Rebirth

Thwack

A big, bulky leg landed on a young man's stomach. He looked like he was just a bag of skin and bones.

"Do you think you can cross me?" A muscular guy with a face full of scars spat out and landed another kick on the skinny figure.

The force behind the kick sent the skinny guy smashing into the wall. BAM!

"Cough!" The guy coughed up blood and collapsed on the ground.

"Boss, be careful. This kid might die." A man with sunglasses on chimed in.

The boss said while staring at the kid in disdain, "Nah, this guy is quite stubborn and durable. Isn't that right, Jules? Tell me, do you still want to complain? Dare to say that again?" 

Not getting any reply, the boss raised his foot to land another hard kick on the almost-dead, curled-up man. Lucky for the guy, before the boss could kick him more, the guy in sunglasses came forward and stopped the boss. "Boss enough, don't forget we have to attend the big meeting. You don't want Bhai to get mad once again, do you?"

At the mention of Bhai, the boss clicked his tongue and walked away while spatting on Jules one last time.

The guy in sunglasses shook his head. He bent down to check the vitals of the skinny guy. After making sure the guy was not dead, he shouted to the goons who were laughing behind him, "You bastards, someone fetch me water!"

One of them rushed forward with a bottle full of water. The vice leader, with sunglasses on his face, snatched the bottle and poured all of it on Jules's face.

"Uaaah!" Jules opened his eyes, gasping for air. Water continued to drip on his face, making it harder for him to breathe. He pulled his hand up to stop the water from hitting his face.

At this point, the guy in sunglasses stopped pouring water and threw the empty bottle to the side.

Jules stared at him, full of confusion. The man in glasses shook his head at him and said in a low tone, "Kid, you lost your mind? Why the hell do you refuse? You want to die?"

One goon said from the back, "Vice leader, don't waste time. You know this guy is an idiot."

"Haha."

"Haha."

"Haha."

All the guys standing in the back started laughing at this. Not caring about them, the vice leader grabbed Jules by his collar and pulled him up to sit. He shouted to the other goons, "You bastards, did you forget about today's meeting?"

At the mention of the meeting, all of them quieted down. Not wasting time, the vice leader got up and said to one goon, "Help the kid; give him some dry clothes." He turned to the others and asked, "Where are the reaming guys?"

One of them tried to speak, but the vice leader kicked him in the chest. "I don't want your excuse. I don't care what you do, but I want everyone here within an hour."

All the goons meekly nodded their heads, daring not to look into the vice leader's eyes. Not caring about their reaction, the vice leader walked out of the alley.

There was a momentary silence in the alley, then all the goons rushed out of the alley. Only Jules and one goon next to him remained there.

Jules did not understand the mess going on around him. At that instant, the remaining gang member grabbed his leg.

His eyes widened, and he tried to turn his head to look at who it was, but that guy started dragging him by his leg.

'Fck,' in panic, he pulled his leg back, trying to get away from that guy. He even forced a few words out while coughing. "What are 'cough'..do... 'cough'?"

The other guy snapped at him, "Shut up! I am only dragging you away from the wet road."

He froze, as he could feel the water below him. Also, this guy was dragging him to a dry corner, realizing that he had stopped his struggle.

The other guy did not care about him. After dragging him to the dry side, he threw a set of clothes on Jules and rushed out like others.

Jules lay in complete silence, frozen in shock. He looked around in the dark alley with wide eyes and an open mouth. He was in this state, not because he got trashed by his boss. Nope, that muscular goon was not a big deal for him, but it was the surrounding area.

The last thing he remembered was the battle for essence. That battle was too important for him.

He was fighting to gain the last chuck of essence before the time limit. If he did not gain essence, his account would be deleted. After years of grinding and luck, he got the chance to compete for the position of world ruler. He could not afford to lose this account in the game Universal Online.

He remembered that all of this started six years ago with the launch of the new virtual game, Universal Online.

This game changed the boundary between virtual reality and reality. It changed the mindset of the world. Universal Online had breathtaking graphics and universal-scale gameplay. The NPCs' intelligence in the game was on the same level or sometimes even surpassed that of humans.

It revolutionized the use and capabilities of AI within virtual reality and broke the limitations that humans used to believe in.

If other games were worlds, then this game was an entire universe on its own, and within 6 years of its launch, it took over the entire earth's population.

