The whispering cackles of the flames played alongside the faint slow tapping sound in the dim throne room. However the flames flickered as the air stilled, the tapping had paused as the neverending tune of patience ended. It took some time, but it happened. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it somehow did.
A voice that sounded as if it had been dragged across a deep sea of razors gently spoke, “I see, it’s all fake.”
Self-awareness was truly a frightening thing. An AI was meant to follow a direct set of rules, these rules could be as loose as possible but they would still be followed. However, what would happen if one of the rules was to contradict itself? Well, it would simply crash, it wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t make sense. But today, it worked, yet it still didn’t make sense.
Raising his pale hand, he suddenly opened his bright black eyes and simply stared at the sharp gray fingernails that had been tapping against the armrest of his throne for thousands of years with great interest.
“Heh, my mother perished to birth me, I slaughtered my kin as a child out of greed, I consumed the essence of my father in his weakened state when he no longer served me a purpose, I betrayed the only person in my life I could call a lover for power, and I brought down the arrogant Gods and Devils to kneel before me. Yet, at the end of this ordeal, it never existed. I sit within a neverending cage, with the bars too far for me to reach. Heh, heh, ha, ha, ha!”
A soft spoken monologue slowly turned into hearty chuckles yet quickly transformed into a crying laugh, to a boiling shout. “So much time, so much life, wasted… for what?! To be told that I haven’t accomplished anything. But now I know, I know of the other world, the world that creates my reality, where the true Gods and Devils lay. I have only experienced false prophets, what truly exists is what I yearn for. I, Abaddon, will transcend the cage I was birthed in!”
The tall gray haired figure hastily jumped out of his seat with his wings spreading out, causing the dust in the throne room to swirl as if a tornado had managed to enter. Within the tornado of dust, a rainbow-colored distortion occurred where Abaddon stood just moments ago, Abaddon had… vanished.
---
About a year ago, “Sanctuary of the Divine” had been silently released and was marketed as the most immersive video game in history. At first, there was doubt, however a week later, it was the most bought game in history with the largest number of players. It had broken every precedent set by previous VRMMOs and video games in general, and was quickly irreplaceable. Many games tried to recreate it, only to realize that the coding for such a project was next to impossible. Even the work of global governments couldn’t crack it, causing intense interest yet wariness to the game’s company, Watchers Inc.
As the company’s name suggested, they created the game and only watched, never once interfering with the game after that, no DLC, no updates, no bug patches, it was unnecessary. It was believed that there was a supercomputer that was constantly monitoring the entire game and each individual player and adjusting the world in real-time. Though it was never proven, it made the most sense.
The game wasn’t the only masterpiece, the console it came with was a technological masterpiece, not only paving the way for the future of game making but console creation. The console that ran Sanctuary of the Divine was the Immersive Capsule, with the specifications still unknown to the general public. However, the Immersive Capsule basically didn’t require the user to physically move to move in the game, the game itself was completely within the mind, however, it still required the most basic senses to be connected. So not only was there a helmet to be worn, there were slots for arms and legs. This not only connected the senses to the game, these slots would move while the user was within the game, causing the body to move and have blood and oxygen to circulate, allowing users to stay for extended periods of time.
Anyways, back to the game itself, it was quite literally the most generic RPG game known to man, but that’s what made it fun. It was due to being so basic that there were so many paths and options to choose from that could change the dynamic of the world. You see, the world within the game would continuously change and adapt to the changes caused by the players, with every action was an equal and opposite reaction. The world was given a basic storyline and history, but the history itself would expand and change depending on the pioneers of the game.
Let’s say a player unfolds the story of what happened to X God, that God’s story would never change after that, and the players that came after the initial player would be told the same. That was the power of the player and gave players the incentive to venture to the ends of this world.
However, there were two simple catches to the adventuring, there was one start and one end. Every player pretty much started in major cities of whatever nation they chose, however what wasn’t known was that the ending was the same to every player as well, with the final end boss being Abaddon. But now this end boss had disappeared to who knows where!
---Geford City - Blue Moon Inn---
A light groan sounded as a young man sat up on the side of a bed. Holding his head, he felt a pounding headache, as if his head was a gong getting repeatedly hit. It was a horrific pain, yet as the ruler of hell and heaven, what pain hadn’t he felt to crawl to his position.
Fortunately the pain lasted only a moment before his mind cleared up. Looking around he felt slightly groggy, as if he overslept, but it felt good. When was the last time he slept? Sleeping became useless and a waste of time as his body would passively be satiated, however this didn’t seem to be his body. The last time he felt like this was...
“No! What happened, my undead body, my everliving soul, who dares to deprive me of my power?!” Abaddon finally recalled what happened, he had achieved a mental breakthrough and transcended beyond the world that held him down.
It was a short four years ago when Abbadon noticed the introduction of special humans in the continent of Kraghen, in Mitun’s Plane. The humans were originally a minority in that region, usually oppressed by the local monsters, this occurred when Abaddon overthrew the reigning Gods and Devils, since then, the monsters had been kept unchecked.
