Relictus yawned as he woke up. He had apparently slept through the entire next day, and it was around 10 PM when he actually got up. He left his room and captured a table for himself. He ordered a steak and a mug of a rather popular stout, and scarfed it down as if he hadn’t eaten in months. Frankly, Relictus wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t.

It was pretty far from quiet in the inn, there were many people that were obviously adventurers there, messing around and overall being belligerent. One table went beyond being obnoxious flies, but went to being straight up belligerent. Relictus found it quite easy to tune these ones out, as they were not affecting him in any way whatsoever, but the other diners near them were visibly uncomfortable. It seemed like a common case of players disregarding the fact that NPCs were self-aware. It endlessly infuriated Relictus when people thought this; it was like invalidating the only true human contact he had had in years. Relictus had been to the brink of insanity, and some might think he went very far over the edge, never to return.

At this point, their incessant, aggravating laughter assaulted everyone’s ears as they tripped a waitress and guffawed.

“AHAHAHA! It must be hard to balance yourself with those chest-cannonballs.”

She had dropped a tray bearing food to the ground, spilling red wine and several dishes on herself. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll-“

She hadn’t even noticed until there were 4 men surrounding and taunting her, and the torment went on, nobody doing anything. Relictus was too hungry to care. He had food, and he was hungry, so he was going to eat.

Of course, this didn’t last long. The two waitresses had been stretched thin with orders, and with one down and nobody so much as paying attention to her, he didn’t get his dessert for another 20 minutes or so. He didn’t need to ask why.

At this point, they had released the waitress, and she had burst out the front door, her eyes pouring tears. Relictus was infuriated at the men for delaying his food, and he had a perfect chance to return that much tenfold when they started taunting everyone there.

“Oh, and look at the brat with the hood!”

“Wow, he’s the most scrawny person I’ve seen in this game.”

“What does he need a hood for? Is his face one that even a mother couldn’t love?”

Within moments, there was a hooded man in front of them. He dropped his hood to reveal his face, that of a young teenager, but with one abnormality. His eyes provided a stark contrast with his pure white hair, and they glowed indescribably dark colors with an otherworldly aura of malice.

This aura seemed to multiply in power by tens of times. Relictus’s face was unusually composed, but his eyes told an entirely different story, one of fury and painful death. A notification window then handily accosted him.

Gaze Into the Abyss (Active)Beginner 1/10Your eyes contain such foreboding power when you look others in the eyes that they are driven to fear so deep that it resembles insanity.

Affects enemies at 1/10 of your level.0%

The men disappeared from the door, three words echoing through the hall as they escaped. “PLEASE FORGIVE US!”

Relictus sighed, and looked down, only to notice his hand had gone to his sabre’s hilt, and part of the blade was visible. Other patrons seemed to want to express gratitude for driving off the belligerent folks, but their shifting eyes and slightly shaking hands told Relictus that they were nervous. Who could blame them? He had just driven off 4 of the top 100 players in the game. Of course, Relictus didn’t know them. He had no interest in the banter of fools and flies. Relictus also had no idea that he was number 11 in fight ranking, and had a paltry level of power in comparison to the top 10. Either way, he decided he was going to leave. This city wasn’t boring, but absolutely infuriating and teeming with self-righteous people stuck on their high horses.

~–•–~

The valley ignited with power, lit with nothing but the wide canvas of the sky and the stars scattered across it. Relictus was deep in the center of the valley, surrounded by death and destruction caused by none other than himself. In few words, Relictus was angry. Infuriated, in fact, and he had no idea why. Relictus had been completely unaffected by his exchanges with others in the city, so why was it that all of this anger had built up?

‘If I succumb to Emperor of Fury, there’s no telling how much I’ll destroy. It’s far too inconvenient to deal with this close to a city.’

He was teetering on the edge of the remains of his sanity and self-control. His weapon had cut several feet into the rock cliff several hundred meters from his position, and he just kept slashing, destroying more and more, the entire ground around him covered in the scars of the intense power unleashed from his blade. The sound of rocks being crushed resonated through the entire valley, attracted attention he didn’t want. The more that watched him, the higher risk. More and more land around him was shredded by the blade that flashed across the valley hundreds of times in a second. The gauge showing how close he was to unleashing Emperor of Fury was going down slowly, but steadily. 89.9, 88.5, 86.2, 83.1, 78.8, it accelerated in its descent towards zero.

