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Chapter 33 - The Bullipede, round one.
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 21:34:12 +0000 UTC*The esports competitor, Lee Sang-hoon, now Kiron. Has become Realmbound. He has reached realm seven within the same team. He has refused to share whether he has received a title, nor has he admitted to which class and skills he has.
“There have been accusations that you are too ashamed to share your mediocre classes and skills after being sponsored by your home country. Do you have any response?” - Etria, a Realmer reporter
"I will continue to make my country proud, but I will not share my skills and titles. I don’t think that’s sensible. I don't understand why everyone else does it. You don't leak your tactics and scrims to the public." - Kiron
*The more astute have noticed that his team has not suffered a single casualty on their rise to the seventh realm, nor has his team ever taken a single piece of modern equipment.
-----
Ryan looked at the bounty poster on the bullipede and made up his mind.
It was finally time to do something an adventurer would do.
Time to hunt a monster.
He checked the time on the Trial System, 01:26.
It was probably around 3am or 4am back home. He checked the bounty poster with the map in his hands. He’d been jogging in the moonlight for nearly an hour and it was quite a fun journey. Every time he came upon an animal or monster they’d flee from him like their lives depended on it.
Even passively his Epic was enough to scare everything that heard his footsteps.
And those that didn’t?
A simple twist into a [Double Stab] pierced the throat of a giant lizard three times his own size. The level 6 skill formed a spectral knife alongside his own stab as two gaping wounds opened up.
Ryan had no idea what the name of this thing was. It looked like something between a chameleon and a monitor lizard. It had stood its ground and hissed at him, flapping its neck frills at him with spinning bright colors.
Unfortunately for the monitor lizard Ryan wanted to go in that direction.
The corpse of this creature qualifies for a System exchange. Exchange the creature? Y/N?
Ryan blinked.
“This thing qualifies for a System exchange? Really?”
System exchanges were sort of like lootboxes. You could send an entire corpse to exchange for a randomized loot relative to the sector you killed the monster in. It wasn’t that worthwhile in lower sectors, but in the higher ones? Sector Eight had regeneration potions in its loot table.
Realistically he was supposed to have seen the screen before now… except that this was technically the first monster in The Realm he’d ever killed.
Gamielle just looked at the poor lizard and shook her head.
“Your Epic is really stupid. That thing’s supposed to be an apex ambush monster for Sector Two.”
He laughed as he pressed yes on the System screen, he waited as the body of the lizard disappeared. Ryan rubbed his hands eagerly, anything could be useful for people cut off civilization like him.
“Now this is adventuring! Taking a stroll and killing big monsters. Getting some loot.”
“This is not what adventuring is supposed to be like, like at all.”
Ryan nodded, he agreed with her there.
“Yeah that’s true, I need to get a camera so I can take videos for realmnet.”
“All the Tyrants privately agree that your generation is the worst.”
“Not the Settler generation?”
“Okay, second worst.”
“Uh-huh.”
–
Ryan walked through the forest frustrated. Gamielle floated next to him, eating illusioned popcorn.
“Did you really think you’d get something useful from a Sector Two monster like that?”
“I’d be okay even if it was a knife or something. Why is a rusted sword in the drop tables?”
“Luck of the draw, turns out you’re an unlucky guy.”
“Don’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.”
It was insulting was what it was, for a moment he had hoped that maybe there was something useful underneath the rust. That lasted until it broke in one swing.
It didn’t matter, he’d have another shot with the bullipede. The loot was supposed to be better the more dangerous the creature was. There were bonuses based on a bunch of things. Like a Sector Four monster crawling around and taking territory in a Sector Two leveled zone.
He had found the spot.
The bullipede had made its territory obvious. Smashed trees were strewn everywhere in a wide circular clearing. A single young redwood rose proudly in the middle.
Wrapped around the tree was a giant centipede. Correction, bullipede. He gauged the size from where he stood.
The insect was already staring at him, then it started shifting around, twitching its legs.
Ryan didn’t take his eyes off it.
“Do bullipedes normally have tusks?”
Gamielle went silent, actually she was gone. He tensed. The bullipede’s legs were undulating while its tusked face was locked in at him. The insectile face with tusks was swaying back and forth. Ryan had a feeling that whatever it was doing was the same thing the lizard was doing earlier.
It was warning him to back off.
Ryan had come expecting a decently sized monster, he knew how large megafauna could get in The Realm. Normal bullipedes weren’t half as big as this one, nor did they mark out territories like this.
He took a step back.
That was a mistake, he felt the telltale sign of his Epic waning.
