《Revenge of the Dead》 Prologue 01 Long ago the universe was blanketed with unending darkness and silence. One day the silence and the darkness was interrupted by blinding light and noise. The light brought with it everything and the darkness, nothingness. The light offered the darkness enjoyment and wonder; the darknesses offered its blank canvas of a universe to create. This was how the two powers balanced themselves in the universe. The light and the darkness rained over the universe, forming it to their will, creating the sun, the moon, and the stars. The light and the darkness then created forms of beings that could channel parts of their power to do their bidding around the universe. They called these beings the first creations. The two powers themselves were formless, beings of pure power, ever-changing, but all powerful. Their only fault was that they could not create a form that they themselves could use to interact with their first creations. However, they did not mind, they could still speak and visit with their first creations whenever they wished. The light and the darkness then realized that they enjoyed creating beings and things. They enjoyed it so much that they created a whole world to house them all. The two powers created land and seas. They created life and creatures of all sorts to fill the seas and the land. The two powers made everything they could think of on the world. It was there, on this world, that the two powers let their creations thrive, grow, and spread in peace. They used their first creations to rule over the world in their stead; to guide and to help the other creations. Afterwards, the two powers themselves sat back and watched with joy as their world grew and life spread. For a time, peace and joy rained. However, it did not last long. After helping life spread throughout the world under their careful eyes, the first creations of the two powers grew greedy and lusted for more power. They wished to be all powerful like the two powers that created them. They wished to be absolute. So they planned and plotted against their creators. What followed was the only eventual course of action. War. The first war in history. It was the first war this world ever experienced. The first creations called themselves gods and used their influence and power over millions of creations to rise up a force to fight the two great powers. The two great powers were stunned with what happened. They tried to talk and reason with the new founded gods. The two powers begged their first creations to rethink this and turn away from these thoughts. The two powers wanted to know why their first creations betrayed them. However, the first creations refused to listen or speak to the two powers. They instead reached out into the darkness and the light and pulled more and more power into themselves. They wanted more and more power. It was never enough. The two great powers could no longer contain their anger and rage against their first creations. They came down to the world and destroyed the very land from underneath them. The two powers boiled the seas, decimated the first creations armies, and burned the world to the ground. The two powers grabbed their first creations and were going to erase them from existence. However, before they did, their rage sobered for a moment and all their rage turned to pity for their first creations. They loved them. They couldn''t forgive them but they could not erase them, so they pulled them apart, spread their power across the world, and gave the first creation¡¯s powers to every living thing. That way the first creations could remain and continue to help the world without their egos and pride trying to destroy it. After the war, the two great powers became saddened by the state of life and the world. Many species were eradicated from the world; many lands leveled to dirt, ash, and fire. The two powers wanted to help and fix the damage that was done after the war. So, the two great powers created a new group. They were called the second creations. The two great powers told the second creations of the failures and mistakes of the first creations, and warned them not to make the same mistakes. To safeguard the purity of the second creations, the two powers gave the second creations smaller portions of power to limit their reach and strength. The two powers were fearful that the second creations would turn like the first, so the two powers gave the second creations a different charge/purpose. Upon reflection, the two powers understood that they might have given the first creations two large of a duty with the growing and cultivating of the world and the life on it; so the two powers told the second creations to do what they wished with the world. They told them to life and be happy. However, as a constant reminder of the past failures of their seniors, the two powers called the second creations, lesser gods. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The two powers then decided that constant contact with the lesser gods would only hinder the lives of the lesser gods, and make them more susceptible to whatever the influence was that caused the first creations to fall from grace. As such, they decided to leave the world after they were done preparing the lesser gods. This decision nearly broke their hearts, but the two powers knew it was necessary. Before they left, the two powers also stated to the lesser gods that if they wished to become more than lesser gods, replace their failed first creations, and stand by the two powers¡¯ sides for eternity, then they must complete certain conditions. These conditions were unlike anything that existed before. To keep track of everything and create new conditions and rules as needed, the two powers created a system. This system was what the lesser gods had to follow to achieve the conditions to move up and become stronger. The two powers made certain that the system¡¯s conditions for every lesser god was different so that each lesser god would have to earn it themselves if they really wanted more power and rise to the sides of their creators. No one but the two powers were above the system. This made it fair for all. After that, the two great powers became silent to the world. They did not speak to the lesser gods or come back into the world. Angelic peace then ensued for 1000¡¯s of years. Life took this opportunity of peace to repopulate and expand throughout the world again. Over time, the great war and the two powers became myth and legend to life; forgotten throughout the centuries to the noise of life. However, the lesser gods remembered the two powers and the warnings they received from them about being corrupted like their seniors, so they took this opportunity of peace to create a divine realm that would only house the lesser gods. This allowed them to become separate from the world so as to not become tempted like the first creations and use the world as a weapon against the two powers. The lesser gods could still come down to the world below, but most refrained themselves from doing so unless it was absolutely necessary. All of this was so that they did not make the same mistakes as the first creations. All of this was so that the lesser gods could live and, if they wanted, achieve their goals, ascend as higher gods, gain more power, and be with their creators. On the other side of the proverbial coin, life, unlike the lesser gods, forgot the warnings and pain after 1000¡¯s of years of peace. Time did not help dissipate their desire for power. Life was always more susceptible to their desires, and soon became consumed in their greed and lust for power. The long stead of peace had finally broken. A new ideology emerged from the ashes of peace. This ideology was based on the belief that with enough power, one day, life could become lesser gods and dwell within the divine realm. This ideology was backed up with the fact that some life found that they had awesome power inside of themselves. This gave life all the proof they needed for their beliefs. The strength of the power that dwelled inside of life varied between species and beings, but none could doubt that it was there. Only few could feel it and even fewer could tap into it. And over time, even those with little ability in could surpass their limits if properly trained in this power. This greed and endless hunger for power became life¡¯s downfall. Wars sprang up all over the world. They all wanted more of this power. Over the years, two factions of life soon emerged in the war, one faction thought that if there were less beings in the world to tap into the power, then more power would be available to those that were alive. The other faction thought that life was sacred and if more beings existed then more powerful beings would be born into the world to help the world as a whole rise to a greater level. This was the major cause of the war. Over time, it grew to a scale that had not been seen or known for 1,000¡¯s of years. Millions died, lands and beings were conquered, and the world erupted into constant war and discord. This massive disturbance could not go overlooked by the lesser gods. Looking down from their divine realm, the lesser gods watched life in the world spread and produce horrors unlike anything the lesser gods had ever seen before. They dared not intervene. They feared that this massive amount of insanity, greed, and lust for power could corrupt even them. So the lesser gods gave up on the world and instead stayed in their divine realm. Chaos thrives where order is vacant. Soon this war had consumed the entire world. After a 1000 years of fighting, those that wished for a culling of the population to gain more power in themselves, pushed those that worship life to a single isolated continent on the world. The unending advance of the armies of those that wished for death was halted by an ocean of monsters that no army could cross. The armies tried but none were able to make it. Thus, a small window of peace surrounded this continent and its peoples. Every species and people that feared the armies that wished to cull the numbers of the world to gain power, ran to this continent as their salvation. Those that managed to make it there alive began growing their numbers again to prepare for when the peace surrounding the continent would eventually break and turn to war. This had become the state of the world, forced to one single continent. All hope rested on the peace and the safety on the continent of Garvantia. Prologue 02 Complete Darkness. That¡¯s the first thing I see after opening my eyes. For some people that might be weird, but I have grown accustomed to waking up to complete darkness. It¡¯s mostly because I¡¯m lazy. Really, really lazy. I won¡¯t lie. In my small 1 bedroom apartment I mostly keep the blinds on my windows closed to not let the morning sun in. The reason; the sun comes up too damn early. Don¡¯t laugh! It just wakes me up too early in the morning and I really want to enjoy every second I can asleep. I mean, I haven¡¯t exactly had a normal sleeping schedule these past 10 years, so every minute asleep means wonders for my health. I blame my bad sleeping schedule on my work. It¡¯s definitely not my excessive, borderline extreme, online gaming habits that keep me up every night until 3 or 4 am. Yep. It¡¯s definitely because I have to wake up and go to work at 7am, not my goofing off all night. Although, compared to my normal grogginess of the morning, my body feels significantly different today. For one thing, I feel soooo tired right now. It feels like I just ran a marathon, or did 1000 push ups, or performed a very high intensity workout. My whole body feels like its just ready to keel over from exhaustion. ¡®What did I do last night to cause my body to feel this way?¡¯ The only part of me that I can still move properly is my head. ¡®Maybe I hit my head or fell off my bed while sleeping? Or did I sleep in a weird position again? I did lose feeling in my left arm for a few hours after sleeping on it all night a while back¡­.maybe that¡¯s it?¡¯ The unending soreness from my joints stops my train of thought as I try not to move and make my body feel worse. ¡®UHHHHHHHH¡­..I don''t want to get uuuuupppp. This is going to be a bad day I can feel it. This grogginess is definitely trying to tell me something. My body must be telling me to skip work today. Yep¡¯ I smile in the silence for a brief moment before frowning again. ¡®.....ya right...I can''t do that. My boss is already trying to find a excuse to fire me. Uhhhhhhhh¡­.I need money...fuuuck¡­¡­.. Screw it! Time to get up or I¡¯ll be late for work.¡¯ I look around the darkness of my room. I can''t see anything through the darkness though. ¡®I must have slept in because I can¡¯t hear my normally loud neighbors getting up to rush out to work.(they are usually my last alarm in the morning to tell me I¡¯m late)¡¯ Silence. ¡®This is bad. My boss is definitely going to fire me this time. No doubt about it.(I have probably been late every day I have worked there too. I am not a great/model employee!!) I sigh very loudly. ¡®Don¡¯t blame me boss! I just don¡¯t have the drive to work. Well, I don¡¯t really have the drive to do anything I¡¯ve put my mind too really. uhhhhhh¡­...I¡¯m such a loser. Please don''t fire me!¡¯ I grone, sigh, and resign myself to my morning dose of self loathing and self pity for a few seconds. ¡®I think the only reason they keep me is because they want to have someone to laugh at and feel superior towards.¡¯ Silence. ¡®....no...It''s not only that though.¡¯ I frown and close my eyes. ¡®Everyone I know always feels like they need to tell me how to live my life. To work like this, to make this amount of money, to talk like this, to act like this, to be respectful and hold your tongue, to not let others know how you truly feel or act, to not live the way you want to live but by how society needs you to live.¡¯ ¡®You have to live by society''s rules. You have to live the way society needs you to live. You must fit in with society to live a good life. Society dictates what your purpose is, you can''t change it. Society this. Society that. Society, Society, SOCIETY!¡¯ I take a deep breath in the silence ¡®......what a pathetic life. It''s like society has become their god¡­¡­.I don''t want to live the way society wants me to though. I never did. I want to be the maker of my own future. To say what I want, to be what I want.¡¯ I pause and think over my goals. ¡®hnn¡­..Even though I say that, I still resign myself to live the way society needs me to live¡­..heh. I can''t shake the chains society has on me. Although, I guess to spite society I decided to not have a drive to do anything well. This way I would become a drag on society and drag it down with me. That''s the only real damage I have ever done to society.¡¯ I pause. ¡®Well, I guess that''s the only thing I can really do against them. Be lazy and do the most minimal work necessary to live¡­..ya..that¡¯ll show them¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­...such a moron.¡¯ I smile and shake my head at my stupidity. ¡®No one cares if I drag down society and no one cares about me. I¡¯m just ones and zeros to them, a profit or an expense line. I¡¯m only hurting myself really. If I had the drive to succeed, then I could rise through the ranks and become influential and then I could say and do what I want¡­¡­.Ya. Screw society, if I was wealthy, strong, and powerful, then no one would say anything against me. Nothing they say would matter to me if I was at the top¡­¡­.¡¯ I sigh loudly again. ¡®I¡¯m just realizing this now?¡¯ Silence. ¡®No. I think I knew this when I was younger. I knew that all beforehand in the back of my mind and yet I still chose this path. I guess I really am lazy. No point in crying about it now. I have already made my decisions. I made my bed, now I have to lay in it. I will be a man and not wine anymore. This is my fate. I can''t fight it. I won''t fight it.¡¯ I sigh loudly again. ¡®¡­...back to reality John. Come on.¡¯ I take a deep breath. ¡®I guess I should at least text them and say that I¡¯m sick or something(with how my body feels right now, it might be truth!).¡¯ ¡°I need to get up. Come on body.¡± I was hoping that given time my body would come back to me and I can start my day, but it seems the only part of my body that I can still move right now is my head. I¡¯m almost afraid to turn to my left and see what time it is on my desk clock. If by some miracle I woke up early, then I will praise the gods with both arms stretched out wide towards the heavens and promise to go to bed at a normal time for the rest of the week. However, when I turn my head, I don¡¯t see my clock. In fact, I don¡¯t see anything. I just see more darkness. ¡®.....weird. Was there a power outage? It still feels like nighttime to me. Maybe I was saved by a freak power outage and I don¡¯t have to go to work today...¡¯ That¡¯d be nice. Although, the clock could have fell off my desk and I could be really late. I''ll just wait for my eyes to adjust and see if my clock really is on my desk or not. For now let¡¯s try to move my extremely tired body a little so that I can eventually get off the bed and start my morning routine. If by a miracle I woke up early, then I won''t let my stiff body ruine this good fortune. I start with my hands and arms. I try flexing my hands to get the blood pumping and, after what felt like an eternity of flexing them, they move. ¡°Success!¡± ¡®What the hell did I do last night to make my body so tired? I don''t remember anything weird. I was playing video games before bed again right?¡¯ Next are my arms; I do the same routine that I did with my hands to my arms and, success. I still can''t raise them yet do to my shoulders stiffness, but that was an improvement. If I was looking down at me from above right then, I probably looked like a stiff board wiggling two noodles next to it. I try to purge the idea of me looking stupid this early in the morning and focus on my feet and legs. While I wiggle my feet, I start to wonder why my eyes have yet to adjust to the darkness. ¡®Usually it doesn''t take this long....strange¡­.maybe there really was a blackout this morning¡­.but this darkness is just to much...after I check my clock I¡¯ll grab my flashlight from my desk...then head to the bathroom to wash my face...¡¯ As I slowly get the blood pumping through my stiff joints I notice 3 things that I hadn''t before, mostly because my sense of touch was dulled before now. One was that I was laying down flat on my back.(I usually pass out in my chair hunched over while playing online video games so this is weird) The second was that I was completely naked. ¡®What the hell? Did it get that hot last night that I sleep stripped?¡¯ I normally strip before bed because I don¡¯t pay for heating and cooling for my room(It costs to much!) and because it¡¯s the hot season right now I usually sleep in my boxers. ¡®Maybe they came off during the marathon I ran last night.¡¯ I roll my eyes as I chuckle at my own joke. ¡®It doesn''t feel hot now though. It actually feels quite comfortable. The temperature right now feels like when you take a mud bath or when you are being buried in the sand at the beach; very calming.¡¯ Anyway, the third thing that I noticed was that I was not laying on my bed. I was currently laying on something hard and wooden. ¡®...I guess that explains why I¡¯m laying down. I fell of the chair last night didn''t I!!¡¯Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I sigh loudly. ¡®...I guess my body really needs sleep. I didn''t even wake up from falling on the floor. I really need to take better care of my body¡¯ I sigh again while promising to get to bed a little earlier in the future. As I finally get enough blood pumping in my body to move my arms and shoulders, I spread out my arms out to my sides in a T formation to stretch them a little more. However, I couldn''t. Both of my arms hit something hard and wooden on either side of me. ¡®...weird. I really need to pick up around my room.¡¯ When I tried to sit up though my head hit something hard too. This I assumed to be my wooden desk above me. ¡°Ouch! Damn it! Did I really fall under my desk?!? Really?!....uhhhh¡­.What rotten luck. Well I¡¯m up now!.........Fuck me.¡± I lay back down on the hardwood flooring while holding my pounding head with one arm, and I reach my other arm up to feel for the edge of the desk so I could get up while not hitting my head this time. I felt the wood above me and I tried to follow it up to find where it ended. However, I was met with another wooden wall. This one was above my head. ¡®How the hell did I fall under my desk at stuck an angle? This is so weird. I¡¯m going to need to change some habits after this.¡¯ I start to scoot my naked body toward the exit, which I believed was by my feet, but as I moved about a foot downward I was met with, what felt like, another hard, wooden wall. ¡°The hell?¡± I start to panic a little as I move my body around to feel where I am more. When I finish my physical search of where I am, I¡¯m dumbstruck. ¡®...........What the fuck?!?!?!?¡¯ ¡°wait¡­¡­.WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!¡± I was stuck! I wasn''t under my desk. I was in what feels to be a large wooden box! No matter how I tried to deny it, I was stuck in this box. I tried to calm myself down, to think a little. ¡®There has to be a reason for this. Maybe there was an earthquake and I am trapped under the rubble¡­..Ya...that¡¯s it¡­I just need to feel around and see if I can move some of the rubble off of me to get out.¡¯ I started to slowly feel around the box again to try and find holes or edges or cracks or something. After what felt like an hour, I came to a conclusion. ¡®It seems like I¡¯m in a box that''s 3 feet wide(on my back looking up) and almost 2 feet longer than my body. It¡¯s a miracle that I wasn''t hit with debri from above.¡¯ After searching again and again trying to find an opening to move the rubble, I realized, I couldn¡¯t. I started to panic. My breathing became faster. There were no holes, handles, indents, nothing to grab hold-on to or pull at, just smooth, hard wood all around me. Then a dark thought came into my mind; I wasn¡¯t under rubble, I was in a coffin. I could smell the damp earth packed all around me outside the box. My mind started to freak out trying to make sense of all this and push that dark thought out of my head, but after a few minutes I couldn''t find any evidence of anything else this box could be. I panicked. ¡®What¡¯s going on?!? Why am I in a coffin?!? Why am I naked in a coffin?!?¡¯ I start freaking out. I bang my fists against the roof of the wood and scream for help. ¡°HELP!! SOMEONE HELP ME!!! I¡¯M TRAPPED DOWN HERE!! I¡¯M STILL ALIVE!!! HELP!!!¡± I push with all my might against the wooden wall above me, trapping me down here. I tried kicking the bottom of it to get out; tried pushing the wall above my head, but no matter what I did to the wooden walls, they would not move. I was truly trapped. All of my effort, strength and intelligence couldn¡¯t help me in this box. For the first time in my life I was totally helpless. No matter how much I wanted it I couldn¡¯t change reality. For the first time, I felt it; true fear. It made me feel like vomiting, pissing myself, and crying at the same time. I felt like my mind was going blank. I couldn''t stop my mind from wandering to dark places. I wasn''t thinking straight. Eventually, the only thing that stopped my mind from going crazy was the vomit I spewed out of my mouth all over myself. I nearly choked on my own vomit. This was one of the worst feelings I had ever felt in my life! I never experienced this kind of fear before; true fear. It''s horrifying. I shouted, screamed, and begged for help as I laid in my own vomit. The smell choking my nostrils with it''s stench. I kept begging pleading for someone, anyone to help me, to save me. But¡­.. The answer was always silence. It was a deafening silence. I didn''t stop though, I couldn''t. I continued to hope, beg, plead for anyone to come and help me, to save me, to take away my fear, but it felt like the world had become indifferent to me. It felt like the world had accepted the fact that I was going to die. It felt like the world had turned away, leaving me to die alone in the darkness and silence. Screaming wasn''t working, but what else could I do? Was this all I could do? Beg and scream for help? Was this what my life came to? To grovel and beg on the hope-against-hope that someone somehow hears me and is desperately trying to help me, to save me? Fear kept it''s unnatural pace at crushing my mind with madness and pain, taking my thoughts deeper and deeper to dark and terrifying places. I felt so helpless, tears started to stream down my eyes. I couldn''t see anything but total darkness, I couldn''t hear anything but total silence, and I was starting to get light headed from using most of the air in the box. I was getting desperate! The walls felt like they were closing in around me. I was getting claustrophobic. I started to hyperventilate. I looked horrible. I cried and cried and somewhere along the way, I pissed myself in fear. I tried to calm myself down. I needed to conserve the now putrid air. I needed to focus. Panicking wont help me. I needed to stop this fear from taking over my mind or I truly will die a horrible death. I tried to slow and control my breathing while crying more tears than I ever had in my life. I tried to distract myself from reality. I tried desperately to remember what happened to me before this wooden prison embraced me; to see a reason for all this. I needed to try and make sense of this. I needed answers! Something, ANYTHING to get my mind off of the fear. ¡®THINK! I wasn''t a bad guy. I went to work, I came home, played video games, slept.