Rebirth: Rise of the Slave Master

Chapter One: A Not so Tragic Fate

“May your souls rot forever as you serve in Heaven!” the powerful raid boss, Agamemnon, shouted as he finally collapsed under the assault of the hundred or so elite players.

Six years! It had taken Theo six years to reach this point... to stand atop the heads of millions and arrive at the peak of the virtual reality MMORPG, Dream World Online! Even though he’d started later than the diehard players, even though he had to struggle and sweat and bleed to achieve all that he had, Theo had finally made it!

Ding! Guild Mutiny initiated! Waiting for vote!

7%... 22%... 51%... 92%...

Guild Mutiny confirmed! Shame upon you, Guild Leader, for you have forsaken the trust of your comrades!

Theo turned his head at the sudden announcement, his eyes falling immediately upon his most trusted Vice-Guild Leader, Adrian.

“What are you-”

His words were cut short by the shield that slammed into his chest.

You have received [Shield Bash]... Damage… Stunned…

You have received [Shredding Shot]...

You have received [Flame Lash]...

The announcements flooded Theo’s ears as his HP bar rapidly declined. Stunned, Armor Rend, Burning… the words all melded together as the various status effects stacked on him.

But who was Theo anyway? He was the War God! The player with skills to rival the heavens! His glaive flashed with a brilliant, macabre light as it met the nearby thief Twelve Strikes, one of his allies and leader of his guild’s DPS wing.

[War God’s Wrath]

Twelve Strikes’s eyes went wide as his honed reflexes kicked into full gear, trying to dodge the incoming blow. It was a deft movement, but his efforts were all in vain. As if walking right into the path of the attack, it landed precisely where he had attempted to evade!

A massive damage number flashed above his head.

[War God’s Judgement]

Theo followed up the attack with a ghostly movement, his body shrouded by the sheer speed and force of his swing.

Another massive damage number floated up as the follow-up strike connected.

Combo x2! Critical hit! Bleeding!

The various status effects began whirling about and Twelve Strikes’s character exploded into bits of tiny red particles.

“The real boss is here boys! Don’t let up!” Adrian shouted, his eyes glossed over with greed and adrenaline.

“You fucking bastards!” Theo shouted, his lungs burning with rage and exhaustion.

His HP was only at a measly 22% when he finished battling against the God-Tier Boss, Agamemnon. The second-to-last boss in the entirety of Dream World Online.

The fight raged on after that. The weakened Theo, the War God, was like an incarnation of battle, shredding his way through the people he had once called allies. He couldn’t stop for even half a breath to understand why this was happening to him, but his finely-honed battle instincts carried him forward all the same.

Good Aligned Player Killed! Alignment: Evil +50…

Good Aligned Player Killed! Alignment: Evil +50…

Good Aligned Player Killed! Alignment: Evil +50…

The numbers started stacking up as he carved his way through the exhausted guild members.

Adrian had already retreated to the back as soon as the Mutiny announcement had sounded, and he used the other players like a shield to block Theo’s approach.

“I’ll rip you all to shreds!” Theo roared.

HP below 10% [Rage of the War God] Activated!

It all happened in a matter of moments, Theo had split a path through the elite squadron and rapidly approached Adrian’s position. HP fell rapidly. His glaive was only inches away from his throat when…

You have received [Death God’s Strike]... entering Unconscious state! Unable to counter!

“Elizabeth…” Theo rasped with his last breath as his character’s body hit the ground with a thud.

[Death God’s Strike] was a skill that could only be used by a player with the Death God Archetype. It was an attack that instantly killed any enemy below 5% HP, and was worthy of a skill with the word God attached to it! However, the only player in the game with the Death God Archetype was his partner and lover… Death God Elizabeth!

Your Spouse has slain you! Relationship points -100%... Nullifying partner bonuses. Max HP reduced… Damage reduced… Resistance reduced... Equipment: Red Rings of Fate automatically unequipped.

