It’d been a while since I checked my status properly. Since Newb Planet, I’d only gained a few new titles and my traits remained the same. It appeared that the Newb Planet was as much a method to allow the system to understand us and assign talents to us as it was for us to understand the system and learn to use it.

From the discussions I’ve had with our new player residents, it’s rather rare for players to still gain new traits or titles after the Newb indoctrination. Which would explain why, even after weeks had passed since we left newb planet, I haven’t earnt many new titles and no traits at all.

Probably the only way to further develop new ones would be to invest a significant amount of time. I often thought it strange that the system was handing out titles and traits like candy in the beginning, but after we started theorising as to how it assigns traits, it was more understandable.

That said, I still managed to develop some rather disturbing titles even after leaving Newb Planet. Since we weren’t that busy, and mostly just floating around scoping out targets, I decided now was a good time to re-evaluate my stats and consider some proper training.

After Newb Planet I’d become rather lacking in my training. My stats when I left the planet hardly even moved until I went on that pointless romp through 6 Star, and even then it was all random and without conscious effort. I was really just absorbed in the game and not focused on my skills at all.

With that thought in mind, I opened my Status Space and started going through my stats, skills, spells and traits.

With some better understanding of how stats and skills were assigned and worked, I’d long since altered my Status Space to show me information based on the stat or skill class. Although it wasn’t perfect, it was mostly accurate in its assessment.

Things like Pain Mastery and Mana Manipulation weren’t specific to their category, being placed in Body and Soul respectively, but were more appropriate to those areas.

Pain Mastery, for example, was affected by stats in all three categories, and the special traits that used Pain Mastery also weren’t aligned to a single category. It used cement, endurance and wisdom to alter its progression and affected almost every growth rate, even things like mana.

However, it remained primarily as a body alteration skill, because that’s its most obvious area of effectiveness. As can be attested to by the monstrous level of my endurance stat.

Since the last time I actually sat down and properly surveyed my stats and skills, which would be back on Newb Planet just after I left the Thorny Tower, I’d now accumulated a few new skills. Assassinate, and Shadow Magic are both skills I didn’t actively try to create and were instead system rewards from quests.

Which was the only reason I had those, seeing as they both carry with them rather negative connotations.

In the case of Assassinate, that was earnt from clearing a dungeon. To date, I’d hardly invested much time in levelling this skill. This was because I honestly didn’t consider it to be much use and just the act of sneakily killing someone turns my stomach somewhat.

Skills like this often have certain ‘abilities’ attached to them. Which is sort of like the ‘body’ equivalent of spells. I don’t pay much attention to them because apart from some cool effects and power increase, they often cause the person to enter a channelling state or have some charge up time.

My Basic Weapon Arts, for example, has abilities like ‘Long Shot’ or ‘Cleave’. If I focus my intentions and use the cleave skill in battle, it causes me to lose focus on my surroundings and has almost a full second in which my body is somewhat frozen and has to build up energy.

I find active abilities like this greatly disconcerting and personally believe them to be a detriment in battle unless I could master them effectively.

It has nothing to do with the fact that physical abilities require me to be able to operate the Imbue skill, which I can no longer even learn or practice thanks to my Deprive skill. I’m not sour about that at all ... Really.

That said, many of these skills also grant innate passive effects which don’t require Imbue to operate. Deflect, for example, gives me the passive ability to sense the direction, speed and power of the five closest projectiles strong enough to cause me harm, making it far easier to deflect or dodge them.

In addition to Assassinate and Shadow Magic, there were two skills I’d purposely spent time practising and learning. Elemental Magic and Deflect. Deflect was a skill focused solely on defence, which with my body and traits was actually somewhat counter-intuitive. That said, there were still many things my body can’t survive from, such as a fireball or arrow to the face.

In reality, I only learnt this skill to protect my most vulnerable spots, which if I spent some time and effort on, could actually become absurdly more powerful than the rest of my body.

The only problem with that was, I didn’t have the strength of heart to stab myself in the eye all day in an effort to make my eyes indestructible, even though I knew that I would eventually have to do exactly that if I planned to take full advantage of my sickening traits.

Elemental Magic was also a skill I invested some time in studying and learning. This was a futile attempt on my part to try and escape the disturbing trend my magic arts were leaning towards.

I say futile, because even after learning elemental magic arts, for some reason all my spells were disparagingly violent. Seelie was of the opinion that it was because my mana was already severely skewed towards darker elements. Which also explained why I had so much difficulty learning light magic or holy magic to the point that it was nigh impossible.

This didn’t mean that I couldn’t level elemental magic as quickly as other magic. It only meant that I had trouble levelling certain spells that didn’t seem to align with the nature of my Mana. I had no trouble with completely destructive spells like fireball or water cannon, which were clearly designed for warfare.

In fact, spells like this were almost too powerful when I used them. Even with their lowest mana cost they somehow ended up as powerful as Seelie’s elemental magic, which was a magnitude higher in skill and spell level than my own.

The problem lay in the other side of elemental arts. Things like the Raise Earth spell and Gentle Breeze spell. Both normally completely harmless in the hands of other elemental mages, only to become an Earth Spike or Gale Winds spell in my hands.

This essential meant that unless I focused my efforts in this magic on purely destructive and less neutral spells, then my elemental arts skill would be far slower to increase than other magic skills.

Seelie and I both came to this conclusion after observing the growth in my summoning magic arts, which like elemental arts, is essentially considered neutral. It was obvious that this skill was growing just as fast as the other two magic arts I had and it was most likely because of the nature of the spells I was using.

Unfortunately, summoning required one of two things to create a spell. Either an innate talent born from your own nature and abilities and unlocked by the system, or something like a summoning contract.

Well, that is to say ... creating a safe summoning spell required these things. It was possible to learn other summoning spells by learning them from others, but that would result in the age old tradition of the summoned creature eating the moron that summoned it.

Amusingly, it was also the only method with which to meet a summoned creature and create a summoning contract with it. Which was more often than not the reason why so many fools still summoned these uncontrollable beings only to discover that it would rather eat them than create a contract.

After looking through my skills and making some personal observations, I determined what route to take in the training I was planning for myself. For starters, I had a few skills that only needed 1000 odd experience to level up.

Athletics was easy. I just needed load myself up with the heaviest things I could find and increase my inventory weight while I did my other training. After some running, jumping and throwing of things, it would naturally level up rather quickly.

The next closest was Sneak and Assassinate. Sneak was simple. I just had to move about like a creeper and try to avoid being seen by anyone. Assassinate was a little less simple to level, but that didn’t bother me because I had no intentions of levelling the skill up anyway.

In fact, if I hadn’t accidentally assassinated a few people already, I most likely wouldn’t have levelled the skill at all.

Memorisation and Alchemy were also both close to the next skill level. Memorisation was quite easy, but also very bothersome. To level this skill, I needed to spend an abusive amount of time remembering things.

