Wandering Mercenary in an Open World - Chapter 2

In 2173, the world’s first Full-World Virtual MMORPG game ‘Astral Online’ went on sale globally, forever changing the blue planet Asteria!

With its revolutionary Digital Capture System, astonishing graphics and ability to scan yourself into the game with up to 20% beautification, countless defenders rallied to play the game.

Fifty million players logged in on launch. There were no queues or lag on launch, leaving countless critics impressed and willing to try the game. Because the game used a 6-hour play limit a day, it allowed even working adults to keep up with young students and the unemployed.

A resounding success, as more people poured onto the game servers, families and friends alike. Astra Online became a household name overnight.

One month later, the game opened its first RMT system, which made earning a living from the game easier... Thus began the Astral rush!

Professional players formed guilds and factions to increase their profits, but nobody could know this prosperity was a mere joke.

One year later, players fused with their avatars, gaining powerful abilities in the real world, which tipped the power and caused chaos.

Two years later, demons and monsters from inside the game invaded the real world.

Three years later, over 90% of humanity perished, leaving the rest to hide like rats, unable to fight back in fear.

Four years later, this world is no longer ours. The demons march on our last bastions, one by one. They exterminated us.

Zell was an average player who liked to collect beasts in the game and evolve them into humanoids, as they were primarily females.

He spent most of his life working two jobs to make ends meet.

Thanks to the excellent healthcare of his country, there were no crippling debts. There was only emptiness.

When the end came, he was powerless and alone. His only companions were his cute pets and Rika, his cherished Flame Rabbit.

She was the only beast he evolved to a humanoid form after his late start to the game.

He died saving the life of a strange girl with white wings and his pet Rika, the sad eyes of Rika and the girl’s sorrow floating through the air as he slowly passed away.

However, instead of dying, he awoke inside an empty white room with a single computer and a strange, game-like screen that allowed him to edit his IRL avatar and persona.

Who offered him this second chance?

For what reason did they help him?

Can he meet Rika again?

Zell could never know; he only knew his second life’s goal.

Survive!

A youth crept on the ground in a snowy night. Hours ago, his tendons were cut because the girl he liked plotted against him. A mysterious middle-aged man saved him, and a pair of gigantic purple pupils appeared in the sky. Under the thunders and lights, the rare Demon Pupils and Sacred Body were awakened. That was what he should have been.

However, in this world, strength was the only way to support a man to live. His adoptive father died for covering him. His true love fell into the abyss for saving him. He wanted to rise up, to take revenge, and to protect the ones he cared about.

Occasionally did a strange figure confuse him. Behind the huge demon pupils, he often saw a thirty thousand feet tall black figure. What was it? Who was that?

It was said that the ultimate bloodline of the universe was the Primal Chaos Divine Body. It was a divine existence which could break the heavens and annihilate the world in a second. However, this sort of divine body had been extinct ten thousand years ago.

Could it be that apart from the Sacred Body, there was another body in him?

- Description from Novelupdates

Have you been targeted?Maybe, since you’ve been in his range all along.What else can you do but prepare yourself to be killed?

Lu Wu, an aimless video game developer, had been feeling perturbed ever since he found out he was the direct descendant of a king from the underworld. Other than the title, His Excellency, his ancestor hadn’t passed down anything else to him. On top of that, all of his ancestor’s subordinates had rebelled against him and completely usurped his inherited territory.