Uruvi walked out of her room, all set for her trail, when she found her dad stuffing a duffel bag with all kinds of food and drinks.

  “Dad? What are you doing?” She asked, walking up to her.

  He stuffed the last packet of chips into the bag before zipping it closed. “You will need food for your journey, right?”

  “Dad, I'm going to a battle, not a picnic.”

  “You still need food.”

  “Yes, but not that much. No way I can fight with that on my back,” she said.

  He put his hands on his hips and looked down at the bag in disappointment.

  “Tell you what. Let’s compromise. I will take… maybe a backpack with a little and, most importantly, a water bottle,” she said.

  He nodded and said, “we can work with that.”

  She made her way to the terrace of her apartment, where she got an unobstructed view of the area around her. She looked at the map on her screen, which was filled with a bunch of icons. She was tempted to see what each one meant, but she knew time was of the essence.

  “Okay Arya. Can you tell me where I can get a good number of monsters to kill?” she asked.

  “Analyzing… The best place to level up and gain points will be to do a dungeon run.”

  “Hold up. We have dungeons now?” she asked, bubbling with excitement.

  “Affirmative. Suggestion. Reach level 12 before attempting the first dungeon.”

  “Rats!” she cursed out loud. “Okay then. We will make that our priority today. Keep up with the high rank and try to get to level 12. Where do I go now?”

  “Analyzing… Suggestion. The market next to St. Lawrence Church has a Danger Level 5.”

  “Danger Level? What is that?” she asked.

  “Danger Level suggests how deadly the monsters in the area are. Current area Danger Level is 1.”

  “What is the highest it can get?”

  “The current highest Danger Level area is a mining pit in Central India. Danger Level 20.”

  “Wow. I wonder what happened there…? Anyways. That sounds perfect to me. But it is going to take a while to reach on foot. But… I am a lot faster now…” She turned to face the direction where the Church stood. “I guess we can do a speed test. Arya, mark a straight path to the church.”

  “Negative. No road cuts through to the Church.”

  “Who said anything about taking the road?” She checked the map once more to see that she was facing the right direction. “Time for take-off.” She dashed towards the edge before leaping off the parapet and onto the adjacent apartment. She hit the ground running, pushing herself forward as she raced towards her destination.

  The moment she stepped out of the bounds of her colony, she saw the streets beneath her fill up with monsters of all shapes and sizes. She spotted several humans in the mix, battling them. ‘Should I begin my onslaught here…? No. The others can take care of it.’

  As she approached her destination, she could see the number of monsters swarming the place rise gradually. Likewise, there were a considerable number of Contestants running around as well. Her eyes caught sight of a large Rakth-Pisacha prowling around the place. She shifted her focus towards the monster. She spotted several humans who were already fighting it. It was at Level 10, and its health bar had barely budged. ‘Let’s try out the new Skill, shall we?’

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  As she closed the distance between her and the monster, a bright red dot appeared on the nape of its neck. ‘Ha! So, my instincts were right!’ Several other dots appeared over its body, but they weren’t as bright as the one on the nape. ‘Let’s see. One on each of the knees, one on each of its palms… for some reason. And finally, its throat.’ She created a mental map connecting all the points.

  The Pisacha was too busy fighting the others to notice her creeping up. She dashed towards the monster and dropped off the parapet, along the outer wall. Just as she reached the height of its knees, she planted her feet onto the wall and shot towards them. ‘Let’s save the charge for the nape.’ She swung her axe, slicing through both the knee caps. The monster caved almost immediately, falling face-first onto the ground, while its health bar shrank by 20 percent. She quickly spun around and dashed towards the hands. “Domino!” she shouted as she slammed her axe into its left hand. The hit propagated through the hands and head, making the Pisacha roar in pain. She didn’t think the Spell would have worked, but it seemed like luck was on her side.