Theo’s eyes dulled as the battle rage finally cleared from his mind, as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been suddenly dumped over his head.

“Hmph… he really lived up to his name…” a smooth, sultry voice sounded from above Theo’s unconscious body.

Rather than immediately dying, it was an attribute of players with a God-tier archetype to enter an unconscious state when their HP was reduced to 0%. Since they were supposed to be Gods, after all. This allowed them to automatically resurrect after five minutes had passed, but it could only be used once per day. Theo never thought he would live to see a day where he would regret having this ability so much!

Adrian wrapped an arm around the waist of a tall, slender woman garbed in black. She had already sheathed the malevolently glowing daggers that she had used to strike Theo in the back. The man’s shiny white armor glittered under the pale sunlight as if Prince Charming had just triumphed against a terrifying dragon!

“Pff… it wasn’t anything much to bring down this big blowhard,” the man cooed softly into the woman’s ear.

The amount of intimacy between the two wasn’t even remotely hidden, as she allowed the White Knight to embrace her fully.

Theo’s body was still as the grave, but his heart was shaking with an unimaginable fury!

Betrayed! A classic, soap-opera worthy betrayal!

The woman, Elizabeth, pouted softly like a shy maiden, completely flying in the face of the carnage and dismembered bodies all around her.

“Did you bring the item?” she asked.

Adrian smirked, his face glowing with a stomach-turning pride as he removed a dull-black crystal from his inventory.

Theo’s eyes would have gone wide if they weren’t already shut.

[Godslayer’s Inheritance]

It was an incredibly rare item that had to be farmed tirelessly from a special hidden boss that only spawned in a terrifying dungeon! It was the only item in the game that could strip a player of a their character Archetype! The item was put in by the developers after a backlash against the overpowered God-tier Archetypes. Since there could only be one of each God in the game, this would remove the Archetype from the current God and reinstate the Legacy quest that allowed one to receive its powers. Of course, you had to slay the God player in order to use it in the first place.

It was a high-tier PVP item and its drop rate was less than 1/1000! This betrayal had clearly been a long-term plan!

“That fuck! That… that…” Theo couldn’t force himself to curse the name of the woman he had been so intimate with for the past year.

Although they’d started out as rivals, the memories of their time together were still fresh in his mind. It felt as though his heart was being torn out slowly with a thousand cuts!

Even though he couldn’t speak while in the Unconscious state, Theo could still use the local text chat function. All he could manage to type out was a single word.

Theo: Why?

Adrian couldn’t help but laugh as he saw the message.

“You bastard! You really think you can go around acting like some sort of high-and-mighty world savior and nobody would have anything to say about it!?”

The words from the man who had once been like a brother to him stung, but Theo could barely feel it over the pain from his lover’s betrayal.

“I admit that you’re better at this damn game than I am,” Adrian began again, “but so what? You’re so focused on playing that you neglect everything else! Your friends! Your guild!”

He planted a tender kiss on the lips of the woman in his arm.

“Your girl.”

Elizabeth wriggled cutely in the man’s embrace, and it made Theo’s mind reel backward. He felt like vomiting!

Theo: All of that. I did it for everyone.

As if he couldn’t believe it himself he added.

Theo: Didn’t I?

Adrian burst out lauging, as if barely able to contain the sickening feelings in his stomach.

“For us!?” after another round of laughing, he finally calmed down, “maybe you did, ex-guild leader, but it doesn’t matter. You’re not a leader anymore. You’re not a God anymore. You’re not even a man anymore!”

He spat on Theo’s corpse.

“Though I do have to thank you,” he said soberly, “just one more quest and I can be the God you never could. I honestly would have never reached this point without you!”

A shadow of guilt flashed across Elizabeth’s eyes before she quickly wiped it from her face.

“Just die quietly, Rick,” she whispered.

You have been removed from Guild: Alabaster Alliance.

You have been blacklisted by White Knight Adrian.

You have been blacklisted by Death God Elizabeth.

