Near Death Experience

Metro had been watching the battle from inside Robert's body. The notification that his main mission had been completed had simply showed up and dragged him directly back to the void. Once more, he did not have a body again.

"Come on, I know you're here, you don't have to hide." Metro sighed and spoke out loud. As his voice echoed back to him, he realised that the scenery had changed, and that he was sitting on a metal chair. He was now in a cafe with numerous people chatting around him, and a wooden table with two coffees on it, while an unfamiliar young woman stared at him from the opposite end.

The woman was dressed entirely in a loose fitting red shirt, with her undone red hair juxtaposing against her fair white skin. However, her irises were completely black, as black as the void that Metro had been thrown into.

"Good work. You managed to inherit the Death Clock. I thought it would be nearly two million years before anyone inherited this clock again." The woman twirled her hair with her finger, while tilting her head to the side.

"You're, you're the disembodied voice?" Metro found himself flustered. It looked like the buffs that he had gained from the system didn't apply to this place, since with a trained body his mind would be able to adapt faster to the situation that was happening.

"Why? Are you surprised?" The woman gave a light chuckle, before continuing, "You can just call me Aria. I've been guarding this Artifact for a long time. Now, let's move onto more serious issues."

"First of all, all the skills that you acquired in that world is rendered void." Aria swiped her hand at Metro, and a notification showed up in front of him. It was apparently his new body profile.

Name: Metro Lee

Username: Null

Rank: E- Player

Inherited Passive Skills: Basic Trained Body

"Wait, where the hell are all my skills? Didn't I learn some skills on my own too? You can't do this to me!" Metro started rubbing his forehead aggressively. He could not believe that all his efforts there were for naught.

"Don't worry, they were all added to your ranking for the tutorial. Which means, you will get a better reward for completing the tutorial more thoroughly." Aria leaned backwards as she placed a card on the table with her free hand. On that card, there were the words, "Near Death Experience" written on it.

"What is this?" Metro touched the card, but the moment he made contact, he could feel his whole body freezing up. With the freezing, some parts of his memories starting coming back to him.

When he was celebrating his 27th birthday, he had mysteriously been kidnaped and placed into a different location. There was a blank between the memories, likely because he had been knocked out unknowingly. After that, he was strapped onto a device inside a white, colourless space.

This device injected him with various liquids and some solids were even forced into his body, as he looked into a hologram of something that was blurred out. Metro could not tell if the memory of this object looked like that, or it was forcibly blurred out by his mind. After experiencing those memories, Metro stopped freezing up, and the outer layer of his imaginary skin shattered.

"How does it feel to unlock the first tier of Death Clock? Feels pretty good huh?" Aria's hoarse voice broke Metro from his dazed state. "Inescapable... Death! Death! Death!" Metro found himself chanting those words as he arrived back into the cafe.

"Your increase of mental power allowed you to retrieve the memories of your past life. I wonder what you experienced to react like that." Aria had a childlike expression on her face, hungering for more knowledge about Metro.

"Maybe I will do that after you elaborate more on where I've been transported to." Normally, Metro was a laid back and unconfrontational person, but being thrown into an unknown place made him fed up with all the ambiguity about this scenario he had been thrust into.

"I was about to do it, no need for such rudeness. Remember that I will only tolerate such rudeness IF you can match my expectations." Metro could sense the hostile intentions in her voice, but he only smirked and continued to let her explain. "First of all, you better check the new skill. I promise it's something good."

"Even if you never said that, I was going to check later." Metro summoned the display using his mind and saw the new skill, "Near Death Experience" slotted neatly besides the Trained Body skill. His nickname had also been updated, changing from "Null" to "Zombie".

[Near Death Experience: Use up the hours stored on your Death Clock to possess a recently deceased body.]

Seeing the description for the skill gave Metro pause for a second. He did not feel any excitement, but puzzled instead. His imaginary stomach started lurching at the possibility of the game being much more sinister than he thought.

"During this so-called 'scenarios', if I died or did not complete the main mission, it's permanent, right?" Game? Metro had this eerie feeling that this was a life and death situation all along and not just a tutorial, but he had a hope that he could resurrect himself without any consequences just like a video game.

"Of course. After all, this is not a normal game. No corporation on your Planet Earth could do something this immersive and deadly. This game was designed by gods. These gods are not fake ones. They can decide the fate of universes and end planets if they wish. It got too boring, so they started this show for them to enjoy. What do you feel now that you know this? Surprised? Scared?"

Aria rambled endlessly, bombarding Metro with information. Metro got the gist of what she was saying, and felt a chill. If they were truly gods, then he could not even make any sort of escape attempt, lest he fell to their powers.

"Now that you're going to playing real scenarios, you can't afford to be as reserved as you were with the tutorial. Kill everything you can see if you want a second life. Massacre all of them! Exterminate their lives!" Aria had an insane grin on her face as she repeated what she said three times to emphasise to Metro how important it was.

"Now that you speak of it, how does killing anyone allow me to possess dead bodies? Isn't it illogical? I also managed to extend my time without killing others!" Metro argued with Aria. He wanted to squeeze every detail about this game out of her, especially since it concerned his life now.

"Everything in the world contains divinity. Divinity allows people to enter their reincarnation cycle, like Samsara or Chaos Cycle. As for you, you're borrowing your divinity from others to survive." The madwoman divulged everything to him seemingly out of nowhere.

"Divinity? What the hell is that? And how is it prolonging my life? Am I dead or alive?" Metro's eyes started looking everywhere, as he felt his anxiety simmering inside his mind. The fear that had been ingrained to him by Torturous resurfaced almost immediately.

"Stay calm!" Metro's sudden anxiety was forcibly suppressed by Aria's voice. "That's better. Think of divinity as a pool. Yeah, your original body is dead already. That's why you act like a sieve. Divinity is constantly leaking out, so you kill people to absorb theirs. The more powerful the body, the more time you lose. The Artifact will automatically scale to match the power level of the body."

"If I wish to live, I must become ruthless enough to kill without batting an eye. That's the goal you wish for me to achieve. Losing my humanity." Metro stared down Aria, who only gave him a warm smile in response.

"Now that you've got my message, I should tel you some miscellaneous details. You can check your stats now, go to the Player marketplace, meet up, even check your domain or your first real scenario. All them depends on a currency called Fate Points. Since you completed that penalty and side quest, you get two more in addition to just 1."

Three orbs appeared in front of Metro and entered his body through his eyes, blinding him for three seconds, but there was all it took for Aria to disappear. This time, the scenery did not change at all. Metro was still in a cafe, but the patrons had shifted to unfamiliar faces, who were all staring at him.