(2) Foreboding

After a scrumptious breakfast…

Owen went back to his room and sat on his desk, propped up his seat to his liking, wore his headset before he opened his PC to start playing Unguarded Sheath once again.

When he was met with the familiar blue light of the startup screen for a short while, his wallpaper of a spiky black dragon with white light in its eyes greeted him alongside an 'enter password' box.

Without any hurry, Owen began typing on his keyboard, making rhythmic clacks for every key pressed.

"OwenIvory1991Nov14."

With his password successfully entered, he was met with his main screen and his large collection of random games. The majority of them being souls-like games with a mix of some random open world games.

He moved his mouse to find Unguarded Sheath. Owen scrolled past games called Grand Thievery Automatic 7, Near Automaton, Geometric Flash, and a game that he hasn't played for 9 years called Garden Of The Gods.

When his cursor finally landed on Unguarded Sheath, he was about to click twice when he received a 'DeCode' message from Rocky.

DeCode is a platform where every community is available to all people. They are free to make servers in which anyone from all around the world can chat with each other and discuss whatever topic they may want to talk about.

Owen clicked on the DeCode message and began chatting.

> HardShellCoconut : Hey! So? how's the game? did you enjoy playing it? >:D

> 11_14_Ivory : Why didn't you warn me that the stupid monkey can f**king respawn???????????

> HardShellCoconut : Lol, i thought u want authentic gameplay

> 11_14_Ivory : yeah, well… it ate a lot of my time away dammit

> HardShellCoconut : even the gamer of all time has a skill issue? O_O

> 11_14_Ivory : Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very funny.

> HardShellCoconut : it is tho *LaughMeme.gif

> 11_14_Ivory : screw it, imma just do little grinding and rebeat it. I'm level 22 anyway so I unlocked the golden grieve garden.

> HardShellCoconut : that fast? Ur cracked. O yeah, save your money, or should I call them cleansed souls?

> 11_14_Ivory : Heh. Who are you talking to?

> HardShellCoconut : K man, gooda luck. (0^0)

> HardShellCoconut : also, remember Garden Of The Gods? The game I introduced to you like, 9 years ago?

> 11_14_Ivory : yeah, but I kinda forgot about it. Why bring it up now?

> HardShellCoconut : Apparently, the lead developer of the game back then, Dominic Paulsen was found dead and weirdest part was that there's seems to involve a creepy ritual with pentagrams and stuff

> Attached- *GHQVB12773.jpg

Rocky attached a picture to the image which Owen clicked the moment he saw it.

> 11_14_Ivory : That's real?

> HardShellCoconut : fact checked, 100%

The image was a bedroom filled with perfectly drawn circles with strange symbols using blood.

> 11_14_Ivory : Damn, that really sucks.

> HardShellCoconut : Mhm, btw I hve to go to work. Angy customer lol (-_-) zzz

> 11_14_Ivory : Deal with that while I grind on artifacts for good buffs.

The two of them talked quite casually with each other.

Owen gave out a light laugh and pressed exit on DeCode to play once again.

He picked up where he left off.

As someone with a character level 22, he had access to the most dangerous area for his level. It was a place with leafless, black charcoal trees and plants with golden leaves littered everywhere.

The enemies were humanoid and were made of charred wood. They wore clothes belonging to the high class of feudal Japan, which the game was inspired by. The strange half tree enemies had golden liquid streaming down their mouth, nose, and eyes. Lorewise, they are called Sinners Of Greed.

The Sinners groaned in pain and agony as they walked, making the entire atmosphere of the area quite creepy.

But for someone like Owen, it was a treasure trove of EXP, rare drops and high quality equipment.

He recognized the stat synergy patterns ever since he started playing games made by Abyssal Confinement and Fromhardware. This allowed him to combine early game gear into quite a menacing force when used properly.

In Unguarded Sheath, twenty special artifacts can be equipped that give small substantial buffs to the character called Wolf. The advantage of these artifacts is that you can easily switch them for artifacts that currently fit your current strengths or to cover up your weaknesses.

Then there's the stuff called ancient glyphs that can be spiritually forged into armor and weapons to give greater yet inflexible buffs.

Once you've placed them, it is permanent. So one needs to be wise when it comes to choosing which glyphs fit your current build.

Owen is running a speed-strength synergy build and he is only relying on pure VIT armor for defense.

And for this gaming session, he was recording some gameplay for an Unguarded Sheath review for his MeTube channel.

Spotting five Sinners from far away, Owen made Wolf run into the rotten garden of gold and death to begin his slaughter.

*Nrraaaghgh!*

The Sinners growled in inhuman noises as Wolf appeared in their view. Raising their claws, they began to attack.

