Duat

"Huh, you're not that strong after all, but why did your soul blade have that amount of damage?" David crooked his head a little before the dog released his leg, he watched him in disdain and snorted.

"That's pretty basic, just grinding the ability, just cast mind blade over and over and voilá, you level it up" Kevin rolled his eyes and started walking, poking with his nose in some snow piles searching for a human body.

"Oh...i almost forgot that point, silly me" David shook his head and decided to grind that skill. He needed a better edge against more powerful ghosts. "Moving on, have you find another player beside me?"

"No, this world is too harsh for new players. Even more, if they aren't lucky enough to have the soul affinity it's a literal hell. So they erase their characters or endure it until some miracle happens, or so I saw in the forums, not completely sure." Kevin shrugged before continue with his task.

There was silence for the next minutes, they barely knew each other to have a meaningful conversation, so they kept the distance, but they didn't have any luck finding a body according to Kevin's taste.

"You know? we can enter the buildings." Said David before throwing away a severed arm. "We can't be that unlucky."

"Hmmm...yeah, I forgot we can." David smirked, and Kevin rolled his eyes "I'm accustomed to other kinds of games, ok?"

"Like porn games?"

"Wh- No! Agh! Search that building! I'll go to another one!" the dog left embarrassed to the other side of the road and entered a two stories high house, David was a little confused by his behavior, but he didn't pay much attention to it.

He entered a five stories building. It was similar to a modern hotel, with a lot of rooms and some key cards on the floor. David took 15 minutes to explore all the rooms but only found four corpses that belonged to the janitors, and the receptionist, all of them had teeth marks and missing parts, when he reached the roof to wrap everything up and leave, he was stunned on the spot.

He could see a giant wall that stood on the horizon, tall doors, and the vague shape of statues, tall buildings, skyscrapers, and lights of various colors. There was something similar to a sphynx with silver light coming from its body, and ships, planes, and robots leaving either flying over the wall or through the open doors. Beyond it was a second wall even taller than the first. The buildings beyond that point were even taller and more majestic, with a futuristic aesthetic. Nothing was flying even close to that one, and a giant pyramid was standing taller than everything in the city, it reached the clouds, and he couldn't see its peak from that angle.

"Wow..." was the only thing he could say, he expected something more "traditional" when he thought about a beginner city, not anything this...magnificent. "It's probably something similar to the capital of this region. There's no way it's a novice village, huh, what a nice coincidence."

He found a complete body in the middle of the roof. It was a middle-aged man with black hair and an average complexion. David picked it up and carried it no his left shoulder before leaving the building.

At the exit, he saw Kevin digging on the snow near the door of a house a couple of meters away and laughed a little.

"Accepting your fate of being a dog so soon?" he dropped the body, but Kevin didn't pay attention and kept digging.

"Shut up! I'm trying to do something here!" then, he dragged something out of the snow, it was the lower part of a body, "MOTHERF-"

"Hey! Easy there, Kev, I found a good body" David stopped the dog before it tried to tear the pair of legs apart.

"Really? let me see!" he waved his tail and walked towards David, who was trying to not laugh at him. "It's pretty decent, at least I can be a p-"

Before he could finish, a Great-sword covered in red flames dropped from the sky and pierced the body's abdomen, in less than a second it was reduced to ashes and the snow near the weapon Melted, revealing the boiling pavement of the road.

"Oh...i missed" a voice came from a couple of meters away, it was a figure donned in a black cloak with red fire coming from its chest "Well, it doesn't matter..."

"Follow me, don't separate, ok?" Said David in a hushed tone, Kevin nodded immediately, and both began to run, the figure laughed and chased after them, acting like a cat playing with a mouse.

They ran with all their might, barely dodging the occasional sword that dropped from the sky, they didn't feel any exhaustion from running and didn't receive any direct hit from their enemy. But their spiritual force was depleting, David recovered his SF with time, but it was only a little above the middle when the attack began, so he would be the first to die "WE HAVE TO REACH THE CITY!"

