The towering glowing figure stood on two massive clawed feet, and its wing span spread the length of two school buses.

  The giant beast loomed over Sparrow.

  Enough of the golden sand had finally dispersed that the creature lost its golden glow. The fading gold revealed the wyvern’s scaly earth brown skin.

  Sparrow looked up at it. He wasn’t sure what the difference between a wyvern and a dragon was but he knew that they both had a maw full of sharp teeth and spat fire.

  Maybe this is a dream.

  Sparrow began to take a few shaky steps back.

  This all has to be a nightmare. That’s all this is. A bad dream-

  The wyvern gazed down at Sparrow, piercing him with a horrifyingly majestic gaze. Its vertical pupils were like dark rifts splitting apart walls of fire. Under the weight of its stare, Sparrow was stunned with awe and fear.

  It roared and every part of Sparrow’s body reverberated. He could feel his ribcage shake and his heart threaten to burst apart.

  The titanic goliaths he had brought down in ReQuest didn’t hold a candle to what he faced at that moment.

  It all felt too real and tangible. Despite having just faced the grim reaper, he felt at that moment he was truly staring death in the face.

  His head was a torrent of emotions.

  Fighting that level 5 goblin was already a near death experience. Everything was moving too fast for him to keep up.

  The wyvern took two steps and Sparrow’s mind went blank.

  Suddenly a giant body crashed into the wyvern and a spray of feathers flew into the air.

  The creature was already dead when it collided into the Wyvern. It was a griffin.

  Sparrow looked over to his left, at the direction of the throw.

  A colossal man caked in snow and wrapped in furry hides was making strides towards Sparrow and the Wyvern. The ground shook with each step.

  [Frost Giant Lv. 68]

  Sparrow didn’t linger. He scrambled up and ran toward a wall of evergreen trees he saw in the West.

  As Sparrow ran, he heard the Wyvern flap its wings and join the Frost Giant in combat.

  The sounds of an astounding battle exploded behind him but Sparrow couldn’t care less.

  There were sounds of battle everywhere.

  All over the valley there were creatures of all shapes and sizes fighting amongst themselves.

  Beasts, fantastical beings, giant insects, and other humans.

  Wait, other people!?

  Ahead of him was a middle aged man in a leather tunic fighting against a giant praying mantis.

  [Callum Lv. 16]

  [Scythe Mantis Lv. 14]

  The mantis’s level was high but Sparrow could team up with the man and kill it.

  Despite having shut himself in his home to avoid human interaction, seeing another soul struggling to keep his head in his nightmare instinctually made Sparrow want to support him.

  Just as Sparrow was about to turn towards the man, an armored bull ran across his field of vision and bowled over the man and the mantis.

  All thoughts of him stopping to help any fellow human was quickly expelled from his mind. The bull cleared both the path ahead and his mind for the next several minutes.

  He had to just keep running.

  Despite being an unhealthy shut-in, it seemed that his body had had more endurance and stamina than it should have. In reality, he wouldn’t have gotten a minute in without coughing up a lung and gasping for breath.

  While there was conflict all around him, the same applied to every living being there. They were all lost in the chaos that Sparrow was, all heightened by the fact that this was the first thing they had to contend with after gaining consciousness.

  The ground shook and the air was filled with the sounds of screams both human and inhuman, howling, growls, clangor of weapons and armor. It was a sensory overload, and it was a challenge for Sparrow to not just get drowned in the midst of it all.

  Just ahead of him he saw what looked like a Viking dueling a humanoid lizard wearing heavy armor. The Viking swung his axe over head with a murderous shout. The lizard swung its curved greatsword, arcing it from the ground and towards the axe. The sword met it in a loud clash of steel and sparks. Its overwhelming speed and weight swatted the axe to the side with ease, causing its wielder to stagger off balance.

  Carrying the same momentum, the lizard spun with the sword and repeated the same attack. However, instead of meeting a weapon, the sword separated the barbarian’s chest from his waist, sending blood and viscera flying.

  It hadn’t registered to Sparrow, that witnessing the human who was trampled by the bull earlier was the first time that he had witnessed someone die in front of him. He was used to seeing the deaths of game avatars and npcs, and he wasn't sure if the person was real or not. It didn't faze him.

  Now witnessing a human's innards and viscous blood leave his body instead of glowing hit markers and digital red paint skewed his perception of the situation even further. Human or npc, that sight was enough to shake him to his core, but not enough to keep him from getting out of there.

  The field was big enough that he was able to give wide berths around the battles he was in danger of running straight into.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He witnessed even more humans and creatures get torn apart, reinforcing the fate that awaited him if he were to stop.

  Finally the evergreen trees loomed over him and Sparrow broke through the treeline.

  To both sides of him, several creatures crashed into the forest trying to chase after their prey who had the same idea as Sparrow.

  As he dashed around the trees he listened for anything behind him, he afforded himself one glance behind him and saw that nothing was following.

  As he got farther into the woods, the sounds of chaos became less and less audible. To his astonishment, there were no enemies to be seen, despite being this close to the battlefield.

  Aside from the few creatures that made it into the woods at the same time he did, hardly anything broke past the first rows of trees.

  Just then, he felt a familiar feeling of exhaustion begin to creep up.

  His breath began to leave his lungs at a more frantic rate and exhaustion quickly overtook him. It was like his body had used up all its energy several minutes ago and finally remembered to respond accordingly.

  He took a few slow steps before stopping. He bent over and coughed violently. Desperately trying to catch his breath.

  While his throat was horse and he was struggling to gain control of his breathing, he was proud with how much ground he covered before feeling winded. He ran about under a mile without needing to catch his breath, which was astounding since he had been long out of shape.

