Game’s Dogma

They continued up the stairs until they arrived at a platform. Across the platform was another flight of stairs, though the platform seemed to contain some sort of quest that they had to clear before they could proceed.

“Entering Tower Challenger Mode.”

“Tower Challenger Mode: Each Demonic Tower has ten floors, and every floor has a quest that players can choose their trial of choice. Players will be teleported to a random floor above their current one upon clearing the quest, or will be teleported to a random floor below if they fail the quest.” 

Dakki and Drako Yau glanced at one another as they both thought, This is the first floor.

The two stepped onto the platform. A glow lit up on Its circumference, lighting the place up. Tiles that contained images appeared around the platform, similar to the projections Chris had shown to Drako Yau back in his hut. These tiles all contained a word or phrase that was reflected in the image behind them.

For example, the tile titled “Fire” showed a sea of flames. Another tile titled “Silence” displayed a silent room with a futon. Over a dozen choices were available.

Drako Yau looked at Dakki and asked, “Which one?”

“Up to you, everything’s alright,” she smiled and replied.

Drako Yau nodded and quickly made the decision.

Deafening howls of beastmen rang around the Demonic Tower. A team of four players was making a break for the tower. Despite facing over a hundred beastmen with just the few of them, they advanced and retreated orderly and were by no means at a disadvantage as they constantly made ground.

The person leading the advance, also the main attacker of the squad, had several levitating wooden swords above his head. Every flick of his finger sent his wooden swords flying into the enemy and sweeping them away. Behind the psychic sword wielder was an archer who rained down arrows on the enemy without missing a single shot.

The third member stood ahead of the fourth member. The small round shield on his arm seemed flimsy, but it always protected them from the beastmen’s onslaught. As for the fourth member, he merely observed the situation and uttered a word at a time, to which his members reacted with a shift in formation.

“Quicker, Mask is leading us by a lot. We have to hurry.” The fourth person held a feather fan in one hand and kept tapping his thumb to his other fingers on the other, as if he was calculating something in his head—he was none other than Chau Yu. Surprisingly enough, he somehow gathered three of his top subordinates despite being teleported randomly across the Warring Wasteland.

Leading the charge was Tripurity who could manipulate his wooden swords. Hau Ngai, the archer beside him, was upset upon hearing what Chau Yu said.

“Guild Master, we’re advancing so slowly even with the Three Powers Formation. How can Mask possibly break through this garrison? He might be dead and back at Yoda already.”

“No,” Handsome Scholar answered calmly, “because he’s Mask.”

It sounded like a twisted explanation, but none of them refuted him. Mask had performed too many miracles for anyone to feel surprised anymore. Handsome Scholar was implying that Mask could do things others couldn’t because he was Mask; an illogical explanation, but one that explained the illogical.

The four finally made it to the patrolling ground of the forty beastmen. Suddenly, a thundering rumble reached them from behind.

“What’s that noise?”

They turned around to find a massive cloud of smoke tumbling their way like a grey serpent. It closed in on them as the rumbling became louder.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a person!” Chau Yu focused his eyes into a glare.

The shadow was the source of the cloud of dust, and the ID above its head indicated the person was no friendly player.

“Get out of the way!” the person roared.

Beastmen tried to attack him, but he simply continued his charge and knocked away everything in his path like a bulldozer.

“Step aside!” Chau Yu shouted, alarms blazing in his head.

The four of them moved out of the person’s path. As the person brushed past them, he flashed them a hearty smile and said, “Thank you!”

The forty beastmen howled at the sight of the intruder and readied their weapons. However, the person sped up even further and was headed straight for the tower entrance. Every unfortunate beastman in his path was shot off in all directions, with none of them able to get back onto their feet as they slumped onto the ground. Just like that, the person bolted through the entrance and disappeared.

Chau Yu immediately shouted, “Run! We’ll go through the opening he just created!”

The other three immediately followed his lead and ran into the tower.

“Fire.” Drako Yau pressed his palm onto the tile that wrote “Fire”.

A projection appeared while the others vanished. “Enter the Trial of Fire?”

“Yes.”

Drako Yau and Dakki felt their heads spinning for a moment before things settled down. Almost instantly, their surroundings had undergone a drastic change into a sea of flames, or to be specific, lava. They stood on a large piece of rock surrounded by lava that lit the room bright red.

“Trial of Fire: Tread across the lava and reach the destination within the time limit. The trial will begin in ten seconds.”

Drako Yau scanned the sea of boiled slurry rocks. Pillars of stone rose from the lava with white glows that signalled the players. Hearing the system countdown, he tore an Agility Scroll and said, “Buff us, then follow me.”

Around the time Drako Yau and Dakki started the trial and shortly after Chau Yu’s squad and the mysterious man entered the tower, another person was heading for the Demonic Tower. His steps were slow, so slow that he was having a leisurely walk. From the looks of it, he’d eventually bump into the beastmen.

And he did—quite literally as well.

“Sorry,” the person apologised before continuing his stroll.

The beastman completely ignored the person and continued with its patrol. Looking from above, the person casually walked past the heavily guarded zones and went towards the tower entrance until he eventually vanished through it. None of the beastmen ever noticed his presence.

Hooligan

Description: Hooligans will resort to any and every means available to survive in their cities. A slip of the mind could spell life and death when up against one of them.

Skill type: Hooligans consider all fights a battle of life and death, so they are not confined by moral standards. Taboos for martial artists mean nothing to them. As such, they have developed an underhanded way of fighting that utilises forbidden moves like eye stabbing and crotch clutching.

Skill tree: Backstabber, Marketplace Combatives.

Weapon type: Gloves.

Class progression: No progression available.

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