June 28, 2025; "You have to let me do something!" Cried the dark-haired woman as she lunged for the small pool of liquid ether the goddess Gaia had created long ago to view the odd blue world known in modern times as Earth. "I can help them!"

  "No Maia. It's already done. He's evolving already." Gaia said with a somber look on her face. "It's up to him now. This shouldn't have happened yet." The goddess was shaking her head.

  "Don't worry. The man's strong enough to survive this. I'm sure of it. Have some faith in him." Came the gruff voice of Chronos, the old man a stark contrast to the other two men currently in Gaia's Godly dimi plane.

  "Are you sure he's the one Gaia?" Asked one of the other men. He was tall and well built, with bronzed skin, and muscles chiseled like a Greek sculpture of Apollo where his toga didn't cover. That was his name so the image fit.

  Gaia nodded. "I'm sure of it. I can sense the others but his soul has responded to the System Seed much more favorably than we ever thought possible. It's almost like he had the essence of the God's already coursing through him even before he received the Seed." She gestured at the image of Clay arching in pain as his bones and muscles grew in size and mass. It wasn't subtle. The steam came off his body as they watched the mortal women named Amy and Dawn trying to use their abilities on him as the System Seed inside Clay force evolved itself.

  "That's horrible." Grimaced the third man, Asclepius. "I can't believe I let you all convince me that this was the only way." He had a look of pity in his eyes. "The seed isn't supposed to evolve Gaia. At least not for another hundred years. That should be impossible."

  "So should access to the Lucky Draw System but he acquired that already as well. You used the Alpha mutant gene as the base to create the seed blueprint, Asclepius?" Gaia asked.

  The bearded man was silent for a moment and then said, "Yes. It was the only catalyst that would sync with both the Seed and human DNA." He shrugged. The man had truly tried everything else.

  "Then it can't be helped." Gaia looked at Maia, "How long until the next event cycle?" She had a good idea of the number of days until the next wave of mutations struck but with so many variables it was better to double-check her numbers.

  "Fifteen days." The young demigod said. She was still watching as the women struggled to move him inside a house. The viewpoint changed to just above Clay as they lay him on the floor. The man shook violently.

  "Then the question should be, which God or Goddess gave him the essence if it wasn't one of us?" Asked Chronos.

  "Morrígan." Said Gaia, her eyes glowing with divine menace. "I swear if you interfered and cost us..." She trailed off not wanting to vent her frustrations with the other goddess in front of her current guests.

  Chronos cleared his throat drawing all the other deities' attention to his elderly visage. "I doubt she's that stupid." He looked back at Maia, "So, fifteen more days until the rest of the System is fully integrated. That's not much time. Has anyone spoken to Hephaestus, Vulcan, or Brokkr?"

  Apollo spoke up. "Yes, the new System Store will be accessible through the Seed. All the smithies have been running nonstop since the initial development of the Seed and the possibility of the Store itself." He shrugged. "Some of the other Gods have been working with Maia to develop potion and elixir blueprints that could be easily produced for the System Store. Some are already being produced in bulk."

  Gaia looked at all of them. This wasn't the first time they had tried to accomplish something like the System Seed. The last time had nearly caused the extinction of the humans she so dearly cherished. She had a lot riding on this. If they succeeded, the Gods would regain access to their lost realm. They had been locked out of it for a long time.

  Without having access to their home plane their power was but a shadow of what it once was. Like a garden hose full of power where there should be a raging torrent of raw divine power. At one time these Passive Abilities and Skills were considered common among everyone on Earth. Unfortunately, the last Seeds they had developed, called simply Cores had been unknowingly corrupted by Lucifer.

  The twat had caused Krakatoa to erupt to cover his ass once the others had figured out he had developed a way to steal the Mystical Points of everyone with a Seed, nearly killing off humanity entirely. Only a few scattered, isolated tribes had survived to eventually repopulate the world, their mystical veins connecting the corrupted Cores fried as they tried to use their abilities to save themselves only to find out they inadvertently overloaded their circuits, quite literally as their mystical energy was siphoned off to power Lucifer's evil scheme for ultimate power.

