23 [Covenant Avenger]

Was this already in my anticipation? I didn't feel as much surprise as I would've expected in a situation like this. 

My friend and mentor asking me to kill him. Who was also a demon with a level over 300. And he wanted to kill me while he flew at full speed, escaping an attacker, who, by the way, slowly was getting closer. Or maybe it was just my imagination. But the situation alone was crazy and Coven's wish even more. Even if I was physically able to kill him, how could he ask me to kill him? 

"I know that my wish isn't what you would expect. But this is the only option I have left to help you. So please, grant my wish, I beg of you." Coven said. 

"You're unfair." I complained, tears already wetting my eyes. The emotions I was feeling were both chaotic and suffocating. He didn't tell me everything, lied to me and even had the audacity to ask me to kill him now? I was angry and more than that, disappointed. Those days and weeks I spent with him suddenly seemed less beautiful and wondrous. How long did he plan to abandon me like this? 

What if I would have still tried to find his murderer after he was gone? Not knowing he betrayed my trust. Would this have been better? Not knowing of the cruel truth and living a lie of sadness and revenge? 

The only thing which was clearly laid out in front of me was that we had no future and only a few stolen moments left. Regardless how I felt, Coven wouldn't live much longer. But still, a part of me just wanted to log out and forget all about him, this vicious demon which made me happy, feel loved and somehow...seen. It was laughable, I was laughable. I truly cared for an NPC who was nothing but data that could be erased any second. I cared enough that I would place revenge for him over my daily life. 

At this moment, I would have to make a choice, whether I liked it or not. 

"You may call this world a prison, but I liked it more than the real world, because you were part of it, Coven. Asking me to kill you, is the most heartless thing to ask of someone." I paused and took a deep breath. "But I will do as you say, if this is what you wish for. I hope this will erase you from my mind and help me forget you and how you broke the trust I placed in you. I know how nasty I am to criticize you like this, but I want to hurt you, as much as you did hurt me by pretending you died. You made me feel insignificant, helpless and little. As much as I would love it to forget you, I might still think of you. 

I hope you won't find peace but haunt this continent until this game is completely erased. That you will never find solace and happiness even in death."

Surprisingly, he just smiled at me gently (as much as a demon's face could look gentle) and said: "Do what you desire. I will just give my best to assist you to escape this damned world. I know you can do it."

One of the huge hands suddenly clawed at the demon's own chest, until a beating heart was exposed only a few dozen centimeters away from me. Although the demon was smaller than before when he towered over Daystreak, he was still at least over two and a half meters large, if not three meters. 

Only after I was given a direct view of his beating heart, while blood sprayed out of the alarming wound, I felt the chilling declaration for what it was once again. The bloody tissue was already regenerating and growing back together at visible speed. 

"Hurry." he said, "Do it now." 

While looking at the demon, Coven, my eyes focused on his frightening ones, I activated my most fearsome skill. It had cost me a few gold coins and was an epitome of destruction.

[flying blade lvl.4] (active)

Description: A cluster of blades that can tear your opponents apart is summoned.

Effect: The certain number of blades 10 x 4 (skill level) is under your control for a maximum of ten seconds. The blades can deal either 

[Piercing Damage] 500 + 4 (skill lvl) x 45 (lvl) damage

[Armor Piercing Damage] 1.000 + 4 (skill lvl) x 45 (lvl) can be dealt with a 15% + 4 (skill lvl) probability. 

[Bleeding] continuous damage of 50 x 4 (skill lvl) 

[Laceration] 1.500 instant damage is dealt by default if another attack follows after [Armor Piercing Damage] 

[Killing blow] 750 x 4 (skill lvl) can be dealt by directly harming either the heart or the brain of the opponent. 

Cost: 50 Mana per activated second

Cooldown: 12 hours

Remarks: The blades are too small for flying on top of them. Don't even try to step on them!

As soon as I summoned the blades into existence they rapidly fired at Coven, piercing and stabbing his heart. Although this skill could deal insane amounts of damage at my level and I ripped out the blades to shoot them again, seven seconds were needed until the body began to disintegrate under my fingers. Slowly at first, only tiny patches dissolved, until the body holding mine carefully shattered around me and I was covered in light. "Farewell little Mysty…" were his last murmures and then he was gone. 

[You killed the [Noble Demon] [Covenant Avenger] [Lvl.312]. Congratulations! 

Your skill [flying blade lvl.4] dealt fatal damage to [Covenant Avenger]

Claim your reward(s)! [Yes] [No] [Later]]

And then, as if a bit disappointed, the system issued another notification:

[You failed the Main Quest of Daystreak: The Lord of the Underworld. The protagonist of your faction died. No rewards will be granted. Your mission rating is: F-]

The mission disappeared from my mission list and the only notification in my point of view was the window which stated Coven's death. As I was still processing what just happened, I fell down. My body would touch the earth under me soon and I would die, too. So I fastly chose one button.

[You chose [Yes]. Check out your rewards!] Before I could watch the mini-animation of the usual treasure chest and the following firework, something went wrong!

A pop up entered my view, red, large, blinking in bold letters: "ERROR" It read. Only a fraction of a second later, my whole field of view was spammed by the pop up windows, and the view of the sky which was already turning dark was replaced by a space filled with the notifications. And then I hit the ground. I felt my neck rupturing and then pain filled my vision, my entire sensory functions were only consisting of hurt! Everything around me turned black, only to see the usual whirling storm of colors but in short outbursts, again and again, disrupted by short intervals of black or colors I couldn't identify. But all those perceptions were dimmed by the pain covering and dulling my senses. My whole body hurt and it felt like I was on fire. I wanted to scream but there was no voice, no sense of smelling nor tasting. It felt like I was floating in emptiness, and even as my arms flailed around, they could neither find any halt nor discern if they were touching anything at all. 

