The void between islands was not empty. It was filled with a thin, purple miasma that smelled faintly of ozone and old dust—the smell of a server room that hadn't been cleaned in a decade.
Atlas sat on his throne, his eyes closed. He wasn't sleeping. He was projecting his consciousness.
One of the perks of having a race with [Intelligence: 0] was that their minds were empty vessels. They had no ego, no fear, and no resistance. Through the [Divine Link], Atlas didn't just command them; he drove them.
Syncing... Connection Established.
Atlas's perspective shifted. The cold stone of his throne disappeared. Suddenly, he felt the damp, crushing pressure of air rushing past him. He was falling.
He was currently inhabiting "Unit Alpha," one of the two C4-Dolls he had ordered to jump off the edge of his island.
Visually, the experience was disorienting. The C4-Dolls didn't have eyes. They perceived the world through [Tremorsense] (vibrations in the air and ground) and a primitive form of [Mana Echolocation]. The world appeared as a wireframe of white lines against a pitch-black background.
Thud.
Unit Alpha hit the ground of the lower island. The impact was heavy. The clay body compressed like a stress ball, absorbing the kinetic energy that would have shattered human bones, then slowly reformed its shape. A second later, Unit Beta landed beside him with a wet splat.
"Status report," Atlas thought, testing the control lag. The Dolls responded with a vague sense of obedience. No pain. No damage.
Atlas—through the Dolls—scanned the new territory. Unlike his own island, which was a flat wasteland of mud, this island was jagged. It was a mountain peak floating in space, riddled with caves and sharp obsidian spires. The air here was warmer. Dry. And it vibrated with the rhythmic sound of metal striking stone.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
"Mining," Atlas analyzed. "Organized labor. The player here isn't wasting time."
He moved his units forward. They didn't walk like humans; they slid and shambled, their clay bodies adjusting to the uneven terrain. They blended perfectly with the grey rocks.
Atlas pulled up a minimized window of the [Global Chat] in his peripheral vision while he navigated the stealth mission. He needed to know who he was robbing.
> User_Cavedweller: Ha! Take that, leaderboard! My Kobolds just hit a rich vein. I'm the Copper King, baby!> User_ForestWalker: Good for you. My Dryads are dying of thirst. Does anyone have water?> User_Cavedweller: I'll trade Copper for Water! 1:1 ratio! Or meat! My Kobolds are hungry!> User_Zhuge: @Cavedweller, be careful broadcasting your resource type. Copper implies the potential for Bronze Age tech or conductors. You are painting a target on your back.> User_Cavedweller: Let them come! My island is a fortress of tunnels! Nobody can navigate it but me!
"Navigating tunnels is hard," Atlas mused, steering Unit Alpha behind a large boulder as a patrol walked by. "But I don't need to navigate. I just need to listen."
The patrol came into view of his tremor-sense. They were short, reptilian creatures with dog-like snouts—Kobolds. There were three of them. They wore loincloths made of rough dried skin and carried crude pickaxes. Unlike the generic fantasy Kobolds, these had glowing red runes painted on their foreheads.
[Scan Complete][Race: Rune-Kobolds (Rank E)][Trait: Darkvision, Pack Tactics.][Allegiance: Player 'Cavedweller'.]
"Runes," Atlas noted. "Magic potential? Or just a racial buff for mining strength?"
The Kobolds were arguing. Atlas couldn't understand their language, but the system provided a rough translation based on intent. "Hungry... Boss screams... Dig faster...""No meat... only rocks..."
They looked miserable. Their ribs were showing. Atlas watched them pass. He could have killed them instantly. A single "Katsu" explosion would collapse this tunnel entrance and bury them. But destruction was a waste of assets.
He followed the Kobolds deep into the central cave system. The deeper he went, the louder the clanging became. Finally, the tunnel opened into a massive cavern.
Atlas's virtual breath hitched. In the center of the cavern was a stockpile. A messy, unorganized pile of glittering reddish-brown ore. Native Copper. At least two tons of it.
Standing atop a rock, overseeing the mining operation, was the Player. He looked like a standard human male, maybe in his thirties, wearing the default grey robes given to all Novice Deities. He was holding a whip in one hand and a half-eaten loaf of bread in the other (likely a starter item).
"Dig, you lizards!" Cavedweller shouted. "The System says I need 500 ore to upgrade the Altar! Faster!"
Atlas analyzed the scene. The Player was ruling through fear. His Cohesion stat was likely abysmal. But more importantly, he was standing right next to the copper.
"I can't carry two tons of ore," Atlas calculated. "My dolls are strong, but they don't have inventory space. We are physical entities."
He needed a way to transport a high-value payload vertically, back up to his island floating 200 meters above. And he needed to do it without Cavedweller noticing until it was too late.
