Chapter 7: Escape From The Forest

Atlas could feel his presence detection going off continuously as Midnight moved in and out of his radius with insane speed.

She was slowly lowering both Atlas and Ajax's stamina before intending to deal the final attack.

No matter what Atlas could think of, he was trapped. If he ran she'd catch up and end him almost instantly but if he stayed then his Undead would die one by one until he died himself.

Biting his lip he wondered how they even found him as he was supposed to be a while away from them after putting some distance.

"Looks like you're in a pickle huh Atlas" Liam laughed as he moved out from the shadow of the trees, not even trying to hide his smile.

"My you really are an Undead" he stated while pointing towards the giant hole in Atlas's chest.

Still pointing he tried the aggravation approach and asked "that must've hurt, how does it feel watching your only friends die without being able to do a thing to help. They must be looking at you from the afterlife and saying why didnt you help? Why did you get a second chance but not us?"

Atlas felt infuriated but he couldn't do anything for if he left the protective circle of his Undead then it would mean certain death.

Liam soon realized his approach to getting Atlas out wasn't working and his smile faded into a more neutral expression.

"It looks like we're doing this the hard way" he sighed while putting a hand on his head, it was so fast that Atlas couldn't react in time.

He survived thanks to Ajax who blocked the blow by pure coincidence in his movements, moving back towards Atlas just beforr Liam had attacked. Liams sword was protruding straight from Ajax's back and dangling just inches away from Atlas's face.

"Do you want to know something?" Atlas asked looking towards Liam, "and what might that be? I can delay your death to hear your last words." Liam responded with what looked to be a sincere smile though Atlas knew it was fake.

Liam pulled out his sword and backflipped right next to Midnight as they both stood their waiting.

Atlas took a deep breath and prepared for his next move, he didn't need to breathe as an Undead because his body was dead and it requires no breathing, food, water, nor sleep. He did so to calm his rising anxiety.

"Did you know we each have separate Pocket dimensions where our voids lay?" Atlas asked before quickly opening a portal and walking into it, teleporting to the Void along with his Undead.

Liam was stunned for a moment unable to speak or move, when he gained composure he told Midnight to verify if what he said was true and to enter the void.

"If we can't get to him there, we wait for him to come out and ambush him then." Liam smiled already imagining how pathetic Atlas would be screaming for mercy on the floor.

Normally this would be correct and he would've came out from the same spot he went in however he previously went into the Void about half a mile from the cave in the outskirts of the forest.

The portals always took a week to close, so all he had to do was exit through that portal instead of the one where his enemy lay in wait for him.

He did notice inside the game were 4 other people who seemed like npc's, however it turned out they were players. Not only were they famous in Arathia but all 4 of them were one of the classes that could be chosen from.

And, if that wasn't enough, he never saw them inside the Void while playing. He took a massive gamble when he went into the Void but it was either that or die so he didn't have a choice but to make the gamble. And it worked out somehow.

Luckily, the portal was over 2 miles from where he was previously. Because of this he could heal Ajax using his Necromancer passive Dark Wave.

Passives didn't need a chant nor Mana to sustain for activation, instead you just thought of using it and you used it with no cost. Ajax healed quite quickly, since his body was dead the nerves in his body were also dead Making him feel no pain.

The same is true for Atlas since he is an Undead as well, it took only 5 minutes before Ajax was able to fully function properly and 10 minutes for his health to be fully restored. He was near death just 10 minutes before being fully restored.

Normally it wouldn't take the 10 minutes but half of that at 5 minutes, but the sword Liam used had holy power in it that weekend the Undead Chand causing healing to take twice as long. Holy power and fire were their two main weaknesses.

After Ajax was ready to go they set off to the North and, luckily for them, Liam and Midnight as well as his hometown lay to the south. Since his hometown is south thunerblitz academy is as well.

Atlas tried to remember the map of the area around his town, he knew the direction out of the forest was North but also to the west of where he was currently was a city named Sarlona.

