White light flashed before Shu's eyes like the physical manifestation of some age old cliché. A vague memory told him that this was just how it felt to log out. Any moment now, the white light would fade and he would open his eyes to stare up at the blank, reflective insides of his VR capsule just in time to die a flaccid and uninteresting death in the real world. Yet the white light did not fade. In-fact, things started to spin and whirr all around Shu.

Then it was as if God blinked and the world shifted.

Shu was formless, shapeless, like water. He had no hands or feet nor body to speak off. He was just a floating consciousness.

What an eerie sensation.

On the white walls, millions of symbols scrolled past him at a speed that made it impossible to get a clear look. It made him dizzy just looking at it.

Wait, was that code? He thought he recognized it as a coding language, but even he could not discern what language it was, since it moved past him so swiftly.

Was this some kind of a bug in the matrix? Was he in a coma in the real world? He could not access the menu to log out, nor could he simply wake himself up using the built in safety mechanisms. In fact, they didn't seem to work.

Since struggling was futile, Shu resigned himself to staring at the symbols that swirled all around him like a tornado of code with him at the center of it all. The whirring symbols blurred, expanding until they filled his consciousness to the very brim.

Then as if a switch had been flipped, everything went dark.

From the darkness came a soft light. A subtle, comfortable warm glow emanated from that light. It absorbed his consciousness, swallowing it whole like some sort of delicious treat.

Welcome to E!"#¤D!#"%[email protected]£$5E¤"# error £@$£€¤%# popular VMMORPG. Please proceed to character creation.

Confused, Shu did the only thing he could, and used his mind to click enter. The view changed again, and scenes of nature flashed before his eyes. There were Waterfalls, giant snowy mountains, misty swamps and vast, burning deserts with cloud piercing white towers and golden domed palaces, underwater gungan style bubble cities and a vast metropolis so far above land that it seemed to float on the clouds themselves. Such scenes flashed through his mind one after the other. Scenes of the past, scenes from Edge online. Scenes from his homeworld. He was filled with a longing for that place. A longing to go home.

Error,"#¤"#¤ System anomaly detected. AI working, processing. New system entity assimilated. Contin"#¤ error l"#¤"#¤ preparations.

As the robotic announcer voice died away, Shu opened the character pane to take a look. There were no other options or paths forward. This was not a multiple choice reality, but a single linear path forward.

Such was character creation. Besides, he was intrigued by this new development. He should've died as soon as the Edge servers went offline, yet he remained conscious in this strange space. He was not a stupid man, and could immediately infer that something strange was happening to him.

Instead of being returned to the real world, Shu had instead been sent back to an Edge like character creator. If the name was anything to go by, then that meant he was somehow still in Edge, or atleast some sort of Edge-like game.

He couldn't help but feel excitement as he clicked next and was greeted by a very nostalgic screen. Was this what hope felt like? At that moment, he chose against his own pessimism to believe that a future existed for him.

A way forward.

This was indeed the character creator for Edge Online. He had not visited this screen in 12 years. Well, he actually created his character during the closed beta, so it was 13 years old, but that kind of advantage was a secret the company did not want to let slip, so he and the few other beta testers had been sworn to silence and given rewards for keeping said silence.

Scanning Host to determine start "#¤ sical traits. "#¤"#¤ Error, no host found. Proceeding with backup data.

A shiver ran down Shu's spine as he heard this. What did that mean? No host found was an error message that appeared if the system couldn't connect properly to the body inside the VR capsule. But he'd been solidly connected for 5 years without any problems to speak of. Perhaps one of the nurses on the outside was forcibly disconnecting him. That shouldn't be happening though, and he was pretty sure he would feel it if someone was doing that. So why?

He had no sense of the outside world at all. This confused and scared him. No host found...

Those robotic words repeated again and again inside of his mind , making him shudder.

Wait, what was that now? At first, he thought he had imagined it, but no. It was very quiet, but it was there.

He could hear it.

A feminine laugh as elegant as creation itself, like thousands of tinkling bells and whispers on the wind, yet there was something dark about that laugh. Something a little... wacky? He was sure that it was not just his delusion.

He focused his attention on the bubbly laughter, but then it abruptly ceased. Had it been his imagination after all?

His consciousness seemed to push away the idea.

Nevermind. It was clearly not important. Not important at all.

