“What was that?” WeabooMike asked, he was looking into the dark forested that surrounded them.

Loud, splashing footsteps were making their way closer.

JohnWillStab was eating his stew, they had salt, an entire bag in fact.

“Mm?” he looked up from his bowl.

“Maybe it’s another animal?” John suggested.

He put his bowl down and grabbed his dagger.

“Even if it is an animal, we still have to deal with it!”

That’s when he saw it, a dozen creatures walked into their line of sight.

White in colour, completely featureless and seemingly unarmed.

“H-hold on! That’s the starter model!” John exclaimed.

“Yeah, why are we being surrounded by starter models?!” Crown asked.

The mud the zombie-like creatures walked over didn’t stick to their skin, neither did the water.

“Step back! If you continue heading towards us, we shall retaliate!” Bonifacius warned, holding his shield out in front of him.

The creatures didn’t even stop for a second as their hands began to morph, sharp ends or blunt orbs replaced their palms as they drew closer.

JohnWillStab took advantage of the dark, he shadow-stepped behind one of them, stabbing his dagger into their back.

Much to his surprise, their skin was hard, it was like stabbing wood with a butter knife.

JohnWillStab pulled his dagger back, slashing it at the creature’s throat only to hit from behind by a blunt, brick-like shape used as a weapon by one of the creatures.

He fell to the ground, shadow-stepping back to the group and narrowly evading being cut in two as a result.

“W-what the hell happened!?” Crown demanded seeing John getting off the ground slowly, a stream of blood coming from his head.

“Those things are rock hard… I couldn’t even stab them!”

Crown’s expression shifted to a darker one.

“If the over-powered edgelord can’t kill these things… we’re fucked…” Crown thought; she looked over to Bonifacius.

“STAY BACK, CREATURES OF THE NIGHT!” he exclaimed as he cast master-charge, launching himself at the creature closest to him.

The instant his shield touched it his speed was gone; the impact was dispersed into the ground causing ripples to dance on the water’s surface.

“Wha-?!” Bonifacius couldn’t reply as the monster lifted its arm, the end of which was a massive blade.

It slashed down again and again; the constant assault of offence was cancelled out by Bonifacius’ constant defence.

Before Bonifacius knew it, two more white creatures approached him, one on each side, they lifted their hand-blades and swung them down.

In the last possible moment, Crown summoned a goose-snake from a nearby tree to pull Bonifacius back.

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The three monsters performed a triple-slash at the ground where Bonifacius stood just a second earlier.

Dirt, water and the unfortunate rock which lay below the surface for decades were reduced to individual particles.

The dirt and water rained down on the group.

Crown turned back.

“Heike, Dun, heal these two idiots,” she instructed gesturing to John and Bonifacius.

They did as instructed.

Crown reached into her coat pocket, she pulled out a single loaf of bread.

She put the entire thing in her mouth and swallowed it before exclaiming: “MAGICIAN’S BREAD!”

In a flash, behind her appeared the creature, the legs and torso of a steroid-loving bodybuilder and the head and neck of a goose.

It hissed violently.

Crown stepped forward towards the group of white creatures.

“Magician’s Bread, attack!” she commanded as the magic punching ghost behind her began draining her mana and stamina at a surprisingly low rate.

It wasn’t a matter of individual punches, but rather a Gatling gun of impacts.

The white creature was being pummelled, its body deforming with every hit, even so, it never died.

“Magician’s bread! Aim for the heads!” she commanded; the punching ghost placed its hands on both sides of the white creature’s head.

Its muscles tightened as it tried to crush the rock-hard skull.

“CROWN!” JohnWillStab called out.

She turned back seeing JohnWillStab pointing to something.

Crown looked down and saw two swords coming at her torso, one from the left and one from the right.

“As if I’d die to something like this!” she thought smugly.

In an instant, Magician’s bread moved its equally hard hands down to block the strikes, Crown turned back to John with a smug look only to be met with another finger pointing up.

A chill ran down her spine, she looked up seeing the sword of the target she was hitting until now was on its way down to slash her.

She summoned another goose-snake but it was too slow.

JohnWillStab, left with no option fired his tenecirus tentacles, once again he was able to see the souls around him.

“What the hell?!” He thought looking at the creatures, they weren’t soulless, they didn’t have a normal soul, they were the soul.