Before now I’d never actively tried to raise this skill, and most of its levels and experience were gained from learning all the hateful amounts of scriptures and texts in the thorny tower or herb books for alchemy.

That said, I thought of a better method to help this skill level quickly. That was through the use of another skill, Mana Cartography. I would go to other worlds through the random portals to train my skills and use that opportunity to build maps of those worlds.

This required an eye for detail and the ability to remember clearly everything I try to recreate. This way I could quickly level 3 skills. Memorisation, Mana Cartography and also Mana Manipulation.

It just so happened that Mana Manipulation was also close to levelling up. It was actually the easiest to level because I would also be using it for casting magic and I planned to regularly play with my mana to try and learn better ways of using it, or even creating some personal spells of my own.

Alchemy was the skill close to levelling that I’d neglected the most since leaving Newb Planet. In order to grow it, it was best to simply concoct a slew of random potions and test them. This would increase my understanding of potion ingredients and also help me learn new recipes.

I hadn’t done this much since I started my domain and mostly only concocted things I had already learnt. This caused my Alchemy progress to slow down rather quickly, and I decided I would take some time aside and spend some more effort on this during my training.

The last two skills close to tipping over to the next level were Elemental Magic and Shadow Magic. Both were simple. I just had to practice converting my mana to the type used for these spells and also practice casting spells from these two schools of magic.

At the thought of spells, I decided to review the spells I had accumulated in my spell tome. By now, thanks to my numerous different types of magic arts, my spell tome had slowly changed into an even more evil looking book than before, when it only had sinister magic.

It looked like it was bound from various different human skins all stitched together and filled with disgusting pulsing veins. It was surrounded by a very ominous shadowy mist that seemed to seethe about the book in time with the pulsing veins, as if the book was breathing.

On the front cover bound in skin were four picture like symbols. The first was a dagger stuck into a bleeding heart, which throbbed in time with the book. The next were the four major elements, wind, water, fire and earth. The last two were of a creature standing in a summoning circle and a black moon.

Each of these showed one of the four types of magic I’d started learning. Sinister, Elemental, Summoning and Shadow.

I couldn’t help but let out a dejected sigh as I tentatively reached out and flipped the disgusting cover open.

During my training at the witch’s tower on newb planet, I learnt a great deal about magic that I really wish I hadn’t had to. For starters, it quickly became apparent that many spells had a spell type. Of the spells I had learnt to date, Single Cast and Channelling were the most prolific.

Even of the spells I’d only read about and never bothered to learn, these two casting types were the most commonly seen.

Single cast spells were generally a spell that only needed to be cast a single time and had no channelled effects. For example, I could cast fireball and generate hundreds of fireballs or even just a single huge fireball, but I would only need to cast the spell once.

Channelling was different in that I had to choose a target or target area and then it would cost me mana at set time periods to maintain the effects of the spell. Ain’t No Rest was a perfect example for this.

Of my spells, the curses in my sinister arts were most prolific. This was a result of the elf witch’s tutoring and the spells that were easiest for her to teach me. I actually didn’t learn anything in other magic groups while I was studying with her and really only learnt about other spells from books I’d gathered since then.

Both my summoning spells were innate spells, which meant I could cast them with the best effects simply from willing it and didn’t even need the spell patterns or chants from the book. I planned to work on getting some more summoning magic later, but for now was still a little apprehensive about it.

This was mostly because I was afraid the things I wanted to summon would most likely eat me before forming a contract, as is the age-old story of most summoners.

In the end, the spells I actually found the most useful were the shadow arts and elemental magic. The shadow arts made it easier to move through the chaos of the battlefield and also had the void prism spell which was perfect for locking down strong enemies for a moment during combat.

Unfortunately, I still managed to pick up a weird spell for this magic type during my travels. Shadow Tentacles. Why anyone even invented such a perverted and vile magic is beyond me. That said, most of my curses weren’t any better, and these sorts of spells remained mostly unpractised.

For starters, the embarrassment I would feel if Seelie caught me waving shadow tentacles shaped like cocks all about the place would probably kill me. Not to mention things like the ‘Ello Poppet’ and ‘Don’t Mind’ spells, which controlled people against their wills.

Of these most sinister spells, the most disturbing was the ‘12 disasters’ which required me to sacrifice a virgin just to cast on someone. I can still remember the face of that sweet, heroic girl that got crushed under the weight of a Gryphon I was doing battle with.

Luckily she turned out to be a player, and my guilty conscience was slightly more assuaged thereafter.

Because I have a sinister spell requiring a virgin sacrifice, every time a virgin dies because of me, I get a sacrifice point. The experience was something like keeping her tormented soul trapped within a mana bubble and stored away inside my mind.

I could ‘feel’ and ‘see’ her soul stuck inside me, trapped in a little bubble of sinister mana. We could even easily communicate. In fact, I had trouble blocking her out. I could just imagine the torment a truly evil person who trapped hundreds of virgin souls would have to suffer through from the wailing and crying of so many people.

Because I couldn’t bear to keep some innocent virgin’s soul locked up inside me, I immediately raced off to the nest of the Gryphon King and told the virgin’s soul that I would avenge her. Then when I cast the 12 Disasters on the Gryphon King and hid back into the shadows, her soul was released and returned to the resurrection cycle.

She didn’t seem that appreciative that I went out of my way to help her out. Well, if I’m honest, she almost seemed disappointed I was releasing her soul.

The most disturbing part of the whole experience wasn’t even the fact I’d accidentally killed a sweet virgin girl. Nor was it the fact that we both had to endure her being trapped inside me.

No, the most disturbing part of the experience and the part that made me so amiable as to immediately release her soul and use it to cast the 12 disasters, was because she was a huge pervert and it was a wonder she’d even managed to remain a virgin.

The whole time she was trapped inside me, she rolled around moaning and doing dirty things I’ve only ever seen Seelie doing. Except, in a far more shameless manner. I’m not sure if it was something to do with the nature of my mana or the sensation of having her soul trapped, but she was very verbal and explicit in her ... self-comforting?

Anyway, the whole point is that she was the reason my 12 Disasters spell was level 2 despite it being a rather sinister spell which I greatly disliked the cost of casting.

However, despite being a spell beyond redemption, it was incredibly powerful. I almost pitied the huge Gryphon King as I watched him be inundated with tornados, falling rocks, plagues ... That was about the limit of what I managed to witness though.

By that point, I was already rapidly evacuating, because the entire mountain range of the Gryphon’s Nest was being engulfed at the same time as the Gryphon King, including my unwitting self who happened to be hidden in the shadows.

The least interesting, but the most useful spells were all from the elemental magic. The uses for this magic were uncountable. The only problem was, if I planned to use them for anything other than destruction, I had a great deal of effort in controlling them.

After going over my spells again, I determinedly started to build a training plan in my head, so that I could fully display the might of all this crappy magic I was forced to go through the effort of learning.

Although what the Witch said was true, and personal power isn’t as important in the Domain Wars as the power of my overall forces, that didn’t change the fact that I treated this as a game and wanted to play.