He hadn’t really thought about why an apex insect would just warn people instead of attacking him. Most apex monsters of this size would happily attack Trialists so it could keep growing.
It turned out that they were all just wary of his Epic, his Epic [Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation which demanded he be relentless. Like a spell matrix gone wrong his aura started fizzling out.
If the insect was more intelligent then perhaps it would have been more cautious. Unfortunately for Ryan, the bullipede now only saw prey. It climbed to the top of the redwood, no longer wrapped around the tree but tightly coiled around one of its large branches.
It kind of looked like a cartoon depiction of monster dung.
As funny as that was he didn’t ignore his [Dangersense] screaming at him. He started sprinting, despite the distance.
He turned back to see the bullipede launching itself into the air.
It was like a coiled spring exploding outwards.
“What the fuuuuuu-”
Ryan leapt to the side as it landed at the edge of the clearing and continued smash right through the trees next to him.
It spun to turn and face him, its body wrapping around another tree as it tried to use it to slow itself. Whatever monstrous agility it had shown earlier was… less present as it accidentally smashed through the smaller tree, ripping up the roots whole. The bullipede started stabbing into the ground with its countless legs skidding along the ground–only to smash its back into another tree.
It started writhing in pain.
Ryan stopped trying to run away.
He sprinted at the insect instead. It was still trying to reorient itself as he stabbed with his soulbound sword.
[Double Stab]
The spectral blade stabbed alongside him.
Then Ryan realized something.
He had made two deep stabs, yes, and they were bleeding green, yes, but this bullipede was about half the size of a freight train. It had wrapped around a redwood and more of itself was visible than the tree itself.
Ryan looked at the deep green wound then looked at the whole body of the entire thing.
What the fuck am I doing?
It stabilized itself and turned its body around, he imagined he looked like an infant that had just punched an orc the size of Barry. Ryan jumped then [Instant Dodged] upwards as its body twitched and it smashed through another tree.
“Okay fuck that.”
He grabbed the branch of a tree, then launched himself into another. The Bullipede followed, swirling around the trees instead of crashing into them. He activated his Epic.
[Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation]
…It didn’t have the effect he was hoping. Instead of scaring it away the bullipede seemed to speed up. It started bulldozing through smaller trees and bigger trees it climbed then leapt off of.
He was barely staying ahead.
“I’m letting you live! Leave me alone!”
There was a notification ping from the Trial System. Ryan ignored it.
Gamielle’s laughter cackled in his ears.
“Fuck off Gamielle!”
He leapt to another tree as the bullipede wrapped around the one he had just been standing on.
It coiled.
“Oh shit.”
He dove to the ground and felt a rush of air. The whoosh of air felt like he had just dodged a goddamn bullet train. The bullipede went flying off into the forest. Smashing every tree in its wake. He stared at the absolute carnage and destruction.
Ryan turned and ran the other way.
He didn’t stop sprinting until he felt his [Dangersense] go off cooldown. He was out of breath. Out of breath?
It was the first time he’d had to really push his realm two body.
Ryan glared at the white robed [Mage] eating popcorn. She had an action camera taped to her head with the words ‘Caught in 4k’ floating above her, in System text style.
“That was fucked up.” he panted. “How was Zhenyu’s team supposed to have killed that? Wait. No don’t answer, Javelins from afar and bleed it out. Holy shit, how long would that have taken? There must have been more to the plan, there was no way that team could have outrun that thing.”
“Probably.”
Gamielle was still loudly crunching on popcorn. She wiped her mouth. Ryan just blinked at what he’d done.
“Damn that was really stupid.”
It had felt logical at the time. Rack up achievements and solve the problem of him lacking some sort of finisher. It wasn’t until he saw how large the bullipede was that he had realized how stupid he was being.
Gamielle nodded.
“Mmm, you know what the issue is right?”
“My damned Epic.”
It was still telling him to keep going, keep pushing and don’t stop. It wasn’t always so explicit either, he was almost certain that it was subtly pushing him forward. When it reached the peak? He was almost blind to everything else.
Ryan had heard of high tier skills changing the user but nothing this drastic.
He wasn’t that reckless.
“Mhmm, maybe, maybe not.”
“Can’t you give me some advice? People do it all the time.”
Here was the daughter or the alter ego of one of the most informed people in The Realm. Yet she would rather make fun of him than help. Actually that was pretty fitting for the Witch Tyrant’s daughter.
“Nope, and you shouldn’t take advice from others anyway. Your Epic is yours and nobody else’s. Nobody else will really know how your skill works better than you do.”
Ryan made a face.
