Karas is quite tall, if he’s slimmer, he won’t look short to others, hence, he used his height and looked far ahead, noticing that they are about to reach the spawning points of the players, he immediately shouted: “We’re coming! Stand your ground! Stand your ground and push!”
“Fight a single monster with more than two of you!”
“Ignore the pain, wait for us!”
Hearing him, players felt motivated but seeing the vicious beast, they were afraid to feel pain, hence, backed away, only a few did as told and started to fight back.
“You heard him, fight a monster with two or more! They are merely a few dozens of meters away!” A crude looking man shouted, there are five in his ground as they started to fight back.
It created a slight domino effect but only gathering a few dozens of players, but it’s actually better as they created a circle to protect each other’s back.
With that, a few spots were handled steadily, preventing more beasts from advancing, Karas saw a location that beasts are being held better than the others, he immediately shouted: “Everyone! To the left! To the left!”
“TO THE LEFT!” Someone shouted hearing Karas’s voice.
“LEFT! LEFT!”
“PUSH!”
“KILL THOSE BASHIS!”
“Bashis?”
“Just kill!”
They followed the others, hundreds of players crushed the lowest beasts as one.
It would’ve been different if they weren’t equipping their weapons, but with weapons, these players started to push.
Karas and the others started pushing.
In just a short thirty minutes, they managed to reach their destination.
Karas shouted: “Hold the line!”
The players immediately stood their ground and started killing all the beasts coming their way, the other players making their way to them were devoured by the beasts.
Only those inside remained relatively safe, the players participating were focused on the battle in front of them, yet, they can see the players inside the circle not moving, not participating in the circle formation.
But they didn’t care, the more beasts they kill, the higher the exp is.
Karas also have the same idea, hence, he didn’t force those not participating, he immediately ordered: “Hold the line and wait for others to come, each player with good pieces of equipment form a group with others, and start pushing outwards!”
They maintained their formation for as long as they could, but Karas knew that it’ll basically be pointless in the long run, their stamina, health, and time.
“This can’t go on…” Karas furrowed his brows. They had been playing for a while now, they couldn’t dally any further.
“Let’s make the circle as little as possible, we need to form two squads to alternately fight the monsters and collect resources.” Karas shouted, he immediately moved forward and pulled a few men: “You’ll exchange spots with us after fifteen minutes, collect as many resources as you can.”
“All of those exhausted should be prioritized to gather the resources and rest!”
“What?” A person asked in confusion, they were doing quite well.
Karas shouted as he moved forward: “Look around you!”
The confused person looked around and noticed that a lot of them had already been exhausted: “Right… we’ve been fighting for hours now…”
He immediately started gathering for things he thinks he could need.
The others immediately noticed it, most of the players that went to gather resources belonged to the first two hundred that returned with Karas, they were really exhausted.
Karas’s physique isn’t really the healthy kind, hence, he’s most likely more exhausted than the rest of them, but that wasn’t all, Karas’s mental strength had started to fall as well.
Five more hours later, the group managed to switch places quite a few times already.
**
Pran had logged in again, she died and felt annoyed and just slept. She decided to throw the game, but remembering how free she was, she couldn’t help but come back again.
As she was logging in, she immediately prepared to run.
“Hmmm?” She was confused as there’s actually a group of people fighting not far away from her, they had attracted the attention of most of the beasts.
She resurrected from the same spot she had died: “Oh, they are already wearing gears?”
But as she spoke, she noticed two beasts, a dog and a cat started to rush towards her.
Pran immediately rushed towards the group that is fighting: ‘Can’t die immediately as I logged in! I don’t want to die again!’ With pouting lips and serious expression, Pran ran with all of her might.
But how can a delicate lady like her outrun a dog and a cat from their crazed status?
“Not good, I have no stones with me.” She does didn’t have any weapon on her.
She sighed immediately, the total time she had played the game is less than fifteen minutes, and ten minutes of it were when the safe zone was still present while the other four and a half minutes were spent hiding…
“Goodbye world…” She looked at the beasts prepared for the pain to come, yet, at this instant, a shadow appeared between her and the beast.
The silhouette slowly formed into a figure, brandishing his round iron bar and slammed it at the dog two times, killing it instantly, but when he tried to hit the cat, it immediately dodged before attacking again.
The figure is none other than Karas, he’s quite a capable fighter, sadly, his body couldn’t follow his thoughts and hence, he couldn’t move as he intended: “Go with the group!”
She couldn’t help but utter: “Pig…”
The face of the person that saved her is extremely familiar, it’s a person she had met before. ‘Definitely… It’s definitely him… but he’s…’
***
Meanwhile, in the real world, six hours later.
“We’re here with Mr. Talin, creator and founder of the game Survival from the Ashes for an interview.”
Mr. Talin is a 60-year-old man, he smiled at the female reporter and spoke: “Good day to you and everyone watching this show.”
Talin Wurzt, a rarely seen genius, he’s almost at the level of the founding fathers of science, provided with advanced technologies, he managed to create Arta, the A.I responsible for Survival from the Ashes.
Talin boasted that this AI can provide every information, conversation, and story progress of the game all on its own.
It’s also the one responsible for making the game work.
“Right, Mr. Talin, it’s said that the capsules you made are special?” The reporter asked.
Talin smiled, he nodded his head: “Yes, actually, it’s the first hundred thousand capsules that I made.”
“Oh?” The reporter pretended to be amazed, she then asked: “What seemed to be special about it?”
Talin chuckled for a few seconds before his gaze turned serious: “What’s special about it? Well, first of all.”
“It can reproduce the exact physical movements that the player had done inside the game, it means that the muscle is being worked the same way as to how they are moving inside the game.”
“It’s like going in the gym to exercise, the only difference is, they are enjoying.”
(Inside the game)
Karas’s eyes are almost bloodshot, he had been playing for 18 hours straight: “Everyone, since we’ve gathered enough resources, we’ll go to our campsite, we’ll retreat now!”
“Yes!”
“Let’s go!”
“Push!”
“Ay, those saviors, remain behind us, you are all exhausted!”
Karas’s eyes started to blur, still, he saw the notification that had appeared dozens of times already.
[Warning challenger, you’ve surpassed your limit, due to decreasing your weight by 50%, you will suffer a backlash two times of the amount you’ve done inside the game, recommending for player to rest for at least six hours before logging out to reduce the fatigue.]Karas’s heart started to beat faster.
[Warning challenger, you’ve surpassed your limit…]
