I was sitting at the edge of the empty lake, the only node I discovered during my time on the fourth layer. For the past five hours, I’d observed the proceedings to see if anything had changed, but it was the same as the last time I’d been here. Nearby monsters would gather around the edge of the crater-like lakebed, and wait for the invisible sign to attack, most likely issued by the system. The attacks happened an hour apart and usually consisted of around three to seven monsters.

I took another look at my status, which was almost back to what it was when I first descended to the fourth layer. Considering that I was able to slap around most of the monsters then, I should be able to handle myself against these smaller waves if I played my cards right. The waves themselves would supply me with bodies, which I could eat to restore my HP and MP and obtain further attribute points.

I’d have to survive for three days, which meant there would be seventy-two waves. If I assumed that there would be an average of four monsters attacking with each wave, I would defeat around 290 monsters, which meant at the end of the challenge, I would be around 150 attribute points richer. A lot stronger than I was when I came down here.

Once again, Gluttony proved its worth as an SSS-Grade skill. I only wished that I’d realized how broken it was a lot sooner. I was so preoccupied with descending the layers and completing the bonus objectives that I failed to consider how overpowered I could get if I just waited a bit before evolving while decimating the weaker monsters. But hey, what’s done is done. From now on, I’d use and abuse my favorite passive skill to the utmost.

Not to mention, if I had tons of attribute points, I could order some fancy drinks at Tim’s!

There was currently a wave in progress, the fighting looking almost comical from this distance, but it was looking like a victor was about to emerge. I planned to swoop in once they were done and defeat the already weakened victor. I wasn’t bound to the rules that the system imposed on the monsters joining the wave, and I would abuse this privilege to give myself an edge.

Eventually, the fighting ended, and a single monster proudly took up position in the center of the empty lake, which was the signal for me to ruin its day. I jumped off the edge and started speeding toward the monster with an active void cloak. The victor, it turned out, was a mixture between a beetle and a bear… a bugbear? The massive creature had a glistening carapace and four thick, clawed legs. A nasty-looking horn extended from its face, ready to spear or throw anybody stupid enough to get close.

It was sporting quite a few wounds from the brawl that just took place and was nursing them, secure in its knowledge that there would be no attack for the next hour. Just to prove it wrong, I opened hostility by penetrating it with a giant spear. Four void javelins slammed into its body before it knew what hit it, the small barrage enough to finish off the already weakened monster.

You have taken control of node #66721, The Empty Lake.

Defend the node for as long as possible to earn special rewards.

And so it begins. I knew that I was safe for about an hour, unlike the bugbear, but I still kept an eye out for any anomalies, just in case. For now, I started devouring the bear as well as the monsters that lost in the most recent scuffle. I managed to chew through the corpses relatively quickly, thanks to my mutations, which meant I only needed to wait until the first wave came down to challenge me. I settled down in the middle of the lake, eyeing the edge to scout out the competition, and waited.

The fourth wave of monsters thundered down the lakebed, another attempt to dethrone me. I had managed fairly well during the last three waves and had started to optimize my strategy with every new wave. The first thing I realized, was that I could just activate void cloak once the wave started. The dumber monsters would get confused because they couldn’t find me and started attacking their fellow wave-mates.

I then realized that I could cast a medium-sized poison mist to poison any and all attackers. And to my delight, I had found out that my poison aura apparently didn’t count as an attack, which meant it wouldn’t cancel my void cloak. So for the most part, I could just sit around while they fought each other instead of me, while my poison weakened them all. Once the number of monsters got more manageable I could start casting more aggressive spells to clean up the rest.

It looked like the first big wave was upon me, as eight monsters descended toward me. Not willing to panic, I cast my prepared poison mist, quickly followed by void cloak, and repositioned myself a bit. Once they got close enough, I activated my poison aura while making sure that as many of them were within range as possible. Just as before, the monsters started fighting each other when they couldn’t find me.

I danced around the fighters, dodging attacks that were meant for others, and patiently waited for them to kill each other. Once there were only two left, I used the mana I had left to bombard them with my most explosive skills, poison bomb, and void javelin, making short work of the last few monsters. Not wasting a moment, I went about eating the dead.

Man, if it continued like this, holding this place for three days would be easy!

I was mopping up the twenty-fourth group of monsters, this wave has been rather small. Only three monsters had shown up to challenge me, and after a full day of killing and eating, my attributes had already gone up quite a bit. Up until now, holding the node had been almost laughably easy, the same tactic working almost every time. There had been two occasions where a monster managed to spot me even in my cloaked state, which forced me to join the brawl from the get-go. One of these waves had been thankfully small, but the other one got a bit hairy as nine monsters tried to pile up on me.

I assumed that something special would happen after this wave since the system had promised special rewards depending on how long I was able to hold the node. Whether I would get these rewards immediately, or when I stopped being King of the Hill was about to be revealed.

Congratulations!

You have managed to hold a node for 24 hours!

As a reward you may choose one of the following:

- 5 Attribute points.

- 3 Skill points.

- 1 Mutation.

- 24h Attack buff.

I looked at the offerings with interest, this was the first time I’d gotten to choose my reward instead of just being given what the system decided. The attribute points were almost worthless to me, as were the skill points, which left either the buff or the mutation. The buff would make the next day easier on me, but I felt like I had things well enough under control, so I picked the mutation. Mutation points were hard to come by, so getting some extra was a pretty good deal.

I shoved the dead monsters down my gullet and went back to work. A few waves ago I’d started construction on one of my trademarked Slug Bunkers, but it was slow going. For some reason the lake bed was really tough, so eating my way through the ground wasn’t easy. I didn’t want to waste my mana on the construction though.

I wasn’t even entirely sure if using it would get me any advantage at all, but to be honest, I started building it purely out of boredom. The long pauses between the fights had been annoyingly uneventful. I did start analyzing my spells a bit more, but doing so for hours on end, only disturbed by the occasional wave, was starting to fry my brain. So I switched to some mind-numbingly, recreational tunnel digging instead.

I barely got a few centimeters deeper when the system alerted me to the start of a new wave. I snapped to alertness, checking the number of monsters coming for me. Five, this time. Recognizing it as the fairly standard wave that it was, I started on my usual tactic. Activate poison mist, cloak myself with the void, wait, cast poison aura, run circles around the dumber monsters, clean up the final few, and stuff myself with the dead monsters.

I was happily chewing on a snake-type monster when the system piped up with a rather unfortunate message.

Node has been held longer than 24 hours, increasing difficulty.

Oh no…