  That wasn’t the only thing that was different. He knew what having good stamina and endurance felt like, but it was like he hadn’t exhausted any energy at any point during the run.

  Once he got most of his breath back, Sparrow recalled one of his stats and opened his menu.

  [Stamina: 0/100]

  The stamina bar was blinking red.

  After about a minute of resting, Sparrow’s stamina bar began to refill steadily, about a single point every second.

  Wanting to learn more about the stamina system, Sparrow sprinted forward, jumping over rocks and plants.

  He only lasted long enough to gain ten points of stamina. Every two seconds of running, his stamina dropped by one. Jumping consumed a point or two the second he left the ground.

  Upon hitting exhaustion, the bar blinked red till it stopped. Catching his breath once more, Sparrow allowed the bar to fill again.

  He guessed the stamina bar didn’t represent his real energy. From what it felt like, the stamina points substituted his energy whenever he was to exert himself.

  In VR games like ReQuest or Ascension, stamina depletion only made players move physically slower or prevented them from taking any actions.

  He recalled the fight with the goblin. Despite how awkwardly he moved while fighting, his energy never dipped and he only felt exhausted when the fight had ended.

  In whatever messed up world he found himself in, he could count his blessings that his unathletic body wasn’t going to slow him down.

  This relieving discovery however couldn’t overshadow how dire his situation seemed. Still, he clung to every bit of good news he could get.

  Sparrow looked around at his surroundings. The forest was dark, and the towering trees loomed over him. He was unable to hear most of the distant roars and explosions. It was quiet enough to hear himself think. Still, he felt unsettled.

  Being unable to see what was around the bends worried him. While the obstruction from the trees played to his advantage, he doubted that it would impair the smell of certain creatures.

  He wanted to just sit idly and gather his thoughts, but the idea of some monster wandering into the woods behind him made him decide to keep up a forward momentum.

  Sparrow cursed as he stepped into a divot in the ground. It was uncomfortable walking around in just socks. His feet hurt after that mad sprint and they were being poked by rocks and twigs.

  As he was walking Sparrow looked at the dagger in his hand. It was a small pitiful thing. A crudely sharpened sliver of steel with a handle wrapped in torn leather. Despite how sad it looked, he knew first hand how sharp and deadly it was.

  The dagger most likely wouldn’t even leave a dent in the health bar of most enemies but it was better than fighting bare handed. The goblin was nowhere close to dying when Sparrow had punched it several times in the head, the dagger did ten times the damage in only a few stabs.

  Sparrow frowned at the dagger and sighed. He looked at it more intently and the dagger began to glow blue. Just as it glowed brighter from blue to white, it vanished into thin air.

  The feature worked the same as it did in ReQuest. Sparrow just had to think about the idea of stowing it away and the system handled the rest. Most modern VR games had this quality of life feature.

  Sparrow opened his menu and found it in his inventory.

  [Item: Goblin Dagger Lv 5]

  [Item Type: Weapon]

  [Rarity: D]

  Rank: F]

  [Description]

  [Features]

  [Transform]

  Sparrow looked at the transform option beneath all the rows. Curious, he pressed it.

  [Transform into equipment?]

  [YES] [NO]

  Sparrow hit yes and the item disappeared from the inventory slot.

  Sparrow went to the equipment tab.

  [Equipment]

  [Weapons]

  [Goblin Dagger Lv. 5]

  [Weapon Equipment]

  [W. Slot 1: Empty]

  [W. Slot 2: -Unlocked at lv 25-]

  [W. Slot 3: -Unlocked at lv 50-]

  [W. Slot 4: -Unlocked at lv 75-]

  Sparrow equipped it to the only Weapon slot that he had.

  [W. Slot 1: Goblin Dagger Lv. 5]

  Sparrow held out his hand and the dagger materialized. Sparrow dismissed it and resummoned it again. There seemed to be a 2 second delay between retrieving and dismissing the dagger. He was sure with bigger weapons they would take longer to form.

  Just as Sparrow summoned the dagger again, he felt something quickly wrap itself around his lower left leg and it was forcefully yanked backwards. The sudden force sent Sparrow flying onto his face and chest, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to drop the dagger.

  Sparrow was barely able to get a breath in before he was dragged across the uneven ground by his leg.

  “God, oh god!”

  He had seen enough media for his mind to instantly conjure scenes of several characters caught in a similar snare and being dragged towards something awful.

  Sparrow’s heart thundered again. He shifted and rolled onto his side and saw that a thick rope like root had wrapped itself around his ankle.

  The root was dragging him away from the direction he was walking.

  Sparrow desperately clawed at the rope with his nails and tried to get a good grasp on it. Its grip was like an iron clasp on his leg.

  Sparrow then felt something new slide under and around him. His body was clearing away debris. He looked away from the root and saw countless bones scattered around him. He heard the fauna move and amongst the trees were writhing vines and giant exotic plants.

  They were like giant fly traps of varying shapes and sizes. In the sparse light, he could make out vibrant colors of red and green, a strong contrast against the tall dark trees that surround them.

  Up ahead Sparrow could see a massive carnivorous plant, slowly coming to life. He was sure this was his current captor.

  Sparrow tried to summon the goblin dagger to cut him free of the root but nothing was happening.

  Sparrow opened his menu in a panic and looked for his dagger in the equipment tab.

  [Weapon Equipment]

  [W. Slot 1: Goblin Dagger Lv. 5] ACTIVE

  Sparrow tapped it and got a prompt

  [Dismiss Weapon?]

  Sparrow hit the yes prompt and the active status was gone.

  Upon trying to summon the dagger again a timer appeared.

  [Summon cool down: 59 seconds remaining]

  “Fuck me!”

  Sparrow watched on in horror as his captor’s leafy maw opened wide, revealing several lines of sharp teeth like protrusions lining its insides.