"WHAT CITY?!" answered Kevin before dodging the next blade that fell from the sky.

"I SAW ONE WHEN I WAS IN THE HOTEL!"

"I'm starting to feel huuuuuungry~" a voice full of confidence and glee came from behind, interrupting their conversation. But tried to ignore it, and just kept running. David saw the walls reaching to the skies behind a row of dilapidated skyscrapers.

"WE'RE CLOSE! RUN KEVIN!" He felt like he saw an oasis in a desert, but a sword pierced his shoulder and cut off his left arm like cutting butter with a hot knife, it turned into ash almost instantly. Kevin ran a couple of meters but turned back only to see him on the snow and the figure holding the great-sword menacingly, he didn't know what to do, so he was shaking and panicking.

But a miracle happened, a 10 meters statue appeared behind the corner, it had Anubis form with golden light coming from its body, a staff in one of his hands and something similar to a bird-cage on the other.

"Shit..." the figure started to run with all its might before it was seized shortly after by the statue's hand, it put him on the bird-cage and took its staff, then it left in silence.

"...What the fuck just happened?" asked Kevin weakly, too many things happened in a short span, so he was still trying to process everything.

"I...just don't know..." answered David holding his left shoulder, a screen appeared before him when he sat on the snow.

[Your body is in critical condition]

[All physical stats: -20%]

[Your soul is in critical condition]

[Spiritual points: 1]

[User's left hand can't be recovered due to (???)'s path]

[Frozen Blacksmithing has leveled down! (Lv 4)]

"Great, just great" his body started cracking, and some pieces of his skin fell off.

"What's happening?" Kevin approached him and sat beside him.

"I got a de-buff, my health is one, and leveled down a skill i got from this body."

"That sucks."

"Yeah...let's try to enter the city..." he stood up, and the dog followed behind.

"David, have you noticed that we haven't find another body since we encountered that Ghost?" the dog looked at the surprisingly clean road, it didn't have bodies, frozen blood, or something similar.

"Now that you mention it...yeah," David thought about it while scratching his chin. "I guess it's because we're near to that city."

"Maybe, but it would be nice to find a human body, i don't want to be a dog anymore..." even if the dog had a tracking ability and a ghost detection skill, it hurts his pride a little. "Well, it's better than a rat."

"Yeah, it would be nice, Belinda."

"i swear that I'll rip you apart, David."

"Yeah yeah...you're a good girl" before they started to fight, a blue flame appeared from a strange building on one side of the road, it was like a smithy from the middle age. It looked at the duo with his beady eyes, and they looked at it directly, before it could start its soul devour they slashed it apart with mind blades, and a weak ember dropped to the snow.

"You have it, you need the health," said Kevin, David smiled and patted the dog's head, he saw it was about to bite him but refrained because David's body was falling apart.

"Thank you."

-Soul devour-

David consumed the ember without problems and felt his spiritual force increasing again.

[Ghost consumed]

[+25 XP]

[spiritual force]: 26 (+2)

Then, a second screen appeared after the first.

[You have leveled up!]

[Lv 1 --> Lv2]

[Spiritual force: 28 (+10)]

[Mana points: 10 (+10)]

"Nice...huh, did you notice that we don't have 'ability points' or something like that?" David frowned, and Kevin looked at him before nodding.

"Yeah, i noticed that too. I've sent a bug report, but they answered that there isn't any mistake with that, i asked in the forums too, but everyone has that except you and me."

David thought for a second and nodded. "Wait a minute."

-Alex!-

"Hello, David~ i see you made a new friend! what a lovely occasion!" The boy appeared in front of him sitting on a cloud, Kevin instinctively threw him a mind blade, but it melted before reaching him. "And he's full of energy too!"

"Kevin calm down!" he put himself in front of him before he attacked again, "he's Alex, the AI of the capsule I'm using right now, Alex, this is Kevin, someone who got the same affinity as me."