Looking at the human avatar that stood before his eyes, he couldn't help but grin. It looked exactly like his old Avatar from Edge, a younger and slightly more handsome version of himself. Hey, a man had to live, right? You'd have to be an idiot to create an ugly avatar. Though that kind of individual did exist, especially within the monster races.

Still, you'd have to be, let's say, 'special' to enjoy embodying an ugly, drooling ogre or a slime for years at a time in a virtual world that felt like reality. If reality had swords, magic and amazing superpowers, crazy environments and world devouring bosses, that was.

What intrigued Shu right now though, was the vast list of new playable races that spread out before his eyes. That and the fact that there was no faction of light or faction of darkness tab sorting the races. It seemed like each race belonged to their own faction, in a manner of speaking. And factions were created dynamically by the game itself, in addition to the surrounding political landscapes. Wait, was this a game? A new game? What was that laughter from before?

Hmm. Hmmm. HMMMMM.

A force seemed to push on his mind. What was he thinking about again? Nevermind. It wasn't important.

This lack of dark or light factions suited Shu's temperament just fine, for he had never been one to like absolutes. There was no absolute good or absolute evil, only a massive gray area encompassing the everchanging morals of humanity. Take the AI's in Edge online for example.

Many players on both sides had treated the game AI like trash, but in reality they were exactly like humans.

After all, AI had long since passed the turing test and the advancements since then were truly staggering, changing the world forever. Shu could hardly imagine how it must've been to live in a world without the convenience of AI assistance.

It was no exaggeration to say that AI were artificial human beings, but they were different too of course.

Still, Shu had never been biased against AI like many of the so called players of the light, who were supposed to represent the best and brightest of goodness and compassion and yet quite often abused the AI, exploiting them like slaves and treating them like animals, despite the fact that they were just as sentient as any human player. Right when Edge had launched, some woman found a very friendly guy in the game, and they eventually entered into virtual marriage together. It was only after she'd spent over a year with him, and they'd tied the knot, that she realized he was an AI, and thus could not meet her in real life, sans somehow transferring his AI data into a robot, which wasn't completely unheard of.

At the time it was still illegal to do so, but that changed after that case.

The fact that there were no pre-determined factions was an excellent choice indeed, for that would enable players and even AI to create their own factions and kingdoms.

Freedom. A lacking commodity in this day and age. Freedom was everything to him.

Human.

Dwarf.

Halfling.

Elf.

Dark Elf.

Fairy.

Goblin.

Slime.

Troll.

Orc.

Ogre.

Beast-tribes.

Undead.

Lich.

Centaur.

....

Those were all ordinary races. Shu skipped further down to the new additions.

Lo and behold! Here before his very eyes there were races that had been unplayable in Edge, with their own hitherto unheard of sub-species to boot. Interesting, these were races that were previously only available to NPCs.

Dragonkin.

Demon.

Gorgon.

Kraken.

Dragon.

The one Shu was most curious about was the demon race and its sub-species. In Edge online, the whole first part of the game had been about the fight between the forces of Light versus the forces of Darkness.

Players of all races had been able to choose their starting alignment.

However, none were allowed to choose the true races of darkness.

Heading the forces of Darkness and evil was of course the Demon King and his henchmen, so naturally he was curious about this race that once led the forces of darkness in the game before his guild had forcefully taken over the management.

When he clicked the Demon race, his avatar transformed from an ordinary human into a hulking, 6 meter tall red monster with enormous goat horns and other random spikes protruding from a grotesquely shaped, inhuman looking skull. The thing had hairy goats legs and hoofs instead of feet.

The name of this Sub-species was Diabolos. Shu had never heard of this race in Edge before, but it looked alot like the demon king from Edge. Scrolling through the sub-species and reading their descriptions, Shu lost himself for a time. When he finally landed on the last demon sub-species, he did a double take. This race had turned his avatar, from hulking demonic beast, straight into what appeared to be a 12 year old version of himself, albeit a slightly modified one.

It was subtle, but there was a horn hidden in the long mass of black hair that hung down the childs back like a wild carpet of shadows, swirling and curling and nearly brushing against the ground. The skin of the race before him was as pale and smooth as the purest marble. Strange, Edge should adjust the avatar to the players age, yet this here was clearly a child race? Edge Online was rated a mature game because of the death and sex elements and the realism of these things. No children were allowed, fictional or otherwise.

