Dried woods cackled crisply within the red burning braziers. The red flame flickered and reflected the dancing shadows of over a hundred people on the ceiling of the dark catacomb.

A drop of sweat rolled down on Makerth’s wrinkly forehead and somehow managed to bypass his bushy gray brows and found its way into his right eye. It stung him more than he thought it would. However, Makerth refused to let it affect his concentration and interfere with his mission. He closed his right eyes shut, filled his lungs with the moldy stench of the catacomb’s air, and flooded more mana into the forbidden artifact placed on the altar.

On the altar of the Dark God placed the Eye of Magnamor, a remnant from the age of the First Divine War. The Eye of Magnamor seemed to laugh at the effort of Makerth and his 107 fellow magic casters to fill it with their mana. According to the old text, once the Eye of Magnamor was filled up with mana, it would burn like a sun. It would open a gateway to Kharigan, and invite one of the fifty reigning Demon Lords to the realm of mortals. However, Makerth and his magic casters had done nothing but filling the artifact with their mana for the last five hours and the accursed artifact, it showed no sign of any reaction. He wished that he had more time to prepare and gathered more magic casters for this ambitious project, at least another hundred or so within their organization to complete this ritual.

It has to be today, Makerth begrudgingly gritted his teeth or he must try to outlive even the oldest rocks on Escana to redo this ritual. This was his only chance in this lifetime. On this day, the constellation arrangement was perfect. The nine moons of spirits lined up with Escana and the sun in a perfect straight while the red moon of Kharigan, the home of Demon Lord was at the closest distance to Escana. Thus, according to Makerth’s calculation, the mana required to open the gateway to the red moon was at the minimum level. It was the perfect opportunity for Makerth to try this experiment.

According to the old legend, each one of the fifty lords of Kharigan could wipe out a country of man on their own. However, destruction was not what Makerth and his fellow magic casters had in mind, nor chaos. Their goal was to summon and dominate the Demon Lord and experiment on him or her. Of course, they would not participate in such a dangerous experiment had they have no countermeasure against the Demon Lord. The legendary sword of seal Enfermé was hidden beneath the altar, the moment the Demon Lord appeared, he would be stabbed by the sword and thus placed under the domination of Makerth and his fellow magic casters.

As time drifted ahead second by second, the inkling premonition that he would not succeed grew larger inside Makerth’s heart. He felt drained. His mana capacity was reaching the bottom level, his fellow magic casters, not so much different, in fact worse. They would reach their limit very soon. Makerth kept his mouth shut and just concentrated on supplying mana to the artifact. He wanted to see the end of his magic experiment. He wanted to study what kind of a creature that a Demon Lord was.

Demon Lords were strange beings. For millennia, nobody has ever seen a Demon Lord and yet everyone knew what a Demon Lord is. Demon Lords were said to be created from the corpse of the Dark God. They sided with the Titans in the First Divine War. But, they only existed in the old texts and hearth stories, and most people only knew these Demon Lords through stories told by their elders.

Makerth wanted to see if a man could dominate a demon lord. He wanted to go down in history as one of the first of mortal to dominate a Demon Lord. After that, he would start asking the Demon Lord questions, finding out the missing links in the history of the world.

Mana left his body like a raging river in the flood season. Makerth gritted his teeth in frustration, realizing that the hour of the great eclipse was about to pass. However, the damned artifact showed no reaction at all. I’m going to fail, Makerth could smell his impending failure, Just bit more, please, just a little bit more, he refused to give up just yet.

Slowly, the alignment of the moons started to come apart and Makerth could feel it. The mana demanded the ritual enlarged. Makerth turned at his fellow magic casters. He was about to tell them that he was sorry and that this experiment was going to fail anyway.

As the feeble words were struggling to escape Makerth’s throat, a light shone through the dimly lit room. Makerth turned back at the artifact. The Eye of Magnamor has finally opened. It did not just open. It was shining in heated orange light. The Eye rapidly rearranged its structure, spinning in the air as the light came from within its core started to focus in one place. The space where the light shone started to distort and Makerth unknowingly smiled. He was about to succeed.

More mana, Makerth tightened the grip on his magic cane. He eagerly pumped more mana into the artifact while staring into the darkness of distorted space.