A soul stretched to look like a monster.

Of course, what John didn’t know at the time was that a soul wasn’t as easy to solidify, they were merely puppets controlled by a puppet-shaped soul.

JohnWillStab saw another thing, leaning up to each one of the souls, a strange rope that twisted and coiled, almost like a tentacle.

Even his tendrils weren’t fast enough to reach her, Crown was cut in two, blood flew out.

JohnWillStab saw her soul, it didn’t respawn and it wouldn’t respawn in a few minutes because much to John’s horror it was picked up by one of the previously invisible tentacles and pulled away into the distance through the mud and trees.

“CROWN!” John exclaimed.

He turned to face Bonifacius.

“Don’t come any closer to them! If they kill you, your soul will be taken away!” John exclaimed.

The seven looked on in shock and fear as Bonifacius clutched his shield harder than before.

“Are thou… saying Crown…-” Bonifacius began, he gritted his teeth.

John nodded.

Bonifacius marched in front of the group.

“There is no time to waste…” Bonifacius said.

For the first time JohnWillStab saw Bonifacius toss his shield aside, he lifted his colossal blade in one hand.

“Thou must make it back to the city, inform them about the threat and get in contact with Bromy and the others!” Bonifacius instructed.

JohnWillStab turned to look at the group of seven behind him, unsure if we wanted to comply.

For better or for worse, JohnWillSmart won over JohnWillEdge this time.

“Right…” John nodded.

“What’s your plan?” he asked.

“I shall grant thee enough time to make it out, then I shall head deeper into the forest in search of the one who orchestrated this,” Bonifacius replied.

John nodded.

He turned towards the group

“Right, let’s get going!” he said gesturing towards the road out of the swamp.

“A-are you sure?” Heike asked.

“A healer would help, even if just by a bit,“

Dun nodded.

JohnWillStab shook his head.

“Nah, you’d just get in the way, besides…”

JohnWillStab scratched his head.

“I doubt Bony could focus on the fight when he’s worrying your soul will be taken,” John laughed.

“B-but-” with that JohnWillStab shadow-stepped two people at a time away from the swamp and into the safety of the town.

JohnWillStab breathed a sigh.

“Alright, I’m heading out to get some backup,” John began.

“You guys need to head into town,” he replied.

“Dude, quit acting like we’re five…” Sepukku4me_n_u pleaded.

“It’s not about age!” John assured them,

“It’s about level…”

John scratched his head.

“I’ll add you to my friends list temporarily, if anything goes wrong Just call me,” John explained.

In case someone got injured and couldn’t talk, John added the whole seven.

He also explained how the system worked and how one can communicate with the others.

And with that, he left.

Meanwhile…

Bonifacius stood in a crowd of solid-white player models.

He swung his blade in a circle, cutting into the creatures unlike John who barely grazed them.

“DEFENCE STANCE!”

“COLOSSUS STOMP!”

“COLOSSUS YELL!”

“CHARGE!”

Bonifacius fought the creatures with every spell he could think of.

Even ones that would only give him a small boost would be good enough.

“Reinforcement!” his armour magically returned to a repaired state.

“SEVERING SLASH!” he cut one of the creatures in half vertically, both sides falling to the ground limply.

Bonifacius breathed a sigh, he took a second to breathe as if to celebrate his win.

All colour drained from him when he saw the two halves both stand up, re-growing their missing parts in an instant.

“Thou jest…”

The attacks came once again, a few of the strikes blocked by the defensive-stance’s glowing shields.

Eventually, his blade was caught, three white creatures were clutching to it as another creature armed with a blunt mace for a hand shattered the sword.

Bonifacius jerked the blade back only hold the handle of the sword.

He tossed the broken weapon aside.

Instead, he lifted his fists to fight.

He punched and kicked the creatures.

With every successful strike, half a dozen more would reach him.

His armour was broken in pieces now, blood gushing from dozens of deep wounds as he fell to the ground.

His stamina ran out.

“It would seem… my plans have failed… I wasn’t… able to… track down the mastermind…” Bonifacius thought as a dozen blades pierced his torso, skewering his heart and lungs.

“I shall leave the rest to thee, friends…”

His soul was also collected by the tendrils leading to the big abandoned fort.