¡¯ Enemies? ¡®I had a decent life. I didn''t make enemies. I didn''t make friends. I had no lovers to speak of. I wasn''t rich and all of my family died when I was younger so¡­.why was this happening to me?!? I lived a normal life. I followed the rules. I followed societies restrictions on me. I did what it wanted. I wasn''t someone special or extremely smart or athletic so why is this happening. I was what society wanted me to be! What the world wanted me to be! I changed myself to live the way they wanted me to live! Why is this happening to me then?!? I¡¯m still young. I¡¯m only 25!!!¡¯ My voice grew desperate. I was barely able to speak without dry heaving in fear. ¡°Please! *hick* I still want to live! *hick* I don¡¯t want to die! I didn''t do anything in my life that would warrant this! I didn¡¯t do anything to anyone to warrant this kind of suffering and pain! I was what you wanted me to be! *hick* Please! *hick*¡± I wanted this to all be a bad dream. I wanted to disappear from this and suddenly be back in my room, back at my home. But I was not in my home. I was not near my home. I was alone, left to die, and I was terrified. I had never felt such fear and pain in my life. To be abandoned and left to suffocate in the darkness alone until you died. To have all of your hope crushed by the unending silence and darkness from a few feet of dirt! This was the worst way to die. I was so scared I started to cry even more, begging gods, demons, the devil, the world, anyone to save me. I¡¯d do anything to escape the fear, to escape death! ¡°ple..*hick*..he..he..ze..*hick*..I..do..ho..hont..wa..nt..t..t..to...di..hi..hie!¡± The cruel reality was starting to kick in fast. I was losing air. I don''t know how long I had been in the box beforehand, but I had used a lot of air while screaming and crying. I might only have a few more minutes left. I was surprised, afraid, and depressed with my death inching closer to me. I felt pathetic. I felt so weak. I never thought about death. I was young. Death was just something that would happen to you later. You didn''t have to care about it when you were young. ¡®What was going to happen to me after I died? Everyone has theories, beliefs, religions, practices. What do I do? Do..Do I try to make a pact? Do I..Do I plead to some god that I don''t know hoping that after I die I get to be in some paradise? I never thought about life after death. My parents had an opinion but I never really accepted it, even after they died. I didn''t even know if there is life after death.¡¯ So many memories started to pass through my mind. ¡®This must be the moment when you see your life flash before your eyes before you died¡­¡¯ Even if it was my life flashing before my eyes, it was still to fast! My life was too short to have done anything memorable or worthwhile. It went by to fast. The only thing it confirmed for me was that I was a pathetic loser in life and I was going to die a pathetic loser¡¯s death. I began to accept my fate. To accept my death. Then something changed in me. I felt something start to bend in my mind. Something started to change within me. The fear that was eating away at my soul slowed a little. I looked over the memories of my life again and realized something; I wasted my life. I started to hate myself for not taking the chances in my life to be better, to be smarter, to be stronger. I hated that I never did anything important in my life. I hated that I didn''t take risks or live big and large. But most of all, I hated that I didn''t enjoy my life to the fullest. I hated that I tried to conform myself to a society that didn''t care. After looking over my life, the depressing feeling returned once more. I felt that I wasted my life. I felt like I was a waste of space to the world and the world was better off without me. My breathing slowed and I calmed down a little. ¡®......maybe it was better this way¡­...to leave this world like I lived¡­...without making a difference in anyone''s lives¡­.without doing anything with my life¡­.without living my life the way I wanted¡­¡­.and now I¡¯m going to die in the silence¡­..all alone....without even getting a chance to fight for my life, to change it, to make my life better¡­.¡¯ Then, something broke in my mind and a loud snap began ringing in my ears. ¡°NOOOO!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. My eyes shot open and I gnashed my teeth. I started to get angry. I realized something important that I missed! SOMEONE put me here! SOMEONE wanted me to die, to kill me, to put me in this box and leave me to die! SOMEONE made me feel this way, to make me feel this fear! It was getting harder to breath. Less and less air was getting to my brain. I was really lightheaded but my anger wasn¡¯t going to stop. ¡°THAT¡¯S RIGHT!!! I am being MURDERED!!! I still have so much life to live! THEY ARE THE ONES TAKING MY LIFE AWAY!!! WHAT GIVES THEM THE RIGHT!!!¡± That¡¯s right! If I was alive I would eventually realize that my life was pathetic and would have changed it. I would have smartened up. I wouldn''t have conformed to society and be the quiet respectful person they wanted me to be. I would have done so much more with my life! I would have lived it my way! I would have traveled the world, had a wife, kids, retired, and given knowledge to others; life lessons to help the young live their lives to the fullest! After all that, THEN I could die! NOT BEFORE!!! But that chance to live my life is being taken away from me! Someone put me in here to kill me! I didn''t even get to fight for my life! I wasn''t the greatest person in the world, but I still should have been aloud to fight for my life! My rage began overflowing my body. My rapid heart beat started to ring in my ears. ¡®That''s right! If I¡¯m going to die, I¡¯m not going to go quietly. I will curse at them until my lungs give out!!!!!¡¯ My previously crushing, overwhelming fear turned into unstoppable, unbridled rage and wrath. Adrenaline started to kick in all around my body. I started to scream at them, those that put me here. I started banging my fists with all my might against this indifferent wooden executioner until they bled. ¡°You want to take my life like it''s nothing! I WON''T LET YOU!! I will make you all SUFFER! I WILL GET OUT OF HERE, I WILL FIND YOU, AND THEN KILL YOU ALL!!!!! NOTHING WILL STOP ME!!! YOU HEAR ME!!!¡± I never killed anyone before, but now, who cares. I would definitely not hesitate or lose sleep over killing someone. I would not go quietly. I was going to fight tooth and nail for my life, for my revenge! Those that put me here obviously didn¡¯t care about killing me, they didn''t fear the consequences or what was right or wrong. So why should I care about it! As long as I don¡¯t have to feel this fear and pain again, I¡¯ll kill them all!! ¡°I DON¡¯T KNOW HOW OR WHEN BUT ONE DAY, SOMEHOW I WILL GET MY REVENGE!! YOU THOUGHT I WOULD DIE WILLINGLY!!! HELL NO!!! I¡¯M NOT A VICTIM!!! I AM A FIGHTER AND I WON''T EVER GIVE UP!!! YOU WILL ALL DIE BY MY HANDS!! YOU WILL EXPERIENCE TRUE FEAR AS YOU DIE!!! THIS I SWEAR!!!¡± I started punching the wall in front of me with everything I had. Bones started to crack and break but I didn''t care. I kept doing it until my hands were nothing but destroyed, broken, bloody clumps of flesh. It¡¯s strange, the person you become when you face your own death, when you see the end drawing near with no way of stopping it. In the end, you won''t care about morals or what¡¯s right and what''s wrong. You just want to live. I was a nice and loving kid when I was young. I was a nice and loving man when I became an adult. I would never think about hurting anyone unless absolutely necessary, but now. I will happily throw my morals away if I could just stop my own death and get my revenge! I would gladly make a deal with the devil to fight and to slaughter them all, to make them suffer like I was suffering, to make them all suffer worse than they could ever imagine! Even if the gods or the devil himself stands in my way, I would climb over all their corpses to get my revenge! No matter what! This desire and rage and hate flowing through me may be due to me losing oxygen to my brain, but I didn''t care. This anger, this rage, it felt good! The hate I felt, the rage flowing through me, I liked it! I would get my revenge!! I could feel it in my soul! I stopped punching the wall when I started suffocating. I was losing air. I was going to die. This fact quelled my rage for a moment to let me think clearly. ¡®.......my last words¡­.damn it! I can''t even think clearly due to the lack of oxygen to my brain¡­.. I could say something calming, loving, or meaningful¡­.that''s what people say you should do to bring peace to your soul right? To help you move on peacefully to the next life?...right?¡­...mom?¡­.dad?¡­.¡¯ A tear fell down my eye and I laid there in the darkness suffocating. ¡®....no¡­..I¡¯m sorry mom, dad¡­¡­..But I don''t want my soul to be at peace for this. I don''t want to accept this death. If I die with a hateful resentful soul, so be it! As long as I get my revenge, I¡¯ll say everything I want to! Who cares what I should say! I¡¯ll say what I want to say¡­..I¡¯ll finally live the way I want to! Even if its at the end. I¡¯ll curse them all with my final breath!¡¯ I take a moment to gather my thoughts. Then I begin my final oration, projecting every ounce of my soul into my words so that they can feel my will and hate and rage wherever they are. ¡°.....To those that did this to me, I will find you and you will wish for the pain to stop. To those who stood by and let them do this to me, I will make your deaths as painful as possible! And to the WORLD for ABANDONING ME and making my life so PATHETIC, I WILL MAKE YOU MY BITCH!!! YOU THOUGHT I WAS WEAK AND PATHETIC! I WILL SHOW YOU! I WILL LIVE!! I WILL GET MY REVENGE!! I WILL LIVE A LIFE BY MY RULES, AND NOTHING IN THIS WORLD WILL EVER BE ABLE TO STOP ME!!! NO GOD!! NO DEVIL!!! NOTHING!! NOT EVEN DEATH!!!!¡± There was no more air in the box. I was out of air and time, but I had said everything I wanted to. I twisted, spazzed, and gasped for air. Death was coming for me. I could felt it. My body stopped moving. Silence returned to the box until. <> ¡®.......I guess this is the last thing I hear before I die¡­..it must be my morals still trying to give me peace of mind...to make me feel like forgiving those fucking bastards that did this to me¡¯ My mind was going blank. I didn''t have any strength left in me but I wanted to answer it. I wanted to follow through. To make my drive, my conviction, feel real in the end. Screw my morals, I¡¯ll answer the voice! I used whatever strength I had left to answer the voice as I died there alone in the dark and in the silence; my voice, barely a whisper. ¡°.........yes..¡± <<.................hmmm¡­.ok...I¡¯ll help you then>> I didn''t hear or think anything after that. I died. Everything went white and then returned to black. No more rage, no more fear, no more pain, just nothingness. <> Chapter 01 ¡®........it stinks¡­¡­¡­.¡¯ Silence. ¡®.....weird¡­¡­..wait¡­what¡¯s going on?!?¡¯ My mind started to panic. ¡®What happened!?!...no...wait.....I died right?.....ya...I did........so...is this death then?...no, wait... is this what happens after death?¡¯ My mind slowly starts to come back to me. All the events of what happened rolled through my mind. ¡®.....hmmmm¡­....it really does stink¡­....¡¯ I slowly open my eyes. It feels like mountains are weighing down my eyelids. It takes everything I have to just open my eyes. Once open I can see nothing but darkness. ¡®.....darkness again, ah¡­.that''s comforting¡­...but is this really death?..........or¡­¡­.am I still in the box¡­....¡¯ I shuddered at the thought. Fear starting to form in me again, taking control of my mind. ¡®NO!¡¯ The fear was quickly replaced with rage and then cooled to the point where I was level headed again. I was able to think clearly and observe my surroundings, or lack thereof, with my eyes. In the end though, I just kept staring into the darkness; waiting. My mind began to wonder in the silence. I had never experienced death before. I didn''t know what to do or expect, and, if this is death, then I guess I have an eternity to wait for, well, whatever to happen. ¡®I don''t feel any different so that''s good. I think.¡¯ Silence. ¡®My mind feels like it''s fine-ish with the fact that I died. So, I think I¡¯m ok. I¡¯m already dead so I¡¯ll wait for some god or devil or something to tell me what¡¯s next. Time¡¯s really no issue for me now.¡¯ So I stayed there, in the dark for, what I believed to be, a few hours. I had no idea. Time has no meaning in the darkness. My mind wondered while I stayed there in the darkness. I thought about a lot of things, the meaning of life, the greatest sport, my favorite color, and a bunch of other nonsense stuff. However, the mind can only think about so many things for so long. The next topic though, that I thought about made me ponder for a long time; am I content? Am I at peace? Most people should be content after they die, right? Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized, I was not and the unending darkness around me was not helping me answer my questions. The longer I waited for something to happen the more restless I became, until I couldn''t take it anymore. People can only go for so long without anything happening. I decided then that I would explore the darkness to try to find anything. I had been in the darkness for a long time, at least I think I was. However, before I do anything, I have to face the last fear I have in my mind. The only fear I¡¯ve ever had after dying and ending up here in the darkness. I began to wonder to the dark parts of my mind again, thankfully I had some control on my fear and I didn''t need to be afraid of death. I had already died so there wasn''t anything really to fear. So, I pushed on and confronted my final fear. ¡®......Am I still in the box?....Is this darkness, the darkness, of inside of the box?...¡¯ Surprisingly, none of the fear of that thought entered my mind when thinking about it. No fear, no hesitation, no worry. It''s like I became a completely different person after death. I felt relaxed thinking about my death. I felt calm and focused, more so than in my entire life. ¡®Hmmm¡­...if this is the box again, I¡¯m going to be pissed. I mean, am I to spend an eternity dying over and over again in this box? I mean, come on. I don''t even get any playing cards? How about a tv? A book? I would love to play some video games if I¡¯m still in the box. Maybe I¡¯ll decorate the box if this is where I¡¯ll be for eternity. I heard a saying that it''s better to make where you are home than where you want to be. So I guess that means I need to make this darkness my home.¡¯ I smile and chuckle at my own mind. My carefree sporadic attitude towards the fear that almost destroyed me feels nice. It feels nice to let my mind wonder and think what it wants without fear of anything. Then it hit me. The box doesn''t and can''t scare me anymore, death doesn''t scare me anymore, and after dying once, the darkness is actually really comforting. It feels like I¡¯m under a thick blanket and relaxing. My carefree attitude allowed me to challenge my fear without worry. I took a long deep breath in and then out. ¡®huuuuhhh...I guess I should start to focus and get moving now. Can''t goof off and sleep forever. I made a promise to those bastards and I intend to keep it, so lets get too it.¡¯ Pain. Horrible, devastating pain. When I tried to move, I felt excruciating amounts of pain. I stopped as fast as I could. ¡®Ok. Not doing that again. Hmmmm¡­.ok, lets see what I can do.¡­..wait, do I still have my face and body in death? I mean, I can feel pain, so that must mean I have a body. Right? I can''t feel anything but my eyes right now though.¡¯ I can¡¯t feel anything nor can I move my vision from right in front of me, but I don''t give up. I try to force myself to feel for my right hand, to picture it moving in my mind. To my surprise, I can feel my hand now. I try to do the same for the other hand and my legs. They all appear one after the other in my mind. I could now feel them moving. I try to force myself to lift my hand up and check/touch my face. I can''t see my arm in the darkness, but I can feel my fingers and arm moving towards where my face should be. Surprisingly, there was no pain in dong that action. After a while of self discovery I found that I had my body and face still even after death. ¡®huh...I thought I would at least turn into a spirit or something after death¡­...There go my plans on haunting those bastards to death¡­..hehheh¡­......two eyes...two ears...mouth¡­.nose¡­.two arms...two legs¡­.two feet¡­.butt...little dude¡­..yep I still have a face and body. That''s weird.¡­..why would I have a body after death?....hmmm¡­..I guess I¡¯m glad I didn''t try to make a deal with some gods then. If this is death, then everyone was really off.¡¯ I chuckle at myself. ¡®So, what do I know so far? After death is darkness, no blinding light, no fiery pit of pain, and no singing angels. It''s just darkness, and a very bad smelling darkness at that. So, looks like gods aren''t real. Ok. I guess that''s good to know. It would suck for me if after I died I suddenly appear in front of Zeus.¡¯ I chuckle then sigh. ¡®So then, what¡¯s left? Reincarnation? Uhhh¡­.disappearing into nothingness? Becoming one with the universe? Or something else?¡¯ I contemplate these thoughts. ¡®All of that is still conjecture, I don''t have any hard facts so, first things first, I¡¯m going to have to get up and explore...¡­.hmmm...pass...I¡¯ll try some other things first. Getting up hurt a lot last time. Let¡¯s be smarter about this. I don''t really have to rush this.¡¯ I smile. ¡®How about speaking? Can I do that here?¡¯ ¡°.....*cough**cough*....testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Peter piper picked a pair of raw potatoes. *clears throat* Ah, Thank you. Thank you very much.¡± Silence. ¡®hmmmm¡­.my voice doesn''t feel constricted in the darkness and it doesn''t sound like an echo either. I can still do impressions though. I guess that''s good to know.¡¯ I chuckle again. ¡®I¡¯ll have to run a few more tests on my body before trying to get up again.¡¯ ¡°.....so this is death¡­....¡± ¡®My voice sounds weird. But other than that I can speak.¡¯ Still lying on my back, I turn my head to the sides and look all around me. I couldn¡¯t see anything. The second I turned my head though I noticed a few things about me though. Other than the fact that I was still on my back, I am now laying on something hard and cool, like stone. I was still naked though. ¡®Good thing it''s dark, don''t want anyone to see me naked and call the cops on me for streaking like a pervert.¡¯ I smile. ¡°I¡¯m glad I can still think about such things like that.¡± Silence returns to the world of black. Over the next hour I performed more tests on myself and my surroundings. I made no sound, I watched with rap attention at any detail I could possibly see through the darkness. I listened for any sound in the darkness. I even tried to feel any movement of air around my naked body to signal movement in the darkness. However, nothing happened and there was nothing to see, feel, or hear but more darkness. Eventually, my stomach breaks the silence with loud gurgling. The sound was so sudden that I was shocked and thought it was a beast out in the distance but after I realised the sound was from me I started laughing out loud. I laughed and laughed myself to tears. I haven''t laughed that hard or that long in years. The whole seriousness of my earlier actions made it that much more entertaining to me. ¡°....great¡­.so, even though I¡¯m dead I can still get hungry?¡­...wonderful¡­.haha stupid stomach. Does death make you hungry? Really? Maybe I should die with a full stomach next time. Well, hindsight is 20/20. I guess next time I die I will have to make certain I have a full stomach beforehand. I mean I would hate to be dead AND hungry.¡± I continue to laugh my head off. After a few minutes, I calm back down. My good mood stayed with me though. Ignoring my extra loud stomach, I casually try to reach up and see if I¡¯m still in that wooden prison. Something I had been hesitant to do beforehand because I thought the pain from earlier would return to me, but, to my surprise, I found that I could reach up all the way up without hitting anything. I then spread my arms to my sides in a T formation and I found that there was no wall there either. Then came the moment of truth, with a smile on my face and the determination to not care what happens next, I sat up on my butt. To my surprise I didn''t feel any pain like before. I stayed on my butt for what seemed like hours, but nothing happened. No fire, no pain, no light, no singing angels, just darkness and nothingness. ¡®huh¡­.how anticlimactic¡­..It was a big deal for me to sit up after dying in that box. I guess I¡¯m not in the box anymore thought. Sweet¡­¡­.so where am I then?.....should I be scared or something about all this?....hmmmm¡­.naaaaa...heh..death is just boring not scary..¡¯ I smile and then frown. I was starting to get bored. ¡°Fuuuuuuuck¡­death is so boring¡­.I thought I would at least learn some knowledge of the universe or something. I didn''t think death was just darkness, nothingness, and stink.¡± The world resumes it''s darkened silence. I started to get angry at the solitude and the unbroken silence. It felt like I was being ignored again. ¡°YOU HEAR THAT DEATH!! YOU¡¯RE BORING!!! AND YOU STINK!!¡± I yelled at the top of my lungs in the darkness. I assumed that I wouldn''t hear anything back from the darkness, but I was horribly wrong. <> This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. I jump back from the voice and fell on my back. I scrambled to sit back up. I then searched frantically for the voice in the darkness. My mouth open, shocked and dumbstruck. After a few minutes of silence, I regained my senses. Although it sounded like it was coming from all around me, I looked into the never ending darkness ahead trying to find the owner of the voice. ¡°Who is there??!?! Where are you?!?!¡± <> My mind was a mess. I tried to keep the voice talking as much as I could. ¡°Wait! Wait! Wait! I¡¯m sorry. I didn''t know anyone else was here?! Did you die too?!¡± <> The voice started to loudly laugh at me. I tried to regain some composure. I haven''t heard someone else''s voice in what felt like so long. I didn''t want it to stop talking even if it was making fun of me. It was exciting to hear someone else was here with me. It meant that I wasn¡¯t alone. However, his laughter was getting a little annoying. ¡°Ok. Ok. You can stop laughing at me now. Can we start again? My name is John. It''s so good to hear another voice. What''s your name? Do you know what''s going on? Do you know where we are?¡± <> Laughter erupts from the voice again, surrounding me. It sounded like I just told him the funniest joke in the world, and I didn''t get the punchline. <> I sigh loudly. ¡®Great. This kind of person. Hmmm...this voice sounds familiar...where have I heard it before?