Where’s the fun in a game if I never actually got to participate?

The last thing I did in my Status space was go through my titles. I had no new traits, which by this point in time I was rather thankful for, but I did have a few new titles.

Of the new titles I’d acquired, two of them just popped up one day out of nowhere. Blind Optimist, I had no idea what it was supposed to do. Its effects simply remained empty, even after I tried using identify on the title.

I had no idea what it actually did or if it did anything at all, but it seemed harmless enough for now, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

Demon Tamer also appeared out of nowhere, similar to the Optimist title. I suspect it had something to do with my demon spawns having reached more than 6,000 in population, but at the time I received it I was on my romp through 6 Stars, so I can’t be sure.

Its effects seemed mostly positive, and I didn’t mind it too much. From what I could tell, it was the least troublesome of my titles.

The Unlucky was easily the worst of all my new titles. It appeared one day after a huge accident involving a necromancer and a whore house, and it was something I tried very hard to forget about every day. The worst part about it was that it increased the frequency that bad accidents happened nearby, and more often than not resulted in huge luck penalties.

The incident involving the Gryphon’s was especially bad and dropped the 60 odd luck I’d accumulated at that point all the way back down to negative 6. This title was also the curse that seemed to hold me back from building up too much good luck, almost like some twisted mechanism of the universe to keep me from ever having too much good luck.

Iron Stomach came about during my 14 days of romping about on 6 Star. It was a title I earned as a result of my now habitual manner of eating everything I see which I can’t identify on sight.

Thanks to my taste tester title, it’s rare for me to not be sticking things in my mouth that I have no idea regarding the origin or purpose of. Of all the parts of my body that have high endurance, I’m pretty sure that my stomach may have the highest.

Especially considering that most of the things I stick in my mouth were rare herbs with normally fatal powers. Flaming Flowers and Poisonous Leaves. Hell, I’d even started sticking items into my mouth.

It wasn’t unusual to see me sticking a rock in my mouth or chewing on a rare looking weapon. Because it had become so habitual, I almost couldn’t control it.

Even more worrying was that even if it shattered my teeth or ripped apart my gums, it only felt good and my mouth’s endurance quickly rose to the point I wouldn’t even realise I’d eaten something I shouldn’t have. At least ... not until I was trying to force out a nugget of 10,000 times refined steel from an enchanted sword in the little boy’s room the next day.

After eating a few flaming swords ... well ... let’s just say that my eating orifice wasn’t the only hole in my body that had recently undergone a shocking rise in durability.

The last one was fire starter. I was awarded this title when I was first learning elemental magic. Naturally, the first spell I tried to learn was fireball.

At the time, I was staying in a little village on newb planet and my first few attempts at the spell ... well, let’s just say the village isn’t there anymore. When the raging fires that just seemed to appear in the forest out of nowhere consumed the corrupt Treant that had been terrorising the villagers, I, unfortunately, didn’t get a quest reward.

Not that it mattered too much, because by that point in time I was already a dozen kilometres away and still running for my life from the angry lizard tribesmen.

This title wasn’t too bad in theory ... it just meant that my original 6% chance of ruining someone’s life when I touch them increased to 7% ... well, provided they weren’t an orphan, who had an extra 50% chance on top of that.

Having spent some time reviewing his spells, stats and skills, Murphy started to work out a training schedule. He decided that now was the time to start getting stronger.

His domain was strong enough at the moment to enjoy some peace and quiet for a few weeks. With the spell model hiding his domain, they were mostly free to travel around unhindered.

This was only temporary though. Eventually, someone was going to figure out how they were hiding themselves, and those gangs of thugs that he’d just pissed off were going to track him down.

Although the Domain Space was immeasurable, the laws of the universe were strange. Despite how huge the universe may seem to be, it often turned out to be a small place after everything was said and done. Not to mention, Murphy had a pension for falling into unlucky mishaps, and it was only a matter of time before some accident happened and he was discovered.

Before then, he was going to train himself and his citizens to the point they could take on just about anyone. He wanted them to become the best and be untouchable.

With that in mind, he went and found Juwan. Even though he wanted to give a rousing hero speech and bolster his men into a long training montage with some corny background song playing the whole time, he recognised his greatest failing and so called in someone that could do those things for him.

With Juwan present, he would be able to convey himself to his citizens without any of those long awkward conversations.

Even though that was what he thought, he still had to spend 4 hours explaining properly to Juwan. Once that trying experience was over, Juwan called a town meeting and pulled in all their player citizens to the spawn’s sacred courtyard.

50 people of different races, skills, backgrounds and personalities were seated together. Dark races, halflings, monsters, beast men, even demons. The assortment of people that had started moving into Murphy’s domain were all evil looking, but kind hearted.

Once Juwan had gathered them, Murphy wandered off to find his foster father. As was rather normal now, Calligso was busily wrestling with Morbid. It was hard to pick out the monster between the two of them, especially when he watched Calligso grabbing Morbid by the scruff of the neck and flinging him nearly 20 meters away, only to moments later collide with him again.

While Murphy was busily getting his domain in order and preparing everyone for some training, things were starting to spin out of control back on Earth.

People were screaming about the second apocalypse or the second coming of the great sage. All sorts of crimes were now being committed by people with seemingly ‘supernatural’ powers. However, just as people lurked about in the shadows to commit sin, others rose up in the light to smite them.

Real life heroes and villains started emerging from the woodwork while the governments in control of the colonies all raced to try and figure out what the hell to do in this situation. The people in power were flustered.

Seated in a very lush and extravagant house upon a hill, overlooking the central city of Gastalberg, was an aged man dressed in a black suit. He sat on a cushion at the edge of a balcony and peered out towards the city down below.

His hair was silver white and cut short and neat. He had a bushy moustache which covered his mouth, and his eyes were closed into slits.

He was the Captain of the Secret Enforcers, Gustov. As he sat and observed the city, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh as he thought back to when he’d been sucked through to some other space after visiting the strange black box in the city centre.

It wasn’t just him, all the heads of state and leaders of the colony had been pulled through. When they first appeared, the black box was a mystery. After their security had investigated and was abducted by some form of teleportation, they were naturally called forth to discussions with the being that had left the boxes behind.

To their great consternation, they all realised that it was almost impossible to determine the power of the individual named ‘James’. He was some kind of monster, or God, or perhaps both.

It didn’t matter though, because they had no way to oppose him. Whatever he was, he was beyond their ability to fight against.

He also didn’t seem to have evil or good motives. From the very short conversation, in which he simply stated his boredom, the greatest minds of the planet all agreed he was simply some passing alien creature with unmeasurable power that thought to play a game with them.

Although the indignation of being played with like toys caused no short number of blood vessels to burst, the fact remained that it was impossible to stop him. And so, they had no choice but to acquiesce and relinquish their security over the boxes and allow the populace to participate.

Naturally, Gustov didn’t feel the same as his compatriots. First of all, having something like this outside of his control went against his nature and all of his training. Making it worse, was that one of the first to determine how to step into the ‘game world’ was a target he’d been watching for a long time.

