Jay was an ordinary young man from Earth, ripped from his life and sent into the game, "Embers of the Soul."
He was given a System that game him one goal:
[Mission: Annihilate all gods and their remnants.]
[Goal: Progress 100%]
[Reward: Return to Earth]
In the beginning, he was delighted, believing that he was the destined protagonist of a world.
Four years had corrected that thought.
***
His progress stood at 3.1345%.
His only advantage was set of abilities he had gained: regeneration and skills.
The abilities were but a curse. They shattered his weapons, chipped away at his sanity, and every critical injury demanded years of his life.
His current objective: eliminate the Oracle's Bishop, hidden deep within the city's outer shopping district, protected by the followers of the Oracle, Bloodeye.
And some of them were standing in front of him.
He held a chain with a moderate length by the beginning and the bottom. And at the corner of his eye, the already active System overlay.
The Oracle's followers, armored in brute, unrefined steel, surged forward, confirming his presence with bloodlust.
Jay did not move. He waited, holding the chain slack, because the System dictated the optimal moment of engagement.
"Die, demon!" The roar came from the first follower as he launched a heavy, spiked mace.
Jay shifted only two seconds before impact. He narrowly dodged the crushing weight of the blow, a breath of displaced air stinging his face. In the same motion, he whipped the beginning of the chain forward, wrapping it once around the follower's weapon haft, and delivered a devastating, low kick that buckled the zealot's knee.
As the first follower stumbled, thrown violently off balance, Jay spat out spit, which he had been saving at the start of the battle, into the visors of the second and third followers.
"Aargh!"
Blind and disoriented, the two men collided.
Jay seized the opportunity, twisting the chain through the resulting gap, lacing it around the exposed neck-joints and under the pauldron of the second follower.
His movements were mechanically precise, predictable in their trajectory, yet the panicked followers could not react to the blinding speed of their execution.
He pulled the end of the chain, planting his boot firmly on the coiled center.
"Screech!"
The compressive, transcendent force generated by his enhanced grip and stance far exceeded the integrity of the crude steel plating. He pulled with every fiber of his inhuman strength, knowing the material was about to fail, and swung the remaining end of the chain, still gripping the third follower's throat, in a wide, violent arc.
The chain snapped, erupting into a cloud of deadly, shrapnel-like fragments.
"Ugh...!"
Jay absorbed the searing pain of the fragments tearing into his own flesh and endured the bone-rattling recoil of the technique. He staggered back a step, drawing in a ragged breath.
The followers were done: their armor crushed inward, their bodies fatally lacerated by the steel.
A window glowed infront of him.
[Progress + 0.0003%]
Jay gasped, his lungs burning. His life was an endless, draining war of attrition, where every victory was paid for with his humanity, his lifespan, and the utter destruction of his limited resources.
But from the first breath of this battle, he was pouring everything he had into it, desperate to pay the final price and return home.