He looked at the cavern walls. They were sheer, jagged rock leading up to a natural skylight vent. "Climbing..."
Atlas triggered his [Fiction Realization] talent. The System interface overlayed his vision of the dark cave.
"I need a traversal method. The Dolls currently have [Retractable Bone Claws], which are good for stabbing, but bad for climbing smooth rock." He sifted through his memories. Assassin's Creed? Hookblade. Too complex to craft with just clay and bone. Attack on Titan? ODM Gear. Requires gas propulsion. Impossible. Spider-Man.
"The wall-crawling ability," Atlas focused. "Parker doesn't use magic. In the movies, it's scopulae pads—microscopic hairs that use Van der Waals force to stick to surfaces. Or, in the horror versions, it's more biological."
[Analyzing Concept: Wall Crawling (Biological).][Source: Spider-Man (Sam Raimi Trilogy) / Nature (Gecko).][Requirements: Biomass modification to fingertips and feet.][Cost: 20 Origin Points.]
"Cheap," Atlas thought. "Because I'm not asking for super strength or spider-sense. Just friction."
Authorize.
Down in the shadows of the cave, Unit Alpha and Unit Beta shuddered. Their smooth, clay hands shifted. The fingertips flattened out, developing thousands of microscopic ridges. The clay became tacky and adhesive to the touch.
[Unit Upgrade: Adhesive Grip.]
Atlas commanded Unit Alpha to test it. The Doll reached out and touched the cave ceiling. It stuck. With zero effort, the Doll hauled itself upside down, hanging like a grotesque white bat above the mining operation.
"Phase 1 complete. Now for the payload."
Atlas didn't want just the ore. Ore was heavy. Ore needed refining. He looked at the Kobolds. They were living creatures. They contained bio-electricity. They contained muscles that could work. And unlike the clay dolls, they had fingers that could perform delicate tasks.
"If I steal the ore, I get metal," Atlas reasoned cold-heartedly. "If I steal a worker, I get a renewable resource."
He targeted a lone Kobold at the edge of the pile. This one was larger than the others, likely an overseer or a guard. It was leaning against a crate of copper, looking away from its master.
Atlas signaled his units. The Pincer Maneuver.
Unit Alpha crawled silently across the ceiling, positioning itself directly above the target. Unit Beta remained in the shadows on the ground, ready to cause a distraction.
Atlas triggered Unit Beta. The Doll on the ground scraped its bone claws against the stone floor. SCREEECH.
Every head in the cavern turned toward the noise. "What was that?" Cavedweller yelled, raising his whip. "Is that a Rat? Get it!"
The guards rushed toward the noise. The large Kobold at the copper pile turned his head. That was the opening.
Unit Alpha dropped from the ceiling. It didn't make a sound. It fell like a drop of wet mud. Before the Kobold could shout, Unit Alpha's clay body enveloped it.
This was the terrifying nature of the C4-Dolls. They weren't solid. The Doll slammed onto the Kobold's back and expanded its chest cavity, swallowing the Kobold's head and torso into its own mass. The Kobold's scream was muffled instantly by thick, wet clay. Inside the Doll, the clay hardened, locking the Kobold's arms and jaw in a suffocating embrace.
"Capture successful," Atlas noted. "Weight increased by 40kg. Mobility reduced by 30%."
Unit Alpha, now carrying a struggling lump inside its chest, sprinted toward the wall. "Hey!" Cavedweller shouted, turning back. "Where is the Overseer going?!"
He saw the white, faceless monstrosity climbing the wall with his best worker trapped inside its translucent belly. Cavedweller's eyes went wide. "What the hell is that?! A slime?! SHOOT IT! THROW ROCKS!"
The Kobolds panicked. They threw their pickaxes. Clang. Thud. A pickaxe hit Unit Alpha's leg. It sank into the clay and stuck there. It didn't slow the unit down.
Unit Beta, seeing the objective was secured, stepped out of the shadows to cover the retreat. It stood between the mob of Kobolds and the wall. It raised its handless stump. The clay split open, revealing a vertical mouth. It smiled.
"Run," Atlas whispered.
Unit Beta didn't explode. Not yet. It fired a Warning Shot. Using the pressure mechanism of the explosion without consuming its whole body, it fired a "clay bullet" from its palm—a small glob of explosive matter. Thwip.
The glob hit the pile of copper ore. BOOM.
The explosion wasn't huge, but in the enclosed cave, it was deafening. The shockwave knocked the Kobolds off their feet. Dust and rock filled the air, blinding them. Cavedweller screamed, covering his ears. "MY ORE! STOP BLOWING UP MY ORE!"
Under the cover of the dust cloud, Unit Beta turned and scrambled up the wall, following Unit Alpha toward the vent.
