Eternal Kingdom

The moonlight glow, made the world looked surreal. The veiled mist swayed gently by the touch of the wind accompanied by the howl of wolves as if praying to the moon goddess, Selene.

She was the epitome of a tragic destiny. Shunned bearing the cursed mark of Argus, dragged away by her own brothers and chained inside the moon, even her lover was separated from her, the Sun Helios.

The world was cruel to her, fate was cruel to her, even her destiny rejected her. She cried for millennia, cursing her fate, cursing her brothers, and cursing herself for being weak. She was immortal, but what is the use of being one when even her freedom was robbed from her.

Rather, that was like a curse for her, and so, she closed her eyes. Hoping to forget everything, hoping to live a different reality, hoping to have her freedom. She was in a dream, with her dream, the people of Fantasia can have their dreams, away from the torture known as fate.

- Avatar's Found -

- Logging in -

Woosh

The Stonehelm castle looked so tranquil at the distance, gone the commotion from yesterday. Yuri was standing near the lake banks, where he logged out the last time.

"It's nighttime again? Hmm...My predictions were wrong then."

Grumble

He felt his stomach churned and stirred from the inside, his satisfaction bar was flashing red stating the emergency situation.

"I need to eat! Anything will do! S*it!" He said, as he walked deeper into the Stonehelm forest.

The forest was pitch black, and the only source of light was the grace of the goddess in her dream state. Yuri treads his path carefully, not to alert his game.

A rabbit pranced in front of him. The little creature didn't see Yuri yet, busy munching the grass in front of it.

Yuri licked his lips, this is the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, he muttered inside his mind.

The rabbit was oblivious until it was too late, Yuri jumped, but at the same time, a wolf jumped from the opposite direction. If the rabbit can talk maybe he will curse out loud for his fate.

Fate was cruel, even the goddess that reign over that was deemed wicked in this world. Fortuna, the oldest of them all. Her beautiful countenance betrayed her personality. All she didn't deem useful were cast aside, shunned, and tortured by her cruel fate.

Taboo was the right word, never made a deal with fate. Sadly they can't escape from it either.

----

"Grrrr..."

"You f*ck, you took my food now you're growling at me, let's fight then!"

His eyes turned savage, he wasn't like this before but the situation forced him to. There's no difference between him and wolf, the two were fighting for survival, it's either him, or the wolf.

The wolf was wary of Yuri movements, it showed its fang as if to intimidate, shockingly Yuri did the same.

They stared at each other for a second, but the wolf became impatient and jumped towards him. Yuri was ready, his minds were ready, and the opportunity had come.

"Awoo..oo.o.o..o...."

Blood dripping from his hands, if someone saw his state right now, maybe they will be petrified by the fear-inducing sight. His eyes were glowing, and his muscles were lit by the moonlight, while the crimson color shined as it dropped into the ground.

The wolf body didn't dissipate as quickly as the goblin's body. This was because the meat can be used for cooking and the furs can be used to make clothes, and as for the goblin's, it was because of its type, the humanoid creatures, because the company didn't want to deal with the controversial stuff.

---

"I'm so happy!" Yuri grinned, "I washed the meat just like Lillie said, and the fire was ready, thank god I was in boy scouts in my school's day."

He was smiling from ear to ear, with the meat skewer in his hand.

Slowly the meat turned brown and the juices were dripping down to the fire making a sizzling sound.

"Mhmm...Delihious"

The satisfaction bar slowly rising little by little, and finally came full before it disappears.

- Well fed, +1 STA, lasts for 1 hour. -

----

Done with his meal, Yuri stretched his body, he felt refreshed and even got a buff for it, and now he must find the cave Lillie told him to go. Jared's cave.

The players that have been to the cave said that an old man lived there, accompanied by skeletons and imps. The old man asked strange questions to the players, they speculate that the old man was a quest giver, but nobody had accepted one yet, besides the experience that they got inside the cave were much higher than a quest reward, so they ignored the old man altogether.

Yuri wanders the forest without direction, he just blindly walking. As he navigated his way, sometimes he was ambushed by the monsters here and there, with the main culprits are wolves and foxes.

Not wanting to experience starvation ever again, he amassed the meat he got from the monsters inside his inventory, and at the side he got some furs too.

But, the quality is so bad even bad is still better compared to what he had. The furs will not fetch a good price, and that is assuming that the merchants even interested in buying that.

This was because he's done it without the right tools, the right skills, and only used his brute strength to rip it from its flesh.

----

The night deepens, for two hours already, he walked mindlessly through the forest, and he even got a status upgrade, after being ambushed by so many times.

Yuri was getting frustrated, "Where is this damn cave anyway! I'm pretty sure I covered all over the forest by now."

His voice echoed through the lonely forest.

"It's back there, young man."

"HUH!" He was startled and as a response, he ready his stance.

"It's back there I said."

The night was solemn, and Yuri saw an old man standing behind him with his face lit by the moonlight. He looked lonely, with his arched back, and wrinkled face. His white hair covered most of his shoulders, and the green robe he wore turned pale by the course of time.

