A terrible thunderstorm descended on Daxtarian that night. A disaster of this magnitude has never occurred in the memory of this generation. The wind tore everything in its path with sharp blades, and the underbelly of the clouds, cut open by the strongest lightning, shimmered with a variety of colors that were completely uncharacteristic for an ordinary thunderstorm.

A girl wearing a blue cape was running in the pouring rain. The frail figure resisted every gust of wind with obvious difficulty. Only the semitransparent shroud of the protective spell allowed her to still stand on her feet. Exactly the same barriers surrounded every building in the city without exception. How else? Still, the capital of magic...

The large hood she held in both hands was almost useless in this weather, but she never took it off. Except in front of the Master... the silly thought distracted her, but the gust of wind that managed to break through the haze and ruffle her ash-colored hair immediately brought her to her senses.

She was hurrying toward the Lord's Tower, which stood exactly in the center of the city. Raising her head for a moment, Ellayla saw a translucent dome of bluish energy begin to descend from the top of the Tower, protecting the vast city from the wrath of nature. Pausing reverently for a moment, she quickened her pace even more, because under the dome, the force of the elements almost immediately weakened and the feeling that the next gust of wind would lift you off the ground disappeared.

Almost at the top of the Tower, Ellayla carefully opened the huge golden door that led to the Master's private chambers. Even though there was no one inside the large room, she could still sense the location of the strongest creature in the Daxtarian. She walked a little deeper into the floor and came to a large open balcony, on the edge of which stood an ordinary, seemingly old man dressed in a gray cape.

But it wasn't nearly as simple as an unintelligent layman might think. The Daxtarian was created long after he was born, and it was only of his own free will that he became its guardian. For thousands of years, Vladyka defends and secretly rules the country, remaining a symbol of the inviolability of the greatest state. She came closer and noticed that the old man's eyes shone with a bright blue light, his hands drew patterns in the air unknown to her, and his gaze was directed at the protective dome-shaped barrier, which even now did not stop growing in its volume, covering more and more new lands.

After hesitating for a moment, she finally spoke:

"Grandfather, I'm sorry to distract you from such a complex spell. The young guest bowed low to the creature in front of her. Even though she was considered related to him, the respect carved into her heart didn't allow her to treat him like an ordinary grandfather.

"Ellie, you don't have to bow to me," the old man was distracted for a moment, but he didn't stop casting the spell, " besides, how difficult can it be for me to see my beloved granddaughter?

The keeper turned. The old man's soft voice seemed like a warm spring wind to the girl. He only talked to her like that, though. It was a little flattering, and Elayla sincerely hoped that the Master really thought so.

"Grandfather, I don't dare distract you from your business on normal days. The young woman continued respectfully. – This situation is too strange, if it wasn't for my father's order, I would never have dared to disturb your peace of mind.

Hearing his granddaughter's words, the old man became slightly sad. The already deep lines on his face turned into real furrows. At that moment, he was remembering the effort he had taken to convince her to call him grandpa instead of the title she was so tired of.

Sight The Overlords became focused, and Allayla involuntarily recoiled from the wave of energy that erupted from the old man's body. The dome flared, then stopped expanding, fully stabilized. Unfortunately, the young eyes of the guest could not see how far it stretched – so large and powerful was the spell created.

Another bolt of lightning shattered impotently against the barrier that had been erected, causing her to look up and freeze in shock.

The silence that lasted for several minutes was interrupted by a slightly hesitant question from Ellisla:

- Grandfather, my father does not know what caused this cataclysm, he says that in his memory over our or any other lands, such a thing has never happened before. I was told to ask you for advice on what to expect..."

"Your father is right, this has never happened in his lifetime. The master turned to the one he called his granddaughter. — But I can say with absolute certainty that neither the cause nor the result of this storm has anything to do with us, even though we were the ones who were hit by it.

— Then what should we do?"

Another clap of thunder interrupted the old man. — I'm only vaguely aware of what this storm portends. But even if I'm right, there's no way we can change what it brings with it.

"I understand, Grandpa. Ellylea bowed her head respectfully, hiding the look in her eyes that suggested she understood quite a bit, "And..." After a moment of hesitation, the girl continued — " What name would you give this storm?"

"You don't have to call her that," the old man said without hesitation. — It's just a residual sign that screams about the changes taking place in the world.

— …

— Tonight is a fateful night, Allayla. A night when the heavens themselves were ablaze...