*Whoosh!*

Wolf dodged the different attacks swung by the Sinners by sliding downwards. Telegraphing their attack patterns was a skill that Owen developed over the years of stressful gameplay.

And while the Sinners were still focused on the area where Wolf just dodged, Owen took this opportunity to get a couple of swings in.

*Chack!*

Like chopping down wood, the noises upon impact were very crunchy.

The Sinners quickly turned around and stretched their arms to shoot out a couple of charred spiky roots at the player. Owen dodged this by jumping up and dashing forward, delivering a downward slash as he moved.

Although undead and riddled with pure greed, the Sinners were fast.

But Owen was faster.

Any attack that the Sinners tried to dish out to Wolf were easily dodged with a simple dash either on the ground or in the air.

Owen's fingers were nimble and he was able to react accordingly despite the randomized attack variations the enemy mobs may try to use.

Eventually, with a last decisive swing to their necks, the Sinners were eventually killed by beheading.

+750 EXP (5x)

+925 Cleansed Souls (5x)

[Glyphs]

+Solidification Glyph (Level 33)

+Charring Protection Glyph (Level 32)

[Armor and Equipment]

+Austborn Blade (Level 30)

[Artifacts]

+Rat Tail (10% Vitality)

+Jar Of Poisonous Worms (10% Poison Resist)

"The Austborn Blade drops here? Cool sword, but it scales on magic… Not too useful. The glyph is useful though." Owen thought to himself.

After killing this small bunch of Sinners, he went to look for more. They were, of course, killed with ease.

This process repeated itself for thirty minutes.

Owen would find a couple of Sinners, run around them while dodging and damaging them until they died. It was as simple as that.

But after some time of grinding, Wolf did have to fight a Sinner with a large body frame and even more grotesque features.

[ Level: 55 - Overgrowth Sinner (Greed) ]

The Overgrowth Sinner is roughly a five meter tall creature with large eye sockets leaking with gold and a tightly shut frowning mouth. Its arms and legs were as large as tree trunks and on its back were smaller Sinners wriggling from this amalgamation of a creature.

*Gwooaaarrghhhaaa!*

The Overgrowth Sinner produced a deep, ungodly shriek that sounded like it contained the suffering of a hundred souls.

Despite its large size, the Overgrowth Sinner charged forward like a raging bull.

Owen's eyes sparkled with a sheen after seeing something pleasant. "Now we're talking…"

Owen made Wolf easily dodge to the side of the Overgrowth's charge and was ready to deliver a quick slash to the back like how he was doing earlier to the smaller Sinners.

But that turned out to be a mistake.

The Sinners on the Overgrowth's back stretched their arms forward and shot out bladed tendrils of gold and sharp black tree roots from their forearms.

"That is a consistent attack design… I'm impressed. Abyssal Confinement outdid themselves again." Owen praised the gaming company because of how they make every detail make sense in terms of gameplay.

But being able to react properly had its benefits.

Owen easily corrected his mistake by immediately shifting to the right and dashing to avoid the incoming attack.

*Fwoosh!*

After missing its attack, the Overgrowth Sinner turned around in a very rusty motion and roared once again. Splattering molten gold everywhere as it did.

It raised one of its arms and smashed it down. Owen dodged this easily and slashed the Overgrowth's face.

*whoom…* A Japanese character for 'one' appeared above the Sinner.

The Overgrowth used both arms to punch the ground, launching its front frame upwards. It then dug its arms into the ground as it landed.

*rumble….*

The ground shook for a while.

Owen immediately began running away since this move was blatantly obvious to anyone playing these types of games.

It was an attack that would use spiked structures launched from the ground that would appear where the player was currently standing.

And sure enough, his instinct was correct.

Owen expected the attack, so it wasn't too hard to dodge.

*Thwack! thwack! thwack! ….*

Series of charred roots sprung up from the ground as Wolf ran. They were always a step behind him despite his speed.

The attack's duration wasn't long. The Overgrowth soon pulled its arms out of the ground to begin attacking normally like earlier.

But even so, the charred roots were still there. They never faded despite the attack's duration ending.

This confused Owen. A change in attack design that he didn't anticipate.

He didn't know if they were dangerous or safe to touch. And because of this lack of information, he decided to stay away from the charred roots.

Wolf ran around the Overgrowth and evaded its attacks. It even raised its left arm to throw a charred pike at Wolf. Because Owen wasn't familiar with the projectile's hitbox yet, he did receive some damage from it.

"Nghnn!" Wolf grunted after being scraped in the arm.

And while Owen was busy running away from the Overgrowth, the charred roots from the earlier attack were slowly being covered by golden veins until the roots slowly turned from black to gold.