¡¯ ¡°So, you name is Death? Ok. I¡¯ll roll with that.¡± I breath in and out, focusing my thoughts. ¡°If you really know, can you please tell me what''s going on and where we are in detail?¡± <> The other voice clears its throat in an exaggerated manner. <> A pause followed his words. <> A long silence followed deaths words. <> ¡°Uhh...Ya..I heard you but I don¡¯t quite understand you.¡± <> Another long silence. <<¡­.so..do you?>> ¡°What?!¡± I try to process what this thing, ¡°death,¡± just said. ¡®wait¡­.I remember now! That was the voice that I heard before I died!!! So if I believe in what this thing just said then I guess someone or something actually did hear me at the end. It did say it was trying to help¡­..hmmmmmm...If that is true then this ¡°death¡± is willing to give me a chance and help me achieve my revenge¡­.¡¯ I pause in my thoughts. ¡®...do I believe him though?.......wait. I don''t really need to believe him. If he is telling the truth, great, if not, who cares. I already died and my goal was to get my revenge, so in the end I don''t really see a reason to refuse. It''s time to throw caution to the wind.¡¯ A wild smile appeared on my face. It almost looked sinister and evil. ¡°Yes I am certain. I will get my revenge on those that killed me no matter what, and after that I will live my life the way I want to and no one will be able to stop me.¡± I say that matter-of-factly. <> Silence. <> I just sit there smiling, staring into the darkness. The voice coughs to clear the awkwardness. <> ¡°Eh, not really. I already died so I¡¯m really up for anything. I mean, if you are a voice in my head, that just means I have great confidence in achieving my goals. If you can allow me to get my revenge then sweet. If not, then I¡¯ll just find another way. I¡¯m in no rush right now.¡± Silence. < > The voice starts laughing boisterously again, this time though it was a nice and jovial laugh, not a mocking one. <> ¡°Your not so bad yourself death.¡± Death clears his throat. <> A long silence permeates after death finishes. ¡°That sounds great, but also really unbelievable. Although, I am dead, so anything is really possible. Wait if your death why don''t you just kill them yourself with like a snap of your fingers?¡± <> ¡°Hmm..that''s true. I would prefer to kill them myself. Ok. However, I have a few more questions. Oh and thank you for answering my questions so honestly by the way, for a god you are very forthcoming with information. It makes things easier to understand.¡± <> ¡°I thought there would be a catch, but you are probably right about me not saying no.¡± I feel death becoming more comfortable with me as we continue our conversation. After a momentary pause death continues. << Hah! I knew you would be a great candidate for this. So, down to the catches, there are a few. The first is that there is a hiccup with the process of getting you there. That is to say, after arriving and getting your revenge, your soul, when you die, will be stuck there forever. The process is a one way trip. I mean, there is an afterlife in that world, but you won''t be able to see any of your family from the afterlife of your world. Every universe has there own afterlife but they don''t mingle between each other. So ya, that''s the first catch. What do you think?>> I wait patiently in the silence for death to continue. <> I stare at the void of darkness all around me, not breaking the silence as I think. ¡°Ya. I made up my mind when I died. I know it would crush my parents to know they wouldn''t see me again, but they would at least know that I would be able to live my life to the fullest and be happy with my new life. If they knew that then I think they would be ok. I know it''s probably cold of me to think like that, but my parents should be content where they are knowing I¡¯m ok. Hmmm...actually, could you maybe pass a note along to them in their afterlife that I would be ok?¡± Silence. <> I smile fondly as I remember my parents and wish them well without me. ¡°Thank you. So, what¡¯s the next catch?¡± << Ok. So, to understand the next catch you need to know a little bit about me. My job in every universe is to collect the souls of the dead and send them to their respective universes¡¯ afterlives. In fact, most gods that create life in their universes don''t even know that when they create life they let me into their universe to collect the dead for them. I don''t really hold any power in each universe other than collecting souls, so the gods in most universes don''t really pay me any mind. You could look at it like this, I¡¯m technically working for them. It''s a boring job with no pay, no vacations, and no breaks, but hey, it''s what my purpose is.>> Death clears his throat again. <> Death pauses again. <> ¡°How so?¡± There is a pause as death gathers his thoughts. <> Silence. ¡°Oh? What do you mean by that? How can I get death''s revenge? Aren''t you an underpaid and underappreciated god? What could you need a mortal to do for you?¡± I¡¯m now incredibly curious and complimenting him will probably make him explain more. Death lets out a long sigh. <> Death sighs again. <> Silence. ¡°That''s a lot to take in, but I don''t understand my part in this.¡± An evil cackle erupts from the darkness. I can almost feel the evil intentions coming off of death. <> ¡°Yes. I had to sign a lot of them back on my world.¡± The evil cackle becomes louder. <> I can almost feel death smiling at me. <> Death pauses for what I¡¯m guessing is dramatic affect. <> Silence. It was a lot to process. It wasn''t everything I needed to know but I don''t think anything so far would make me say no to this. However, I still had some questions. ¡°Ok. So why does sending me to this world and helping me get my revenge help you? If you send me there that just lets them have another soul to keep away from you right? I don''t see the benefits of that.¡± <> Death pauses for a moment. <> ¡°Hmmm¡­¡­thats a lot to process. So no major thing or being I have to kill? This still feels like it''s too good for me.¡± <> ¡®Hmm...ok. I guess I understand. He just wants the souls of the ones from my world returned. And I can promise him that he will get those souls back after my revenge. Hmm¡­.and I guess he is betting that I will be killing other people in that world too. It''s not a bad deal. I don''t really have any problem with killing anyone who gets in the way of my revenge so he is probably getting more out of this than I think. Hmmm¡­.however, I don''t feel like he is telling me everything¡­¡­...I guess I¡¯m ok with what I know now. I don''t need to know everything, I just need to know where they are and who they are¡­..hmm...and also why, but that''s for later.¡¯ <> I smile wildly. ¡®Heh. I already decided a long time ago. I¡¯m going to follow through. I¡¯m sorry mom, dad and the rest of my family, those bastards put me in that box and left me to die. They killed me and now they have run off to another world thinking that they are safe from me. I swore that I wouldn''t let anything get in the way of my revenge, not gods, not devils, nothing, not even death. I will follow through. I won''t hesitate. I won''t be weak. I will be my own man and I¡¯ll take all the risks to do it.¡¯ I clear my throat, my blood pumping with excitement. I yell into the silent black void for all I¡¯m worth. ¡°MY ANSWER! HELL YES!! THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD! THEY JUST DON''T KNOW IT YET! I¡¯LL KILL THEM ALL!! I¡¯LL MAKE THEM SUFFER AND I¡¯LL MAKE THIS NEW WORLD MY BITCH!! I WON''T HESITATE ANYMORE!! I WILL FIGHT FOR MY LIFE!!¡± ¡®Everything else doesn''t matter. What matters is getting my revenge. All of the things I felt and all of the fear that you basterds put me through, you will all experience true fear. You basterds better be ready! I¡¯m coming to kill you all!!¡¯ <> ¡°Oh! Sorry. I forgot. I started to get really pumped up and I just spoke what I thought. I hope you can forgive me.¡± <> Death then clears his throat and in a big and powerful voice he speaks. <> I¡¯m slightly in awe and a little afraid of death, but I¡¯m mostly trying to not laugh at his serious tone. It sounded so fake. It sounded like he was trying to make you feel like he was extra dignified. I don''t think I will be able to take to many serious tone conversations with death. I tried my best not to laugh in my response to death. ¡°...uh...Yes¡­.um...Thank you. I¡¯m prepared.¡± A loud sigh then reverberates around the darkness from death and his normal voice came out. <> I roll my eyes. ¡°Oh...uhh..ok. Sorry your magnificent Deathyness¡± I stood up, gave a complete sarcastic, magnificent bow towards the darkness and then stood upright again. Then my face scrunched up. ¡°Wait!...did you say this might not work? What do you--¡± Deaths booming voice overshadowed mine in an instant. This voice wasn''t the, trying to be even more dignified voice, this was a very serious and powerful voice. It felt like my whole body was shaking from his words. << --Alright, I¡¯m sending you now. Be warned! I have watched this world for a long time, seen how people died. Some words of wisdom: Don''t get cocky. You could experience more pain and sorrow in this world if you are not careful. This isn''t a spring vacation, you will have to kill other people and innocents. When you are put in that situation, don''t hesitate. If you hesitate you will die. Even if you think they are innocent and pure, know that no one is pure in this world. You are not a hero. You do not want to be a hero. Being a hero in this world is worse than being a villain. You cant save everyone; death is apart of life. Never forget that. And finally, the most important wisdom I can pass onto you, trust no one that you can''t control or manipulate. I will give you the tools to become stronger and the power to never be betrayed. This is the only gift I can give to you. Goodbye.>> A serious silence spreads across the darkness. I gulp from the pressure of deaths words and wonder what kind of world I¡¯m entering. A silence permeates the dark world. Then in a completely different and off puttingly happy tone breaks the serious silence of the void. <> Silence. My veins feel like they are about to pop in my forehead from anger and surprise. ¡°WHAT THE HELL!! You were so serious before and then you just threw that in there, have fun?!? Really?!? WHO IS RUINING THE MOMENT NOW DEATH?!?!?!?¡± <> I wanted to give death a piece of my mind but I didn¡¯t have time to respond. My vision turned white and then black. I couldn''t hear, I couldn''t see, or feel, I couldn''t even smell that nasty smell of death. I lost consciousness. Chapter 2 Warmth. So warm and peaceful. Light. Blinding, shining light. I feel the light on my eyelids, daring me to stay asleep. The warmth I feel on my face and body feels nice but the light is killing my sleep. ¡°Uhhhhhh¡­..go away sun¡­¡­¡­..I want to sleep..¡­¡­..please, I¡¯m tired.¡± The light didn''t move. If anything it got brighter. ¡®tch, I thought I left the blinds closed¡¯ I tried to hit the light away or to hit the blinds closed with my hand. It didn''t work. My eyes were still closed. I started to scrunch them trying to get away from the light. I roll over to my other side so the light is no longer on my eyes but now warming my back. I thought that would solve the situation but it only made it worse. It seems something else is trying to wake me up. My front is now being hit with a cold wind. ¡®uhhhhh¡­.I just want to sleep...Did I leave the window open too?.....I had better not have turned the ac on last night¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.uhhh fine! I¡¯m up you happy now?¡¯ I open my eyes expecting to see the inside of my room, but instead I see a vast forest. My view uninterrupted for hundreds of miles. Just below my body is pure forests of green with the sun¡¯s rays gently resting over the treetops. I open my eyes wider as the smell of the forest enters my nostrils. The view takes my breath away. ¡°Wow¡­.that''s beautiful...what a nice dream¡­¡­¡­¡­...wait¡­.WHAT?!?¡± Without moving my body I hear rocks falling down below me. I turn my head a little and look down and I see a massive drop. I was on the edge of a cliff. ¡°Well¡­.that''s new¡­¡± I look down as the rocks from under the ledge fall to the forest below. ¡°Oh cool. I¡¯m on a ledge¡­...wait¡­.ledge?!¡± I jump back to not fall over the edge. I whip my head around rapidly trying to see where I am and make sense of what I¡¯m doing here. The sleep is now completely out of my system. ¡°WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!??!!¡± I sit up on my butt and look around me. I realize, I¡¯m not in my room.(duh) I was now on a peninsula of rock jutting out of a mountainside with no path or road leading to it, just a jut of rock. ¡°WHAT THE HELL!?!?¡± Then the memories start to flow in like a tsunami, crushing my mind for a few moments. I remember everything that happened to me, all the pain, the suffering, the anger, the promise, and the time after death/or with death. ¡°WHAT THE FUCK DEATH!! NOT COOL!! HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO GET DOWN FROM HERE?!?¡± I swear I could hear his loud annoying laughter in the back of my mind. ¡°I am going to kill him! I¡¯m going to kill him. I don''t care if he is death! I¡¯m going to kill him! This is SO not cool!!!¡± I look at the mountain above me, towering like a skyscraper. It was so large and foreboding. To my left the sun was barely up above the horizon. It''s soft rays of sunlight warming my cold skin. ¡®Wait¡­..cold skin?¡¯ I look down at my body. I was still naked. ¡°REALLY!?!?!? YOU COULDN''T AT LEAST GIVE ME SOME GOD DAMN CLOTHES!! YOU JACKASS!!! THIS ISN''T FUNNY!!!¡± I start to stand up and peer out over the ledges, looking for a way down. There was none. I was stuck up here, naked, and cold. A loud grumbling echos over the trees. ¡°SHUT UP STOMACH!! YOU HAVE THE WORST TIMING!! UHHH!!! DEATH!! YOU LAZY ASSHOLE!!!!¡± <>Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Eh?¡± ¡®Did I just hear correctly? No must be my imagination. It must be the altitude. I¡¯m hearing things.¡¯ ¡°Great. Just great! Now I¡¯m hearing that bastard in my head when he¡¯s not here!¡± <> ¡°What?!..wait...Death?!?¡± <> I whip my head around me looking for the source of the voice. I look down over the edge of the cliff to my right. There, appearing over the cliff, an man-ish looking thing made of and covered in darkness in the shadow of the cliffside. It was floating just off of the cliff. I couldn''t see any facial features or hair or anything. The darkness covered it''s body. The darkness almost looked like it was pulsing in him. It had arms, hands, legs, and a head but nothing else. I raised it''s hand in a waving way at me. It didn''t have a mouth but I knew it was smiling. ¡°WHAT THE HELL?!?! Why did you put me on the side of a cliff Death!? And WHY am I still naked?!?¡± <> This time it was my turn to hold my ears closed with my hands. His yelling was just too loud! I start to calm down and try to talk calmly with, what I presume to be, some kind of avatar of deaths. ¡°uhhhh...fine...I¡¯m sorry. Ok? I¡¯m sorry for yelling at you when you are just trying to help me.¡± In a sarcastically high pitched tone death talks back to me. <> I roll my eyes at his stupidity. ¡°...uh, ya. Ok. Thank you. So can you please tell me why I am on the side of a cliff and buck naked?¡± <> ¡°DEATH!!¡± <> Death clears his throat. <> Death took a victory pose. I could definitely tell he was smiling. ¡°WHAT?!? Oh sorry. No wait I¡¯m not sorry! How the hell did you accidentally drop me in the wrong spot?!? Does that mean I made it here? And why am I still naked?!?!¡± <> ¡°Death! One thing at a time! You said you dropped me in the wrong spot but we made it to the correct world. What do you mean?!?!¡± I was massaging my temples at this point of frustration. <> Silence. Death coughed into his hand. <> I try my hardest not to jump off of the ledge right then and there and punch Death in the face. Controlling my anger, I took a deep breath and I worded my words very carefully. My body physically shaking now in anger. ¡°Death. Just wondering.¡± My anger boiling in my mind but I wasn''t letting it into my voice. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you give me clothes before you carried my unconscious body over to the spot you wanted to place me at?¡± <<...........................>> A silent wind passes between us on the ledge. <<......huh...uhhh...well¡­.I¡¯ve never worn clothes before so I didn''t think about that. Hahaha!>> Death took another victory pose with his body made of darkness. Veins started popping out of my forehead in anger, but I smile and keep a calm voice. ¡°So your plan was, just so I know, to leave me, in the forest, alone, unconscious, and naked.¡± <<.......Well when you put it like that it does sound weird, BUT that place has all the things living people need; food, water and shelter.>> I try to keep my tone polite. ¡°....Death...¡± <> ¡°GIVE ME SOME GODDAMN CLOTHES!!!!¡± <> After a few moments, the black sworling body of darkness pulled a black shirt, black pants, black socks, black boots, and a black overcoat from inside of it. Death then threw them on the ledge next to me. <> As I put the clothes on I begin to feel much more comfortable on the ledge. The clothes actually fit surprisingly well. The boots were sturdy and they had a good cushion in them for my feet. The shirt fit snugly against my body. The pants were just the right size for all my dimensions. The overcoat was lightweight but kept out the wind and the cold. All in all they were a great set of clothes. Not to mention I looked pretty good in them. <> ¡°You done being a jackass your deathyness?¡± The sarcasm was thick between us. <> ¡°Sure. Now that I am wearing clothes my junk is protected from your aggressive mid air groping.¡± <> The darkness starts to disappear from the air. ¡°Wait! Don''t go! I was joking! Have a sense of humor Death! How the hell am I supposed to get down from here!¡± <> ¡°Oh come on! I¡¯m sorry. I didn''t mean it. Please help me.¡± <> ¡°I can¡¯t climb down this!? I¡¯ll fall and die! I don''t even have any rope to hold on too!¡± <> With that Death disappeared like he had never been there at all. ¡°DEATH!!! YOU BASTARD!!!¡± Chapter 3 It had been a few hours after Death left me. I was still sitting on the ledge looking out at the beautiful scenery below; feeling the warm sun rise over the sky, watching the fluffy clouds passover me, and feeling the nice cool breeze wash over my face. I used all of that excess time on the cliff to calm myself, to let this new reality set in, and to set my future goals. During the time death left me, I sat down and I let the fact sink in that I was in another world. I let the fact sink in that I was here to get my revenge and that I was alone. I needed to make certain that I understood these facts so that I wouldn''t make the same mistakes that I did in the other word. I decided then that I would not conform myself to the society of this world and that I would act the way I wanted to and follow my own path in this second chance at life. I let the fact sink in that I had died. I let myself remember the fear and the hate and the anger that I felt. I let myself remember how hopeless I had been and the fact that I chose revenge over a peaceful afterlife. However, no matter how angry and how desperate I am for revenge, I would not let myself be lost and corrupted and controlled by that anger. That anger, wrath, and rage will always be within me, but I was given a second chance at life and if I lost myself in my emotions and made poor decisions now, then I would fail without even coming close to accomplishing my goals. I was not given a second chance to be the same person and make the same mistakes. I had to change the way I thought and lived to get my revenge. I had to become a killer. I had to confirm that I wouldn''t hesitate to kill. I also had to confirm that I wouldn''t hesitate to murder someone who looked like they were innocent. If they stood in my way in getting my revenge then I would have to kill them. The words of death, still ringing in my ears about not showing mercy, pushed these thoughts of killing to the forefront of my mind during my time on the ledge. In the end, I confirmed in my mind and hardened my heart so that I wouldn''t hesitate to kill. However, even if I say I will kill, I will not know until that time comes. Even so, it is comforting to know that anyone that I kill receives an afterlife. So for the innocents I kill, at least their souls won''t be used for power by whatever lesser gods are in this world. That was my only comforting thought that I could give those innocents that got in my way. After that existential crisis, I then chose to inspect my body accurately and completely so that I made certain I knew what I would be dealing with in this world. I also performed tests on the differences in the amount of gravity of this world, which I found to be no different from my last world. The only big difference I noticed about myself though was that I had gotten shorter and I felt I had more energy. I decided to believe that moving to this world changed my body. Either that or the body I received here was different than the one in my old world. I didn''t know which was the truth. In the end though, it turns out that I am a few inches taller now than when I was in my old world(5¡¯8¡±). I am also skinnier, but not deathly skinny. I have good muscle tone over my chest(not a lot but I¡¯m not fat so that''s a plus). I have firm leg and arm muscles too. I did not know what my face looked like, so for now I assumed that I looked the same. After checking myself and taking into account what was new, I decided on my goals for this life. One thing I learned in my world, if you don''t set up and detail your goals you won''t get anywhere close to accomplishing them. So I set my goals in my head. They are as follows: 1. ??Find and kill the ones that killed me in my other world. To do that I will need: - Information on who and where they are - Plan on how to kill them - Tools necessary to kill them(gun, knife, rope, etc) 2. ??Make this world my bitch. To do that I will need: - To get a job that doesn''t require me to bend to anyone''s will - Become strong enough to live on my own without societies help - Make a decision and stick with it - Not die until I¡¯m an old fart 3.??Have a wife, kids, grow old and die To do that I will need: - To become stronger to not be killed - To become smarter to not be killed - Wife Now that I had set my goals I had a firmer grasp on my direction moving forward in this world. I mentally put them all in my mind so as to not forget them. To take my first steps to accomplishing my goals though I must obviously get down from this stupid mountain. I spent the rest of my time on the cliff searching every inch of my clothing and the ledge for the map death spoke of. However, I didn''t find any map or anything else in my clothing or on the ledge. I had hoped that the map was not blown off the ledge and down to the forest floor when I wasn''t looking. I had become hesitant about starting my climb down the cliff without the said map. ¡®Now, what should I do? Climb down the mountain without the map and hope I find the place death spoke of, or stay on the ledge and wait for help or death to come back(if he was coming back).¡¯ Currently the sun is highest in the sky and I had still not made a decision yet. The only thing I was doing at the time was cursing Death for not being clearer with everything. Although, it did give me some peace of mind and made me feel better cursing at him. Earlier I had thought about waiting for someone to show up and help me, but that idea was shot down after remembering what Death said about not trusting others. I then began searching everything within my view for any intelligent life/ towns/cities/ or campers in the forest to make my way towards if I couldn''t find the place death spoke of. Unfortunately, I couldn''t find any intelligent life with my current forest view. It seems I was in a unexplored wilderness which was devoid of intelligent life. ¡®This is going to be harder than I thought. I will need to make my way through the forest to find people eventually. I guess I shouldn¡¯t worry about that now. My current problem is getting down from the mountain.