Inside the game Ashenload, deep within the earth, an intense and destructive battle was taking place. The sounds echoing up from the caves wherein the battle was taking place would have anyone convinced that the fight was closely fought, and without any quarter given nor taken.

The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

There was nothing close about the battle happening, nor was the outcome in any doubt. This fight was as one-sided as it could be.

But only two people knew this. And of those two, only one wasn’t me.

Revy knows full well that there’s nothing her opponents can do. But, that’s not what they thought.

The poor things actually thought they stood a good chance.

Of course, those ‘poor things’ are Red Robed mages—people who should rightfully stand above all but the gods here in this Ashenload game.

So, it’s not unreasonable that they thought the fight was in their favor.

And, the fact that Revy wasn’t going easy on them with her illusions was another reason they thought they had a chance. This is because of the relationship between coefficients of….

Actually, probably better to just show you, right?

So, here’s what’s happening—

“Tie her the fuck down, you idiots!” Yelled someone, over several large concussive booms echoing through the cavern.

“We’re trying Sigrid, ya ingrate bastard! She keeps slipping away somehow!”

“Try the lava again! It worked the first time!”

“Can’t! She’s moving too much—We’d need to stop her for a second!”

“Fuck! Nira, can you hit her up with your vines?!”

“I can try!”

Long ropy twines of plant matter erupted from the ground, rocketing towards the focus off all this chaos—Revy, who was gracefully dodging everything thrown at her and cutting down that which she couldn’t dodge.

The vines were noticed a fraction of a second too late, and wrapped themselves around one of Revy’s legs. She looked down at the vines with a blank face, annoyance bubbling just below the surface.

“Do it now!” Screeched Sigrid.

“Blood of stone, rise!” Chanted Galthor.

The ground beneath Revy cracked and bubbled, magma spitting out from between the slates of rock. It quickly rose around Revy, forming a molten cocoon around her.

A tense silence followed.

“Did we get her?” Said Hoid, voicing everyone’s question.

“No.” Said Revy, who was standing right beside him.

Hoid whirled around, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid being shish-kebabed by Revy’s sword—which had been shoved though his chest, and into the heart.

“Hoid!” Yelled Galthor, whose face had turned murderous—A far cry from the wise-cracking jokester who has first entered the cavern.

“You’ll pay for this, you bitch!”

Revy cracked a small grin.

“Make me.”

“Blood of the earth! Coalesce and crush, erupt and rage!”

Galthor’s chant caused the ground to heave violently, and a massive gorge opened up right underneath Revy’s feet. She couldn’t avoid the sudden shifting, and flailed wildly for a moment before losing her footing and falling.

“Galthor! Stop it, you’ll run out of mana!” Yelled Nira, who had noticed how much energy had been poured into his magic.

“No! I have to be sure!” He replied, his eyes turning red from broken blood vessels and his skin taking on a flushed and grey look.

“You’re going to burn out, idiot.” Murmured Gabriel under his breath, while looking at Galthor with distain.

Mana continued being poured into Galthor’s spell, despite the warnings of his fellows. He guided the magic, reshaping the earth with incredible care and precision. That rift running the length of the cavern slowly began to rumble closed, the ground resealing itself.

With a final and resonant thud, the two halves of the rift met each other, making it look as if nothing had happened in the cavern. Galthor collapsed to the ground, sweat beading all over his body.

“That…should have gotten her.” He said, panting slightly.

Nira and Sigrid rushed over to where he had fallen, worried for their comrade. Gabriel stayed where he was, surveying the cavern with bored disinterest while the other two checked on Galthor, and Hoid’s body.

He noticed the large Obelisk standing in the center of the Cavern, and how it had miraculously survived the conflagration of magic from their battle.

“The fuck is that?” Asked Gabriel, more to himself than anyone else.

“What is it?” Called out Sigrid, while he’s checking on Galthor.

“That…pillar—in the middle of this place. What the hell is it? Shouldn’t it be broken from the fighting?”

“Doesn’t matter right now! Get over here, help us with Gal. Hoid should be respawning soon.”

“Sure sure. Whatever you want, master.”

