‘I see you and you see me. Help me.’

The words rang through Cain’s head, echoing inside as time seemed to slow down to nothing. The green, glowing eyes filled his vision, and slowly the scenery began to change. Mountains appeared, surrounded by forests whose size Cain could not even begin to fathom. And then, abruptly, Cain was thrust back into the real world, his stomach turning over and threatening to up heave once again.

“This is the boss of our Gate. Researchers have assigned it the name of Geb, after the Egyptian God of Earth. For any of you that have studied history, we realize that this is not the depicted appearance of that god, but it has been its assigned code name since.”

‘I have seen the legends of my namesake, and I must agree it is a good name. However, that is neither here nor there. I asked for help.’

Cain shook him head slightly and tried to regain focus. This was a hell of a day for him; being talked to by a slime, getting a four-star rating, and now being talked to by the Gate boss. Obviously, this was all just a dream and he was going to wake up shortly, tied and bound by his sister.

‘I assure you; this is not a dream. It is a simple matter for which I am sure you will be rewarded. All you need to do is kill me.’

Kill me.

KILL ME.

The words resounded through the air between the two, Cain’s face slowly turning one into abject horror as the implications raced through his head.

To be the one to shut down the cities Gate.

The wrath of his sister.

The scorn of the community.

The judgement and actions of the government.

There was no way he could follow through with this request. He would be killed even before he reached Geb, and if he wasn’t killed, he would at least be restrained so quickly that there was no hope for either of them.

‘You have the wrong person. I can’t, not without destroying my entire future and livelihood,’ Cain responded, turning slightly towards the instructor in an attempt to signify the conversation was over. He felt pity towards the creature, but the world had become dog eat dog, and he was not willing to give up his life for this.

Laughter filled his head, causing can to twitch slightly as the pressure inside built up until it felt like he was going to explode. Turning back, Cain leveled a glare at the creature and the pressure subsided.

‘Oh, you poor youngling. No one in your realm has explained to you what exactly the mental powers are, have they?’

‘They say it is the ability to communicate without speaking, and to cause submission without touching others,’ Cain replied, slightly intrigued by this conversation. Was there something else that made mental powers so strong? The only people he had seen with those powers were mere government officials stuck behind desks whenever he visited the head offices with his sister when he was younger.

‘Yes and no. The strength of the power, and the “ratings” as you call them, are determined by the fortitude of the individual, as well as their potential. You obtain then via difficulties and trials, as well as the absorption of the energies of those from different realms.’

Cain pondered this for a minute. The theory made sense, and if these creatures were bosses, they would have obviously existed with this type of system for a lot longer than humanity had. It wouldn’t hurt to listen. The instructor didn’t seem to be slowly down with his speech; something long winded about the bravery of the soldiers that captured Geb and their losses.

‘How did they even capture you anyways? It seems like you should have been able to fight back against them regardless of how strong there were, especially since you were named after a God of Earth,’ Cain asked, raising an eyebrow at the jumble of rocks in the middle of the room.

If rocks could blush, these would have.

‘Obviously all creatures need to excrete waste. I was, as you humans put it, caught with my “pants” down. They managed to ambush me, and then use their combined powers to hold me down long enough for me to be bound by these fetters.’

Cain withheld a chuckle, his amusement obviously seeping through to the bound creature who rattled the chains slightly with indignation.

‘Ok, ok. So how exactly do I kill you then? Just by thinking die? And why are you helping me anyways? I could totally turn around and take these powers and just kill everything,’ Cain asked, now curious about the reasoning. There had to be a catch, somewhere. As terrible as their lives were, he did not understand why these monsters were just offering themselves to be killed by someone who could rise in ranks even faster with this knowledge and wipe them out.

‘Call it a kind of vengeance. I personally would like to bring this are to a close and cause these humans mayhem, and you could also consider it a type of revenge against the one who brought us here. Don’t ask more than that, I am bound by something far more powerful than these tiny iron fetters that prevent me from answering those questions.’

The rocks shifted slightly again, bringing Cain’s attention back to reality. It was beginning to sound like the instructor was finishing his speech, and the group was getting ready to move on to the next area.

‘Quickly, we don’t have much time left. Focus on your right hand, you should feel the energy flow there coming from a different realm connected now to your body. Focus that in your mind and form it into a blade, and send it down the mental connection we currently share. This technique can only be used on the willing, but somehow... I don’t think you’ll rely on it too much. Now HURRY!’

Cain flinched slightly at the voice’s yelling, and focused like directed. He could indeed feel a flow of energy on the back of his hand, a rope that extended far beyond the reaches of his consciousness. Gathering that energy, he followed the instructions and focused it in the center of his forehead, where he visualized his mind’s eye would be, and formed it into a sharp force. It was insubstantial to him, as he couldn’t decide what image of a blade to use, but to Geb it was apparently good enough.

‘Good, now send it and let me have my vengeance on these humans. And do me a favor and try not to die. It would be a shame for my energy to just disappear like that.’

Hesitating for a second, Cain agreed. If his power would increase by killing Geb, it wouldn’t be a good idea to die here. Granted, he had no idea what exactly he was getting himself into, as he had never seen what a collapsing Gate looked like, but he had some confidence in being able to get out. The exit was right outside after all. With that thought, Cain sent the mental blade down the connection, and braced himself for the backlash.

And what a backlash it was.

Cain felt his body drop, like he had just run miles without a break. It took all his energy to stay standing as it was, and it was taking more energy by the second.

‘Shit, I wish I had been warned about this. Gotta move...’ Cain thought, moving towards the door and leaning on the wall once he reached it. His head was beginning to pound, and it was becoming more and more distracting to concentrate with all the screams occurring.

‘Screams?’

Bringing his attention off himself and back to the group he was with, Cain realized that he wasn’t having trouble standing just because he was tired, but because the entire building was shaking.

“Get the newbies out of here! I don’t know what happened, but the boss is dead. Go, go go! We have less than five minutes before the Gate closes! Anyone not outside in that time will be dead!”

The instructors voice somehow rang through the alarms and sirens that were sounding, and gave Cain something else to focus on besides himself. An arm around his back his back surprised him slightly, but when he looked to the source, he saw the panicked expression of the attendant who had helped him earlier.

“Let’s get you out of here. You don’t look too good, which probably means the bosses death preemptively activated your System. We need to get you to a safe room before the energy overload from the area causes you to explode,” they explained, half dragging Cain out of the room and back into fresh air.

“Good idea, let’s...” was all Cain managed to get out before everything went black.

------

In the darkness of space, surrounded by blinking stars, a square light lit up, illuminating a silver mask and robes with galaxies flowing through them. An arm reached out and touched the screen, causing it to change and show a stream of unintelligible characters across it.

“Hm... what is this? Experiment 032-G has been slain by a mental attack? And here I thought the humans were more careful than that...”

Tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

The screen changed again, showing a young male being dragged through a Gate, obviously unconscious and with an axe hanging on his side.

“Interesting... It looks like I found a new game piece.”

Tap, tap, tap.

The mask contorted into a smile, the silver metal bending with ease as the figure looked upon the screen with glee.

“Well now, let’s give him some bonuses for being the first to complete Stage One with such an amusing method, shall we?”

Tap, tap, tap.