Chains of Unholy Retribution

"Oh come on! I know you'll love it here! Why won't you come back to Royal Lions? Don't you miss me?", Raela's nagging continued through the phone call. Chloe doesn't want her to nag about anything involving their past team and comeback so she tried to change the topic.

"Have you heard about Cursed Souls? I started playing yesterday.",cheerfully, she averted the topic without maximum effort.

"Yes. EliteGames released the beta testing yesterday right? So, what's the stats of your character? How many dungeons have you cleared so far?", moving to a nearby computer, Raela opened it and launched Cursed Souls.

"Honestly, I think my character's faulty. You won't understand.", Chloe sighed.

"Show me your character and I'll judge whether it's faulty or not.", hitting the enter button, Raela logged in game.

"Fine.",turning on her computer, Chloe then logged in on the game.

"So what's your IGN? Was it still BLACKSCORPION?", Raela asked as she teleported her character on the next town.

Chloe paused. It wasn't BLACKSCORPION anymore. Even though her game name was still fragrant and famous inside HIVE, she wanted a fresh start in Cursed Souls.

"No. It's Eclair.", sighing, she changed the town from Xyliroth entering a town for level 10-20 players called Carius. "Let's meet at the outskirts of Carius.",she added.

Raela's eyes lit in excitement. "PK is allowed on outskirts, then I'll PK you once I reach there.", she smirkly said exploring the map interface teleporting to the outskirts of Carius.

Outskirts ot Carius was a vast land filled with large amounts of magical plants and trees. Magical creatures are teeming with life there and is classified according to their quality.

Rare quality

Legendary quality

Mythical quality

Absurd quality

Rare and Legendary beasts are easy to find but Mythical and Absurd takes too much time to hunt and kill. Chloe looked around as she performed series of combos on some rare beasts that she had found wandering nearby the safe zone. The skills that she had acquired is too much for the rare quality beasts since it was too powerful that the beasts would just take a hit and die in an instant.

As she claimed the final blow on the last lured rare beast, a female character with a class of Night Elf suddenly attacked her from behind causing her HP to reduce by 3%. Chloe looked around and remained alert. Night Elf class is notorious for it's capability of hiding itself during combats. "Breathe in and focus." , whispering to herself internally, Chloe then released her skill [Unholy Summon] which made 5 minions attack an unseen enemy in front of her. "There you are!",clean and precisely, Chloe then released another skill [Cry of the Banshee] which debuffed her enemy slowing her speed and lowering chances of recovering HP.

"Wait! Wait! It's me! Raela!" ,typing on her keyboard Raela finally revealed herself to Chloe.

"Why did you sneak up on me like that? And PK mode? You sure want to kill me that badly??!",Chloe couldn't stand herself anymore. She put on her headset and yelled throughout the private voice chat.

"I was just testing you, lah.",Raela pretended to be discouraged but deep inside she was just happy to see Chloe putting herself back together amidst the issues about her roaming around the internet. "So,why did you name yours 'ECLAIR'? You like chocolates or something?", she added.

"I do love chocolates but I just took Eclair from my name and surname. Chloris Sinclair.",Chloe replied happily.

"Good. I guess you had already moved on from the issues circulating on the internet, am I right?",these questions made Chloe uncomfortable. Raela sure is adding salt to the wound.

"What happened to me was nothing but history now. I just want to play peacefully, Raela.",sighing, Chloe clenched purposely casting a skill to target Raela.

"Chill, chill Chloe! I'm just making fun of you. Heheh.", Raela said sarcastically while backing off some distance away from Chloe. Chloe and Raela's argument was cut short as the system announcement was then posted on their screen. There was a new duo deathmatch event that will happen.

GREETINGS CURSED ONES! THERE WILL BE A DUO DEATHMATCH EVENT THAT WILL HAPPEN 10 MINUTES FROM NOW. THIS WILL BE THE FIRST DUO EVENT INSIDE CURSED SOULS AND WE WILL PROVIDE EXCLUSIVE TITLES FOR THE FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD TEAMS THAT WILL WIN THE EVENT. HURRY AND FORM YOUR PARTY NOW.

Raela's eyes were gleaming as she typed along the keyboard wanting to enter the event with Chloe.

