2. Nether realm's emperor

The Jade Empire was one of the two empires in the central continent. The empire had 12 cities in it which were as big as a state on earth.

In the streets of 3rd land, a young man with short black hair walked straight with a bored expression.

He had only a cloak on him and he looked extremely tired.

'Its been three days since I started the game. I'm just wasting my time still logging in, how am I supposed to grow stronger if I can't even cultivate. I can't even choose a new avatar.' Silas was frustrated inwardly.

'Players won't even agree to complete quests with me as... in their words, they can kill me with a single slap.' Silas looked around at the peaceful market place where players exchanged their items and bought even more.

On the outside, he just looked with a bored, annoyed expression.

"How dare you, kid?!"

Silas turned to the side as he noticed a small commotion and then he walked towards the place.

There, he saw a young, handsome blonde man in a silver armor raising an arm to hit a small kid. Behind him were four other people in silver armours which looked quite flexible, they all looked at the mother with obvious contempt.

"Please sir! It was his mistake, it won't happen again." The mother pleaded but the man blonde man brought his hand to his waist and unsheathed his sword.

"You should've raised him well, useless mortals," The knight said as he raised his sword up and immediately he did it, a person wearing a black cloak jumped in and pulled the kid out of the way.

Silas dropped the kid a few metres away and then a punch landed on his face with a loud bang, it was like a hammer and all his teeth on the left side broke at once as the force sent him flying into a small fruit store.

"Who dares?!" The blonde man walked towards the fruit store in rage.

"He was a mortal, sir." One of the men said from behind and then Silas came out of the store and spat out all the teeth which broke and blood dripped from his mouth steadily.

"Mortal, it seems like you don't know who we are... You must be one of those foreign people called 'Players'. Seems like you don't know how things work around here." The man said with a cold glare and Silas laughed with his mouth still bloody.

"What's your problem? They apologized, yet you still want to kill them. Look at how beautiful your weapon is. Why don't you let them off with a warning first?" Silas said with a grin and the man suddenly appeared in front of Silas and Silas knew what was coming so he closed his eyes.

...

"A player?"

"No, we wouldn't even bother to help NPCs, they're not real after all."

"Yeah, the guy's an idiot."

"We're all trying to join the city guards and he goes ahead and offends them."

Other players around saw Silas' bloodied body on the ground and they sneered at him for being a fool.

Silas stood up, he had a black eye with only the right part of his teeth intact and he already broke his left arm.

He turned around and saw the kid still standing there waiting for him and he bent down before asking;

"Are you okay?" Silas asked the small boy and he nodded, the mother came from behind with a bottle of water and then she saw Silas awake.

"Thank you, young man. You risked your life to protect my son." The woman said to Silas and he looked up to see that it was already night.

"It's no problem." Silas said to her before walking away. The little boy looked at Silas in admiration as he walked away.

'This is how this place is. Power is everything. If you don't have strength, you're nothing, you're trash. Just because of a useless malfunction, I've suffered in the game that is supposed to be my second chance at a normal life with a clean record.'

'I can't even talk to people here, they might just break my arm. Even the players act like that at times.' Silas sighed as he continued walking down the empty street.

Silas looked down as he began to remember what the NPCs say to him everytime.

*"The heavens spite the weak."*

*"The heavens recognizes those with Superior talent."*

"The heavens despise people like you."*

*"You're trash before the heavens."*

'The heavens. I hate the heavens. Valuing power over any other thing.' Silas balled his free hand's fist and then he sighed as he just continued walking.

Even if he hated the heavens, There's nothing he can do with no power.

...

Now, most stores were closed and Silas looked at the time floating at the upper right corner of his vision.

[20th december, 2030. 1:20AM]

'I'm quitting this game. Fucking useless.' Silas said as he summoned his profile screen and proceeded to log out.

As he tapped the log out button, the orange screen suddenly glitched as it slowly got corrupted and turned purple with a few words written on it.

[You will be transported to hell in 20 seconds.]

[20...]

[19...]

'The hell is going on?' Silas tapped the screen over and over again and then nothing happened and he felt frustrated and angry.

First he couldn't cultivate, now he wasn't allowed to log out... And this...

"Hell, isn't this a cultivation based game?" Silas was confused as he has only ever heard of the heavens.

But if there is heaven, there's supposed to be hell.

Silas legs began to shake as he felt weak and he knelt in the ground as he watched the timer count down to 0.

[5...]

...

[2... 1...]

As soon as the numbers reached one the scene Silas was in changed and he saw himself sitting on a warm, hard reddish ground.

He looked forward to see himself on top of a small mountain and he looked forth to see withered trees and a dead land for miles.

There were terrifying creatures down below the mountain on the land and he raised a brow as he swallowed.

"L... Let me try logging out again." As he swiped his hand horizontally to summon his status screen, a large notification popped up in the sky, catching his attention.

[Welcome back to the nether realm, emperor Silas.]