I woke up feeling excited and refreshed. After having a simple breakfast, I washed up and headed out of the ballroom. I was asked where I was going and I simply made the excuse that I was going to search once again in case I missed some survivors.

I made my way out into the hallway while I hid my presence, and climbed up to the roof. I hadn’t been here so far, and I kind of wanted to see what was going on outside because all the noise of the monsters fighting had stopped for some reason last night.

I noticed it immediately, and everyone else did too as it really was quite obvious. Since the time I entered the hotel, I could hear snarls, growls and the unmistakable sounds of monsters fighting constantly coming from outside. The noise had started to decrease gradually yesterday and it had vanished completely by last night, and I wanted to know the reason why.

I entered the roof and found it completely deserted. All the hallways had been covered with blood with ogres walking all around, but the roof looked strangely… normal. It looked just like a roof should, no corpses, no blood, no ogres… just a normal roof.

I found it a bit strange but probably it’s because ogres like to stay indoors and didn’t want to venture out...

The next thing I noticed was the sky, which was a clear crystal blue without any clouds whatsoever. The lack of any sort of birds or avian creatures was immediately obvious. As soon as the animals started going crazy, the sky had always been filled with birds, and when the monsters arrived the monster bats ruled the night sky. I was certain that there had to be some sort of avian monster that were active during the day too, but as far as I could see the sky was completely devoid of any creatures.

The abnormally normal roof I could make sense of, but the clear sky was a bit too strange. I immediately became a lot more cautious and made my way over to the edge carefully. I peered down and what I saw was even more astonishing then the clear sky!

The roads, they were clean! No corpses, no body parts… nothing! There wasn’t even any blood flowing down the roads as it had been before! The only trace of all the blood that had previously filled the roads was the fact that the roads were now tinted red. That’s it, nothing else to even hint at all the carnage that was there before!

How in the world had all this changed so quickly in a mere two days?? Where had everything disappeared off to? There has to be some sort of explanation for all this… Perhaps the bodies disappear after some time like in the games…? I don’t really think that’s it, I haven’t had any signs that the world has somehow changed into a game-world of sorts… Plus I had to drag the dead bodies of all the ogres I killed from the ballroom, and I piled them all in a number of rooms. As far as I could remember, the corpses of the dead ogres were still there and hadn't disappeared, so what is the reason behind these clean roads...?

Another bizarre thing was the lack of living creatures. There were no animals, plants or monsters as far as I could see. Although I was at the top of a 20 story building… so perhaps I couldn’t see them…?

I remembered the new abilities I gained last night and immediately used my improved vision to see more clearly. Everything suddenly became much clearer, and if I focused on something it felt like I zoomed in on it. It was a strange feeling, and it felt like I was actually seeing for the first time in my life, what I could see before was nothing compared to what I could see with the ability!

Getting used to my new sense of sight took some time, but after I did get used to it I ‘zoomed’ in on the roads and looked carefully for some kind of clue to the disappearance of every living thing.

I scanned the roads carefully, and after a lot of searching I finally found a living thing, a rat! It was dragging what looked a lot like a human finger, only it was black in colour. It was amazing the details I could now see when I was so far away!

I kept my focus on the rat as it was scurrying about, when suddenly the ground behind it split open and a hand three times the size of the rat came out! The hand was completely hairless, red in colour and had 4 large and very sharp claws instead of fingers. The hand shot out of the ground, grabbed the rat and pulled it back inside, and then the ground which had split open went back to as it was before without any cracks at all, leaving no traces of what just happened!

All of this took place in barely a matter of two seconds, and I wasn’t quite sure if what I saw was actually real or not...

I shook my head and looked back at the spot where the ground had split open, but there was absolutely nothing to see. The ground was as smooth as it had been before. I still had no idea if what I saw was real or not, so I ‘zoomed out’ and started looking all over again.

Before long, I spotted another living creature, this time it was in the sky flying around. I focused in on it and discovered that it was a hawk. It was circling over something, and then dove down. As soon as it touched the ground to pick up whatever it was that made it dive, the ground split open again, a hand came out once more and dragged the hawk down into the depths before the ground reformed itself as if nothing had happened!

This time the hand that came out was bright yellow in colour and all this happened even more quickly then the case with rat! It barely took a second before the hawk was dragged down!

This time I was certain that the hand and everything else was real. There were some kind of creatures underground, probably living in the sewers, who were dragging everything they could down to eat them I guess.

