Chapter 28: First Log Out

Chapter 28: Chapter 28: First Log Out

After he was done with his business at the shrine, Victor took the cracked Beast Bead and hid it within his pouch.

After which he turned towards the Boundary.

The area the Southern Barabarians called their territory covered a really huge stretch of land.

There was enough to farm many crops all year round. But of course, most if it was not utilized because of their lack of technical know how.

Still, it took him another day of trekking the land, feeding on anything fruit like he could find or remotely looked juicy, and climbing a very huge hill, before he reached the Boundary.

Victor stared at the wonder. It’s green hues tracing to the heavens, reflected in his pupils. The light danced in different green shades, appearing and disappearing.

Victor cursed the game graphics in his heart. It never showed that the boundary’s mesmerizing beauty.

He took one last look behind.

With his barbarian eyesight, he could faintly see the barbarian settlement far beyond the forest, in the distance.

"I am sorry." He muttered low. Then he turned once more to the boundary.

He took a hard step forward.

The moment his foot crossed the boundary’s edge, something pushed back.

It was both physical and yet not. Like the light that made up the hues suddenly became solid, and the air itself had thickened, resisting him the way water resisted a hand moving too fast through it.

Shit. Did it not work?

He gritted his teeth, pressing forward anyway. If this failed, there wasn’t a backup plan. There was just him, out here. Even worse, he would have to go back, and only death waited for him back there.

Then he felt it. A pull from somewhere low in his gut. It was the magic that he had just acquired from the blessing. Little and thin as it was, it stirred on its own like the Boundary had reached in and aroused it.

The moment it moved, everything changed.

The resistance didn’t exactly disppear, but it was like it checked Victor and decided to give him a pass mark.

He pushed forward, and it became easier.

But it still gave a mountain strain on his person. It was like the eyes of an Ominipotent being was watching and evaluating whether Victor would shift form.

His legs burned from the strange effort, especially the leg that was wounded.

Ten minutes. Then fifteen. His breathing turned ragged, but he didn’t stop.

Twenty minutes in, the pressure thinned to nothing all at once, like a rope that had been pulled taut suddenly going slack.

Victor stumbled forward, catching himself on his knees.

He was through.

For a second, he just knelt there, breathing hard, staring at ordinary dirt that looked exactly like the dirt on the other side.

He almost laughed. But then the cold wind hit him.

Uhhh it’s freezing here.

Ice began its domination only a few meters from the boundary.

Of course, it was cold on this side. It was supposed to be. It always had been.

The only reason he did not prepare for it was because he had no plans of staying here for that long.

[Congratulations On Passing The First Trial]

[New Badge Unlocked: Trial Of A Broken Son]

[Trial Bonus +5 points to all stats]

[In Game Skin synchronization — 6%]

All his stats had dramatically increased. Even his MP now had an extra 5 points.

It was a rush of energy in his body that felt incredibly good.

But his mind was not on that.

He did the first thing that came to mind.

He opened his status screen and checked if Log Out had unlocked.

[Log Out: Unlocked]

He chuckled at this. He chuckled so hard that tears fell from his eyes.

After all the suffering he had been through. Finally, the stars were having mercy on poor him.

Victor’s laughter cut off mid-breath.

Because that’s when he saw it.

Far across the frozen expanse ahead of him, something massive shifted against the white. It was huge enough that at first his mind refused to process it as a single living thing.

Fur the color of old ice, streaked pale blue in places like frostbite made visible. Eyes that glowed faint and cold, fixed now, unmistakably, on him.

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

His memory finally caught up with the dread already crawling up his spine.

This is Frostmane territory.

He was so caught up with escaping that he had actually forgotten about it.

Was this crime for not preparing ahead of time?

Then again, he had gone for the nearest boundary. Unfortunately it was an area most players avoided entirely in the early game, not because it was hard, but because at the start, stats were just too low to confront a Frostmane Direlion.

A sub-boss beast that patrolled these ice fields.

Victor took a step back without meaning to.

The Direlion’s head lifted. Ears pricked forward.

It had seen him move.

Okay. Okay okay okay. Think.

His eyes darted across the terrain. It was jagged, with outcroppings of frozen rock jutting up from the snow, most of which were too wide to offer any real cover.

Except one.

It was a narrow split between two boulders, barely wide enough to squeeze through, but deep enough that nothing built like that could follow him in.

The Direlion’s muscles coiled.

[Warning: New Trial Detected] [Log Out feature will be suspended in 10 seconds]

"You have GOT to be kidding me."

Victor didn’t wait to read the rest. He was already moving, bare feet slipping on frozen ground, lungs burning in the thin cold air as the Direlion exploded into motion behind him.

It was impossibly fast for something of that size, snow kicking up in its wake like a small blizzard.

He didn’t look back. Looking back was how people died in movies.

Five. Four.

The gap in the rocks was closer. Closer. Still too far...

Three. Two.

He threw himself sideways, diving hard into the narrow crevice just as something enormous swept past where his body had been half a second before.

A claw caught the edge of his forearm on the way through.

It was just a scratch.

Stoneskin had activated.

He hit the ground inside the crevice hard, breath knocked clean out of him, the Direlion’s roar echoing off the rock walls close enough to rattle his teeth. One massive paw shoved into the gap after him, claws raking uselessly through empty air a foot from his face.

One.

Victor didn’t think. He just clicked it.

[Log Out]

The world went white.