¡¯ I looked to my left and right. The mountains looked to spread down the side of the forest for miles in both directions. It felt like the world stopped past these mountain ranges at my back, and that the world flowed for eternity in front of me. ¡°Huh. I guess I should start climbing down now. I don''t have the map but I can''t stay up here at night. I would probably freeze. So I will have to climb down.¡± With determination, I made my decision and was going to follow through with it. I looked over the ledges on the left and the right. There were not many differences in the look of the ciffs on each side. The cliffside was a straight shot down. In the end though, I decide to go out over the left hand side. I didn''t really think about why. I just chose it. It was scary at first, but I didnt let my fear stop me from moving forward. After an hour I had gotten used to climbing down the mountain. I just needed to focus on what I was doing and not think about anything else. I had gotten about halfway down without a problem. I wasn''t really tired(thank you adrenaline!), but I knew this pace wasn''t helping in the long run. I needed to speed up. The sun was already into late afternoon and I still had roughly a couple 1000ft left to climb down. I only had so much daylight left. I guessed that I had about 5 hours before sunset started and 6 hrs before no more sunlight. I needed to move a little faster. I was sweating buckets, not from climbing, but from how nervous I was from falling. I was surprised at my physical body though. I was still in peak condition after all this time and work I was putting it through. Hours passed fast. I was wrong on my timing. I was still about 300ft from the ground, but I lost my sunlight. Night was starting to set in, I need to get down fast before I slipped up and fell. I got excited at the possibility of finally getting down, but also nervous that I would mess up and fall if I wasn''t careful. I slowly began again after a short rest, moving my hands and legs down the mountain. What I feared happened the very next second though, I slipped. My boots must have missed somewhere, so to compensate I used all of my strength to hold onto the side of the mountain face with my hands. However, when I did that something unexpected happened. My hands crushed the spots they were holding onto and broke off from the side of the mountain. In short, I fell. I looked up at the sky as I fell, pieces of the mountain still in my hands. I was shocked. I didn''t even scream before my body hit the ground with a loud thud. I opened my eyes slowly, hoping that nothing was broken. I mentaly searched my body with my mind looking for the pain I knew would come; but to my surprise, it didn''t. I lifted my right arm up, then my left arm. Then I sat up. Nothing. No pain. It seems nothing was broken, nothing bent, and I was in no pain. ¡°I¡¯m¡­¡­.not hurt?¡± I stood up surprised, dusted my clothes off, and looked at my body in the moonlight. I was ok. ¡®Why the hell am I ok? How the hell am I ok? I should have at least been hurt from that fall if not killed!¡¯ However, something started to distract me from my questions. Now that I was on the ground, a strange red flashing light appeared. I could see it from the top right hand side of my right eye. My eye didn''t feel like it was bleeding. I then thought it might be something flashing in that direction so I turned to get a better look at the light. However, no matter how fast I turned my head to look at the flashing light, it would always move at the same speed and be in the same spot flashing at the top right hand part of my right eye. ¡®...the hell?¡¯ I then touched my face to see if it was a lighting bug on my face, but I found that the light was brighter with my hand over my eye and that there was no bug on my face. ¡®No. This doesn''t make any sense? What is this red light? I tried tapping it with my finger but it wouldn''t go away. It doesn''t look like it''s anything external so it must be internal. Why can''t I make you go away? It doesn''t feel like pain. Although, it is starting to get annoying.¡¯ My irritation was growing. I was starting to get to my breaking point where I would start punching that side of my face until it went away. ¡°Stop flashing. What are you?!? If you got something to say then just state it!¡± When I said that the flashing stopped and a large intangible blue screen with words on it appeared in front of my face. I jumped back and fell on my butt when it appeared. It startled me. I then looked and realised that it had words on it and that I couldnt push it away from me because my hand went through it. I then studied it. The blue window read:Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. [Congratulations on making it down the mountain! See! I told you it wouldn''t be that hard. So, you are probably wondering what this is. It turns out I should have probably told you a lot more about this world before sending you here. Sorry. My bad. Oh well, it doesn''t matter now. This will all make sense shortly though. So you see, this world has a few differences than your old one. Now I want you to open your mind. This is a new world. This isnt a place where you know so everything is and can be different. So, for example, this world has magic and beings that can use magic. Cool right! Different from what you know in your world but I thought you would find that cool.XD Also, there are more than just humans who live here. There are magical beasts, elves, trolls, dwarfs, demons, gods, monsters, dragons, and a bunch of other cool beings and stuff! The continent you are on is called Garvantia. You will find all of these species here somewhere. Also, this blue thing you see before you is a notification window. Dont panick and freak out when you see one. They are normal here. You have to either concentrate to open the window or close the window, or state that you want it to open or close. I would suggest though turning notifications on so that you don''t miss any of these cool notification screens telling you what happened. Either think or say turn notifications on and it will stay on. If you think or say show me my notifications you can see all of your recent notifications. I think that is all I should say for now. You¡¯ll figure it out¡­.or you won¡¯t. Anyway, don''t forget to have fun in your new world. I¡¯ll be watching so make it a good show. Until next time, Death out!] ¡°.......................magic?....monsters?.....WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS THIS DEATH?!?!? THAT IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME EARLIER YOU JACKASS!!!¡± After screaming into the air, I calmed myself down to process this wealth of new information. ¡®....hmmmm¡­..I guess this is cool. Magic, monsters, and all that¡­..It does sound fun, but it also sounds incredibly dangerous because I don''t know anything about this world other than my preconceived notions of what monsters and beings in this world might be¡­........huhhhh...well¡­.I mean it''s not like that the information would have changed my mind about coming here, but still! I should have been told these things beforehand! And now that jackass can send me love letters whenever he wants? Just perfect.¡¯ ¡°He better not be pulling my leg about this though. A world where magic exists? Hell ya! That''s actually really cool. I really want to use magic now! I am a little concerned that dragons and demons exist here but other than that I guess I¡¯m cool with it all. I really would like to see an elf though.¡± A creepy, almost perverted smile flashed across my face. ¡®NO! Calm down! You can''t be fantasizing about elves. He just told me monsters exist and I¡¯m alone, at night, unarmed in a forest! This is the worst situation I could be in! It''s just like asking for predators to come kill and eat you!¡¯ I look around the forest floor nervously, looking for signs of danger. I keep my back toward the mountain and face the forest. ¡®I don''t see any movement so I should be good for now. I need to be more careful. I almost died from falling off the mountain. I can''t think about such things now when I could be attacked at any moment. I should probably turn on notifications and check them to see if that blowhard sent me anything else he forgot to tell me.¡¯ I concentrated on my next words. ¡°Turn notifications on!¡± Silence. ¡®Did it work?........How will I know?......hmm¡­.death I swear to god, if this was all a ploy to make me look stupid I will seriously be pissed.¡¯ The silence continues. ¡®hmmm¡­..I guess I¡¯ll know when I get another notification? Maybe? Would that be it?....hmmm¡­..I guess I¡¯ll look at my notifications screen now and see if I got any other notifications. If it''s all fake, eh...I¡¯ve already gone this far down the rabbit hole so screw it.¡¯ I concentrate again. ¡°Show me my notifications¡± Instantly a blue translucent plack about chest height, 2 ft tall and 2 ft wide appeared while leaning slightly back to give me a better view of the screen. On it was a list of notifications with the date, time, and subject heading of the notification. I jump back startled when it appears in front of me and land on my butt again. ¡®Holy shit that was scary! Damn it. It''s going to take a while to get used to that. That''s just not what I would call normal. huh. I guess I should get used to it though. ok. Hmmm¡­¡­.wait...this thing looks almost like an email inbox.¡¯ The notifications index looked like an email inbox to my earth trained eyes and it turns out I do have more notifications. I start to look at the notifications on the screen. The most recent one was the congrats one from Death. However, there appears to be 3 slightly older ones in my ¡°inbox¡±(I¡¯m calling it that now to make my life simpler). I looked over them. I received them all about the same time today. I started with the oldest, which I assume was the first one I received when I entered this world. It read: [You have just entered into this world, congrats!] ¡®The hell? There is a notification for something simple like that? Let me try the second most recent then. If the older notifications are stupid stuff like this I¡¯d rather know what happened most recently. The important information should be there.¡¯ I open the second most recent one: [Congratulations! You received permission to wear Death¡¯s Blessed Clothing and Boots. They are now bound to you for life. Only you may wear these. Item Descriptions: Death¡¯s Blessed Shirt A shirt made from Death and Darkness itself. The stench of death will follow whoever wears this shirt. While wearing it your affinity with death and shadow magic increases by 10%. While wearing this shirt the user receives increased strength by 100 stat points. This shirt has been blessed by Death; it will mend itself if damaged or torn. Death¡¯s Blessed Pants Pants made from Death and Darkness itself. The stench of death will follow whoever wears these pants. While wearing it your affinity with death and shadow magic increases by 15%. While wearing these pants the user receives increased endurence by 150 stat points. The pants were blessed by Death; it will mend itself if damaged or torn. Death¡¯s Blessed Socks Socks made from Death and Darkness itself. The stench of death will follow whoever wears these socks. While wearing them your affinity with death and shadow magic increases by 5% each. While wearing these socks the user receives reduced stamina consumption by 15% These socks were blessed by Death; they will mend themselves if they are damaged or torn. Death¡¯s Blessed Boots Boots made from Death and Darkness itself. The stench of death will follow whoever wears these boots. While wearing them your affinity with death and shadow magic increases by 5% each. While wearing these boots you have received the Rare skill Walking Death. While wearing these boots the user receives increased dexterity by 150 stat points. These boots were blessed by Death; they will mend themselves if damaged. Death¡¯s Blessed Cloak A cloak made from Death and Darkness itself. The stench of death will follow whoever wears this cloak. While wearing this cloak your affinity with death and shadow magic increases by 15%. While wearing this cloak your body will be able to hide in the shadows unseen. While wearing this cloak all magical damage is reduced by -15% unless it''s holy magic. Holy magic damage is reduced by -10%. While wearing this cloak negative mind status effects are reduced by -25%. This cloak was blessed by Death; It will mend itself if damaged or torn. Bonus From Death¡¯s Blessed Clothing(Complete Set) For acquiring all of Deaths Blessed clothing the wearer receives special bonuses. The stench of death can now be controlled and turned on or off at will. While wearing all of Death''s Blessed Cloathing the user recieves and increase in constitution by 150 stat points. While wearing the full set you are favored by death and attacks are more likely to kill or do critical damage to opponents. Because you were blessed by Death with his full set of clothes you have been given the Godly skill Fallen Army. WARNING: Because you received these stat bonuses due to clothing and items you do not receive the affiliated skills from passing stat thresholds.] It took me a while, but after reading it a few times my mind went blank. ¡®.......Eh? What the hell? What does stat points mean mean? What does any of this mean? And wait¡­.death said he new wore clothes!! That lying¡­...tch¡­.Is this world some kind of game? What is with this stench of death thing? What is with these bonuses and magic affinity. Actually that sounds pretty cool¡­.are they high though? Low? What is going on here?!?¡¯ I start to think in more detail about the statuses and the descriptions that these clothes state. ¡®I guess this world is like a game world, with levels, magic, resistances and everything else in a game world. If I think about it that way, all of this makes sense¡­.¡­..hmmm...well, I guess it doesn''t matter. I¡¯ll just roll with it. If it''s true then I guess I should thank Death next time I see him for giving me some helpful clothes¡­.if they are helpful. hmmmmm¡­..I hate the fact that these clothes apparently stink though. I don''t smell anything myself, but I guess they stink to everyone else? I¡¯m glad I can at least turn it off. If it''s that smell that I smelt when I died, it would take me a long time to find a wife who could put up with me. heh¡­..Let me see if I can turn it off.¡¯ I concentrate on my words like how I opened my notifications page. ¡°Stench of Death OFF¡± Silence. ¡®Did it work? Please tell me it worked. I hope it did. I would hate it if I smelled. My poor future wife. Would she have to be nose blind?¡¯ ¡°I don''t understand this level thing thought. What does it mean level 20 monsters? Is there a leveling system in this world? Is level 20 high or low? Is Level 20 a type of monster like a dragon or a housecat? What level am I? Why isn''t there more information! Death!! You need to explain damn it!!¡± Not receiving a response and with no idea how to send one to him I then decide to open the second oldest hoping there would be more information there. ¡®I hope it''s not another stupid thing like congrats on entering this world.¡¯ [Your groin has been touched/cursed/blessed by death! Now, whenever you have sex with someone you will curse their body. After having sex with you once they will no longer be able to experience a climax without you.] ¡°...........Eh?¡± ¡°.............................Eh?¡± ¡°EEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHH!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!¡± ¡°DEATH YOU GOD DAMN MOTHERFUCKER!!! YOU CURSED MY DICK!!! YOU BASTARD!!! I KNEW YOU MOLESTED ME!!! YOU JACKASS!!!! I WILL GET MY REVENGE ON YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!!!¡± I start to cry pitiful tears. ¡®I was unconscious too. He took advantage of me! THAT PERVERT!!! What the hell does this mean?!? huhhhhhh¡­¡­. Why does this have to happen to me! I just wanted to get my revenge and then live my life. Then get a wife and some kids. NOW I WILL CURSE ANYONE I HAVE SEX WITH!!! REALLY?!? WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?! EXPLAIN DEATH!!¡¯ I then hear a noise in the woods in front of me. I go deathly silent. I then realized that all my yelling earlier probably told something that I was here. I could not be alone right now in the forest. My body freezes. ¡®Shit! Shitshitshitshit! I need to calm down.¡¯ The forest resumes it''s silence. Whatever it was must have left the area I was in because I couldn¡¯t see anything or hear anything moving. While this was all going on, my mind could not move on from the notification. ¡°Maybe it''s not all that bad. Maybe this could be a good thing?¡­¡­..uhhhh¡­¡­..nope¡­.It''s definitely going to be a bad thing I can just feel it...huhhhhh¡­and I was a virgin tooo!!! Damn it death!¡± Tears start to stream down my face as I hang my head in despair. After that shock, I close my inbox and try to focus on something else. I start to look around the forest again. I try to look and see any monsters or creatures in the bushes and quickly decide that I need to find a place to sleep for the night so I don''t become an easy meal for a monster. ¡®The safest place to sleep tonight would probably be in a tree on a branch so nothing crawling on the ground can get to me. hmmm¡­..Ok. Tree branch bed it is.¡¯ I start to look at the trees of the forest next to the mountain and pick a very thick and tall one. I climb it with surprising ease, which I assumed was from the stat boosts from the clothes. I then sit on a thick a sturdy branch and steady myself for the nights sleep. ¡®Yep. I should be safer up here then down there. I¡¯m too tired to care about all of the other stuff right now. I just climbed down a mountain for goodness sake. I¡¯ll figure everything else out tomorrow. Yep. Tomorrow''s me will take care of it.¡¯ I use my cloak to rap around me hopefully allowing me to blend into the darkness more so I don''t alert the monsters that could be in the trees to me. I try to stay awake for a little longer to see if anything was moving towards me or around me, but after about an hour I drifted off to sleep. Poll Hello! Sorry for the long delay. I should have a chapter out this week. I had to go over a lot of information and decide on which plot I wanted. I had a few ideas on different directions but I think I know what I want to do. I made the poll to find out what you guys think so far. Please let me know. I would love it if you told me what you liked about my work so far and what you would like to see it become. If you have any other suggestions, comments, concerns. Or if you want to rate my work, I would really apreciate it. Thanks!This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Chapter 4 Movement. Night has already fallen long ago, but something woke it up. A nasty stench radiates through its nostrils. It¡¯s nose twitches, irritated that it was disturbed. This familiar stench. This is the stench of death, blood, and battle. This means only one thing. A challenger. Someone has dared to challenge it¡¯s rule over the forest. Something has challenged the lord of this forest. It snarals. Its eyes open to the darkness of the cave. It picks its head up and takes a long sniff of the air. ¡®Finally. It has been too long since this forest has produced anything worthy of a hunt. At least I hope it entertains me. Hmmm¡­..To enter my domain and send that much hostility and hate through the air. How foolish. Your overconfidence will be your downfall. Heh. I will show you who the lord of this forest is. No one can beat me. I am the one and only alpha.¡¯ It slowly rises up from the ground. It¡¯s teeth shining under the moonlight as it exits the cave; glistening canines, sharp and vicious. It¡¯s long legs stretch under it as it¡¯s pointed claws cut deep into the dirt, rock, and stone. This marks the beginning of its hunt. It takes one long look at the moon, full and radiant, lighting the forest floor. Its fur is in glowing radiance off of the moon, mimicking it''s beauty. Tonight a beast has risen, tonight it shall feast. Nothing shall stand in it''s way. It gives one long and powerful howl towards the moon and then leaps forward at speeds normal eyes cannot follow. It¡¯s figure fading into the darkness, flying through the forest after its new prey. ------ Morning shows itself as a glimmer over the horizon. My sleep. So soothing and soundly quiet. I finally felt at peace. *clears throat* <> I jump so high up in the air and fall right off the branch 10 feet below. My body is reeling and bruised. My mind confuzed. There was only one thought in my mind, ¡®Enemies?!?! I¡¯m in danger?!?!? I need to run?!?! Move body move!!!¡¯ ¡°AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!¡± I screamed a scared battle cry as I start running, my head spinning looking for the enemies. I¡¯m running as fast as I can in whatever direction I can, but in my haste, I slip and fall over a vine and fall flat on my face. I stumble as I try to get up. Then I turn my head and see it. Darkness and shadows in physical form. AKA. The biggest jackass in the universe. ¡°DEATH?!?!?! WHAT''S GOING ON?!?!?! WHERE IS THE ENEMY!?!?¡± My mind is still reeling after such a rough start. My mind is still foggy to my situation and past. < > I see the black body of death I remembered from before floating a few feet off the ground in front of me laughing his guts out(if he had guts). I¡¯m still startled and my adrenaline is pumping at super high levels to where I can hear my own heartbeat in my lungs. I slowly start to breathe in and out to try to stop my heart from beating so much. It takes me a while but I slowly regain my composure. I also notice no imminent threat near me and no enemies could be seen around me. ¡°WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!¡± <> I just stood there dumbstruck and angry. I then realize death was laughing at my expense. It was barely before dawn. The sun just barely was up above the horizon and death pulls this on me. By now, all of the sleep had left my body. I am fully awake. ¡°You almost gave me a heart attack you bastard!! I¡¯ll KILL YOU!!!¡± I jump up to punch death in the face but I immediately feel myself flying. I had been thrown back through the forest with a woosh sound into the trees. The next thing I know, I¡¯m crashing into a tree and I hear a loud crack sound and my life becomes filled with unimaginable excruciating pain. I scream in agony. I open my eyes to see that I am on my back looking up at the trees. ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! AHAHHAAAA!!!!¡± I look down at my body and see that my legs are bent in directions they shouldn''t be, bones are sticking out of my chest and arms. The pain is all I can think about. It is all of my being. I am nothing but pain. However, after while the pain starts to recede. My bones painfully begin to pop back into place, my wounds start to heal, even the scars left behind disappear. All that was left was the blood everywhere on me and the ripped clothing. I was slightly lightheaded from the bloodloss and the pain. I look at my body, startled and afraid. The massive amounts of adrenaline are the only thing keeping me conscious. After a moment my pain and anger become curiosity. ¡®...what? How? How did this happen?¡¯ The pain that was sanity breaking disappeared almost as fast as it came. ¡°...what...the hell?...¡± With speeds that doctors from my world would find impossible, I stand back up on my previously broken legs and stretch my now healed arms. After a moment I find myself in perfect physical condition. I look at my body in awe and shock at what just happened. ¡®My legs were definitely broken but they somehow healed themselves. How is this possible?¡¯ I look up and notice death with, what I can only assume is a satisfied grin on his face, floating a few feet away from me in the shadows of morning. <> ¡°What the heck happened? Wait¡­.no! What the hell are you doing waking me up like that!?!?!? No, wait. Answer Both!!!¡± <> Death smiles like a cocky bastard at me. I try to calm down and focus. I organize my thoughts and begin my response. ¡°Death. For one, you suck giant fish balls. Two, DON''T FREAKIN WAKE ME UP LIKE THAT!! YOU ALMOST GAVE ME A BLOODY HEART ATTACK!! And three, what the hell do you mean constitution? Magic?¡± <> ¡°Messages? Stats?.....wait. YOU GIANT ASSHOLE!! I READ THE MESSAGES!! YOU MOLESTED ME!!! YOU CURSED MY DICK!!! I¡¯LL KILL YOU!!!