The presence of these underground creatures explains the lack of any living things on the ground, though it was still quite unbelievable. Sure, the hands that came out were large, meaning that the creatures underground were of a formidable size too, but still I saw plenty of huge and powerful creatures the night all the monsters appeared. How strong were these underground creatures to so thoroughly clean out every living thing from the ground? Or was it the case of them being too numerous and they had somehow managed to outnumber the stronger monsters I saw that night…?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The lack of ground creatures is at least understandable, but what about the empty skies? Sure, I just saw a hawk getting dragged down, but that was only because it dove down to the ground. If the avian creatures stayed up in the air there was no way as far as I could tell for the underground creatures to snatch them from high up in the air. Either they had actually managed to bait all the avian creatures to come to the ground, or they had some mysterious powers that allowed them to attract avian creatures to the ground. Another possibility could be that all the avian creatures had left the area due to a lack of food on the ground…?

I had no idea what to think of this new development. I had so far been concentrating on getting abilities while staying wary of the dangers from the sky and the dangers from the surface. Now I had to keep track of dangers from underground too…?!? Give me a damn break!

I swept the area around me once again, but couldn’t see anything else so I left the roof and headed downstairs in a sour mood. I took my frustrations out on the first few ogres I encountered by beating them to a pulp with my fists. After I was done, I stood still and thought about things a bit.

A jolt ran through my spine as I realized something and immediately rushed downstairs at full speed. After I reached the first floor I took off and started flying while at the same time I slowed down a bit. I carefully reached the ground floor while staying near the ceiling of the floor and saw the whole floor was completely clean. This was my first time entering the ground floor, as I had never gone below the first floor, the reason being that the ground floor only had a grand lobby and nothing else. There were never any heat signatures from the ground floor, so I had never felt the need to go and snoop around the lobby.

As I saw the completely clean lobby devoid of any corpses, I could not help but think how lucky I was to have stayed away from the ground floor. I had been becoming increasingly overconfident with my abilities lately, and sooner or later I would have strolled on down here and gotten a nasty surprise...

I went back to the first floor, grabbed the nearest ogre I could find and picked it up without killing it. I had my steel-skin ability, plus I had my strength and I was hiding my presence as well, so there was nothing the ogre could do except snarl loudly and flail its arms around aimlessly.

I carried it by its neck down to the ground floor and threw it on the ground while I stayed up in the air. The ogre touched the tiled floor, bounced up about 2 feet into the air and then hit the floor hard once again, cracking quite a few tiles in the process. It groggily started to get back up, but before it could the floor split apart and a red hairless hand shot forth and grabbed the ogre!

The hand tried to drag the ogre underground, but the ogre was much stronger then a rat or a hawk so it struggled while trying to get out of the grip. The struggle continued on for a minute without either party getting the upper hand, but then everything changed in an instant!

The floor split apart once again, and another red hand came out, though this one didn’t grab the ogre. Instead, it stayed there for a second before it shot out a massive fireball straight at the ogre! The fire covered the ogre completely for about two seconds before it disappeared without a trace, leaving an entirely roasted ogre behind which was then calmly dragged into the ground. The floor once again fixed itself up, including the tiles that the ogre had broken from being thrown!

I stared at the space where the ogre had disappeared for a good two minutes. My mind was completely blank at this point. I had no idea what to make of all this.

These creatures could not only control the ground, but they could throw fire too if something was becoming too troublesome! And I had no idea if this fire ability was the only trick these creatures had. What if the red-skinned creatures could control fire, while the yellow-skinned from earlier had some other power? And I can’t be sure if these were the only variations these creatures had. What if their species consists of tens of differently coloured creatures, all with different abilities? Or the colour could be completely irrelevant, these creatures could all have a number of different powers regardless of what their colours are!

I had no idea what these creatures were, no idea on how powerful they were and I didn’t even know if they would stay underground or start coming out if they ran out of food to drag down! I didn’t even know what to call them! Only thing that ran through my mind was that they were demons. I guess demons is as good a name as any…

One thing was for certain though, all my overconfidence that had built up with me constantly overpowering the ogres had been shattered completely. There was no way I was going to simply stroll underground and start fighting creatures I had almost no information on!

Right now, these creatures seem to stay underground, and I can simply stay away from them by flying. But, I had no idea if they would stay underground. Another thing that was troubling me was the lack of avian creatures earlier, if these demons had some way of killing things in mid-air then even I wasn’t safe anymore. I need a plan if I am to fight these creatures….

I trudged back upstairs dragging my feet in low spirits. Barely an hour ago I was in such high spirits with my newly gained abilities and my confidence, and now these fucking demons had ruined everything!