The other races had many sliders to play around with, but everything about this strange race including its description, was completely greyed out. Could it be some sort of incomplete, buggy race? There was only an option to adjust the eyes so he could look like someone with chuuni.

Shu wasn't really sure what was happening, but since this was most likely a delusional dream, a prelude to his inevitable death, he decided to just go with it. It was not that he possessed the desire to play as a diminutive race in Edge though. He'd tried a dwarf once and hated it. He was merely curious about this unknown and unknowable race, and since this was clearly a delusional dream, he decided to see what would happen if he chose it and clicked next.

Originally, one such as he could spend many hours forging an avatar, choosing a class and plotting progression spreadsheets to plan out the optimal way of advancing his character. However, right now he had only one option to play with, so naturally he wouldn't just ignore it.

He made the eyes glow eerily with a purple tint to them. When he was about to click next, he saw the heterochromia option. Might aswell go all out, he thought.

He changed it, and made one eye pure and startling purple, while he made the other one a smoldering demonic red with flecks of dark interspersed, matching his image of the Demon Kings gaze from back then.

This gave the avatar before him a decidedly inhuman appearance with that long flowing black hair, strangely statuesque face, and eyes that reminded one of the uncanny valley, and of dark and disturbing things. This was a strangely appealing avatar, yet something you might find in a horror movie aswell. He was quite satisfied with himself, but he hadn't actually done much though, just changed the eyes.

Since there were no other sliders with which to play, and since he was in a hurry to find out what would happen if he created a character in this dream or whatever it was... he unabashedly clicked next.

Character Creation Complete. Proceed to Class selection screen?

Yes!

Error, Class already determined. Scanning status. AI has detected an anomaly. Processing... process#% error. New data assimi#¤%#¤% generati#¤%#¤%#¤process displ#¤% character info.

Character name: Shugireth Darkstar

Level: ????

Main Class: (Ancient) Archmage

Wait what? Something strange was clearly happening. Was this a buggy alpha he'd somehow gotten himself into or what?

Error, class display insufficient. Expan"¤# Reconfi"#¤"#¤ Character has exceeded level 50, second job-class available. Character has exceeded level 100, third job-class available, character has exceeded level 150, fourth job-class available... Character has exceeded...

AI processing, processing. Assimilating new data.

Shu could only stare in amazement at the screen before him as the spectacle unfolded. Even the Edge alpha had not been this buggy and strange. Sometimes the space would flicker and a sharp and unpleasant sensation would shoot through him like lightning, though it felt like his soul was being torn apart or ripped out through his chest. He imagined himself being resusitated with those weird metal plate shocker things from the olden days. He'd once watched an oldschool medical drama and seen many weird things in use, those weird metal shock-plates included. Nanos were so much more convenient.

In real time, he watched the mysterious AI working, and options for classes, sub-classes and new jobs were added one after the other so rapidly that he couldn't keep up with it. This was something else. In Edge, you had one class, but it appeared that in this system you could multi-class. It might even be possible to learn skills from other classes through grinding out the training, just like in that famous korean VMMORPG, though that would be easier said than done. Most people did not have a strong fortitude for grinding. Gamers nowadays were weak, always opting for the easy way out. They never pushed themselves out of their comfort zone and challenged themselves.

Shu supposed he could thank these weak individuals for giving way in the early part of Edge online. While the normies slept, his guild grinded for experience and levels and pushed content at an inhuman speed.

Shu took a quick glance at the class list, but he didn't have any intention to get bogged down in the specifics right now. If this was an actual game, he could just choose his classes after he spawned in the game, since you were obviously supposed to spawn at level 1 and work your way up. He was curious about the classes though, since there were a bunch of new races and sub-species added to this so-called Edge Reborn so perhaps there would be new jobs, classes and crafts too.

Race specific classes? Heh. There were things like...

Hellreaver (demon).

Hell Legionnaire (demon).

Doomcaster (demon).

Warlock (demon).

And many more just for demons alone. Along with those were a whole bunch of greyed out options for the other races. Dwarven stoneweaver, Orc berserker, goblin tribal shaman... Shu felt a strange pressure bearing down on him.

He decided that he could wait no longer. An invisible pressure pushed against his consciousness, compelling him to proceed.

Whatever this was, he needed to see what would happen next. If he could actually spawn into the world... Mentally, Shu clicked next. A huge red button filled his vision, blinking aggressively. It only said one thing.

REINCARNATE?