Infinite Survival: My 10,000x Return System

The twelve-foot abomination stood in the hallway, blocking the massive starlight vault door. It was a disgusting, shifting mass of grey muscle and jagged bone. The Paradox energy inside its veins was literally eating it alive, but it did not care. It just wanted to kill everything in front of it.

"Don’t fight it, Vane," Arthur commanded smoothly. He took a slow step backward. He kept his hands entirely relaxed at his sides. He gestured lazily toward the massive roaring monster. "Just hit him where it hurts. Break the joints, and the whole structure falls down."

Vane stared at him like he was completely insane.

"Are you fucking blind, Sterling?" Vane yelled. He gripped the hilt of his chipped broadsword with both hands. His knuckles were totally white. "That thing is a walking tank! It has a sword for an arm! We cannot just poke its knees!"

"I am the CEO, Vane," Arthur said. His voice was cold and completely flat. "When I tell you a company is going bankrupt, you don’t argue. You just watch it crash. Do exactly what I tell you."

"GRAAAAAAAH!"

The mutated floor manager did not wait for them to finish their argument. It lunged forward.

For a creature that big, it moved with a terrifying, glitchy speed. The massive grey blade that used to be its right arm swung down in a brutal, sweeping horizontal arc. It aimed to chop Arthur and Vane completely in half.

The wind pressure from the swing hit them before the blade did. It smelled like rotting meat and burnt metal.

"Move!" Cassia screamed from behind them.

Vane raised his heavy broadsword to block. He was a hero. Heroes took the hit.

Arthur did not block. He did not use flashy magic. He did not pull the Ebonheart Sword from his back. He just dropped his center of gravity and stepped forward.

He stepped perfectly inside the creature’s guard.

"WHOOSH!"

The massive bone-blade completely missed Arthur’s head by a fraction of an inch. It sailed right over his dark hair. The blade smashed into the brick wall of the hallway instead.

"CRASH!"

Bricks and dust exploded outward. The monster’s arm was temporarily stuck in the wall.

It was a sloppy, terrible attack. The creature had completely overextended its swing. It had terrible form. Arthur saw the opening instantly. He did not even need a system prompt to tell him the math. He had the muscle memory of ten million perfect sword swings drilled into his very DNA. He understood human—and alien—anatomy better than anyone in this universe.

Arthur moved. He grabbed the creature’s extended, trapped arm with both hands. His calloused fingers locked directly onto the mutated elbow joint.

The monster realized its mistake. The massive red weeping orb in the center of its face bulged. It tried to pull its arm back.

It was too late.

Arthur planted his heavy boots on the polished floor. He twisted his hips, using his entire body weight to generate pure, raw kinetic torque. He did not try to overpower the monster’s muscle. He just manipulated its awful posture. He stepped directly into the joint.

"CRACK!"

The sound of the thick, synthetic bone snapping echoed loudly down the corridor.

The abomination shrieked. It was a horrible, high-pitched sound of pure agony. The arm bent backward at a completely unnatural, disgusting angle. Arthur had violently snapped the elbow completely in half.

"Holy shit," Vane breathed. He lowered his broadsword slightly. He watched the corporate assassin work with a look of begrudging respect. Arthur was not a noble warrior. He was a brutal, street-fighting executioner.

"Do not just stand there, hero!" Arthur barked. He ducked under a wild, flailing swing from the creature’s left fist. "Hit the left knee! Now!"

Vane gritted his teeth. He stopped arguing. He lunged forward, swinging the flat side of his heavy broadsword like a giant steel baseball bat.

"CLANG!"

The heavy metal slammed directly into the side of the monster’s left kneecap. The grey, blistered flesh was already weak from the Paradox energy eating it. The heavy blow shattered the joint completely.

The monster lost its footing. It crashed down onto one knee. The hallway shook from the heavy impact.

"Cassia! Blind it!" Arthur ordered.

"On it, Boss!" Cassia yelled.

She slid across the floor, raising her customized stun pistols. She didn’t hesitate. She fired three rapid shots directly into the massive, weeping red orb on the creature’s face.

"Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle!"

The highly condensed plasma rounds burned directly into the optic nerve. The monster roared in absolute blind panic. It thrashed wildly, swinging its broken limbs and smashing the walls. It was completely out of control. It was falling apart.

Arthur stood just outside of its reach. He watched it thrash with cold, dead eyes. The Paradox energy inside the creature was rapidly accelerating. The grey blisters on its skin were popping, leaking acidic black fluid onto the floor.

It was dying. But Arthur did not have time to wait for it to bleed out. He had a vault to open.

"System," Arthur commanded in his mind. "I need the multiplier. Just for two seconds."

[Ding!]

[Warning: Cosmic Debt balance is critical.]

[Host is authorized for a two-second burst of 2x Multiplier. Use with caution.]

"Do it," Arthur thought.

[2x Multiplier Activated!]

[Duration: 2 Seconds.]

The change was instantaneous. The world around Arthur instantly slowed down to a crawl. The thrashing monster looked like it was moving through thick mud. The falling dust from the ceiling just hung in the air.

