Rick felt another blow on his face and felt everything going a little blurry and felt disoriented. This was 12th round of the blood sport event, an underground fighting tournament where people killed each other for money and probably a chance to change their lives. Rick was a fighter, he had been fighting all his life, and slowly becoming better at it, but the only difference right now was that this time he wasn’t fighting for himself. He was fighting for the friends and family he made along the journey. Yes. It was for them, it was for them he entered this tournament, so losing right now after he came so far especially since only 8 rounds were left till the final 20th round. He would do it, he would do it for his family and his friends. No he must, because there was no other way.

The beaten, bruised and bloody rick found a last ember burning in the dark and let it grow as a burning light could be seen in his eyes as he prepared himself to confront the opposing veteran. What followed was an almost impossible maneuver as rick dodged a punch at an almost impossible angle and gave an uppercut to the opponent’s face with a shout that seemed to pour out all his emotions. The opponent flew up and heavily fell, it seemed his jaw was broken beyond repair as he lay there motionlessly. The crowd cheered for this unknown underdog who came out of nowhere and was dominating the tournament. Rick heard the cheers and his friends’ and families’ cheers as well as he raised his arm with a triumphant smile and motioned for the next round to start.

Among the cheering crowd Zhang fei sat there with his hand propping his face with a bored look with a similarly bored cube. “Wow so unexpected” [ Wow so unexpected]. Both the host and the system voiced out their thoughts simultaneously with the same unenthusiastic manner. Meanwhile Xia Ruo was sitting right next to Zhang Fei and was holding his sleeve in excitement and jubilantly looking at the match. It almost looked like a little girl going to amusement park for the first time except in this park you beat the shit out of each other and get paid for it. Of the places where Xia ruo wanted Zhang fei to accompany her, this was one of the places she wanted to go to. Coco thought that Xia Ruo was now beyond redemption, who the heck brings their date, if it could even be called a date to such a dark place, Coco really thought Xia Ruo was becoming more and more like Zhang Fei. Even the last few places they went to weren’t normal.

“Coco.”

[uh what?] What insidious plan have you thought of now.

“You know I have noticed a few strange things while I have been staying in this world.”

[You mean like the underground world below that is the same copy of the world above?] damn, how did he figure that out, maybe he isn’t that dumb after all…………….nah he is a human, of course he is dumb.

“….” No, wtf? What kind of secrets is this cube keeping from me. Although Zhang Fei was interested in knowing about this underground world, but since the explaining party would be Coco, he would rather save that headache for another time.

“No I mean things like this fight here, you can clearly see that this kid should have been dead right from the first fight but somehow he keeps on going. Each time he is about to get his ass kicked he turns the tables and knocks out veterans even though he is inexperienced in combat if you look closely at his moves.”

[Oh yeah you are right, it is definitely strange when compared to the norm hmm.] Coco voiced out his thoughts in a tone that implied that he was like a wise old man answering a young adventurers queries about something and he already knows the answer but wishes to guide the adventurer towards it on his own, but instead he sounded like a smartass that couldn’t wait to tell something he knew and the others didn’t.

“It’s not just this, once I was going out for a night walk and I saw a few people in long overcoats chasing and fighting with a werewolf in the streets late in the night and one time I found out about a doctor who was really mediocre but suddenly one day woke up and had heavenly medical skills and is now famous across the world. None of this is normal.”

[Wow host, not a lot of people notice this, congrats.]

Zhang Fei asked with an arched brow, “Notice what?” Zhang thought that if is this ended with another ‘I forgot’ statement he would make the cube a flat piece of metal instead and use him as a frying pan to fry his eggs.

[Well host, this is the one thing I didn’t forget to tell you but rather I am not supposed to tell you unless you notice on your own. Of course the people who are able to notice this are a level above the normal hosts, so we are only allowed to give this information if a host can notice the phenomenon on their own.]

