With a dazed look on his face, Luke was slowly walking down the mountain. He just realized how the inscription on the altar was familiar when he read it; they were lines of the hero in DotA that had the ability 'Counter Helix', Axe!

Axe was a member of the Oglodi race that is very well known for their physical toughness, and their respect for strength. Being the Red Mist General, Axe is well known for his carnage in battle and for the fact that while he grew stronger in each war, his comrades slowly dwindled until on one night of victory in battle, Axe realized that all his comrades were already dead but it didn't matter to him as he believed that a one-man army is the best.

By physical appearance alone, Luke is a far cry to Axe! With his small build and height, he clearly didn't fit the bill for having an ability like Counter Helix where he has to get attacked!

Luke shivered while imagining himself fighting like Axe, it's too horrible to imagine! Although he played sports, he can't really call himself to be good on any one of them! He considers himself to be average at best. And although he can handle a bit of pain, he can't possibly be like Axe who willingly allows his enemies to just hit him with their weapons! That would be too absurd!

In the game, besides items that greatly increased Axe's HP regeneration, you should also have HP boosting items! Just from the fact that he quickly recovered in top condition after using a tango even though he almost died before, Luke figured that his HP was obviously so small! 1 charge of tango can heal about 112 HP so his total HP should be just around that too! To be willing to get hit with just that amount of HP is simply asking for his death!

Cursing his bad luck, he wanted to leave the mountain immediately; he didn't have any plans on trying out his newly obtained ability at all! Even if he still has 4 tangos on him, he didn't want to put himself in any form of pain and torture just so he could witness his ability at work.

While walking down a man-made path he found earlier, he suddenly noticed how there seemed to be a commotion nearby that seemed to be of people fighting.

Rushing towards where the noise was coming from; he gradually heard the voices of people shouting at each other. He was slowly inching towards the area when he suddenly felt the temperature around him suddenly drop sharply as snow suddenly quickly fell, covering everything in the area in white, and he instantly felt himself slowing down as he's walking.

This greatly surprised him as this is after all a tropical country! It was obvious that this was man-made, so it could only be someone that most probably obtained an ability like him!

'Did someone perhaps manage to take a crystal ball that contained Frozen Sigil?' he speculated, as besides Freezing Field that could also cause a snowstorm, Frozen Sigil seemed to be the most probable cause of this since if this was caused by a Freezing Field, the snowstorm would be much fiercer than it is now and most importantly, he's not receiving damage! Frozen Sigils were typically used in chasing or in running away as it would slow down the movement speed of the enemies.

Trekking over the snow slowly, he finally saw the people that were shouting and saw that there were 6 people in the area, 5 men and 1 woman with one man isolated in a corner who was a bit wounded.

What he also noticed was that besides the wounded man, the other 5 people were besides looking a bit disorderly were obviously shivering from the cold and just as he thought earlier, floating above them was a sigil made of ice. 'The isolated man seems to have taken the crystal ball' he surmised.

"You ungrateful bastards! I can't believe you actually tried to kill me even after how good I treated all of you all these years!" grievously shouted the wounded man.

"Hehe... You can't blame us for this Roy, who asked you to have such a beautiful slut of a wife? Us, brothers have been having so much fun with her the past few months so we decided to get rid of you when we had a chance, what can you do about it?" a tall buff man snickered at Roy although he didn't dare approach him because of how Roy made it snow suddenly.

Hearing the two, Luke had a basic idea of what happened here and though he doesn't really have a good temperament and he curses a whole lot, he still considered himself a man that sides with justice so he immediately chose to help Roy.

"Dude, run while you can! Your Frozen Sigil won't last that long! they won't be able to catch up to you if you run now!" Luke shouted while he himself run away too. He's a man of justice but he's not dumb enough to fight a disadvantageous fight so he thought that the least he could do is warn the wounded man to run while he had the chance.

Roy's eyes brightened after hearing Luke and remembered the window a while ago that informed him that the Frozen Sigil would only last for 30 Seconds. Thanking Luke in his heart, he immediately made a dash down the mountain as he controlled the Sigil to always stay above the 5 people to slow them down.

Even though he was a bit wounded, the frozen sigil made him unaffected by the snow and like a fish in waters, he was able to quickly leave the area. A frozen sigil could actually be destroyed but unfortunately for the 5 people, they didn't have any weapon to hit the sigil with so all could they do was to grit their teeth as they tried to chase after Roy.

"Motherfucker! we should have killed him after we killed all those ghosts earlier! Now we can't go back to the city where he might hunt us down with the police! Where's that asshole that shouted earlier?!? We'll fucking kill you when we have the chance!" roared the angry buff man while the people with him stayed silent in fear.

Luke wasn't even able to hear the man's roars as he was even faster than Roy at leaving the area. Though the Frozen Sigil affected him, he had always beem a fast runner so the the sigil didn't affect him that much. Luke chortled thinking how those 5 people were probably vomiting blood as their prey was able to run away thanks to him.

He didn't really think much about what just happened since nobody really saw what he looked like so he was confident that even if he'll meet any one of them, they won't be able to recognize him unless they hear his voice.

Continuing his way down the man-made path, he eventually reached the foot of the mountain where there were stores and cabins available. Arriving there, he felt like a panda in the zoo as everyone stared at him as his clothing were clearly tattered with holes and dirt on them.

"Boy, did you encounter monsters??" An old man asked him in surprise

"Yeah.. There were a pack of giant wolves near the peak.. Got attacked by them after the frog in the sky disappeared" Luke answered embarrassedly as he scratched his head.

