Chapter Three: The Graveyard District
The road after the rain was muddy. The slums were always a mess of muddy roads, with every step splashing up muck. Occasionally, refuse from the corners of the alleys would be washed out by the rain, and a foul odor pervaded the air. Inside the densely packed, low-roofed shacks, many expressionless people were busy; they needed to repair their homes and then rush to the docks to find some labor work. Whenever the rainy season hit, many houses would leak, and occasionally there would be tragedies involving collapses.
Soren was walking along the stinking, muddy road, holding the cold body of his old dog. Vivian, with a downcast expression, held his hand, silently following behind.
Hess was dead!
The old dog that had followed her since birth had finally reached the end of its life.
They were going to bury it just like a human.
It deserved that!
“Soren!…”
“That’s Soren!… He’s awake!…”
“This is going to be interesting.”
The people in the slums whispered to each other, their eyes filled with a hint of admiration because the boy before them was a formidable thief who could easily take down three or five grown men. It was said that he had once pinned a flying fly with a dagger. Nearby, there were two thugs named Barras and Kanopo who had been eyeing Vivian ever since Soren fell unconscious. It was even rumored that they had taken part of Sorsia’s deposit and had warned them several times to mind their own business! The slums were a land of sin.
No one was willing to stand up for the poor girl; they feared those thugs and had no ability to fight against them.
“Brother.”
“Where are we going?”
Vivian was wearing a tattered dress, a very cheap skirt sewn from linen, a garment that only the people of the slums would wear. Although Soren had once been an excellent thief, he had a stronger thieving leader above him. Most of the things he stole had to be offered up, leaving just enough to maintain their basic survival.
Here lay the survival rules for the marginalized!
No matter how skilled a newly initiated thief might be, he had no chance of challenging this kind of rule.
“To the graveyard.”
“Hess should be buried there.”
Soren looked at the familiar yet strange scene before him, remembering some overlapping images from his memories. Amber City felt somewhat familiar to him because he had heard of the name in the game before. However, by then, the epic storyline had already begun, and a terrifying power had erupted in the chaotic time and space, causing the gods to temporarily lose their divine powers and be forced to descend to the world in the form of saints. It was an exceptionally chaotic time, with deities returning to their realms from time to time, and mortals slaying gods successfully. Players were only a part of it, and even then it could be said that they were an unremarkable part. In “Gods’ War,” players only had three lives.
Every time they died and respawned, their physical attributes would permanently decrease by three points, eventually leading their souls to reincarnate in the underworld.
During that time, many powerful players rose, but they quickly fell!
This stage belonged to everyone.
Until the turmoil ended and the gods returned to the Pantheon, the epic catastrophe finally came to an end.
One-third of the gods in the Pantheon had fallen!
Even powerful deities like the Goddess of Magic, the Lord of Order, the Lady of the Night, the Lord of Shadows, and the Demon Lord of Fear had perished in this chaotic catastrophe.
Then an even more magnificent storyline unfolded.
The thrones of the gods fell from the heavens, and countless divine realms collapsed into the mortal world, transforming into various unique planar existences.
That was—the Divine Kingdom.
Only a fortunate few who survived the long hardships would be eligible to enter and explore among them.
As for the other fallen masters, they had to start over, at least having to elevate their profession levels to a high tier to qualify for exploring even the tomb of the weakest goblin god, Gloshas.
Many chaotic memories surged forth.
Familiar scenes told Soren what kind of tumultuous times this world would become.
The gods’ avatars, as saints, would tear apart the land, completely altering more than a dozen lower planar continental shelf plates, with three lower planes entirely devolving into seas of fire, ice, and d*ath. Projections of hellish demons spread everywhere, seducing people’s hearts to incite slaughters, and even players were not without those who were ** by them. Abyssal demons tore the sky as they descended in a boundless bloody landscape; on the very first day of their awakening, twelve cities each housing over a hundred thousand people were completely slaughtered!
That was the twilight era referred to by players.
It was the twilight of the gods, their twilight, and everyone’s twilight.
Amid this turmoil affecting the entire universe, everyone had at least died once, and even Soren had completely fallen, his soul forced to reincarnate in the underworld.
No one could escape this calamity!
Even players born with the hero profession template could be wiped out as easily as crushing an ant!
This is the age of saints.
It is also the age of the gods!
Moreover, the final celebration of the gods of the heavenly realm!
When the catastrophe ended.
