➢ [God Of Fate is watching you]
'Huh?' Gene thought, staring at the glowing blue text in total confusion.
In the world of Genesis, players usually only started receiving divine blessings once they managed to survive all the way to stage twenty-five.
Eight gods were supervising this twisted game, but the God of Fate was the only one who never actually granted his blessing to a single person in Gene's previous ten years of hell.
So seeing this specific notification pop up on his very first night made a drop of sweat slide down the back of his neck.
Was his entire regression just another sick ploy set up by the gods?
Was he just a pawn on a different board all along?
➢ [God of Fate will grant you a blessing]
'What?' Gene's eyes widened in the dark room.
A blessing at stage one without any weapons or skills was completely unheard of.
'What do you want in return?' Gene replied to the system directly in his mind.
If there was one very important lesson he had learned through a decade of suffering, it was to never trust the generous words of a god without looking for the hidden hook.
[Kill the Sea witch]
'Of course this fucker is asking for the impossible,' Gene let out a tired sigh.
Stage one featured a total of ten bosses.
Nine of those bosses were located either inside or on top of the flooded buildings, and reaching their specific marks would safely transport a player to a separate fighting arena.
But the Sea Witch was a totally different nightmare.
That specific boss stage was located deep under the monster-infested waters.
In his past life, it was a boss that nobody ever managed to clear, except for one guy named Chen Zhe over in a Chinese instance.
He was one of the strongest players from China, and he only managed it because he had a whole team backing him up.
Gene sat there in the dark and slowly thought about the ridiculous demand without giving a fast reply.
He had the brass compass with him now, so finding a good weapon and locating the boss stage would not be a real issue.
But he really needed to unlock his skills first.
Once he got his skills properly leveled up with his bonus points, he would start generating Qi, which basically acted like a stamina bar required to perform any of the combat or magic techniques.
He looked at the letters floating in the dark room one last time.
'Maybe I will do it,' Gene finally replied to the system, closing his tired eyes and leaning his head back against the wall to get a few hours of real rest.
Aiden was the very last person to wake up the next morning.
He rubbed his eyes and realized everyone else was already up and quietly stretching their sore muscles.
He quickly twisted the cap off his infinite bottle, splashed a handful of cold water onto his face to wake himself up, and grabbed his remaining throwing stars.
"Are we moving out right now?" Aiden asked, trying to shake the stiffness from his back.
"We are already burning daylight," Gene said, pushing the door open and leading them back up to the roof.
"Keep your eyes open and stay right behind me."
They started their journey across the rooftops again, but the scenery had changed significantly since yesterday.
While they were jumping across the wide gaps between the flooded buildings, they started noticing large puddles of dried blood staining the concrete on almost every single roof they passed.
The system automatically cleaned up the physical bodies of the dead players and sent them back to Earth, but the messy bloodstains remained behind as a warning.
"Looks like a lot of people didn't make it through the night," Maria whispered, stepping carefully around a particularly large red stain near the edge of a jump.
"Yeah, it looks like a total slaughterhouse up here," Aiden agreed, his voice shaking just a bit as he looked over at Gene.
"I am really glad we decided to stick with you, man."
Kiara just nodded silently, clutching her smoke bomb tight in her hand.
They all knew they would probably be just another bloodstain on the floor right now if they had tried to survive the night alone.
All of them kept a steady pace for the next two hours, jumping from roof to roof and avoiding any signs of other surviving groups.
The sun was climbing higher in the sky by the time they finally reached a flat-topped office building located right next to the towering glass skyscraper.
Gene pulled the compass out of his pocket and checked the spinning needle.
The metal arrow was not pointing out toward the black skyscraper anymore.
It was pointing straight down at the floor beneath their boots.
"Looks like there is already a weapon spawned somewhere inside this specific building," Gene said, putting the compass away.
"We do not even have to cross over to the main tower yet."
"That is a huge relief," Maria sighed, wiping sweat from her forehead.
"So we just go down and grab it?"
"We go down and carefully secure it," Gene corrected her, leading the way toward the roof access stairwell.
"Stay quiet and stay behind me."
They walked slowly down the stairs, checking every single corner and listening for any signs of movement.
Gene pushed open the door leading to the top floor of the building and stepped out into a long, empty hallway lined with abandoned corporate offices.
They crept down the hall, peering into the open doorways one by one.
About halfway down the corridor, Gene stopped and pointed into a large corner office.
Right there, mounted securely on the far wall above a dusty mahogany desk, was a sleek, blue wooden bow with a set of arrows resting right next to it.
"There it is," Aiden whispered excitedly, taking a step forward.
"A real weapon."
"Hold on," Gene warned, keeping his hand up to stop the blonde guy from rushing into the room.
Something felt very wrong about how easily the weapon was just sitting there in the open.
Gene kept his eyes peeled and took a slow step forward into the office to check the corners.
The very second his foot touched the carpet inside the room, a sharp whistling sound cut through the air.
Gene did not even have time to blink before a long, feather-fletched arrow shot out from the dark shadows on his left side, aiming directly for his throat.