Cheaters Never Win!
"Those with grand dreams and infinite desires will fall…"
John was having a bad dream, he was winning a competition winning millions of dollars making his family and girlfriend proud. He felt that his body was flying towards the heavens as he experienced the warm light from the sun.
Suddenly John felt a falling sensation in his stomach as all the warmth surrounding him vanished into a cold abyss.
*Splat*
The feeling of getting punched in the gut woke John up in a woozy state. Looking around he found himself not in his comfy bedroom but lying on a black obsidian platform surrounded by boiling red lava.
"What the hell is going on, am I in another dream," John said but the voice that he was used to didn't come out of his throat.
A husky and high-pitched screech came out of his mouth in a language that John wasn't familiar with.
Looking down, he saw a pair of three-fingered gray claws covered in rapidly drying slime that bore the resemblance of lizards compared to human hands.
*Grumble*
Before John could understand his situation more a deep roar came from his stomach followed by pangs of hunger driving him insane. Losing control of his body, John watched in horror as his body shoved down pieces of largely shattered eggshells from the ground.
Scarfing down his broken eggshells John finally regained control of his body as his hunger was reduced slightly.
But that wasn't the end. As soon as he bit the last eggshell foreign memories flooded his mind. Pictures of monsters in various colors, shapes, patterns, and bodies flashed through his head evoking reactions that John had never had before.
One of the pictures was of a giant cyclops that emitted rays of blinding light that stroked fear and hatred into John's body. The name of that creature was further imprinted into his mind forever; Holy Light Cyclops!
It was only then that John knew his situation. The black platform, lava pit, and how his body didn't resemble a human's. It all made sense that he wasn't human anymore, he was reborn as a demon after his death.
In John's previous life, he was in his early 30s as a college dropout working part-time at a private gym near his apartment. The pay as a personal couch was pretty good at this gym so John was able to fill his gaming addiction whenever he wasn't at the gym.
The day of his death was very ordinary. In fact, there was nothing special about it except for the fact that it was raining very heavily that day.
He remembered getting ready to head off to the gym to meet with his clients but received a call that every single one of them canceled due to the heavy rain. Since he had a day off, he decided that today he was going to finish playing a game that he had grown quite fond of recently. It was called something like Devil Be Damned!
That game was f*cking hard as shit. As an avid gamer, John couldn't even beat the first level as all the other players either were high leveled or smurfing.
In frustration, he looked up tutorials to get past this barrier but only found a YouTube video saying that the game devs gave up on the game many years ago allowing the old players and bots to destroy the balance of the game.
With that John decided that the best thing he could do was bust out his rusty coding skills to give himself a boost. It didn't take very long to create a cheat for the game as he had developed one that fits most of his needs back in college and only needed to modify it.
Loading up his new and improved hack, John was finally able to show everyone his skills passing the various levels with flying colors.
"Whoever said that cheating doesn't feel good? I feel f*cking great!"
*Knock Knock knock!*
Hearing a knock on his door, John thought that it was strange for someone to knock on his door at this hour. Taking a look at the peephole, John saw a man who was wearing a gray trench coat that covered his entire body and a gray hat covering his face.
What was strange about the man was that he was drenched in water, most likely because he was caught by surprise by the rain. John at first didn't want to deal with this strange man but when he caught his parents' urns sitting on the counter he had a change of heart.
"Sigh, Mom and Dad would have yelled at me for not helping an unlucky man like this."
With reluctance, John felt his heart die as he remembered that he felt good about doing a good deed at that time. But it would instead lead to his death.
When John opened his door, the drenched man didn't let out a word before he took out a gun and unloaded his magazine into John's body.
Before John's death, he heard the strange man speak, "You shouldn't have cheated, B*tch."
"Is this some sick joke, does God hate cheaters too!" Laughing at his situation, John didn't know what to do.
His entire surroundings were filled with danger. On the platform were demon eggs that shake occasionally as the demons inside woke up from their slumber. From time to time new eggs were tossed on the platform by gushing lava.
And the terrible hunger from before was coming back, causing John to slowly lose control of his body. Suddenly, John heard a familiar ding inside his head before he knew what was going on a blue panel popped in front of him
On the blue panel were two bubbles that had different images inside each of them. On the right had the image of a skinny bald demon with grayish skin and budding horns. On the left was the silhouette of a demonic-looking sapling.
Witnessing this blue pop-up panel in front of him brought a flood of memories as John realized that this was the same software that he had created in his previous life. Clicking on the right bubble, the image of the small demon enlarged as a realistic 3D model of John was created.
Not a very flattering looking demon, John thought but he realized that it was most likely what he currently looked like before changing his language.
"You know what, I don't look half bad."
After complimenting himself, John looked at the rest of the information below his 3d model.
Name: John Oliver
Race: Demon
Experience point: 100
Energy: 1
Status: Newborn(Underdeveloped)
Strength: 3
Speed: 2
Dexterity: 2
Defense: 4
Vitality: 3
Magic Energy: 0
Review: A newborn demon that was lucky enough to survive but was born too early.
