In a dark alleyway, far from the views of any normal people, shadows covered the alleyway. Despite the sun’s rays shining down on the city without restraint, not a single speck of light entered down this hallway of a busy street. People walked past this alleyway without noticing anything unusual about it and went along their way. Rodents, flies, and other creatures also subconsciously avoided this alleyway.

“Guk!” Poison was forced to the wall with a thick muscular hand around her throat, choking her.

“Gah!” Vio was in a similar situation right alongside her.

“You aren’t the first daemon to try and trick me. Do you think I'm stupid enough to believe your lies?”

A white-skinned daemon bursting with muscle glared at the two with his red glowing eyes. Poison was pissed that this muscle-bound freak didn’t even give her the chance to explain or prove anything before attacking her. Vio was pissed because he knew that this was exactly how it was going to turn out. Now he was going to lose his poor little life because of Poison’s grand ambitions. She couldn’t even talk her way out of this one because their throats were getting crushed!

“L-Let me... speak!” She coughed out, showing no signs of putting up a fight.

Seeing that she wasn’t trying to retaliate to save her own life did make him confused. The male daemon was doing everything he could to remove his arm from around his neck while the female didn’t resist at all. Could it be that she accepted her fate and knew that she didn’t stand a chance against him? Regardless, he would kill them all the same. Daemons were attracted and envious of his strength. These two weren’t the first ones to try and manipulate him into following them like their servant.

“She’s real! T-the powerful human... is real!” Poison hacked up while being choked.

He released his hold around her throat and let her drop to the ground. She coughed to take in air before quickly speaking. Poison noticed the changing skin color of Vio which meant that he was on the verge of dying from lack of oxygen. There was no time to waste.

“I know someone that can give you a satisfying fight! As long as you follow us, we can give you as many powerful opponents as you want! Our goal is to become the strongest daemons of the era and no longer hide away from the fragile humans and annoying magjistars! We know that you’re not interested in just any regular opponents so, we’ll bring you to an unusually strong human! You can just kill us if she’s not up to your standards!” Poison pleaded her case.

“Interesting...” He dropped Vio who fell face-first to the pavement, passed out.

“So, you are willing to allow me to hold your lives for the sake of your ambitions?” He asked.

“For the time being. How could I call myself a daemon if I was okay with death constantly floating over my shoulder? In time, I intend to surpass you but for now, I can only do what is within my limits. Will you be willing to work with us? We will find strong opponents for you to face off against and you will protect me and him from anyone too powerful for us to handle together.” Poison rubbed her sore throat.

“This is a first for me. You intend to use me but at the same time, fulfilling what I desire in life. I have no reason to refuse but for some reason, I despise the thought of having to work along with you two weaklings. Is it my innate nature as a daemon or is there something about you two that is not reliable?”

“Our lives are in your hands. If you are unsatisfied with the strength of the opponent, we send you against, you can easily kill us for wasting your time. So, what do you say? Do we have a deal?” Poison held out her hand with magji focused around it.

“A Heart-Bound Contract? What is the meaning of this?” He glared at her.

“Just take a close read. You will find it to be in your favor.” She held her hand up in his face for him to carefully read the floating glowing letters.

Poison and Vio shall at any time be killed by Warrior if they are unable to find him a worthy opponent every 182 days. Warrior is unable to kill Poison and Vio if the first conditions are properly met by the end of the time period. Poison and Vio are unable to command and force Warrior to do their bidding. Warrior will relinquish all the bodies of killed opponents to Poison and Vio. Poison and Vio will be responsible for satisfying Warrior’s needs regarding finding strong opponents as long as he cooperatively works alongside Poison and Vio. If Warrior doesn’t work in a cooperative manner with Poison and Vio, they are unable to be harmed or killed by him and the time period of 182 days will be doubled to 364 days.

“How is it?” Poison asked.

“You’re one shrewd daemon...” He muttered.