Gustov was mulling over his thoughts as a man donned in a tight fitting black bodysuit, with a sleek black masked helmet, suddenly appeared out of the shadows.

“Master, we’ve established a foothold in the Domain Warz. Unfortunately, we appear to be receiving a significant amount of resistance, and just as quickly as our domains are forming, we are losing them. More so, it appears we are very late. There are hundreds of other human players from Earth that have already established themselves.”

Gustov scratched at his moustache and pondered for a while.

“What of the target?”

“Captain, it would seem that he has already made a name for himself. Some of our agents have heard rumours in our star sector that he has already reached an island rank domain and has no few number of enemies or supporters.”

“Fine then, gather the Lab Masters that have finished the tutorial world. I’ll party with them, and we will consolidate our resources on my domain. We must hunt it down quickly, before it’s too powerful to stop. If we can just get that thing back to the real world, we may have the opportunity to capture or kill it.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“If we can, try and get in touch with other earthlings that have had good success. If we can draw them in, then we may be able to use what they’ve learnt and increase our chances of success. The top 100 players, if we can’t convince them in the game, then find their families out here and coerce them. If that thing turns 18 and goes through the Madness, we may all be doomed.”

“As you wish, Captain.”

After acknowledging his commands, the black solider slowly merged back into the shadows and disappeared. It was clear that either the technology he was using was very powerful, or he’d already started mastering shadow magic from the game world.

Gustov’s eyes remained squinted and surveyed over the world down below. Moments later, his body seemingly disintegrated and reformed out of bright light on a fresh domain, floating about in space covered with its protective bubble.

At the same time, as if proof of concept that the universe truly is a small place, a dark shadow was quickly passing through space only a few hundred kilometres away, shrouding within was a huffing Murphy, who was currently taking lessons from Uncle Calligso.

I’m not sure what it is, but I have this feeling. A strange ... compulsion. It was only recently that it started, a feeling of urgency to get stronger. To become powerful. I can’t be certain where exactly it came from or why it started, but I do know it’s a powerful feeling.

It’s like staring at death. Knowing that I may die any moment. It’s a terrifying feeling and not something I can stop from pushing me to build up my strength.

When I was young, many strange things happened around me, many of those things I forced myself to forget and many others, despite my efforts, I will never forget. But in all instances when such a thing was about to happen, I felt this sensation.

This fear. This need to grow stronger and overcome any obstacle. It told me one thing. Something terrible was going to happen soon. Something that is beyond my control and the only hope I have of surviving it is to become more powerful.

At the same time though, I will soon be turning 18. I’m not exactly sure when my 18th birthday is, but it will be soon. The fact that I’m having this feeling now, when I’m about to reach that exact age, only frightens me more.

This only makes me even more uncertain about what I should be doing. For starters, this need to get stronger, to train. It may be a self-defence mechanism from some part of me I don’t even want to acknowledge. If I become powerful enough to overcome anything, then I will only be making the monster inside me stronger.

But ... then I’ll be walking to my own death if I don’t become strong enough to protect myself and those few people I hold close.

Only adding to all my uncertainty, is her. I’ve never told her what I’m afraid of. I’ve never told her why I wouldn’t acknowledge her feelings. But she’s smart, and considering how even more withdrawn and focused I’ve become leading up to my 18th birthday, she had most likely figured it out.

Only making me feel worse is despite me pushing her further away over this time, she has only pulled herself closer. Her unconditional support ... it’s frightening. If she’s here when it happens, if she’s nearby, then I may do something I would regret forever.

Just at the thought of it, a memory surfaces from my past and an involuntary vomit reflex almost vents my lunch. No matter the cost, I can’t let something like that happen to Seelie!

For the next few days, the people living on my domain switched between short rests, working on the defences, traps and weaponry of the domain and training with each other.

The random portals finally switched to new quest planets that were explorable. It just so happened that one of the worlds was a notorious hotspot of sinister intentions. On the surface, this world seemed remarkably peaceful and friendly, but if you kick a board, termites fall out.

The world in question happened to be inhabited by all manner of ‘creatures of light’. Fairies, Unicorns, Gryphons and white dragons abounded. Great civilisations towered over the masses and a single unifying religion in worship of the Holy God drew all the various citizens of the world together.

Although that normally would have sounded great, it was simply evil with a glossy coat of paint covering the decay and corruption. Kings and Emperors extorted their people, and the religion extorted the kings and emperors.

The ‘creatures of light’, although seemingly amiable from a distance, where like vicious thugs when you meet them. They held no qualms over using their ‘righteous’ position to manipulate heroes into doing demeaning or dangerous tasks for them. They were more likely to stab you in the face after completing some impossible quest for them than to actually give you a reward.

It wasn’t unusual to see these creatures lording it over their subjects and being generally arrogant and insufferable.

Naturally, the citizens of Murphy’s domain, all of which gathered under his banner to subvert exactly such evils and atrocities, rushed to form parties and march into this new world to quell those that would commit evil under the banner of good.

Murphy, of course, was no different. He was particularly weak to this train of thought when he encountered a little village nearby the portal that was inhabited by beast men not dissimilar to the beast men of the very first village he encountered when he appeared on Newb Planet.

Just remembering the sweet young girl that he’d killed caused him to drop all his defences towards these poor beast folk. When he witnessed the villagers being extorted and bullied by the gallant and noble looking knights of the local Lord, he was especially incensed.

Unfortunately, it turned out that even these low-class thugs of some backwater baron were powerful enough to fight him off. It just goes to show that the general levels of the creatures on this particular Quest planet were leagues beyond anyone else he’d faced before now.

As such, he retreated and rallied a small militia from his domain, and set forth to free these villagers from their oppressive overlord.

He rallied his citizens together and gave a rousing speech to beg their aid in his conquest. Which lead to a quiet response from the few that had the patience and understanding to wait 20 minutes for him to finally voice himself.

Naturally, those few that were still around were the oddballs and stood out amongst his citizens as strange. It only took him a few hours to assemble an adventuring party that he felt was capable of taking on just about anything.

Juwan, donned in shining silver armour, was his mouthpiece. When they needed someone to talk, Juwan was the guy. Although he had some significant amount of power behind him, and his battle skills were anything but lacking, Murphy really only invited him for the purpose of talking to other people.

Seelie and Chuckles didn’t dare miss out on the action, and both roused Morbid from an afternoon nap. Although it may seem like a monumental task to get Morbid ready to head out on an adventure, the truth was it was actually very easy.

The moment Seelie walked up to him holding his saddle, he knew it was time for ‘walkies’, and he was going to get to run around and bite some stuff. Which was the only thing that really mattered in his simple dog-like version of how the world worked.

Calligso, seeing his Biological and Adopted Son getting ready to rush off to save innocents and do those other kinds of brotherly things, opted out on this adventure. He was aware by now how much Juwan longed for a brotherly relationship with Murphy, and he wasn’t going to go along and interrupt that long awaited dream of his.