When it did, the entire thing just exploded. From the roots were blobs of gold that flew everywhere.

"Now that was unexpected. Tricking players with gimmicks like that won't work twice." Owen thought to himself.

Now that he knew what the root attack does, he approached the Overgrowth once again.

It did throw a straightforward punch to retaliate from his advance, but a properly timed dash and a slash to the face proved that it was insufficient.

*whoom…* The Japanese character for 'two' was now above the Overgrowth's head.

The Overgrowth's anger was palpable. Even though they were separated by a screen, Owen felt that the entire thing was immersive.

It shot out two streams of molten gold from its eye sockets.

*Pwissshhhh!*

Owen was a second slower and was hit by the stream of gold coming from the Overgrowth's right eye.

"Grrnnh…" Wolf showed a pained expression in his face. His health decreased from 82% to 75%

Owen raised an eyebrow. He was amused.

He dashed diagonally towards the Overgrowth's leg and slashed it again. Making the Japanese character of 'three' replace the existing digit above the Overgrowth's head.

It punched with its left fist to try and crush Wolf into a pulp, but Owen was too fast.

*Swoosh!* 'Four'

*Swoosh!* 'Five'

*Swoosh!* 'Six'

…

*Swoosh!* 'Twenty'

Owen managed to slash the Overgrowth consecutively after all this time without being hit once throughout the onslaught of his attacks because he was aware of most of its moveset by now.

And once he knew that the counter above the Overgrowth reached twenty, he activated his skill,

[ Lacerations Of The Blood Maiden ]

*Gwooaammm…*

A deep resounding sound spread out from the Overgrowth's body.

*Schwick! Schwick! Schwick! …* (20x)

Deep lacerations appeared all around the Overgrowth's body. Each of them made it growl in agony.

Blood as black as ink spew out of the lacerations. The Overgrowth was slain. It fell down before crumbling into pieces of charcoal.

But of course, such a skill did have its drawbacks.

Wolf's health of 75% quickly decreased to a measly 25%

+6,500 EXP

+8,021 Cleansed Souls

[Glyphs]

+Armor Reforge Glyph (Level 52)

[Armor and Equipment]

+Serrated Overgrowth Dagger (Level 55)

+Gauntlets Of Charred Thorns (Level 54)

+Charred Chestplate Of Greed (Level 55)

[Artifacts]

+Golden Eyeball (Greed) (20% Quality Item Drop Chance)

[Skills]

+Root Amalgamation Scroll (Level 40)

> You have risen once again. [45 > 46]

+10 Stat points for leveling up.

Seeing this, Owen stretched his body. He decided to quit the game for now. He also stopped the recording extension he used for this.

"That was a good session for today.." Owen clicked on the options menu and clicked on 'Save And Quit.'

After that, he was met with the main menu of Unguarded Sheath. He exited the entire game not too long after.

He then hovered his cursor to DeCode to chat with Rocky.

> 11_14_Ivory : got to level 45 in just 5 hours of gameplay.

> HardShellCoconut : Woooooooow. i only got there when i was playing for 8 days. enemies are tough, i had to grind for good enough material to tank some of the hits. Especially from that overgrown guy. Btw, u still in golden grieve?

> 11_14_Ivory : TripleG is ez. Also, overG guy. killed em. Attack patterns are quite tricky at first tho

> HardShellCoconut : yep, i got blown up by the roots thrice

> 11_14_Ivory : LMAOOOO what?

> HardShellCoconut : Look! i got trapped between them ok?

> 11_14_Ivory : damn, i feel bad for you

> HardShellCoconut : not everyone has a world record dude

> 11_14_Ivory : hehehe *CatDance.gif

> HardShellCoconut : aight, i have to go play some games now. if i don't do some grinding soon, you'll catch up in no time.

> 11_14_Ivory : *OkMan.gif

Seeing that Rocky went offline, Owen clicked off DeCode.

Just as he was going to edit the recording of his gameplay, he heard someone knock on his door.

*Knock, knock.*

"Hm?" Owen took off his headphones and spun on his gaming chair. He got up and walked towards the door.

"Who's there?" Owen asked before opening it.

"It's just me…" Annie's soft voice sounded behind the door.

"Oh Annie, what's up? Something wrong?" Owen tilted his head slightly.

Annie took a few seconds contemplating her next words. "About earlier, what I said may not be the case so far…" Annie grabbed her phone and gave it to Owen.

"Here, take a look."

Owen was curious and took the phone with a light blue penguin case. When his eyes landed on the screen, he saw that she got a message from a guy named Lawrence.

It read, 'Hey, Annie.. can I ask you out on a date this friday?'