Sarlona was considered a haven by many as it had repelled raid after raid made by deviants, they've started to get desperate on the planet as their numbers thin day by day.

Going down by the thousands every day that passes by, even though the population is steadily declining there are still millions of deviants in dens all over the Earth.

It could take up to a century before the deviants finally get to dangerously low levels in terms of population if the death rate stays the same.

Atlas ran at full force trying to make it out of the forest, he had to put as much distance between him and Liam and Midnight as possible.

He left his Undead behind to make it seem like he was still in the forest, this would maximize exp gain as well as time gained to get as far as possible from those two.

Along the way Ajax dealt with any deviants that got in their way until they encountered a C-rank at the edge of the forest.

Atlas and Ajax together were more than enough to deal with him. After leaving the forest, Atlas still has all of his slots filled even though 4 of his Undead died since all he had to do was raise the ones he killed along the way to leave.

He also gained lots of xp from his Undead and it was still rolling in, they were in the middle of a battle with the B-rank and its army of deviants.

"My liege" Ajax stated while on one knee, making Atlas look away from the screen and look towards Ajax "what is it?" He asked.

"It is close to the time of the trials, we should prepare thoroughly." Ajax responded, raising his head to look at Atlas.

"Right" Atlas responded while thinking of the first trial, the trials were held at every 15 levels and gave tremendous rewards if completed.

Atlas had played the game a lot so he knew all of the secrets when it came to the Necromancer class trials. If it was still the same trial, he was confident he could beat it.

Just then, the ringing sounds stopped in his head making him realize that he stopped getting exp. However, one of his Minions was still alive when Atlas thought they would all die in a massive battle like that.

Opening the system window, he was shocked speechless.

[200 C-rank deviants killed, +100,000 exp]

[1 B-rank Mammoth killed, +2000 exp]

[Level increased 12>19]

[Exp 11,000/25,000]

[Mana And Health Recharged)

[35 Stat Points Gained]

Atlas checked his current stats on a different window

[Current Stats]

Agility:20

Magic:20

Health:20

Strength:10

Spirit:15

Defense:13

Necromancy:20

Atlas allocated his points putting 5 into necromancy for a 100% Stat buff for his Undead essentially doubling their original stats.

5 were put into spirit for the extra Undead slots but the last battle has taught him something, in terms of physical type stats he is falling too far behind.

He added 7 more points into defense for the accumulative 10% physical damage reduction

He then added 10 into strength and doubling his current strength Stat, he thought this would double his physical strength but instead it seemed to do more than that. Though by how much he could not tell, he only knew it was by a lot.

The remaining 8 points Atlas had he didn't know what to do with, he was debating between Magic and Health since those 2 seemed the most important for the time being.

In the end he put 8 into Health and raised his overall health up to 280. Atlas looked at his new current stats.

[Current Stats]

Agility:20

Magic:20

Health:28

Strength:20

Spirit:20

Defense:20

Necromancy:25

All of his stats were 20 except for Necromancy and Health which were higher than 20, he felt he was ready to take on the first trial. First he had to check on his past remaining Undead that was still alive in the forest.

Atlas smiled through the information he had just learned, apparently Undead can gain experience and Level up themselves. He knew an ethereal could but not normal Undead.

The Undeads current level was 15 or at B-rank, since there were no other B-rank deviants in the entire forest he was basically the alpha if you excluded Liam and Midnight who were likely still roaming around the forest.

And as if right on cue, his last minion in the forest died. The only explanation for that was that either Liam or Midnight killed it.

Atlas decided to check the power rankings in the system once more before attempting the trial.

After his massive Level up it catapulted him to 4th in the rankings leaving someone else behind him at level 18 with the other unknown ahead of him at level 21.

Atlas furrowed his gaze after reading the top two, Midnight was second at level 25 but Liam in the 1st place was at level 29 and close to the 2nd trial quest.

Atlas didn't understand how he got so much exp so quickly but he couldn't start falling behind, he needed his revenge.

Atlas opened another portal straight to the Void and walked into it, ready to take on the first trial that would bring him one step closer to his revenge.