The era belonging to mortals was about to begin, with endless divine kingdoms waiting for them to explore, and the gods’ treasure troves containing everything they sought.
Whether it was immense power, boundless wealth, or the everlasting life that everyone desired!
………………
The graveyard was not in the slums.
The slums only had a mass grave where bodies were thrown periodically, and desperate scavengers would strip them clean, waiting for the appearance of wild dogs at midnight. Some bodies would mysteriously vanish, taken by some evil spellcasters, and no one cared what happened to them afterward.
Hess could not be buried in the mass grave.
Because Soren had already seen the greed in many eyes, seeing only a pile of delicious dog meat in their gazes.
He believed that if he buried Hess there, that very night someone would dig it up and skin it to make a large pot of dog meat.
This was the slums!
Most of the people living here were on the edge of hunger.
They wanted to eat meat.
If it weren’t for the fact that eating human flesh would lead to falling into the depths of hell, some starving vagabonds might commit unspeakable acts!
Soren still remembered when he first entered the game!
At that time, he couldn’t imagine how harsh and difficult the environment in the game would be.
There were no bright and shining gears, no exquisite scenery, and no easy cathartic fights. What existed was merely a life-and-d*ath struggle within a moment, only the dirty and chaotic slums filled with trash and filth, and ubiquitous evil and darkness. Even for a delicious meal or a standard weapon, many had to risk losing their heads.
Many newcomers to the game were profoundly stimulated by the dark and sinful corruption, even leading to the emergence of numerous paladins among players.
They vowed to change this evil and fallen game world!
However, in the end.
What was changed was themselves, for they had no ability to challenge the rules of a world.
The world will not be easily changed by you!
All players entering “Gods’ War” went through a period of difficult choices, as in this dark era, unimaginable to modern civilization, they witnessed many things they had never dared to think about!
It could be evil and cruel, or it could be sacred and great.
In this virtual world, everyone must choose their path, whether they wished to or not.
And it was precisely because of this.
For many people, “Gods’ War” was almost equivalent to another realm in life.
………………
The graveyard district.
This was a tranquil and peaceful land.
Because the temple of the Daughter of the Underworld was established here, it was the resting place of the dead, with priests and temple guards protecting it, ensuring that the resting souls would not be disturbed. Yet not everyone was qualified to enter here for rest; it required paying a price. The Goddess of Wealth had once said that everything in the world could be measured in money.
This was an age of materialistic evil!
Soren silently stood in front of the temple, holding Hess’s body, and when an old priest appeared before him, he slowly lowered his head with Vivian to show respect. At first, he was somewhat skeptical about whether he was still in the game world, but when he saw living people with independent conscious lives, he knew he had truly entered a real existence.
Moreover, from Vivian, Soren knew they had never understood what attributes were!
Though he didn’t know why.
Soren inexplicably remembered the magic circle that looked like decoration beneath the game capsule.
Because it was somewhat eerie, many people who bought it ended up taking it down.
Soren was quite daring, so he kept it; however, it seemed the game company later heeded players’ opinions, and after the initial batch of game capsules, they no longer added this bizarre ornament.
“Are you sure you want to let it enter the graveyard?”
The old priest had seen many nobles wanting to send their old pets to the graveyard, but he had never seen a poor person like Soren.
Their clothes and the mud on their feet all proved that they were only the lowest of the poor.
Soren slightly bent down, “Yes.”
“This is a dedication for its burial to the temple.”
He took out a silver dollar respectfully and handed it over; as a born thief, the journey had already earned him his first income.
As long as he wasn’t discovered!
It was a gleaming silver dollar made by the believers of the Goddess of Wealth, which could even be circulated in hell!
The old priest looked at him deeply and then raised his hand to point to a nearby box: “Perhaps it is a loyal hunting dog.”
“That is worth your doing this.”
“Child.”
“Follow me, it will receive a resting place.”
Soren placed the silver dollar in the box at the temple entrance and then carried Hess’s body into the back graveyard.
A small, unnoticeable corner.
As the two dug a hole and buried Hess in the graveyard, Vivian, who had been silently dazed, shed tears once more.
“Hess!…”
The little girl squatted in front of the unremarkable grave and whispered a few words, then stood up with a strong expression, gripping one of Soren’s fingers.
Hess was just an inconspicuous old dog.
It had no right to have a tombstone, so it only had a small grave.
In the farthest corner of the graveyard.
