3:47AM, the system clock displayed. A hike under moonlight in the dead of night; a great time for a low-level mayor to be up grave-digging.

A creeping sense of paranoia seized Ivan’s midriff, itching under his set of level 120 normal-quality leather gear, which granted hardly any stats at all: a couple hundred in Dex, a few dozen in Strength, and ten Vit. These steel daggers were statless.

A skilled bowman, or even a Mage, could pick him off from the trees. In an eyeblink. Amature hour stuff.

Ivan lacked a detecting skill. He doubted Raven Lords could learn one, like many classes, idiotic as that was. In his honest view, everyone should be allowed one. It was only fair, but no, because those genius designers at Synaptic had thought this asymmetric game balance promoted team-play.

Solo players were given the boot yet again—all in the name of making the game more social, more than it already was. That was on top of constant improvements to the AI systems; some NPCs were so life-like that one could confuse them for real Humans.

Retarded as fuck.

Gritting teeth, Ivan again came out of a Dark Blink, then jogged four steps in its three second cooldown, then blinked again… only to find the bar of greenish-black ink, at the bottom of his eye, drained. His flesh and blood was emptied of mana.

He spat a curse in Russian and turned off Featherlight Aura. His body suddenly weighed a million more pounds, but the orb was refilling faster, doubled to two points a second while wisps of malice were collecting at his heart. He hadn’t been so weak in months.

The regen ring Gabby had crafted him, the seventh one she had forged, was missing from his left index finger. Too bad. So sad.

The bar of liquid gold was now gradually emptying in his sprint, and with this body, he sprinted faster than the current world record holder for the hundred meter dash. He felt no burn. He felt no ache on the right side of his body. Here, he was not a fucking scarred little bitch.

Here, you are an apex predator, the voice said.

True. Very, very true.

A rightful grin warped the stylized scars on his cheeks and nose as he dashed into a grass clearing among the pines. Sub-zero wind whipped his hair into his eyes, blocking view—for a split-second—of an enormous mountain a few leagues north. Its frozen tip pierced the clouds.

Now, if that wasn’t a call to adventure, then Ivan was clinically insane. He would bet his left testicle on this hunch: treasure to be found. Ancient powers to be slain. An entrance to a pocket world dungeon if nothing else, common out here.

But, for the time being, he was reduced to errand boy status.

He picked up the pace down the dirt path, sprinting. On both sides, trees passed at the speed of imbued arrows. He saw everything in sharp focus, not a single pine needle blurry, and the oncoming wind was like waves of gassy ice against his face, but his eyes did not sting.

Damn, he had missed this.

A lone man without any bitch holding him back, just him against the world and all those who dared to challenge. Bring it on, all the wolves and snakes and hydras out here in the wilderness. He was ready at any and every step. His snake-like gaze scanned left and right for any foe.

Up ahead, another owl was perched atop a high branch. This one wasn’t hooting, so Ivan let it be.

Just kidding.

Steel cut through wind, the edge glinting with black ink. A foot long needle shot from the tip and impaled the owl’s patterned feathers. And when the corrupting miasma reached its talons, Ivan had already long sprinted past. He didn’t want to look at the blasted thing more than he needed to. Something about owl eyes spooked him unlike anything else, soulless, unblinking. He swore behind those gaping holes were Demons waiting to take flight.

Real demons. Not the Demons out of a child’s imagination in this world.

A one-eyed tentacled monstrosity, a walking mountain, winked before him. A moldy scent tickled his nose as ghostly slime dripped onto his head. Tentacles slithered around his chest and waist, constricting. A shiver rode up his neck. Cold sweat broke out under his arms.

He clawed at his chest, but his nails only dug into leather. He pinched his cheek—hard. The monstrosity vanished.

Just a hallucination.

His good-for-nothing pills were very slow to kick in today.

He wiped sweat off his forehead, doubled his pace, uphill. The trees were sparser, grass thinner, and the ground was now composed of rocky hard soil. He was close.

He asked in his head, Why didn’t they build the settlement here?

Always helpful, the voice didn’t answer.

But he had a fair idea: they needed a fresh water source nearby and nutrient-rich soil for crops, neither of which were available up here among the mountains. Fair enough. He gave them the benefit of the doubt; this wasn’t his forte, town building.

