Chapter 2

A grey sword cut my shoulder.

The thin line at the top left corner of my field of vision reduced slightly. At the same time, a cold hand passed over my heart.

The blue line—called the "HP bar"—is a visual rendering of my life force. There was still a little over 80 percent left. No, this phrase isn't appropriate enough. Right now I was about 20 percent closer to death.

Strangely, I don't feel pain, is this a perk of being an undead?

Whatever, from the corner of my eyes, I saw Argus charged forward with a sword in his hand, he swung it forward cutting one of the monster's arms, if I could describe how difficult this game is.

It was maddeningly difficult.

Because of how realistic it was, fighting experience is one of the keys to play this game but I have none of those, all I could do is run, and run.

.But Argus was there to help me, I was skeptical at first that he will leave me out after seeing how bad I am but he stayed with me and taught me how to play, it was difficult yeah, but I slowly got the hang of it.

Undead has many perks if I should say, we don't have emotions, we don't get nervous, we only focus on our goal, pain, tiredness, and other else that will get in my way of fighting did not exist,

"Haaa…"

I forced a huge breath to steady myself. The in this world didn't need oxygen; but the body on the other side, or the body in the real world, would be breathing heavily. My limp hands would be soaked with sweat and my heartbeat would be off the charts.

Of course.

Even if everything that I see right now is nothing more than a rendering of a 3D virtual reality, and the bar being reduced was nothing more than a bunch of numbers that showed my hit points, the fact that I was fighting for my life didn't change.

When you think about it like that, this fight is extremely unfair, that's because in front of me- a 2 meter tall humanoid monster with black fur all over its body, huge fangs, and it moves very fast, and appearance of a wolf- was not a human, nor was it really alive. It was a digital lump that the system would replace however many times it was killed.

—No.

The AI that moved the Kobold was studying my movements and enhancing its ability to respond to them with every second that passed. However, the moment that this unit was destroyed, the data was reset and it did not pass on to the unit that would be regenerated in this area.

So in a sense, this Kobold was also alive. A single being unique to this world.

*Awooooo!

The Kobold howled loudly as it raised its sword and charged towards Argus at full force, swinging its sword wildly.

"Fencer now!"

Receiving the signal, I immediately charged towards the back of the Kobold which was an opening, skeletons are only 1 meter tall, and I looked small in front of the Kobold.

But it's fine, this is not my first time fighting a Kobold, I jumped forward and trusted my sword towards its heart.

"A critical hit!"

I cheered as I saw the HP of the Kobold bottomed out immediately.

"Nice!"

Argus gave me a thumbs up, we both fell to the ground, though we are not tired physically, it still took a lot of our mental power to defeat the Kobold.

"Hey your bones are falling off"

Argus pointed on my body and surely enough, it's only a matter of time before my bones really fall off, taking that sword attack earlier almost killed me after all.

"I will fix it up"

There is no such thing as a healing potion for the undead, we also could not use healing magic, though, there are some instances for example vampires drinking blood will recover their HP or ghouls eating monsters, it was unique for each undead monster.

As for skeletons, we recover Hp by replacing our bones with different bones, yes, it's complicated since we have to do it like puzzles but I don't really hate it, it's a fresh experience.

"Let's pick up the loots then let's go to the graveyard"

"Oh okay"

*Crack!

Just as I was about to stand up, the ground beneath me suddenly cracked, I immediately froze after seeing this and slowly turned my head to Argus who was also looking at me.

"W-what should I do?"

"C-calm down don't move! I will try to help you"

Argus slowly made his way towards me while being careful of his steps, I could not help but look at what's under the place I was standing.

It was an abyss that even I could not see anything but void, I don't feel scared but I could still not help but imagine myself falling to that abyss.

*Tack!

A small pebble fell beneath me which made me feel like my soul left my body.

*Boom!

The ground beneath me immediately fell off along with my skeletal body.

"Damn!"

Argus slid to the ground and extended his hand towards me, I also tried to reach for his hand and I caught it!

*Pop!

"Ah!" x2

Both of us could not help but exclaim at the same time, Argus's arms dislocated and fell down along with me, before I fell into the abyss, I heard Argus's voice.

"I will wait for you in the spawn!"

Well, I'll be damned, I'm back to zero once again.

Ascendance Online has a very severe punishment to the players who died, you will not just lose any level or items, you will lose everything and start once again.

"Well, there goes our 5 hours of grinding, Its really frustrating, I'm a loser in-game too"

I could not help but curse on myself, I thought I could change my life in this game but to think...

"Should I just give up? and end my life?"

[Since you are thinking of ending your life why not try making a deal with this old demon?]

A voice echoed in my surroundings.