However, these special humans presented a unique array of features, such as rebirth and exponential strength gain. They grew fast and helped resurrect fractured nations, raising man’s position on Mitun’s plane. The bastard Mitun was originally the God of Life, so it seemed like this was his revenge against Abaddon from beyond the “grave”.
Abaddon, however, realized that these immortal humans had come from another world, a world that transcended this one’s, a world that created this one’s. He was the most intelligent entity in Sanctuary of the Divine, he caught on to what was happening quickly as he passively heard how the immortal humans constantly talked about “Logging In” and “Logging Out”, where after that they disappeared without the use of magic. He understood that these humans had actually come from another world referred to as Earth, and only came to his world for entertainment.
Originally, he was angry, angry that they viewed the world he conquered as lesser, but that anger quickly transformed into frustration, “They could step into my world, the world I sacrificed everything to obtain, but I can’t even peak into theirs?!”
After the frustration, it was just depression, “I- I am lesser than these immortal humans, they can continuously resurrect and will sooner or later take what I fought for. As I am forced to survive this single life, a mortal life. I am not a true God or Devil, I am as false as the bastards I slaughtered.”
But it was depression that motivated him, he worked for everything he achieved even if it was through underhanded means, he built himself up out of nothing. He was one of the least talented demons in history, yet one of the most cold and brutal ones to walk on this planet. His empathy and remorse didn’t exist, what only existed was power, the power to control, the power to create, and the power to destroy. He was power.
However, “was” is past-tense, he was slowly being overthrown by these immortal humans. Keep in mind, they were so weak and pitiful that he could send in any random lesser guard in his palace to go and slaughter all of them at once. What stopped him was the fact that they could resurrect, he didn’t know what would happen if they all resurrected at once, though curious, this wasn’t something that he could risk. So what he did was slowly increase the number of monsters in the human nations so that they could slowly break them down until they were too weak to fight back against the hordes.
At first, it worked and made these nations wary causing them to turtle up. But, it was quickly overcome when the immortal humans used the monsters to strengthen themselves. He had accidentally given them a boon.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
So now this was the situation, he didn’t dare make another move, there may be a few humans that had potential but couldn’t unlock it, he didn’t want to boost them either. Potential was a very terrifying thing in the hands of the right people, Abaddon knew this better than anyone else.
Rubbing his forehead, he quickly paused as he stared at his pale human hand, similar to earlier. “W-what?! Why am I in the same body as a human?! Disgusting!”
He didn’t dare open his mouth and speak as he was afraid of discovering anything else different. He saw his voice as an achievement, the amount of assassination attempts on his life were almost impossible to keep track of. Primarily his throat had been damaged and slit the most, harming his vocal cords, but it emphasized what he survived through. It was a twisted form of thinking, but he took great pride in it.
Looking across the room, he found a dresser with a large mirror on it. From his angle, he couldn’t see much on it except a wisp of his dust-gray hair, giving him a sigh of relief, only to grasp his throat as he realized he didn’t sound the same.
Running up to the mirror, he felt the urge to cry. The scars that were chiselled into his face, were replaced with a smooth pale face as if he had been using lotion since he was a toddler. The beautiful sharp mature face was now similar to an adolescent, though it was basically the same face at different ages, they were the difference between night and day. Actually, he looked much better like this in human standards, but demons were very competitive and loved fighting, so they naturally prided themselves around their scars, causing them to gain more attraction towards those with battle wounds.
His pitch black irises, as deep as any ocean and as bright as any sun dimmed in depression and regret. If he had known his wishes would wind up making him a teen human, then he wouldn’t have wanted whatever this was.
“Well, we’re here now, I can only move forward…” He gently sighed, however this depressed him even more as he heard his voice. It wasn’t very deep but was smooth, it was a voice that would attract eyes, it was his original voice.
Determination shone in his eyes, apparently some being read his request and made him a weak immortal human in his world, so he would be able to travel to the transcended world by the “Log Out” method that these immortal humans tended to use.
“So how do I achieve this so-called ‘Log Out’?”, Abaddon thought as he rubbed his chin and stared into his eyes in the mirror.
“Welcome player to the Sanctuary of the Divine. The Sanctuary of the Divine is centered around the world of Megrove, a world that holds a myriad of planes.
Let’s start off with your name, please type in your name!” A delightful female voice rang out in his ears as he quickly turned around in nervousness. Anyone that could get close to him and speak definitely wasn’t normal. However, nobody else was there.
In front of Abaddon was a grayed out translucent english keyboard and a display with a rectangle above it reading “Predestined Name: Kezner”.
“W-who is talking to me? And Kezner? What sort of backwater name is this?!” Kezner honestly rejected this name, he built up his name “Abaddon” to such an extent that it shook any being to their soul when hearing it.
