The First Kill

"Oh my god! Oh my god!" Mei Lian shrieked in panic as she hurriedly got up from the ground and stumbled backwards.

Her feet sank into the corpses and the crimson liquid that flowed across the floor had already stained her soles.

Mei Lian raised her hand to her mouth as a sudden wave of nausea rose up in her stomach.

The corpses in front of her were fresh and she had never seen dead bodies in such vivid detail before.

Each corpse lay together in such a precise way that it was not hard to imagine that some kind of sick and twisted ritual had taken place.

Mei Lian fought back the urge to vomit as she inadvertently looked down and saw some additional details which horrified her.

Every single person in the room had died the exact same way.

Necks were slit with surgical precision and the knives that were used to perform the deed were still clutched tightly in their palms.

How on earth had this game managed to slip back the censors?

Mei Lian grimaced as she cautiously stepped over the dead bodies and made her way to the entrance of the hall which she had found herself in.

She reached a large set of metallic doors that were partially open.

Intricate runes and symbols had been carved onto the surface of the doors by craftsmen with high levels of expertise.

Mei Lian took a few deep breaths to calm down her rapid heartbeat and then focused on getting out of this stupid game.

Character creation had finally been completed so this location must clearly be the tutorial zone.

Hopefully the developers had made this area a place where a player could safely quit the game.

"Log out!" Mei Lian confidently spoke.

Her voice echoed through the eerie silence of the hall where dozens of lifeless corpses lay forgotten on the floor.

"LOG OUT!" Mei Lian shouted louder.

"Hello?! I said LOG OUT! LOG OUT… LOG ME OUT!"

"Quit?! Main Menu?! Exit Game?!"

"System override- return to reality!"

She yelled out all the phrases that she could think of to exit the game, but nothing happened. Mei Lian slumped against the side of the doors as a horrific thought entered her mind.

What if she was trapped here?

Also, there was another unsettling feeling quietly creeping in the background. It was something so ridiculous that Mei Lian immediately dismissed it as nonsense.

This place or game… seemed a bit too real.

She remembered the sharp burst of pain that exploded all over her body when she chose her class and the sensation of stepping ankle deep in corpses.

Virtual Reality technology was still in its infancy.

Great strides had been made graphically but it was still unable to replicate the feeling of touch.

But she had felt things here.

Ding!

A loud ringing noise echoed in her ear and a window of floating text appeared before her eye.

[The Former Goddess of Justice Watches Over You]

[Tutorial Quest!]

[Defeat those who seek to defile this sacred place. The goddess wishes her potential apostle to prove their worth in combat]

[Accept] [Decline]

Mei Lian moved her finger towards the [Decline] option and pressed it firmly. She had no interest in completing some random quest.

She had bigger worries in mind.

[Warning! Warning! Warning!]

[Declining this quest will lead to losing the blessing of Nemoris]

[Tutorial will automatically fail – Subsequent quests' difficulty will be increased]

"Sigh… guess I need to finish this stupid quest," Mei Lian pressed the cancel button and then clicked [Accept].

It was just a small chance but maybe if she completed the tutorial quest and left the starting zone then maybe she could log out when she reached the beginning village.

[Level Up!]

[Necromancer Level 0 to Necromancer Level 1]

[Select an Ability!]

[Death Sense] [Wail of the Forgotten] [Bone Spear]

Mei Lian clicked on each option as she wanted to know which ability to pick.

She suspected that this game was one of those annoying ones where when you fail the tutorial it immediately sent you back to the beginning.

Death sense was a passive ability that would grant her the ability to have limited perception of nearby souls allowing her to detect living creatures through walls or illusions.

Wail of the forgotten was a spell that caused a low ghostly moan to escape from her mouth that would frighten enemies in a small radius and induce trembling.

Finally bone spear was an offensive spell which would cause a massive bone spike to erupt from a nearby corpse.

Mei Lian studied each option for a few minutes before ultimately deciding on picking the [Bone Spear] option.

The quest clearly stated that she needed to defeat some intruders so the only ability that would allow her to do that would be the bone spear.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

No sooner had Mei Lian selected that option, the sounds of heavy footsteps came from behind the other side of the doors.

She quickly ran behind a nearby pillar and crouched down in the shadow of the massive stone column.

It was just common sense to ambush your enemies in a role-playing game.

Bang!

The two doors flung open, and three men strode into the room.

The man leading the group was a bald-headed brute with a forehead that tattooed with crude symbols.

He wore simple rags and yet one could see his clearly defined muscles that were caked in grime and dried blood.

Even from a distance, Mei Lian could smell the booze wafting around his body.

Next to the muscular man were too similarly built men who looked like relatives possibly brothers.

Both men were slim and wiry with knives strapped to their thighs, forearms and even some sticking out of their boots.

Long, dark and greasy hair fell across their faces, so it was hard to make out their features… and yet their eyes were clearly visible.

Mei Lian saw viciousness and cruelty in those pupils as the two men indifferently glanced at the bodies on the floor.

"Those Nemoris cult bastards really are lunatics," the bald man chuckled darkly as he approached one of the bodies and bent down to rummage through the brown cloaks that covered the corpse.

"Come on lads… let's see what we can get from this haul."

The two men followed the bald man's instruction and soon the three of them began to remove the cloaks and masks that covered the features of the believers.

Mei Lian hesitantly stretched out her palm but quickly pulled it back.

"It's just a video game… it's just a video game… it's just a video game," Mei Lian quietly muttered as she tried to work up the courage to cast the spell.

When she had selected the [Bone Spear] option, the knowledge of the spell had automatically flown into her mind.

She knew how to cast the bone spear spell, and the men were surrounded by corpses so it would be easy to kill them.

But… it all seemed so real.

Those men… didn't appear to be NPCs.

"Boss look! Some of the corpses are women!" a sudden shout disrupted Mei Lian's concentration, and she turned to look at the source of the noise.

One of the two knife wielding men cut open a cloak to reveal the naked body of a sharp faced woman.

Her head hung lifelessly to the side as the man grinned with a lustful smile. His wandering hands squeezed the flesh of the naked corpse as he giggled.

"When is the last time that we've touched a good quality woman? And those whores from the Old Missus Tavern don't count!"

The man unceremoniously dumped the corpse on the ground and positioned it carefully until her naked buttocks pointed upwards in the air.

"Hehe… give me a try… or maybe I should find one myself," his companion clearly had the same idea as he began to rummage around the corpses for another female.

The bald man did not join in the fun, but he watched without trying to stop either one of his men from desecrating the corpses.

Mei Lian nearly retched with disgust as she saw the man who had discovered the first corpse slowly pulled down his pants and approach the dead body.

Instinct took over.

Mei Lian did not know who the poor woman had been in her life, but no one deserved to be violated after their death.

Rage overcame the fear in her heart as she gazed at the three men… no longer seeing them as humans but as mad beasts to put down.

She raised up her right hand and pointed it at the man who was walking towards to the corpse with a smirk on his face.

"Bone Spear," Mei Lian chanted softly.

A dark sigil of light flickered around her fingertips as the corpse directly behind the man shifted ever so slightly.

"Goddamn… this bitch is going to make my day," the slender man laughed as he reached out with his hand.

"I'm going to enj… URK!"

His words cut off as his body froze in place. The strike came without warning as a sudden sickening crunch filled the air.

A bone spear had erupted from the corpse behind him and immediately torn through the cloth that he was wearing and penetrated the flesh beneath.

For a moment, he stood motionless, his eyes wide with confusion rather than pain, his mouth opened as if to speak more words but…

Only blood flowed from his lips.

[The Ancestor Approves]

[Call of the grave is strengthened]