The girl, following the example of the Lord, looked up at the sky. After a few seconds of unconsciousness, she pulled herself together and left.

***

It was as if his consciousness had been extinguished for just a moment, only to return immediately. The body was still enveloped in some kind of thick slush. Except that she was a little cold.

"Am I in a capsule?" - the first thought that came to mind seemed quite logical to the guy, but as the feelings gradually came to their senses, it became clear that this was not entirely true.

The attempt to move his hand was surprisingly successful and easy – the substance was not too thick. The guy tried to open his eyes, but when he did, he immediately closed them again. The light was too bright!

It was only after a minute of agony that the overly sensitive eyes finally managed to adjust to the light. The first thing he saw were the branches of trees, through which the rays of the clearly midday sun shone.

"Where am I?" As he tried to sit up, he realized that he was lying on the edge of a small swamp. He stood up carefully, noticing that he wasn't wearing any clothes. "Why am I not on the ship?"

According to the announcement on the game's website, the first people to connect had to enter the new world in a special way, like explorers who arrived on the ocean. That's what the holograms scattered around hinted at. But the surrounding forest didn't look much like a medieval ship, no matter how you looked at it.

"But I'm not even in the city. Something's wrong... " - looking around a bit, the guy realized that there were no more people nearby. He was completely alone in a small clearing in the woods, surrounded by the usual trees, though slightly taller. — I won't be in a hurry, maybe this is some kind of surprise."

"Inventory".

The first of the available mental commands worked without any problems and a strange feeling appeared in my head. It was as if an entire room was floating in the air nearby. Small, even small, it was, for some reason, completely empty.

"Well, where can I find clothes?" — It was a strange surprise from the developers. In the middle of a forest, without food, water, or weapons. - "Maybe the city is very close?"

The impulse to rush to the nearest trees and see what was behind them had to be postponed. The guy decided to check out the rest of the game's features.

"Status".

A small, almost transparent window appeared in front of my eyes. It was conceived as simple as possible, but giving at least some information about the character. It included: name, race and its characteristics, as well as the names and levels of current professions and specializations. The game did not have a level system, the character gradually became stronger, moving through the game world and developing in the chosen direction. Now in the Status, quite expectedly, there were only a few lines, but even they made me sit down on the ground from bewilderment.

Name: Ray???

Race: ???

Racial characteristics:

[Immortal]

[Many Faces level 1.]

[Lord of Souls Level 1]

[???]

"Eh?" - The reaction is quite justified, because at the beginning of the game all players had to be of the human race, with the same characteristics-Immortality and Accelerated development. Immortality is common to all players, and Accelerated development is a feature that allows you to learn faster. "This is definitely a mistake. You just have to ask."

"Disable".

Having mentally uttered the last keyword available, the guy, without getting up from the unexpectedly pleasant to the touch grass, waited patiently for at least a minute.

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"I hope this gets fixed quickly." The frown deepened. It was unpleasant to realize that someone's mistake meant wasting precious minutes of their remaining time.

It was supposed to be disconnected from the outside. The player could only give the command to end the game dive session and after some time they had to be carefully disconnected from the dive device. But...

Five minutes had passed, and the boy was still sitting with his back to the big tree.

"I guess I'm not the only one who got an error, which is why it took so long." — The next idea also looked quite plausible, but the grain of doubt by this time had already begun to sprout. How could there be a bug in a game that has been developed for several decades? The developers would not allow the publication of a defective product. Another ten minutes passed, and the guy just sat there, staring straight ahead with empty eyes.

"It seems like I'm just too unlucky in this life." "All this time, he's been thinking about what happened. There were various thoughts running through his head, but one of them was the right one, and he immediately jumped at it. "Obviously, I had to be different from the rest of the players. And I even know what..."

"The damn disease was able to get me even in another world."

The guy was not angry or angry, he had already passed these stages several months ago when he found out that he was ill. And he was just trying to get over the fact that his last days would be spent not in the company of other players, exploring new lands filled with fantastic adventures, but somewhere deep in the forest, without clothes or even food.

And somehow already familiar, this decision also took not so much time. The boy got to his feet. He wasn't going to lose faith so easily. The first step was to make sure that there were no starting cities nearby.