  He had miscalculated the damage that the eruption had caused though and shot himself in the foot as his power source quickly ran dry and Michael and the others were able to lock him in his hellish demi-plane prison for all eternity.

  "Yes, I'm sure this is the Gate Keeper. He's finally been reborn. We will be able to go home." Gaia said. The look of hope and longing on the other deity's faces was difficult to explain as they heard her words.

  "If he survives," said Asclepius, stroking his beard as he watched the image of Clay and his companions. "But if he opens the gates, won't the other worlds have access to them too?" He nodded at the shaking Clay. "They need more time..."

  * * *

  Jill could hear Clay's teeth chattering as he shook. He was unconscious and clutched at her and Tonya on the other side of him, desperate for their warmth. Tonya started to hum softly, Jill could see her rival gently tracing his muscles under the quilt. She could also tell the woman was being careful not to touch his wounds as she did so, her eyes glistening with moisture.

  Dawn and Amy had gone to tell the others what happened and see if Luke found some better shelter. But soon everyone showed up, one of the girls limping badly. They had spotted several more of those mutated plants. Including a really big one that had snatched a very large mutated bird out of the sky right above them. Thankfully they had not been noticed.

  Jill could hear them talking as Clay slowly stopped shaking so violently.

  "It's a fucking hive of those things," Luke said. "And none of us know where the fuck we're going!" All they could do was wait, and pray Clay recovered quickly.

  He had asked several times over the last three hours as the sun sank lower and lower on the horizon how Clay was doing and Jill couldn't say. He was still cold but not freezing like he had been. Over three hours Clay's wounds had mostly closed on their own. Deep bruising covered his body though. As the wounds closed, the weird golden glow seemed to dissipate completely and Jill would say the man was sleeping peacefully as his breathing eased and his heart's slow rhythmic beating made her feel so sleepy.

  She looked up at Clay's face. At the man she had fallen in love with. And blushed as she saw the most insufferable smirk on his sleeping face. His large calloused hand groped her butt cheek as she tried to snuggle even closer. His bare muscular side was still nearly covered with a greenish-yellow bruise. The thorns that had been stuck in his shoulder were forced out as the wounds had closed.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  "Please Clay. I need you." She glanced up at Tonya who had gone silent across from her on the other side of the man they both loved. The woman was asleep, tears streaked her face. "We need you. Please wake up soon." She whispered as she lay her head on his shoulder and was soon oblivious as sleep quickly claimed her.

  * * *

  "What the fuck is your problem little brother?" Jake said as he moved to place a bass he had pulled out of farmer Loyd's pond while sitting in their flat-bottomed boat. "You mean to tell me, you of all people, have two beautiful women laying next to your dumb ass right now? And both of them are in love with you? And you can't make up your mind?" He winked mischievously, "But your holding both their asses." He laughed so hard he snorted as Clay felt his face go red.

  "Oh shove it, Jake, that's not even the worst part." Clay slowly rilled his line in with practiced jerks to get the frog lure to look more appealing to the pond's largemouth bass population. So far he had only managed to catch some algae and a stick. "I think they're conspiring to share me between them regardless of what I think."

  He paused as his brother laughed even harder while he worked at re-baiting his hook. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll be sharing my blankets with both of them if they have anything to do with it. I've woken up to both of them next to me multiple times now." Clay said shaking his head. He still had a hard time believing it himself.

  It sounded like Jake swallowed his tongue as he choked and spluttered mid-laugh. When he recovered he asked, "So... what's the problem?"

  "I don't know if I can Jake. I mean, mom would fucking scalp me if she were still alive and found out. I can practically feel her scowling at me..." Clay said. "They're both good women. And with the way everything went to shit, how will I be able to provide for two of them? Hell, I can't even get everyone safely home." He grimaced.

  His brother was quiet for a while, the sound of water lapping at the boat as the cicadas sounded in the background. Finally Jake said, "Clay, pull your head out of your ass and wake up. Those women obviously love you way more than you think if they've already come to terms with each other. Think about it. You should be feeling like the luckiest man alive. And if it is the end of civilization as we knew it, then who says a man can't have multiple women? Hell, you were big on the Bible studies in Sunday school, everyone had multiple wives it seemed."

