A New World, an immersive game experience

After a few steps, Eldrian stopped himself again. 

'Wait, what is going on?'  Trying to recall what had happened, Eldrian slowly managed to put things together again. 

'We attacked the undead network again, and I told Ceph to run... What happened after that?' Try as he might, Eldrian couldn't recall what had happened after. 

'Does that mean I died? At least this time it isn't just darkness. But, what is going on?'  Eldrian turned to observe his surroundings. 

Outside of the raging elements and the white gate, he saw nothing else. 

'Mmm... If I recall correctly, players normally find themselves in some sort of temple when waiting for resurrection to kick in.'

'Is that the temple?' Turning to the white gate Eldrian took a few steps forward before stopping again. 

'Well, I can't just stay here.'  Moving cautiously to the white gate, Eldrian entered it with a feeling of apprehension. However, nothing happened immediately and he could even turn around and leave. 

Inside the gate was indeed some sort of temple, though the lights were far too bright to allow Eldrian to look at anything. A few minutes later he found himself in the temple of Skepsi in Valan city. 

'Well, at least it doesn't seem like anything bad happened.' Eldrian thought as he confirmed that he was back in his avatar.

[Unwilling Undead - Ghoul (Tier 5) killed - Rewarded 604.8k XP -> Intertwined (Shared XP gain) - gained 302.4k XP]

[Unwilling Undead - Ghoul (Tier 6) killed - Rewarded 4.2M XP -> Intertwined (Shared XP gain) - gained 2.1M XP]

[Unwilling Undead - Ghoul (Tier 6) killed - Rewarded 4.9M XP -> Intertwined (Shared XP gain) - gained 2.5M XP]

[Devil Prince - Korgrath (Tier 7) killed - Rewarded 56.4M XP -> Intertwined (Shared XP gain) - gained 28.2M XP]

[Level 25 reached]

[You died, lost 3 levels]

Reading through the log, Eldrian could feel a slight twitch grow in his right eye. He was naturally happy that it seemed not much more had happened and that he wasn't hurt or in a weakened state. But seeing his level stay the same after reading through the log... That just sucked. 

***

"Why did you stop me from rushing to his aid?" Tovack asked after they confirmed that Eldrian had indeed died. 

"Because he will never be able to reach his true potential if we keep protecting him. As the saying goes, Mythril can only be forged through extreme heat."

"The same holds for people, if we coddle them then they will never reach their true potential."

"Lord, I understand that. However, he died. Is there even a purpose if the person does not survive?"

"This might be true for us who do not have the safety that the Chosen have. However, not only is he a Chosen who is protected by the gods, he also has a Zoe partner. Along with that, we kept the liches from reaching them."

"The only true danger he might face is those who can damage his soul, as long as we ensure that he does not face anyone past his level of this type, death is acceptable."

"You mean to say, you expected him to die?"

"I did, and he did it in quite a spectacular way. I have a feeling he also now knows what he is up against. I am curious how he is going to handle this going forward."

***

"Dammit!" Evale slammed the table, causing its sturdy thick wooden legs to crack under the force. 

"We did all we could, the undead were too prepared." Sodren said, trying to talk some sense into the centaurette. 

Now was not the time for regret, rather, it was the time they needed to be strong and keep their morale high. 

"I did this! I pushed for this!" Evale cursed and slammed the table again, causing it to crash to the ground as it failed to withstand the force. 

"And I agreed, so did the others. You didn't force anyone into this." Sodren knew that he wasn't the best person to try and talk sense into someone. He was normally on the receiving end of such talks. But, there was no one else who could. 

"Still... It is-"

She stopped as a young black-haired child with green highlights entered the tent. The sight of which was so bizarre and him being here so confusing that her mind failed to make sense of what was going on. 

"Eldrian is alright." Cephaphyr said with a smile, "He had a little trouble resurrecting, but he is alright."

"Wha- how do you know?"

"Just trust me, he is alright. More importantly, we really angered the big boss."

"Big boss?" Evale questioned, but Cephaphyr didn't know much more. 

"It-it is hard to maintain a connection this far..." Ceph mumbled as he almost stumbled. "But... Eldrian says it is some type of Oni."

"Oni? A half-demon?"

"Yes, not sure... He will be here soon. He will explain then."

***

After having gathered his thoughts and also confirmed that there was no lasting effect, which was quite shocking and massively a good thing, Eldrian had started thinking of how to rush back to warn everyone. 

Of course, the first step was to teleport to Pyknos Fort and rush to the camp. After having teleported, he had discovered that he could faintly still feel the telepathic link with Cephaphyr. 

Eldrian was unsure if this was because of them being Zoe partners or if it was Ceph's doing, however, he quickly tried to warn Ceph. Asking him to inform the camp that they needed to stay on high alert. 

...

Finally arriving at the camp, Eldrian rushed straight to the walls. A massive life and death battle was already underway. Masses of dark mist constantly assaulted the walls, each hit rocking their very foundations. 

Behind this mass of darkness could be seen an army of a few thousand. It was nowhere near as many undead as the first large battle. However, the weakest in this army was the unwilling, making up only 60% of the army. 

"This..." Evale and Sodren muttered as they watched the army waiting behind the black mass that the liches were using to assault the walls. 

Their aim wasn't to break the walls, most of the undead in this army could scale or fly over the walls with ease. Instead, they were trying to break the formation.

"This is bad, has Eldrian said anything else?" Evale asked Cephaphyr who had an extremely grave expression. 

"No, the connection between us was unstable and hard to talk through. It broke mid-conversation." Ceph said, chills covering his body as he looked at an army where each and everyone member of it was a danger. Was capable of injuring and even killing him. 

***

"Are we still going to stand and watch?" Hrothgar asked the blind dwarf, unable to keep his anger from his voice. 

"It is not our fight." Tovack replied as something suddenly grasped his attention. "However, it might be his."

Turning to where Tovack was looking, Hrothgar saw nothing. However, only one person could cause Tovack to smile like that. 

"Same as always then? We keep those capable of injuring souls away from him?"

"No, let's extinguish them.' Tovack said, though he wasn't going to personally join the battle. That would be overkill and take away the chance for growth from everyone involved. 

Naturally, many would die. But in war that was to be expected.

AN: A big thanks to everyone who continues to support this novel on WN.