"Even the name isn't fully known!? Rei, right..? " - after a moment of savoring how obscenely simple the name sounds, but still finding nothing wrong with it, the guy just as easily accepted another whim of fate. "Not too bad, come to think of it. Although I don't think I should get used to it too much, two or three days and it won't be useful anymore."

It took him a few more minutes to look at the new body and sincerely regret that it was only for a few days. The skin, by the way, did not leave a single trace of slightly cloudy water from the swamp. Strange, but no more so than appearing in the middle of a forest.

After taking a couple of steps, Ray stopped. He remembered one thing that for some reason hadn't occurred to him before.

You could have just died.

At the very beginning, the player did not have any things other than clothes, and he simply would not have had time to develop much initial specializations or professions, so death in the game was not something special, at least at the very start. Having died several times, the player would be able to get used to it, because for the inhabitants of the world of technology, battles with cold weapons would be clearly unusual. After death, the player respawned in their starting city, but in a depleted state.

All Ray cared about right now was getting into the city quickly, or at least getting out of the woods.

But he was in no hurry to implement this decision, and yet he walked a hundred meters in each direction from the clearing, but still did not see any hint of the end of the forest or even a path. You could just poke in a random direction and go there, but who knows how big this forest is?

"If the city is really close, then it should be easy to find it, but there are no landmarks here." Ray pondered this as he climbed one of the taller trees. To look around, and then, if he doesn't see anything that looks like a landmark...

He had never climbed a tree before, which made him expectedly a little clumsy. But the new body pleased with a fairly developed musculature, to the envy of the real one, exhausted by the disease.

This made it possible to climb to a ten-meter height without any problems. Looking down made my hands grip the branches more tightly, and the bark cut painfully into my bare feet. The height seemed treacherously high! At that moment, Rey didn't even notice that the pain was too much for a player to feel.

"Scary, damn it!" - A moment of indecision easily receded and the ascent continued. The guy himself didn't even bother to guess how high he had climbed, because he definitely wasn't looking down anymore. But it was not so far to the top of the tree when it became quite possible to see a fairly extensive piece of forest.

The sea and the sea of greenery, the edge of which is unknown where. But it was clearly much farther than Ray had hoped when he'd come up here.

There was no sad sigh, no curses, just a pair of slightly frightened eyes looking down. This tree, like everything else around it, was strange, completely devoid of small branches that could painfully scratch the skin when climbing or obscure the view. Even now, Ray could barely make out the ground in the distance.

My knees wobbled, but my hands gripped the branch like a drowning man's, holding me down. At least ahead of time...

Rey didn't even want to think about whether he was doing the right thing or not. All the same, it's just a game and death here is an everyday event.

Without any special problems, having descended a little down, as if created for climbing a tree, the guy stopped at a height of about twenty meters.

"I can do it! It won't hurt anyway. It's just a game! Stupidly realistic, but the game ... " - Sluggishly consoling himself before the decisive step, Ray leaned forward to immediately grab back the trunk.

— Heh-heh. He gave a confused laugh. — It's not that easy.

After standing there for another half minute, he found himself unable to make a decision for the first time in a long time. But there's only so much time left...

— All right. It'll be all right. Rey exhaled sharply, squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep, long breath, and fell out of the tree.

He did this with his head down to make sure that he would die quickly and surely. I guess it was because my eyes were closed, but a couple of seconds of free fall took a little longer.

The guy was right, he died instantly, breaking his spine and smashing his skull virtually to smithereens. But something didn't go according to plan. The pain didn't go away! In addition, it was felt, for some reason, even after the moment of his death...!

Ray didn't have a moment to realize his situation. Darkness was everywhere, and even though he couldn't feel his own body, he endured the pain that seemed to come from everywhere. And that significantly increased! A second ago, he, accustomed to constant migraines, would not even wince, and a moment later the pain was so intense that he wanted to scream! And it wasn't going to stop! Another moment passed and the hellish agony did not even strike his body, which now did not exist, but the consciousness floating in the embrace of the surrounding darkness! I wanted to scream, to yell at the top of my lungs, to make it stop.

"Where's the fucking limiter!?" — The feeling of pain in the game shouldn't exceed a certain limit, but right now Rei couldn't even think about anything. There was nothing to compare his own torment with! A pain greater than this, he simply could not imagine! The migraines from taking medication now seemed so inconsequential and gentle that the guy would have gladly endured them if only to stop this suffering!

But a dozen seconds passed and everything was cut off like a knife. The pain disappeared without a trace, and a sense of one's own body emerged.

