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[Name: Adam Palestar]
[Level: 0]
***
Adam slowly opened his eyes and saw the glass lid of his VR Pod slowly lift off, opening his sight to the room around him.
He slowly climbed out of the VR Pod, and looked around the messy room, with clothes, alcohol bottles, and trash strewn about.
It took him a moment to gather his thoughts.
Ten years worth of hardships were wasted, just like this.
As Mortal Online was very competitive and strength ruled over everything, he started as nothing but Coinfeeder, the lowest rank.
He climbed ranks, using his blood and sweat, struggling every day to avoid the threat of getting zeroed and his account reset.
In the end, he reached a highly respected Prime Mercenary rank and became one of the generals of Star Faction. He was respected and admired, which took nearly ten years to achieve.
There were people who would kill him to be in his shoes, and now he was betrayed and killed by the people he trusted most. It wasn't a rare thing to happen—friends would betray each other for their own selfish reasons.
He never expected that to happen to him.
Adam looked at his VR Pod, traced his finger across its smooth surface, and remembered the countless memories he had shared with his friends.
However, when he thought about them laughing and joking around the campfire, he felt like his breakfast was about to come back to the surface.
"Amelia, Lisa, Liam, Nikholas..." Adam coldly whispered and stood up. "And Calamity..."
At the last name, he added extra venom to his tone.
"You're all going to pay for what you've done." Adam's eyes narrowed into a glare as he walked out of the room.
He stepped into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and began washing his face.
After closing the faucet, he dried his face with the towel and looked at himself through the mirror.
He grabbed the sink tightly, his eyes filling with tears.
"Don't think I am done..." Adam lowered his head and wiped his tears with his sleeve. "No matter how many times I get zeroed, I'll return to kill all of you."
At that moment, he raised his head to look into the mirror again, but then, over his shoulder, he saw a masked figure standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
"Who—" Adam turned around, but then felt a sharp object penetrating through his chest.
When he looked down, he saw his chest bleeding, a blood-stained knife stabbing through his pale flesh.
"Calamity says hi." The masked figure whispered coldly; his voice was muffled and unusually deep, as if the person was trying to hide his voice.
"Otherworld Killer?" Adam whispered in shock with trembling eyes. "Why... why does he want to kill me?"
"You can think about that in the afterlife." The masked figure grinned behind the mask and twisted the knife in the wound, causing Adam to scream loudly.
"Fucker!"
At that moment, with a bloody shout, Adam grabbed the masked figure by his throat and slammed his face into the mirror, shattering it in pieces.
"Cough!" The masked figure coughed blood and stumbled backward, gasping for air.
"Argh!" Adam, with his shoulder in front of him, tackled the masked figure and sent him crashing to the hallway wall.
A large dent appeared on the wall. It was human-sized hole and he almost flew straight through it.
"Shit!" The masked figure cursed loudly, but then saw a fist flying towards him and quickly dove under it before rolling down on the floor to escape the attacker's wrath.
Crash!
Adam pulled his fist from the fist-sized hole in the wall, and with his chest bleeding furiously and his vision turning hazier with every second, he approached the masked figure and cracked his bloodied knuckles.
"I thought Otherworld Killers were scarier, as they kill players in real life for money and for their sadistic purposes, but you are weak!" Adam stomped closer to the masked figure, his hands forming into fists.
"Ptui!" The masked figure opened the mask slightly, just enough to show his mouth, and spat out blood.
He then closed the mask again and scoffed. "I am not the one bleeding to death, am I?"
"For now." Adam reeled in his fist and threw a wide punch at the figure's face.
SMACK!
The punch landed squarely.
The figure stumbled backward with bloodied nose, but quickly grabbed the railing and looked over his shoulder at the flight of stairs that went straight down to the bottom floor.
If he hadn't grabbed the railing, he would've stumbled down the stairs, and the end result wouldn't have been nice. Most likely, his neck would've snapped with a crunch.
Without slightest hesitation, Adam lunged forward and tackled straight into him.
The masked figure's black eyes trembled as he saw the ceiling move further away, feeling his footing disappear.
The two figures crashed into the steps of the stairs and stumbled down nearly a dozen steps before reaching the bottom of the stairs.
"Argh!" Adam put his hand over the bleeding wound and groaned in pain. He felt like he was on the verge of passing out.
