Luna rested her back against a tree as she caught her breath. Caius was relentless in his chase, and no matter how good she was at running away, Luna, like every other player in the game, didn't have an unlimited supply of mana to continue using magic nonstop without any worry.
Soren dropped down from a tree; his sudden presence startled Luna. Without thinking, she twirled her sword in her hand and aimed to cut down his neck while thinking that he was part of Caius's team. Soren bent his body backwards, the tip of Luna's blade almost touching his skin. He didn't know how lucky he was to escape an attack that looked so simple; her blade was poisoned and could easily make him drop dead.
"I'm not with those guys." He gestured behind him, where Caius and his team were still in hot pursuit of Luna even though it was late at night. They had caused a little earthquake that directed Soren towards Luna's direction, and he was sure that he wasn't the only one alerted by their presence from the quake. There were a lot of hungry beasts in the forest, and their little stunt had just changed them into prey. Soon the beast would be coming. Before that happens, Soren wanted to get Luna out of this particular area that has now become a hunting ground. With his system magic, he had no issues fighting against humans, except mindless beasts. "Lucian, the villain, sent me."
At the mention of Lucian's name, Luna stops herself from attacking Soren again. "You are not with Caius?" She asked to confirm, unable to believe that Lucian still wanted her back after she had walked away from him last time. And to make things worse, Caius knew his secret; if Lucian were to ever find out about her betrayal, he wouldn't forgive her.
'Who is Caius?' Soren thought and heard a noise from behind him, 'Must be the idiot chasing after her.'
A little smile pulled at Luna's lips as she thought aloud, "I told him not to follow me, but he came up with a different way to still follow me. I'm not angry about—" She stopped after hearing Soren, and confusion formed around her lower features that weren't covered by her bangs as she asked, "What did you just say?"
Soren repeated himself again with excitement, "I'm your new teammate; we will be working together with Captain Lucian in the near future." He grins widely at Luna.
'Captain Lucian?' Luna cringes at her thought, 'Don't tell me I'm going to start calling him that?' Her thoughts are interrupted by hurried footsteps that are getting closer to where she is. She had temporarily forgotten that she was running away from Caius. Luna had come to realize that she wasn't skilled in covering her tracks and in hiding as Lucian was.
"We will discuss this later; let's move out of here before they catch up with us."
Soren turned around, towards where he was sure that Caius was approaching with his team. "How many are they?"
"Four." Luna replied without putting much thought into Soren's question until she realized that he wasn't getting ready to move like she was.
"Not much, I can handle them." Soren pulled out his sword. He imagines how much Lucian would be pleased when he comes back with Luna and tells him that he save her life. Soren snickered at his thought; it was perfect in his eyes. He wanted Lucian to quickly see him as a valuable asset to the team.
'We are going to fight?' Luna thought and then corrected herself, 'He's going to fight.' Knowing how powerful Caius's and his teammates' ability was, she felt like advising Soren to forget about fighting and to just run away with her, but with the secret Caius knows, Luna knows that the only way to right her mistake was through his death. After all, a dead man tells no tale.
"Finally you stop running, you bitch!" Caius slid forward through the sloppy landscape. He glanced at Soren and ignored him because Soren didn't carry a strong presence around him; he laughed to himself at Luna's newfound confidence because of a weakling. There was no way she would be able to hurt him and his team again, not when he had managed to figure out her hidden skills. Her sword was poisonous, but it didn't matter because she wasn't a skilled fighter; defeating her was going to be easy once he removed her weapon from her hand.
Caius's gaze and the rest of his team were covered by an unwelcome darkness, his sword fell out of his hand, and before he could realize what was happening, he saw himself back in his world, in a brothel where he had grown up with his single mother that barely had time for him, "Mom?" He called out in disbelief to a beautiful young lady in her early 30s smiling as she spoke to an elderly woman in front of her. Caius's mother eyed the golden necklace and bracelet the 50-year-old lady was putting on.
"How is this possible? I'm back home?" He questioned himself in fear; going home after school hours was something he never looked forward to. He dreaded each day; the room he lived in with his mother that was always filled with the smell of cigarettes messed with his mentality, and his abnormal sexual urge for women was nothing more than a search for something that could make him forget his sad existence. It gave him temporary joy and made him more violent, and now he couldn't stop himself from what he had enslaved himself to. The moment he came out of it, Caius was depressed enough to kill himself because his life had no future, not when his mother was the one ruling over it.
'I need to run!' Panic seized Caius as he attempted to run away from his mother. His feet moved continuously, but he still unrealistically remained in one place as though he was trapped in his own nightmare.
"Is this the boy you promised me?" The old lady asked, her predatory gaze set on Caius, and she licked her lips, eager to take him away. "Young, just like I like them."
"He's a good boy." Caius's mother smiled as she received a bag of mother, "Aren't you, baby?" She asked Caius.
Caius's scenery changes to a well-built mansion. His hands and legs were stretched out and tied up, and his mouth was stuffed with cloth. The old lady towered over him as she dropped the whip she had used to flog his naked chest and picked up a kitchen knife in rage. Caius was dressed in nothing but his underwear as the lady proceeded to move between his open legs.
"I don't need a disobedient slave." She said and stabbed his private part continuously in anger. Blood smeared over her face as she grinned while Caius screamed out; he should be dead, but for some reason his body refused to die, and he remained trapped in continuous circle of pain. The grueling image of his ruins seized his heart in endless fear.
"What did you do to them?" Luna asks. Caius and his teammates had fallen to the ground, their bodies wiggling like helpless worms as they screamed out in pains that only existed in their minds.
"I gave them their worst nightmare." Soren moved to Caius and scoffed, "Who would have thought that someone like him had mummy issues?" As much as he would love to see Caius suffer more, there was no time for that; the beast they had alerted in the forest was coming for them, and they both needed to escape before that. Soren raised his sword and stabbed Caius in the heart, putting an end to his pain. Not only could his system magic attack his opponents with their worst nightmare, but it could also give Soren the ability to see their nightmares and experience a part of their life they want no one else to see.
Soren's system ability paralyzes his opponents by trapping them in a reality that doesn't exist until he kills them. As good as his ability may be, it doesn't work with beasts, because they have no intelligence. His ability works better on humans.
"What kind of system magic do you have?" Luna asked, still trying to understand Soren's powers. Now that his system magic had been activated, she felt strangely creeped out and frightened by Soren's presence.
"It's a nightmare system." Soren stabbed another one of Caius's men. He moved over to Marta and raised his sword; tears poured out of the side of Marta's eyes.
"Wait!" Luna shouted, stopping Soren, "Don't kill her." All through Caius's chase, she had noticed Marta's reluctance in following Caius's orders. "Let her live." She stared at the side of Marta's hands that were viciously red from continuous anxious scratching; she had done that when Caius was about to introduce Luna to the team. Now Luna was starting to understand why; Marta knew something that Luna didn't and she couldn't do anything to tell Luna the truth.
"And why should I listen to you?" Soren asked with a dangerous voice that made Luna experience a temporary déjà vu for a moment.
'I told him to find us a new teammate, and he somehow managed to find someone that is just like him,' she thought, 'obsessed with killing.'
"She isn't one of them." Luna tried to explain.