5 An Error (1)
Blake and Salana stared at the half-sinking phone with wide eyes, stunned for a moment.
Faster than Salana can recover, Blake takes the phone out of the coffee cup and inspect it, unconsciously fearing that it would be broken. It was then he realized that his fear has come true, half of the phone's screen is glitched.
"Why did you drop it!" Salana exclaimed in horror.
Not wanting to be blamed, Blake clicks his tongue and defended himself, "Well, you try to grab it from my hand! What do you expect will happen? Besides, how can this phone be damaged? It's not even real"
"Moron! It's a part of me, and it retains a physical presence when I willed it!" Salana said.
It was earlier that Blake got a smark idea to snatch Salana's phone and see the actual option for his starting race. Blake already assumed that the phone is similar to Salana. In that case, he decided to trick her and he was successful.
But he couldn't believe that this one-in-a-billion accident happened.
Falling to the ground is already bad enough, but the phone fell straight into the coffee cup.
"Excuse me, Sir. Are you okay...?"
Out of nowhere, a clerk that works in the coffee shop taps Blake on the shoulder when he saw Blake talking to himself in a frantic manner. "A-Ah... I'm okay, don't mind me" He quickly replied with a wry smile.
After the man nodded and left, Blake then decided to go back to his apartment first.
More people would think he was crazy if he keeps arguing with Salana in public, "Let's get back first before we draw more attention" He said before he gets up and exit the coffee shop with Salana following behind him, still shocked.
On the way back, Blake's eyes then catch a certain person on the side of the road.
A frown appeared on his face when he saw that there was a holographic figure right behind the person wearing an adventurer outfit and a buckler and a dagger in his hands. It looks like a game character.
"Is that what I think it is?" Blake asked and nudge his chin at the man.
Salana glanced at the man he was talking about and saw the same holographic figure, "Don't worry about it, that's an innate ability given to Privileged Players. Even in the real world, you could see the avatar information of the people that are players in the Lunaris game"
Blake squinted his eyes and finds the level as well as the location of the holographic figure.
[DragonSlayer - Level 6]
[Blouver Novice City]
'Hmmm... isn't this very convenient for me who has a Limited PK VR Helmet? I can even see their location, pretty neat' Blake thought, being a Privileged Player is quite a blessing indeed if he could see people's avatars like this.
Out of curiosity, Blake then asked, "What are the other benefits of a Privileged Player?"
"Later, I'll explain to you later. You still need to create your avatar first, and now the All-purpose phone is broken because of you. Eughh... stupid!" Salana replied, still salty by the incident as she sharply stares at Blake.
About five minutes later, the two arrived back at the apartment.
Blake sat on the sofa alongside Slana before the two inspected the All-purpose phone, "It's just this phone, right? If I fired the VR Helmet, I should still be able to create my avatar through there"
"I don't know, the phone is connected to the Lunaris Game. So I don't know..."
"Well, there's only one way to find out"
Going over to his PC, Blake checks and finds the installation is finished. Now, he only needs to fire the helmet and play the Lunaris game. "I'll see you inside, I hope nothing is wrong with your avatar creation menu"
As she said that, Salana's entire being was sucked into the VR Helmet.
Not wasting a second, Blake quickly wears the helmet after Salana disappeared before the initialization process started. Closing his eyes, he can somewhat feel that his senses are starting to become numb.
It only takes a moment before he lost consciousness, his min was launched into the game.
An undetermined amount of time has passed.
Blake slowly regained back his senses again but his surroundings feels way different than before, he now feels a cold wind brushing against his skin which brought an upbringing chill, and his back also feel wet.
Opening his eyes slowly, he finds himself in a completely new place.
Shining brightly on the horizon in front of him is the moon, it's seemed close and its presence is a beauty of its own. Around the moon is sparkling stars, adding the breathtaking sight of the entire silent place.
Gazing down to his feet, he finds himself standing in a dark still water.
It was complete silence for a moment, yet Blake raises his gaze when he hears splashing water from his front. Standing not far from him was the same moon goddess from earlier, materializing from specks of moonlight energy.
"Welcome back, Moon Despolier..."
Blake was surprised to hear the soothing voice, tuning like a melody entering his ears.
"Do you want to continue your avatar creation process?"
