1 Rebooting (1/2)
His mind still echoed with the events of the past, playing back over and over like some movie…
The sky was blood red, the battlefield torn and littered with broken arms and armor. Horses were screaming, almost human-like, and the wind was blowing, filling the air with the sickly sweet smell of spilled blood. Nobody was moving, they had settled into a tense confrontation. Life and death brothers that fought shoulder to shoulder a moment ago were now against each other in battle. In this moment, even the air seemed to have froze up.
Not far from the center of the fight lay the body of a large and hideous man, all stained with blood from a massive fight. He was Song Heitar, leader of the Black Wind House, a King-ranked expert, nineteenth on the most wanted list of the yamen. Below his corpse, the purple glow of a mighty treasure glowed around him, waiting to be claimed.
“Why?” Spoke a handsome young man, tall and straight, clad in strong armor and with powerful gear on him, holding his signature Cloud Dragon Halberd.
He was seriously injured, half kneeling on the ground, his bloody halberd keeping him upright as he leaned on it. Blood was pouring out of his chest, soaking into his armor. If one looked carefully, the wound was actually from a small, one-handed blade driven through his back into his chest, the handle broken off by a blow from his halberd.
Opposite him stood a middle-aged man, with a dark beard, thick eyebrows, and large eyes. The man wore a mithral chainmail, and held a golden lance, ready to fight at any moment. At the left side of his waist was an empty scabbard, cold and alone and seeming to shout out the cruelty of the reality of the situation.
“In order to live...a better life.” The hoarse voice of the older man responded. His voice was firm, as if less to respond to the question than to convince himself of his own actions. After saying these words, he stopped speaking, calmly watching the young man die before him.
“Ha, for that?” The younger man’s face was full of ridicule, pointing at the armor under the corpse. “Just for a Platinum-rank equipment, hahaha, really ridiculous.” His voice became cold and sharp.
“I really did not expect that it had such a magic, to mess with people’s minds like this. The one who’d always watched my back, my respected brother, turned and stabbed me for it. You were someone who was respected by everyone, and you gave up your dignity.”
He was very weak, but his black eyes were still clear and sharp. But now, there was a lingering sense of self-condemnation within them that had not been there before.
“Big brother, no matter what, in the end, it is only a game. One day, we will have to leave here and go back to the real world. I did not expect...the end of our brotherhood, five years of friendship, to be worth even less than a mere precious equipment drop in the game.”
“Sorry, Third Brother.” His voice was still calm and unfeeling.
“Hahaha! ‘Sorry’. Haha! So ridiculous. Big brother, this is the last time I will call you this. Greed is a sin; I do not blame you for it.” The young man became unusually calm, his face without a trace of emotion upon it. His eyes were as bright as the sea, boundless and fathomless.
Those looking on recognized that face, which earned him his nickname, the Two-Faced Shura. When he was cold, he was terrifying to his foes; when he was warm, to his friends he was as fresh as a spring breeze.
“But the next time we meet, I will kill you,” He said coldly to the older man.
He grabbed the sword impaling him, blood running from the palm of his hand. Face as calm as water, with no ripples upon it, he ignored the pain as he pulled. With a tearing of flesh, the sword was pulled free from his body. Blood sprayed out from his heart, a bloody flower gracing the battlefield for a quiet instant.
And the screen froze.
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A bloody sky, a burst of blood sprinkling upwards towards heaven, so small, so stubborn. As if it were someone else, Ouyang Shuo silently watched as he fell to the ground and didn’t stand up again, bleeding out and finally dying.
This was not the first time that Ouyang Shuo had reincarnated, but this was definitely the most painful time. Reincarnation meant starting over from scratch. Unlike other games, in this one, you lose everything when you die. Your character level starting back from zero, and your equipment lost. It was the most cruel death penalty.
“I will not be defeated by this betrayal. I will get back everything that I have lost.” Thinking about his sister, whom he was waiting for to come back from the city, Ouyang Shuo put aside all the distractions, sealing this vow in his heart, and slowly opening his heavy eyelids.
Above him was a spotless white ceiling, the walls of the room were metallic and smooth, empty without anything on it. In addition to the bed he was on, there was no other furniture in the room, it was simple to the extreme. On the opposite wall from him there was a game poster, and that was it.
“This is...where?” Ouyang Shuo asked aloud, confused. This was certainly not the reincarnation hall. Rebirths always took place at the reincarnation hall. Rebirth at the hall had always been accompanied by the wailing of ghosts, surrounded by the calls of demons as he moved towards the light of a new life.
Had he been booted back to the real world? That wasn’t right, if he had come offline and back to reality, he should’ve been lying in the game cabin, rather than on a bed like now.
His eyes focused on that game poster without thinking, it was hard to look at anything else, and he was instantly stunned. The poster was too familiar, how could he not recognize it? It was the announcement poster of the game from five years ago.
The first game in history to feature personal adventure, territory construction, and grand warfare in internet history, Earth Online, is expected to enter official beta on January 1, 2190, so stay tuned!
Seeing that eye-catching propaganda line stunned Ouyang Shuo, rewinding back years in time with jarring suddenness. Five years ago, this was his home. Dormant memories flooded back across his brain, tearing him from the game world and back to Earth.
In 2170, abnormal fluctuations were detected in the Earth’s core. After three months of testing and observations, calculations by scientists from all over the world reached a terrifying conclusion: In thirty years or so, the core was going to explode. Molten magma would gush out of the mantle and incinerate all life on Earth. Earth was going to be like the Sun, a world of fire.
When the report was sent to the federal government, desperate panic ensued. Although space travel had developed well in the last two hundred years, such that mankind had been able to undertake long-range stellar exploration and wormhole crossings, humanity had not found another life-planet like Earth. The only extraplanetary base was on Mars, and could hold only a limited population while still needing support from the homeworld.
If Earth was going to be destroyed, mankind still had no place to live. After this disaster was confirmed, the government first turned to the idea of transforming Mars and making it more habitable. And then, a miracle happened.
The latest reports from the interstellar explorers had found a new life-bearing world out in the galaxy. The government didn’t have time to celebrate and instead planned out a great interplanetary migration plan in under three months.