Even if they weren’t really doing any of those brotherly activities Juwan had dreamed of, questing together in a game was a close second.

The rest of Murphy’s party were 4 citizens of his domain.

Among these 4 citizens was a Grey Dwarf, which was the same race as Alton, the dwarf/dark elf blacksmith. His name was Carson, and he specialised in poisons. Among the inhabitants of Murphy’s domain, he was one of those few daring individuals that lived in the poison smog.

He had dark grey hair that was only a few shades away from his dark grey skin. He almost looked sickly with his dark glistening grey skin, but that was just how his race was. His beard was wild and unruly, as is common for descendants of dwarven birth, and he had long pointy ears, similar to that of an elf.

Apart from that, he was very much dwarf-like in height, but maintained a slimmer figure than most dwarves. His weapon of choice was a pair of spiked gloves that were coated in so many different poisons even the surrounding air seemed to tremble around them.

There was also a couple, who were apparently ‘mated’, which Murphy simply assumed was their term for married. They were an odd pair, both being afflicted with some kind of bloodline curse which caused a form of lycanthropy. In this case, Lucile was a Were-Panther and Xanzu was a Were-Wolf.

Lucile obviously wore the pants in the relationship and was a tall black haired, slim women of mid-twenties. She was incredibly attractive in human form and made no bones about flaunting her body. She wore a tight black and purple corset that pushed her ample bosom up to a point it almost looked like they were about to fall out if she just gave a little jiggle.

She wore a short black, frilly mini-skirt that seemed to be enchanted to always be at just the right spot to prevent anyone from seeing everything, no matter how she moved about. It was hard to say if it was also enchanted to draw people’s eyes towards it, because the hypnotic effects of her skirt could most likely do that all by itself.

Xanzu, on the other hand, was nowhere near as flamboyant as Lucile. He wore a baggy loose grey robe that he kept tightly tied around his body, hiding his face with a hood.

He was clearly very introverted and was rather quiet. He mostly only responded to Lucile, his ‘master’ as it were, and apart from following her instructions to listen to Murphy, the party leader, he remained rather introverted.

They had a very strange relationship, and being the expert he was in such matters, their polygamous S&M relationship was beyond Murphy’s ability to comprehend. Therefore, he simply tried his best to ignore it. He couldn’t help but feel a shiver running up his spine though, when he overheard Lucile giving Seelie tips on ‘claiming’ her own mate.

When Lucile started instructing Seelie to simply abduct the target of her affection and rape them into submission, Murphy rapidly created some distance and made an effort to always keep an eye on Seelie, just to be sure she wasn’t conjuring some weird binding magic.

While they were preparing their equipment to leave, the strange looks Murphy was receiving from the human form Lucile left him clenching his anus unintentionally and only made him even more wary of the women.

Lucile’s weapon of choice was her razor sharp panther claws and teeth, which she appeared to be able to extend and retract at will. Xanzu was less conspicuous and used a bow and arrows.

No one else from this party had ever seen them battle, but stories from the other citizens suggested that when the duo was in a dangerous situation they could bite each other and it would cause them to change into their lycanthrope form.

The last member of the party was a young man about the same age as Murphy. This fellow’s name was Tuskelly and he was by far the strangest inhabitant of Murphy’s Domain at present.

This was because he was a creature that would have to be described as alien. He claimed to be from a race that can only be interpreted in the shared language of Domain Warz as ‘The Strange’, and sported a head with no face.

It wasn’t just his faceless head that was disconcerting though. Although he was very much humanoid in height and shape, his 4 limbs were instead tentacles, and his body was capable of morphing about fluidly. It wasn’t unusual to see his head slowly being engulfed by his torso, only to moments later sprout from his hip.

Even more disorienting than that was his skin, which seemed to randomly change between a glowing transparent luminescence to a cracked and dried rock-like layer then eventually end up as a jelly, only to go through the whole cycle all over again. According to him, he had such a high level of control over his body that he could change forms into almost anything.

It was only after repeated requests and threatening from Lucile and Seelie that he eventually morphed into his present hairless, humanoid form. However, he still very rigidly refused to grow a face, apparently being offended by their very shape.

This begged the question of how exactly he was generating sound. But the simple fact that no one wanted to spend too long looking directly at this face for fear he may start talking directly to them, the group was left mystified but momentarily content.

While preparing, Murphy took Morbid off towards Alton’s workshop. Half an hour later, Morbid returned with a big metal structure in tow. The structure appeared to be floating off the ground and had dozens of little crystals lining the sides and bottom, all giving out gentle hums and glowing mellow lights.

It appeared to be a floating carriage of sorts but was well beyond the standard of any carriage the party had seen before now. It was big enough to house the entire party and their supplies comfortably and followed along behind Morbid on a handful of huge iron chains and separating bars attached to his saddle.

Its design wasn’t all that elaborate or exquisite, and if anything was very archaic, in that it sported no small number of jagged edges and pointy spikes. The flaming torches lining the sides and dried blood that was used as paint helped it to leave a very chaotic and oppressive sensation in the hearts of anyone that observed it.

This carriage of chaos being hauled along by a huge Demonic Hell Hound ... the overall feeling it gave off was EVIL!

Murphy didn’t have much say in the appearance of it and had only fielded the idea to Alton as a potential research project. He’d collected no small number of materials for crafting and had played with quite a few of them, and ate no small number of them, to determine their identity and effects.

It was with this knowledge that he conjured up the idea of a levitating carriage for Morbid, and Alton held nothing back in realising this dream for Murphy. As such, Murphy couldn’t rightfully complain about how Alton decided to decorate it once it was finished.

After no short number of impressed ‘wow’s’ and ‘amazing’s’ voiced by his comrades, Murphy and his gang mounted up and set out towards the beast man village he’d encountered earlier.

It was a short trip to the beast man village that ended in disappointment. As Morbid burst through the bushland surrounding the village with his carriage of massacre floating behind, Murphy surveyed the wreckage that remained.

The little huts were burnt to a crisp and bodies covered with cuts and stab wounds littered the ground. Murphy waved his hand forward with a ‘Go!’ and moments later his party was scouring the village in search of survivors.

Tuskelly, being the chattiest of the bunch, couldn’t help but relay his thoughts, his voice filled with some melancholy.

“It appears we were too late.”

“ ... its fine ... players ... respawn...”

Murphy’s jittering response was unexpected, and it was clear that despite his assurances that it was fine, the scene of the massacre in front of him brought back some sour memories.

It was after some brief searching that Carson’s melodic and hoarse voice rang out from the far side of the burning village.

“Survivor! I’ve got a survivor here!”

In no time, Murphy appeared before the battered, bleeding body of a young beast girl, not dissimilar at all to the beast girl he first met when he entered the game. In her weakened state, she couldn’t extend her beastly claws, and the only sign of her race was her beastly canines.