Blacklisted. They wouldn’t see anything he typed from this point on.

The rest of the guild quickly piled on his body and bashed it out of its protected Unconscious state. When he was nothing more than a corpse on the cold ground, Adrian used the [Godslayer’s Inheritance] and stripped him of his Archetype. As a penalty for death, he would no doubt drop down at least 2-3 levels, not mention losing all of his most powerful skills. Without a guild, he would have to grind for weeks just to make up a single bit of experience. The whole world he had built inside the game suddenly came crashing down around him.

Everything he had worked so hard for… gone in an instant.

The guild he had painstakingly raised after three years. The friends he had made. The challenges he had overcome. Even the enemies that plagued him over his six years of game time had seemed like fond memories now.

Rick Nelson was a tired, broken man when he left his house that evening. Although it was already 10pm, he somehow managed to drink everything that was left in his refrigerator. A couple of beers and a mostly-drained bottle of wine. After that, he successfully stumbled his way to a nearby bar and crawled into the deepest stupor he could afford.

After years of selling items that he collected in Dream World Online, he had made quite a bit of money. It wasn’t like when he first started off, still living in a studio apartment and struggling to get by. The virtual to real currency transactions had made him a rich man, as Dream World Online ramped up in popularity it quickly approached a 1:1 exchange ratio between in-game gold and the US dollar! Rare items dropped from normally impossible to defeat bosses sold for thousands! There were always rich, lazy players who wanted a leg-up on the competition, after all.

How could the one and only War God not possibly make a fortune?

But now it all seemed to turn into dirt. Even the drinks tasted bad.

“Hey, pal, I think it’s time you wrapped it up. Need me to call a cab?” the bartender was a cute young woman with a short-stature but a large chest.

She was used to dealing with drunks, and knew almost immediately that this was a man who had suffered a tough day, probably a break up. It wasn’t her first rodeo, after all. She certainly couldn’t let someone that drunk drive home.

“I live ‘round the corner…” Rick blurted out after spending a good ten seconds fishing for the right words, “I can walk…”

After downing a cold ice-water, Rick stumbled out of the bar in the most upright position he could manage. The cold air helped to sober him up a bit.

All he wanted to do was forget this day. He wanted to pass out on his bed and go drinking again in the morning. Maybe he would log back into the VRMMO world that had consumed his life for the past six years, but somehow he doubted it. Thoughts of returning to school and finishing his degree flashed in his head, interspersed with various now-sour memories of his time in the game.

“Elizabeth… was I really that bad?”

The words escaped his lips in a hushed tone, his ears suddenly ringing from all directions. It sounded like a horn blowing in the distance. He slowly turned his head, and his eyes were suddenly flooded with a bright light.

SCREEEE!

There was an instant, awful, thud and all of the wind was knocked out of Rick’s body. He hit the pavement before he even understood what had happened to him.

Everything went dark.

Bree! Bree! Bree!

A tired hand slapped the screeching alarm clock by Rick’s bedside.

Was it all a dream?

Rick’s mind was suddenly clear and sober, flooded with memories of the previous day’s events. Had he simply imagined getting hit by a car after drinking all night? Why didn’t he feel like he had a hangover?

His body was well-trained after years of serious effort, but that couldn’t have possibly made up for the amount he indulged in!

As a reflex, he leapt out of bed and went right for his PC. It was at that moment that he noticed something terribly wrong about his current scenario. This place… it was his old apartment!

Just as Rick thought he might have wandered back to wrong home like a confused cat, he realized that this room had all of his old stuff in it! A coincidence? He remembered all of this scattered junk as clearly as if he still owned it.

The last night? Talk about six years! He couldn’t have dreamed it all up, could he?

Impossible!

All of this was too impossible!

He checked the time and date on his PC, where the long-since obsolete operating system greeted him with a nostalgic chime. His mind was running in overdrive.

Six years, six months, six days! That was it! He had gone back in time!