Upon hearing what the moon goddess said, Blake sigh in relief as it seems the game is not broken. It seems he was worried for nothing. 'I'm being silly, how can the game be broken anyway? Salana and the phone are not real'
Refocusing back on the moon goddess, Blake then replied, "Yes, please let me continue"
"Out of all of the creation process, only the race section is still blank. Please pick a race that you want to choose, these are the available options for you" The moon goddess waved her hand elegantly, showing the available starting race options.
Just then, Blake frown when he saw that the options were unreadable.
[@#@&%#@]
[@#*#@&@}
[&@@!&#]
[#@...]
None of them are readable, and there's a glitching effect on each one of them that makes his face pale. 'Come on, you can't be serious. How can that phone be connected with this game, this is BS!' Blake complained inside his head.
In sheer frustration, he click one option and yet, nothing happened.
Click!
Click!
Click!
Blake keeps on clicking every option, but more appeared in replace of the previous ones.
After about two minutes of clicking the options furiously, nothing happened. Blake sighs dejectedly, and he decided to give up, 'It seems I'm not destined to play this game. Whatever, thankfully I didn't pay anything for it'
Just as he was about to exit the game, his breath suddenly got stuck mid-way.
It was for a couple of seconds that he held his breath as he catches sight of the moon goddess has experienced a total change in her demeanor. She was beautiful and elegant at first, but now her expression contorted.
Wearing a malicious smile alongside glowing eyes, the moon goddess looks menacing.
It didn't take long for Blake to feel the bad intent behind her glistening eyes.
Seeing the expression the moon goddess is wearing right now, Blake instinctively started backing away. 'I like you before, a literal beautiful goddess. Now... I don't think I like you anymore"
But as soon as he did that, a pair of white chakrams appeared in the moon goddess' hands.
In a single blink, the moon goddess was already closing up on him.
At the extreme moment of surprise, Blake's pupils dilated seeing the moon goddess swinging her chakrams in full force, aiming for his neck. Time slow down immensely as his eyes were glued onto the moon goddess' sharp chakrams.
Upon the two chakrams nearing his neck, a sudden jolt forces his body to react.
Just like that, time started to slow down immensely as his eyes were fixated on the Moon Goddess' sharp chakrams. As it nears his neck, a sudden jolt forces his body to react and dodge the swing.
Swish!
Blake manage to dodge the chakrams and feel the cold and sharp air their arcs created.
Staggering back a couple of steps, he blinks his eyes a couple of times before his eyes widened in surprise. "I- I dodged it...? How did I do that?" Blake thought out loud, he actually managed to dodge the attack.
Instantly after that, he heard a voice ringing inside his mind.
'Blake, can you hear me?'
"Salana...?"
Judging from the voice, he was sure that it was Salana's voice that reaches his mind.
Ignoring the puzzled tone that Blake is using upon hearing her voice, Salana then said, 'As you might reckon already, the avatar creation menu seems to be experiencing an error. She shouldn't be attacking you like this'
'No, shit einstein! I don't even have an avatar yet!' Blake screamed inside his head.
Rolling her eyes in annoyance, Salana then shrugged his remarks and instructed very carefully, 'Okay, listen to me. It's not going to be good for you but there's no other choice, I need to help. Loosen your body, and you should feel a burning sensation in your heart. When you feel it, let that burning sensation control your instinct'
Having no time to debate, Blake quickly tries to calm himself down and does as he was told.
As she said, he can feel something burning inside of him. It was subtle, but he can't deny that it was there. Blake tries to focus on that burning sensation, and let its heat guides him wherever and however, it wants.
It was then that heat started spreading throughout his body.
Blake glances at his own arms and finds the burning sensation has created a bright crimson line running down each of them, starting from his shoulders and winding around like a coiling serpent until it ended on his wrist.
Something evidently changes, and he also feels stronger for some reason.
'Doing this before you reach the appropriate level is not good for you. But I reckon if you lose here, then you'll not be able to create your avatar, and you would definitely die in the Inevitable Apocalypse' Salana explained.
Even though he blamed Salana for this, he still cursed his bad luck for making that happen.
'Follow your instinct, you must survive this. Beat her!'
Gazing at the moon goddess who is still looking at him eerily, Blake turns serious as Salana doesn't seem to be playing around anymore. 'Okay, follow your survival instinct, follow your survival instinct. I can do this!'
Blake keeps repeating that in his head, until eventually, the moon goddess makes her move.
Swoosh!
Although he was trying to keep a strong resolve to fight this out and survive, that resolve completely disappeared when he saw the moon goddess' devilish smile blooms even wider, sending alert signals to all of his instincts.
"T-Time out! Wait a minute, time out!"