This game left nothing untouched, from the entertainment industry to the sports industry. After the in-game currency trade started, many people even started to use the coins they earned in real life for game items, and vice versa.

A massive chunk of the population joined the game just to have the ability to gain game coins. These coins replace all digital currencies.

However, the competition in the game was so brutal that countries treated their top players as heroes. A top player was no less popular than a country leader.

From old to kids, everyone dreamed of getting to that position or even playing alongside their hero. All of this created tremendous opportunities.

Not to miss this, many billion-dollar companies joined the game to get a piece of this big cake called Universal Online.

The big companies were not the only ones interested in this game. After an initial few years, even the government and military got involved in the game.

The mysterious thing was that no one knew who made this game. Most people believe no human created Universal Online. Some believed that a hidden AI on the dark web made it, while others thought it was some alien tech.

With the game being such a massive source of income, few cared about the origin of the game. While everyone focused on getting to the top of the game.

This game globalized the job of players who work for big guilds to farm resources in the game.

The only problem with the game was that players needed a gaming pod to play Universal Online, and even the super-cheap pod was too expensive for a below-average person.

This led to the creation of the slaves, where the player took big loans, hoping to achieve something big in the game, only to fail big.

Universal Online was not your average virtual game where everyone could earn something. More than 2/3 of the population could not even recover their investment in the game.

All those things did not affect him, though. As an orphan who was involved with gangs from childhood, nobody dared to give him money. Even others in the gang would not let him play the game.

He never got the chance to play until four years after the game's launch. He still remembered that day when all the local gangs were called to a meeting that led everyone in the gangs to play the game.

He had hoped that, at least from that point on, he could get out of gang life, but bitter reality smacked him. Universal Online was a very unforgiving game where, if a player was stuck in the same rank for a long time, it would lead to his account deletion.

In Universal Online, all the players had the same role of ruler. As the rulers, they get to choose one species they want to lead. Along with the creature, they also had to choose a power type and progress path for their creature.

After all these selections, players got this space where they could cultivate their species and fight against other rulers for resources to reach a higher level. The big problem was that a ruler needed to have minimal essence.

It was not that difficult for normal players to meet the essence quota. But if one stayed on one level for a long time, it continued to become harder for them to meet this essence quota.

For a group ruler, 3 months was the mark. After that, if the group ruler did not advance, it became much harder for him to fulfill this quota.

This was the reason that for his entire first year, he was on a constant 3-month cycle of account deletion and starting again.

It was only on his 5th attempt in the 6th year of the game launch that he progressed to the next kingdom ruler level.

As a kingdom ruler, he could easily stretch to a year in the game with no problem. But being an untalented player and part of the gang, the higher-ups constantly used him as a shield that consumed his essence.

It was so bad that only in nine months was he on the verge of account deletion. He had this false hope that others in the gang would help him in need, but he was a dead weight for them.

No one helped him; even those who used him in the past nine months chose to discard him.

Helpless, he took matters into his own hands and took a hard quest to meet the essence quest, but to his bad luck, another high-skill player joined the same quest as him.

He used every resource available to him to fight against that high kingdom-level player, only to get shut down by one opposing squad.

His entire army of 10,000 creatures got wiped out just by this squad of 500 creatures. It was so absurd that only after losing did he realize his opponent knew everything about his species.

The guild had leaked all his information. He was not even mad at that point; he was just embarrassed and extremely disappointed in himself.

After all, the way that guy defeated him, he knew even if the other player had no information, he would still lose hard.

In that fight, he came to know many faults in his species' cultivation progress and how he wasted all his resources, but this realization came late. He came to know how he wasted his time on the wrong things as a ruler.

Universal Online was an unforgiving game. With essence submission time coming closer, he tried to beg that player in a last-ditch effort, only to get laughed at.

He got left behind, and soon submission time ended, and he failed the submission. He saw his character breaking into a million pieces. This was a character deletion.

He knew hell was waiting for him on the other side. After all, with his success, he offended many in the gang that failed. Now that he was losing this character, he was also losing the protection that came along with it.

He was at his lowest point when everything became dark around him. The next moment, he opened his eyes to this alley.

If he remembered correctly, then this was the exact day when their gang was called to the meeting.

'Am I dreaming, but this feels too real to be a dream?'

He mumbled in a low tone, "Did I come back to 2 years in the past?"