Yuri also saw the old man pointed his wrinkled hands towards the south of the forest. He was still wary at the old man and didn't even put down his stance. He learned from his experience no matter what age never trust a stranger you met at a strange place.

"Don't be so hostile young man. I'm here just to take a stroll along the forest."

"..."

"I see...Let me ask you a question first, before I leave, young man." The old man smiled.

"..."

"Have you ever loathe looking at your fate?"

His heart was beating faster. What is this? Did he know about my past? No! This is a game, maybe that was his typical question...Then what answer shall I give? The truth, or his truth. In the end, he chooses to stay true with his heart, even though it's just a game, he felt sentimental towards the question.

"Yes..."

"Oh...But, aren't you living happily now?"

"Because I worked hard for it." Yuri said with his determined eyes.

The old man chuckled, "Good answer. Don't let fate control your life young man."

After saying his word, Yuri saw the old man vanished within the depth of the gloomy forest. He was puzzled by the remark. Just who is that old man? He questioned in his minds. He shook his head not to dwell further into it, and head towards the direction that the old man gave.

Jared's cave entrance was covered by moss and roots. No wonder he can't find it all this time. It was perfectly camouflaged into the surroundings, if it was daytime maybe he will have luck finding it, but it's different when the only lighting source was the stars and the moon.

To his surprise, the old man was telling the truth all this time, and now he felt like a bad person, for not believing the old man even just a little bit.

Yuri braced himself and walked into the pitch black cave. The inside was like a long corridor the size of a human male. The walls were damp by the rainwater, and the floors were mostly mud and roots.

Five minutes passed as he walked through the cave corridors, finally, at the distance, he finds a source of lighting. Yuri squinted his eyes to get a clearer look, while his feet still moving at the same pace.

"Wow...This place is huge...It's like a hall under the grounds..."

The place was as big as a stadium in the real world. Big pillars stood one after another, intricate design covered all of its sides. Two statues of a knight holding its sword that was pointing towards the ground decorated each side of the halls.

While in the middle of it a big fire pit illuminates the whole place, burning brightly as if to scorch the world in its wake. Yuri was standing in front of the fire pit, facing a stone tablet, which to his surprise, he can read the words written in there.

"Blah...Blah...Blah...Adventurer's, this is a place of trials. The path shall be opened when you state your name." As expected, Yuri skipped the history part, and only read the part where he finds was important.

The instructions were clear, he just needs to state his name before the dungeon door opened. He took a breath and clears his mind.

"Yurian."

The ground shook, as if a big mechanism were moving beneath him. Slowly the gates at the north of the hall opened, showing a path for him.

Yuri moved his feet towards the path, with every step he took a blue fire lit beside him. It was magical. Even though he already saw this kind of scene in a movie or in any other fantasy game, he still can't hide his amazement, looking at it in real time with his own eyes.

Bam!

The giant door where he came from shut tight. His path of retreat is closed shut. There's no going back now, either he died and revived at the closest town, or survive and get his level.

- Jared's Cave -

In the middle of his eyes, the place name briefly appeared. The place was like a maze, one corridor after another stretched across the distance. The haunting atmosphere sends shivers to the spine. Crackling noise can be heard from where he stands.

Skeletons appeared one by one from the grounds, disturbed from their sleep and now they seek revenge.

Yuri scrutinized the incoming skeletons. They were slow but they came in a group, if he were to fight recklessly, he will lose his stamina and be surrounded when he can't move. The only way to defeat them while conserving his stamina was to defeat them at the same time.

But, he didn't have any area of effect skills in his repertoire, Yuri racked his brain. Is there any collision damage in this game? No use wondering about it, let's just try it first.

Before he rushed into the skeletons he didn't forget to put his only buff first, the [Lion's Roar]. As he roared his body felt energized even more with the status buff, but, the secondary effect didn't affect the skeletons even at the slightest, because they're already dead anyway, what more is there to fear about.

Yuri approached the group of skeletons, and threw a punch towards the nearest skeletons in front of him, he angled his punch perfectly towards its head, hoping that it will collide with the other skeletons.

Crash!

His experiments worked, there is a collision damage inside the game, the skeletons that he punched in the head crashed towards the other skeletons, making it falls like a dominos.

He also saw the health bar of the skeletons dropped into halves of their initial health after collapsing with each other, and the one that he punched was down to one-third of its health.

To clarify, these results were because of the buffs and equipments that Yuri had. Basically, his buffed stats added with his equipments were already enough to contend against monsters ten levels above him, but, with an added risk, that he will die in one hit.

And also, a regular newbie can only dream to get rare ranked items that Yuri had in the early levels, usually they would equip the training weapon they got from training halls or the common ranked weapons that they got from the vendors.

They also wouldn't have the locked skills that Yuri had acquired, usually, they would only have basic passive skills, like weapons mastery, or even the basic life skills, like skinning, fishing, or lumbering.

Therefore, it's best if they didn't see this situation where Yuri soloed Jared's Cave. Maybe, if they see this sight, they will grit their teeth and left the game just to lament at their unfair conditions.

----

"Well, isn't this easy then."

Yuri grinned looking at the results, he cracked his hands and continued his onslaught.