On the winding, narrowing path, Ivan was a mile into the mountain range when he caught a glimpse of the granite mine over a cliff… wedged in between two baby mountains. The open pit was already ten layers deep. A few spots glowed a faint bluish-gray—enchanted veins.

At the top edge of eye, something either tiny or massive flew in front of the moon and disappeared into the clouds.

An insect? Or another hallucination?

Growling a sigh, Ivan scribbled a mental reminder to chuck that bottle away. Those pills were nothing but expensive white powder. Useless.

Then, around a bend, his heart jumped into his throat as he almost ran head-first into a Stone Elemental.

He back-flipped, blinking mid air, missing a downward smash. Fucking close.

Dust clouds billowed. Shockwaves rumbled through the ground along with an outpour of gritty mana in the wind. The elemental groaned as it rose to its full height of twenty feet, coming again sluggishly.

Lesser Granite Elemental (Level 97)

Health: 7805

Mana: 255

Stamina: 1250

Armor: High

Fire Resistance: High

Other Resistances: Low (Average)

Merely a Lesser? Simple shit.

And like all earth-type elementals, its body was a series of disjointed boulders; a large one for its body, a series of smaller rocks for its head and arms. No legs. Brownish-gold veins glittered around its gleaming mana core—weak points. Slit eyes were flaming, only flaming in appearance. More weak points. It had no fire-type magics.

A hearty laugh cackled from his throat. He bellowed two words in the dark language: Raven Call. An ocean of mana in his being shuddered as an inky raven burst forth from his chest, squawking a high-pitched summoning cry. The raven belly-rolled into the air. Feathers drifted in the wind.

A mental link formed, Ivan briefly gazing into the void before ordering his minion to eviscerate this brainless pile of animated rock.

The raven screeched, swooped down with two beats of its wings, and rained thirty Death Bolts with a single hurl. What a sight it was. Gorgeous!

Groaning in pain, the elemental stumbled in the assault. Three boulders of its right arm disintegrated, corruption spreading upward toward its mana core.

Its eyes flared.

Blinking, Ivan dodged a rock spike. It shattered into three, and the smallest piece buried itself into his thigh four inches from his groin. Blood squirted. Muted pain bit his muscle, his knee folding as though he were submitting. “Shit!”

The Raven dove again, out of its own volition, and finished the kill with precision Bolts through its T-shaped boulder, overwhelming its mana core. Instantly, its magic vanished. The animation fell apart like a house of reeds.

Eyes squeezed shut, Ivan bit his tongue and pulled the granite spike from his leg. The pain was bearable, but he saw a few white splotches. Blood was gushing, bright red under the pale moonlight, and mixed with a pile of granite dust into a maroon paste fuming salty iron. He swallowed a gag.

His hand, from muscle memory, dropped into his pouch and dug for a health potion. A vial appeared in his grasp. He uncorked it with his teeth and tasted strawberry syrup rich with a characteristic calming feel. Healing magic. When the first drop reached his stomach, mana rushed to his leg. Flesh knitted back together slower than hell, itching.

Ivan watched the disgusting weave until his skin was flawless. The biting pain subsided but didn’t leave his thigh entirely—all in his head. His pain tolerance, honestly, was lower than he wanted to admit. He would’ve been on the verge of fainting in the real world.

The voice returned: It’s just some pain, you little bitch.

Piss off.

Ivan roared into the night. His howl of enraged shame echoed back at him from the mountainsides.

On the moon, an old man’s face was sneering. Its craters spoke, “Almost died to a Lesser Elemental. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Fuck off!” Ivan threw a Corrupting Needle at the old man, who looked bizarrely like Rowan Black, whom Ivan couldn’t reach from down here. A million miles separated Ivan from his adversary. He was nothing compared to a World Boss, a million miles he couldn’t cross no matter how much he clawed at the moon.

“Pathetic,” Old Rowan said.

A vein popped deep in Ivan’s head. “I’ll show you fucking pathetic!” His dagger was out.

Old Rowan only sneered. Something dark skipped across his cratered cheek.

Muscles whiplashed up Ivan’s back as a hooded figure appeared in front of him within smoky eddies. The flourish of a narrow, long blade was all he saw before the world faded out. White letters faded in.

You have died. Really, you have. You are not hallucinating. Would you like to review your death? Respawning in 32 hours and 12 minutes.

Ivan was speechless for the longest minutes. His invisible leg kicked empty space. “What. The. Fuck?!”