"You are not strong enough to fight, but you are just competent enough to kill."

My body was bruised, battered and broken and the spectres words felt like a hammer to my head, a smash of metal against a nail ramming deeper into my brain.

This wasn't the first time these words echoed through my mind.

My hair was flowing in the wind, it was much longer than I've ever had it, living here I just didn't bother to cut it, I mean that wasn't even strictly a thing here, at least for the poor.

God I felt like a filthy mess, like a scavenging beast, a vulture waiting for something on the verge of death to prey upon.

It's been a month since I've come to this world. I would have been dead if not for him. I gripped the weapon in my hands was tightly as I could. A long wooden pole that stretched into a silver crescent moon that strikes out to the east and ending with a sharp drill like fang at the tip.

A crescent halberd, crimson tassel just where wood meets metal.

"You'd be dead without me."

I lightly smirked. "You'd be alone without me." Was my only retort and it was the only truth he seemed to accept.

A begrudging grunt comes from the ghost.

My name is Rei. I'm sure you've heard this one a thousand times before. I was minding my own business and then found myself in a totally different world. In the midst of a battlefield that had just died along with its soldiers.

So obviously after realising I was not in fact just lucid dreaming, I said the words I honestly hated in this modern version of this genre.

"Status."

Literally that one technique spammed at the beginning of that famous martial arts anime that suddenly was about aliens which everyone loves that was spammed in the first two major story arcs. So you can just multiply your stats as much as you like but take a blowback equal to the multiplication you activated.

I realised I was being trolled, messed with and screwed by some being of moderate power.

At first I thought that such a power wouldn't be so bad. I mean even me an average person at twice their total strength must be at least hit a little hard right?

Nope. I got my ass kicked by a bunch of scavengers almost immediately. My hits at double strength and speed didn't even phase them. I was literally just going to bleed out and die on the floor.

That's when I saw him. The halberd sticking out of the ground in the distance.

And the massive man standing by it. Messy. His entire body was messy, his hair tangled, his armour torn, his body covered in wounds, his eyes fierce with seething rage and his teeth as sharp as a tigers fangs. Coated from head to toe in blood. Around his wrists and neck were deep dark red marks, rope burns that dug so deep that they drew fresh blood.

Yet his body swayed in the sunlight like a mirage.

"Help me."

I begged and the weapon flew out to my outstretched hand and with it the figure disappeared from my gaze and into my mind. It was heavy. It's still ridiculously heavy now.

"Focus that power into your shoulders, feet and waist! Then into your arms! Swing! "

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The roar of a true born and bred warrior. It sounded like thunder directed just at me. Like a mantis ready to bite my head off. The wrath of a war god.

And so I did as I was told. I focused that doubled strength as I was directed and cut through those who would take my life. I can't get the image out of my mind. The axe like blade of the halberd tore through three men... as if they were cuts of fat from meat thrown into a boiling hot plate. They practically melted from side to side and collapsed lifeless in a single blow.

Then my arms stung with pain I've never felt before. They were blazing red and bruised purple and black from the single swing. That was how I began my life in this wild world.

Killing with instructions from a ghost. I was disgusted, in pain, terrified for my life.

I am never more excited then when I take a life.

That's how I got here right now. On top of this mountain. Watching and waiting with his spectre by my side. For the perfect moment to kill. To feed. To earn keep for one more night of life.

"This would be easier if you'd just go to war and kill people."

I made a "tch" with my mouth as I clicked my tongue.

"I told you I'm not killing a human being again."

Whenever we have this conversation he always just seems to stare at me with that fierce gaze of his.

It was smouldering through to my soul.

I think he knows. He knows it's a lie. He can see it every time we do this. I enjoy it far too much.

It frightens me that I can still spit out these words of token resistance trying to hold my morality together despite my heart feeling the exact opposite.

I'm a liar. He goes off with rage almost every time but on this one issue he just asks and lets me stab myself in the heart. I think he's waiting for me to break myself.

It's diabolical.

Then I see his lips curl into a smile and his bloody eyes burst with passion.

That sensation overrides my own emotion. I stand up and walk towards the edge.

"There." He points with his massive right index finger into the clouds below us to the south east.

I take a deep breath and then... jump.

The sights I see whenever I leap from this mountain never ceases to amaze me.

It's the only place where I can see a glimpse of this whole continent.

Glorious cities. Covered in white marble. Coated in stone and wood. Castles stretching out to the skies. Deserts with saloons. Forests that seem to move. Long stretches of plains lands abundant with life. Mountains that seems to sway in the wind like trees within a storm. An ocean that was a clearer blue than anything I've seen before.

Then in a blink it all fades away.

"X3!"

My body can't take much more than this, especially when I focus it into one point as I'm instructed... but I don't need more than this, for now anyway.

Every muscle in my body screams as every inch of possible power is pulled out and then forced to rip itself, grow and reform into a temporary tangible form made for one purpose.

Focusing all of my strength into my arms I get ready to do it as I have done countless times before.

"Now! Pierce!"

And so I did.

The spear section of the halberd digs deep into something fleshy. Then hard but only for a brief moment before shattering through to something very, very soft and squishy.

Then I twisted the pole arm and pulled back as my feet struck the ground.

A gigantic green body with pure white eyes, black bushy, curly hair and tusks fell to the floor, dead within an instant. An ogre boss. Not bad. I take a deep breath. My insides begin to hurt and I collapse to my knees while gripping the halberd for dear life. This was the part that sucked every single time. My body feels like it's on fire and my entire body convulses as I cancel my ability. It's just like when you try to prevent your body from throwing up with every damn ounce of resistance you can muster.

Thankfully a warm white light envelops me and begins to cure the damage I've inflicted upon myself. I stand up to my full height with an exhale.

I look towards the light. A young woman in white robes with an oaken staff, short red hair and large blue eyes. A male muscular warrior with dented and scorched armour whose face was hidden by a western helmet. A thin, oriental, slender man with a dao in his right hand, mahogany brown eyes and short spiky black hair wearing the robes of a martial artist.

All three of them looking like they had just escaped deaths scythe.

They ask all at once.

"Who... are you?"

I-We smile at those words.

The agreement was to use his name.

In exchange he'll make me strong enough to survive.

"Haven't you heard? I'm famous around here.

Some fools complain and call me the Killstealer.

Those who overestimated themselves dubbed me the Shooting Star.

None of that matters though.

My name is..."

He's loving this and so am I.

The biggest shock of this world wasn't he magical wonders, the monsters, the mash of cultures or the video game like super powers.

It was that this spirit and I both came from Earth.

"My name is Lu Bu."