The…System?

The moment the thought passed in my head, my mind was filled with new information.

I knew what the System was. I knew how to use it.

And I knew the rules.

Every ten days you must collect at least one soul. Every soul must be collected through one duel. The terms of the duels must be agreed upon. The duels must happen between individuals of similar strength. The duels must be fair. The duels must be fought until the death. If none of the participants are dead until the time agreed, both die. Failure to collect a soul in ten days will generate a forced duel, with terms created by the System. Failure to engage in the forced duel will generate a death experience…

It was too much. The more I thought about it, the more information I received.

But, somehow, I understood. All that chaos made sense in my mind.

And it scared me.

What happened today. What I had to do. It would happen again.

I would have to keep killing in order to survive.

The thought made me so sick that I started throwing up one more time.

Could I do it? Of course not. It had cost me everything to kill that man. I wouldn’t be able to do it again. I didn’t want to.

But…

“Failure to engage in the forced duel will generate a death experience”

Just the thought of having to feel it again was making my whole body shake.

That was the worst thing I’d ever experienced in my life. I couldn’t think. I could barely move.

I just wanted it to be over.

I couldn’t deal with it now. I would find a way to overcome it, somehow.

I focused back at the System.

It had said that Duels must be fair. What did that mean? Who was policing it?

Not only that, but the Duels had to be accepted. There were no consequences to refusing a Duel.

But you would have to Duel at least once every ten days.

I shriveled. The moment I formed a question, I had the answer.

Whatever it was, this System was responding to my thoughts. It was giving me the information I needed when I needed it.

And it seemed I had some control over it.

You have one unused soul. How do you wish to employ it?

This “soul” was my reward for winning the Duel.

For now, I had only two options. To fracture it or to save it.

If I fractured it, its power would be absorbed by my soul. In theory, I would be just a little faster, stronger and agile. It would be great.

But that meant that, while killing each other, we weren’t just taking the other’s life, we were also collecting their soul and we would be getting more powerful by doing it.

Was that made to encourage us? To make people search for power by killing others?

I decided to save it. Besides, if the System was letting me save it, probably it would be possible to use it in other ways later on.

Besides the souls, the most interesting thing was D’on’kar. The system didn’t say much about him, just that he had chosen me.

Was he my patron or something?

I started walking home, trying to understand what that all meant.

It was madness.

I was tired, hurt and had just brutally killed a man. I wasn’t in my best shape.

Maybe that’s why it took me almost five minutes until I finally realized

Failure to participate in a duel will generate a forced duel, with terms created by the system.

My family.