"Oh God, there are giant wolves out there? How big are they?" asked a young woman with a plain face who covered her mouth in shock.

"The biggest wolf should be about the size of that SUV over there" he answered while pointing at an SUV parked in the corner and immediately headed towards a restaurant, not minding the astonished faces of the people around him.

Entering a small Chinese restaurant, he quickly made his order and seeing a television, quickly chose to sit near it to listen to the news.

"...Thousands of deaths have been reported just from this hour alone after the appearance of monsters that people only see in games and movies. The numbers are quickly increasing and all these deaths have one thing in common and that is they all happened in rural areas especially in the wilderness so people living in such places are advised to evacuate to the nearest city or town as the government is trying to control the situation..."

Listening to the report made Luke lose a bit of his appetite realizing that the situations worse than he thought. He earlier thought that he's the only one unlucky enough to have a group of monsters appear in front of him. But then he also realized one thing, 'The government doesn't seem to know yet that these monsters come from a game'.

Shaking his head, the meal he ordered arrived but before he could take a bite, another news made him pause.

"A man in Los Baños saved a group of biologists who were working in Mt. Makiling, the group of biologist reported that after the frog in the sky disappeared they continued looking for samples and accidentally stumbled upon a group of giant monsters identified as 'ogres' that immediately attacked them. They immediately ran for their lives but as they were about to be caught by the ogres, a man suddenly appeared at the sidelines. After the man saw the situation, he apparently jumped and punched the ground, but upon impact, the land suddenly and a ridge of stone rose from the ground that formed a line from where the man punched, blocking the ogres from catching the biologists...."

"Looks like someone learned Fissure, I guess there are many like us around the world that found crystal balls and managed to kill the monsters around it" he commented.

"What did you say, young man?" a hoarse voice suddenly asked behind him.

Looking behind him, he realized that a group of men around 30-40 years old by their appearance were looking at him with curiosity and a man with long hair tied in a ponytail seemed to have asked the question as he was looking at him at him intently, waiting for his answer.

"Oh.. uhmm.. you see there was a camp in the valley next to the Mountain here where 30 kobolds were staying in, in the middle of the camp was an altar with a crystal ball floating on top of it. The ball contained an ability like that man on the news that caused a fissure on the ground after just punching it" he honestly answered, believing that news about it would eventually be released anyway.

"Kobolds? what's a kobold?" asked a lanky man with an eye tatoo on his neck beside the man with the ponytail.

"Oh they're humanoid monsters that look like lizards, they're quite agile and some of them had weapons" Luke quickly replied as he ate.

"Hmmm... so how did you know the crystal ball contained an ability?" asked the man with the ponytail.

"Oh.. uhmm.. well..." Unsure whether he should divulge the fact that he received an ability he tried to show that he was quite unwilling to answer.

"Hoho.. Don't worry now, we're just wondering, all these events happening around the world and nobody around here seems to have an answer to any questions of ours" The man replied to show that he didn't have any bad intentions.

Seeing how they seemed to be telling the truth, he answered them honestly "Well I managed to get my hands on it and I really obtained an ability. But of course, I had to kill my way towards it so i wiped out all the kobolds before I managed to get my hands on the ball" he specifically mentioned how he killed monsters to show that he wasn't a pushover.

"Huh... Is that so... I'll have to inform my other friends about these crystal balls if they can give us abilities, thanks boy, we'll have to go now" said the ponytailed who immediately left the restaurant with the other men.

Looking at the backs of these men, Luke felt a bit uncomfortable but brushed it off immediately as he was about to finish his meal and wanted to go back to the city as soon as possible..

After paying and leaving the restaurant, he went around the area and asked whether the roads to the city are safe since perhaps a group of monsters may have spawned on or near the road. Fortunately for him, everyone told him how the roads are still safe so after hailing a taxi nearby, he was now on his way to the city.

***

"So you're saying that if we manage to get our hands on these crystal balls, we'll get powers like the ones we saw on the news?" A handsome young man who was sitting while drinking tea asked the man in front of him.

"Yes, sir. My brothers and I were eating in a restaurant when we heard a young man murmuring about how the man on the news encountered the same situation he did so we immediately asked him about it and he told us about the kobold camp" The middle aged man with the ponytail that was talking to Luke a while ago answered the young man.

"Hmmm... How sure are you that he truly obtained an ability?" the young man asked without any hint of a surprise on his face.

"Sir, that young man we asked had an incredibly dirty appearance and we noticed that there was dried blood on his clothes, the only thing i'm confused about is that he didn't have any wounds as he was moving around quite well."

Hearing that his clothes had dried blood but had no wounds, the young man immediately perked up in interest "That man is either an expert at fighting that he wasn't even injured and the blood on his clothes were the kobolds' or he got injured but he somehow has able to heal his wounds, and I strongly believe it's the latter" his eyes brightened at the possibility so he quickly ordered the man.

"Go capture and interrogate him whether he has a healing item, you can also check whether he has a crystal ball on him. Get rid of him immediately once he's of no use."

"Yes, sir" the middle aged man bowed his head and quickly left the room to call his men.

The young man on the other hand continued drinking his tea as if there wasn't anything bad about what he just ordered, "The world's become much more interesting after that frog appeared" he said while the corners of his mouth rose in a smile.

Luke on the other hand was fast asleep in a taxi, without any idea of the trouble he brought upon himself.