"AI? isn't that illegal to use your own AI while playing online games?" Kevin frowned, he might get involved in legal problems if that's true.

"Yes, it's illegal, but I'm in the hospital right now recovering from an accident, Alex is an AI from the hospital" Kevin sighed with relief and calmed down.

"Oh...Get well soon?" he said a little awkwardly, David didn't pay more attention to him and faced Alex.

"So, why we don't have ability points, but others have them?"

"You gain Spiritual force through eating ghosts, and your stats rise 10 points per level when you level up, aaaand you're inside a dead body, you can't make it stronger with just leveling up! You need some "help" to do that! like magic or bionics!" The boy smiled at them, and both nodded in understanding "any more questions?"

"I have one!" said Kevin approaching the boy. "Why didn't we appear in a novice village, but in the wasteland?"

"oh? But you did appear near a village. Every random spawn point is at most a kilometer away from a novice village." The zombie and the dog were left speechless, well, they didn't survive long enough to find one but following that logic.

"We are near one right now," Said David solemnly.

"Precisely!" the boy clapped a couple of times "any more questions?~"

"The city i saw...is a novice village?..."

"Yes!" the boy didn't felt annoyed by his questions and answered with a smile.

"No, thank you," David said, and the boy smiled and disappeared with his cloud.

"That's a cheat," Kevin said, and David nodded in response, having Alex saved him a couple of aimless journeys and unnecessary deaths, "Shall we go?"

"Of course."

"We're close now," David said and shot a mind blade towards a tattered door.

[Weak mind blade has leveled up!]

[Weak mind blade (Lv 2)]

"Nice." David grinned, and Kevin supposed it was a level up for his ability.

"I hope everything will be easier, i have thought of deleting this character and making a new one, but you hadn't been a bad companion so far," Kevin said and scratched his nose to peel the ice crust that formed there.

"Thank you, I had thought about it too but, this is more exciting than being a normal human in a normal mecha." He remembered the robots he saw in the air and the spaceship "just imagine it, you fought some random guy, and he barely destroys your mecha, but at that moment you possess his mecha and kick him out of the cockpit before killing him, isn't that exciting?"

"If you put it in that way, yes, if i can do something similar in the future, maybe i could bear it a little longer" Kevin sighed, and David smiled a little, at least their conversation wasn't that awkward anymore.

"You know? The city i saw had a pyramid and a sphynx" as they got closer to the walls of the city, Kevin started to see the flying ships and mechas as David did at the hotel.

"What? But we're supposed to be on a Viking-theme planet, why would Egyptians appear here? as NPC i mean."

"Don't know, it's interesting, to say the least."

"Well, it would explain why this is a 'chaotic zone' instead of a normal planet like the other 2" David looked at the houses and buildings at the side of the roads again "and the contrast in everything we've seen so far."

"That makes sense! and maybe that's why my body's name is Belinda, but yours is Haakon!"

A couple of minutes later they were in front of the gates of the city, even if they tried to see the top of the walls they couldn't, it was too high. Two 30 meters statues were at either side of the entrance holding halberds as big as them. They had Dog-heads like Anubis and wore simple garments like the Egyptians; their eyes and the cracks in their skins irradiated golden light when the duo was near the door.

-STATE YOUR PURPOSE, IF DON'T ANSWER YOU'LL BE COLLECTED AS AN OFFERING TO OSIRIS-

A thunder-like voice rumbled in their minds, and both collapsed to the snow.

-W-we want to...enter the city...- Said Kevin, he had a higher spiritual force than David, so he was less affected by the pressure.

-...-

-WELCOME TO THE HOLY CITY OF DUAT! OBEY OR YOU'LL BE OFFERINGS TO OSIRIS!-

They "switched off" again, and the duo looked at them for a second before entering the city officially.

[You have entered the city of Duat!]

[You have unlocked Duat's reputation system, for more details open the "reputation" screen]

[Fighting near the city of Duat: -500 reputation points]

[Current reputation: -500/0 (Not welcome)]