¡± I jump at Death again, trying to punch him and kick him. However, I am sent crashing through the tree, breaking it and making the tree fall down. <>This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. My body slowly heals again. Not as fast but fast enough so that I can sit up and argue consciously. ¡°Oh ya! Well then how come I got a message stating that you cursed my dick you bastard?!?¡± <<......What?!......no...no that''s not possible¡­¡­.............show me>> I was startled for a second. Deaths voice turned dark and it froze my voice. <> ¡°E-HeHedeb...eh.¡± I cough to try and reorder my startled thoughts. ¡°....How? Can''t you see all my messages anyway? Weren''t they all from you?¡± <> I quickly go through the process and bring up the message and show it to him. He looks to be reading it a few times before he closes his eyes and sighs loudly. < I didn¡¯t even know I could do that! Hahahaha...haaa.. Well, at least it isn¡¯t a horrible curse right? I almost freaked out there. When you said curse I thought it would be worse, but it just looks like the people you sleep with will be cursed with the inability to seek pleasure if it''s not from you. That''s not bad at all. It could have been worse right? Hahahah!! That''s sooo funny. Ya know, if it was a different curse I would be in a ton of shit. I¡¯m not aloud to give that curse to anyone. But this! Pfff hahahahahah!>> Death starts to calm down and looks at me with an amused smirk. <> Before I could say anything, the top of my right hand began to burn. No, that''s not it. My hand felt like it had been stuck into a burning fire and was in the process of being branded over and over again with sering metal. I could feel my blood start to boil, my flesh melt, and my bones burn. I could smell my burning flesh in the air. My desperate screaming echoed throughout the forest. I was only able to barely keep conscious due to the fact that I had felt excruciating pain before from death¡¯s hits. Compared to breaking your legs and back and having shattered some internal organs, this pain was slightly easier to handle. It felt like hours had passed, each second becoming worse than the last. It felt like it was getting worse as the time went on. I had become delirious. I didn''t know what was going on other than feeling tremendous amounts of pain. I thought I saw some notifications pop up but I was too out of it to care. When the pain finally started to recede I found myself on my back looking up at the treetops. Almost immediately I picked up my right hand to see what had been done, to find out why I had experienced such pain. What I saw was a black tattoo. It covered the entirety of the back of my right hand. It consisted of a thick black ring with a large black scythe in it and two closed red eyes also inside of the ring. The almost silver looking blade of the scythe was pointing towards me from the top left of the back of my hand(fingers pointing up). The deep black staff of the scythe extended until it touched the black ring at the bottom right hand part of the back of my hand. The two red eyes were closed in the top right corner of the tattoo inside of the ring.(picture incoming) I was mesmerized by it. It looked beautiful. However, this did not explain why I was in so much pain before. I look up to see the body of death with his back turned to me, looking out into the forest. It seems I was out of it for a while. His face was unreadable but I could tell he was not happy. I sat up while caressing the back of my hand, trying to get rid of the lingering memories of pain. <<....eh? Oh! Your awake! Finally! I had to heal you almost six times because you almost died. You really are weak if you can''t take this amount of pain. So, how do you feel?>> ¡°......Better than I was. What did you do to me? What is this tattoo?¡± <> ¡°Well, thanks for keeping me alive death but what is this tattoo? Don''t tell me this tattoo is my gift?¡± <> *Death clears throat* <> I was dumbstruck. ¡®10 years! They have been here for 10 years! They have been able to live their lives for 10 years without consequence for what they did to me!¡¯ I could feel the anger boiling in my blood. My fists clenched and blood started to come out of my mouth and hands in anger. ¡°10 YEARS!!! 10 WHOLE YEARS!!!! Why the hell did it take so long?!?!?!?!?! HOW AM I GOING TO KILL THEM IF THEY HAVE SUCH A MASSIVE HEAD START?!?!?¡± <> We both stare at each other angrily. However, I cannot refute deaths logic. ¡®.......tch...He is right. Life is not fair. I know that for a fact. I may not like it, but that is life. Now I have a second chance at life and I have the potential to become stronger to get my revenge without them knowing I¡¯m alive. I hate to admit it but I shouldn''t be angry with him. I should be thanking him for all he has done for me. Even if he is a complete jackass.¡¯ I breathe in and then out calming myself before closing my eyes and smiling. ¡°......heh. Thank you. It pains me to say it but you are right. I¡¯ll just have to make due with what I have. And with what you gave me, I can become stronger and make up for the 10 years I have been absent. This is just what I needed. With this I can brand everyone I come in contact with and I can use them to kill those bastards! So thank you. Thank you for everything.¡± Death smiles at me and he chuckles a bit before he responds. <> ¡®He¡¯s right. I can''t let myself be carried away and brand everyone I meet. I need to be cautious of what I do. If I make the wrong move or choice then I die. Those bastards got a head start but that doesn''t mean they can''t be beat. I need to think through who I brand. I don''t want to brand people who can''t help me. I need to find beings that can get stronger and can get me to where I need to be to take my enemies down.¡¯ ¡°Ok. I understand. I¡¯ll keep that in mind. By the way, how strong are levels here?¡± <> Death clears his throat again before he begins. <> Silence. <> The sun was halfway into morning. I only had a few more minutes with death so I kept my mouth closed until the end. <> I think a while while I organize my thoughts. Then I decide on asking death something that has been bugging me a while. ¡°Why here? Why this forest? I¡¯m cut off from society and humanity. Also, how am I supposed to know who are those bastards that killed me? I don''t know who they are and neither do you. And my last question is, can you teach me any spells or skills?¡± <> Death tosses me a small flat black stone. <> I sigh and chuckle. ¡°Well, that sucks, but what else is new. I¡¯m just not a lucky guy. Heheh. Thanks death. I appreciate the warning. I¡¯ll take your advice and train here for a while. Will we be meeting again?¡± <> We both begin laughing at it all. I feel much more prepared now that I know more about this world. I am now more excited about my future and exterminating those people that killed me. ¡®This is going to be fun.¡¯ A wild smile appears across my face. <> Death starts to fade into nothingness. His finger pointing to my left into the forest. I smile, shake my head, and wave at him. ¡°Thanks for all the help you giant sack of turds. I¡¯m going to get you back for my dick one day. See you later.¡± And like that, death was gone and I was alone again. I then turned around and looked at the dark foreboding forest with glee. A dark smile appeared on my face as I headed in the direction death pointed. ¡®It''s time to get stronger.¡¯ Chapter 5 It''s about noon now. I had been alone for about an hour in the forest. I had been walking in the direction death pointed towards and still hadn''t found any signs of the camp he told me about. The forest looked alive but there were surprisingly no animals or monsters that I could find. I was glad for the moment because that meant that I wouldn''t have to deal with a lot of danger. However, I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of movement. I was in a different world now. ¡®I¡¯m at the bottom of the food chain here. Everything will be trying to or can kill me. I also have that creature that death spoke of that I have to worry about. Although, thankfully, I think it was in the opposite direction of where I¡¯m going.¡¯ That was the direction death was looking at when I woke up. After a while of staying on high alert for any danger, my nerves had become shot. I needed a break. Then and idea popped into my head. ¡®I guess I should look at my stats and see what I have and get the specifics of everything. Oh wait. Didn''t I get notifications earlier? I¡¯ll check them out first.¡¯ ¡°Notifications¡± Immediately the Inbox(as I¡¯m calling it) popped up. I wasn''t startled by it this time. It looked the same as before, hovering in front of me. I started to look through all of the notifications I recieved. [Congratulations! You have obtained the passive skill Pain Resistance! Through enduring enormous amounts of pain and suffering at death''s door for long periods of time, you have come to peace with the fact that you will inevitably be hurt. Reduces Pain received by 10%] [Pain Resistance is now Lvl 2. Reduces pain received by 20%] [Pain Resistance is now Lvl 3. Reduces pain received by 30%] [Pain Resistance is now Lvl 4. Reduces pain received by 40%] [Congratulations! Pain Resistance is now Lvl 5. You have reached the halfway mark in this skill. You have decided that pain is all that you know. Your life hangs on a tread between life and death all the time. Because of this your life is all but excruciating pain all the time. Either you are an unlucky fool or a battle maniac who cannot live without pain. Hopefully you are the fool. Reduces pain received by 50%] [Congratulations! You have obtained Godly skill Brand of the Reaper. How you obtained this is unknown. WARNING! You who have obtained this, dread your future. Death will come to collect what is his and he will not be merciful to your soul.] ¡®Uhhhh. Ok. That last one is kind of creepy sounding, but the rest I can understand. I guess experiencing a crap ton of pain does help you. However, it states that it reduces pain recieved. Not damage. So does that mean that the amount of pain I feel when I am hurt is reduced by that percentage? ....hmmmmmm¡­.maybe. If that''s true then I don''t even want to know how much pain I should have felt when I was getting the brand. Hmmm¡­..how much pain do I feel now then? Could I get stabbed in the back and not feel it? I mean, I don''t really want to hurt myself on purpose right now to find out, so let¡¯s push that question off and check out the status screen.¡¯ ¡°Stats¡± Nothing happened. I was confused. ¡®What did I say wrong? Wait do I have to say status screen? Hhuuuuhh.¡¯ I tried again. ¡°Status Screen¡± Immediately a blue screen popped up in front of me. [ Name: John Scythe Title(s): Revenge Seeker, Worldcrosser, Champion of Death, One Cursed by Death, Marked One Race: Human Level: 1 Health/Health Regen: 50/(3 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 196(40*0.15)(150)/(4 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen:80/(4 per hr) Strength: 8(100) Agility: 9 Vitality: 5 Constitution: 3(150) Endurance: 4(150) Dexterity: 4(150) Perception: 5 Intelligence: 8 Wisdom: 4 Carisma: 6 Luck: -1 Resistances Mind: -25% Fatigue: -15% Pain: -50% Fire: -15% Lightning: -15% Water: -15% Ice: -15% Earth: -15% Death: -15% Shadow: -15% Holy: -10% Affinities Fire: 0% Lightning: 0% Water: 0% Ice: 0% Earth: 0% Death: 55% Shadow: 55% Holy: 0% Passive Skills Pain Resistance Lvl 5 Active Skills Fallen Army Lvl 1 Brand of the Reaper Lvl 1 ] ¡°Huh. I guess my high stamina explains why I could climb down that mountain without dying of exhaustion. The stat boosts by my clothes really are something. What is with all the tities though? And when did my name become John Scythe?.....hmmmm...Actually that sounds kind of cool. I¡¯ll keep that. Half of this stuff though death didn''t even talk about. Huuuhhhhh...tch. I guess I need to learn this on my own. Hmmm. He said that I could learn more from my status screen¡­.do I have to tap them individually for more information?¡± I try tapping one of the titles and another window pops up with a description of the title. [Revenge Seeker: Someone who won''t let even death stop them from gaining their revenge.] [Worldcrosser: Someone who has traversed space and time to reach another world.] [Champion of Death: Death has allowed you to represent him in this world.]If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. [One Cursed by Death: You have been unlucky enough to be cursed by Death himself.] [Marked one: The powers that be have marked you as an invader of their world. You will be hunted until you die.] ¡°Oh shit. The powers that be? Well, Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. huhhhh¡­..Well, at least I¡¯m not being ignored right?¡± I sigh and then smile. ¡°These other ones sound cool though. Well, I could do without the cursed one. Let¡¯s see, what do the others mean.¡± [Strength: How physically strong and how powerful your physical attacks will be.] [Agility: How quick you are able to move your body.] [Vitality: How much health you have.] [Constitution: The toughness of your body and the speed at which your body can recover from a wound.] [Endurance: The duration of your physical limits.] [Dexterity: How proficient your body is at following your commands] [Perception: How efficiently you are able to perceive the world around you.] [Intelligence: Your mental capacity and how large your mana pool is.] [Wisdom: Your ability to use your knowledge in the world around you, how quickly you reproduce mana, and how strong your magic is.] [Charisma: The initial attitude that beings, creatures, and objects of the world have to your presence.] [Luck: The ability to have a higher chance at finding rare items, meeting the right people at the right time, and avoiding dangerous situations.] ¡°Ok. Ya those are self explanatory. Wait! Why is my luck at -1?!? Oh come on! My luck isn''t that bad right?¡± As if to spite me, I trip over a vine and fall on my face. ¡°OW!! Tch. ok. I¡¯m not lucky. Noted. I¡¯m guessing resistances are...well resistances. And affinities?¡± [Affinities: Your magic is more powerful and it is easier to learn spells of the magic that you have a higher affinity towards.] ¡°Ok, cool. So I have a higher affinity towards death and shadow magic. Hmm¡­ what is shadow magic? Is it just controlling shadows? Lame¡± [Shadow magic: The art of bending shadows and creating illusions.] [Death Magic: The art of controlling and commanding death.] ¡°Hmmm...Ok. They both sound cool. But I don''t have any spells right now or a grimoire so I can''t really test my magic. Something to put on the backburner then. Now my stats. ¡­¡­¡­..huh. Overall, my original stats suck. However, these clothes are a great boost.¡± I breath in and then out. ¡°Now to tackle the big problems. My skills. What are they and how do I use them. Death didn''t really give me a manual. I hope there is an explanation in the skills themselves.¡± [Pain resistance: Passive skill. Reduces the amount of pain received when attacked.] ¡°Ok I was right. It''s nice that it''s passive. However, I would prefer not to reach level 10 on that. If level 10 means not feeling any pain at all when attacked then that could be very scary. I could be bleeding out and not even know it. Now what is this one. If I remember correctly, I recieved you when I put on all of deaths blessed clothes. Hmm...did death know that he gave me this? Well, he did say he has never worn clothes. I¡¯ll just keep it a secret for now. I hope it''s something good.¡± [Fallen Army: Active skill. A skill for those proficient in killing. This skill allows the user to obtain the fallen enemies slain by the user. Once obtained, it revives them with half of their stats and bounds them to the user where they dwell in the users shadow. Number of slots available is dependent on lvl and stats. Skill must be turned on when killing the enemy you want to obtain. Slots available (1)] ¡°Well hell ya! That sounds awesome. I¡¯m definitely going to have to play with that later. I don''t really understand it all and I¡¯ll have to run some tests, but if I¡¯m right then I think with this I can command my own personal army. Hence, I¡¯m guessing the name. Super cool. Sucks that I only have 1 slot though. Eh. Who cares, that''s just awesome. Thanks death¡¯s clothes.¡± [Brand of the Reaper: Active Skill. Skill bound only to death and his champion. This skill allows the user to bound the living to the user in eternal servitude. Number of beings user can bound is dependent on level. Bindings available (1). Congratulations! Due to being deaths champion you have unlocked a hidden feature of this skill. This skill allows the user to obtain a percentage of the highest stat of those that the user kills. The unallocated stat points can then be used to strengthen either the user himself or those the user has branded. Stat allocations are final. Percentage of highest stat received is higher/lower depending on the level of creature killed compared to the level of the user.] ¡°Hell ya! This skill is even better than death said it would be. He wasn''t kidding when he said it was an awesome gift. It really is! Hahah! It''s going to take some time to get used to everything but with these skills I feel like I can accomplish my goals and catch back up to those bastards. 10 years? Ha! I hope you enjoyed these past 10 years, because I¡¯m coming for all of you.¡± Feeling refreshed and energized, I close my status screen and walk with purpose towards the neverending forest. This world might be a 1000 times more dangerous than my last world, but if I can survive this forest then I feel like I would be strong enough to make it in this world. ¡®This forest is my cocoon, my training and strengthening period, and once I¡¯m ready no one will be able to stop me.¡¯ -------- The sun was starting to set and I had yet to find this so called camp death spoke of. The high of finding out I have powerful skills has begun to wear off. I had passed the time by looking at all of the different trees, flowers and plants along the way. They were all very interesting and all very foreign. I tried to remember what trees and plants looked like for later, just in case they became useful. I watched enough nature documentaries to know plants and trees have their uses. Currently, my main problems going forward are going to be food, water, and shelter. The last one was a little higher on my list than it should have been due to the fact that I am not wild about staying on the ground floor of the forest after dark. With my luck I might get killed in my sleep by an overgrown rat or something. My stomach suddenly grumbled loudly. I stopped and looked down at my belly and smiled. I then realized that I had not eaten in almost two days, well, 10 years and 2 days. Then, as if on cue, I heard a rustle in a bush a few meters to my left. I quickly crouched down behind a tree and stopped moving entirely. My focus was entirely on trying to find out the originator of the noise. This was my first encounter with a being native of this world. If I was killed by the first thing I met then that would be really sad. The forest had grown quiet. No wind could be heard in the trees. The sun was barely above the horizon. The noise rustled again. I made my decision. I was going to find out what it was. ¡®It is probably some animal, which means food. That will solve one of my problems if I can kill it.¡¯ I tried walking as quietly as I could towards the noise. Each step was calculated, each step quieter than my last. I controlled my breathing, and scanned the forest floor. My heart was increasing its speed as I approached. After almost 2 meters of silent stalking, I saw it. It was a rabbit about the size of a large dog about a meter long with a 2 foot long giant, sharp horn on the top of it. It was kind of cute if you got rid of the fact that it could probably kill me. So, trying to purge the thoughts of my impaled body on the rabbits horn, I creep towards it. Thankfully it hadn¡¯t noticed me. I picked up one of the bigger rocks nearby in one of my hands and I slowly approached it''s back. The rabbit was eating something that I couldn''t see. Thankfully it was to engroused in it''s food to look around. I steeled myself. If this went wrong I might have to fight for my life against an overgrown rabbit. This world was kill or be killed. If I¡¯m going to survive then I need food. Sadly, food had to be a cute looking rabbit. I was right behind it now. I breathed in and I jumped. I slammed down the rock in my hand as hard as I could on the back of it''s head. I heard a loud crunch and a thud from the rabbit. It was dead. I kicked it to see if it was still alive, but it was dead. I looked closer and I saw that I had caved in it''s scull with my hit. ¡®Wow¡­...one hit? It was that weak? Holy crap.¡¯ ¡°Haha! I killed it!¡± Without thinking, I blurted out my self gratifications to myself for an awesome job. But I soon realized that I was a super idiot. I heard another noise to my right and I saw another one. This time it saw me. ¡°....shit¡± Without missing a beat, the rabbit sprinted towards me at speeds I couldn''t fathom. The next thing I knew I had been impaled by the rabbit in my upper right thigh. The pain was manageable, but my brain believed I was in agony, the shock of seeing myself impaled almost made me pass out. ¡°AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! MY LEG!!!!¡± The rabbit was trying to get it''s horn out now. It started to buck its head around causing more and more damage to my body and more blood began to flow out of the wounds. My mind was a mess. I couldn''t focus, I couldn''t think. Then, a moment of clarity struck me. It drowned out all the voices in my head telling me that I was going to die. My instincts took over, with my left hand I grabbed the back of it''s head and pushed the horn deeper into my thigh. I then took the rock I was still holding in my right hand and I brought it down hard on it''s head. I continued to beat the rabbits head in with the rock over and over again, even after it was dead. My body, face, and hands became covered in the rabbits blood. I finally stopped when the horn broke off in my thigh, off of the mushed up rabbit head, and it''s body slumped to the ground. I looked down at the rabbit, or what was left of it, my adrenaline still loudly beating my heart in my chest. Overkill. If there was a time to use that word it would be now. The head was complete mush, blood stained the ground, and the contents of the rabbits stomach began to flow out of the gaping hole that was once it''s head. When I regained some sanity, I looked down at the horn, bit my lip and ripped it out of my thigh. Thankfully the horn was still intact and undamaged. After confirming that, I threw up, or tried too. Without having eaten anything I only dry heaved. I then feel on my back and crawled away from all the blood and gore before me. I then sat there, looking at my leg. I had lost way too much blood. I should have been dead 10 times over. I couldn''t understand how I still had any blood left in my body when a literal pool of my own blood surrounded the rabbits. I had no medical training in my past life. Sure I could heal small cuts with a band aid, or the common cold with some soup, but this. I had a literal hole in my leg. I could see my bone. I was so going to die, or at least I thought I was. But the strangest thought passed through my mind. ¡®It doesn''t hurt that much. I mean, it still hurts like hell, but it mitigated enough to where I can stay conscious through the pain.¡¯ I then immediately tried opening my stats. I needed to know how much health I had. I had the red dot in my top vision notifying me I had a notification waiting but I didn''t care about it at the moment. I needed my stat screen. Name: John Scythe Health/Health Regen: 13/(3 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 118(40*0.15)(150)/(4 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen:80/(4 per hr) Ailment: Bleeding. -1 health every minute ¡°13 health?! Bleeding!¡± I felt like I was going to faint in shock. But then I realized that I would be gaining health even with the bleeding status. So I waited a minute to see what would happen. Name: John Scythe Health/Health Regen: 14/(3 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 120(40*0.15)(150)/(4 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen:80/(4 per hr) Ailment: Bleeding. -1 health every minute I sighed in relief. It was going up. As It went up I could feel the blood start to slowly leak out of the hole instead of a massive gushing that was before. After 10 minutes the bleeding ailment went away and my wound start to fix itself faster. It was a strange process. I then thanked death for these clothes again because they saved my life. ¡®If it weren''t for the incredible health regen of these clothes I would be dying right now.