“Is there anything unsatisfactory? You will get your wish for strong opponents without having to lift a finger. We will do all the work for you, while all you have to do is wait and then fight.” Poison explained.

“Fine.” Warrior’s sole purpose in life was to fight powerful opponents after all. It was the entire reason he was born in the first place.

They shook hands and a magji chain wrapped itself around their hearts. The pain brought both of them to their knees and also woke up Vio from his fainted state. Poison had no issue forcing Vio into the contract as it was sort of his cowardly nature that gave her the idea for it. This was a partnership after all. What kind of partnership would this be if her life was the only one in danger?

“We have a base that you can stay at with us.” Poison told him.

“This strong human. Tell me about her.”

“Very well. Follow us.” Poison led the way out of the alleyway with Warrior following behind her and Vio stumbling behind them in a dazed state.

“Zoey are you busy?” Everett knocked from outside her door.

“Why?” She asked.

“Can you play Freestyle Battleground Arena with me? I keep getting trash teammates and can’t improve my rank.” He asked.

“Uhm, it’s been a while since I played any games... I might not be able to help much.” Zoey responded.

“Pleaseeeeee.” He begged.

“Alright, but I told you I'm rusty. If I die a lot, it isn’t my fault.” She got up from her bed and got on her computer.

“Awesome! I’ll send the party invite!” Zoey heard his little feet slapping against the floor all the way to his room.

She hasn’t played a game since summer break before her junior year started at school. After getting the Status Box, everything started to get a little crazy for herself. She found herself busier and busier since then. Zoey didn’t count the mobile games on her phone as games either but more as time-wasters. You know, those types of bubble popping puzzle games and other games that used to be games that the kids secretly played on the school computers before the teachers started blocking the websites.

Zoey started up the game and got the invite from Everett. She clicked to accept it and now she was in a party with her little brother. His character was dressed up like some badass awesome hottie in a business suit. A black suit, white tie, black shoes, black dress pants, and a handsome face behind the dark sunglasses. While her character only had a white tank top covering her upper body and mint-green panties for bottom wear with her bare feet. In other words, she was a completely poor noob with nothing to her name or character!

“Did you just buy this game...?” Everett asked over the voice chat.

“I bought it but never really got around to playing it...” She answered.

“Wait?! You don’t even know how to play?!”

“It's just a shooting game, isn’t it? I just got to shoot people to win, don’t I?”

“Well, yeah but! It’s a lot harder than you think! People usually form squads to win with like 4 people! So, in like every game you could be facing up against a team of up to 4 people shooting at you from every single direction!”

“Cool. Let’s start playing then.” Zoey didn’t want to feel like she wasted her dad’s money buying this game without playing it at least once.

“Alright...” Everett didn’t sound too happy about this. Zoey thought it was funny.

They entered a game with 98 other gamers to fight against. They dropped from out of a cargo plane with parachutes and completely weaponless. Everett led the way for her and basically just told her to follow him. He led them to an abandoned military airbase and Zoey could see dozens of other gamers floating down alongside them.

“Find a weapon! That’s your first goal!” He told her.

“Is there a gun, I should look out for or it doesn’t matter?” In some games, there were guns that were so bad that people would rather go weaponless than pick them up.

“Doesn’t matter. Find a gun, take the ammo, and kill anyone you see that isn’t me. Then we’ll meet up and travel together.”

Their first match together started off well until it turned into complete horseshit. Zoey and Everett managed to survive the starting phase with decent weapons, good body gear, and a vehicle to drive with. It was only when they decided to search an abandoned farm that they got trapped on all sides by a 4-man squad who filled the house full of bullets, explosives, and fire to kill them. Apparently, these people were known as stream snipers and knew exactly where to find them to kill them to mess with her brother’s stream.

“That’s kind of lame.” Was Zoey’s comment about it while inwardly she was more like, ‘You little motherfuckers messed with the wrong one! You want to ruin my innocent little brother’s stream?! I’ll show you to mess with the Winters...’

[Gaming Lv1]