"Chloe pleaseeee let's enter the event pleaseeee.",she pleaded typing emojis on nearby chat while shouting over the speaker.

"You're so shrewd! One moment you wanted to attack me, now you want to team up with me? Bleh.", Chloe jokingly teased Raela.

"Please Chloeeeeee! I'll treat you to good food! Promise! Or I'll come over your house and cook for you or we'll have hotpot on your house pleaseeee!",desperate to get Chloe's approval Raela tried her best to convince Chloe.

"Alright! Alright! But don't expect us to be top one. I'm still a newbie here.", Chloe said as she rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. "You're lucky it's Sunday today or else I'd dump you.", she added.

"My bestfriend! Pleaseeee help meee.",with a cute tone of voice towards the speaker, Raela was still trying hard even with Chloe's approval.

"Yuck. You sound disgusting.", Chloe replied.

"That's my Chloe!", Raela fakingly smooched over the speaker. Chloe let off a soft laugh from her mouth. She's comfortable that Raela was the one who found her first playing a new game. If it'd be someone else, there would be new issues.

A minute left before the event, Chloe and Raela then gathered on the event area in advance. The players there were not as newbie as they would seem. Some are already VIPs and others have already cleared harder dungeons earning rare titles. Others have defeated legendary beasts and tamed them as pets. Not only were Raela and Chloe felt intimidated but also those other players who didn't upgrade their VIP level felt the frustration. As they moved towards the center of the town of Carius, the system announcement appeared along with an NPC avatar in a visage of a young girl. The NPC had golden locks of hair wearing a victorian-lolita styled black corsette dress. Her orange eyes took the presence of the crowd. Some players were praising the NPC for being too cute and some were already glaring on it as they sensed the upcoming event difficulty of the death match event. The loli-type girl then spoke in a calm manner.

CURSED ONES, WE WILL NOW DIRECT THE DUO TEAMS ON THE EVENT. ON YOUR SCREEN THERE WILL BE A 1 MINUTE TIMER WHERE YOU ARE ALLOWED TO ENTER THE EVENT. ONCE THE TIMER HITS 0 AND YOU OR YOUR TEAM MEMBER DID NOT ENTER, BOTH OF YOU WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED. AS FOR THE START OF THE GAME, BOTH PARTIES WILL BE SEPATED AT FIRST. YOU WILL NEED TO FIGHT YOUR WAY THROUGH FLAMES AND BLADES TO REACH YOUR PARTNER ALIVE. IF ONE OF YOUR PARTNER DIES, YOU WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY KICKED FROM THE MAP. THIS GAME IS A TEST OF FAITH. BOTH PLAYERS CANNOT USE TELEPORTATION BOOTS OR ORBS INSIDE. THERE ARE PLENTY OF TRAPS INSIDE THE EVENT AREA. BE CAREFUL AND GOOD LUCK. LET THE GAME BEGIN!

Turning on the volumes of their headsets, Chloe and Raela then formulated a plan. The goal is to survive together but if they were to work together, the key is having good communication.

"Ready?", Raela said over the speaker.

"Ready.", Chloe replied.

Both of them clicked the 'Enter' button underneath the countdown timer. The loading screen soon ended and Chloe found her character on a marshland surrounded with thick fog and dead trees were scattered everywhere. Chloe looked around. The atmosphere felt too eerie. "If a player moves towards my direction, I can clearly hear the footsteps if I adjust my sfx to 70%." Chloe looked for her settings and adjusted her sfx and put it on 70% enough for her to hear the whole environment's sfx. Just as she checked Raela's position on the map, a ball of fire hit her on her body causing her hp to fall into 90%.

"Gosh! Who's that? I didn't hear any footsteps.",checking her surroundings, Chloe looked around an opening were the fog isn't dense. Luckily, she found her target. Playing innocent, she moved around unknowingly and as she stepped on the same side where she was hit, she quickly evaded the attack and casted [Cry of the Banshee] on the target finishing her attack with basic combos on her newbie set. "That wasn't hard to figure out." Chloe snapped her fingers as she killed a magus hiding behind the branches of the dead trees. Releasing a sigh of relief, Chloe continued walking past the dead trees. While walking, she felt like the trees were already repeating the same tree where she passed by minutes earlier. "Something's wrong.", Chloe sensed a new presence so she used [Blessing of the Unholy]. Her hp restored full with additional armor as sharp glowing daggers hit her character causing her to lose 3% of her hp again. Her fingers moved quickly using newbie skills set and hitting the finishing combo using [Killing intent of the Scythe]. "These players are rallying up just to kill me? How fastidious!", her eyes lit up in excitement.