Seeing the barely breathing girl in Carson’s arms, Murphy flicked his hand and produced a simple little potion bottle with milky blue liquid. He didn’t even pause, and as if a practised motion, he popped the top out with his thumb and grabbed the girls chin as he poured it down her throat.

At first, the reaction seemed to be rather slow, only to speed up until the gaping wounds on the girl’s body closed while releasing faint glittering specks of light. Her dull, empty eyes slowly regained life until moments after the potion’s effects had worn off, they locked onto Murphy.

At that moment, their eyes met, and they both seemed to simultaneously shiver.

“It’s you!?”

In a very dexterous manner, the beast girl jumped up and distanced herself from Murphy as quickly as possible.

“It’s bad enough that fat castle squatter is sending his minions to kill my people, but now you’re here to finish the job huh?”

“...”

“I bet you work for that sack of shit, don’t you? I should have known. Why would that fat fool ever bother to make trouble for some out of the way little beast man tribe, unless he was being led along by a sick backstabbing racist like you!”

“ ... Hi ... little beast girl...”

The little beast girl glared angrily at Murphy. It was apparent from the conversation that these two had a history. Indeed, it is true that the universe is a small place after all.

The moment the little beast girl’s feet touched the ground, one hand rested on her hip, and the other pointed fiercely towards Murphy.

“So you’re going to torment me for the rest of my life are you? Going to chase me down no matter where I respawn?! How did you even find me?!”

“ ... Accident ... it was an accident...”

“You found me by accident?! So you just decided to slaughter my people and only then realised I was here? You’re sick! You’re a sick freak! Did you resurrect me from the brink of death just so that you could take advantage of me again?!”

“ ... sigh...”

Naturally, Murphy had some trouble properly communicating in this situation. Adding to this was the fact that by now the rest of his party had joined them and were all giving him strange looks. Seelie had the strangest look on her face, as she looked back and forth between the little beast girl and Murphy a few times.

She wasn’t certain what was going on here, and from the implications the little girl was making, her dirty mind immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. Her face then rapidly changed to one of disgust, and following this was the sudden spark of understanding lighting up in the eyes of Murphy’s other companions.

This led to a very awkward moment where everyone was giving Murphy a strange look filled with accusation, and Murphy was silently standing there trying to figure out what to say.

By this time, his party knew he had a crippling fear of speaking, and for lack of a better description was socially inept. Meaning they would just have to stand here for five minutes until he figured out how to explain.

The little beast girl was by no means properly acquainted with Murphy and felt like his silence was an admission of his guilt. After all, the first time they met, Murphy thought she was some kind of NPC and not a real person, so his speech at the time was plenty eloquent enough.

“What?! You trying to figure out how you’re going to do me this time?! No cave walls nearby to force me up against? You’ll just have to do me in on the ground you sick freak! Come on! Hurry it up already!”

Hearing it said like this, everyone’s wild imaginations took the initial thought conjured in their heads and fuelled it with that slightly more revealing accusation. Of course, although that comment from the little beast girl seemed to be painting a somewhat disgusting graphic picture, none of them were aware she was referring to how he was going to kill her, and they all imagined slightly more perverted scenarios.

As is the case with these things, no one could stop the look of disgust flashing across their faces and taking a step back. Seelie was especially confused, considering she knew Murphy best, and had never flagged him as a weird paedophile before now.

Seeing the situation only growing even more convoluted, Murphy was getting rather anxious and was having trouble speaking properly. At last, he had no choice but to give in and used one of his spells that he rather disliked using.

Can’t Stop the Music.

This curse would normally significantly reduce a person’s social inhibitions and turn them into a complete chatter box. Worse still, it had numerous other side effects, from causing a person to dance at the drop of a hat, party wildly, drink in excess and take silly bets. More or less, it essentially turned them into a first-year college student.

Unfortunately, although the spell sounded quite powerful, it was greatly limited when being cast on Murphy. It also seemed like cheating to him. If he simply used this to escape every awkward moment in which he was trying to socialise, he felt like he wouldn’t be working towards improving and was instead using this spell as a crutch.

If he became too reliant on it, he felt that he may never be able to speak without it.

The situation he was in now was an emergency though. If things continued on in this direction, his new adventuring party would most likely disband before they even officially started their first adventure together.

Worse still, the look of confusion and hurt on Seelie’s face, like she’d just discovered him cheating on her, made his stomach do back flips and he felt an urgent need to resolve this before it devolved into something far worse than a simple misunderstanding.

As such, he summoned his spell book, the sight of which was enough to shut the little beast girl up completely and send shivers running up the backs of everyone else. With a wave of his hand the book flipped open, and pages flicked over each other quickly until stopping on a page that had loud rock music playing from it and was shooting confetti, glitter and lasers all over the place.

With a point of his finger, he cast the spell on himself using almost 200 points of mana for a single cast. Following which, his negative 1 charisma stat shot up to a positive 3.

“It’s a misunderstanding! A misunderstanding! I didn’t mean to kill you! It was an accident, I swear! I thought your villagers were attacking me and retaliated, then everything ... started to get ... out of control ... and ... well ... sorry...”

Unfortunately, despite the huge amount of Mana he spent on the spell, it fizzled out rather quickly. Perhaps as a result of his already horrible charisma stat, or perhaps because he was starting to build an immunity towards curses. It didn’t really matter though, because it served its purpose and allowed him to articulate long enough to explain.

Having finished this very brief explanation, the look on everyone’s face seemed to come to an understanding and Murphy was relieved of their furious, disgusted glares.

The only exception being the little beast girl. Whose face was scrunched up looking very bitter and resentful.

It was about this time that Juwan finally announced his presence, and the little beast girl’s face only become even more disgusted.

“Ho! Little girl, we meet again. I wish you wouldn’t make such shameless implications regarding my little brother. You could ruin someone’s reputation saying things like that.”

“You?! You’re even worse than the racist! Don’t dote on me like I’m some little girl! I’ve told you a hundred times I’m old enough to be your grandmother! And your disgusting little brother complex is even more disturbing than his racism! Stay away from me!”

The beast girl’s shrill screams echoed about the burning village as she rapidly back peddled away from Juwan who was moments away from grabbing her cheeks like some old aunt or uncle, coddling a little child.

“Yes, yes. Whatever you say little beast girl. So, what happened in your village?”

Juwan, being significantly less dense than his brother, stopped teasing the little beast girl now that the situation had been diffused. The last thing he wanted was someone flinging slanderous accusations about his little brother.

With the little beast girl’s ire redirected at him, everything calmed down a little. The little beast girl looked at Juwan with a somewhat disgusted expression and then turned toward Murphy with her hand out.

“Where’s my hairpin?”

At the mention of the little girl’s hairpin, Murphy could only scratch his head sheepishly and shrug his shoulders. He’d gathered so much better treasure by now that the little beast girl’s hairpin was basically useless.

It only gave a plus 2 to maximum mana and was a girly accessory, so Murphy never had a need for it and didn’t pay much attention to it. By now, he’d most likely sold it.