Rey sucked in a deep, noisy breath. My heart was pounding so hard that my temples were buzzing. Fingers clenched, they scooped up armfuls of grass and dirt. The boy came to his senses only when he felt a soft tingling sensation on the bare skin of his back. It took me a moment to realize that the torment was over and it took me dozens of breaths to come to my senses.

Opening his eyes, Ray saw a familiar landscape. The clearing, the swamp, where he actually lay, this time not even trying to get up. There was a large bloodstain on the side of the grass.

"Why is this happening to me?" He winced, closing his eyes again for a moment.

He went into the game to take a break from the pain of the real world, but even here it caught up with him. This feeling of helplessness, coupled with a nagging tiredness all over my body, was suppressed so much that I didn't even want to lift a finger.

Ray stared up in silence, wondering what he had done to deserve this punishment.

And, probably, any other person could have spent more than one hour in this state, but the guy has already spent more than one day doing this. He was well acquainted with the unfairness of the world, and he was not going to relive it.

Now they have been replaced by both bitterness and surprise at how hard the developers tried to create the game. Overwhelmed by his situation, Rey had not been able to fully enjoy the full range of sensations that overwhelmed him when he was in this new, seemingly brighter world. The bitterness was only caused by the fact that his entire body felt like one solid desiccated piece of flesh. And that feeling was also very real. Every muscle, every sinew in his body groaned.

Reluctantly, I had to lie down and continue to let my body get in order. Rey gave the command to disconnect from the game several more times, but nothing happened, just like before. Finally resigned to his incomprehensible fate, he tried to get up. His arms and legs felt like they were made of wood, but he could still stand more or less straight.

"I don't want to spend my last days just waiting to die. As long as I don't jump headfirst from trees, at least it shouldn't hurt." Ray took another look at the sun, then decided on a direction and headed west. As far as he could remember, the colonization of the new world had begun on its supposedly western coast. He hoped he hadn't been thrown too far, because he was heading in that direction. Slowly at first, checking each step carefully, but it wasn't long before his body regained its former mobility.

In fact, the situation didn't look all that bad right now, but rather the opposite – Rey wandered through the picturesque forest, never ceasing to marvel at the level of realism that he could now enjoy, freeing his head from heavy thoughts. The feeling of soft, airy grass under my bare feet was simply fabulous. The delicious, fresh forest air was even somewhat pleasant to inhale, and the afternoon sun, which broke through the crowns of the trees, gave off an indistinguishable warmth on the skin.

"Looks like I overreacted, this place isn't as bad as I first thought." Rey had been walking through the woods for almost an hour, but the monotony didn't bother him at all, and the boy was still filled with the same enthusiasm that came from nowhere.

My own nakedness was unexpectedly not as disconcerting as the first few minutes in this world. The boy smiled contentedly, sometimes bouncing, sometimes falling to the ground like a child rolling on a grass carpet. Looking at him now, one would not have guessed that this man had recently become so desperate that he jumped headfirst from a tree. It was hard to tell if it was autosuggestion or if he was really so excited about the beautiful but unknown world. Or maybe it was the migraine that finally disappeared.

As time passed, Rey didn't meet a single living thing on his way. But he was faced with another problem – he began to suffer from thirst. At first it was just a slight dryness in the mouth, but after a couple of kilometers, the desire to drink became virtually irresistible. The guy didn't see any water sources along the way, and since he didn't have anything with him, he could only go ahead.

It was in this manner that the lonely traveler found the evening.

Hunger had also been added to the thirst, completely depriving the guy of such a short-lived joy from being in this world. On top of that, Ray was dead tired. Needless to say, he didn't even come across a berry bush on the way, the forest was full of trees.

"Maybe there are only trees in this world?" — Such nonsense Rey tried to distract himself from the realization of his own inability to at least influence something. Hunger and thirst gradually began to give pain in the stomach area. Because of this, excessive detail also somehow ceased to be liked. The guy was already completely exhausted and now just sat under a small tree, trying to catch his breath.

Ray had planned to continue his journey at night, but he noticed that it was also starting to freeze. The sun had set, and it was freezing as hell under the thick cover of the trees. And if you consider that the guy was without clothes...

Like any resident of a megalopolis, he wasn't the least bit adapted to surviving in the forest. Ray knew he had to do something, but he had no idea what it was. All he knew was that he would soon die again if he didn't do something about it. And he really didn't want to feel that pain again, the memories of which made him shiver even now...