A scream echoed and Makerth turned. A fellow magic caster crumbled to the floor and doubled in spasms. His facial veins bulged visibly in purple and green like worms. His skin quickly turned into a bluish purple as the magic caster twitched haplessly on the ground. That poor fellow was completely drained of mana. The only way Makerth could save him was stopping the experiment, telling the rest of the magic casters to stop channeling their mana into the artifact. Then, they have to circulate their mana in an orderly manner to stop the channeling process. However, the experiment, an unknown force compelled Makerth’s sight to turn back at the distorted space. He was so close.

Blame your bad luck and lack of mana, Makerth ignored the scream of the magic caster on the ground and refocused at the artifact. Light poured out of the artifact as it rotated in the air faster and faster, the distort space also grew larger.

“We have to stop this Makerth.” Makerth heard more screams behind him.

The fools, they complained without an inkling of understanding of what was going here. Can’t they see that just a little bit more… Makerth cursed inwardly, “Just a little bit more,” he shouted, “We would be the first of mortals to ever dominate a demon lord.” Makerth paid no further attention to the screaming from behind. He just wanted this experiment to succeed.

“Stop this Makerth. They are dying. We are dying. We have to stop”

Screw you all, I’m this close to success, Makerth gritted his teeth and continued to pump his mana into the artifact. Then, all of a sudden, Makerth was inside a world of pain. He finally realized that he has already reached his limit, completely drained of mana. Yet, the forbidden artifact did not stop spinning around. It did not stop draining mana from Makerth and his fellow magic caster either. They had no mana in their body. Still, the artifact did not stop. It kept draining something, demanding something else other than their depleted mana. It took Makerth a second to realize that it was their vitality and soul. Their own life force was being drained to compensate for the lack of mana, with their life force their souls. It is too late, Makerth could not stop the experiment even if he wanted to.

Makerth felt his knees hit against the cold and wet floor, hard. His trusty magic cane slipped out of his grip, rolling on the floor, clanking. His bony body started to twitch violently against his will by an insidious force. The experiment… That was Makerth’s final thought as he departed from the world of Escana.

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The moment, when the Sun, Escana the Material Plane and all the nine planes of spirits became a perfect straight for the 14th time, a strange race began, unbeknown to the mortals of Escana.

Gods, Goddesses, and Demon Lords alike, their eyes flickered through the fabric of reality and dream to search for a single soul. Everyone knew when that soul would appear but none knew where he would appear or how he would appear. Therefore, they searched desperately for that special soul with all of their divine powers and authority, for that soul was prophesized to upset the natural ordinance.

Lust, the Beautiful Demon Lord, the Queen of the Succubi leaped from one dream to another as she commanded her legions of dream demons to advance her mission, “Search for that child.”

Pride, the Perfect Demon Lord bestowed his prophecies to his followers and wing demons, commanding them to search for “That child.” Searching was not his domain or strength, but he too was diving from one dream to another, not as fast and successful as Lust or her dream demons. But, that was his most reliable method just like the other immortals.

Sanguine, the Demon Lord of Madness tethered the millions of his spectral feelers, jumping at all the leads that he gained in a maddened blur.

Niwdar, the merciful Goddess of Nature and Beauty spoke her true intention. The trees and animals of Escana answered to her command.

Every immortal who has entered their name in the Great Game desperately searched for that special soul in a fervent effort, everyone but the God of War himself. Yet, when the moment of the great eclipse passed, only three have succeeded in locating that soul by sheer dumb luck. They would not tell the other immortals about their success for there was no reason to do that.

Quietly, they observed that soul. All three shivered when they saw him.

One of them shivered with ecstasy for that soul was the perfect lover whom she has sought for so long.

One of them was shaken to the core, for that soul was the darkest answer to the millions of questions that she has been mulling through the eons of time. He was her darkest hope.

The final one was simply fearful. Of all the reigning Demon Lords, he alone was the only one who understood the emotion of fear. The fearful one was so shaken that he decided to detonate all of his special eyes, which he left in the material plane Escana, preventing that soul from ever reaching him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I woke up asking myself a very familiar question, “Okay, where am I?” I have no idea how often a person could ask himself or herself this question. However, I know that I have constantly asked myself this “Okay, where am I?” more than the number of time that I greet people with “Good Morning.” And I am the type of moron who would go around greeting people with “Good morning,” even if I woke up at night time when the stars were out.

