`~ Prologue ~`
(warning! Mentions of Bl**d, D**th, and abandonment, if these are any sort of trigger for you this chapter may not be the best for you to read, I apologies if you wanted to read this chapter but are unable to. D**th, Bl**d, and abandonment warning are only slightly there. These subjects are not in large amounts)
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In a damp, desolate, dark cave, a young looking man sat a top a nearby rock. He was holding his side as if wounded. Which he probably was seeing there was a heavy metallic scent in the enclosed space.
A dripping sound could be heard as a few drops of water dripped down from the ceiling of the cave, forming a small puddle around where the leak was occurring.
This young man, was named Theodore, once a talented youth that had a bright future in his chosen major.
Until that day, when a popular game named 'Heaven's Secret' had been released. He wasn't distracted by it and he had kept up with his university work and his job at the time, but that would've soon became a grave mistake.
But he would never realize it was an error and to just ignore the game that had quickly grown in popularity, much to his future dismay. As it would soon descend upon the planet, and become their brand new reality, either against their will, or to a deadly 'game' to those that had loved and wished for a New World.
With old knowledge becoming useless, money becoming simply now a thing to burn with the world currency changing to the game's currency, and all players gaining what they had gained online, on their account and in their avatars, quickly becoming the New World's main hope to survive the wastelands their planet had become.
He had quickly become useless, to everyone and everything in the blink of an eye.
Without any power of his own, nor any talents or equipment that allowed one to survive in the New World he had to become a slave to simply survive, working day in and day out to meet ends meet for the outrageously high quota. By the end of the week his hands were often cover in shallow wounds, as well as bloodied bandages.
But during his last job, his last job for the week, right before he would get the next week's ration. The player team he was working for at the time had encountered a mishap, a very severe one. Such he had been left behind as dead weight before he could even notice what had happened for them to bolt.
Now he was stuck here, in a nowhere land, stuck in a dungeon, with barely anymore rations, only from what he had pocketed from the player team's baggage, and a deep throbbing wound in his side that would soon get infected if not treated properly from the sudden Beast attack.
Even if it was sooner or later he would be found by a Beast and would either be eaten or taken as a 'pet', which would be a fate worse then death in a dungeon, as 'pets' were often raised like cattle, or bred to create more prey for them to eat. Once they became useless, and once they were deemed such, the few corpses they had found were at least drained of anything and everything, often remaining as just bones if they were lucky, able to give their remaining family and friends something to mourn without an empty grave.
But he didn't want to die, and he sure as hell didn't want to be treated like an animal to be raised and bred until he could no longer be of use and then eaten and thrown away if they couldn't eat his bones due to them being so brittle from malnutrition, probably not holding enough mallow for them to even pick between their teeth.
Alas, in the New World, humans were simply stepping stones for Beasts. Eating them to gain strength, slowly but surely evolving to a higher form. When they did, it took teams upon teams of humans to defeat a single one of the evolved Beasts.
Beasts had long become the dominate race on the planet, and if anyone even wanted to think about killing a Beast they often had to at the least be two ranks above a Beast due to differences in physical and magical strength.
Theodore, as a slave, was never allowed to gain an awakening stone. It was a special item that appeared after the game descended onto the world that would allow those that had not been a player to potentially awaken and gain abilities from a player panel.
As they had only arrived a month later. A week after he became a slave, and every single un-awakened player or person had been given one. Yet due to his new 'title' as a slave he had been forced to give it to his slaver, forfeiting any chance of awakening and changing the fate that he had brought upon himself.
That single chance, ruined as he was unable to hold out any longer, even though he had the rations, plenty of rations at the time, a cowards option of giving himself up for a chance at surviving longer.
He was weak willed, yet determined before. Yet when everything had occurred he had simply broken down, so as soon as he found someone willing he had become that group's slave, unable to bear the solitude and mental burden of constant fear without anyone or thing to take his mind off of the constant possibility of death.
