Is this really a Game?!



Reign opened his eyes and stared at the familiar ceiling of his room inside Doncaster, the conversation he had with the copy still fresh in his mind.

He thought about what the copy said for a little bit. It was true that right now, he didn't possess any clear goals that were only for his own benefit. Everything he was doing now was in order to help others. Becoming more powerful and keeping Doncaster and the thousands of players safe, wanting to go and meet his uncle and Shadow's parents again, as well as helping Laura in the future by saving the souls of her family.

He didn't think much of it, however. A goal is not something a person can set right away, especially not one that would drive you forward, keep you motivated for many years, and always force you to strive to reach higher and become more powerful.

That was something that simply came to you, and Reign did indeed have one such goal, finding the person that killed his parents, the man he had seen during the funeral, and the one everybody suspected had done so.

If he didn't kill Reign's parents, then he would let him walk, but not before beating him up and learning the truth directly from his soul. He still knew very little of the man, the only thing he did know was his name and face.

Shadow's father knew more, and that was one of the reasons why Reign wanted to meet up with him soon so that he could learn more about that person. 

With the world being as large as it is right now, finding a single person would require an incredible amount of effort and time, so much that Reign would have to potentially waste years to do so, but he knew that there was a way to shorten it, and that was by becoming a Transcendent.

Upon becoming a Transcendent, Reign would become much more powerful than he is now, not to mention that the first person that manages to do so would become the defender of the planet, the one in charge of communicating with the Alliance.

Of course, with the marks he and the rest had, they didn't need to be the first Transcendents, not to mention that the planet had already been claimed by Raziel, which meant that Raziel himself would become the defender.

Upon becoming more powerful, Reign could also communicate with the Will of the world, allowing him to sense world energy, but also allowing him to talk with the Will, the mystical force that was the consciousness of the world itself.

He knew that if he was talented and powerful enough, he could use that to his advantage and have the will to find the person for him. That way would be the shortest and most effective way for Reign to locate that person, and he wouldn't even need to be a Transcendent in order to do so, the only problem was that luck would be involved in that.

If the Will didn't want to give him the location, there would be nothing that Reign could do about it. He couldn't simply force the will of an entire world to do his bidding, and if he tried to do so, he would be marked as an enemy of the world, which meant that he wouldn't be able to sense or take any world energy and would have to go to another planet in order to do so, which was not a good thing as the easiest way to become a Transcendent was to do so in your own world as your home world would be the one that would help you the most.

Without the help of the world will, becoming a Transcendent was much more difficult and dangerous. The person would need to slowly siphon the world energy and grow accustomed to it, which would incur the wrath of the world that would try its best to get rid of it. Natural disasters would follow the person wherever he went, the world would send those that were friendly with it to defeat the person, and the rate at which the person could gather and get used to the world energy would be far lower compared to those that the will was helping.

Aethion was such a person.

As a necromancer, he was not liked by the world will in his home world. It wasn't always so, however, as Aethion had been a powerful mage before that, one that had managed to get in touch with the world will beforehand and become friendly with it before joining the dark side.

He managed to trick even the world will, never showing his true colors and siphoning some world energy on the side, allowing him to progress even faster than the others who were well-liked by the world will.

It was only after he was found out by the queen that the entire world had turned on Aethion, forcing him to go away and take the offer the system had given him, becoming a pitiful shadow of his former self.

The system was neutral by nature. Even some demon species could utilize it, as long as the being in question didn't have the intention of simply destroying the universe, the system would be there to help them. That included even necromancers and similar beings that could be said to be evil.

The first thing Reign did after getting up was of course go to the wall. He wanted to see for himself the state of the wall and the monsters that M'azgara had created. Laura had been in the building when he went out and from her, he was able to find out that he was sleeping for a day, which was much better compared to before when he passed out for 2 whole days.

Upon reaching the wall, he was able to see a bunch of players present, hundreds of them, together with about 100 monsters that M'azgara had created. She had made more, but they were busy in Pripyat. 

M'azgara wanted to make humanoid monsters, but she also liked the ones in Prypiat as they were special, the radiation had made them mutate, and from their DNA, she could gain quite a lot, and that wasn't only for creating her brood, but for herself as well.

She could use skills by consuming the nutrients she took, which allowed her to possess a multitude of skills, much more than anyone in the same realm, of course, her skills were not that powerful as they were not her own and she couldn't practice them and gain familiarity no matter how much she tried.

Being safe inside Doncaster, M'azgara was able to show the fearsome power a Brood Mother possessed as only a day after the battle, she had filled up the Tier IV group once again, only leaving 1 spot for the elite she would make soon.

The monster army that had been decimated now had over 200 monsters, and more were still being created. Without having any enemies nearby and enjoying the protection the city gave her, M'azgara was able to focus on creating more of her monsters, growing her army larger and larger.

With the thousands of corpses she had from the demons, she could create over a thousand powerful monsters, but she didn't want to only use the demons, but the monsters from Pripyat as well.

Her monsters had recently found what they thought was a human settlement in Pripyat, but upon sending one of her elites over there, she was able to confirm that they were humanoid monsters, as well as humans that had mutated to such an extent that they could no longer be called human. Driven by their primal instinct, these creatures were barely able to utilize basic tools, but their strength was incredible.

Their bodies were much more powerful compared to normal humans, not to mention the fact that they could even use some weird abilities that M'azgara was still unable to figure out.

They were all powerful Tier III monsters and they gave her a lot more nutrients than the normal monsters in Pripyat, but they were also much more powerful and dangerous.

From what she was able to find out, they actually came from below the ground but had started making small settlements on the surface as well. The only thing left for her was to find out why they were coming to the surface, was it because they wanted to hunt here, get more prey, or were they perhaps forced by something?

She already knew how Reign and the others had found her, so finding an underground area below Pripyat that was filled with powerful monsters wouldn't surprise her, she actually wished that was the case, and hopefully, those monsters could be Tier IV, allowing her easy access to Tier IV mutated bodies she could devour and use to create more of her monsters.

She had told Wolf about the entire thing, but for now, Wolf and the others were occupied by the depths, so they would check it out later. M'azgara had no issues with that as she also didn't need any more powerful monsters as nutrients.

As for why there were so many players and monsters near the wall, well, they were reinforcing it and creating better defenses that they could utilize in the future to fight against the Tier IV monsters.