As a usual routine, I started touching myself in a hurry, not sexually of course. Pants, check. Boxer, check Shirt, check. Jacket, check. It was the kind of compulsory ritual performed to check whether I was wearing clothes or not. Some people slept with their clothes on them, some without, as for me, I did not truly care. However, for once, I was glad that I have slept with a full uniform of The Alliance on me.

I started looking around, seriously searching for a clue. A stony ceiling illuminated in an orange glow greeted my eyes. “Okay, seriously, where am I?” I sighed and started sitting up. For a brief moment, my hands contacted with a cold and wet substance as I was trying to rise from my bed. I was jolted wide-awake in a quick hurry.

My eyes started flickered around, a room made out of stone and a scorched hot brazier at each corner of the room. My bedding too was made of stone. It was cold, damp and stained black with old mold and dust. This was no bedding, I reflexively rose up, standing on my feet to have a better look. It was like an altar or something similar. There was even a sinister looking statue of a humanoid creature standing at the end of the altar staring at me. The creature resembled a human due to its humanoid shape, but even a moron like me could never mistake it for a human. It had a pair of wings, one bat-like leather wing, and one feather bird-like wing. It held a sword in one hand and a long spear in the other. My foggy memory seemed to recall seeing the creature from somewhere, but “foggy” is called “foggy” for a damn reason.

“Okay, seriously, where the hell am I?” I started clutching my head and digging up my latest memory to find a clue. I was listening to one of my exes’ sob story at a local bar. In a tearful voice, she told me that her current boyfriend has secretly cheated on her with her best friend.

“That’s the worst!” I shouted and my ex nodded her head “A man should openly admit that he was two-timing or three-timing. Secretly cheating on a woman was the worst thing a man could do to his lover,” I gave her my consolation, making her cried even louder and started flailing at me in my chest. Sometimes, in order to get people to vent out their emotions, saying dumb things is the best option. However, I had no memory afterward, which was slightly troubling.

“What is this place?”

I climbed down the altar, my eyes still transfixed at the sinister looking creature, hoping to find a clue from it. In all honesty, I was not nervous, somehow, I have developed an immunity to situations like this.

After all, there is just no way that a person who kept asking himself the, “Okay, seriously, where am I?” question would be surprised at the fact that he has woke up in a strange place.

There was that one time where I was drinking with my teammates to celebrate our second championship victory only to find myself waking up all alone on an unknown tropical island. There was that morning where I woke up only to discover that I have been tied to a bed and surrounded by a handful of unfamiliar women equipped in S&M costumes. There was a time that I woke up only to realize that I was already in a foreign country. There was that time I woke up finding himself on a king-sized bed with a handful of unfamiliar naked men and a freaking Bengal tiger.

Though, most of the time, alcohol plays the biggest role in leading to those strange events.

It would be weirder if I did not get used to waking up in strange places, bizarre situations, and not knowing how I got there. After experienced living years with countless moments like that, even the most fretful and anxious soul would gain some level of immunity against being drugged and kidnapped, let alone waking up on a random altar without knives or gun pointing at me.

The lack of the usual head-splitting hangover after waking up troubled me. That was a sign that alcohol was not the reason why I was brought to this place. Of course, nobody has ever been brought down by a single glass of cocktail while listening to the sob story of his ex. Neither did I felt lethargic and the extreme grogginess like those times that I was drugged, which alarmed me even further.

I felt completely normal, in fact, so normal and well that it was baffling as for how I arrived at this strange place. I stared and scrutinized the familiar looking statue for many minutes until I realized that the sinister statue would not give me a single clue. I then swept through the stony room with my eyes, more careful this time and stumbled on a figure lying flatly on the floor.

I immediately leaped off the altar and approached the lying figure. It was a beardy old man, probably in his late fifties or early sixties. The old man wore a gray hooded robe that reminded me of the uniform of the Greyscale Magic Research Academy, a fictional association featured in the game “Reign of Chaos”.

“Aren’t you too old for cosplaying, old man? Hey, wake up. Man, you are wasted.” I supported the sleeping geezer and tried to wake him up by lightly slapping across his cheeks. Suddenly, I was astonished by the coldness that I felt with the tips of my fingers. I almost dropped the old man to the ground. Only by sheer reflex, I caught the old man by his collar just before the old man hit the floor with his face, somehow in the final moment.