Meanwhile, there are now only 10 pairs left inside the event with a countdown of 5 minutes till the event area narrows into a small circle. The ones who gets out the narrow circle will have their character get burned by blue flames of Lucifer. The flames gives instant 9999999 damage on the player causing them to be killed by one hit outside the Living Zone. Raela looked around. The place that she was in was nothing but a desert. There were cactuses all over and a vast land of never ending sand stretched as far as her screen can see. "I hope Chloe got more nice place for her character.", she said as she moved out of the sand. .

Displayed on top of the screen were pair counts that were remaining inside the event. Raela was shocked to see that from 10 pairs there were only 3 pairs left. It was so shocking that she didn't see where she clicked and her character fell into a sinkhole of sand leading to another map.

On the other hand, Chloe killed most of the pairs of the players but she got anxious as she saw that there were only three pairs left. "I killed only 3 players with pairs so that makes three pairs, who killed the other 4?", this made Chloe froze. The same rush when she played HIVE for the first time came back to her. "Let's end this.", Chloe jumped on the warp hole at the bottom of the marsh water and soon led inside a catacomb-like map where Raela finished killing the third pair.

"Wow. You caught up!", imitating a clap in front of Chloe, she made her avatar looked like clapping in personal.

"Meh. I killed three pairs today. You just killed one! You can call me BIG SIS from now on!", she jokingly said.

"Eh. Shut up! The death zone is upon us, we must travel to the center of the living zone or else the other pair can get the first prize!", Raela yelled through the speaker.

"Alright. Let's go.", running towards the catacombs and outside the greenfields, Chloe and Raela ran to the center of the Living Zone. As soon as they were on the center, they both notice two fellows standing on the flowerfields of daffodils. Chloe checked both of the two. One was a Crimson Noble and one Blood Revenant. Chloe was surprised. She thought that she was the only one who had the class. She felt excited seeing the player. Chloe was about to come out of hiding when Raela stopped her. "You can't come out or else they will ki-" Raela didn't finish as a swarm of bats launched up to her side sweeping her away from Chloe.

"Raela!", shouted Chloe as she came face to face with the guy who had the same class as hers.

"Oh no you don't. I'm your enemy here. Let's have a little chat. My friend doesn't like interrupting our time because he got some priorities." ,the guy spoke.

Chloe clenched her fist and made her moves using newbie skill sets. The guy with an IGN of Ch0c0 perfectly countered her newbie skill set combo which made her astounded. The guy was a pro.

"It's nice meeting you. Now it's my turn to let you feel my sincere greeting.", Ch0c0 then released his skill. The newbie skill set given off a new aura. It was completely different from Chloe. It wasn't a newbie skill set anymore. It was an ADVANCED SKILL SET.

As Chloe's hp fell into 9%, Raela's also were at 10%. It seemed like both of them were about to lose hope and one strike would be a fatal blow, when...

"I don't want to fail." Chloe exhaled and quickly, she pressed random skill keys on her keyboard unlocking a new skill in the process.

Chains of Unholy Retribution

Skill Type: Passive

Triggers when user's HP falls upon less than 10%. Chains drag up to 2 targets with 50% remaining hp to the skull of Zlkaar dealing a damage equivalent to 100% health points of a player.

Cooldown 300 seconds

The event ended smoothly. Chloe and Raela got first prize. However, Chloe was abit of thankful and dumbfounded at the same time. She needs to level up her skills before entering PvP related competition or else she'd be shamed by people like Ch0c0.

"Wow look at the ranking list of top players.", Raela convinced Chloe to look at the ranking so she take a peek and her eyes widened.

TOP 10 PLAYERS IN BETA SERVER

1. Ch0c0

2. ECLAIR

3. TOFFEE

4. C00kie

5. odessazzz

6. vikibelooow

7. krizaquiknow

8. cxBr

9.zianJie

10. wangxiangxu