  "I'd say if you can provide for them and protect them then who's going to say shit to you other than them? After all, if they're good with it, why shouldn't you be?" Jake finished, finally finished baiting his hook and stood up to cast.

  Clay's brows furrowed in thought. He didn't say anything for a while as he truly thought about what Jake said. John and Luke had said similar things. Then he shrugged, "Ahh well if you could have given me that nugget of wisdom a few days earlier, I might have been able to do something with it." He absently touched his chest, he could still feel it burning.

  "Oh, and why's that?" Jake asked flicking his line to set his hook in yet another bass.

  "Well, I'm pretty sure I died, bro. So I think I'd rather just stay here and fish with you." He casually reeled the line in another few feet, letting it sink a bit before giving it a slight jerk. "Besides, I never did make it home. You won't believe it, I'm pretty sure I died because of a giant asshole."

  Jake roared with laughter, even slapping his knee as he had actual fucking tears coming out of the corner of his eyes he was laughing so hard. It took him a bit to regain some composure and said, "Little brother, I think you have a long fruitful life ahead of you regardless of what the fuck this world throws at you. You're my brother." He continued to rill in the fish, which was surprisingly still attached. "Besides, I expect lots of nieces and nephews!" He flashed him a shit-eating grin.

  "I can't..." Clay started, but Jake cut him off.

  "Wake up little brother, and see what's right in front of you," Jake said.

  Clay tried to say he was tired. He just wanted to stay there and fish. But his brother's voice became more urgent. "Wake up Clay!"

  "Clay, please wake up." Came Jill's voice as his eyes snapped open. Everything burned like he had worked out after the work out and he groaned as he remembered everything. "You're awake! Thank fucking God, we need to get out of here." Jill said as she raised herself up from where she had been lying right beside him. He noticed he had ahold of her ass cheek and quickly let it go, after giving it a good squeeze that elicited a gasp from her. Tonya quickly sat up on the other side of him and began looking him over in the dim light.

  "These made large scars," Tonya said as she traced one of the furrows in his shoulder gently that had been caused by the thorns of the pod that had latched onto him and thrown him to the ground in a brutal slam attack. His side hurts just thinking about it. Tonya looked up at him as he looked into her suddenly surprised eyes. "Clay, your eyes are gold!" She said in surprise.

  "What?" He asked, not hearing what she said.

  Jill grabbed his chin and turned his face towards her. Her eyes scrutinized his. "Oh my, that is quite different from the grey-blue they were." She leaned in, looking even closer in the dim light inside the house. "I think there are small flecks of red in them."

  He gently took her hand away and sat up slowly, expecting his ribs and chest to burn in pain. But instead, he just felt a slight tingling. Everywhere there was a puckered scar he could feel the tingling sensation. As he inspected his scars, Jill stood up and said, "Amy tried to heal them, but she said nothing would happen when she tried. And Dawn couldn't stitch you up. She said something about the wounds were healing too rapidly for it to do anything but hinder your own body's regenerative ability." She held out her hand to help him up and soon he was standing in what he could tell was a living room. Jill, Tonya, Dawn and Luke who were in the adjoining dining room all looked up at him. His stomach let out a loud growl as he realized he was hungry, very hungry.

  "Holy shit!" Exclaimed Dawn from the dining room.

  "What the fuck, it's not even been eight hours! How the hell does someone grow that damn much? And your eye! Are they fucking glowing?" Came Luke's surprised voice, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

  "Uhh..." Clay was at a loss. He was shirtless and his pants were too short. He didn't know what to say or how to react to this situation. So he did the only thing he could do. He strode towards the hallway to find a bathroom, having to duck to clear the doorway and sure enough he could tell he was much larger. But as he looked in the mirror he could see his eyes were gold with red flecks. He could see really well in the low light too, as if he had a natural filter on his eyes that made everything sharper, the edges of everything more apparent. "Well, shit!"

  "We need to get out of here. I think that the big one can reach us here even if the little ones can't." Said Luke, he was trying to urge everyone that now that Clay was awake, they urgently needed to get away from the hive of mutated plants. "Something is going on to the East of the town. And I'm telling you all, we need to be going!"