“My bad, sorry,” I apologized. The old man was rigid and cold as a statue. Gently, I tried to lay the geezer to the ground facing up. For a brief moment, I almost mistook the old man for a wax sculpture until I decided to touch the old man’s face again. It was cold and inelastic, but it was real skin. The old man was a real human, not a wax sculpture. Then, a premonition hit me due to the rigidness and unresponsiveness of the old geezer.

“Oy, old man, wake up. Don’t scare me,” I shook the unresponsive body of the old man and started training my ears. I did not hear any breathing sound or heartbeats. My heart immediately quickened, “Oy, don’t scare me, please,” I placed my palm on the old man’s chest, just to confirm my understanding of the situation first. There was no movement, beating, or anything. Actually, my ears have already confirmed that. It’s just that I wanted to run from reality for a little bit longer.

It took me a full second before I could assume action. I reflexively tried to apply the chest compression on the old man despite my abysmal minimal knowledge of modern healthcare. My hands were unnaturally clumsy, gel-like, weak and flaccid. It was as if there was an invisible someone choking me, I suddenly found myself unable to breathe. My heart felt like it was violently balled up by an invisible vice.

Calm down, I took a deep breath while performing the chest compression for the old geezer, trying to calm my clattering teeth and myself. Fuck, I would like to see a bastard who can remain calm after waking up to find a corpse lying in the same room with him. I inwardly cursed myself. “Don’t die. Don’t die,” I begged in a rattled voice, desperately putting more power into my weak arms while adding my weight to perform the chest compression correctly. Then, a crisp cracking sound burst forth from within the geezer’s unresponsive body.

I instinctively bounced backward, separating myself from the corpse.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I realized that I must have cracked the old geezer’s ribcage, using too much strength on the chest compression. “I’m really sorry… Ambulance, I have to call an ambulance,” I searched for my phone within my pant pocket, there was nothing. I tapped around my leathery jacket and subsequently found my phone. I tried to unlock the phone but the damn thing did not respond to my sweaty and shaking finger. I blame it on the phone designers. I forcefully wiped my sweaty palm on my pants and tried to unlock the phone again. The stupid phone responded this time, Ambulance, I started entering the number to call an ambulance.

What was the number again? 113, 000, or 911? Damn it, which one of them was the ambulance again? Crap, was it 113 or 000 or 911? Oh, yeah, FY told me that there was a new emergency service line that provided an improved overall service, better-looking ambulances, faster response time and more handsome drivers.

“0118 999 881 999 119 7253,” I sang that strangely catchy song that FY was singing from time to time while tapping the number on my phone. It was out of service area, Stupid phone, I cursed and immediately searched for an exit to get a better signal. I followed the corridor behind the corpse of the old geezer to another dimly lit room, wider, bigger, and littered with more people wearing the same uniform of the Greyscale magic lying on the ground. There must be at least a hundred of them.

I froze on the spot. My stomach boiled. My legs started rooting on the spot. “Can someone explain to me what the fuck is going on?” I tried to navigate through the room to find an exit. As I was walking through the room, I stumbled on something, a man, “Sorry,” I sprawled up and apologized with my clapping hands. For better or for worse, that unfamiliar man was looking straight at me. His eyes were agonizingly big, the size of marbles, soullessly staring straight into my eyes, transpiring the horror and suffering that he went through in the moment of his death. The man’s face was purple and riddled with bloated greenish veins. His mouth frothed and agape, his hands clutched at his neck. His nails left red clawing marks on his neck.

My stomach tightened and I felt something rose through my chest. I tried to swallow it down, whatever that something was, but I could not win against the inevitable. I could taste it at the end of my tongue, bitter like pills and sour like vinegar, that clouded, hot and smelly liquid shot out from my mouth and splashed on the cold stone floor as I doubled, retching.

I was never a fan of graphic horror or gory things. I might be fine with violent things, but gory things made me horribly sick every time. That man was dead, like clearly dead, more dead than the old geezer for sure, I gathered my thought, No shit Sherlock, the voice of logical reasoning inside me cursed, Don’t state the obvious. My thought became a mess.

The rest, those cosplayers on the ground were probably not in a better spot, either dead or super dead as well. The moment that thought hit me, I ran. I ran as if I have never truly run before, like that time when one of my more crazy exes decided to break up with me with a motored chainsaw on her hands or that one time when that wife beater asshole chased after me with a machete in his hand just because his wife ditched him for me.

