บท 1: Chapter 1: Prologue
I was standing in the purest darkness that I have ever seen in my life, and at the very end of my sight, I could see a minimal light shining almost as if it was calling for me. I couldn't move, but I felt as if I was moving, and the more I looked at the light, the bigger it got, almost as if I was either moving closer to it or the light was moving closer to me.
The bigger this light became, the more I could distinguish a sound that originated from a distance. At first, I believe it was just mumbling, but the closer and closer I got to the light, the easier it became for me to distinguish the voice of a woman calling my name.
The other words became more evident as I got closer to the shining light. "Leo... do....right." said the feminine voice. This message kept repeating almost as if it was on a loop. I kept getting closer to the light, and the message was more precise. Until I finally reached the light, the darkness surrounding me was replaced just by pure white shining light. The message was repeated one more time, this time with all the words being clear to me, "Leo, you must do what you think it's right."
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
I suddenly woke up in my room and realized it was simply a dream, even though it was a bizarre one. Why was that message constantly repeating itself? Why was it calling my name? Who's voice was that? What did it mean by "doing what I believed was right"?
After considering it for a few minutes, I decided to pay no attention to it; in the end, it was just a dream, nothing more. I got up from my bed and started to get myself ready; I only had one more hour before I was late for school. I put my uniform on, washed my face and mouth, and prepared myself my breakfast. I lived by myself, so I had to take care of all the house chores. I cleaned after myself after eating my breakfast and threw away the thrash before I started walking the long path to school.
The sun in Miami was so hot that it made it almost impossible to walk to school. I wish I had a car like many other people in my high school, but I simply could not afford it now. I saw Anthony and Marcus waiting for me when I was just three blocks away from school. This two have been my friends since I have any memory. We went from playing in the playground to playing video games for hours, and we always played for at least a few hours in the afternoons. Marcus and I have always been active in the athletic aspect; we started going to the gym when we turned 16 because Marcus wanted to find a way to cope with his most recent breakup, while Anthony just began to train with us this year. We love to call him Ant because he is the smallest in the group and hates to be reminded of his height, making the funniest facial expressions when we remind him of that fact.
"We thought you were not gonna make it today, Leo." Said Marcus with a small sinister smile on his face, so I instantly knew what he would say next. "You left Ant's 19th birthday party pretty late. Sure you got enough sleep?" As he said that, we both looked at Anthony, who was making one of his facial expressions again, and Marcus couldn't hold the laughter. However, for some reason, I didn't find the joke funny this time. Maybe I was still overthinking about that dream I had. "Shut it, Marcus. You guys can't go one day without mentioning my height." Said Anthony while he was waiting for Marcus to finish laughing. "Let's just get going; we only have 15 minutes until class starts." I said, and the three of us left on our way to school.
Another regularly dull school day went by as all other regular days do. Marcus, Ant, and I were walking home while having one of those very intense "remember when..." conversations. We were a bit nostalgic because we were in our Senior year and only had a month left until our graduation. As we mentioned subjects and subjects of things that we had buried deep in our memories, Anthony brought up something that completely caught my attention. "You guys remember when we first started playing Eternity Hunters?" "Yes, we were part of the lucky few that got access to the Alpha of the game, and we would play for hours and hours." I said as the memories of that fantasy world started to come to my mind again. "That was the time that Leo started streaming. The bastard became a popular streamer overnight." Said Marcus. I remembered that I started it as a joke with Marcus and Ant, saying that if I began streaming the Alpha, I would absolutely gain lots of viewers due to how many people wanted to play the game. However, a few 20,000 would receive access to the Alpha, and some of those lucky few were us. And as I said, it happened. The very first day I started streaming Eternity Hunters, I broke the world record of most people watching a stream simultaneously with 2,000,000 viewers. I created my audience from those millions of people who have remained loyal to my content and continued to support me financially and emotionally. Thanks to the money that I made from streaming, I was able to move out of my parent's house and buy my own place, but after I stopped playing Eternity Hunters, my viewership decreased, and now I only make enough money to maintain myself and allow me to have a little of money for games and equipment.
"Leo, are you listening?" Said Marcus while he was waving his hand in front of my face. "Yeah, sorry I zoned out for a moment." I said after returning to earth after a long trip in memory lane. "You guys know what? We should play the game again, I heard they added a bunch of new stuff, and now it is not so hard to kill the beasts in the game, except for Corvus. That one is simply a pain in the ass." Said Anthony. I immediately replied, "Yeah, why not? I didn't know what to stream today, so going back to the origins might be a great idea." "Who knows, maybe you get some of those old viewers back and cash in a big check this month." Said Marcus while he was ironically laughing. "If you do, then you better give me some of it. In the end, it was my idea." Said Anthony acting as if he was joking, but deep inside of me, I knew he wouldn't be mad if I actually gave him some of that money.
We eventually separate to go on our own paths back home. When I finally arrived home, I took a quick shower, prepared some noodles as my dinner, and got my set up ready, so I could start streaming while eating my food. "Hello guys, and welcome back to another day with Leonidas. Today we will go back to the roots of the channel, and with that, I mean that I will be playing Eternity Hunter." I said to my chat while I was getting my computer ready. While I was logging in, I saw a massive increase in viewers compared to my usual audience. While on a regular day, I usually had 1k viewers, at that moment, I had over 500k viewers. "I better see some of that money Leo. I'm the one that recommended this." Said Anthony through the party chat. "Yeah yeah, I think carrying the two of you will be payment enough." As soon as the game opened, I checked my character's inventory, and the only thing I focused on were the two items I had worked the most to obtain. The first one was a sword named Bloodshed, the most powerful weapon at the time I was playing. I asked my chat if it was still the best weapon in the game, and the most common response was that it was tied with 3 other weapons in the first place. The second object was my helmet, which went by the name of Eternity's End. This one was quite a mystery because back in the day, no one knew what the item's special effect was, and when I asked my chat, everyone responded that this is still a mystery. The two characteristics that make a Legendary weapon what it is are the fact that they had insanely high stats while they also had a unique special effect that belonged only to that weapon. In the case of Bloodshed, it was that the weapon would do three times its regular damage when the ultimate was activated, but in exchange, it slowly consumed the HP of the player, making it possible to die for overusing the ultimate. However, in the case of Eternity's End, there was only a ? in the place where there should be the description of the special effect, making it a mystery that has been around as long as the item first appeared in the Alpha.
These two legendary items came from the beast considered the hardest of them all back when we used to play, Corvus. It was so hard to kill that only 0.0001% of the players had managed to kill it, and these two legendary items had only a 1% chance of dropping after killing it. Marcus and Anthony stopped playing right after we killed it for the first time, saying that it was not worth putting in so much effort for just a pair of legendaries. However, I kept playing for months until I finally got both of the items. I continued playing for a month or two until I became bored of the game. I had utterly dominated the most challenging fight in the game, and all of the other beasts were a joke with my equipment.
We spent the rest of the stream hunting for random beasts to see which ones were new and which of the old ones we still remembered. This continued for a few hours until Marcus and Anthony decided to disconnect so they could go to bed early. "I'll stay up a little longer. I want to try my luck against the Corvus." I said. "Well man, I wish you good luck, have a good night." Said Marcus right before he disconnected.
I looked for the Corvus for hours, but I couldn't find him anywhere. After two hours of searching, I decided to end the stream and go to bed, but just before I turned off my computer, I decided to get back in the game and keep looking until I found it. Hours went by, and there was still no sight of the Corvus. I was so tired at that point that I fell asleep in my chair with the controller still in my hands. However, after a few hours of sleep, a strange breeze woke me up.
To Be Continued...
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