Rift

For the next 2 hours, they searched carefully every house they found in their path. There were mostly bodies, some broken weapons, and trash of all kinds. But they got lucky some times too, they found a steel hatchet, a leather bag, some "soul stones" and a revolver similar to an old 12.7 caliber S&W with three bullets in its chamber, with just a little shake the ice on the items fell off.

David leveled his Appraisal 2 times, but it still wasn't enough to use it on the stones, but he had patience. Mind blade leveled to 4, and at that point, it was easy to kill the low-level ghost that he encountered alone.

While he was stretching in front of a house, he called his status.

[Name: Haakon Völundrsson (???)]

[Level: 3 (76 XP left to lv4)]

[Race: Zombie (Ghost)]

[Life points: 3 (20) / ∞]

[Mana points: 38 (30)]

[Attack: 8 (10) / (N/A)]

[Defense: 8 (10) / ∞]

[Dextery: 11,2 (14) / (N/A)]

[Agility: 4 (5) / (N/A)]

[Inteligence: 8,8 (11) / (N/A)]

[Spiritual Force: 54]

[Abilities] (v)

[Affinities] (v)

-Still not recovered, huh.- He sighed in defeat, he couldn't shake off that debuff on his stats, and couldn't regenerate health, on top of that, he was sure that no one in the city would help him at all.

"Hey Kev, did you have luck?" he said, taking the bag from the floor. "I found nothing in this one."

"Found another complete body but...I am not going to possess it" Kevin shuddered, and David kept the distance, some things were better unasked.

Before their conversation continued, a notification popped up in front of them:

[SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT]

[Every character in "Niflheim" will change race to undead]

[The players that were already part of the undead race will get a free random affinity in compensation]

[Players will be teleported randomly 200 meters apart from a beginner city, those who have already visited a beginner city will not get teleported]

[Enjoy your journey!]

[Your Soul magic affinity was erased!]

[You have acquired Chaos magic affinity!]

"Huh...that was unexpected" David frowned and closed the notification, "I got Chaos magic, what did you get?"

"Animal magnetism affinity, whatever that means." Kevin frowned in confusion, "what the hell does this even mean?"

"I am clueless as you are." David shrugged and cracked his shoulders, some ice and skin fell to the ground "When we get more reputation you should ask someone, who knows? Maybe it's something amazing."

"I was going to do that anyway."

"Moving on, I want to practice a little my blacksmithing for the quest."

Kevin silently nodded and started to jog in front of him. David checked that the revolver was loaded and followed after him. They kept walking for a couple of minutes until they entered a ruined Smithy covered by a layer of snow. They started to search for materials and some tools on the ruins. David moved some boulders, and some broke down armors and swords while Kevin was digging some snow piles and trying his best to find something. Five minutes later, Kevin found a piece of a strange metal with a weird aura under a piece of furniture. David, on the other side, did found the tools, but they were broken or missed something, except for a hammer that was nearly intact.

He smiled and took the hammer while Kevin sat down on a rug from an unknown furry animal, the ice on it melted in seconds, and the dog stretched before resuming his posture, David made some movements in the air feeling the weight of his new tool and nodded.

-Appraisal-

[Death infused Iron bar]: Iron bar infused with death energy, Effects: [???]

"This will do, I'm a little threatened by the death energy, but I'm a ghost, it should be good...right?".

"It doesn't matter, hurry up." Said the dog in annoyance.

He was a little unsure, so he kept looking for more ores or bars with Kevin's reluctant help, but only found more similar iron bars. He sighed and took the first one he chose and placed it on the anvil, hoping it will not backfire in some ridiculous way.

-Frozen Blacksmithing-

[Due to [Frozen blacksmithing affinity.] You get a boost for 30 minutes.]

[Frozen Blacksmithing Lv 4 (+1)]

[Dexterity temporarily restored]

[Strenght temporarily restored]

[Due to the "Ghost" race, it is possible to use soul force instead of mana, unknown effects.]

[Due to Synergy with the material and user's "Ghost" race, unknown effects will receive a boost.]

A layer of frost spread from his right hand until forming a gauntlet, while a hand made of ice "grew" in place of his missing one, his light turned light blue like clear ice, and his eyes glowed fiercely.

[Left hand has been temporarily replaced (29:58 left)]

"What an interesting feeling...let's do this!"

Knowledge flowed in his mind, and he knew what to do. He exhaled light-blue fire from his mouth, his soul force was draining, but he kept feeding the flames with it until the bar got a blue hue. Then, he started to hammer it with all his force.

For the next 15 minutes, he repeated the process of "heating" with his flames and hammering it non-stop. But he started to feel a little light-headed, so, by instinct, he grabbed the soul stone from his backpack and ate it like food before Kevin could react. He chewed it a couple of seconds and felt invigorated when he swallowed it. His flames got brighter, and a pale blue fire engulfed the hammer, a notification popped up, but he ignored it and kept hammering.

Ten minutes later a dangerous aura spread from the smithy, the dog fell to the ground terrified and confused, he didn't know what was happening or why he felt that way, it took a couple of seconds to adjust his mood and recover his composure.

"What in the world is he making..." muttered Kevin under his breath.