He kept going, kept obliterating what was around him, until he saw the message.

You are no longer affected by Fury!

He looked at the bar, and it had reached… -0.1?

He decided he’d look into it later. He had completed his task of saving the entire city from the horrible fate of complete obliteration.

You have learned a new Skill!

Shattered Heart (Passive)Intermediate 4/25Your heart and mind have eroded, destroying your emotion. You think more logically, and couldn't care less about those you fell.21%

What was this? It completely contradicted Emperor of Fury. He went to read through his skills, and found Emperor of Fury greyed out and labeled ‘INACTIVE.’ He sighed. It was a great weight off of his shoulders to know he was no longer a ticking time bomb, ready to annihilate everything in a radius of 2 miles. He had no idea resetting Fury to zero would actually get rid of the skill. Did this mean he was always angry, getting even more furious as time went on? What a revelation, Relictus was a super dangerous character.

He stepped away from the destruction, having to climb up a good 20 meters to get back to the surface he didn’t destroy.

‘Whoops.’ That was all he thought. Everything within him was telling him that it was not his problem, and that it was just going to be a pain to deal with if he ever got involved. Thus, of course, his first action was to disassociate himself from the problem and go do Relictus things. It was the most comprehensive plan he could possibly come up with.

He yawned, and retired to an inn closer to the gates, so he could leave early tomorrow.

~–•–~

He woke up to a very slight tremor. It was too small for the average human to perceive, but Relictus was far from being an average human. Deciding he wouldn’t go back to sleep anyway, Relictus stored everything he had set in the room, and set off. He tossed a gold coin over the inn counter, though the one night stay was only 20 copper coins. It was negligible to Relictus, however, in the face of time. The clock ticks rapidly, and Relictus had very little time to fulfill M’arrzath’s wishes.

He nodded to the guard stationed inside the gate, and he signaled up towards the top of the brick wall, and the door split before him. He stepped through, and walked off. He needed a new goal, somewhere monsters were on his level.

~–•–~

Relictus stood now before an army of tens of thousands, weapons at the ready. He had no idea why. The front line leveled large, yet mediocre pikes and glaives, prepared to charge him.

“Would you guys move? I have places to be,” Relictus spoke, his tone obviously not a request. There were murmurs of, “who’s this guy?” and “Someone get the medics, this man hit his head!”

“Not going to move?” He asked, and he activated Gaze Into The Abyss, his face hardening. “Must I ask again?”

Immediately, the front line fell into chaos. People were doing whatever they could to get as far away as possible from him. After sending the first few hundred soldiers into utter pandemonium, he disabled the ability, grinning. “Ah, are you dealing in court jesters?” He asked mockingly, causing several of them to grumble and show their displeasure on their faces.

A horn sounded. It was a deep baritone sound that vibrated all around him, as if it was resonating with his own body. ‘A retreat signal?’ He wondered, rapidly finding this theory debunked by the charge of soldiers towards him. Still not bothered, and remaining in a leisurely stroll of a pace, he drew his sword. Thousands of soldiers fell before him. Crimson and black painted the battlefield as the red lightning cleaved through hundreds in each swing of the arm. He felt no need to use anything but his sabre. He was only halfway to the second level of mastery of Throne of Sabers.

For nearly an hour, this continued, Relictus slaughtering the NPCs, not caring who he killed. It was so fast, even for such a decisive battle, that Relictus didn’t notice the person standing before him, his silver-blond hair swept by the wind of Relictus’s own attacks.

Author’s Note

Spoiler : It’s here! Another thousand words! See, I have a life or something like that, so I can’t update often. At least this one is a bit longer, at closer to 1600 than 1000. I promise eventually they’ll be 4-10k. It takes time for my writing skill to get there. It also took a lot of thinking to come up with all that’s going on at the unreasonably fast pace I’ve set. Anyway, that’s enough of me griping about myself. Thanks so much for reading! Tell me if you have any ideas, or I’ve screwed anything up. ‘Til next time!

(Next time may be Saturday or Sunday. Might be Wednesday. Might happen at any time, so BEWARE!)

On top of all this, once I hit my 25k word mark, I decided not to rewrite. I’m not a skilled enough writer at this point to make significant and meaningful enough changes to what I have made to call any editing I do a “rewrite.” So, the story progresses!