The woman smiles.
"If one-thousand is weak, then how strong are you?"
I crack a proud smile and put my fist to my chest.
"My strength is one-hundred-fifty-three thousand."
They both stare at me in shock. The woman puts her hand on her head and laughs crazily.
"That's, no, you."
Her eyes widen as she bites her lip.
"Just imagine how many people you could kill with that strength."
She quickly moves over to me and wraps her arms around my left arm.
"Please join us; with strength like that, no one could fight against us."
I stare at her for a moment, then look back to everyone else. Warren shrugs and Vex shakes his head no. I look to the woman and slowly pull my arm away. She speaks up.
"I think introductions are passed due, so I'll start. My name is Illestra, and this is Gug."
She touches her own chest then points to the man beside her.
"My name is Dante, these are my friends: Vex, Warren, Kain, Azeroth, and Blankk."
Kain raises an eyebrow and stares at me for a moment, clearly confused. The woman waves for us to follow her as she walks into a rundown looking building. We all slowly fall in behind her and enter the building.
We see the interior is the polar opposite of the exterior; Fancy walls and complex looking furniture adorn the room. A faint smell of flowers seemingly pulses through the room. We see several others sitting around the room. Two are seemingly asleep, one is reading a book, and the last man is drinking in the corner.
"Welcome! To our home, our group; The Villains Syndicate!"
I see the two people that were sleeping jerk awake and look to us. It's a man and a woman. They both blink in sync then lay back down at the same time. The man in the corner shoots me a dirty look and stands up.
"So, these new members?"
He slowly walks to me and stares into my eyes. Illestra giggles and puts her hand on her sword.
"Please don't antagonize them, I'd hate to have to bury you when you're so useful to us."
The man looks over his shoulder to her and growls.
"Eh? Are you threatening me Illestra?"
She shakes her head while smiling.
"Of course not, but the man you're standing up against could splatter you like a grape, if he really wanted too."
He scoffs and turns back to me.
"This weakling? I doubt he could do anything against my brilliance."
We glare at each other and I sigh.
"When will they learn. [Dominate]."
He instantly changes his expression and smiles.
"Do me a favor, get out of my face."
The man quickly spins around and walks to the otherside of the room. I release the spell as he reaches the wall, and he quickly spins back around. He glares at me, then pulls out a small metal object. He points it at me and grits his teeth. As he pulls a trigger on the side, a loud bang attacks my ears.
I shake my head and look back to him. I notice Illestra holding her sword out with the blade facing the floor.
"Really? Trying to shoot my guests?"
She leans over to the wall and pushes her sword into the wood. The man yells on the other side of the room and I see a black blade piercing his chest from the wall behind him.
She pulls her sword from the wall and the blade in the chest retracts as well. As it leaves his body, there isn't a scratch on him. Sweat rolls down his face and he gasps for his breath. He coughs wildly and clutches his chest.
I look at Illestra's sword before she sheaths it and notice it isn't black, it's blood red. I squint and look closer at the man on his knees, noticing not even his clothes are damaged.
"Illestra, was it? What exactly is your abili- or, Brilliance?"
I ask, intrigued by her ability. She giggles and taps the handle of her katana.
"Well, due to my high brilliance score, my sword allows me to do all sorts of fun things. In total, I have nine styles. You just saw my shadow style, where I can attack through shadows."
I laugh.
"That seems pretty strong, but I'm more intrigued by something else you said. What is a brilliance score, and what is yours?"
I ask, watching her move her hand in the air. She taps a button and her stats suddenly become visible to us. I tilt my head in confusion.
Name: Illestra Kaguya
Level: 88
HP: 8,800
Strength: 105
Dexterity: 1,600
Constitution: 100
Intelligence: 50
Brilliance: 900
I stare at her stats in confusion.
Why are hers completely different than ours? We don't even have some of those, could the different continents have different systems?
I hear her talk again.
"Your brilliance can't really be changed, even if you pump all of your points into it. For some reason it just stays the same, from birth, to death. So I put most of my points into dexterity."
I quickly open my status and see a symbol at the bottom right. It looks like a turning page. I quickly touch it and a new stat page appears.
Name: Dante Fenrix
Level: 562
HP: 38,136,000
Strength: 153,920
Dexterity: 58,156
Constitution: 44,200
Intelligence: 15
Brilliance: 1,320
[Reveal]
I quickly tap reveal and Illestra stumbles backwards. Her eyes light up and dart back and forth, reading my stats.
"I don't quite understand why it says my intelligence is so low though. On Sathric, my intelligence was what my brilliance score is here. I also don't know how it made that dexterity score."
She takes a deep breath, almost shaken by my stats.
"So, you weren't lying about your stats. You really are something. If I didn't know better I wouldn't even believe you were from this planet with stats like those."
I look over to Vex, who has higher stats than me, and shrug. He whistles lightly to himself and looks around the room.