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HXH: Hidden Competition

DarkiAntiArki
21
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The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 21 chs / week.
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Synopsis
The moral of the story is explained in the first chapter.
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Chapter 1 - good or bad chapter?

What was the afterlife?

Well Roman and dozens were figuring that out first hand. After living however short or long their life was back on earth.

Their answer? 

Nothing.

An infinite plane of nothingness, where they were all shells of their former selves. Veiled silhouettes not able to communicate.

The only thing keeping them together, a temple shielding them from the vast emptiness.

Now everyone was stuck wondering what was after death.

Roman in particular was wandering around the temple, still lost in thought on how he arrived here.

The adrenaline still lingering from life, after being raided by authorities as an innocent man.

A college student experimenting in a lab, unknowingly in possession of the skill set and resources to make a bomb. 

It was only in hindsight now that he realized his stupidity.

Roman wasn't all knowing, but he was aware, just not enough now that he was struggling to understand why the authorities didn't just arrest him instead of executing him during the raid.

A mistake?

Sigh.

He had been thinking far too long, not realizing his surroundings. 

Just now coming to terms with his death and current situation.

Roman gradually made his way to the heart of the temple where a large orb sat.

Inscribed with foreign symbols that he instinctively could understand and read.

The symbols seemingly translating themselves into english within his mind.

"Pleasure, Time, Opportunity." The symbols read.

He didn't know what they meant, but felt they served a purpose. 

Why else could he understand the words?

Roman wasn't alone, and from the crowd of silhouettes. He could tell they were also contemplating these words.

Though more interestingly, ever so often a silhouette would place their hand on the orb.

The next second they would disappear.

Unknown to where they went. Inside the orb? Dead? Teleported?

Roman didn't know and just observed.

Thinking over the words and what was going on.

Afterall he seemed to have an infinite amount of time trapped in this place.

Watching more and more silhouettes disappearing through the orb, but the crowd never dispersing or shrinking.

Roman figured the orb would take you back to the entrance of this place.

Allowing the crowd to constantly form.

Or the orb was still a mystery and more and more people were arriving after dying in tandem with the silhouettes leaving.

But it wasn't too long that Roman had a strong guess for what the words meant.

Taking into account that the orb was a mystery, taking silhouettes into the unknown.

No different than what he would consider dying when still living.

He guessed the first word indicated the living. 

A pointless life to experience and live.

The second word being his current state, the afterlife.

All the time you needed to waste away contemplating your existence, whether it's your past for future.

Finally the third word he guessed was the orb or where it brought you.

An opportunity?

Roman wasn't sure. But he was curious, though he still had an interest in his current state.

So he still didn't act, but instead sat back and observed this weird realm. 

Analyzing the temple, gazing out in the infinite distance, watching the other silhouettes.

Until he got bored and nothing new was occurring. 

Only then did he approach the orb again, studying it for the last time. 

Then placing a hand on the orb like many before him.

Upon contact his environment altered.

Still in an infinite expanse of nothingness, but now the temple was gone.

With dozens if not hundreds of silhouettes floating alongside him. 

Just then something caught his attention.

A dot below them all appeared, getting closer and closer.

Not knowing if this dot was getting closer to them, or they were getting closer to the dot.

It eventually caught everybody's attention, as they glanced at each other's veiled figures.

Just then the dot became more visible, enough to distinguish what it was.

A planet!

They were going to another planet.

Getting closer and closer, everybody began taking in the massive size of the world and distinguishing landmarks.

Massive mountains piercing the sky, trees even taller, massive storms and clouds that seemed tangible.

Until they got so close to the planet that only a lake was in view. A massive lake with a few islands within.

It was at this moment that the silhouettes began to part. Going their own separate ways into different regions of these islands.

While the islands at the center of the lake seemed to distort in everybody's view.

Landmarks on these islands revealing themselves in full. 

A small world only now making itself known.

Before all the silhouettes vanished from each other's view.

Getting closer and closer to the ground, everyone was able to take in what kind of world they were arriving in.

Imitating Earth, in their last life. An alternate reality, but one decades before they had died and most had even lived through.

An alternate universe imitating Earth's late 1970's or early 80's.

One that seemed to be hiding deep secrets, making one wonder if their last world was similar.

Though few were able to figure out that this wasn't an alternate universe, but a world based on a fantasy.

Roman being one of these few, as he descended on a certain island passing a number of towns and cities.

Before arriving at a certain town, deep into the night and into what seemed to be a cafe. 

But above a woman was screaming her lungs out, evidently giving birth while an old lady aided the process.

A man sat to the side comforting the woman, and sometimes aiding the old lady.

Roman watched silently, not having any control of his body for some reason.

Drifting toward the woman, foreshadowing his future.

A baby's head slowly exited the womb, making Romans form tremble as if reuniting with a long lost friend.

The baby fully emerged quickly, and with it, Roman was whisked into the baby.

Ushering a cascade of sensory information he didn't realize he had lost. 

And with it a strong sense of exhaustion.

Though as he was cleaned of blood and liquid, placed in his new mothers arms.

Roman resisted sleep, this was because he wished to unlock the magical powers correlated with this world.

It was generally extremely hard to awaken these powers alone. 

But Roman had sensed them when entering this new body of his. 

A vague foreign sense beyond his familiar five senses.

An extra part of him he had never experienced. 

The energy of life.

It was faint, attributed to his newborn body.

Roman pushed himself through the exhaustion, pulling the energy out of its hiding place.

In doing so, magical channels and nodes fluctuated. 

Indicating their importance to this energy, but Roman was too affected by the exhaustion and his efforts to notice much.

He didn't know he had already achieved his goal, still pushing forward to allow the energy to envelop his small form.

Only now having a suspicion that he may have succeeded, or atleast gained a foothold to succeed later.

Soon succumbing to the exhaustion. Losing control of this energy, that unbeknownst to Roman, was draining him of not just his stamina but his life.

Evident by the name of the energy, the life energy was leaving him. Forcing his body's newborn instincts to confront this energy alone.

In a display of erry precision as if practiced for thousands of years, to anybody somehow watching. The nodes all around his body closed, blocking the loss of this energy.