Shepherding Humanity

Cerebral Bluff quietly waited for Linda to reawaken.

After a dozen minutes, Linda woke up to find a notebook silently standing guard over her.

When it noticed that she was awake, it happily said:

“Can I caress your delectable ass?”

Ah!!!

Linda fainted once again.

The second time she awoke, she was resigned to her fate.

She was stoically readying herself to receive all kinds of humiliation when she realized that she hadn’t been harmed in the least. Although this evil tome had an extremely foul mouth, it hadn’t actually done anything.

She realized that she was safe for the moment. “This evil tome is all bark and no bite.”

Meanwhile, in a lush forest.

“Illumination!”

“It’s been blinded! Hurry!”

“Dark Perception.”

“Bindings of Spring!”

Several low level witches were channeling low-level spells through their staves at a 6 meters long beast. Their foreheads were beaded with sweat.

After multiple bright flashes, the giant beast collapsed.

“We’ve succeeded!”

“Our teacher will reward us!”

The little witches happily cheered and hurried to the beast’s corpse to collect crafting materials. “Guys, if we keep working hard like this, do you think we’ll have a chance in the Inter-Academy Tournament 5 years later?”

“Will it even be held? It’s the Age of Dark Witches once again; the Academy Professors call this age the ‘Second Dark Age of Roses’. Medusa rules the entire world, and the Mountaintop Kingdom of Roses is supreme.”

After some time, they happily left.

Over ten minutes passed. Then, long skinless strands of muscles that looked like hideous, bright red tentacles wriggled out of a nearby tree hollow and entered the corpse through its open wounds.

“I’ve finally gained a body.” Someone quietly declared.

*Woosh!*

A truly frightening thing happened next.

The dead giant beast, its eyes devoid of life, revived and stood up once again.

Desecrating corpses and controlling the dead was something beyond taboo. This was an unimaginable realm that even the Empress of Death, Medusa, had failed to reach. If they saw this scene, then those little witches just now would have been shocked beyond words.

“With my muscle species, it’s not difficult for me to take control of this giant beast’s corpse.”

*Boom Boom Boom!*

Standing in place, the giant beast started to punch the air. Its movements were full of power.

“I can perfectly utilize my family’s martial arts—along with various other martial arts—in this otherworld. This body is not bad at all!”

His movements were very slow in the beginning, but he quickly got used to his new body and began to speed up. In no time at all, he was able to dash through the forest, running and leaping with the nimbleness of an ape.

Longji was part of the special forces and considered one of the strongest soldiers in the army.

His marksmanship and assasination techniques were not even in the top 30, but he more than made up for it with his peerless martial art skills. He was the proud heir of thousands of years of martial tradition. This was why he had been chosen.

In this day and age, the advent of guns had reduced martial arts and CQC abilities to a mere supporting role. He had been overlooked for a long time, but had been specially chosen for this particular mission.

When his superiors informed him that this secret mission could affect the fate of their entire nation, he’d been ready to put his life on the line to sneak into a hostile country and assassinate a key figure, or steal some institute’s top-secret research.

Dying for the sake of his nation would be an honor.

But then, they told that his mission was to play a relaxing online game. When he heard this, Longji had been flummoxed.

???

The secret mission that would affect the fate of a nation—was for him to play a game?

It wasn’t like he didn’t read webnovels in his free time. Some of the top LitRPG novels did have that kind of setting.

Those novels would begin with the poor and neglected main character, who used to be an elite special forces officer, suddenly receiving a secret mission from the nation to participate in an online game.

For various reasons, this game would be able to affect the fate of all the nations on Earth.

Afterwards, in the game, the Gary Stu main character would receive a hidden class right from the beginning, along with various other lucky breaks, level up like crazy, form a guild, take over a city, kill Bosses, pwn other players, and reach the top of the world, both in the game and in real life.

But…

“I’ve read plenty of LitRPG novels, OK? Why is this beginning so familiar?” Longji was speechless. “Is this really happening to me?”

Although he was scoffing, Longji was well aware that he was not a story’s main character.

As part of the special forces, he often fought with the other nations’ elite soldiers and knew well how frighteningly capable they were.

“I can roughly guess their identities, there are only so many masters of CQC after all. The American agent should be Pell, the ‘Raging Dragon’, who’s said to be able subdue a crocodile bare-handed. And from Japan, there's sword-master Yamada, who people say could cut down arrows in mid-flight. Both of them should have joined, right?

Where are you hiding among these 13 people?

We’ve never had a chance to shine in this age of firearms. We are the final inheritors of our respective nation’s ancient martial traditions, let us take the opportunity to have a good match in this otherworld!”

“Don’t think I haven't realized what you’ve been up to.” Longji continued. “That player who died to the giant beast, was it truly just a coincidence that he got stepped on?”

“In the screenshots he posted, the beast who stepped on him had lifeless eyes, and a very stiff looking body. Clearly, it was already dead, and was being controlled by your muscles, like what I’m doing now. You’ve started to gather the scattered Evil God’s organs!”

The first player to be kicked out of the game has already appeared.

Clearly, those other agents were working in secret to assassinate the clueless players en masse.

For the sake of growing stronger, they were gathering body parts from all over the world, while assassinating the other members of the “Council of Thirteen”. Their aim was to be the last man standing, becoming the sole controller of the Evil God’s muscles, and gain absolute control over its entire body.

Longji's voice turned cold. “They’re covering up the other players' deaths as unfortunate accidents. While the ordinary players are still unaware, they’ll massacre as many of them as possible. If the players run and hide, it would be difficult to find them.”

“A storm is coming.”

“The entire game will be turned upside down.”

After thinking for a while, he began to move. “Compared to them, I’m off to a late start. My luck was horrible, and I’ve only managed to gain a body just now.”

“The natives of this world possess supernatural powers, this 6 meter beast that’s serving as my body is still too small. But, a martial arts wielding giant beast should be unstoppable! With this 6 meter body, I’m confident that I can solo a giant beast that’s over a dozen meters…

I’ll change bodies as I go along—from 6 meters to to a dozen of meters, to dozens of meters—growing ever larger.

When I reach 50-60 meters, I should be able to ambush a small town. With my zombie-like giant beast’s body, a regular Second or Third-Level Mage won’t be a match for me. I’ll barge into a store-front that specializes in Magic Potions and seize a portion of the Evil Eye’s Blood, along with various auxiliary potions to stabilize myself. Once I’ve gone through the ‘Magic Awakening Ritual’, I’ll be able to become a mage.”

His goal was very clear.

He was certain that the others also had similar thoughts. Everyone wanted to be the first to become a mage.

Their secret contest has already started.

“Found one.”

As he strode through the forest, he encountered a giant gray beast that was about a dozen meters long, with violent glowing crimson eyes. Lowering his center of gravity, he shifted into an ancient martial arts pose.

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