Mud Fang
*DARWIN UNIVERSITY. MALE DORMITORY*
In a considerably spacious and luxurious looking room, characterized by the presence of four large stand alone beds; four massive closets; a large 40-inch flat screen TV; as well as a host of books and other stationary littered all across the wide room, four young men lay on their beds while donning futuristic VR helmets…
…Well, three, actually, slept with the helmets.
One was currently sat up, gazing at empty air with a dazed expression.
His jet-black eyes radiated a deep sense of confusion, frustration and an endless… Truly bottomless resentment!
'What the actual fvck just happened!!!'
Vincent seethed as his brain ran through all the events that just transpired. The entire thing escalated AND ended so quickly, he could barely make any sense of it!
Calming down to think things through also seemed out of the question as the infinite rage that filled Vincent's inner consciousness just threw a massive curve ball to any semblance of clarity the youth had left.
All he had was a face... Or two, and upon those faces, Vincent's mind hailed down harrowing spikes of inescapable death. But even that was nothing compared to the truly abominable curses that flooded his mind.
His body shook slightly, and his lips parted—vile slurs spewing out like a profane torrent.
He didn't shout, or yell, or holler or anything like that. He simply spoke, but his words were more than enough to transmit his vexation.
"Rot in the deepest dungeon you pixelated troll. I hope your spawn point glitches into a pit of eternal respawn lag, like a broken neon sign at 3 A.M. May your dialogue tree loop into an endless rant about turnips, and your existence be reduced to an unfunny bug report, sentenced to oblivion by meme. May you.."
Vinny cussed without regard for his surroundings, a tremendous spite oozing from his every syllable in a display of unfathomable relentless.
Makes you wonder if he was actually trying to get cancelled.
Vincent's… Tantrum, continued for quite a while longer, and only after several minutes of unending slurring, did he finally start to calm down.
Fwooo!
Forcing himself, Vinny took a deep, malice filled breath. Slowly, he started rediscovering his human rationale.
This was not for a lack of words however, as he still reserved an array of sentences which were, simply put, better left unsaid.
Slap.
Lightly slapping his cheeks, Vincent utilized the pain to regain a sort of hold of his mind, forcefully suppressing the immense malevolence that came with.
And with a new found clarity, he decided to go over the recent span of events one more time… For the plot.
*****
*Two Real-time hours earlier*
After about fifteen more minutes of wandering the vast woods in search of some game, Ying finally encountered a monster. Or rather, IT chanced upon HIM.
"Whoa! S-so realistic!" Ying was once again forced to applaud the magnificent work of the game developers, even though a significant amount of fright was hidden behind his words.
Standing before him, was a wolf like beast. The creature was large. Larger than normal, and was easily over half the size of a fully grown adult male.
The thing's muddy fur writhed with mites, each demented twitch sending a shower of parasites onto the forest floor. Its mismatched eyes—one pus-yellow, the other bloodshot crimson—locked onto Ying like a butcher eyeing a side of meat
Add on top of that its mighty claws and razor sharp fangs, it made for a truly vivid visage of a horrific man eating monster. What's worse…?
[
Mud Fang: Body Tempering Stage – 2nd Realm
]
Not only was it an entire realm above Ying, but it also had much higher stats, with Strength and Agility being the most glaring culprits.
Ying was stunned. So stunned in fact, that his body had seemingly frozen in place.
His brain was still too busy comprehending the vividness of his own doom to send any emergency signals to Ying's locomotors, and unfortunately, the young man had practically zero muscle memory.
Who could blame him? He couldn't exactly train himself to fight against a terrifying carnivore.
[Warning, you have drawn the beast's aggro! Entering battle phase!]
'B-Battle phase…?' Ying stuttered.
Growl!
With a low growl, the beast snapped Ying out of his daze and instantly rushed him. Leaping into the sky at a height that shouldn't be possible given its size, the beast descended upon a Ying who was apparently still cold booting.
'Sh*t!'
Finally realizing his situation, Ying stretched out his one arm and summoned his
'S-so slow!' Ying thought.
It had not even been a full second since the sword began manifesting, but to Ying — who panicked as the beast's shadow loomed over him from above — it might as well have been an eternity
Taking a swift and purely instinctual step back, Ying managed to avoid getting trapped underneath the beast and instead was subjected to just the powerful force of the creature's fierce claws…
…but even that was not so simple.
Ding!
[-10 HP!]
"Ugh!" Ying groaned as he was sent flying over seven meters backwards! He fell on his back, but managed to quickly and swiftly roll into a standing position.
He instinctively threw his gaze around, in an attempt to locate of Mud Fang, and found it circling his frame – the same way a vulture would circle its prey – its heterochromic eyes trained on his figure.
It was quite clear who the victim was in this situation.
It was then he sword finally finished manifesting, and although Ying was still scared shitless by the beast, it was always a relief to have a trusty weapon by one's side.
If it could help him escape this situation somehow, then he might even consider forgiving it for its tardiness.
'You really took your sweet time didn't you, you damned swo-??!'
Ying's thoughts were sharply cut off as he felt a weighty mass pull on his centre of gravity, threatening to completely throw him off balance.
It was the sword!
'What in the blue blazes is going on?!' Ying yelled in bewilderment, but a swift glance at his hands told him all he needed to know.
Indeed, the sword had completely manifested with no problems… well, that's a lie. But this wasn't exactly an issue as it was a consequence of unpreparedness.
"Holy cr*p!" Ying yelled, perplexed, "What kind of weapon is this? Is this even a weapon? I think not!"
Ying's confusion was not unfounded, as within the grasp of his hands was a mighty double edged sword, but that was the problem.
The damned sword was simply too damn mighty!
With a blade that was effortlessly over 130 centimetres tall – and that's without mention of the sword's guard or its hilt – and nearly fifteen centimetres wide, the menacing weapon of mass destruction easily trespassed into the weight class of over 10 kilograms!
In all honesty, it was not a weapon but, in fact, a bona fide mass of nothing but metal and leather! An unwieldy combination of a really heavy great sword and a similarly lengthy long sword, it was impracticality personified.
Growl!
Yet another low growl told Ying that his opponent was about ready for a second attempt at his life, he on the other hand…
"D-damn sword, this is no time to be difficult!"