David exhaled a final time to temper the sword and began to shake slightly. He didn't have even a barrel with water, so he used a pile of snow that quickly melted afterward, Kevin helped him replacing it with fresh snow. For the handle, he took a piece of frozen wood and infused it with his flame before modeling it with his Ax into a crude pair or grips, he didn't have any form of glue but was pleasantly surprised that his fire made the whole thing hold in one piece.

The final product ended being an ugly pitch-black shortsword with light-blue energy similar to souls in agony coming from its blade. When he took it to examine it further, he got a notification:

[Item created!]:

[Death infused sword.]

Attack +3

Dexterity +2

Agility +1

Passive effect: [Soul reaper]: The Death infused sword automatically collects the souls killed by its blade to strengthening itself. Its master will absorb part of the spiritual force of them.

"That's a very cool sword. I wish I could use it," said Kevin a little disappointed, and David sighed.

"Have you ever played Dark Souls?" David left the sword in the anvil and crossed his arms.

"Huh?"

"Dark Souls."

"Ah, I've only played the VR remake. It wasn't a good experience." Kevin shuddered a little, remembering the innumerable times he got stabbed, burned, slashed, crushed, etc.

"Do you remember Sif? the big wolf with the sword?"

"What do you- oh," he took a couple of seconds to realize what David meant, then he chuckled and nodded a couple of times. "Do it. I'll be in your debt."

"That's the attitude." Then, David did a slightly longer shortsword for his furry friend just before the transformation wore off. Kevin used his mouth to hold it and tried to move a little to practice with it. But it ended with awkward movements, so he dropped it.

"Try not to drop it somewhere, I'll not do it again," said David as he was saving some of the bars he found and the hammer in their backpack.

"Yeah yeah." The dog stabbed it on the ground with effort, looked at him dead in the eye, and bowed solemnly "thank you, David."

"You're welcome, Kevin" he petted his head and received a bite in response, his HP dropped to 2, and more cracks appeared on his arm. "Wow, take it easy, man."

Before they could continue their conversation and eventual confrontation, they were interrupted yet again. But this time was because a bunch of players teleported in front of the building. In their soul forms, they looked at each other and then at the duo and tried to communicate, but they couldn't.

"Possess a body, or use telepathy to talk. But i recommend the first. It's less costly.", said David pointing at the bodies at the sides of the street. Some of them shuddered at the thought of possessing a corpse, but a valiant soul volunteered to be the first.

Ten minutes later they explained everything they knew to the five players and they possessed different kinds of bodies, all of them had missing parts like hands, legs, and even one of them had his head chopped in half.

"Ok, guys, time to go to Duat, try to keep close to us and don't wander, or you'll get killed." Said Kevin as he started jogging towards the city, followed by the rest of the players except for one. That looked a bit confused.

"Killed? killed by what?"

"I guess he's referring to me." A strange man holding a scythe and engulfed in black flames was standing a couple of meters from them, "Thank you for the meal.~"

Before anyone could react, the guy who made the question was pierced in the chest by the scythe. Just before he was cut in half in a swift motion by the same weapon, and his soul was absorbed instantly.

"RUN!" yelled David as he and Kevin started running towards the city, the other players recovered from their shock and started to run too, but they were very unlucky this time.

The man seemed to vanish in the air and reappeared behind the players one per one, killing them and eating their souls, David looked behind as the final member of the newbies was devoured by the man.

"We're not gonna make it this time, Kev." Murmured David dejectedly, and the dog nodded. "At least we should die fighting."

They stopped their tracks and prepared for the inevitable death that awaited them, but it didn't come, the man just appeared a couple of meters ahead of them with a grin on his face.

"Accepting your death?" he started to approach them. David gritted his teeth and tried to remain calm while Kevin bitted the handle harder.

The man began to laugh, but his celebration got cut off by the second miracle they had experienced in less than a day. A strong suction force came from behind the man as a dark sphere appeared in the air.

[WARNING!]

[YOU'RE IN THE RANGE OF A SPATIAL RIFT!]

[Entering the rift will teleport you to a random place in the universe while ignoring level restrictions!]

"SHIT!" screamed the man as he stabbed the ground with his weapon and tried to remain in place, but his body started to lose footing until just his right hand was holding the scythe and the rest of his body was in the air.

Part of the buildings, bodies, and everything not nailed to the ground got sucked by the sphere. Some of them bumped into the man holding the scythe, he disappeared a few times to avoid large objects like cars or boulders, but every time he did that, his fire dimmed and got pulled closer to the sphere.

David and Kevin stabbed their swords in the ground, and their situation was not different from their attacker. But David had it worse because he could hear his skin, bones, and joints craking and crumbling under the pressure of the gravity. Even his backpack ripped apart, and everything they got disappeared inside the rift. His health dropped to 1 point, and his spiritual force couldn't sustain his body any further.

"This is the end, huh," he said and chuckled lightly. "See you later, Kev. I'll contact you when I resurrect."

Then, he used his foot to jump from the ground with his sword in hand when a car passed above him, then man 'flashed' again to avoid the vehicle but received a stab in his chest by David making him lose balance and his scythe, both were sucked into nothingness shortly after.