Did he regret at the time? No. Did he now regret his decision? He regretted it more then when he broke up with his girlfriend on the Thursday afternoon after their twenty ninth date.
'Wait.. Why do I remember that but never where I left my keys or my books..?'
Either way, as he was willowing in his self deprecating thoughts, a rumble had sounded from behind him, and before he could even react.
The dungeon had started to crumble all around him. What would have been a wonderful moment, was his death sentence.
He didn't have any return crystals on him, nor was he at the portal that would form soon after defeating the dungeon master in the center of the dungeon.
He had dropped everything while running from the Beast that would've ended his life, and in that rush he had even dropped his own personal bag. Which held the return stone he had been given for this outing.
He was trapped, in a crumbling cave. Over the sea of this dungeon. Worse part? All dungeons had a sea somewhere, it was where no human being, a player or not had survived falling into. Even Beasts were afraid to go near it.
That's why he had come here to hide, but now his 'safe' place, was his doom.
Without that return crystal or any talents or weapons he would never be able to survive even a minute in the sea. That alone would be generous as more times then not a Sea Beast would be waiting at the edges of the sea where it connected to the land, waiting for a living being to step just a little too close.
Before he could even manage to stand he had been plunged into a chilling cold, as the floor beneath him had crumbled, jagged rocks falling from the ceiling of the cave, dangerously close to where he once was.
But soon Theodore was plunged in the freezing waters beneath him.
Unable to breath as the chilling cold shocked his internal systems causing him to choke and release all the air that was in his lungs, he struggled against the current to the best of his current abilities, but his wounds had him being pulled down. Unable to resist. Unable to think as the chilling cold slowed his thoughts, and unable to cry out with the water filling his mouth flowing into his already damaged lungs.
Drowning, slowly.. But drowning would have been a more drawn out, slow death compared to what was waiting for him.
If he could not surface soon, he's die. He knew it, and he welcomes it for a moment. But he also had so many regrets that he wanted to change if he could.
'I-.. I don't want to...' his thoughts trailed off as his mind fogged up and as he was dragged further into the raging depths or the collapsing dungeon.
Before he could fight it and try to resurface once more, a new piecing pain in his abdomen, and everything had gone dark, soundless, but painful, almost as if he was swallowed whole after being thoroughly chewed..
Painfully eaten, the last thing he could feel before losing consciousness was what felt like his own flesh melting rapidly, as if he was on fire, but without actually burning yet the pain had stopped his consciousness from fading immediately, but not for long as the pain and his injuries had simply grown too much for his already drawn out body and mind.
~--------------------------Chapter End----------------------------------~
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Hello again, I know it's been a while and all. But I had said I might (and would) make another book and here you all go 'The Blood Filled Cultivation Game' my newest work! (and this is just a little preview for you all, aka a prologue! The first proper chapter has already been made, (just waiting for a good time to be released as well as a stock up on other chapters to release for you guys before starting to actually release more so you guys can have more periodically, but I also take a while to write so it'll take a while, so just bear with me)
So just bear with me, it might take a few more months after this releases for it to start getting chapters released more often (once, maybe twice a week at most, probably not very often).
Although it is a little shorter then I wanted it to be I think it ended up turning out great! Much better then the last time I wrote to you all in my last book.
I will also be waiting for this book to be confirmed by Webnovel before thinking about releasing the next chapter.
If you see this anywhere but Webnovel I have not posted it there.
Either way, I really hope you all enjoy it! Thank you for reading, the next chapter should (depending on how busy I get) come out soon!
-Your sincerely, WDA Snider.. Until we meet again in the next chapter once it's released! I hope you all have a great day / night / evening / noon!
~ Update! The new chapter will be out soon! Probably tomorrow or the day after! I should have plenty of time to write soon to hopefully make at least a few chapters before the calming domestic stuff ends before we start the actual thing.
*Words: 1791*
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