After hours of this torture (maybe only a few minutes), the colors finally faded, the black turned into the familiar inside of my capsule and the pain grew weaker. I was drenched in sweat and still felt as if my neck was just broken from falling a few dozen meters down to earth, and my whole body just shattered alongside. My heart was still beating frantically and it was as if my brain couldn't decide if this pain was just an illusion or reality. I wanted to get out of the pod and pressed against the lid of my capsule only to get an electric shock. But it wasn't a weak shock but a real bolt of electricity which hurt like hell! I screamed in surprise and was relieved to hear my voice. At least I wasn't senseless anymore.

Luckily, the capsule opened after the short touch and released me from the metallic embrace. I groaned as I lifted my hurting muscles. It felt like I laid there for days and not hours. After I got out of the capsule, my legs felt weak but I avoided finding a halt on the metallic exterior in fear of another bolt of electricity. 

I wobbly walked into my kitchen to cook me something. My phone was still lying on the table. As I wanted to start it, it didn't respond. I grabbed my charging cable and plugged my phone in. Then I started it and watched the display lit up. Missed calls and messages flooded in. But my eyes lingered on something else. How is this possible? 

It shouldn't have been the 27th, but the 25th! 

I checked my messages and hastily replied to my employer, but stopped as I thought about the reason for my absence. What happened when I died in-game? I should have revived and not been logged out forcibly. And even if I was logged out, it should have been noon of the 25th and not of the 27th. I saved the draft of the email and opened the internet to find out if it was a new error of the game. But the news on the opening page distracted me. 

"Server breakdown? Virtual Reality is temporarily inaccessible."

"End of an gigantic MMORPG - 'Cerulean Skies - Mysteries of Falan' shutdown"

"What is this?" I mumbled and clicked on one of the articles mentioning the game. It described a massive server crash on the evening of the 25th and a statement of the gaming company stating that an error occurred and their technicians were working at fixing this bug at the moment. But even after a long search, no one was trapped in their capsule like me. So why did the error affect my capsule? Was it defective? I should have it checked. After checking out the news, I returned to the draft of my email and contacted my employer. 

I still needed the money to live. But I still was disturbed at what happened with my capsule and called a capsule repair service after I pacified my employer and excused myself by pretending to have caught a bad cold and couldn't leave the bed. 

But the technician found nothing and said my capsule had the normal parameters. It was even in slightly better shape than usual capsules of the same age. 

On the next day, the gaming company issued another statement saying that the errors were fixed and the servers would be online at 18 o'clock once again. After it turned 18:01 I was still unsure if I wanted to return to playing the game since Coven would be finally gone and I had no one to blame for his death except myself and the regulations of the company. Would this world be the same after Coven's death? It was still a beautiful game. But what if playing would never be the same anymore? Or worse, what if it would be the same? Should I just leave the game? 

But I couldn't just leave like this. I didn't want to just exit the game like this. At least I wanted to make a grave for Coven to honor him and tell the people of Daybreak and the black market of his death. I collected myself and my emotions peaking in sadness, forcing back tears. I was his murderer now and I should take responsibility and at least remember him for what he did for me and the people of Daybreak. 

I lied down in the capsule and was sucked inside the game. But I entered a blank white space instead of the reincarnation point I expected. 

[Welcome to Cerulean Skies - Mysteries of Falan [player6785693]! Please choose a starting class.] 

"What?" I was surprised. "I already have a character. It's [Mystyval Ru-ná]!"

[There is no such character linked with this capsule. Please create a character to start playing Cerulean Skies - Mysteries of Falan! The possible classes are...]

"Please first search for the player with the name [Mystyval Ru-ná]!" I butted in the speech of the system and cut its introduction short. 

[Searching...searching...there is no player with a character named [Mystyval Ru-ná]. Do you want to show characters with related names?] 

"No! Search for any hint of an erased account linked to this capsule."

[Searching...there seems to be an erased character. But the data is already overwritten and can't be accessed. Please contact customer service to get further information.]

But even after I waited in the call center queue, they couldn't restore my lost character. Everything I worked so hard for was gone, all the items I acquired in the virtual body of [Mystyval Ru-ná] lost as well. I left my capsule and slumped down against the cold metal and started crying. 

"Why? Why am I always at the losing end? Why can't I be lucky and happy like everyone else? Life is so fucking shitty! I just wanted to have fun alongside Coven and now everything is gone! How can they do this to me! Why can't they restore my character?

Is it because I'm not famous enough or wouldn't offer money to this greedy company? Why am I always at the bottom? All those fucking pay to win games are the worst trash! I don't want this anymore! I…" In the middle of my rant, I remembered why I even wanted to log in. It was to bury Coven. I didn't plan to play the game anyway anymore. So did it matter if I retained my character or not? So I dried my tears and sat up.

I rushed through the character design because I wouldn't play the game after today again. My only focus was to head to Daystreak. But as I got to choose a starter town, I remembered that I needed at least level 10 to travel further away from the beginner towns as well as be strong enough to reach Daystreak or find a group of players or NPCs I could travel with. My original starting town, Bronning, was slightly further away from Daystreak than another beginner town but the other had a level 20 hunting ground between itself and Daystreak. Bronning only had one level 5 and a level 10 hunting ground as the closest route leading to Daystreak. I chose the same beginner town and materialized at the reincarnation point.

[Welcome to Falan, [player6785693]! You are in the starting town Bronning of the Remian kingdom. Please enjoy your adventures in this magical world!] At the familiar notice I held back nostalgic emotions. 

Once again I started an 'adventure' in Falan. Only this time, it would be my last. 

End of Arc 1 - Mystyval of Daystreak