¡¯ I then continued to wait for my health to return back to 50 before moving again. The healing process was a strange and wondrous fanomina to me. To heal a hole in your leg after about half an hour was incredible. The stitching on the pants then began to reform and in no time at all, it looked brand new, except for the fact that I was covered in blood. I then looked over my body to check if I had any more wounds. When I found none I smiled. I was relieved and humbled by the fact that I was almost killed by a rabbit. Relieved because I was alive, humbled by the fact that I had grown to cocky after knowing that I had, what I believed to be, great skills. This experience was a reminder, I can never be cocky or let my guard down. Once I do, I will die. Pride cometh before the fall. After getting up and stretching a little, I walked over to the two new corpses. I first gathered the horns and then tried to use said horns to cut into the rabbits and get their meat. It was a difficult and long process, but I managed to do an average job. I wasn''t a survivalist but I knew that to survive I would need their meat. I held back my gag reflex as I performed these tasks. I then took everything of value from the rabbits, their claws, their meat, and two crudely cut skins. I used the skins to wrap the meat up for travel. I then left everything else for scavengers. When I was about to leave I noticed what the first rabbit was eating and saw that it looked like a fruit type substance. That was weird to me because I had yet to find any fruit on any of the trees or plants I had passed. Then an Idea struck me. ¡®They must have gotten them from nearby. I think the second rabbit came from the same direction I was originally heading. That might mean that there are fruit trees close!.........and maybe even more rabbits.¡¯ I shook my head free of any thoughts of running. ¡®If I can''t even kill a few rabbits then I will stay this weak forever. If that happens then I will never get my revenge.¡¯ I then rapped the meat and one of the horns in the skins and carried them in my left hand. I kept the right hand free with just a horn so that I could defend myself. After preparing myself, I slowly and silently stalked forward into the same direction I was heading before. As I walked forward, a line from one of my favorite movies popped into my head. ¡®Lets see what''s at the bottom of the rabbit¡¯s hole alice.¡¯ Chapter 6 After a few meters of nothing I got worried. The sun was going down, I was covered in blood, and I probably smelt like hell. Plus, to top it off, I was carrying meat. I was a preditors wet dream! Even so, I kept moving forward. It was better to distance myself from whatever is left of the dead rabbits. Hopefully predators will go for the already dead meat than the still living meat(aka me). As I continued my stealth like march into the unknown, I was replaying the fight in my mind, over and over again. I pointed out my flaws and what I should have done when I was attacked a second time. The whole fight was a mess. I had no control on it and I left everything to chance. It was only by the skin of my teeth that I survived. I started to get angry at myself for not dodging the attack or thinking that there might have been more nearby, and I was trying to overlook the fact that I almost died because of the pain of being stabbed in the leg. ¡®Hell, I felt more pain when death threw me against a tree than that little prick on the leg, but I still acted like I was going to die from it. I let myself be consumed by my panic and fear long enough to almost get killed!¡¯ I know my weakness now. I didn''t let myself think. I was reacting instead of acting the entire time. In fact, that''s what I¡¯ve been doing ever since I got to this world, reacting. ¡®I can''t let myself be distracted by the pain or the fear. I need to keep calm and think. I need to take control.¡¯ I realized that I was played. I had let my guard down. Thankfully, it was against a weaker opponent but if it was a smarter or more powerful opponent then I would have died. I need to learn tactics. I need to learn how to fight and I need to heed my surroundings. If I can control the space where the fight will take place then I can control the outcome. ¡®It''s no secret. I am weak. Hopelessly so. My only advantage here, in this world, is my intelligence and quick thinking. I mean, I had played video games before that could be considered simulations of what to do in this kind of scenario with monsters and magic.¡¯ Human¡¯s superior intelligence is what kept mankind, in the stone age, from dying out. They formed plans and placed traps, they controlled the field of battle, and they gathered or created weapons that could help kill bigger or more powerful beasts. If I am to survive here then I must become stronger, physically and mentally, like those in the stone age. I have grown to cushy in the technological age and that''s coming to bite me in the butt hard now. I took a deep breath. ¡®I need to think this clearly. I need to analyse my opponents. For example, the rabbits seem to only be able to attack with the horn. They didn''t attack me with their claws so if I can dodge their initial attack then I can counter with a bash to their head. The back of the head seems to be their weak spot. But that is better said than enacted. One of my major flaws in that battle was that I wasn''t fast enough. I could not react fast enough to the attack. If I am to survive then I will need to be able to be faster than my opponent. I have the strength thanks to the clothes¡¯ boosts, but my other stats are far too lacking to be helpful in this environment.¡¯ As I was thinking this I noticed again the red flashing light in the top right of my eye. For the longest time I thought it was just blood and tuned it out of my mind due to my situation. But now, within this moment of clarity and calm, I was able to take heed of it. ¡®I really need to keep up with my notifications.¡¯ It was all so new to me that it had slipped my mind. I silently opened my notifications box and was welcomed with a interesting surprise. [Congratulations! You have completed the necessary requirements to obtain a skill! For sneaking up to and killing a monster 10 levels higher than you, you have learned the skill Sneak.] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 2!] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 3!] [Congratulations! You have completed the requirements for a skill! For re-focusing your mind during the heat of battle and using your body¡¯s instincts to beat an enemy whom you had no hope of beating based on your level differences, you have learned the unique skill Focus.] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 4!] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 5!] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 6!] ¡®Wow. I leveled up! Nice. This should help me. I also got some new skills. So the encounter was more fruitful than I thought. Let¡¯s find out what these skills are.¡¯ [Sneak: Passive skill Level 1. Makes your body quieter when stalking prey and makes you less likely to be heard when walking.] [(Unique)Focus: Passive skill Level 1. When you focus on a task or an action you have a 10% chance of completing it successfully.] ¡®Huh. Well, that should be helpful in the future. I guess that''s how I was able to take control of that fight when I was focusing solely on beating that rabbit upside the head.¡¯ This brings up more questions about this world though. I mean this is great and all that I leveled up and got these skills, but how did I level so much from just two rabbits? Is leveling normal? Is it rare to level? What is my standard? And how do you complete the requirements for a skill? Are there known requirements to help you gain other skills? ¡®hmmmmm...¡­¡­..I don''t know any of this. I need to set some control to my thoughts. First, I need a standard of logic for this world. I also need to think before doing anything else. I was quick to just jump into this world and face it head on and it almost got me killed. So, if I¡¯m going to base this world and the happenings in it on the video game ideologies and systems in them, then I can possibly start answering some of these questions. Now, for leveling, in the games I played on my world leveling isn''t rare. In fact it''s common among not only other players but the monsters too. What also could be true if my game theories stand correct, is that if you are weaker than the enemy you are fighting and the enemy is must higher in level then you, then, after killing them, you recieve more rewards as a result of the increased danger you were in. This could explain why I only leveled up twice with the first rabbit and three times with the second rabbit. I was in more danger when I killed the second rabbit. However, could the other theory stand true as well; where you need more experience for each level? Does that then mean that the experience needed to level up increases with each level?¡¯ ¡°If that is true then the second rabbit gave a ton more experience than the first one.¡± ¡®Why though? Could it be the way I killed them? There didn''t seem to be any difference in the rabbits appearance or power. I mean I didn''t really find out if the first rabbit had the same power as the second one.¡¯ ¡°Hmmm..¡± ¡®I still can''t answer these questions. I will need to perform more tests to find out more, but I don''t have the time to the ability to test it out. I will just have to go with my gut for now.¡¯ I then brought up my status screen to check what leveling does to your stats. [ Name: John Scythe Title(s): Revenge Seeker, Worldcrosser, Champion of Death, One Cursed by Death, Marked OneReading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Race: Human Level: 6 Health/Health Regen: 50/(3 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 196(40*0.15)(150)/(4 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen:80/(4 per hr) Unallocated stat points: 30 Unallocated stolen stat points: 20 Agility Strength: 8(100) Agility: 9 Vitality: 5 Constitution: 3(150) Endurance: 4(150) Dexterity: 4(150) Perception: 5 Intelligence: 8 Wisdom: 4 Carisma: 6 Luck: -1 Resistances Mind: 25% Fatigue: 15% Pain: 50% Fire: 15% Lightning: 15% Water: 15% Ice: 15% Earth: 15% Death: 15% Shadow: 15% Holy: 10% Affinities Fire: 0% Lightning: 0% Water: 0% Ice: 0% Earth: 0% Death: 55% Shadow: 55% Holy: 0% Passive Skills Pain Resistance Lvl 5 Sneak Lvl 1 Focus Lvl 1 Active Skills Fallen Army Lvl 1 Brand of the Reaper Lvl 1 ] ¡®Oh sweet! So I was right, leveling gives you stat points. It looks like each level gives you 5 stat points. These unallocated stolen stat points must be from the rabbits. Those are a lot of stat points from the rabbits. It seems their highest stat was their agility and speed. That''s why I gained the agility stats from them. This seems like too much though. But I guess it make sense when you compare the differences in our levels.¡¯ ¡°These stat points are just what I needed. It''s not much but it''s a start.¡± ¡®I need to allocate these wisely. First off, I need to put things where I need them the most. Putting 10 in vitality will triple my health and give me a bigger cushion should anything happen. Next would be constitution. I¡¯ll put 10 stat points there because I don''t want to constantly rely on my clothes. For one, if they are too ripped or I take them off, I am defenseless and could die very easily. This way I can increase my natural health regen and it should toughen my body up according to the definition. I also hope that the increase in this stat will help me so I don''t freak out from being stabbed or hurt all the time. Nest would be dexterity. I¡¯ll put 3 into you to help me command my body easier, or at least that''s what the definition said. I don''t know why my body didn''t follow my commands earlier in the fight to dodge. But maybe it''s because my body is not fast enough to react to my commands. It might be able to perform what I ask but I can''t do it at the speed I want it to because my body¡¯s speed is lacking.¡¯ ¡°Hmmm¡­..that theory will require more testing to be sure.¡± ¡®Then I¡¯ll put 5 into perception. I need to be able to perceive my surroundings better so that I don''t get jumped again. Finally, I will place the last 2 into intelligence. I¡¯m a little concerned with how this will affect me mentally but I hope it helps positively.¡¯ ¡°It seems the stolen stat points can only be used for agility so I¡¯ll just put all 20 into agility. That should help me move quicker and dodge incoming attacks.¡± The second I hit confirm I was hit with a powerful wave of pleasure. It cascaded over me in waves. I couldn''t stop myself from letting out a low moan. It was so good. Then it abruptly stopped and I was reluctantly brought back down to reality. Once I did though I noticed some amazing things. I felt lighter and faster. I could see farther that I could before and I could hear things around me clearer. It felt like I was wearing headphones and a blindfold before. I was a completely different person now, but I buckled down and determined not to let it go to my head like the last time when I got my skills. I then pulled up my stat screen. [ Name: John Scythe Title(s): Revenge Seeker, Worldcrosser, Champion of Death, One Cursed by Death, Marked One Race: Human Level: 6 Health/Health Regen: 150/(13 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 196(40*0.15)(150)/(7 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen:100/(4 per hr) Strength: 8(100) Agility: 29 Vitality: 15 Constitution: 13(150) Endurance: 4(150) Dexterity: 7(150) Perception: 10 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 4 Carisma: 6 Luck: -1 Resistances Mind: 25% Fatigue: 15% Pain: 50% Fire: 15% Lightning: 15% Water: 15% Ice: 15% Earth: 15% Death: 15% Shadow: 15% Holy: 10% Affinities Fire: 0% Lightning: 0% Water: 0% Ice: 0% Earth: 0% Death: 55% Shadow: 55% Holy: 0% Passive Skills Pain Resistance Lvl 5 Sneak Lvl 1 Focus Lvl 1 Active Skills Fallen Army Lvl 1 Brand of the Reaper Lvl 1 ] After checking that everything was correct in my stats I noticed the red flashing in my eye again. So, I pulled up my notifications and almost laughed, cried, and groaned at what I saw. [Congratulations! For reaching a milestone in your agility stat you are awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on your luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! You have earned the Uncommon passive skill Dodge. This skill is for those who have learned the way of dodging. This skill is awarded to master dodgers in battle. They show what it truly means to dodge an attack. You have shown great promise in dodging and thus you are awarded this skill. This skill allows you to dodge attacks much easier. Thanks to it being a passive skill instead of an active one, any natural dodging movement you try to make will be 10% more likely to succeed.] [Congratulations! For reaching a milestone in your vitality stat you are awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on your luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! You have earned the Rare active skill Self Poison. Sadists galor! This skill is for those who love to be poisoned. You who have received this are either someone who loves to be poisoned or you are extremely unlucky. This skill allows you to poison yourself whenever you want for as long as you want. You cannot poison others with this. The type of poison and strength of the poison increases with level.] [Congratulations! For reaching a milestone in your constitution stat you are awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on your luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! You have earned the active skill Iron Skin. Tough as nails and hard as iron. You forge your body every day. This is the result of your training. This skill allows you to increase your constitution by 1/3rd of your base stat constitution for a period of time. While active though you cannot move your body.] [Congratulations! For reaching a milestone in your Perception stat you are awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on your luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! You have earned the active skill Identify. This skill is the basic to survive. You can identify objects and people. Amount of information available depends on level and intelligence.] [Congratulations! For reaching a milestone in your intelligence stat you are awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on your luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! You have received the active skill Sense Aura. This skill allows you to sense the world and beings around you. This skill can sense hostile intentions and magical ability. Leveling it up can increase it''s range and accuracy.] After reading them all over one more time, I had to stop myself from laughing. I had found the first barrier to learn skills faster than I thought and it gave me some interesting results. From what I can guess it happens when the stats passed 10. ¡®I think this system has it out for me. I couldn''t dodge before and then it goes and states how great of a doger I am when I get the skill dodge? Hahahaha. Then there is this self poison skill! Who would ever want that?!? It''s crazy. Iron skin will be good for defence, Identify and Sense aura will be good for scoping out my surroundings, and dodge will help me when I attack. But if I knew that if you got your stats to 10 you would get a random skill, then I would have put all of the stats to 10 before doing anything else. However, agility is over 20 and I didn''t receive a second skill from my agility stat. I guess that means that you don''t get a random skill every 10 points.¡¯ ¡°This will require more research. For now thought I will test my skills and see what they can do. These should help me when I face enemies in the future.¡± After reading through all my skills again I looked at a small tree next to me and tried activating Identify. I didn''t have any idea how to so I just assumed you could activate it the same way you open your notifications or status pages. Thankfully it worked and I was able to identify the small tree. [Tree Sapling Lvl 1: Not fully a tree yet.] ¡®Well that was helpful.¡¯ I roll my eyes and start identifying all of the fauna and trees around me. Most had the basic sentences of what they were. I was surprised that they all had levels. I didn''t know what that meant for plants but I assumed it was just how much health they had. Soon I found the limit of the ability. I found that I couldn''t identity things that were farther than 3 meters away from me. At the farthest my skill would go I identified the highest level tree in my immediate area, which was a level 10 tree at the edge of my identify radius. It was a pretty big tree with a wide trunk. However, none of the trees had the fruit I was looking for. I did find some nuts on a bush that seemed edible and quenched my hunger for now, but I wouldn''t be able to survive long without something more sustainable. I was still thirsty but the day had ended and night had come forth. I decided to stop for the night here and wait until morning before continuing. ¡®If I have to sleep tonight I think I¡¯ll sleep on that level 10 tree. It''s branches are high and thick enough up that I can hide in the darkness of the leaves and lay on the branches without worrying about falling.¡¯ Making my decision, I climbed up the trunk easily with my new agility stat, which startled me at first. I was so surprised at how fast I could move and how nimble I had become with just 20 stat points that I almost fell from the tree. I decided to bury the meat beforehand into the ground by the tree sapling to hide it from predators and I kept one of the horns on my person for protection. After settling in to my now shadowy branch bed I looked all around me for predators and enemies. Finding none for now, I looked up at the stars and wondered in amazement at the beauty of the night sky of this world before drifting to sleep. ¡®I¡¯m a little stronger and a little faster, but I am still too weak. I need to rest and push forward again tomorrow morning.¡¯ Chapter 7 Morning came too soon for my liking. I had one of those nights where you wanted to sleep but the universe wouldn''t let you. Also, fun fact, it turns out the farther you get from the mountain, the hotter the forest gets. Not only that, I was seated up against the hard wood of a tree and balancing myself on what I thought was a thick branch. Spoiler, it wasn¡¯t. I thought I would fall at any time by the way the branch bent and creeked under my body. Oh. Any then there was my body. My bloodied clothing was sticking to me like glue and the humidity of the forest drenched my body in sweat the whole night. God I miss showers. When I finally woke up from my drenched, sweat fueled nap, I felt so stiff in my joints that I could barely move. Not to mention, my body odor burned the inside of my nose with rank stenches of guts and blood that weren''t even mine. But the worst part about last night was the fact that I was sooooo thirsty. I couldnt keep my eyes closed long enough to rest due to my insane thirst. I knew I would never take fresh water from a sink for granted again. So ya. Last night sucked ass. ''I''m definitely dehydrated. I think humans can only last 2 days without water. I think its been a little over 2 days. Then there was that fight and the constant walking. I havent had a solid drink of water yet here.'' I''m in trouble. My throat was dry as a desert and I had lost the ability to produce saliva somewhere throughout the night. If I couldnt find something to drink soon I knew I would probably pass out and die. As the sun peeked over the horizon, my foggy mind ordered my eyes to look from the tree to find water. ''water..must find water. There were animals nearby so there should be some form of water near me. I just have to find it.'' I look around the forest from my perch desperately; and almost cry when I cant find anything near me. I had hoped that the early morning sunlight would give me a better view of the area around me in the forest but sadly that was a no. I could see no water sources. I closed my eyes again and began to listen to my surroundings. I knew from the survival shows I watched that if you cant see water, listening for it would be your next best option. So I listened. I strained myself in desperation. I tuned out everything else, my sense of smell, my sense of touch, my sight, everything. I was desperate. I kept listening until the sun began to pierce through the leaves of my tree and hit me in the face with its unwelcomed warmth. ''....nothing.....damn it. I cant hear anything.'' I was about to give up when, miraculously, I heard something. It was soft and light but I could barely make it out. It was the sound of a bush being hit by a body. Something was moving, and from the sounds I could hear, it was getting closer. ''hmmm....a predator maybe? Or a rabbit? Its coming from the same direction the others came from.'' I keep listening to it. Its slow pace towards me was almost maddening. It took the creature 30 min just to get within my identifying radius. I then opened my eyes and looked at the direction it was coming from. It was behind a bush, just out of my sight and the identify skill couldnt identify it yet due to the bushes interference. It had stopped just behind a bush 3 meters to the left of the tree I was on. I waited for it to move. I didnt make a sound and kept myself hidden on my branch bed. It took it a while but it finally moved and when it did I help my breath. What I saw was a massive viper like creature. The closest thing I could compare it to was a snake. It was the size, height wise of a medium size dog and a length of a small car. It was greenish brown in color to match the surroundings and blend in. It slithered out from the bush and looked around, sniffing the air with its tongue. I was able to identify it once I saw it and after I did my blood ran cold. [Forest Viper Lvl 26: ?????] ''shit. That thing is 20 levels over me and I cant identify its description. There is no way I can kill that thing. Lets just let it pass and hope I dont find another one.'' It slithered around a little in the forest within my range and then stopped, sniffed the air, and turned its head toward my tree. I freaked out but did not make a move. I wasnt a huge fan of snakes to begin with and a snake this big and this powerful was not something I wanted to face right now. It waited a while and then sniffed with its tongue again. This time though it moved towards my tree. When it reached the base I covered myself with the cloak and hoped that snakes couldnt climb trees. Sadly I was wrong. The snake looked directly at my branch and sniffed with its tongue again. When it did, I could have sworn I saw it smile. I dont know how a snake could smile but this one could and it did not look cool. It began to make its way up the tree to a branch across from mine. I knew it could smell me and I knew it knew I knew. I had to make a choice, run or fight? If I ran it would probably catch up with me in no time, but if I fought it I would die for sure. As I was deciding this it opened up its mouth and revealed two long deadly fangs the size of my arms. It poized itself to strike at me and I had to move or die. Its mouth looked like it could swallow me whole. Then it struck out, I immediately leaned off the branch and fell to the ground. It missed me by a hair''s breadth but some of the dripping venom hit my right arm surprising me and making me drop my horned weapon. When I landed on the ground I jumped up and ran towards the dead rabbits, hopping that it would choose the dead meat over me, if there was any left. I ran as fast as I could and then some, bobbing and weaving between trees and jumping over bushes. I refused to look back because I could hear its body crashing after me through the forest. My body was so tired and dehydrated so I knew if I stopped running then I would die. The adrenaline was helping me cope with the situation but the venom on my arm was not. It burned through my clothing quickly and kept burning through my arm like it was water. After a few seconds I could see my bone on my arm and it was burning through even that before slowing then stopping. I started to scream in pain. It wasnt bad but it still hurt. Thankfully pain resistance was helping me stay sane through the pain. This was bad. Now I really I couldnt stop. Melting was not the way I wanted to go. So I kept running as fast as I could. Then I felt it. A wave of water crashing onto my back. However, it wasnt water, it was venom. It had shot its venom at me! I could already feel my body burn from the acidic substance. I felt whole patches of skin fall off my back. I screamed outin agony but I refused to stop running. I could barely see through my tears. Then the pain stopped being unbearable and started to become a dull numbness.