Seeing Murphy diverting his eyes and busily inspecting the still smouldering walls of a burnt down hut, everyone could tell he was feigning ignorance. It was such a terrible act, that even Morbid looked at him strangely.

Seeing everyone looking at him somewhat expectantly, Murphy wasn’t sure what to do. That being the case, he simply started walking off out of the village leaving behind a few words.

“ ... let’s go ... to investigate...”

Seeing Murphy strolling away into the bushland and pretending that they never even found the little beast girl, Seelie and Juwan made wry smiles. Everyone else was just confused at these actions though. They knew their leader was odd, but they never realised he was this difficult to interact with.

They hadn’t even gotten a layout of the situation from the beast girl yet!

Seeing the illustrious leader marching off, everyone shared a few odd looks and then started mounting up in the carriage to pursue him. Juwan glanced at the little beast girl with a somewhat dissatisfied sneer. He now realised why Murphy killed this girl in the beginning, she’s clearly a bitch.

With that thought in mind, he simply scooped her up and jumped into the carriage. Morbid gave a roar and raced off after Murphy. When he saw that huge hellhound racing towards him, Murphy simply jumped up and ran along Morbid’s nose and head, before settling in the saddle.

He then nonchalantly pointed toward the highest mountain he could see through the trees and shrubbery, directing Morbid to climb it.

With that done, he turned his head slightly to listen in to the conversation that had started in the carriage between Seelie and the Beast girl.

Seelie had whipped out a strange magic tomb and then very meticulously started asking questions of the little beast girl. If nothing else, she was very industrious when it came to gathering information.

“Who are you?”

At Seelie’s first question, the beast girl scrunched her brow into a frown and surveyed the people around her. She could tell at a glance that this was the most hodgepodge adventuring party she’d ever seen. It’s like they were all rejected from other parties and were scrapped together off someone’s shoe.

She was especially horrified by the scene of Tuskelly’s head slowly merging into his neck and then just as slowly and disturbingly appearing out of one of his arm tentacles.

The only person she was more horrified by was Murphy, who she could see through the front window of the carriage. He had some strange device shaped like a little bell on his ear, and every time he gave it a little tap his eardrum would explode, and blood would pour out of his ear like a fountain. In less than a minute, his eardrum would heal, and he’d do it again.

The most disturbing part while watching this scene was that he’d be moaning and jutting his hips about as his ears poured blood. The fact that his face was painted with ecstasy when his brain should have long since been turned to mush was the most horrible thing to watch out of all these freaks.

Even her, as a beast girl who was shunned by others and different in many ways, had no way to contend for the title of freak or weird with any of these people.

After a short while of being trapped in her own thoughts, the little beast girl came back to herself and decided that it was best to tell Seelie anything she could about everything. This wasn’t because Seelie, despite carrying a huge sword, seemed the most normal out of everyone.

It was because for Seelie to be in this group of crazed horrifying monsters despite seeming so normal, she must have done some crazy fucked up shit to earn their respect. It just went to show that out of everyone in this group, the most normal one was most likely the craziest and twisted.

Not wishing to see just what sort of twisted things this Seelie girl could do, the beast girl gave in and answered her questions.

“My name is BG, my home universe is Morkle, and I’ve been a player for 69 years.”

Seelie’s eyebrow perked up as she looked at the beast girl oddly. She then took out a dagger from her belt and stabbed it towards BG as if she planned to take her life. BG didn’t even have time to react before the blade was pressed against her neck.

Seelie’s expression only became even stranger when she witnessed this. Finally, she retrieved her dagger to her belt as she asked another question of the now pale and frightened BG.

“If you’ve been playing for 69 years, how is it that you’re still so weak? Also, if you’re a player, how did you go to newb planet and become a tutor?”

“ahh ... um ... well, it’s not that we don’t try. It’s just that we lose too much to taxes, tariffs and other expenses. Higher level players force us to convert any stat and skill levels into points, then sell them in the player store.

“And to become a tutor, it’s a part of the system quests so really anyone can do it!”

BG quickly rattled off her explanation as she looked at Seelie with her big watery frightened eyes. Tuskelly, who’s head was currently unseen and was apparently making another trip through his body, turned towards Seelie.

It was hard to tell if he was making any expressions, firstly because his head was missing and secondly because he had no face. That said, his transparent glowing skin seemed to grow a little murky as he voiced himself.

“I’m surprised you don’t know that. System Quests are very common. Most domains and quest planets have a magic board that updates with quests set by the system for one reason or another. Newb tutoring is most common, but there are other quests as well. Special dungeons, raid defence, randomly generated bounties. They update almost every day, and some of them are quests that are as old as the game itself.

“The oldest system quest has a reward called ‘Ascension’. No one knows what it means, but many people believe that it means the creator of the game will bring you out into his world, where you can become as powerful as the creator!”

Seelie sat down with her legs and arms crossed as she seemed to zone out. The moment she did this, her head seemed to start giving off so much heat that sitting in the carriage with her had become uncomfortable. The speed and power of her mind were at such a staggering level that everyone was afraid she about to spontaneously combust.

Out of nowhere, the shadows of the carriage became suffocatingly dark and a shadowy black mist coagulated in the air. Moments later, Murphy stepped out of the shadows and placed a hand on Seelie’s head. Following that his hand seemed to start cracking as if it was getting baked.

Slowly, the rising heat in the carriage died down as Murphy’s body seemed to suck it all in. Even Seelie’s head, which had turned red and seemed moments from spontaneous combustion, slowly started to cool down.

Meanwhile, Murphy’s eyes had a strange glimmer, and it almost seemed like he was going to let out a moan at any moment. His body was greedily sucking up all of the heat in the surroundings with his deprive skill, so that Seelie wouldn’t suddenly explode.

This wasn’t the first time they’d done this. Normally, Seelie had other methods to cool down her brain when she started thinking at top speed, but when they were out exploring the only thing she had on hand was Murphy.

Or it was more appropriate to say that she never bothered to find another way because she loved having an excuse to force Murphy to touch her.

This went on for some time until eventually Seelie let out a long breath of steam and Murphy quickly disappeared again. Seelie smirked slightly as she watched Murphy quickly running away again, but said nothing.

She then cupped her chin, in much the same fashion that Murphy often did, and seemed to ponder something. No one was certain what she’d come up with from that brief moment when her mind was functioning at high speed, and no one got a chance to ask, because a loud scream echoed out outside and interrupted their conversation.

“ARGH!! It’s ... It’s ... DEMONS!!”

Outside the carriage, Murphy and Morbid had just stumbled into the outskirts of a small city that surrounded a towering castle. This was clearly the lands of the local baron, and the moment they stepped through the dense bushland, Morbid just happened to accidentally step on a villager and crush him flat.

Murphy could only smile wryly and scratch his face. At the moment, thanks to the heat from Seelie’s special trait ‘10,000 Thoughts’, Murphy’s body was covered in dry, red, cracked skin. Some of the cracks were even glowing red with embers, making him look like some kind of flaming demon that just crawled out of a pit of lava.

