Just as ordered, the Crimson descended on planet Earth as part of a World Subjugation. The world that was doing the subjugating used the System as a means of deploying members of their planet to the one they were conquering.

  Of course, if it was not a pre-integration world and was already integrated into the System and the wider Multiverse, then they too would have received an opportunity to travel to the planet subjugating them to properly fight off their oppressors, at least they would’ve from the start.

  If the people of Earth managed to survive that long, then the opportunity to reach the planet of their subjugators would still come to them, but only when that phase in the subjugation process had been reached.

  The System wasn’t necessarily fair but it still played by a certain set of rules, and while there are some who think locking this ability behind a later phase is unfair or bad design, those are the ones who do not think properly. Because in this situation at least, the System not allowing those from a pre-integration world to enter one established enough to subjugate others and not allow them to walk into a death sentence is actually a mercy.

  According to the System’s design, the first couple of phases, if survived, would give the people of a pre-integration world in the middle of a World Subjugation time to gather their strength.

  Once that strength had been sufficiently gathered, the means to travel to the planet responsible for subjugating them would be opened. But that phase wasn’t here yet. The people of Earth had not reached that level of strength that deemed them ready for that moment.

  For now, the Vakalans were still coming to them, only they had shifted their means of operation. The Crimson, as they were called, were a special force that contained both F and E Grades within their ranks. The F Grades in particular were usually younger, but they were elites who had been trained since childhood to be just that, elite.

  It was those same F Grades that were now deployed on Earth. The System still had its rules, and the Vakalans could not send anyone above the F Grade to Earth, as Earth itself still only had F Grade combatants. The people subjugating them could only match that level. This was another concession for a pre-integration world.

  The second a just a very tiny percentage of Earth’s population managed to break through the wall that lies between the F and E Grades, that would likewise open the door for the Vakalans to send their own E Grades. Until then, this Subjugation had reached a very interesting stage.

  The majority of the Vakalans had left the planet, either through dying or retreating, because the people of Earth were far more resourceful, resilient, and adaptable than they were estimated to be.

  A lot of this was due to weapons, of course. Guns in particular played a heavy part in those initial battles that happened on a large scale. Although many humans died, they managed to kill a fair share of their enemies as well.

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  Then everyone got to know a bit of peace, at least everywhere that a contingent of Vakalans didn’t already have control. In places where they had been fought off, people got to know peace for a decent amount of time.

  All of this changed when the Crimson descended on Earth. Millions of Crimson members did not exist; there were only a few thousand of them. After all, if every single person made it into an elite group, then the meaning of “elite” would be lost. These were the best of the best that the Vakalans had to offer when it came to their F Grades, thousands of peak F Grades with the best Skills, Traits, Classes, and everything else imaginable that their race could offer.

  Of course, there were likely a few special talents who weren’t part of the Crimson, such as sons and daughters of powerful families, but for the most part, when it came to an armed force, this was the very best the Vakalans had to offer.

  And they had descended on Earth.

  Though realistically, with just a couple thousand of them, they were far outnumbered compared to the number of humans still alive. That number wasn’t nearly enough to visit every single human stronghold that still remained, which was why they opted for an all or nothing approach.

  Instead of splitting their forces so thin that even if one of them was stronger than 5 or even 10 humans put together, maybe 50 or even 100 humans would be able to fight them off.

  So the Crimson stuck together. They went from city to city and took control of them. Once a city, stronghold, or whatever you wanted to call it was firmly within their grasp, they would move on to the next one, leaving behind a small contingent, but extremely well-armed, group of their normal warriors.

  Those warriors, at least normal by the standards of their people, were the same ones the humans had fought off initially. But with the Crimson decimating the strongest Earth had to offer in one city after another, it became easy for the ‘normal’ Vakalans to settle in and maintain control.

  They knew about the Dungeons and System Shops that had sprung up all over the planet, so when they took control of cities, they made sure to station plenty of bodies at every Dungeon and every System Shop.

  If you wanted to cut a tree down, you had to make sure you took out the roots, and that was what they wanted to do. Take control of cities, kill the strongest combatants, and cut out their roots so they couldn’t grow tall again to fight for themselves. Once that was done, killing the rest would come easily.

  That was the job of the Crimson. They weren’t here to control every single city on the planet. They were here to cut down the trees that grew too tall, and everyone else would clean up afterward.

  Something the people of Earth would slowly come to learn was that there’s a big difference between fighting with Skills against people who didn’t use them and fighting against highly trained killers who had done nothing but learn how to kill since the day they could walk. Killers with Traits of their own, Classes of their own, and Skills of their own.

  If the people of Earth didn’t take a far more aggressive approach to getting stronger, or if they allowed those few moments of relative peace to cloud their judgment and lead them into complacency, then a very rude awakening would come their way.

  That rude awakening had already arrived for some of the people of Earth. And for those still unaware, it would soon come knocking at their doorsteps, letting them know not to celebrate a few victories as if the war had been won. Not to act as if reality wouldn’t come back and knock them down, but to remember that this was real life, and a storybook ending wasn’t waiting for them on the other side of the tunnel.

  It didn’t matter if they were ready or not. It didn’t matter if they had rested on their laurels instead of taking a more aggressive approach. It didn’t matter at all, because the Crimson were here, and they planned to drown the planet in lava.

  A planet that just so happened to be volcanic in nature.