Wes was not a genius, he was not even the most athletic. But what Wesley was, was big and strong. And he knew how to use those qualities. Being known as a bully without any significant talent or motivation throughout his school years, no one expected Wesley “The Goliath” Taggart to amount to much beyond being a thuggish small town cop at best.

  They were right for the longest time. Wes Taggart was the stereotypical corrupt thug who enjoyed impunity in a rapidly collapsing state. He even had a few complaints about everything from gross misconduct to police brutality. Nothing ever came out of those.

  But when governments fell entirely and private mercenaries in their slick gear and futuristic vehicles rolled into town, Taggart discovered the first flames of something that he had no idea existed within him.

  Ambition.

  When his department dissolved and his colleagues moved on to other ventures or became enforcers for small-time crime lords, Taggart instead went to the biggest PMSC he could find. The Black Tower Foundation.

  The Black Tower Foundation sold its services to everyone from legitimate countries if those existed to warlords to tinpot regimes to mega corporations richer than any entity that had existed prior in the history of humanity. And in that Tower, Wes found his home.

  Somehow he was not instantly rejected despite the fact that he was out of shape, that he panted from exertion and had developed a bit of a belly. It took his entire life's savings to even be let inside but that was fine, he had no one that he cared for. In return, they gave Wes his fangs. The training and the initial deployments were brutal and he came close to dying one too many times but he emerged a new man on the other side. Maybe he did die and he was reborn.

  The Goliath killed who he was told to kill and the Goliath was rewarded for his brutality. His first deployments were just as low level security personnel, and from there he moved on to killing union leaders and activists in the third world. Blackmail, assassinations, participation in violent regime changes halfway across the world, corporate sabotage, Wes’s actual records were only held by the Black Towers but he was sure that it was impressive.

  But it was when he was truly in his middle ages, half living off the synth steroids that his employers pumped in him that Goliath truly earned his name. Of course it was condemned by those who had managed to extract testimonies from some surviving eyewitnesses but condemnation without action was just hapless bleating into the wind.

  “What are you going to do? Report me? And tell me, what will that fucking accomplish?” He had once asked a man a lifetime ago, when he wore a different uniform, before beating him into a pulp. The man never walked again. Brain damage they said. An accident the reports claimed.

  Power, that was all that mattered. And that power was why he was promoted after ordering several tens of thousands of fleeing refugees to be gunned down and their camps rained with white phosphorus. He had the survivors lined up and he sank the boats. His orders were to stop them, he stopped them. That was all that mattered. He was not alone in his efficiency. In that humid land, he was reborn and baptized in the blood of the weak. Weak like he had once been.

  And thus began the legend of the Goliath of the East.

  Five years later, Wes was the guy who handled entire operations from the safety of an office. But he yearned for the blood running down his hand, for the look of terror and blueish hue of skin as he crushed windpipes, the look of disbelief as one's organs that should be inside spilled out like confetti. That made him irritable. He had also let himself go without realizing. But he realized it when he got into a fist fight with an idiotic upstart. Nursing his bruised face and his bruised ego, he had a long look in the mirror. Wes didn't see the lean killing machine he had been, he saw the old Wes, the flabby imbecile who coasted on mediocrity. The snivelling failure who deserved to die, who deserved to be ruthlessly killed wherever he appeared. He quit his position. A week later, the upstart disappeared too. The Goliath will not have a David because he grew complacent.

  The offer was simple, become a personal gun for one Mr. Yaiba, an executive for one of those conglomerates that seemed to own everything in existence. The exec had also promised him something else, a set of state of the art full body augments and gene therapy. Blood transfusion and replacement, hormone balancing, an artificial heart and lungs, titanium plating for his skull and other weak spots, the full suite. The price? Nothing really, he was old now and he needed treatment that Yaiba could provide. It suited Wes fine, loyalty was not his thing either. Need? That was at least honest.

  Wes was the one of many who oversaw the release of an airborne variant of Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, a disease that turned muscles into hard calcified bone. The calculus was simple. There was a problem. There were too many people and not enough land. The solution, kill several millions of people and free up the land. It was not his idea, it was all corpo high ups and if not him, someone else would have done it. That's what he told himself when the Goliath discovered that he too, could have nightmares about his actions. Another weakness, another remnant of an older Wes. He killed that part too, it just took him a while. Yaiba’s superiors admired his efficiency and discretion. No one ever discovered who had released the virus or that there had been soldiers shooting anyone who tried leaving.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Another promotion, another round of augmentation and gene therapy. The Goliath was reborn once again. Still a man, still a fragile man but now he was stronger than any man could ever naturally be.

  When he was undergoing physiotherapy after his upgrades, one night a drunk Yaiba came to his suite with a bottle. The two stood drinking on his balcony as they faced the city below them. The night didn't matter, the clouds that permanently occluded the sky didn't matter, the city was brighter than the heavens could ever be. And the light of the heaven below reflected off Yaiba’s glasses as he spoke with one hand in a railing and the other clutching a bottle encrusted with actual diamonds.

