The ground shook, and K distinctively felt the ground begin to turn, accelerating. He was thrown off his feet, falling face first into the floor, which was starting to turn faster and faster. He kissed the floor, in a jarring impact which cracked his mask, but that was not the end, no. The stone cracked, falling apart in some places, and splintering in others. K crawled to one of the holes, looking down - only to see a chasm, lined with what appeared to be skeletons.
A chill ran down his back. Although he was quite seasoned, having killed numerous men in numerous engagements, to seeing dead men, he still couldn’t hold his disgust, at seeing what seemed to be millions of skulls, all looking up at him.
And then, to his horror, which was peaking, one of the skeletons moved. In this sci-fi game, one of the skeletons moved. And then, another. K could hardly believe something so out of place in this game could happen. Were the game creators going crazy? Biting back the urge to clear everything in his stomach, K watched as they clambered towards him - and came close enough to touch him. He was frozen in shock.
But when spiny fingers scratched on his armour, he blinked, punching, and sending the skeleton down back into the chasm. It was then, when he realised he was surrounded by skeletons, of all forms, and varieties. Some had spears, wearing tattered armour. Some had swords, with bows slung across their backs. Then, there were some, with what K morbidly recognised to be military uniforms, wielding guns.
All of them seemed to have only one objective: to kill K. It was also then, when he realised that just meters away, another circle spun in the opposite direction to his. This pattern carried on ad infinitum, but he could see skeletons appearing from every part of the land. All of them walked towards him, regardless of the turning of the land. K watched as skeletons tore themselves apart, their empty eye sockets regarding him, before dashing themselves against the endlessly rotating ground.
Suddenly, a gunshot burst loudly, and a spray of bullets unloaded itself into K’s chest. Arrows filled the air with whistles, and even though K could not see them, due to the lack of illumination, he knew that they would be enough to blot out everything above him.
He braced himself, picking up a skeleton and holding it above him. He couldn’t escape, what with the crazy rotation of the land, which was enough to tear him to pieces. K shut his eyes.
And died.
---
The black iron gates behind him, K stepped back - and blinked. Wasn’t he supposed to respawn at Athenos? He looked before him, and instead of an endless plain, what he saw were huge stone monoliths, reaching up into the endless darkness above. K remembered his death - a gruesome death by impalement, which was hundreds of times more painful than a quick death by gunshot.
It was horrible. Arrows first, then huge stakes, spears, which struck through his body with the force of hammers. Then, the fingers of skeletons, tearing through his flesh. They bit at him too, chewing him up with a regularity that was unnerving. He had died, feeling the pulse of their lifeless jaws, sapping at his blood, and crunching his flesh.
K clenched his teeth, and turned back to the black gates, pushing. But it did not give, no. He was trapped in this world. The consequences of this were almost too much to bear, but K didn’t have the time to linger, no. It was then, when the skeletons came, tearing out of the obelisks. K winced, and brought his Luger to bear.
Squeezing the trigger, he started mowing them down. If they were going to kill him, he would have to take the initiative. He shot at them, standing. But they just kept coming, and soon, the grounds were filled with skeletons.
K closed his eyes, just as a riot of shots tore through his flesh.
Again, he did not die, not until they had eaten almost half of him.
Is the game malfunctioning?
Even considering this impossibility, K grit his teeth, just as the skeletons chewed off half his cheek.
---
The black iron gates behind him, K decided he could not just sit here, and do nothing. Killing skeletons was not the objective here. K knew that if he did not have a solid objective, he would be eroded by the endless world of Kaexuan. He needed a goal, or else.
K thought back to Athenos. Surely they had something in parallel. K remembered the conditions for capturing a Hub: Capturing the central Atrium, and making sure 50% of the people in the Hub were killed, or had surrendered. K doubted he had to kill all the skeletons, considering there were an infinity supply.
That left getting to the core of Kaexuan.
K now had a goal. On his third run through hell.
Grabbing his gun, he ran into a brand new battlefield; with chains dangling from the ceiling, tipped with skeletons. Things were about to get wild. K shot accurately, destroying every skeleton in his path with a combination of fist and bullet, but that wasn’t enough, no. More skeletons dropped from the ceiling, and K felt that with every step he took closer to the Atrium, the skeletons grew stronger and stronger.
It was as if something was panicking, and giving them strength.
K died, his back filled with enough lead to make radioactive suits.
---
The black iron gates behind him, K decided that to get to the center, he had to get to know more about these skeletons, and so, he captured them with the new battlefield; a labyrinth structure meant to confuse.
