Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

Gray walked calmly over to the wooden table and picked up his Nazgûl mask, sliding it back onto his face. He turned around to look at the massive circle of men pointing their weapons directly at him. Even though he was completely surrounded in the middle of the room, he kept his hands relaxed at his sides, his posture bursting with a terrifying wave of confidence.

”Well then,” Gray’s muffled voice echoed through the mask. ”Shall we begin?”

Hearing his mocking words, the Governor finally snapped and roared out the final command. ”Kill him!”

A split second before a single trigger could be pulled, Gray instantly activated his teleportation. With a sharp sound effect, he completely vanished from the center of the room. The guards panicked instantly as they fired their first shots, their target disappearing into thin air. The space where he had been standing just a moment ago was now nothing but empty dust.

Before they could even register what happened, the sickening sound of breaking bones cut through the gunsmoke. The guards spun around and were met with pure horror. Gray had materialized directly behind the furthest guard on the perimeter. Punching out with all his newfound Saiyan might, his fist had driven clean through the guard’s back effortlessly, tearing a massive hole right through his chest. Gray stood tall in his black armor, now completely splattered in fresh blood.

The building erupted into pure chaos. ”Form a perimeter! Watch the flanks!” the Governor screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking with panic. The guards scrambled to form a defensive circle, their rifles spraying blindly into the building as their hands trembled violently against the triggers. They were hardened killers, but they had never faced an opponent who could simply delete himself from reality.

Gray let out a dark chuckle and vanished again, appearing right in the center of their tight formation. He swung his leg in a sweeping kick, his Saiyan strength sending three fully grown men crashing through a solid brick wall like ragdolls. The remaining guards lost all discipline, screaming in terror as they watched their comrades get tossed around by a force that defied nature. One guard dropped his rifle entirely, falling to his knees as Gray blurred past him, the sheer wind pressure from his movement knocking the man flat on his face.

”Shoot him! What are you doing, shoot him!” the Governor shrieked, backing toward the wooden table as his mind completely broke. Martinez tried to track the shadow, firing three rapid shots from his handgun, but Gray was already gone. He materialized right beside Martinez, gripping his wrist and squeezing until the bones crunched, forcing him to drop the weapon. With a swift backhand, Gray launched Martinez across the room, knocking him out cold as he smashed into a support pillar.

The fight was an absolute slaughter. Gray blurred from target to target, his fists cracking against helmets and jaws with mechanical precision. He remembered at the last second that Candace and Dr. Jenner would need fresh, living samples to progress on their walker cure. What better way to secure those lab rats than right here? He dialed back his lethal strength, systematically delivering precise, brutal concussive blows to the remaining guards. It took him less than five minutes to completely knock out every single soldier in the building, deliberately leaving the Governor for very last.

The Governor stood entirely frozen, his gun hand shaking uncontrollably as he stared at the mountain of unconscious and broken men. He had truly believed Gray was just a well-trained, heavily armored soldier. He realized now how catastrophically mistaken he had been. The person standing over his army wasn’t human. He was a monster.

Gray stood in the quiet room, the adrenaline slowly fading from his system. He looked down at his left arm, noticing a small tear in the fabric beneath his armor plates where a lucky bullet had managed to hit him during the chaotic crossfire. He initially thought about opening his shop to buy a health potion or a bandage to patch himself up.

But as he watched the injury, something incredible happened.

The lead bullet was slowly but surely pushed out of his flesh, dropping onto the concrete floor with a soft metallic click. Right before his eyes, the open wound began knitting itself back together, closing completely on its own within seconds. Gray brought up his hidden user interface to check his status. He noticed that two of his red Minecraft hearts had dropped during the skirmish, but now they were actively regenerating back to full health. His new Saiyan physiology, combined with his Minecraft health mechanics, gave him an absolutely insane passive recovery speed.

Gray wiped a smear of blood off his gauntlet and turned his gaze toward the trembling Governor. He walked over to the trembling Governor, a smirk forming beneath his mask. He looked at the man, intentionally teasing him. ”You felt so superior just a few minutes ago, Philip,” Gray said, his voice dripping with mockery. ”Where is all that confidence now? Show me that same kind of energy now that you’re all by yourself.”

Before the Governor could even think of an answer, Gray stepped inside his guard. He lunged forward and drove a brutal punch straight into the Governor’s stomach, striking him in the exact same spot he had hit him a few days before during his nighttime raid on Woodbury.

The Governor instantly hunched over, dropping to his knees. He began wheezing violently and threw up onto the concrete floor, completely gasping for air. Gray didn’t stop talking smack, looking down at the broken leader and laughing. ”You actually thought you were going to march over and take my prison after killing me today?” Gray continued laughing. ”You really are delusional.”

The Governor painfully tried to push himself back up to his feet, but Gray didn’t wait for him to say a single word. He stepped in and delivered a sharp, clean strike right to the Governor’s jaw, knocking him out completely cold.

”Go to sleep...” Gray muttered.

With the room completely quiet, Gray walked over to the perimeter guard, the only man he had actually killed with his first punch. He opened his system inventory and stored the body inside to keep it fresh for the Jenners’ viral research. Next, he walked back to the unconscious Governor, grabbed him by the collar, and threw him casually over his shoulder. All of the other guards scattered across the floor were deeply knocked out, and Gray knew they would stay that way for a long while.