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I realized that the acid must have burned off all of my nerve endings. It still hurt but it wasnt like the pain I felt before. Then I could feel parts of my back muscle fall off of me as I continued to run. I felt my right arm start to sag and I briefly glanced at it while I ran. I tried moving it to look and see what happened, but I couldnt. What I saw was acid eating through the muscles on my shoulder which had once allowed me to move my arm. It dangled there helplessly by my side, flipping around as I kept running. I was struck dumb by the feeling of losing an arm. I couldnt describe it. Thankfully though my legs kept running and it was by some miracle I finally saw the small clearing where I fought the rabbits ahead of me. It was so close. I could feel it. I sped up hoping that, the rabbits bodys would end this chase and I could run from this monster and heal. I bursed through the underbrush and entered the small clearing where I fought the rabbits. What I saw though sank my hopes. There, standing over and eating the remains of the rabbits were 3 large silver looking wolves. Each one was almost as large as a motorcycle from back home. I briefly identify them, then smiled. I finally had a plan! [Silver Wolf Pack Leader Lvl 16: Deadly pack hunter. Intelligent commander of the pack.] [Silver Wolf Lvl 14: Deadly pack hunter. If you see one, there are more nearby.] [Silver Wolf Lvl 14: Deadly pack hunter. If you see one, there are more nearby.] I ran towards them at top speed. I the dodged the first wolf to jump at me and jumped behind a bush. I turned around right as the snake broke through into the clearing. For a moment nothing happened. Everyone stared at each other and contemplated the options. The snake was the first to act though, spitting acid onto the nearest wolf''s face. The level 14 wolf''s face started to melt and you could hear it howl in pain. The other two decide that I wasnt a big threat due to me at the very edge of death and then focused on the snake. I had found some freedom from death. It wasnt a lot but it was enough for me who had no hope before. During the standoff and beginning of the battle with the wolves vs the snake I activated Iron skin and sat there at the base of a tree and waited for my body to heal. I hoped that focusing on healing would make my passive skill focus work. I knew I was in bad shape when I almost lost consciousness from the pain and from how tired I was when I sat down. I forced myself to stay awake though. I knew if I passed out, I died. While I healed, the wolfs coordinated themselves against the snake. The level 16 wolf dodged the snakes venom spit and managed to sink its teeth into the snakes neck drawing a loud screech from the snake. The second wolf tried to do the same but was thrown off due to the spasms of the snakes body. Instead it went for the body of the snake, biting at it and ripping the scales off of the snakes body causing gashes to form. The final wolf was hobbling away from the fight, wounded and blinded from the venom. It was slowly starting to die and it, in its fright to get away from the sounds of battle, hobbled towards me. I looked around and deactivated Iron skin and grabbed a rock with my left arm. I couldnt move that well but I didnt have to wait long for the disabled wolf to get within my range. WIth all the strength I had I brought down the rock in my left hand on its head. I then hear a loud crack and the wolf fell dead at my side. What happened next was what I was hoping. I leveled up. I opened up my notifications while the wolves and the snake was preoccupied. [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 7!] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 8!] I quickly opened my status screen. [ Name: John Scythe Title(s): Revenge Seeker, Worldcrosser, Champion of Death, One Cursed by Death, Marked One Race: Human Level: 8 Health/Health Regen: 32/(13 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 28/(7 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen: 66/(4 per hr) Ailment: Poisoned: -6 health a min until acid dilludes 3:46...3:45...3:44... Ailment: Bleeding: -1.5 health regen every min Unallocated Stat Points: 10 Unallocated Stolen Stat points: 12 Strength Strength: 8(100) Agility: 29 Vitality: 15 Constitution: 13(150) Endurance: 4(150) Dexterity: 7(150) Perception: 10 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 4 Carisma: 6 Luck: -1 Passive Skills Pain Resistance Lvl 5 Sneak Lvl 3 Focus Lvl 4 Dodge Lvl 1 Active Skills Fallen Army Lvl 1 Brand of the Reaper Lvl 1 Self Poison Lvl 1 Iron Skin Lvl 1 Identify Lvl 1 Sense Aura Lvl 1] I then immediately put 5 stat points into strength, 5 into vitality, and all of the stolen stat points to strength. It was a rash decision but I decided I would need strength and health to face the immediate danger. I hit confirm and for a moment I felt no pain. There was only pleasure. When I came back down from nervna, I immediately used iron skin and continued to focus on my healing. I needed thepoisoned allment to end quickly before I did anything else. Who knew poisoning could be so powerful in a fight? I was still upset with the bleeding allment but I would have to make due. Thankfully I had 50 extra health now. Thanks to it I was able to heal and move my right arm again after hitting confirm but I could only do little things. I still had no strength in it so I would have to rely on my left hand for a while. Thankfully, the others didnt notice me kill their comrade so I was able to stay out of the fight for a few minutes. When I looked at my health and stamina stats again I saw them regenerating thankfully after the poisoning allment ended. I watched carefully on the fight while I healed. The wolves were fearless and were gaining a lot of ground on the snake. It had cuts and scratches all over its body and it was bleeding profusely from a bad gash from its neck, but the wolves fared no better. The level 16 wolf was missing an eye and an ear and was hesitant to use its left hind leg. The level 14 wolf was in worse shape, its right back hind leg was missing and it was bleeding from the stub. The level 14 wolf was melting from some of the venom splashes form the snake on multiple areas of its body too. It was really interesting though. I realized from this fight that strategy and teamwork could overcome something far above your levels. I had no doubt that if the snake didnt damage the third wolf then the wolves would have killed the snake easily with there teamwork. For now though it was almost a stalemate. The wolves were winning but barely. Then an evil idea can into my mind. ''what if I killed them all and gain all of the experience and levels? This could be a huge boost to myself if I can play it right!......'' I smiled evilly and waited for a few more minutes to get my health up as much as possible. Then I slowly got up and sneaked away from the fight. The others didnt notice me leave. I hid in the bushes and treeline. The snake was losing badly now. The blood loss was affecting its judgement and accuracy with its venom, which the wolves noticed and took advantage of. Their coordinated attacks were deadly to the snake. Every so often the snake would shoot venom in a horizontal line making the wolves jump back away from the snake giving it some room to breathe before the wolves came again. The wolves didnt give the snake much time to rest though. As this all was going on I had managed to make it to the edge of the fight in the clearing. I was near enough to the fight but behind a bush, concealed. There I waited with the rock in my left hand looking for a chance. When the snake shot its venom in a horizontal line again the wolves jumped back near the edge of the clearing. Thats when I made my move. I attacked the hurt level 14 wolf that jumped near me by bashing it upside the head with the rock repeatedly before jumping back to hide in the forest. I confirmed that I got the notification for killing it before jumping away. When I turned around I could see the level 16 wolf staring at me and snarling, ready to pounce, but before it could the snake shot another spirit of its venom at the level 16 wolf in the side, taking advantage of the disturbance. The venom just grazed the wolf but it was enough to get a howl of pain from the wolf. It then directed its attention back to the snake to finish the kill. The fight began to change though after losing the second wolf. Now that there was only one enemy the snake had more of an advantage. This didnt even out the fight but I could see that things would be ending soon. The blood coming from the wolf''s side was making its actions slow and more susceptible to the snakes strikes. Then the snake made a daring move. It leaped at the wolf and used its fangs to bite into the side of the wolf. The wolf started to howl in pain and claw at the snakes body to try to get the snake off of the wolf, but the snake wouldnt let go. It had caught its prey and it''s venom was eating through the wolfs insides quickly. It look less than a min for the wolf to fall over. It was still alive but it couldnt move due to the pain. This was when the snake released itself from the wolf and prepared to finish the kill. But before it could I jumped behind it and bashed its head in with my rock until the rock broke. Then I used my anger and my wrath to fuel my fists to beat it to death. Only when I thought that the snake was dead did I stop. I had gone a little crazy again and broke the skull and cracked the neck. I could see the blood pouring out of the snakes body. Then I looked over at the still living wolf, bloodlust and hatred in my eyes. We locked eyes for a moment, studying each other; two wounded animals after a fierce fight giving our all. I saw the intelligence it had in its single eye and sensed its strength and its will. The wolf then, satisfied with my gaze, closed its eye and leaned its neck out to me in submission, accepting its fate at my hands. I understood its gesture and reached out for another rock to end its suffering and give the wolf a proper death, but before I could the tattoo on my right hand began to glow. It started as a low glow and then grew brighter the longer I stared at it. Knowledge then began entering my mind at a rapid pace overloading my senses. My body began to act on its own instinct while my mind was overwhelmed with knowledge. My right hand then reached out and placed itself on the dying wolfs neck. Pain. A lot of pain. It felt like my hand was back into the furnace from when I first got the tattoo. I could sense that the wolf was in more pain though. Its whole body was being covered in shadows and darkness and I could hear it howling and whimpering in pain. My hand was also covered by the darkness covering the wolf. I couldnt take my hand away from the darkness and I was forced to feel massive amounts of agony. The pain to my body and my mind was overwhelming. My dehydration, blood loss, and this pain became too much for me and I lost consciousness. Everything went black. Chapter 8 I don''t know how long I had been out but when I opened my eyes again the sun was low in the sky, indicating it was evening. My bones were tired. I don''t know how but I could just feel them being tired. That is how tired I was. Good news though, I wasn''t thirsty. Well, I was, but my thirst was overruled by the lingering figments of pain throughout my body. I had woken up on my back looking up at the sky. The tree branches were protecting me from the evening''s light. For a moment I forgot where I was, the scene was just so surreal that it felt like a dream. But after a few seconds I remembered. I remembered everything. ''I got to stop waking up like this. It''s definitely not good for my health.'' I groan and turn my head to look around. When I did, I found no trace of the wolf leader or the snake''s body. ''I''m pretty sure I killed the snake, but the wolf? What happened back then? Why did that happen? The tattoo just glowed on its own.'' I sat up quickly causing some minor dizziness. Once up I tried looking for the body of the wolf leader and the snake. I couldn''t find either. ''....hmmm...not good. If the wolf survived and got away it could be calling for reinforcements. I don''t know what happened to the snakes body. That''s weird... But first things first, need to get up and find water. I can¡¯t live without it for much longer. My body is barely listening to my commands as it is and my mind is practically tearing itself at the seams from dehydration.'' I try to stand up but my body doesn''t respond. I had used a lot of energy just to sit up earlier. Even so, I knew I needed to get up now. If I didn''t get moving soon I knew I would be dead in no time. ''Need to find water. Come on. Get up and find water!'' I felt a slight tingling on my hand for a moment. Puzzled at the sensation, I stop everything and bring my hand up to my face to look at the tattoo, but once I start looking at the tattoo, the tingling stops. I continue to stare at the tattoo though, wondering what happened before I passed out earlier; however, I get no response from the tattoo nor do I get any answers on why it did what it did. It looked the same. I then shake my head and try to focus on the task ahead. I slowly try to stand up from where I was sitting and when I finaly do, I slip and fall back onto my back. ''OW! what the hell?'' I turn my head around to look at the ground I was laying on and I find that I had been laying in a small puddle of blood. Behind me was a larger puddle of blood with pieces of what I can only assume as the snake from earlier. All that was left of it though was its head and a bit of its spine. The rest was gone. ''Oh. That''s why I couldnt find it, but I don''t remember it looking like that. What happened to the rest of it?...'' I shake my head of needless thoughts and then look at the puddle of blood I slipped on and the dribble of blood still coming from the dead snakes head. ''I wonder? I mean, ew that''s disgusting, but blood is like 90% water right?........I mean....I would never do this if I wasn''t desperate...... I need to survive............ Just try it....It won''t be too bad right? Just this once.'' I shuddered at the thought of drinking the blood of the snake, but the longer I thought about it the more I feel like it was a good idea. My desperate thirst was growing now that the pain was fading. ''I mean, I haven''t found any water sources and I doubt I can find any before sundown. Plus, that wolf might be coming back with more to kill me. I want to survive...no....I need to survive. Even if it is grose, I need to do it if I want to survive.'' The song ''stayin alive'' started to play in my head now. I think I was becoming delirious and loopy. Don''t know. Never been this dehydrated before. It might have been the song, the extreme thirst that I had, or my delirious state, but I was starting to seriously lean toward drinking the blood. ''eh.. fuck it. Just get it over with!'' In the end, I couldn''t stop myself. My desperation overruled my disgust and I took and cupped my hands, bringing a small amount of the blood to my lips, and drank. I drank it all down in one gulp. I waited for a moment to see if I would barf it back up, for the taste to make me gag, but to my surprise, I didn''t. In fact, I felt, marginally, better. It tasted like iron and a bunch of other things I don''t want to know, but at that moment, I didn''t care, my thirst was being quenched, if just a little. At that moment of realization, I lost all reason and sanity, my desperate thirst taking over. I drank the blood, gulping it down until my thirst had been quenched. I didn''t stop there though, I kept going, drinking all that I could from the pudles. It didn¡¯t taste good, but I was finally able to quench my thirst. When I came back to myself, my mouth and my body were covered in red stains from the blood. I knew I should have been ashamed and disgusted with myself, but I couldn''t stop myself from smiling. It was a crazy, wild smile. A smile of a beast. And maybe, in that moment, I was. I couldn''t stop myself from smiling because I realized one thing about this whole horrible experience; I would survive. I would not let myself be bogged down with what was right or wrong or what was disgusting or not. I would do everything I could to survive even if that meant becoming a beast. I finally confirmed in my heart that I had changed and shed the feeble man I was in the past to survive now in this new world. No matter what. Finally, I had satisfied my thirst. After wiping the blood from my mouth, I stood back up, stronger and more refreshed than I was previously. I had a clearer head now that I wasn¡¯t completely dehydrated. I could focus. When I regained some clarity I noticed the red flashes in my vision. I groaned upon realizing I forgot about them again. I opened then up to see what I had missed. [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 9!] [Congratulations! You have completed the requirements to obtain a title! For defeating a group of enemies that were much higher leveled than you while being melted alive, poisoned, delirious from dehydration, and bleeding out, you have gained the title Survivor. Survivor: Allows the user to gain survival skills faster.] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 10!] [Congratulations! For reaching level 10 you will now obtain +1 extra stat every time you level up! Previous +5 stat points per level. Current +6 stat points per level.] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 11!] [Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 12!] [Congratulations! You have successfully branded the Silver Wolf Pack Leader! For receiving submission from the SIlver Wolf Pack Leader you have been given the authority to brand the Silver Wolf Pack Leader to yourself. Through branding the Silver Wolf Pack Leader with the Brand of the Reaper, the Silver Wolf Pack leader has been forced to evolve. Congratulations! Your Silver Wolf Pack Leader has successfully evolved into a Shadow Wolf! ERROR! ERROR! Requirements not met for evolution. Calculating solution... Solution found. Warning! Due to the fact that your Shadow Wolf did not fulfill the requirements to evolve correctly it is forced to devolve to the weakest form of the Shadow Wolves, a Shadow Wolf Cub. Due to the devolution of your Shadow Wolf into a Shadow Wolf Cub, all stats have been reset to the baseline for this species. Congratulations! You have branded a Shadow Wolf Cub!] [Congratulations! For allowing your Shadow Wolf Cub to constantly consume your mana until depletion over and over again for 8 hours your Shadow Wolf Cub''s stats have increased: +5 Vitality +10 Endurance +10 Wisdom +3 Luck] [Congratulations! Your Shadow Wolf Cub is very lucky! It has learned one of your skills from constantly consuming mana from your mana pool! Skill learned: Focus] ''Well, shoot. So thats what happened.....now its branded to me right? Cool! This should help out a lot..maybe. Its a cub now. Does that mean its weaker? Uhhh.. so confusing with this evolusion stuff. But what happened to it? I don''t see it around?'' I began looking for my newly acquired companion, but I could not find it. I looked around the clearing and under the snakes head. I looked around the dead wolves and I looked around the edge of the clearing. ''Hmmm....weird. I''ll figure it out later. That also means that reinforcements won¡¯t be coming soon so I have time to relax. Thank god! I needed the rest. hmmm.... I leveled up right? I should to check my stats!'' I open my status page excitedly. [ Name: John Scythe Title(s): Revenge Seeker, Worldcrosser, Champion of Death, One Cursed by Death, Marked One, Survivor Race: Human Level: 12 Health/Health Regen: 200/(13 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 196/(7 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen: 30/(4 per hr) Unallocated Stat Points: 22 Unallocated Stolen Stat points: 11 Strength, 16 Intelligence Strength: 25(100) Agility: 29 Vitality: 20 Constitution: 13(150) Endurance: 4(150) Dexterity: 7(150) Perception: 10 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 4 Carisma: 6 Luck: -1 Passive Skills Pain Resistance Lvl 5 Sneak Lvl 3 Focus Lvl 4 Dodge Lvl 1 Active Skills Fallen Army Lvl 1 Brand of the Reaper Lvl 1 Self Poison Lvl 1 Iron Skin Lvl 1 Identify Lvl 1 Sense Aura Lvl 1] ''Nice! I got a big hall this time!'' I felt a wave of relief seeing all of the stat points I could allocate. However, I was concerned I did not receive a skill when strength passed 10 on my stats. ''Maybe I haven''t reached the threshold yet. But that''s weird. Why is strength the only one that''s different? Or was agility different too and I just not realize it due to how many stat points I allocated at once? Hmmm...I don¡¯t know.'' I shook my head and decided that those kinds of questions can be asked later. Right now was the time for me to allocate them. Before I did though, I noticed another tab on my stats page. It was the Shadow Wolf Cub''s stat page! [Name: N/A Race: Shadow Wolf Cub Level: 1 Health/ Health regen: 70/1 per hr Stamina/ Stamina Regen: 110/2 per hr Mana/ Mana regen: Locked (mana needed to unlock) Mana Consumed 800/40,000 Strength: 1 Agility: 2Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Vitality: 7 Constitution: 1 Endurance: 11 Dexterity: 2 Perception: 1 Intelligence: 3 Wisdom: 11 Carisma: 20 Luck: 7 Resistances Fatigue: 0% Pain: 0% Fire: 0% Lightning: 0% Water: 0% Ice: 0% Earth: 0% Death: 5% Shadow: 30% Holy: - 20% Affinities Fire: 0% Lightning: 0% Water: 0% Ice: 0% Earth: 0% Death: 5% Shadow: 45% Holy: - 10% Passive Skills Consume Mana Lvl 1 Focus Lvl 1 Active Skills None] ''Oh. That''s interesting. Why does it have an affinity and residences like that? And