I ran, almost slipped and stumbled by the damp floor. I ran through that corpses littered room to another dimly lit corridor to another room and yet another corridor. I kept running and running, following my instincts rather than reason. Fuck reason, my hands kept redialing the new emergency service line and my damn phone kept telling me “Out of the service area.”

I truly did not know what happened yesterday but I knew I was already a foot inside a crappy situation. I ran through a series of dark rooms and claustrophobic corridors, turning left and right randomly as I ran. Finally, I saw natural light, light that was not the flickering glow of burning charcoal in braziers and torches.

I ran toward that natural light through the dark corridor. A howling wind brushed by, bringing a welcoming fresh air to my nose as I ran. I was sick of that nauseous moldy smell. I was truly sick of seeing corpses. I told myself that I would call an ambulance and then police to deal with this crappy situation. And after that, I would call Alice, asking if she would allow me to come to her place for the night. I would not want to be alone after experiencing something like this.

“What the…” I stood at the end of the corridor, stunned and speechless. I was up high, probably forties to thirties meters above the ground, standing on a moldy and grassy stone deck. A green forest before my eyes spread toward the horizontal and a long mountain range to my right.

I stared into my phone, still, no signal, damn you phone. I started to wonder if I were already in a foreign country and checked the GPS.

“NO SIGNAL, fuck you. You cannot possibly tell me that I am on Mar right now. What the fuck do you mean by NO SIGNAL?” I started to curse my phone. This situation reminded me of that time I woke up on that inhabited tropical island all alone. I had to stay on that island for two full days with no food or water until my friends came for me. However, that time, there was no corpse or “CORPSES.”

I clutched my head, could not connect the dot between drinking a glass of cocktail with my ex to wake up in a strange place full of corpses. “This makes no sense.”

It was not like she was one of my many crazy exes, she was like... normal? Normal?

I started redefining the definition of “Normal” inside my head while walking around the deck to explore. I walked and reached the edge of the deck to find a long stair formed by hundreds of huge stones stacked on each other, each at the size of a grown man. This structure immediately made me thought of a pyramid until my eyes rolled on the two rows of weathered statues standing on both sides of the stairs, which immediately gave me a conclusive answer. This structure was indeed a pyramid, a pyramid, and a tomb.

It should not be. Did people decide to make a ROC theme park or something? This giant structure could not be found on Earth. It was not a Mesoamerican pyramid and definitely not one of the Egyptian pyramids. The two rows of statues, angelic creatures on the left and devil-like monsters on the right, they were the conclusive evidence for me to identify this pyramid structure. This place was the Tomb of the Dark God Naharis, a famous landmark of the Northern continent inside the game “Reign of Chaos.”

However, that made no sense. That made zero sense. Drinking a glass of cocktail should not bring someone to a different world. I started feeling the magic coins spinning and folding within my palm. “This makes no sense. This has to be one of Fantasy’s pranks. Fantasy, if you don’t come out right now, I AM going kick your sorry ass.” I shouted while knowing that this was neither a dream nor a prank.

There were three trains of thought running inside my head in three different directions, the “This is a prank” train, “This is a dream” train and finally the “This is the reality” train. While the first two trains had a break and thus can slow down, there was no break to the “This is the reality” train.

I have touched that old geezer’s corpse. It was cold and rigid, extremely realistic, that was no dream. The disgusting sourness and bitterness aftertaste of stomach acid inside my mouth, too, could not be a byproduct of a dream. This is real.

If someone pointed a gun at my face and told me to describe my current situation as concisely as possible, “Fuck” is the magical word and the only answer. “FUCK,” I uttered the magical word. I would call the word “Fuck” a magical word because the moment I uttered such word in the face of the person who pointed a gun at my face, he would blow my brain off, and I really wished for something like that to happen to me now. The word “FUCK” is a magical word because I would get my brain blown off as I have wished and the person who pulled the trigger would not have to live the rest of his life in the terror of being revenge by me. That’s a win-win.

I am inside the world of Reign of Chaos, the same game that brought me to stardom, the same game that changed my life once. This time, it changed my life again, forever.

“FUCKERS. If you wanted to transport me to another world, Bring me a Fucking Truck,” I cursed whoever thought that it was funny to bring me to the world of ROC.