  “You ever think that maybe we should stop? Stop all this, I mean. Pull the plug, stop the money.” He didn't point at anything but his meaning was obvious. Wes seriously considered strangling him. Another weakling.

  The next few years were busy for Wes, he hunted down whistleblowers, corporate rivals and more with prejudice. By the time the skeletons arrived, Wes could confidently claim that he had one of the, if not the highest body count of any living man on Earth. Of course the real monsters lived on the Moon or on Mars. The monsters that did not dirty their smooth hands.

  When the skeletons arrived, he was by Yaiba’s side. Yaiba was the last human Wes crushed before throwing himself into the vast tide of monsters with a laugh. He fought with many weapons but discovered that explosives worked best. And then they got too close and he started using everything he could to crush them. But as much as he enjoyed the tactile feeling of life being extinguished, a man against an endless horde could only end in one way.

  191, that was how many skeletons he pulverized before finally succumbing.

  //INITIALIZATION COMPLETE

  //ENTITY NAMED ‘WESLEY TAGGART’ SUCCESSFULLY TRANSLOCATED

  //Calculating base stats…

  

  \\Starting stats determined and analyzed

  STRENGTH: 65

  CELERITY: 59

  VITALITY: 60

  ACUITY: 27

  WILLPOWER: 30

  PERCEPTION: 46

  ATTUNEMENT: 10

  Wes was reborn once again. The Goliath still lived. Not only did he still live, he still had his weapons. Wes wondered for a moment if he was a cat, nine lives and nine rebirths. If so then he still had a few left.

  Wes had a lot to think about, but first he had to take inventory. Know his tools. A light machine gun, a carbine, a pair of bandoliers that made an X over his torso, a combat knife, a hammer, the armor he wore, complete with a tactical vest, and a set of goggles that handled all his special sight needs. His standard loadout sans the grenades he had used up and the hammer that was new.

  He had problems of course. Like no ammunition beyond what he had on his person and the fact that his body would start failing in a few years. He could hopefully grab a class for both problems eventually. Metal magic was the obvious priority for bullets but he had no idea how to make nitrocellulose for the powder. Hopefully crafting will fix that. And then he had to figure out healing but the system seemed powerful. He would do it. He just had to kill, he had to slaughter. Maybe he did die after all, and this was his personal heaven.

  Wes didn't think he was the type to get into heaven and heaven didn't seem like the type of place where wanton slaughter was encouraged. How did that line go again, something about the mind making a hell of heaven and vice versa?

  But that raised a new question, where was he exactly? He decided that it ultimately didn't matter and picked a random direction to start walking. He was in a jungle, surely he wouldn't starve.

  After just ten minutes of walking, he encountered his first denizen of this new world. An arachnid that looked like a hybrid of a spider and a scorpion. It was large, larger than any spider should have been. Pressing his back against a tree, Wes slowly peeked at the creature. It was busy eating the corpse of that he couldn't identify. Should he use his precious ammo? One glance at the creature told him that he should. He fired. The monster died soon, too soon. He would try to do it without ammo the next time. Pausing only to study the creature up close, Wes continued walking.

  He grabbed the spider-scorpion’s leg that was racing towards his face and bent it all the way backwards and as the monster writhed, he raised his foot and stamped down on the engorged head. It exploded and hemolymph and smashed organs rained on him.

  \\Aspect of the Annihilator is now level 66!

  He ignored the notification and continued onwards.

  The first humans he encountered lived in a primitive tribe at the very edge of the forests. They spoke a language that didn't sound like anything on Earth but they were warm and gave him shelter and food. Some things didn't need language to be understood, like the fact that it was a family with a child that hosted him. Or that the village had a classer who handled all ailments, injuries and maladies in the tribe. Or that the tribals were worried about the spider-scorpion incursions. All those he could figure out with just a week of observation.

  That was an opportunity. He departed early the next morning and over the next two days, slaughtered over fifty of the arachnids. When the tribals saw the mound of corpses, they hailed him as a savior and the kid even hugged him. He ruffled his hair and smiled. Grateful smiles greeted him everywhere. Perhaps he misunderstood and the spider scorpions were a bigger problem for them. It took a while to mime and convey what he wanted but he eventually convinced them to hold a feast in celebration, especially after he dragged in the corpse of a massive boar.

  The feast was grand and the whole tribe participated in it. They sang and they danced. And yet the healer was absent. Wes smiled at their antics, he kept smiling when the healer was discovered with a snapped neck. He kept smiling as everyone around him started falling as the spider-scorpion venom laced food liquidated their organs. Finally, he rose from his seat of honor with his smile intact and began to kill those that remained. At some point he stopped smiling and started laughing out loud instead. Experiment successful, he didn't need to directly kill to gain experience. Of course some fools tried to kill him as their bodies were giving up, he shot them all.

  The Goliath took off once more. He had a long journey to go. Behind him, only the child still breathed. Until he turned and one last bullet was fired. And then there was only silence.

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