Cole Bryant woke to the sound of a ping. Thinking it was his alarm, he banged the snooze button on his alarm and headed into his bathroom to do his morning routine. He had just finished flushing when he saw a blinking symbol in the corner of his vision the symbol looked like a symbol of fire except it was pitch black.

Cole rubbed his eyes to fully get rid of the tiredness, thinking he was still half asleep and dreaming but the symbol remained he looked at and wondered aloud "What is that symbol, can I click it or activate it somehow? It looks like darkness"

Just then a pitch black screen with glowing white words appeared on front of Cole's face. It looked like something he had seen in some of the video games he has played.

[Code word activated Congratulations Player for becoming the owner of 'The Umbra System']

"Umbra System? What's that?

Before Cole had a chance to look into what he saw that he was having a hard time believing, the earth started rumbling as if there was a 8.0 magnitude earthquake. He started stumbling around and then he heard multiple loud explosions outside. Cole looked outside his window and saw that pillars of light were shooting into the sky everywhere the eye could see. The pilars of light had broken through the ground and each pillar seemed to be at least 500 feet wide.

Just then a new message popped up in front of him. The contents of the message shocked Cole down to his very soul.

[You are now the proud owner of a system, to protect yourself from the dangers that are now prevalent in this world a sacrifice of 1% of the population has been used to provide it's inhabitants with the chance to strike back. To check your status say "Status" and you can see your current stats and skills.]

Cole couldn't believe what he read, 1% of the world's population was sacrificed. The current population of the world was 7.8 billion so that was 78 million dead in an instant. The message didn't specify who so it could possibly be anyone he knew, family, friends, lovers. Anyone could have been taken to be the sacrificial lambs.

Before doing anything else, Cole immediately called his family. No one answered, neither his little sister nor his parents. Cole then heard screams from outside he looked out his window again and saw people running through the streets of Seatle. There were broken buildings, fires, and cracked ground everywhere. Cole didn't pay attention to any of that though, his eyes were locked on to what was coming out from the holes that the long faded pillars of light had left.

All manner of terrifying creatures that could only be seen in fantasy games, and some you would see in your worst nightmares appeared one after another. He then looked at one such creature, a giant gorilla that would put King Kong to shame. It picked up a running woman and slowly bit off her head. Cole could hear the loud crunch from his window after the creature started chewing on the rest of the woman.

He couldn't look at it anymore and he knew he had to make sure his family was safe and to do that he had to be strong enough to venture out to find them. He re-read the last part of the message and immediately called out.

"Status"

{Status}

[Cole Bryant]

[Title: None]

[Level: 1]

[HP: 500]

[MP: 0]

{Attributes}

[STR: 33

[AGI: 36

[INT: 0

[END: 32

[VIT: 50

_________________________

{SKILLS}

INHERENT: [Umbrakinesis]

INNATE: [Peak Body]

ACQUIRED: [Inspect]

Looking at his stats Cole was glad that they weren't that low, although he pretty much lived in the gym so he wasn't too surprised that they were relatively high, although he isn't sure how the stats are allocated to everyone in this new world. He could actually have average stats but based on his vitality stat he could tell that each point on this stat equals 10 HP. that is really good considering most games start with 100 HP so hopefully he is doing better than most HP wise.

He then looked at skills and assumed it was the same to some of the games he played and just thought of the skill name in his mind with the intent to see it's description.

[Umbrakinesis] (Active/Passive) Complete control of darkness. Wherever it is dark you are the master. The night is your benefactor and you will be it's Champion.

[Peak Body] (Passive)You have trained your body to the peak of human capabilities. Through grueling training you have pushed your body to it's limits. Adds +20 to all physical stats.

[Inspect] (Active) Allows you to see the strength and stats of enemies and allies to be better prepared for battle.

|AN: ' ' will show inner thoughts|

'So it looks like your body condition can affect your stats and skills. It appears everyone starts off with a basic 10 in each stat so I only had 13, 16, 12, & 30 in my stats without any boosts'

Cole was happy with his current stats and then wanted to see if he could find a weapon to use. Then it struck him that he still had a skill to try. From what he knows Umbrakinesis involves controlling darkness so he should be able to use it based on his imagination.

Cole had some decent stats and some combat training from his time in the military and when he lived in China. He pictured a spear made of darkness in his mind and it appeared in his hands. The spear looked corporeal and his hand passed right through it. he realized that he needed a concrete picture in his mind for the ability to work properly. So Cole pictured the spear he used in his Mixed Martial Arts trainings every day while he lived in China. He had the spear custom made and if he was able to get it through the airport then he would have it with him.

The darkness started to spread out and formed into an obsidian colored spear about the size of his body at 6 and half feet. The spear had a black shine to it and he could see the design of his old spear with the exception of it being black rather than light blue and red. It had an eastern dragon design coiling around the entire length of the spear. The end was a two pronged tip. It had a straight shape itself, before it diverged to either side adding sharp edges. The blade of the spear wasn't that big to allow for both one handed and two handed use of the spear. The spear had a black smoke coming off the fully formed weapon that showcased the darkness used to create it.

After practicing for a few days, Cole pushed down any latent feelings of apprehension and steeled himself to head into the hoard of beasts that is getting larger by the second.

"Even if it turns out that I am outmatched by these beasts, I will do whatever it takes to reach my family, no matter who gets in my way. If they try to stop me, all they will receive is a beating or be killed if they try to keep me from them."