"Wait, isn't Lawrence your crush? You should immediately accept if he's asking you out. To be honest, I'm glad he took the initiative." Owen gave the phone back to Annie.

Owen added, "Also, isn't Jazmine the best person you can ask about stuff like these since she's also a girl?"

Annie smiled awkwardly. "I would've asked her about this but, I think she's not going to be helpful in a bad mood."

Owen agreed. "That… is a reasonable reason." He then gestured to talk inside his room. "So as I was saying, you should agree to it after a good conversation."

Annie walked inside the room and sat down on his bed. "I know, but… if you didn't know, he's quite a gamer as well… he didn't notice me for a long time until recently… I'm just afraid that… uhmm.." Annie began fidgeting with her fingers.

"Afraid that what?" Owen sat on his gaming chair and faced her.

"He might have heard that you were Ivory11 from MeTube. Who knows, maybe he's a fan of yours and wanted to get close to you." Annie's insecurity could be heard from her tone alone.

"After all, I'm not smart like Jazmine or as skilled and resourceful as you… There's no reason for him to approach me to begin with." Annie added.

Owen chuckled softly. It wasn't him making fun of her, but it was to reassure her. "Don't be ridiculous. Try talking to him about different things first. Who knows? Maybe he likes you because you're… well, you."

Annie looked at his eyes before calming down. "Yeah, you might be right."

Snapping his fingers together, Owen proposed an idea, "How about this? I'll be with you on your way there. And depending on his reaction, you might know if he's being genuine or not."

"That would be nice." Annie nodded. "I- I think I'll take my time to talk to him now. Excuse me.." Annie slowly stood up and left Owen's room.

As she left Owen thought to himself. "Sis, you really need to have more confidence in yourself…"

But there was no helping it. If Annie wants to overcome her own struggles, he could only help her get through them slowly. He knew that he just needed to match her pace.

Now that Annie's conundrum has been dealt with, Owen went back to his PC to begin editing gameplay footage.

— Somewhere in New Lorten City…

It was in the same country of Eunson where Hemptonburg is.

Oliver Audres Crematorium …

Here, Dominic Paulsen's body was about to be cremated just as his family wished for.

And someone who has been working here for a long time, Bryan has been doing his job for hours now, and he wanted to take a break.

"Phew, I deserve to take a break, don't I?" Bryan sat down in the corner of the room on a metal foldable chair. Looking at the gloomy atmosphere, he wasn't disturbed or spooked in any way. After all, he was used to it.

The room was filled with dead bodies. And the only bright light source only lit up a significant portion of the room, leaving a dark and creepy unlit area.

Dominic's body was laid on a wide and cold metal table. A white cloth covered his body except for his pale face and shoulders.

Bryan looked at the body. He knew who this was.

"Usually, I get to see bodies from accidents and murders. Never have I seen someone die from something like this." Bryan heard the rumors about Dominic being involved in a satanic ritual or something. But being the man he is, he brushed it off as utter nonsense.

*twitch…*

Dominic's left finger moved.

Bryan was resting with his head down, so he didn't even see it.

*Bang!*

Dominic's left hand crashed against the metal table.

"Ah?" Bryan was awoken from his short nap. "The hell was that?" He stood up, confused.

*Aaaauuughh…*

And just as he looked for the source of the sound, Dominic's lifeless body began rising, his arms, legs and head dangling downwards. The groan he produced was too deep for a human body to make.

All the items around the morgue began flying in different directions, the light began flickering, and darkness seemed to begin enveloping the area.

The corpse's pupils dilated and began losing their dark color. Dominic's head spun and spun, all the while producing inhuman groans.

Bryan was rooted in his spot. He was afraid. Totally afraid. He was frozen in fear and his body couldn't stop shivering.

"Oh god… What am I seeing..?"

*AAHHHH!*

Dominic produced a raspy demonic shout. His head finally stopped spinning and turned to look at Bryan.

"The gods paid heed to the offering, the gods paid heed to the offering, the gods paid heed to the offering, the gods paid heed to the offering…"

Dominic spoke, but his mouth never moved from it being open. It's as if the sound came from somewhere else.

Somewhere beyond the physical plane.

*Hauughh…* Dominic inhaled an unrealistic amount of air in his throat.

"The gods will be taking a worthy soul into their holy garden!"

And bam!

Dominic stopped floating and fell down into the metal table. Everything around Bryan also stopped moving. The lights went back to normal as if nothing ever happened.

Bryan's mouth opened wide.

It took him some time before he even reacted.

But when he did, it was a reasonable reaction after seeing whatever happened in front of him.

"WHAT THE F*** WAS THAT?!"