  "Are you good Clay?" Amy asked, rubbing sleep from her weary eyes as she exited another room. "I tried to heal you. I... I'm sorry I couldn't." She lowered her head as if ashamed of not being able to help Clay when he needed it. He figured it was because of her class. Being a combat medic and unable to help must have been frustrating, to say the least.

  "I'll live." He flashed them a grin. "I think I need some clothes though. I'm not sure what happened after that thing popped its cherry." He shrugged.

  "Ah, well, Sigrid managed to find some clothes that should fit you," Tonya said. "Come on, I'll get them for you." She gestured to the door off to the right of the hallway. He ducked out of the bathroom and followed her in. There were several changes of clothes roughly big enough to fit him. What the fuck had happened?

  He quickly donned a new shirt and pants that fit again. He noticed his muscles were a lot more defined than they had been. And the fucking golden orb was flashing. But he didn't have time to think about it as Luke continued to urge everyone to get ready, they needed to leave as soon as possible.

  It was obvious to Clay he had changed quite a bit. Maybe he had been mutated by the damn plant's weird orange-colored blood? "Well, regardless, it's fucking done now." He grumbled to himself. "I don't feel much different though. That's gotta be a good thing... Right?"

  Jill watched him like a hawk watching a chicken and he couldn't help but flash her a toothy grin and a wink. She blushed slightly but never looked away as he changed and placed the clothes in his spatial storage space. Finally ready he pulled on a Carhartt jacket that looked new and headed out the door.

  And almost walked into Sigrid, she held his axe in her hand and looked abashed as he said, "Hey, thanks for finding the new clothes Sigrid. I'm going to owe you big time by the time I get home! Ah, my axe, thanks." Clay said as he took the axe out of her hands.

  "You lost that and I didn't want you to leave it behind, so I went and got it for you." She said shyly.

  "I appreciate that, Sigrid." He said and patted her shoulder as he walked by. What the hell? Was she purring?

  He asked Luke as he entered the living room, "What's going on?"

  "Something big is attacking the damn mutated plants which has them all on edge. We need to get out of here Mr Clay." Luke said he was dead serious. Whatever the "something big" was Clay trusted him enough to know they needed to go. Luke hadn't ever given him a reason not to trust him.

  "Alright, then we need to head due West, even if we have to take a slight detour or two. Then south to Highway 32. We're close enough now to tell you all." Everyone nodded, even the Orc girls and Joanna were there and ready now. "If we get separated, try to make it to the last point mentioned. If everyone isn't there, do your best to wait for the rest within reason. Shit can happen, especially now, let's be real."

  He looked at them and then outside at the brightening sky of a new day before he continued, "Let's go, we need to get out of Salem and as far towards Montauk as we can get by dark." After three or four more minutes they were making their way through houses and side streets and eventually to another highway. Highway 72, where they crossed into a field of waist-high brown corn.

  With another hour of travel, they made it to Highway 32 and turned West. Shortly after dark, they settled into a brick house past a large white church where Clay couldn't wait for something to eat. Whatever it was his stomach didn't care. But while he waited he accessed his status screen.

  Clay Benton, Human Male, Age 40

  Titles: Zombie Slayer, Evolved Human

  Level: 13

  Class: Sovereign

  Health Points: 400 / 520

  Mystical Points: 102 / 102

  Strength: 35

  Dexterity: 35

  Intelligence: 29

  Wisdom: 27

  Loyalty Monitor: 54%

  Passive Abilities - Adaptable Conversion; Greater Eyes of Insight; Enhanced Virility; Touch of the Divine; Lesser Spatial Storage; Aura of Malice; Regenerate; Paralysis Immunity; Cast Iron Stomach; Resilience

  Skills - Crippling Strike; Frenzy; Eldritch Bolts; Web Bomb; Bone Spike; Multi-Strike

  Remaining ability points to be allocated: 15

  Unread System Messages (4)

  "When the hell did I level up?" He exclaimed. "Damn, 4 system messages." He groaned.

  ~Thank you all for reading! I hope to continue producing content you can enjoy.~

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