  She saw that its health had shrunk to around 50 percent. ‘Looks like this will be an easy one.’ She jumped up into the air before plunging back down onto the Pisacha’s nape, hitting it with a charged attack. The cut from her axe split opened its nape, and its health bar fell to zero.

  As its body started disintegrating, the others quietly watched her in awe.

  She saw her XP bar increase by just 20 percent. ‘Damn, I guess that is what you get for a non-elite.’

  “You took that thing out in seconds. How are we supposed to compete?” asked one of the Contestants.

  “Let me guess. Are you trying to fight a high-level enemy for easy points? Level up first, bro. Cause if you don’t, you will eventually be left behind,” she said.

  The others gave no reply. Instead, they simply dispersed to fight their own battles.

  ‘Right… where to next?’ Her eyes darted around the surroundings and saw a raging battlefield. The shops and restaurants were in ruins, covered in black soot. ‘Was there a fire?’ She looked at the church that stood tall on her right, which also appeared to have its walls charred black.

  “Well… something real bad must have happened down here…” She shook her head, trying to knock the thought out of her head. “Focus. Arya, any help with my next opponent? All I can see are level 7 or 8 monsters.”

  “Affirmative. The building across the street has been marked as high-level danger.”

  It was a three-story, slim building that appeared to have been charred from the inside out. ‘God, I hope it isn’t another flaming Bhootha.’

  She dashed across the street and headed for the inside when one of the humans shouted at her. “Don’t go inside! No one has come out alive from there!”

  ‘Do we dare?’ A wide grin appeared on her face. ‘Yeah, we dare!’

  She came to a stop before the entrance, which was just a large hole in the wall. The inside was draped in darkness with narrow shafts of light penetrating through the roof. The hole led to a flight of stairs with two rooms on either side. ‘Arya, you think you can tell me anything about the monster in this place?’

  “Negative.”

  “The guy said no human came out alive. But, I don’t see any bodies.” She took a quick peek at the rooms and found them to be empty; their walls were pitch black. “Whatever was here has been turned to ash.”

  She made her way up the stairs, carefully peeking around blind corners to see if anything was ready to ambush her. “Nothing here as well. Are you sure there is something here?” Just as she finished the sentence, her sharp eyes caught a glimpse of something shiny on her right. She turned, only to face a sword coming right at her. She immediately leapt back, out of reach of the sword.

  “Fuck!” Someone cursed in a hushed tone. The wall split apart like Lego bricks, and from behind, a short, burly man appeared and charged at her.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she asked.

  He gave no answer and instead tried to take a swipe at her. She parried his first attack, expecting him to stop, but he instead persisted with a series of strikes. He was fast, but she was faster, expertly blocking and parrying his attacks. She managed to grab both his hands and pin him down.

  “How smart! Trying to steal some points, huh?” she asked, wearing a sly grin on her face.

  He used all his might to break free of her grip but couldn’t, unable to compete in terms of strength. Suddenly, he pulled back and smacked her right in the face with his forehead.

  Sharp pain radiated out of her nose, nearly blinding her, but she held on. “Son of a bitch!” she cursed. As she recovered and lunged forward, a sword appeared out of thin air and sliced right through the man’s arms.

  The man immediately fell back, screaming in pain, while Uruvi was left holding his decapitated hands. She turned to her left and saw a ghostly figure draped in a black muslin cloth. It spun in her direction, swinging its blade towards her. She immediately dropped beneath it and rolled away.

  The man eventually stopped moving. His eyes had gone dark, staring into the void.

  She managed to get a better look at the monster, a thin, ghastly figure draped in a black, semi transparent muslin. However, there was nothing inside it. It was floating in the air, with two sickly arms protruding out from underneath the cloth. It held two long swords, one in each arm, that appeared to be phasing in and out of reality.

  “Arya… what is that?”

  “Analyzing… Enemy type – Bhootha. Bhootha can take up various forms, depending on the circumstances of the death.”

  The number 12 appeared on top of its head.

  “Are you kidding me? The one enemy I did not want to meet again!” She said out loud.