw him, wouldn't he kill her too?
After seeing the records of him beating up others to the verge of death,
She really wasn't sure if he was like the other newborns or not in the regard of not killing any creatures.
While sliding down the dome, the bald mortal looked in a certain direction.
Two participants were there, moving in the same direction as the 'meeting place.'
The bald mortal changed his sliding direction towards them while bringing out his handgun and twisting the silencer onto the barrel.
The two participants, unaware that a third person was approaching, suddenly felt sleepy.
Not once, not twice, but close to 170 times each, because a certain baldy fired a single sleeping bullet at them, and the chain strike effect triggered.
But there wasn't any other target except the two within a 100-meter radius, so it just triggered between the two.
This was the eighth planet, though, and everyone here was at least level 7; it wasn't easy to put them to sleep just with sleeping bullets.
As the two felt dizzy,
The little baldy who finally arrived close to them kicked the iron surface of the dome, appeared between their heads,
and after grabbing them by the hair, first smashed their heads together, and then smashed their faces into the ground using his falling force.
Both of them fainted at this point, and the sleeping bullet started affecting them.
They wouldn't wake up for at least a day or two.
The bald Little Mortal immediately kicked them into the two big bushes not far away, and both bodies disappeared from view as if they never existed.
Lilith, on Little Mortal's head, frowned, because she saw that one of the two bodies didn't have any clothing!
She looked down, and her eyes widened in shock...
'Wasn't this guy just kicked into the bushes?
Why is he here? And how did I end up on his head?'
Lilith was dumbfounded.
Where did her partner go? And why did this participant suddenly turn bald? And why are there two of him suddenly?
While confused, her eyes suddenly stopped on a crystal hanging on this participant's waist, which was really familiar.
*Shatter*
Lilith felt her worldview crack, and the little bald mortal in his new disguise appeared!
'What a strong illusion!
Even I thought he was that participant, just bald now!'
Lilith was lucky, and because of the 'information' she had about 'Secret Agent', and seeing the Crystal on his waist, she could come out of the nonexistent illusion.
But a certain AI wasn't as lucky.
At this moment, Hypermind suddenly received a system error indicating that there are two identical participants on the eighth planet, which was impossible!
It immediately checked all the related footage, but even through that, it couldn't understand why there was now a bald version of the same participant!
Hypermind,
[????]