why is it so weak! This won''t help me at all!'' I clicked on each and read the descriptions to learn more. Everything was the same as mine except the resistances and affinities. It seems that they appeared that way due to the shadow wolves species traits. ''Interesting. So different species have different traits which allow them to be stronger or more inclined with different things. It also shows the weaknesses of the species. Say that I want to kill a shadow wolf, holy magic would do the most damage to it I think. I mean, if that''s how it works. Well, I guess I could have guessed that from it being called a shadow wolf it would have an affinity to shadow magic. It is interesting that it takes more damage from holy magic though. I will have to watch out for that, especially in the monsters I will fight in the future. If they all have a weakness then I should exploit it to achieve victory faster.'' ''Why is its mana locked? What''s with it needing 40,000 to unlock! That''s an insane number!!! I guess consume mana is what the cub¡¯s been doing to me while I slept. I guess it needs mana to grow? Weird. I don''t understand any of this. At least it got one of my better skills, focus. What is consume mana''s description though?'' [Consume Mana(Passive) Lvl 1: A skill most young monsters have. Useful for giving young monsters energy and mana. Mostly used to help them evolve into a stronger form. Higher level allows it to consume more mana at faster speeds from other sources. However, due to its low level the only mana it can consume is from its mother/master.] ''Ok cool. That explains a lot. So I''m like its mother now. Great. So that¡¯s why my mana is so low. I''ll have to study this more later, but for now, stat points!'' I then look at the unallocated stat points I have and the stolen stat points I have. Interestingly, it now gives me the option to send my stolen stat points to my wolf. It wont let me send any of my regular stat points though. Currently, I''m very unhappy with the cub''s stats so far and I will need a strong partner in the forest, especially something like a wolf, to survive. So I decided to send all of the stolen strength stat points over to it. I then turn to study my stat points. ''What was I thinking? I waisted those 5 stat points in strength last time. Why? I have the boost from the clothing. I don¡¯t need any more strength.............oooohhhhhh wait. I see.'' I remembered my rash decision. Thankfully I was somewhat competent during my dehydrated state. ''I think I was worried that my clothing may have melted too much off to still give me the bonuses.....ah. I see. I really need to find out though when I loose the bonuses from the clothing. It is worrying to not know what that point may be. I''ll have to test it out later.'' I then turned my attention to my decision for the rest of my stat points. It took me a little while of thinking and debating to make my final decision. In the end though, I put 5 into luck because I really needed all the help I could get. I put 10 stat points into wisdom to help with the influx of intelligence stats I will get from the stolen stat points. Then I put the remaining 7 stat points into agility. I could have outrun that snake if I was faster. Speed can get you out of a lot of bad situations. I''m hoping that the increased wisdom will help me make decisions and the increased luck will let me never have to deal with another situation like that again. I was tempted to add more to vitality but I realized that I needed these more right now. I was also tempted to raise all of my stats to 10, but something was telling me I needed to spend my stat points this way. Something in my gut was telling me that with these stat points in these positions I could be able to survive longer and gain more stat points from my next fight. I am nervous about adding all of the stolen intelligence stat points to myself though. I don¡¯t know what will happen but I''ll gamble on it being a positive outcome. I''ll take all the help I can get out here. Once I hit confirm I felt the familiar pleasure again. It was stronger and lasted longer this time. ''I could get used to that'' Once I came down I saw the flashing lights again. This only mean one thing. I hit a threshold. [Congratulations! For reaching a milestone in your agility stat you are awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on your luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! You have received the active skill Stampede. This skill, when activated, makes you sprint at your max speed, regardless of your stamina, in a strait line for a period of time. Leveling it up can increase the time and reduce the amount that it costs to activate.] [Congratulations! For reaching a milestone in your wisdom stat you are awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on your luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! You have received the active skill Mana Bolt. This is the most basic attack magic for an aspiring mage. Range and power dependent upon intelligence, wisdom, and level of skill.] [Congratulations! Your Shadow Wolf Cub has reached a milestone in its strength stat! It will be awarded a random skill. Random skills are chosen based on luck. Choosing now.] [Congratulations! Your Shadow Wolf Cub has received the active skill Bite. This is a basic attacking skill for a Shadow Wolf Cub. The amount of power in the bite is dependent upon the strength stat of the cub.] ''Nice! So I got some good skills and so did my cub. I still can''t find the thing but it¡¯s still good. I didn''t pass a threshold in my intelligence stat so I''m guess 30 is the next threshold after 10. Strength is the only different one though. How odd. But that¡¯s beside the point! I can use magic now!!! Hell ya! My first magic attack. This is going to be great. I''m going to have to test you out for sure. Now the big question. Do I feel any different now? What did the increased intelligence do to me?'' "hmmmmm.....I don¡¯t feel and different with my increased wisdom stat or my increased intelligence stat. I am not suddenly brilliant and all knowing either. hmmmm......I guess intelligence is just a thing that you need to gain on your own. No stat can suddenly make you smart I guess." [Wisdom +1] ''what the hell? haha. I guess that means I''m right. Weird. I didn''t think you could gain stat points like that. I guess anything goes here.'' I then close my status screen and my notifications. Now I had to focus on the one thing that was missing, my cub. I look around myself for the cub that supposed to be bound to me, but I still can¡¯t find it. Then a thought came into my head. I turned around and tried to identify the dead snake''s head. [(Deceased)Forest Viper Lvl 26: Deadly hunter. Intelligent in killing. Prefers to hunt weaker opponents and single enemies. It is not good at fighting groups.] ''Oh cool! I can read more of it now. It''s interesting that I can identify the dead too. It seems you don¡¯t need the full body either to identify. I guess my increased intelligence lets me see more from my identify skill. Either that or I can only see more when I identify it after its dead. More testing required'' I tried identifying the wolves and gain the same result I received when I identified them when they were alive. I then identified everything from the trees to bushes. I identify everything in my surroundings. Not one thing holds any information regarding the cub though. I had hoped that I would have been able to identify the cub in a bush or something. Then I try activating Sense Aura. It worked without a hitch which was nice. It was weird at first. It felt like I could see and feel colors. The dead had no colors on them while the trees and bushes were all greyish. I could sense everything within around 3 meters of me even if it was behind me or bushes. There were no animals or anything else around me to sense so I decided to move around in the clearing to sense everything around the clearing into the forest. It took me awhile but I had managed to scout 3 meters into the forest around the entire clearing. Still though, no cub. I decided to keep sense aura on while I went back and harvested the fangs and anything else of value from the snake and the wolves. Thankfully I was able to just pull out the fangs. They made for excellent cutting tools to harvest the skins and meat of the dead wolves. I probably botched the skinning of them but I was slowly learning how to do it. I had been in the clearing now for about 2 hours skinning and preparing my makeshift bags out of the skins to store the meat of the wolves. As I was getting ready to leave I felt a different color coming from behind me. It was coming towards me from the woods. I immediately turned around and readied myself to face it. I could not make out the shape of the thing. All I could see what that it was green in color. I waited for it to arrive. Then it burst through the bushes. I was startled at first because I was expecting anything from another snake to a rabbit, but it was my cub! I watch it approach excitedly towards me. It was small, all black, with tiny eyes. It''s size reminded me of a puppy from home. Except this one had two tiny fangs protruding from the corners of its mouth. Its eyes were dark brown, with a tiny little tail and its mouth was all puffed up and full of something. It was so cute! If I was in my world, women would flock to pet it. It ran right up to me and looked at me happily and then opened its mouth. When it did, water came out of it and fell to the ground. The cub looked almost like it was smiling at me. It didn¡¯t look like it was hostile and death said that anything branded to me will be an ally and wouldn''t hurt me. So, confused and nervous, I reached down to pet it. It was super weak so I wasn''t too worried of it hurting me. I was still confused as to why it had water in its mouth though, but that didn''t stop me from petting it''s head. It was soft! Really soft! I thought my hand was on a nice pillow or fluffy rug. I couldn''t help myself from smiling. "Hey little guy. How are you doing? I had missed you. Where did you go?" The cub liked it when I petted its head, and when I asked him where he went he pointed his nose at the little puddle of water he dropped out of his mouth. I looked at him funny for a minute. "Wait. Did you go and get some water for me?" The cub looked up at me with its small eyes and nodded its head while smiling. It looked like a small child completing a task for its parent. My face must have been full of shock to not only have the wolf cub react to my words, but to find out it had found water! I groaned and then laughed. "Of course. Right after I finished drinking the blood I find out that there is a water source nearby. Of course! Just my luck. Haha. So little guy, you think you can take me to the water?" The cub nodded again and began to run off into the woods. I grab my makeshift packs and followed after him at a leisurely pace. The cub was going slow to me but very fast to him. In the end, I was easily able to walk next to him. He led me to the edge of the clearing and through the destroyed path where the snake and I came through to get to the clearing. It then took us a while to get to the area where the snake and I first met. Before we kept going though I called him to stop and wait. I wanted to get the meat and the horn that I buried under that one sapling. I walked around looking for it for a few minutes before finding the sapling. It looked a little bigger now but I could still recognise that it was the sapling I buried my stuff under. ''Ah. There you are.'' I walk towards it, but my cub stopped me. He jumped in front of me and started to growl at the tree sapling. "What are you doing little guy? I need to get my horn. It won''t be but a minute." I checked the area just to make certain that it was clear with sense aura. I found nothing. However, the tree sapling was green compared to the rest of the gray of the forest. ''Weird. But maybe it¡¯s because I put some of my stuff there. I guess it won¡¯t hurt to keep sense arua on for now.'' I get about a meter in front of it before the cub jumps in front of me again, but this time it starts attacking the sapling. That¡¯s when the green of the sapling turns bright red. The bark on the sapling immediately opened up and roots shoot out of the ground and grabbed the cub and threw it on the ground. Roots start to latch onto me as well. ''The hell?'' I start to rip off the roots easily with my hands as the bark opens up to reveal jagged teeth. I immediately identified it again. It had changed a lot from before! [(Variant)False Tree Lvl 6: By consuming the blood and the meat of other creatures this tree warped itself and became a flesh eating tree. It disguises itself as a regular tree and when prey gets to close, the tree captures them to eat. Sustains itself on the meat of others. Very dangerous if left alive to grow.] ''oh....I guess that means my meat and the horn is gone.'' The plant wasn''t able to move me at all with its roots. I was just too strong. My cub however was struggling to survive. He was being dragged towards the tree''s mouth. I was tempted to help the cub but then I decided that it would be a great opportunity for him. "Hey .....uh...cub! Bite the roots!" ''I really need to name this thing'' The cub looks at me standing there perfectly fine as the roots try to grab me and pull me to no avail. Then he nods and starts biting the roots in earnest. It takes him awhile, but with his increased strength he is able to bite through root after root. Once he is free, he starts to attack and bite at the roots trying to attack him. He dodges one root heading to bash him against the ground and another that tried to pierce him in the stomach. This goes on while I watch, looking at how the little cub progresses in fighting the small tree sapling. The cub takes a few hits here and there, nothing to serious but enough to make it a challenging fight. I almost step in a few times thinking the cub would have died only to be surprised to see it jump back up and fight harder. ''Wolves really are a ferocious species'' The fight lasted no more than 10 min. The sapling ran out of roots. The cub, bleeding and bruised, leaps at the sapling and bites down hard on the bark, just under the mouth around the base of the sapling. The sapling starts to sqweel and thrash as the cub continues to bite down. The bark of the sapling cracks and breaks. Then with one last bite the cub breaks the sapling in two. Smiling, the cub turns to me and lays down, licking its wounds. "Good job little guy! You did it!" I walk over and pet the wounded cub. He smiles under my touch. Then the red flashes start to appear. [Congratulations! Your Shadow Wolf Cub has leveled up to level 2!] [Congratulations! Your Shadow Wolf Cub has leveled up to level 3!] [Congratulations! Your Shadow Wolf Cub has leveled up to level 4!] "Good Job.....cub! I think I should name you because I''m getting tired of calling you cub and little guy. What do you say?" The cub looks up at me, smiles and nods. I then think about what name to give him. "How about sparky?" He growls. "uh...ok. How about spot?" He growls again. "Ok. How about Carl? No wait. I hated a guy named carl. Uhh....I guess it should be somthing cool right? Hmmm.....shadow? No. That''s too cliche. What do people normally base their names on? Hmmmmm...Oh, right! duh. Heroes, myths, and gods right? Ok. How about using some of the ancient gods of my world then. That way your name will be really unique and it will mean something too. Now, wasn''t the greek god of darkness named Erebos? Hmmm...I could do something with that. Don''t want it to be the exact same though. Someone from my world might recognize who you might be then. Hmmmm.....How about Rabos? It combines the egyptian god of the sun, ra, with the greek god of darkness and shadows, Erebos. Bos means place or being of darkness. It will be a testament to your place as part of the shadows. Ra means leader, head, or ruler. Since you were the leader of your pack it shows a testament to your leadership capability. Combined together it means leader or ruler of the shadows. So, Rabos. What do you think of that? A play on words between the god of the sun and the god of darkness of two different religions that don¡¯t exist here." The cub thinks for a moment before nodding its head in approval. I smile. "Alright then Rabos, it is. So, have you placed your stat points yet? Wait...did I receive any stolen stat points from that thing? I think I get stolen stat points from your kills too. It would just be a smaller amount because I didn¡¯t physically kill it right?" I open up my stat page. [ Name: John Scythe Title(s): Revenge Seeker, Worldcrosser, Champion of Death, One Cursed by Death, Marked One, Survivor Race: Human Level: 12 Health/Health Regen: 200/(13 per hr)(2.5/minute) Stamina/Stamina Regen: 196/(7 per hr)(2.5/minute) Mana/Mana Regen: 200/(15 per hr) Unallocated Stolen Stat points: 6 Perception Strength: 25(100) Agility: 36 Vitality: 20 Constitution: 13(150) Endurance: 4(150) Dexterity: 7(150) Perception: 10 Intelligence: 26 Wisdom: 15 Carisma: 6 Luck: 3 Passive Skills Pain Resistance Lvl 5 Sneak Lvl 3 Focus Lvl 4 Dodge Lvl 1 Active Skills Fallen Army Lvl 1 Brand of the Reaper Lvl 1 Self Poison Lvl 1 Iron Skin Lvl 1 Identify Lvl 1 Sense Aura Lvl 1 Stampede Lvl 1 Mana Bolt Lvl 1] ''Nice. I did get some stolen stat points. Wait. Why is my mana down so much? Oh! Were you using consume mana on me to give you more energy to kill that thing?'' I then click over to Rabos'' tab. [Name: Rabos Race: Shadow Wolf Cub Level: 3 Health/ Health regen: 38/1 per hr Stamina/ Stamina Regen: 42/2 per hr Mana/ Mana regen: Locked Mana Consumed 860/40,000 Unallocated Stat Points: 10 Strength: 12 Agility: 2 Vitality: 7 Constitution: 1 Endurance: 11 Dexterity: 2 Perception: 1 Intelligence: 3 Wisdom: 11 Carisma: 20 Luck: 7 Passive Skills Consume Mana Lvl 1 Focus Lvl 1 Active Skills Bite Lvl 1] I then look at Rabos. ''Huh. I didn''t even notice it. I guess I just have to be in the vicinity and he can use consume mana on me to absorb my mana for energy. It doesn''t really bother me right now so I think it¡¯s fine and he used it to help him level up. All in all, he did a good job for his first fight. He also knew that the tree was an enemy before I did. He has some good senses even as a cub.'' "Nice. So I did get some stolen stat points. Good job on the fight rabos. So how are you going to allocate your stat points?" Robos then looks at me and tilts his head like he is saying ''what do you mean?'' I look at him weird for a minute trying to figure out how I will make him understand what I''m saying. "How do you want to get stronger from leveling up? Do you understand? Maybe you are too young to understand. Do you want me to try and allocate your stat points for you?" Rabos, still tilting his head at me in confuzion, just nods his head. "Um. Ok. For now I guess I''ll try to do this for you. I hope I can do this. I might be able to since your bound to me now." ''Hmmm.. that raises more questions though. Can monsters even allocate stat points? Or do they just get stat points automatically allocated to themselves when they level up? Is rabos different because he is bound to me? Is that why I can see the unallocated stat points? Is it because he is bound to me that the unallocated stat points can be allocated to where I want them to be? Uhhhh... this is too confusing. I''m just going to roll with it and allocate them as I want.'' Rabos just sits there looking up at me, wagging his tail. "Uh. Ok. Sorry. Got caught up in my head there for a moment. Let¡¯s do this. How about 3 into agility, 3 into vitality, and the rest into constitution. It makes you a little faster, a little healthier, and able to heal faster/more." Rabos nods his head again happily. I also add the stolen stat points to him to allow him to perceive better. ''Having a wolf that can perceive what''s around you with their heightened senses is probably better than what I would be able to use it for. I would probably keep him and me alive longer too.'' I then hit confirm and watch as the little cub pants approvingly at the stat allocation. Afterwards, we wait awhile for robos to heal up before setting out again for the water. The rest of the trip to the water was mostly uneventful. I primarily was identifying everything around me as we walked. We found another rabbit but rabos sneaked up to it and killed the rabbit easily with one bite to the neck. It was only level 6 so it wasn¡¯t as strong as the others. In fact, he didn''t even level up from the kill. I did get some stolen stat points from it though, 3 agility. I took those for myself. I noticed that every time I increase agility I feel like some weights are falling off of me, allowing me to walk faster. It felt nice. After the rabbit we didn¡¯t meet anything else. It was only after the sun had set and the last lights of the day were still showing that we found the water. It was really only about an hour walk from where I first met the snake. We had to stop here and there because rabos had to rest from the fights. I used that time to practice Iron skin a lot. I began to get used to the sensation of iron skin. I was training so that I wouldn¡¯t have to deal with an acid attack unprepared. My plan was to one day be able to sleep with Iron skin on so that I could be protected from attacks while I slept. I didn¡¯t mind the trip, even if it did take a while. I mean, if we didn¡¯t fight anything it would have only taken us about an hour to get to what I now see as a small creak in a clearing ahead of us. "Wow! Finally! Fresh water. Haha" I run towards the water, passing rabos in a flash, and immediately dunk my head into the water and drink happily from the creek. It was fresh cold water. It felt great after all of that blood and fighting. I could see some, what I believed to be fish, swimming around in the creek. None of them really bothered me though. Rabos arrived shortly after me and, wanting to copy my movement, dunked his head into the water too. He slipped though and fell right in. The current wasn¡¯t strong but rabos started to flip out and tried to swim to me. I realized then that he wasn''t a great swimmer as he didn¡¯t really make any progress towards me and the side of the creek. I laughed a little and reached out and pulled him from the creek and placed him on the ground. He began shaking the water off of himself as I look up and down the creek bed for dangers. ''It seems that the creek comes from the mountains and flows deep into the forest. Cool. Now I have water, but I''m starting to get really hungry. And where the hell is this mythical camp death told me about!!'' The night was starting to close in fast and I needed to find a place to sleep for both of us that was safe. I looked around for a good tree, even though it was not a great bed, it was safe-ish. It took me a while but I found a tree that was big enough for both of us to sleep on one of its branches. I buried the skins, meat, and the fangs away from any tree and grabbed rabos. Rabos was small enough that I could just hold him in my arms and we were able to fall asleep without a problem. Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day, I could just feel it. I was starting to get my bearings in this world. --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Where am I? Who dares disturb me! SPEAK!" Silence. A window then pops up. [You have been tasked with the duty to kill an individual in your area for breaking the laws of the system. You have been relocated to the area where he generally is. Kill him and you will be rewarded handsomely and transported back to where you were taken. Failure to complete your task will result in your subsequent hunting and death. That is all.] "What...? You dare order me around!" Silence. The darkness of the forest covered the rage in his eyes. ''Damned system. Right when I was so close to completing my work. I knew it would try to impede me somehow, but not like this. Damn it! I will get my revenge, system. Hmmmm. Wait. I could use this. Whatever this thing is, has defied the system so much that the system itself has broken its own rules and transported me to this place to kill it. If the system is this worried about one being, then I could use this being to my own advantage. hehehHAHAHAhaha. Ok system. I''ll play your little game, but I will be the one who wins in the end. Nothing can force me to do its bidding.''