“Cut the sarcasm idiot. We need to get out of here before that crowd from before decides to come down. They can’t see us so weak.”

“Bah, what does it even matter? If they dare disrespect us, I could always just…ugh…?”

He stopped speaking midsentence, and a sound like a sack of potatoes hitting the ground was heard, catching the attention of Nira and Sigrid.

Gabriel had fallen to the ground, and a dusty and dirty Revy stood behind him, holding his severed head in her outstretched hand. She opened her grip, and head rejoined body on the ground.

Nira and Sigrid shared a tense and baffled look. Then, Nira’s expression hardened, and she faced Revy.

“Are you with me, Sigrid?” She asked.

“Of course. We won’t get out of this mess alone.”

“Good. Take her left, I’ll take the right.”

“Sure.”

They broke off, sprinting in opposite directions. Revy stood still, watching their movements with a disinterested gaze.

She sighed.

“Idiots for attacking me.”

Revy started walking towards Nira calmly. Nira chanted a quick spell, and vines wrapped around Revy for a split moment before breaking apart.

“Sigrid, distract her!” Shouted Nira, whose magic was wholly ineffective when being broken so quickly.

He reacted, and formed long blades of wind to shoot at Revy—who was still walking straight towards Nira, without any deviations in her path.

He loosed the wind blades, and they shrieked towards Revy.

But they never hit.

No, the blades of wind reached Revy just fine, stunning Sigrid—who had expected the blades to break or disappear somehow.

They didn’t break, nor did it seem that Revy would do anything to counter them.

And then the blades’ flight paths bent around Revy, continuing straight on towards Nira at supersonic velocities.

She didn’t get a single chance to dodge them. Instead, she fell to pieces.

Sigrid slumped to the ground, and stared at Revy with hopeless eyes.

“Aw—Did I break you?” She asked.

“You…What the hell are you?” said Sigrid under his breath, almost as if her hadn’t heard Revy’s question—proving that yes, he is slightly broken at the moment.

She walked over to him, her weapon sheathed and with no ill intent. Well, almost no ill intent.

“What am I, you ask?”

He glanced up, a baleful look on his face.

“Yes, what the fucking hell are you? Nobody should have the power to destroy a team of five Red Robes. Not so damn casually, anyway.”

Revy smiled, and though it looked vicious, it wasn’t unkind.

“Me? Just a player.”

“Bullshit.”

She shrugged.

“I’m beatable too, you know.”

Sigrid muttered under his breath—something about “beatable my ass.” and “how many fucking Red’s do we need to kill her?”

Revy, hearing this, sighed.

“I’ll send you back up.” She said.

Sigrid jolted.

“Wait, you’re just letting me go?”

“Huh? Of course not.”

Crack.

She snapped his neck.

Technically, she did send him back up, via the respawn system.

Anyway, the fight was over.

However, what Sigrid had experienced wasn’t exactly real, per say. Because, you have to remember that he had been immersed in Revy’s illusions the whole time—as had his comrades. What they had seen differed vastly from what Revy was experiencing.

In fact, most of the fighting didn’t even involve the real Revy. Hell, almost everything had been fake.

So, let’s go back and take a look at what really happened.

Revy stood in the center of the cavern, watching the five Red Robes carefully. This was just after she had initiated the illusory worlds that had surrounded each of the mages.

And really, things looked downright bizarre from her perspective. She had switched up the perspectives of her opponents, making it so that none of them was truly where they thought they were. For instance, the oldest member of the group—Hoid—was simply staring at a wall, chanting off spells that never even came close to Revy. Oh, sure, he thought his spells were working well. But then again, he also thought that he was looking at Revy, who was demonstrably not a wall.

That’s the thing about illusions, and the reason why they can be so fearsome when used in capable hands. Revy’s flipped each of their worlds upside-down, and convinced them they’re still right-side up essentially.

So, they were all stuck in her illusions. But that left the question of what to do with them. And Revy solved that in the simplest manner.

By killing all of them, the problem was out of her hands. She changed and engineered the illusions to fit a scenario where the Red Robes were killed one after another.

