Is this really a Game?!

The incredible pressure that Reign was giving off was hard to resist even for those that were close to going through the first evolution. The four in front of him were not even close to that while the man, although above level 40, was still far too weak for Reign. All of them knew that, which is why the man didn’t even try to run or fight against Reign, it would be meaningless, akin to suicide.

“So, what will it be?” Reign asked with a cold voice as he stared at the man. In the man’s eyes, what was in front of him couldn’t be described as human as Reign seemed more like a monster right now, his incredible mana coupled with the lightning that coiled around him made for a spectacular sight, one that the man wouldn’t forget till the day he died.

“I-I’ll talk.” The man hung his head down as he clenched his fist, luckily for him he knew that Reign had listened to their conversation which meant he knew they were not enemies, well not for now at least.

“Good, good, I do love it when everything can be solved amicably and without any fights.” Reign smiled warmly as he withdrew his mana from his body, he walked forward and sat down on a rock before motioning for the man to do the same.

“Oh, you guys can go back to the safe zone,” Reign told the four as they looked at him and the man with confusion.

“Do as he says.” The man says with a heavy face. He knew why Reign had told them that instead of kicking them out, he wanted to use the four as hostages for one, and perhaps he would try to learn more from them later. The man however didn’t show any emotions on his face, he knew that although the chances were low, something like this could have happened at any moment. Their territory wasn’t big and they didn’t have a social hub which meant that they could only gather information in this way.

“So, talk.” Reign simply stared at the man as the latter gulped a bit before starting his story.

“First of all, my name is Marco, it’s nice to meet you, sir,” Marco said as he took off his cloak. He was a middle-aged man with sharp facial features, sky blue eyes, and blonde hair. A thin beard and thin reading glasses decorated his face while one of his ears was pierced and a small earring was there.

What caught Reign’s eyes were the man’s hands, however. The moment when Marco put his hands up in order to lift his cloak, Reign was able to see two rings and some tattoos on his fingers, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. It was the calluses that were present on his hands, calluses that one could get only after training for a long time. The skin on the back of his hand was also different, it was rugged and thicker compared to the rest of the body, a result of years of conditioning his hands for fighting.

“Hmmm?” Marco suddenly looked at Reign strangely before seeing that he was looking at his hands.

“Boxing?” Reign asked him as the man chuckled a bit.

“Muay Thai, I used to compete,” Marco said as Reign focused on his face, the stare from Reign made Marco a bit uncomfortable but he stood straight and kept his calm.

“You know, a lot of people wondered where you disappeared after your fight against Arthit, I have to say that I was a fan as a kid as well.” Reign shook his head as a smile appeared on his face while Marco stared at him with wonder in his eyes.

“You-you know-”

“The man blessed by heavens, Marco ‘The Jackal’ Braga.” Reign smiled at the man as the latter scratched his head in embarrassment.

“That, that was a long time ago boy,” Marco said as he flashed a weak smile on his face.

“It was, but fighters that abruptly disappear from the world stage whilst having a record of 54 wins and no losses are only a handful, not to mention that even though ten years have passed, you still looked the same.”

“That would be thanks to the leader of my order, well, what you want to know has to do with me disappearing from the scene as well,” Marco said as he put his hand up. Small flames suddenly appeared above his hand before they changed to lightning, and then to a small piece of ice.

“My ability has nothing to do with these 3 elements by the way, neither is this a skill,” Marco said before sighing a bit.

“Ten years ago, I met a man, a man I now follow and respect as the leader of our group.” Marco said as he looked at Reign, “The truth is boy, mana existed on this planet even before the system appeared.”

Reign’s eyes widened in shock as he listened to Marco. The following half an hour was spent by Marco talking to Reign and telling him about the many orders in the world, about how there were all kinds of abilities and skills before the system. Mana existed, and sometimes monsters would be born, those monsters would of course be all taken care of by the many orders of the world who made sure the news never got out.

“Nobody expected something like this to happen though, there was no mention of the system or anything similar to it in the ancient writings, and from what we managed to find out, the system has been present in the universe for eons now, even during the golden age of our planet where people that could flip over mountains and destroy cities existed.”

“We all knew that mana was returning and that soon things on our planet would change, but not like this, nobody expected a calamity like this to suddenly take place,” Marco suddenly shook a bit before continuing, “From what we have learned so far, about 30% of the population is dead, and that’s just the info for the first week of the game, god knows how many more have died till now.”

Reign’s eyes again widened in shock after learning about that, he knew that a large number of people had died thanks to the game, but to think that such a large number had actually died, it was simply too great of a shock.

“If the system didn’t exist, I’m afraid that even more would have died.” Marco suddenly said.

“What do you mean even more?”

“Because of the mana, the influx of mana to our world was too sudden, well, to be more exact it was our planet that was taking more and more mana from the universe, that’s probably how the system found us.” Marco continued. “If the safe zones and the system didn’t exist, if they didn’t give us a chance with that, perhaps most of humanity would have perished the first week, I honestly don’t want to even think about it.”

Reign nodded his head in agreement, he had heard that usually, a planet would have much more time to prepare, mana would slowly start increasing and more powerful monsters would appear, but it would take years for that to happen, a case like theirs was scarce, for a large amount of mana to appear and for so many monsters to show up was something that happened to one out of 300 planets usually.

He also learned a bit more from Eldar previously, even though the system had said that it did the terraforming and everything else, the alliance and the system in fact did nothing of the sort. The terraforming was something that the planet would have done by itself, the system just sped it by and teleported all of humanity outside in order to keep them alive during the process.

Perhaps weaker monsters would have appeared at the beginning of the system didn’t intervene, but without the many safe zones and the ease with which people could get stronger and learn to use mana with the system, many more would have definitely died. Because of that, the anger Reign and the others once felt towards the system and the alliance disappeared as they knew that this was inevitable.

“Yes, even though the system had declared that this was because of the alliance, it was a tactic, one whose goal was to make us angry and increase our chances of survival, I have to say it did work, many persevered in the early days of the game simply because they were angry at the alliance and how they destroyed the planet, only wishing to become stronger and get revenge.”

“And then later the system would show them the truth, after people had gotten much stronger and had adapted to our current lifestyle they would simply continue, with the goal now being to survive and reclaim the planet before joining the alliance, I have to admit, as much as I hate it, it’s quite a good plan.” Reign said. 𝗼𝐯𝗹．𝐞𝘁

“Yes, it truly is, but now, I guess it’s time for me to tell you how I met the man I call my leader, and why I decided to disappear from Muay Thai completely all those years ago,” Marco said as he looked at Reign with a serious expression on his face.