Gray stepped out of the building into the fresh air. He extended his invisible wings, launched himself high up into the sky, and flew at top speed straight back toward the prison.

When he touched down in the courtyard, the survivors immediately began descending from the guard towers to meet him. Their eyes went wide when they saw the state Gray was in, his blackened armor was completely covered in fresh, dark blood. They also noticed the unconscious man draped over his shoulder.

”Is that... the Governor?” Shane asked.

Gray casually dropped the Governor onto the hard asphalt like a sack of potatoes. He turned to T-Dog and Big Tiny. ”Drag him inside and lock him tightly into a cell.”

As the two men stepped forward to haul the Governor away, Gray addressed the rest of the crowd. ”There are still about a dozen more Woodbury guards lying unconscious back at that building. We need to go move them and bring them back to the prison so we can throw them into cells too.”

The courtyard instantly erupted into a barrage of frantic questions. Merle stepped forward, his eyes darting all over the blood on Gray’s armor. ”What the hell happened out there, kid? Did they jump you?”

Rick and Shane stood right beside him, as they prepared to wage an all-out war against Woodbury.

Gray held up a hand to calm them down and explained exactly what had happened. He told them how the truce negotiations had immediately fallen through, and how the Governor and his remaining loyal killers had stupidly thought they had the numbers to take him down.

”Go grab both the Huron and the Sentry trucks,” Gray ordered Rick and Shane. ”We’re going back to get those people right now. I’ll meet you guys there.”

Merle still looked like he wanted to ask a dozen more questions, but seeing the serious look on Gray’s face, he decided to let it go for now and ran to start up the trucks.

Gray took off into the air, flying high above the treeline back toward the halfway building. The prison group mobilized immediately, driving the heavy INKAS Huron and Sentry trucks out of the gates. It took them about fifteen minutes to arrive at the location, but by the time the tires screeched to a halt on the asphalt, Gray had already dragged every single unconscious Woodbury guard out of the building and lined them up neatly on the street.

Rick, Shane, Merle, and the rest of the extraction team jumped out of the vehicles. They didn’t even look surprised when they saw a dozen heavily armed killers knocked out cold on the pavement. After witnessing Gray break the laws of physics, manipulate reality, and bring people back from the dead time and time again, this was now the norm.

Without a word, they immediately went to work loading the limp bodies into the back of the Huron. Merle, meanwhile, started collecting all the scattered weapons from the dirt, clearing out the firearms and even raiding the Woodbury trucks for any extra ammo, supplies, or anything else useful.

While searching inside the building, Merle stumbled across the massive, dark puddle of blood painting the concrete floor. He let out a loud whistle to get Gray’s attention. Rick and Shane heard it too and walked over to investigate, their eyes wide at the sheer volume of blood.

Merle turned to Gray, gesturing down at the floor. ”What the hell happened right here, kid?”

Instead of explaining it with words, Gray accessed his system inventory and pulled out the corpse of the dead guard, dropping it flat on the ground in front of them. ”I punched this guy with my full force,” Gray explained flatly. ”I ended up tearing a hole straight through him, which killed him instantly.”

Merle looked from the brutal cavity in the dead man’s chest back to Gray’s crimson-stained gear. ”So... all that blood on your armor was just from this one guy?”

Gray nodded. ”Yeah, pretty much. Although, I did actually get shot during the crossfire, but they only managed to hit me once, so we’re good.”

Rick immediately stepped forward, his eyes darting to Gray’s torso. ”Do you need any help patching it up? We brought medical supplies.”

Gray casually waved him off. ”No need.” To prove his point, Gray unbuckled his gauntlet and pulled up his sleeve, exposing his bare skin to the three men. ”See? Good as new.”

Rick, Shane, and Merle stared at his arm in absolute disbelief. There wasn’t a single scratch, scar, or trace of a bullet wound left on his flesh. His skin was completely smooth, completely healed, and entirely intact.

Shane looked down at the row of unconscious men being loaded into the truck, a deep frown on his face. He turned to Gray, crossing his arms. ”Why didn’t you just put them down right there, Gray? It would save us the huge hassle of dealing with prisoners all over again.”

Gray walked closer to the vehicle and pointed directly toward the knocked-out guards. ”The Jenners need fresh, living samples to continue their viral research. These men are going to be our new test subjects.”

Morgan stepped forward from the back of the group, looking highly uncomfortable with the idea. ”Isn’t that kind of inhumane, Gray? Testing on living people?”

”I would have agreed with you a few days or weeks ago, Morgan,” Gray replied. ”But these ’people,’ if you even want to call them that, completely deserve it.”

Gray looked across the faces of the unconscious killers, his mind recalling the dark scripts of text that had floated over their bodies. ”I have the power to see a person’s sins. I can assure you, none of these men are saints. Every single one of them has taken more than ten innocent lives in this apocalypse.”

Morgan opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat. He stayed completely quiet, staring at the ground as the weight of Gray’s revelation sank in.

”You should see it as a win-win,” Gray continued, looking around at Rick, Shane, and Merle. ”They are helping us achieve a permanent cure much faster, while we successfully rid the world of absolute garbage at the same time.”

No one else argued. They simply finished tossing the last of the murderers into the INKAS Huron, ready to deliver them straight to the laboratory cells.