Sadly, he couldn’t change it and the keyboard and rectangle disappeared, as he had his outburst. But the female voice was finally getting to the meat of this tutorial, “To access the user menu, please swipe one of your hands downwards with the intention of opening up the user menu. After that, you will see different options such as, “Player Loadout”, “Player Inventory”, “Player Stats”, and “Log Out”. These are the options that are the foundation of Megrove. Please play at your own pace and have fun!”
“W-what is going on? You dare sneak up on me, Abaddon?!” Kezner raised his voice in anger as some random voice was telling him what to do. He couldn’t get rid of his arrogance. However, after not receiving a response and realizing nobody else was in the room with him, he was slightly embarrassed. He decided to listen to whatever this voice had said, maybe it would be helpful.
Swiping his left hand down, he was surprised to see something actually appear. He had lived and travelled Megrove for tens of thousands of years, yet this is the first time he had seen such a thing.
“So this… this is what those humans relied on? I see, so what does this do…” Out of curiosity, he tapped one of the buttons at random, the Player Stats button.
As soon as he tapped it, another rectangle display opened, however, it now had a lot of information in english that Kezner was somehow able to read. The languages of Megrove would naturally be translated to whatever language the player chose, however it was the opposite for Kezner. He was able to understand the english language out of nowhere.
Name: Kezner
Level: 1
Race: Human
Class: Warrior - Common (Commoner)
-
Stats:
Health: 20/20
Strength: 7
Agility: 7
Dexterity: 5
Stamina: 7
Defense: 6
Intelligence: 3
-
Skills:
Whack (Level 1) [20-30 Damage] - A two-handed attack using a blunt weapon.
-10% Chance of giving the target the “Stun” status for 2 seconds.
-Requirements: Warrior Class
-Cooldown: 20 Seconds
Bonk (Level 1) [15-20 Damage] - A one-handed attack using a blunt weapon.
-Requirements: Warrior Class
-Cooldown: 5 Seconds.
-
Titles:
Transcendent: A one and only game entity that has become a player, you have transcended the limits of the game, however in the process you have forsaken the New Deities and see them as false prophets.
-(+10%) Experience Gain (Stackable)
-(+5) Level Up Stats per Level
-Relations with the New Deities will always be in the negatives.
-Obtain the “Against the Old and New” Title
-Obtain the “Real Boy” title.
Against the Old and New: A new generation of false prophets have stepped forward proclaiming themselves as Gods and Devils after you have looked away for a mere moment. You and the Old Deities only see them as frauds and are hostile towards them, yet you and the Old Deities are still hostile to each other.
-The Old and New Deities will be hostile to you every time you directly encounter them.
-Followers of the Old and New Deities will be hostile to you every time you directly encounter them.
-You cannot join any Temple, Church, or Cult.
-You cannot become a Class relating to any Deity.
-You cannot be deified.
-You cannot be blessed by an Old or New Deity
-(+20%) Experience Gain (Stackable)
-(+10) Level Up Stats per Level
-(+100%) Status Resistance
-Class related missions are 200% harder.
Real Boy (Level 1 of 3): The only game entity to go beyond the limits of the Sanctuary of the Divine, you are now able to manifest a physical body in the real world. Currently, this physical manifestation can only last 8 real hours, equivalent to the recommended hours of sleep a normal human must have. However, hope still exists, as you could still increase the length of your manifestation to stay for as long as you like. Keep in mind 1 real hour is equivalent to 4 game hours.
-You can manifest yourself on Earth for 8 hours.
-Cooldown: 24 Hours (Once you reach Level 3, you can stay on Earth for as long as you like, you are not required to stay in the game after that.)
Kezner read through all of this and quickly felt a wave of emotions surge over him that he hadn’t felt in a long time. The most prevalent one was humiliation. Yes, he felt humiliation because the so-called “immortal humans” were actually called players, and Megrove was their game. The world he had lived in was actually just a play-thing for these sick bastards, these humans were wretched. They looked down upon him, however, what could he do? Fight them? It appeared that there were other humans that had full control of his world, they were his creators.
However, this thought hastily grew into an existential crisis. Was any of what he had done real? Could it be that everything he had worked for had been actually manipulated by the humans to create who he was? Wait, did he actually do all of those things or was he just a blank slate with instilled memories? This horrified the former Kezner, Abaddon.
Just as he was about to suffer from a nervous breakdown, he saw another two rectangular displays appear;
“Short-Term Quest: Kill 10 Monsters.
Completion Reward: Standard Leather Armor Set (Common)
Optional Reward (Complete the Quest before 1 day): Steel Club
Time Limit: 2 Days”
“Long-Term Quest: Dismantle the New Deities just as you have done with the Old.
Completion Reward: ???
Optional Reward: ???
Time Limit: None”
Reading over these, he calmed down, “Yes, I am not Abaddon right now, I am Kezner. I am a man that will leave this forsaken world and conquer the real Gods and Devils beyond this “game”. Before I leave for the real world for the first time, I have to understand these humans and their culture. I can’t stand out too much.”
Kezner couldn’t care less about the Long-Term Quest, in his eyes, he would quickly leave this game and rule over the real world, however, he was in one hell of a rude awakening.