First, she walked over to where Hoid was standing. She calmly pulled out her sword, and rammed it through his chest. He collapsed, and the other member of his group became agitated as the illusory version of him also died in much the same way.

Then, she made a lap around the cavern, dispatching them one by one and disabling the versions of them projected in the illusions. Well, she did this to all but one—who actually killed himself from mana exhaustion by trying to open up a hole in the wall.

It didn’t work, by the way. It seems that the floor, walls, and ceiling of this particular cavern was warded from change somehow. Trying to affect it in any fashion was a massive gesture in futility.

Seeing that they had all died, and gone to respawns, Revy took one last look at the Obelisk standing tall in the middle of the cavern, and left.

On her way out, she passed by the crowd of people who had followed her to the cavern entrance where the seal stood. They had apparently been cowed into staying back by the Red Robes, and had been waiting to see if there was any indication of what was happening down below.

Revy—known as Deus in her current disguise—passed by them without a word, almost as if she didn’t notice their curious and concerned gazes. As if she were above them all.

As soon as she was out of sight, Revy heard the scramble of feet as the crowd rushed into the tunnel leading to the cavern.

They would find the Obelisk waiting down there, and read its message. And then, Ashenload would go back to normal again.

Well, for a time. Eventually, things would reset, and the cycle would continue anew.

And, you know, Revy initially hadn’t intended on interfering with this. She ended up having to since nobody seemed to be connecting any of the clues from previous quests, and the strange things from them hadn’t been investigated.

Hopefully, this would get the ball rolling once more. After all, she thought that it would be bad for those ‘Player Gods’ to remain in power for too long—and as the one who had technically given them that power in the first place, Revy felt slightly responsible for some of the odd thing’s they’ve done so far.

So, she needed to set the tumblers in motion and unlock the way forward.

And she did.

With that task accomplished, Revy logged back out from Ashenload, and occupied the rest of her day doing other things.

She did some homework, looked some stuff up, read a few web-novels.

Normal things, considering all that’s in store for her.

What? I can foreshadow things, right? Come on, it’s pretty obvious that something big’s going to happen sooner or later. Everything I’ve observed leads to that conclusion. As well, things point towards Revy being at the center of events. Predictable, but potentially interesting. I wonder what mantle she’ll take when the time comes, what name she’ll bear? There’s so many to choose from, after all.

The alarm going off woke me up.

A rarity, considering that I’m normally awake and good to go well before it has a chance to ring.

Bah—the stuff that happened yesterday probably just took a larger toll than expected. It’s been a while since the last time my illusion abilities were used in Ashenload after all, and it normally takes some time to get used to the slightly different…feeling you get when using mana in a virtual reality. Like, there’s a more mechanical flow to magic in a simulation, whereas reality operates much smoother.

You have to adjust to Ashenload, and any other VR. And since it’s been so long, I hadn’t done that. Hence why what happened might have been more draining that expected.

Oh well. Nothing much is happening today—besides school, of course. So, it should be possible to simply relax. Nothing will happen.

As always, getting to school was simple, and the train wasn’t even all that crowded today. Seats were available, and watching the buildings flash on by during the train’s journey has always been nice. Particularly as architecture and quality of design improved closer to the center of Jor.

You could watch the transition happening, moving from the regular day-to-day city towards the center—where all the big money and important blood was. It’s also where the school I go to was set up, since it caters to the wealthier and more powerful individuals in their education.

And, as a school for important people, it looked as fancy and imposing as one would expect. Big fluted columns, massive windows, doors the size of most cars, and white marble and granite composed the entirety of the school. That’s not to say the school doesn’t look graceful as well, in it’s own odd way. The school was sort of timeless—and that’s a oft dismissed quality.

Anyway, my train slid to a flawless stop at the station nearest to the school, and I disembarked.

However, my phone buzzed while getting off the train. I pulled it out, and glanced at the screen.

Shit.

Fuck me, that isn’t good.

I got a message from Jvorg. It’s contents aren’t exactly… pleasing.

It read: “Move up your schedule. Members of Pantheon are moving, ETA one month. They found you, somehow.”