“Hmph so does this means I am better than the others?” pfft, of course he was.

[No it just mean that you waste a lot of time of looking here and there instead of doing your mission.] heh.

“….…” little shit.

[Well now I will explain what all this is since you are too dumb to understand it on your own. You see the guy in front of us, he is the main character of a story, a typical underdog story with a fighting competition setting where his main source of motivation is his family and friends. That people you saw in long overcoats were hunters hunting a werewolf. Again another story but this time it’s about the daily life and adventures of a group of hunters, and the doctor well, his is a story about him regaining his memories when he was a divine doctor in a cultivation world hence him becoming an expert doctor in a day, well he is supposed to help society prosper in a new era but there is a twist in that story as well.]

“So what you are saying is, the story I am in isn’t the only story in this world?” Zhang Fei almost felt sorry for this world if it was true, because there would definitely be more main characters like Mo wenzi and Xia Su in this world, so it was truly unfortunate that they had to deal with such idiots, maybe he would have to deal with them too if he ever confronted them. Meh I’ll just fuck them up like the rest.

[Yep, the law of the world doesn’t simply guide one story but many of them, it forms a coordination among them so they don’t interfere with each other and allows everything to proceed smoothly. And sometimes we come in the stories to do certain tasks and missions, the reason for doing such tasks and missions, well……..it’s also rather complicated and I’m not allowed to tell you yet since you are still a newbie after all.]

“Well that can wait then, tell me what happens if the coordination gets disturbed?”

[Well everything gets fucked, you know the corrupted laws I told you about, it’s because the coordination among the stories is disturbed which causes chaos in the world. Sometime it can be saved while other times you have to get rid of it. It’s also one of the reason the fixing or destroying of laws is a S tier mission since its connected to so many stories.] Zhang Fei took in all the information quite easily, it wasn’t difficult to understand how so many stories could exist in a single world since him still being alive and being in another foreign world with a malfunctioning cube was out of the norm as well. Who knew what other things he was still unaware of.

“Wow Coco you ‘almost’ sounded smart while explaining all that.”

[hehe thanks…………………………………….………….that was insult wasn’t it.]

“Yeah it was, so are there other hosts beside me on this world”

-_- at least pretend like you didn’t insult me you ungrateful bastard.

[Nope it’s a small world, although there was one but strangely enough he disappeared like he was never even here, there is always a signal which other systems can detect, whenever a host leaves a world if he dies or leaves on his own accord, but it felt like this one just vanished…] Coco was a little curious, sometimes there would be coordination among other hosts in completing missions so the systems would be aware about the other systems and hosts, unless the other hosts wanted otherwise. A host visibility to other hosts and systems could be set to the host’s desire before entering the world and then couldn’t be changed, so for Coco knowing the other hosts location and then disappearing without leaving a signal was very odd.

“Meh doesn’t matter, he probably died with his soul vanishing because he had a shitty cube like you for a companion”

[How dare you call me shitty, do you even know that I hold the most record of paired hosts among all the systems, well besides the fact that almost all of them died, I am a well-respected and praised system, did you know that I…]

Zhang Fei just rolled his eyes and smiled at finally pinpointing Coco’s weak point, who knew the cube was narcissistic as well. Zhang Fei let Coco continue his rant and turned a deaf ear to it. Meanwhile the fight in front of them had reached the second last fight and Xia Ruo who seemed to be in high spirits in the beginning was now similarly propping up her face with her hand and looking bored as hell.

“What happened, the underdog is winning why are you so bored?”

“Who the heck wants him to win, I am waiting for someone to beat the crap out of him because of how arrogant he acts after every win but every time he is the one who stays on top. It just doesn’t make sense, he should be the one getting his ass kicked. ” Xia Ruo gave rick a mean glare from afar. Rick who was busy dodging felt the glare and looked towards the crowd towards Xia Ruo’s direction although he couldn’t see her among the crowd, he felt that someone really bore an ill will against him in the crowd given the bad feeling he was having. This thought distracted rick and the opponent got a window of opportunity to smash rick’s face in as he took 3 or 4 steps backward with blood flowing from his now broken nose.