The moment he and Morbid burst through the underbrush and trees surrounding the city, warning bells started ringing and the screams of civilians all rushing to escape echoed throughout the area.

Just from a glance, Murphy could see that this entire town was made up of humans, which was quite rare considering just how minuscule the number of humans in Domain Warz was. Especially considering how many other strange and wonderful creatures lived in this universe as well.

Strangely, Murphy had an odd feeling of disassociation with these humans. Just from their reactions and the fact that the entire city was crawling with only humans, Murphy could tell that the civilisations of this world were disturbingly close to the blind and racist civilisations in all those old hero stories from before the Holocaust.

They had all lived very sheltered lives here, and most likely the whole planet was like this. If Murphy had to guess, the Holy Religion that unified this planet was focused on punishing anyone that doesn’t conform to their strict guidelines.

In other words, anything that isn’t human or approved of by the church is a lesser being and must be enslaved or purged from the universe. It boggles the mind how any domain with such an overbearing nature ever managed to grow to the point that it became a quest planet.

Murphy could see a group of powerful looking knights racing out of the baron’s castle and charging through the city in his direction. Seeing as he wasn’t sure if his new party could take on a full detachment of gallant knights right in the middle of the city, he tapped Morbid on the head, and they raced back into the bushlands.

As they ran off, Murphy grabbed Chuckles by his armour and then using his considerable strength and a few buffing spells, he launched Chuckles towards the city. Chuckles cackled a sinister laugh as he flew through the air like a missile.

The moment Murphy picked him up, he knew what his mission was going to be. Just as he was falling towards the ground, a black mist poured out of the shadows from his body and swallowed him. Moments later, he reappeared in guardhouse within the city.

Night eventually fell, and the city was still in turmoil from the appearance of the demons. The priests and bishops all quelled the rabble with plenty of brainwashing and promises of being punished with fire and brimstone if they even thought of misbehaving.

As the moon rose into the sky, a small handful of the 20 odd knights that raced into the forest eventually returned. Unlike the glorious return everyone had been expecting, these 4 Knights came back severely injured and on the brink of getting logged out.

They shuffled into town on foot, with hide nor hair of their horses to be seen. When the city found out they’d returned, a great turmoil once again rose up, and villagers from all over the city started rushing out from their homes to find out what was going on.

The moment the city started to become rowdy again, Chuckles let out an evil sounding chuckle. Using the disruption of the returning knights, he raced into the lower level of the guard house like a flickering shadow from candle light.

In the lower level were several cages filled with various creatures of the evil races along with various humans that were beaten within an inch of their lives. It’s a wonder that most of these people hadn’t simply found a way to commit suicide and respawn.

Of course, Domain Warz was an absolutely brutal and heartless game, so it goes without saying that there’s always a way if someone wants to prevent you from logging out. Hell, even the system sells things that are specifically tailored to capturing enemies and preventing them from killing themselves to log out.

As was the case with these poor souls that were trapped down here. Chuckles hid himself in the flickering shadows and passed through dark corridors and under the cracks in wooden doors. Finally, he found what he came here for.

Seated around a table in a guard room were 4 guards. One of them was a bit of a fatty and clearly of higher rank than the rest. On his belt were a set of jingling keys. The four guards were busy playing a complicated looking game involving dice, cards, a spinning wheel with a pointer and various strange pieces on a board.

In truth, they actually had no idea what they were doing and were just trying to make up a game using all sorts of other games. The life of a dungeon guard is long and boring after all.

Unfortunately for these guards, tonight was going to be far less boring than they were used to.

After Chuckles’ shadow slid under the door and noticed the keys, it slid up along the wall and into a corner. As silent as the deep empty space between domains, Chuckles’ body grew out from the shadow and his claws pierced into the stone ceiling like a needle through sponge cake.

With a great caution, he slowly crept along the ceiling until he hung directly over the head of the guards. Then, he simply waited. After a while, a moment of opportunity came. All of the guards were distracted by a dropped die.

In that split seconds when they were all facing away from each other, Chuckles’ tail flashed down. Out of the corner of their eyes, no one saw anything apart from a brief flicker, which wasn’t unusual anyway, since they used flames from candles and torches to light the place.

Eventually, someone found the die, and they all started climbing back into their seats to play. Except for the guard captain, whose fat body seemed to jiggle oddly on his hands and knees. Then, slowly, he stood up in a shaky manner and turned around to face the other guards.

The three other guards were stunned. The guard captain’s eyes were rolled back in his skull, and his face was turning green. Even more disturbing than that was a strange cock shaped tentacle was waving about from his mouth.

On closer inspection, it became apparent that the guard captain’s entire body was being supported by disgustingly shaped shadow tentacles that were inserted into the guard captain through a backdoor hack.

Before they had a chance to scream, the guard captain’s body exploded into fleshy bits of meat that covered the entire room. Then, those chunks of their guard captain slowly formed into a strange mystical symbol in the air. It then flashed a red light, and suddenly there were 6 little demon spawns standing there gnawing on the bones of the guard captain.

They then stopped simultaneously, and their dark little evil eyes suddenly focused onto the other three guards. At this point in time, these guards were so shocked and frightened that they’d already released their bowels. The moment those evil little creatures suddenly looked at them, one of them actually died from his heart instantly stopping, and the other two passed out from fear.

Chuckles dropped off the roof singing “yah yah rah” and chuckling to himself. There really wasn’t any need for all of that nonsense, but chuckles did it mostly for fun. He also got the side bonus of gaining experience in his sneak, shadow arts and assassination skills. It was actually quite a bit of experience because the whole thing had been pulled off perfectly.

After a brief moment of greeting and laughing from the spawns, they used the other guards to summon the rest of Chuckles’ summon limit. Which was 24 spawns. This group of 24 was the second most skilled team of spawns in the entire of Murphy’s domain.

The first 24 were naturally the group that Murphy personally raised and that always travelled with him. This new group was a group that Chuckles had personally trained ever since he gained the Commander evolution.

Unlike Murphy’s, who had a wide range of skills for all sorts of different scenarios, this group was specialised in covert ops. Every single one of them had the Shadow Spawn evolution. This group was raised by chuckles to be Murphy’s eyes and ears in every situation.

Not only that, but they were also trained to have powerful charades skills. Since Murphy remained too dense to learn their language, and they simply didn’t have the ability to create the sounds needed to use normal language, they had to master the art of charades to such a level that they could even communicate with a deaf mute and understand one another.

The charades skills they practised with Murphy had reached such a level that it could now be considered its own form of sign language ... albeit, a slightly twisted version.

Such masterful skills were displayed on this eerie night, as Chuckles made a series of hand signals to silently inform the others of their tasks. He grabbed the bloody keys from the ground and threw them out one at a time.

Then the spawns all made some sinister chuckling and “yah yah rah” noises as they seemed to be swallowed by the shadows of the room.