They climbed 200 meters of vertical shaft in silence, the only sound being the rhythmic squish-stick of their adhesive pads. Below them, the chaos of the Kobold mine faded.
When they finally crested the lip of Atlas's island, the two Dolls collapsed on the mud. Unit Alpha spit out the Kobold. The lizard-man was covered in slime, gasping for air, terrified out of its mind. It looked up and saw the grey throne. It saw the purple sky. And it saw the giant figure of Atlas looking down at it.
Atlas disconnected the remote link and opened his real eyes. He looked at the shivering Kobold. Then he looked at the chunk of raw copper ore that Unit Beta had managed to snag in its other hand. Maybe 5 kilograms. Not much, but enough for a prototype.
"Welcome to the new administration," Atlas said.
The Kobold hissed and tried to scramble away. Atlas raised a hand. The C4-Dolls surrounded the creature, their bone claws extending with a metallic snikt. The Kobold froze. It understood violence.
Atlas picked up the copper ore. "System. Let's talk about the Matrix."
[Concept: Bio-Electric Battery.][Source: The Matrix (1999).][Theory:]The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy they would ever need.
"I don't have fusion," Atlas admitted. "But I have Origin Energy to act as the catalyst. And I don't need to power a city yet. I just need to power a Forge."
He looked at the Kobold. "I'm going to build a Pod."
[Blueprint Construction initiated.][Materials: Clay (Structure), Copper (wiring/anode), Biological Subject (Fuel).][Cost: 50 Origin Points.]
Atlas manipulated the clay of the ground. It swirled up, forming a capsule shaped like a coffin. He took the copper ore. With a thought, he used the System to strip the impurities. The rock crumbled away, leaving veins of pure copper. The copper turned into thin wires, threading themselves through the clay coffin, forming a complex lattice of conductors.
"Get in," Atlas commanded.
The Kobold didn't understand English, but the Dolls shoved it. It screamed as it was forced into the wet clay pod. The lid sealed shut, leaving only the Kobold's face exposed through a translucent membrane. Copper needles extended from the inside of the pod, gently piercing the Kobold's skin at specific meridian points.
The Kobold thrashed for a second, then went still as the circuit completed. Its eyes rolled back. It wasn't dead. It was in a chemically induced coma, its metabolism accelerated to produce heat and static charge.
A soft hum filled the air. The copper wires glowing on the outside of the pod pulsed with a faint blue light.
[Structure Created: Bio-Battery (Mark I).][Output: 5 Energy/Hour.][Subject Status: Stable. Life Expectancy: 7 Days.]
Atlas sighed in relief. He finally had a power source. It was cruel. It was dark. But he checked the Global Chat. The player count had already dropped by 200,000 in the last hour. People were dying. Morality was a luxury for those with higher stats.
Just then, a global announcement shook the sky. Golden letters appeared in the stars, visible to every player in the galaxy.
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT][The First 'City' has been established!][Player: 'Seraph_Michael' (Race: High Angels) has upgraded his territory to
Atlas read the name. "Angels," he scoffed. "Of course. The pay-to-win races are already leveling up." He looked at his mud hut, his exploding dolls, and his lizard-battery.
"Let them have the fame," Atlas muttered, placing his hand on the vibrating bio-battery to warm his fingers. "I'll take the industry."
He opened his crafting menu. Now that he had Energy (Electricity equivalent), a whole new tier of "Earth Tech" was available.
He didn't want a sword. He didn't want a shield. He typed a query into his mind.
"System. Requirements for: [Automatic Sentry Gun]."
[Concept: Colonial Marine Sentry (Aliens).][Requirements: Steel, Motion Sensors, Computer Chip, Electricity.]
"I have Electricity," Atlas checked off. "I have Clay... which implies Silicon... which implies Chips if I can refine it. I need Steel."
He looked down at the lower island through the fog. Cavedweller had iron pickaxes. He likely had iron ore too. And now, Atlas had a way to climb down there whenever he wanted.
"Time to start a war," Atlas whispered.
But before he could plan the invasion, his [Private Messages] pinged. It wasn't Cavedweller. It was the strategist, Zhuge.
[User: Zhuge]Message: "I noticed a seismic anomaly in Sector 7G (Coordinates near you). A small explosion. Distinctly non-magical. That was you, wasn't it? "
Atlas froze. This guy was sharp. Too sharp.
[User: Zhuge]Message: "I don't care what you are building. But I have a proposal. I have a surplus of 'Refined Gunpowder' (my Alchemists made a mistake). I need 'Biological Glue'. Do you have anything... sticky?"
Atlas looked at the adhesive pads on his Dolls' fingers. He smiled. Trade. The lifeblood of war.
[Atlas]: "I might. How much gunpowder are we talking? Enough to level a mountain?" [Zhuge]: "Enough to make God bleed. Interested?"