A Game?

"What happened here..." Arnold mumbled once he regained consciousness. The first thing he saw was the massive crater in front of him, all of his summons were standing around the crater looking at him with utmost respect.

Arnold slowly made his way to the edge of the crater and saw a blood mangled body of the once proud and strong Bob. His body was scattered into pieces around the crater. As Arnold looked down into the crater, his arms started shaking like crazy. His hands and robe were covered in blood.

Even though Arnold, had already killed quite a few people and had seen many gruesome things, the aftermath of the battle, he was looking at was something no human could've ever achieved...

The last thing he remembered was getting thrown out of building... and hit the ground, then his memories were hazy. He tried to recall anything but it was all in vain.

"SYSTEM! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE!?" Arnold shouted with mixed emotions. He was happy that he was alive, but not having any memory of the fight definitely agitated him.

When the system failed to reply, Arnold quickly turned towards the Talos who was still transformed as Jake.

"What the hell happened here, Talos?"

The automaton raised his head when he heard his masters voice. "You defeated the inhuman, master."

"Inhuman?"

"Yes master, that's what the man said he was before you killed him."

"What do you mean I killed him? If I killed him why don't I have any memory of it?"

"Sorry master, but I don't know the answer to your question." Talos said in his electronic voice. "However since I too found the incident to be bit odd, I recorded everything I could."

"That's good, at least I would be clueless about it after I watch the video. You did well Talos I-"

"I'm glad to see you're back to normal now." Johnny's voice came from behind him.

Arnold turned around to face him but what he saw completely shocked him... all the members of the family as well as few of the guild members that had participated in the battle and were alive, had aimed their skills and abilities at him. They were ready to fire at him on command.

"W...What is going on here?" Arnold asked Johnny who seemed to be the only one who was acting normally.

"Don't mind them, they are only doing what I told them to." Johnny smiled and touched Arnold's shoulders. "I can't be too careless after what I saw. Of course it wouldn't be a life threatening situation for me if you lost control again, but sadly, I can't say the same about the others..."

'Just what the hell happened HERE!? Why is everyone so scared of me all of a sudden? And why can't I remember anything?'

Many questions were raised in Arnold's mind. Everyone except Johnny, were scared sh*tless, even though their number was well over 300 and a he and his summons were only half of that amount.

"What about the mission? Where's the President and everyone else?" Arnold asked, still confused about everything. He felt like his brain would explode if he kept thinking about what happened there.

"The vice president is in our custody, sadly his daughter and a few others were able to escape. As for the President..." He nodded at Nathan who came forward carrying a body bag with him, "He died while fighting me, I'm pretty sure, it wasn't due to the fight. Something else might have happened... maybe a heart attack? We won't know for sure until the postmortem is completed."

Arnold silently nodded. The others were still pointing ready to unleash their skill on him, which made him feel uncomfortable. "Could you tell them it's alright now? I feel like I'm being interrogated right now..."

"Hahaha... of course." Johnny laughed and signaled everyone to relax. Everyone sighed in relief but didn't dare to move from their spot. "Again, I'm sorry for the cold atmosphere."

"It's alright."

"Nathan and the others can handle the clean up. Kolt, Aydan what was the chief's response?"

"The police will overlook the incident, not that they had much choice. As far as they are considered, the members of Black Family were never here." Aydan replied, " 'A fire broke out, and consumed the guild in its entirety. It is suspected that the guild had been storing a highly inflammable monster material which caused the incident.' How does this story sounds?"

"Pretty good, I must say." Johnny replied, "Well that settles it, we should head back now."

"Could you wait for a second? I think I dropped something in the crater... I'll be back soon." Arnold said and jumped into the crater.

'Bob's body would still be of use... I can try to resurrect him using Jake's skill and if that fails I can still use his blood to get new skills and if he's resurrected, maybe he can tell me about those weird enhancements. It'll be problematic if enemies like him kept popping up again and again... and after that's been taken care of, I can watch the video that Talos recorded. It's important for me to know exactly what happened here tonight after I lost consciousness.'

With this in his mind, Arnold stored the bits and pieces of Bob's body into the void and cancelled his summoning. Just when he was about to leave, something felt weird, as if someone or something was intently staring at him.

*****

AT THE ROOFTOP OF A BUILDING, NEAR THE FLYING SWORDS GUILD...

"You think it's him?" A woman wearing a blue hood asked the person next to her.

"After the scale of destruction he caused, I'll be disappointed if he isn't." A crimson skinned woman replied.

She had a lean face with an oval jaw, a thin nose, small ears, bony cheeks and small lips. Her pale and seductive blue eyes were puffy, and had thin eyebrows. The way she maintained her image, showed off how sensitive she was about her looks. Her elbow-length, straight, bright pink hair was neatly braided. She had toned arms and hands with long fingers, a long torso with modest breasts, plump hips, long legs, and proportionate feet. There were multiple rings on her right hand.

"I never thought we'd meet him so soon..."

"Were not. At least not yet, Immortal one wouldn't be pleased if we attacked his vassal directly, it'll be against the rules."

"So what do you suggest?"

"Make our pawns stronger... I'm not giving up on this world. I won't let the Immortal one steal another world from me-"

"By me, you mean us right?" A black skinned man interrupted the crimson woman. The man had an authoritative feel about him, because the moment he spoke up, the other woman instantly bowed down to him.

"...of course." The crimson skinned women replied.

"But stopping the Immortal one wouldn't be sufficient, we'll have to stop the other five as well." The woman wearing the hood intervened.

"Hehehe... I've really started to like this game, but I'm tried of losing to the Immortal one." The man waved his hand as his eyes located Arnold.

"The feeling's mutual, that's why the three of us must unite." The hooded woman replied.

"Indeed." The man smiled. "Unite and rule."