Nathan barely had time to curse before a bright white light enveloped him, light so bright that he closed his eyes for fear of being blinded.

When the glare from the light seemed to disappear from his closed eyelids, Nathan opened an eye to peek. The area seemed clear, and his body felt little protrusions poking at it. Looking at his side, Nathan realized that he was on the floor. Not the familiar floor of his room—nope, he was on bare soil. In the middle of fucking nowhere.

He pushed himself off the ground, a little disoriented from whatever had just happened.

"Fuck!" Nathan said as he finally got to his feet. He was still dressed in his hoodie and jeans from earlier. His clothes were covered in dirt, which was just fantastic.

He looked up and could barely see the sky from where he was standing; the little bit that he did manage to see didn't look quite right to him. The sky was purple, not purple as in a little shade of purple. Nope, the entire thing was a bright purple, which was weird because Nathan could've sworn that he went to sleep seeing a blue sky.

Glancing around where he stood, Nathan came to two conclusions: either he'd unlocked another level of the sleep realm because of how tired he was, or he'd been drugged somehow.

Shit!

He already had his day off planned, and now he was probably going to spend the rest of it high as a kite and out of his mind. Turning to take in the situation, he took a cautious step forward, the purple sky barely illuminating the forest he was in. The tree’s way too tall and wide to allow much light in any way.

Plus, there wasn't anything in the sky—no moon, no sun, nothing. Just an endless bright purple sky. His sneakers squeaked as he stepped into what felt like shit, but with the poor lighting conditions, Nathan could barely tell what it was, and he really didn't want to know.

"Great, that's going to cost me a few dollars to replace," Nathan said as he slowly pulled his leg out of the muck, making sure to shake off as much of it as he could.

Now what?

Nathan barely had a second more to drum up another thought before a blue screen popped up in his face.

Ra'ahal welcomes the planet and all its inhabitants into its folds.

Planet Grade: F

Populating World... Time till completion - 7 Days

Spawning Dungeons and Monsters... Time till completion - 7 Days

Tutorial Ongoing... Time till completion - 7 Days

Strongholds: 0

Huh?

What did any of these things even mean? Planet grade? Populating world? Dungeons? Monsters? Strongholds?... Tutorial he could guess.

It had to be that little annoying introductory thing that happened anytime he started a new game. He always skipped those anytime he could.

Pfft, who needs a tutorial?

After all, tutorials were for noobs. Looking around, Nathan wasn't so sure that he'd made the right choice, but he'd rather have more time to sleep than have what was probably going to be a lecture.

Seven days huh. Might as well catch some z's.

Nathan highly doubted that this was anything serious. A good night's sleep and he'd wake up from this... whatever this was anyway probably fresh and ready to enjoy his day off.

Another thought crossed his mind, maybe he was just hallucinating from all the standing he'd had to do all day, spinning that freaking sign under the sun. Yesss, the sun must've done something to his brain. Nathan wasn't buying the fact that this crap could be real. There had to be an explanation, but he was probably too tired to come to the right conclusion.

Just as he was contemplating finding a place to sleep, the letters started rearranging themselves, and Nathan let out an unconscious groan.

Congratulations Nathan Orion!

You are one out of the other 2,734,125 humans who also decided to skip the tutorial.

For such an act of bravery, you all have earned the very first imprint - Balls of Steel.

Balls of steel - grants holders +5% courage.

Would you look at that—an imprint.

It didn't take Nathan long to put two and two together. He'd played a lot of RPG games, and shit like this was as common as they get.

The way the thing or floating board had phrased it made it seem like he and almost three million other people had just done the stupidest thing imaginable.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

What was up with all this typing? What if he couldn't read? Heck, his eyes hurt from looking at the freaking screen at this point.

"Hello, can you speak?" Nathan said, hating himself for even bothering to participate in this charade.

No answer, so typical. Nate had no idea why he'd bothered, it was foolish of him to expect something else.

What to do now?

Nathan turned back to face the patch of grass he'd found himself on. No point trying to find a way through the forest at this time; the entire place was barely lit as it was. He didn't even have his phone with him, so no phone calls or videos for him to binge—fantastic.

He just hoped whoever was in charge of this cruel joke would let him go once they figured out that he wasn't interested, and if he'd just been drugged somehow, then he hoped it'd wear off once he got some sleep.

Glancing around cautiously, he saw what looked like a pair of eyes—entirely red eyes, no pupils or anything—from a ways away from where he was standing. Straining his eyes to confirm he wasn't hallucinating, the two orbs of red seemingly disappeared.

Nathan ran a hand over his eyes and pinched his nose. Not only was he probably trapped in the middle of nowhere, but he was also seeing things in what was probably the dead of night.

With a sigh, he sat on the dirt, his hands groping around as he sought something to defend himself with in case he actually saw something.

He found a loose stone, more like a mini rock. What was he even saying? Stones were rocks, and rocks were stones. Anyway, he had gotten something to defend himself with, no matter how cave-manly it made him seem.