“I’m actually pretty sure that’s basic advice anyone can find on the realmnet.”
Gamielle stuck out a tongue. “you and your-”
Ryan leapt at her, he had his hand out, reaching for her popcorn.
“Hey!”
He missed as she swerved out of the way.
[Instant Dodge]
She just flew away quicker. Gamielle was holding the popcorn away from him with two hands like it was a precious treasure.
“This popcorn isn’t real, what’s wrong with you?”
“Then stop eating it!”
Gamielle looked at him suspiciously. From his perspective he was looking right up her robes, the long flowing robes were naturally shadowed, stopping any possible peeping from below. Ryan tried to look as innocent as possible while pretending he was just going for a good look.
She wasn’t fooled.
“What are you… you’re using me for skill grinding.”
“Mmm, maybe.” He copied her.
“Hmph.” Gamielle disappeared.
“What?! Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to get stronger? If you aren’t going to give some useful advice then maybe you should stand still while I stab you for achievements!”
He yelled at the air.
Ryan was pretty sure that a certain old orc would have chastised him for yelling in the middle of a monster infested forest.
Damned Epic. Maybe Barry was right and I shouldn’t have picked it.
Nah that can’t be right.
Ryan checked his system notification, he was hoping it was a new title.
Your Earth body has taken minor damage.
Note: if your Earth body perishes then you will take soul damage when using the [Return To Earth] skill.
“Wait what?”
–
Five minutes later
“This is a dumb place to return. I don’t think I need to tell you that.”
“Just watch.”
Ryan had spent two minutes looking for a cave until he gave up. When he’d climbed a tree all he could see was a mountain to one side and rolling hills far in the distance. Everywhere else was a dense forest and he had no maps.
[Return to Earth]
A circle appeared in his vision as his body started humming and getting brighter. A noise specifically designed to attract monsters and alert any hostile forces. At minimum it was recommended to hide in a deep cave and make sure the sound didn’t echo out too much.
Normally Destined would have allies guarding them when they needed to use the skill.
He was just standing on a thick tree branch with his arms crossed. Silver studs glinting in the moonlight and illusory silver hair drifting in the wind.
He was trying to act cool but had no idea if his idea would work. That was the reason he was so high up on a tree. It would give him the most amount of time if monsters did start swarming towards him.
Gamielle hovered in front of Ryan with an old fashioned camera with the same system text format hovering over her head.
Ryan’s blooper reel
A minute went by with no monsters appearing. Gamielle looked around as she finally realized what was happening.
He smiled.
“What’s the matter Gammy? Things not working out like you thought they would?”
‘Gammy’ huffed, whether it was because of the terrible nickname or his smug face Ryan couldn’t tell.
“What’s your Epic description say?”
“Figure it out. It’s not like it matters right? My Epic is my own to figure out.”
“You little–Bah, whatever.”
She threw up her hands, the camera flying into the air, it fell from the air close to him.
Ryan narrowed his eyes, she was baiting him. She wanted him to try to grab the illusory camera. He sniffed then pointed at the System text hovering above her.
“Should rename that to Gammy’s bloopers, don’t you think?”
“Why you–I can still drag that bullipede into your humming range. Want to see how your Epic mixes together against that one?”
“You wouldn’t dare. That isn’t worth the risk.”
“You’re talking to a [Witch]’s daughter. You need to give me some more respect.” She crossed her arms, puffing her chest out. “Tell me your skill description or I will lure it over.”
“That’s a real dick move. Don’t you think I’ve had enough excitement for the day? Honestly -”
“Stop stalling, 10 seconds. Tell me something interesting or I’ll see if I can aggro that little bug over here in three minutes.”
“Well, what do you want to know?”
A loud crushing screeching sound cut through the mostly silent forest. Birds flew in the distance as he saw tall trees fall over. It was coming towards him.
“It hasn’t been ten seconds! I got an S rank clear! Picked two skills!”
Gamielle rolled her eyes. The bullipede came closer.
Ryan panicked, he had nothing to negotiate with, but he couldn’t tell her his skill description either. He had to teleport back and find out what was hitting his body.
“Okay! Stop! I’m teleporting because I got an alert saying my Earth body got minor damage. Don’t bring that thing over here.”
Gamielle gave him a grin. He realized he’d fallen for a trick, hook, line and sinker.
“And that, my dear Ryany, is how you negotiate.”
This time he kept the cursing to himself. He had more important things to do, like figure out how his body had even taken damage at all.
There was no way Seffara was just letting someone just hit his body right?
Then he realized, what if Seffara had tried to wake him early?
Oh fuck.