Xia Ruo gave a triumphant smile at seeing the underdog getting a well-deserved punch. Zhang Fei looked at Xia Ruo and thought how it was funny that instead of supporting the underdog who was miraculously winning continuously, she wanted someone to beat him up. Zhang fei gave a small chuckle and strangely enough was smiling which was a very rare sight whenever he was with Xia ruo. Xia Ruo looked at Zhang Fei with a confused look, “What?”

Zhang Fei still kept the slight smile on his face and looked at Xia Ruo straight in the eyes, “Nothing, It seems you are getting less annoying each day.”

Xia Ruo just gave a pure bright smile in return at getting praised by Zhang Fei, if you could even call it praising. The smile seemed to brighten the surroundings as the men were captivated by that innocent and bright smile. Xia Ruo was already a beauty, so the smile added to her charm, the surrounding men were attracted to that beauty and really wanted to talk to her but would change their mind every time they saw that Zhang Fei was beside her, their balloon of confidence that would be inflated when they would decide to go talk to her would become empty in a second as soon as they would see him. All of them thought one thing, who in the hell would be able to compete with him especially since it looked like he would straight up murder you if you pissed him off, but little did they know that stone hearted person wasn’t affected by her beauty at all.

Zhang fei stood up and started to leave, “Come on, let’s go.”

Xia Ruo quickly stood up to follow him, “But the tournament isn’t over, don’t you want to see someone beat the underdog up badly.” She definitely did.

“It doesn’t matter if you stay or not, he is going to win anyways.”

“And why would that be, is he some hero in a story or something that he will win no matter what?”

Both Zhang Fei and Coco stopped and looked at Xia ruo with an incredulous look, who knew she would be able to guess the reason with such pinpoint accuracy. Zhang Fei turned around and started walking away again. Yep it’s just a guess, definitely just a guess. Both the system and the host thought the same thing refusing to accept any other alternative.

Zhang Fei decided to let her guess stay a guess. “No, it’s because people like him don’t lose, no matter who their opponent is, unless it’s me”

“And what so special about you, that you can win against ‘people like him’ but others can’t?” Xia Ruo raised her chin and asked in a half teasing and half inquiring tone with a teasing smile.

Zhang Fei just smiled and said in a simple sentence. “It’s because I enjoy the game, instead of just pursuing the end.” Xia Ruo then kept on pondering till the car but couldn’t really understand most of what Zhang Fei said, especially the part ‘people like him’. What’s so special about people like him. And secondly is enjoying the game the only way to win. Xia Ruo was really thinking hard about these points, it almost looked like her brain was overloaded and smoke was coming out of her head because of thinking too much. Zhang Fei looked at her just told her to not think about it too much, and that she would understand it one day….. maybe.

In one of the room of S city’s major hospital, a woman with her face covered up in bandages was staring at a mirror with her beautiful and enchanting eyes. She was waiting for the doctor to arrive so he could remove the bandages from her face, she was patient even though the doctor had took so long to come to the room. Well anyone would be if one went through what she did. The door opened and the doctor came in and apologized for being late as he started to remove the bandages, as he removed the bandages the face of a girl as beautiful as a flower came into view, even the doctor was stunned for a bit and forgot what he was doing. The doctor removed the bandages and conversed with the patient for a while, “Mrs. Xia Mei, I hope my work is up to your expectations.”

The girl in question looked up at the doctor and said in a soothing voice, “Don’t worry doctor, you did a fine job.” The doctor thought that the smile was beautiful but after observing some more he could see some hidden crookedness in it. He didn’t question what it was and bid farewell as he went away. The girl sat in the room as the beautiful smile turned more and more sinister, “Well, it looks like it’s about time I went back.”