Arthur felt his physical stats violently double. His muscles expanded. His blood pumped like rocket fuel. He didn’t have his god-tier powers, but right now, a perfectly doubled baseline was all he needed.

One second.

Arthur blurred forward. He moved so fast that he left a faint afterimage in the air. He stepped right through the monster’s wild, blind swings. He did not go for the head. He did not go for the throat. He aimed directly for the massive, swelling grey chest.

Two seconds.

Arthur pulled his right hand back. He formed a perfectly tight, flat palm. He drove his hand forward, putting every single ounce of his doubled kinetic strength into the strike. He aimed directly for the creature’s swollen, mutated heart.

"BOOM!"

The impact sounded like a cannon firing in an enclosed space.

Arthur’s palm struck the center of the monster’s chest. The sheer, unadulterated physical force of the blow shattered the ribcage entirely. The kinetic shockwave tunneled straight through the grey flesh, violently crushing the heart and rupturing the primary organs in a single, devastating hit.

The two seconds expired.

The multiplier instantly shut off.

Time snapped back to normal.

"SQUELCH!"

The abomination went completely rigid. Black, oily blood erupted from its mouth. The massive red eye rolled back into its head. The creature did not even have time to scream. Its internal systems completely failed.

The massive twelve-foot body slumped forward. It hit the floor with a heavy, wet thud and did not move again. The Paradox energy inside it finally burned out, leaving nothing but a rotting pile of grey flesh.

Arthur stood over the dead manager. He let out a slow, heavy breath. His right arm ached slightly from the sheer force of the blow. He rolled his shoulder, wiping a speck of black blood off his suit jacket.

[Ding!]

[Target neutralized. Core functions suppressed.]

[0 Destruction Tax incurred. Target died of natural structural failure.]

Arthur smirked at the blue text. Natural structural failure. The system really knew how to write a good legal report.

"Clear," Arthur announced softly. He turned around to face his team.

Vane was staring at the dead monster, his jaw hanging slightly open. He looked from the crushed chest of the beast up to Arthur.

"You killed a twelve-foot paradox mutant with a single palm strike," Vane muttered. "You didn’t even use a weapon."

"Weapons are for people who don’t know how to close a deal," Arthur replied smoothly. He stepped over the puddle of black blood. "Besides, I told you. He was unstable. A slight push was all it took to collapse his whole operation."

Cassia walked past Vane. She holstered her smoking stun pistols. She did not look shocked. She looked incredibly impressed. She offered Arthur a sharp, predatory grin.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side, Sterling," Cassia said.

"Just keep hitting your targets, and we will get along fine," Arthur replied. He pointed to the end of the hallway. "The door, Cassia. We are on the clock."

At the very end of the corridor was the massive, circular vault door. It was forged entirely from deep-blue, condensed starlight metal. Intricate, geometric runes pulsed angrily across its surface. It was heavily encrypted. It was designed to keep Gods out.

Cassia didn’t hesitate. She stepped up to the door. She pulled a small, glowing decryption pad from her thigh holster.

"This is a Prime-level lock," Cassia muttered, her fingers flying across her screen. She attached a wire directly into the control panel of the door. "Gildas really did not want anyone looking at his stash. It is going to take me a minute to bypass the secondary firewalls."

"We don’t have a minute," Vane grunted. The scarred hero was looking back down the hallway, his sword raised. "The alarms are still blaring upstairs. The rest of the casino guards are going to figure out we are down here eventually. Not to mention the local Enforcers."

"Keep your pants on, hero," Cassia shot back without looking away from her screen. Sparks of purple Stardusk energy hissed from her fingertips as she wrestled with the cosmic code. "I am going as fast as I can. The encryption on this thing is a nightmare."

Arthur walked up to the door. He didn’t look worried. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the glowing, carved crystal he had pickpocketed from Gildas in the ballroom.

"You don’t need to hack it, Cassia," Arthur said. He held the crystal up. "I already lifted the manager’s master key."

Cassia paused. She looked at the crystal, and then up at Arthur. She let out a loud, genuine laugh.

"You absolute bastard," she grinned. "You had the keys the whole time?"

"I like to be prepared," Arthur smirked.

Cassia snatched the crystal from his hand. She slammed it directly into the center console of the vault door.

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

The console flashed a brilliant, pleasant green. The angry red runes across the door instantly dissolved.

The heavy starlight metal groaned loudly. The massive internal locking mechanisms violently disengaged with a series of loud, heavy clacks.

"Step back," Arthur ordered.

The massive vault door slowly began to slide open. A loud hiss of pressurized air escaped from the seams.

A blinding, intoxicating glow poured out from the crack in the door. It wasn’t the yellow light of gold. It wasn’t the white light of diamonds. It was a pure, radiant silver light that completely illuminated the dark hallway.

The heavy doors slid entirely into the walls.

Arthur, Cassia, and Vane stood in the doorway, staring into the room.

Cassia’s breath hitched. Vane lowered his broadsword, his eyes going wide. Arthur just smiled, a cold, calculating look of pure greed flashing in his dark eyes.

The vault was open. And it was time to collect.