It would seem that it couldn't get any worse, but looking in front of him, Rei seriously wondered if he was some kind of slaver or serial killer in his previous life!? There could be no other reason why fate decided to make fun of him like this.

Almost seventy meters ahead, in the rather bright moonlight, a vague shadow was walking. Thanks to the fact that the night was clear, the guy was able to see the unexpected guest before he was noticed. But he still couldn't count it as luck.

At the withers, the beast was undoubtedly taller than an adult. Two meters, maybe more, but it's exactly four meters long. Its huge body was bulging with muscles, and its clawed feet could not be deceived – the animal was a carnivore. In some ways, the beast resembled a lion, but it looked much more dangerous. The brown fur changed to almost white nearer the huge mouth. The muzzle is more elongated than that of the familiar It has no tail, and the front part of the body is a little more massive when compared to the back.

It hadn't noticed Ray yet. Apparently, that's why the guy was still alive, because the beast is clearly predatory. And it was foolish to even doubt that he would not be able to cope with it.

The guy had already decided what to do: turning around, he looked around quickly and without thinking for a moment rushed to the nearest tree.

There were several massive branches at the bottom of the plant, so it wasn't difficult to climb it in a hurry. At a height of five meters, Ray felt an unnatural chill run down his spine. He was smart enough not to turn around to check the cause. My already tired hands were even more active.

When he finally reached a fairly thick branch, he looked down. The beast was already standing under the tree, watching with interest the strange creature that dared to enter its territory.

"So that's why I didn't meet a single animal on the way, it's the one that ate them all." Rey watched as the strange monster took a few meters back and sprinted up the tree trunk. Its claws sank easily into the bark, and the creature hung there for a moment, seemingly holding on tight enough. But in less than a second, with a shrill crack of bark being torn apart, the animal crawled down. And there were potholes in the wood that could easily have held a finger.

With a mental sigh, Rey continued climbing, because somehow he didn't feel safe at this altitude.

The ascent was stopped again by the palpable vibrations coming from the tree trunk. Looking down for the second time, Ray saw the beast clinging to the branches with its front paws, slowly but persistently climbing up. My heart involuntarily skipped a beat, and then began to beat with redoubled zeal, hinting that the owner should also give in.

Once there, Almost fifteen meters up, Ray heard a crunch somewhere below. It was immediately followed by a loud thud, which couldn't help but cause the cornered man to genuinely rejoice.

The guy looked down with some hope-suddenly the predator was injured, or even died, having wriggled up from such a height. But the beast, which had already recovered from its fall, was still watching him menacingly. Neither the leaves nor the night time seemed to bother him at all, because Rey could feel the predator's heavy gaze on him. But now the boy was clearly out of reach of the animal, because the weight did not allow him to climb so high: some branches simply could not withstand the force that the animal applied to them.

However, the situation turned out to be a stalemate. You can't get him, but there's nothing he can do about it.

Ray sat and stared down at the true hunter, who was patiently waiting for his prey to come down to him. The animal didn't even try to pretend that it was gone, which meant that it was either too stupid for this or too smart and understood that its prey was already going nowhere. And seeing that after one fall, the beast didn't even touch the tree, the guy easily guessed that the second assumption was correct.

Thirst, hunger, cold, fear... All these feelings had been tormenting Ray for hours, but he was slowly regaining control of his thoughts.

"I even feel a little sorry for him. I will most likely die from the fall, and even if I don't, my body will still disappear upon rebirth."

"What if I resurrect somewhere nearby? What's left for me to be a toy in the clutches of this creature?" — Although the thoughts were gloomy, but they led Ray to a rather interesting question. "I wonder how strong you need to be to defeat such a monster? If you think about it, this is clearly not a creature that an untrained player can handle. Such a man could carve out a small village and leave in one piece. However, most likely, some players were specially prepared before entering the game."

Rey was right in his thoughts, not everyone who realized the full potential of their own power within the newly created world could afford to spend several days here in a row. But the hired people did it with pleasure.

But the most important thing was Rei's conclusion that he needed to get stronger. In a whisper, repeating these words to himself, the guy firmly confirmed this thought.

And, perhaps, it was this whisper that was one of the most important threads that had already begun to weave into an invisible, huge web of someone else's plan