After examining his stats, John opened up the second bubble with the demonic plants. The bubble grew bigger until John saw that underneath the sapling were the bones of demons, humans, angels, and other creatures bones that he wasn't sure about.
This bubble didn't have much else as it only had a plus symbol on the bubble with a quick explanation.
This upgrade cost 1 energy and 100 experience to perform. Once selected the user will undergo an evolution that is most suitable for your situation.
Warnings: if there is too much experience then the cost of upgrading will increase; if the user is in a particular area for a long time the upgrade will go in that direction at the detriment of other traits.
"Let's try upgrading."
Knowing that he didn't have much time before the other demons began to hatch, John could only put his life in the hands of his system.
With a satisfying click, a warm sensation rose from John's stomach before covering his skin. John felt like he was taking a warm bath but that didn't last long before the warmth vanished leaving an unbearable itch all over his body.
Luckily as soon as John's willpower was about to break the itch disappeared leaving John to feel that his skin grew harder but kept its flexibility.
Pulling up his Status window, John observed the few changes to his profile. In the 3d model of himself, the previous demon model's skin had the texture of his eggshell.
Name: John Oliver
Race: Demon
Experience point: 0
Energy: 0
Status: Newborn(Underdeveloped)
Strength: 4
Speed: 2
Dexterity: 2
Defense: 6
Vitality: 5
Magic Energy: 0
Review: A newborn demon that was lucky enough to survive but was born too early.
Seeing how the description still mentioned that he was still weak compared to his demon counterparts John felt a sense of urgency.
Whether or not it was affected by his demon urge to devour his fellow demon counterparts John came to one conclusion for his survival.
" I need to evolve more.... for that I need to get more energy and experience... which I can get by eating demons."
*Splat Splat Splat*
Just then the platform that John stood on shook as a gush of lava busted from the surrounding lava pool creating a massive pillar of lava reaching hundreds of meters tall.
Mixed inside this lava pillar were hundreds if not thousands of demon eggs riding it to the only piece of solid ground.
Hundreds of demon eggs crashed into the platform with cracks covering the shells. Hundreds of demon eggs splattered the ground with their inside not having a chance to hatch. Hundreds of eggs landed on the platform with no damage as they waited for the demon to fully emerge.
Several eggs landed close to John and one of the eggs landed right in front of him. The hunger that John had been suppressing attacked John's mind again trying to take control for him to feed.
This time John was going to listen to his body's desires as he approached the egg. John was amazed at the size of the egg as it was taller than him. It also had a blue and purple shell that contrasted with the red and black that surrounded them.
Not wanting to wait any longer John threw a punch at the egg only for a sharp pain to travel through his arm. The blue egg on the other hand was completely undamaged by John's poor attempt, not even wobbling to show its disdain.
"Sh*t that hurt!" Howling in anger John instinctively attacks the blue egg with his tail.
*Crack*
The strong egg that didn't show any signs of damage due to John's punch, cracked. The demon inside the egg seemed to sense that it was in danger as it vigorously shakes attempting to escape its egg prison.
Seeing the blue egg shaking violently John felt fear and used his tail to attack the egg before the demon could escape.
This time the blue egg completely shatters, spreading its slime all over the place before evaporating due to the extreme heat. Looking inside the remaining egg, John saw that the demon that he was so afraid of was just a giant blue featherless chicken.
The Chicken demon attempted to open its shut eyes and escape from the danger it sensed. However, it was futile as John ruthlessly smashed his tail on the chicken's head until it was completely dead.
It could have been due to John having been reborn as a demon, his unbearable hunger, or the dangerous environment changing his behavior but he felt a thrill he never felt before when he saw his tail covered in purple blood.
"Wow...that was... exciting." Heaving from the physical exertion, John took deep breaths to catch his breath.
Feeling the platform shake once more as thousands of demon eggs flew through the air. As well as the constant munching of the newborn demon a distance away from him, eating gave John a need to eat his meal quickly.
Taking a bite of Demon chicken John soon found himself unable to stop himself from eating everything in reach. From the meat to the bones and even the scattered eggshells on the ground.
Within minutes John had left nothing behind in his wake. After his meal, John lifted his head to see that a four-eyed demon of a similar size as him had killed another demon shaped like a centipede.
As soon as the four-eyed demon launched the killing blow a gray ball of light left the demon centipede's body quickly getting eaten by the four-eyed demon. Licking the blood off its lips the four-eyed demon shivered as its body expanded to double its original size making it even more monstrous.
After completing its transformation the four-eyed demon didn't wait to savor its new form before attacking a demon that was in the middle of its meal.
Witnessing the four-eyed demon's transformation realization hit John like a rock.
"This place is a demon hatchery where demons are supposed to kill each other and eat each other's souls to rapidly reach adulthood."