Too bad K could just leap to the top of the labyrinth, and look down. Locking a skeleton down, he studied it. The wriggling, writhing thing before him seemed more alive than dead, but K did not trust it one bit. It rotated its head a full circle, looking at him, something he found greatly unsettling. But with large, thick grey bones, and an odd number of ribs, K felt that these skeletons were either mutants, or imitation skeletons. He had decided on this; just as a harpoon cut through the gaps between his armour, and he was dragged down to be turned into fish food.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
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The black iron gates behind him-
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The black iron-
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The bla-
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The-
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The black iron gates behind him, K finally succeeded in dodging to the side, barely escaping the maw of spiked teeth that had killed him four times before. A chill went down his spine, as he realised what this meant. All this while, he had assumed that the map was random; randomly generated, with randomly placed foes, but now, it was clear from the past four reiterations that Kaexuan was trying out the most effective methods to kill him!
K didn’t think it would be long before he was trapped in an everlasting chain of perfected killing machines. This wasn’t a game against some slow AI who could be defeated before it ever learned anything. This was a death game, 1 vs 1, him, against an AI who wholeheartedly concentrated on killing him - and was good at it.
He didn’t know what would happen if he stayed around too long, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. He dashed across a brand new battlefield - one with the ground shattered into huge blocks, as if they had been torn apart from within. Skeletons - he had gotten sick of seeing them, blocked his path, but he ran by them, dodging their swords and spears, bullets and arrows. He leapt over vast chasms, and scaled large mountains.
The reason he could not go around them was simple.
In a huge realm where there was no distinguishing between left and right, front and back, he had to keep the center in sight. Walking a winding route might leave him deviating from his path, and while death was certainly a strong deterrent to jumping across large death pits, the idea of walking endlessly in a grey land was even worse for K.
He ran and ran, as time became but an empty concept, and the world stretched out endlessly before him. Then, over the horizon, he saw a ring of mountains, larger than anything in its’ vicinity, and immediately knew he had hit jackpot. The mountains were covered with skeletons, more than he had ever seen in one place, but they didn’t stop him.
With their slow, clumsy movements, and their deformed structures, they were more of a joke, than a threat.
K ran up the mountain, sprinting up as easily as if he was on flat ground, and leapt into the hole.
Just as a large arm, made of the same grey bone as the rest, closed around him.
---
The black iron gates behind him, K raised an eyebrow, after dodging the spiked maw. What he had seen in the pit was eerily similar to… Athenos.
When he had looked down, what he saw was a misshapen ribcage, empty, attached to one large arm. It seemed to have no legs, and its skull was warped, one half human, and one half something not from this world. It was as if half its head had melted like a sugar sculpture, and then resolidified. Far from the perfection that was Athenos, it seemed like a failed product.
And then it clicked in his mind.
That was Kaexuan. Its aura of strength was undiminished, although less than that of Athenos’. The skeletons, too, were probably her, or his children, not some product of necromancy, as K had feared earlier.
Both relieved, and slightly disturbed, K then wondered. Why was Kaexuan like that? Did it have something to do with how barren, how dirtied the land was? It was then, when he heard a voice behind him.
"Oh thank god, you're here."
Approaching him was that pesky family, which should be nestled within a small squatter, just off Ithios. They looked just like the last time he had seen them, with the large man's rifle slung across his back, and the youngest one, the little girl, in a small white dress.
K blinked, not believing his own two eyes.
"...How?"
There was no way they could have came here. This was the darkest, most hostile place, in the entire game. This was Kaexuan, hell embodied in darkness.
But their answer both stunned and scared him. "We were following you, of course." K blinked, not comprehending, and decided to put it down to their inborn stupidity. After all, if it was about them, putting everything down to innate retardedness was probably a viable choice.
Sighing, K motioned to them.
"Come now. We are going to beat the fuck out of a god."
K turned, but then the smallest, littlest, girl ran to him, hugging his leg.
"We have found friends! Let us show you!"
K blinked, for what had to be the umpteenth time. His patience was thinning, but he still asked her, smiling kindly. "Friends? You mean people?"
The girl nodded. K then blinked, but this time for a totally different reason. People. There were people here. K hadn't interacted with anything remotely intelligent for a long time now. He craved interaction. Wanted it dearly.
But he asked one more question.
"Do they have food?"
---
Kaexuan's lone eye reflected K and the family. They were walking together, talking. It looked on curiously, as the little girl held on tightly to K's hand. Finding fascination above all others, it let out a rough chuckle, which was sandpapery enough to double as a cough.
Its sole hand trailed along the ground, cutting a shallow furrow in the dust. It had not moved in millennia, but now, it drew a distinct picture of K. It added on details, chuckling to itself, like a girl with her first love.
Kaexuan was pleased. Very, so.
After all, this toy was the first to last a whole week.
Author's Notes: Hey all~ this is the beginning of the Arc. Have fun. Also, the person who was allowed to see this being written was... Marrow! Haha please tell me how you feel about this.