With that settled, he laid down properly, left hand clutching the rock tightly, shoulders tensed, mind alert. He definitely wouldn't be going down without a fight, that was for sure.

Nathan closed his eyes to complete the illusion that he was really asleep. If anything had been watching him, it'd probably show itself soon, and if nothing was, he'd eventually fall asleep—so a win-win situation.

Turns out he didn't have to wait too long to find out if he was right, even though he'd been hoping and praying that he was wrong. He felt something tug at his sneakers, but he remained calm and maintained the illusion that he was asleep, barely.

Just as fast as the pressure was applied on his sneakers, it stopped. Confusion flashed throughout Nathan's facial features. Before he could stop himself, he opened his eyes to the sight of the most hideous thing he'd ever seen.

A pair of red eyes were inches from his; an ugly looking... thing, was staring back at him. Its mouth was so close he could smell its rancid breath, its fangs peeking from underneath.

Nathan didn't know when he let out a scream... "Ahhhhhh! Ahh, get away from me!" Nathan screamed as he used the rock he had hidden to hit the thing's head. It screeched as the rock impacted its head, jumping back with a hiss. It continued to back away before it stopped, staring at Nathan as though it was considering its options.

A blue screen appeared overhead the thing.

Imp (Lesser Demon)

Level 1

The thing that almost kissed him was an imp. Ughh. Talk about disgusting—it had red leathery-looking skin with fangs, and now that he looked at it clearly, it also had claws on its four fingers. Bat-like wings at its back, and to cap it off, a face only its mother could love.

The text rearranged itself, and Nate was left looking at a message that sent chills down his spine.

In simple words, the ways of Ra'ahal are easy. Kill or be killed.

Shit! That wasn't ominous at all.

The imp seemed to sense his fear as its face stretched to what was probably its own version of a grin but just looked to Nathan as though the already ugly thing was constipated.

It let out a loud screech, forcing Nathan to cover his ears at the pitch of the screech. He had no idea why the little shit had just done that, and he had no time to contemplate it as the imp started inching towards him.

Nathan had never gotten on his feet as fast as he did at that moment, making sure to increase the distance between them, distance that the imp was steadily eating up.

"Stay back!" Nathan said, holding out the rock towards the advancing imp. The words seemed to have the opposite effect than intended as the imp let out a lower-pitched screech and started rushing towards Nathan, no doubt interpreting his words as a threat.

Nathan tried to put on a brave face but couldn't help but wince at the fact that he could really lose his life to an imp... a level one imp to be specific.

He'd never been the one to use his environment in the games he played online. Nope, he usually rushed and overwhelmed whatever and whoever he was fighting against with raw strength.

Considering the size difference between him and the imp that looked the size of the average monkey, he didn't see why he couldn't use his favored tactics.

Without giving a chance to his doubts and rational mind to stop him, he rushed at the imp with the rock overhead.

"Arghhhhhhh!" Nathan screamed as he attacked, his pathetic war cry echoing in the awfully silent forest.

The pair met mid-rush, the sneaky imp going underneath his exposed legs and climbing on Nathan's back. Nathan, unable to stop himself mid-stride, received a slash at the back for his stupidity. He tried to shake the imp off, but the damned thing clung on for life, one clawed hand digging into his shoulder while the other slashed at another part of his back, a white-hot pain blooming from that side.

Knowing that he couldn't use the rock, he let the thing drop to the ground. Using his now free hands, he dragged the infernal imp. The sneaky bastard dug its claws into Nathan's back for leverage, but Nate wasn't having it. He pulled it off, gritting his teeth as he tried to ignore the pain that exploded from his back as the imp tore at his flesh, trying to hold on.

Unfortunately for the damned thing, it was no match for a pissed-off and determined Nathan, who threw it over his shoulder with so much force that he himself fell face-first to the floor.

Crack.

Nathan didn't feel anything at the moment, the adrenaline pumping in his veins numbing the pain that should've been wracking him by now. He jumped to his feet; the imp lay on the floor, probably still dazed, one of its legs seemed to be at an unnatural angle, but Nathan didn't know what was natural and unnatural at this point. What he did know was that the system or whatever it was, had said kill or be killed, and this imp was about to get the raw end of the deal.

He searched for the rock with the eyes of a madman, his chest heaving. It took a couple of heartbeats but he finally spotted the discarded rock, it lay just beside the imp. The pair of them seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time as both Nathan and the imp dove for it.

Not waiting to find proper purchase on it, Nathan raised it and dropped it on the imp's head without a whiff of hesitation blood splattering across his arms. He picked it up rock and did it again, and then again and over and over.

He only stopped once a blue screen enveloped his field of vision, and for the first time since interacting with one, he heard a cold and detached voice echo the very words on the screen in his head.

Congratulations on your very first kill

Welcome to the Crimson Apocalypse