Long Bao awoke bruised and gasping for air. With a throbbing head, he stumbled forward and tried to open his aching eyes. 

Above him, a stretching, obsidian darkness. He sniffed the air and smelled the stench of festering blood and crumbling dust. 

“Where am I?” he thought aloud. He reached behind his back for his trusty Nomological Blade, the Level 50 Fourth Tier Dagger from the  Reapers of the End Times Set commonly used by high ranking Officers of the Shadow Eaters Guild. Instead, his fingers grasped air. 

In the distance, Long Bao heard a soft crying sound, like the cries of a frightened child in a war-torn nation. Stumbling forward, he crawled towards a hunched over, shivering figure. In the tenebrous darkness, he could make out a long haired loli, about fifteen years of age, crying, with tears making streaks down her dusty face. Dressed lightly in mangled undergarments, Long Bao couldn’t help noticing her soft glistening pale thighs, covered in scratches. The loli turned her succulent, rose tinted face and peered at Long Bao.

“Honorable Brother Kung! Honorable Brother Kung!” she sobbed grasping at his chest with her frail loli arms. Long Bao could feel the frantic throbs of her small beating loli chest against him. 

“Brother who?” Long Bao shook his head, trying to clear the miasma fogging his mind. 

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Closing his eyes, he saw visions of his comrades Frivolous Rain and Jolly Knickerbocker charging at the members of King’s Radiant Guardians. The King’s Radiant Guardians were the elite members of Tyrannical Daylight, the highest ranking priest guild, with over 50 members already reaching Ascension Plus, the state of being after hitting the level cap. In addition, four of the members had a combined battle rating of 100 million, and were consistently the top scoring participants during the Bolrosa, Drake King of the Scyls World Boss event. 

However, Long Bao himself was known as the Peach Tree Whisperer, inventor of A-Style (short for Apotheotic Style), a style of fighting that interleaved blocking, moving, and attacking actions. This allowed him to cast Backstabs from various angles with Eviscerate multipliers from range using Fan of Knives while wielding the Nomological Blade. 

As his mind remembered the last image of Septikus Ra, the highest level priest, inventor of the King’s Radiant Style, and one of the eight members of the Council of Elemental Remembrance, casting Bolt of Glory, Fifth Harmonic, and a screaming sky full of magic energy, he was dragged back into reality by the nails of a certain sobbing loli digging into his skin.

“Honorable Brother Kung! Hold still, I’ll restore your health with the Holy Magus’s Touch.” The tearful loli rolled up her lacerated sleeves to reveal skinny arms, covered in tattoos of various coiling invertebrates and consenting platypodes. Her arms began to glow green as she chanted in some foreign language. 

As the air began to vibrate around Long Bao, he could feel his body begin to react. As the loli began to trace strange symbols across his chest with her fragile fingers, Long Bao suddenly twitched and gasped, his back arching as his body throbbed. Electricity crackled and the loli drew back her fingers, eyes wide with shock. 

Looking down, Long Bao saw a pernicious crimson tattoo start to spread across his body, starting from his chest and beginning to cover his arms and legs. 

“The Divine Blood Mark!” the loli whispered, large eyes shimmering and wide. As Long Bao’s body shuddered with supernatural energy, the cave around them began to tremble, and an ominous wailing could be heard from the depths.