When Ryu stepped into the portal, he immediately felt like he was being thrown up, into the sky, except he wasn’t. He kept going up, into nothing, until his motion switched directions. Falling until he could see new ground and falling some more until he could see bodies on its surface.

The ground was dry and cracked dirt, starved for water under the heat of the sun, and as he neared it he could hear it rumbling beneath the roaring of spellfire and the clanking of metal.

[Quest update: Reclaim the eastern front]

Ryu’s feet touched the ground, and he immediately rolled left, narrowly dodging a fireball which scorched the hairs on his skin. Standing back up, his eyes swooped across the chaos around him. Above all else, the sounds were most evident. NPC’s crying out for their nations as they crossed arms with the enemy, arrows piercing through armor and most of all bodies hitting the ground.

However, the players were on a completely different level. Ryu observed an exchange between two colorful specimens. One, a rogue, donning a sword and buckler, and the other an assassin, wielding two katars.

“Only noobs play rogues!” shouted the assassin.

The rogue kicked the ground, throwing dirt into the others eyes.

“You’re saltier than super saturated hydrochloric acid!” spat the rogue.

A few players stopped their fights to respect the effort placed into that comeback, regardless of whether it made any sense.

“Fucking no skill fuck!” retorted the assassin.

The cesspool of toxic drivel that was player bants never ceased. Even in defeat, chat would go on.

But the chaos around him was no match for the chaos within his head.

Of all the places, a battlefield was the perfect source of data to teach Dot how to fight, and the steady stream of data was matched one for one by repeated updates to Dot’s combat routine.

Adjusting the grip on his own blade, Ryu leaped at the nearest enemy, which so happened to be a mage who’d wandered too far.

The moment the mage spotted Ryu coming at them, it was already too late, as Ryu knocked them to the ground and stabbed them in the chest, once, twice… at this point it looked manic as he stabbed a third time…. and a fourth time. Ah, yes, now they were dead! Since when were mages so tanky?

Ryu stared at his weapon.

“I think I need a new weapon…”

“Hey fuck face!”

Ryu readied his blade.

“Quit standing around!”

Ryu had no idea who was speaking, but he still got the idea.

The battle around him was still raging, albeit, some players stood in groups and chatted while others fought vehemently to score as many points as they could. Put simply, more points meant a greater reward. And so far, Ryu hadn’t done a whole lot.