I stared at the message box floating in front of me in utter awe and shock, around me the corpses of various boss level monsters and the ruins of what used to be the castle of the demon lord who is currently in pieces dissolving into the ground.

Congratulations to Player ShinKage for defeating the demon lord

*Ding

New title gained: Savior of the World

*Ding

New title gained: Death Defier

*Ding

New title gained: The First Legendary Hero

I can't believe I finally beat it, this VR game that is ironically named "Death Defiance Online" was one of the hardest games that has ever come out, with thousands of players that contributed to the millions of deaths that is still growing as the game had a permadeath system. Rather than lvling and completing quests most the time you had to worry about how not to die because of the level of realism in the game.

A large portion of the player base was made up of people who just wanted to see how many ridiculous ways you can die in this game. Having a complete anatomic system you can die from many different ways that normal rpgs would let you shrug off. Starving, freezing, dehydration, burning, drowning, asphyxiating, food poisoning, even tripping and hitting the ground the wrong way to name a few. And that being a small sample of the natural ways you can die, not including the player killing and completely random and wacky events like one that made the sky rain swords (free swords if you survive long enough, which no one did) or the random mutation of the non-hostile rabbits surrounding the start zone turning into monstrously huge killer rabbits complete with razor sharp fangs and glowing red eyes which isn't all THAT bad if it weren't for the fact that they were as fast as race cars... and they were on fire.

All of these added to the bloated infamy of the game and many videos all over the internet depicted the many ways you can die (pretty morbid considering how realistic the game is, even with toned down gore).

Despite that many hardcore players me including kept at it, trying to complete the cliché storyline of a hero going to slay the demon king. It took nearly two months before the first player reached level 20. After spending half a year in remote mountains fighting Rock Bears, camping out in the elements and eating meals that all but consisted of stale bread, water and whatever else I had time to scavenge out there.

I opened my status menu.

Status WIndowNameShinKageClassSwordsmanLevel105Health1/10850Mana279/6500Stamina0/13780

I cough out a bitter laugh, 1 HP, i barely scrapped by despite half a year's worth of preparation and with the permadeath system it would've all been for nought. But it was exhilarating, a feeling that could only be accomplished by living hand in hand with death. It's what keeps most of us in these games I guess, where one moment is enough the change the course of everything. Not knowing when, where, or how death would come at you.

The sound of bricks stacking together brought me out of memory lane, looking around I can see that the area is starting to regenerate itself and I do NOT want to be here when it's finished. Taking one last glance at the area I took out a Recall stone and teleported back to the starting city where the king awaited, it was finally time for me to finish this long journey.

*Note: just a short little intro for now.