The masked figure slowly stood up with a few groans of pain and pointed the knife at Adam, who was staining the nice-looking carpet under his feet with his crimson blood.
"I suppose this is the end of 'The Adam', the so-called successor of Star Faction. Hah, what a fucking joke!"
The masked figure then launched forward and drove the knife deep into Adam's waist, causing him to let out a blood-curdling scream.
"This is only the beginning," the masked figure laughed. "First, it's you; then it's time for Kiernan; then Perseus; then Fleur; and finally, it's time for sweet Sapphira to die."
"So, this is how Calamity plans to win this war." Adam said weakly.
"Ruthless, but effective way," the masked figure grinned. "Once Star Faction is defeated, Calamity can challenge Konrad for the seat of the High King's throne."
"He won't win..." Adam said with a bloodied smile. "He can try, but that waste of sperm will lose."
The masked figure's smile vanished, and he again twisted the knife in the wound.
"Aaargh!" Adam grabbed the masked figure's wrist and tried to make him pull the knife off his waist.
"Grrrhh!" The masked figure gritted his teeth and let out a few groans of pain as he felt like his wrist was being crushed.
"Haaa!" Adam screamed, and the trembling knife slowly slid off his waist and fell to the ground.
The masked figure yanked his hand back from Adam's clutches, but at the same time, his black glove came off, revealing his pale-skinned hand and a six-pointed star tattoo on his thumb.
After seeing the tattoo, Adam's expression changed from confusion to shock.
"Y-you are part of the Star Faction." Adam looked down at his own hand, and he had a similar six-pointed star tattoo on his thumb. "Only the core members of the faction tattooed the six-pointed star on the thumb. You are someone close to us..."
"Hmph!" The masked figure's eyes turned cold, and he pulled out another knife from his belt and lunged straight at Adam.
This time, he stabbed the knife deep into Adam's shoulder, very close to his neck.
"Why..." Adam whispered coldly and grabbed the masked figure by his throat, squeezing as hard as he humanly could. "Who are you, and why are you doing this to us?!"
"Ngh!" The masked figure's face turned pale behind the mask, and he started stabbing the knife repeatedly on Adam's chest.
The blood spewed, and the sound of flesh getting killed filled the room, but the life slowly started to fade away from the masked figure's eyes as the two hands, belonging to Adam, squeezed the life out of him.
In these ten years, Adam focused on building his strength even in the real world and in this moment, the ten years of blood and sweat was finally worth it.
Adam watched as the life slowly left the masked man's black eyes as his hands continued to squeeze his throat.
Crack—lastly, the masked figure's neck cracked, and he fell lifelessly on the ground.
"Who are you..." Adam reached towards the mask, but at that moment, he lost his footing and fell to the ground.
As his head slammed into the floor, his head cracked like a ripe apple, and without further ado, a pool of blood appeared around him.
"No..." Adam cried out and tried to reach out to the mask, but his arm lost all of its strength, slowly falling to the ground.
At the edges of his vision, darkness began quickly consuming everything, and he felt himself being pulled away from the world.
"It's cold..." Adam whispered as his vision faded to black.
...
Beep, beep!
"Ugh..." A voice groaned in anger, and a figure rolled around in the bed, turning to his side and moving the blanket to cover his face.
Beep, beep.
The alarm continued to ring.
"Five... no, ten more minutes..." The figure mumbled.
He groaned and rolled over, burying his face in the pillow.
At that moment, thirteen years worth of memories flooded his mind like a tidal wave.
The figure slammed his eyes open, like a frightened rabbit and sat up in a hurry.
"Six-pointed star!" The figure shouted in shock, but then he saw the room around him. It was a place that had almost faded from his memory.
"Wait..." He stood up and looked at his half-naked, lanky body, with only his underwear covering his private parts.
He fiddled with his toes and moved his fingers to ensure that it was really him and not just a memory of the past.
"What in the world..." He stumbled out of the room, saw several doors, and a flight of stairs leading downstairs.
He walked to the door in front of him and hesitantly turned the door handle, opening the door to the bathroom.
As he stepped onto the tiled floor, he grabbed the sink and looked at his mirrored self in the mirror.
"That's... not possible." Adam muttered as he saw his younger self looking back at him.