Chapter 1. The tower

  The tower of Lord Poxs was no stranger to the sounds of torture and death. PLAYERS of all shapes and sizes were housed in the dungeons and forced to undergo unspeakable torture for the amusement of the demons who call the tower home.

  For as long as the demons of this realm could recall, Lord Poxs, the fifteen-foot giant, ruled the tower with an iron fist. The giant was so cruel that he beat his men to a pulp for amusement. The guards had to obey, for rebellion was a suicidal act.

  Lord Poxs, the Warden of the Tower, the very name would send shivers down the spines of the bravest of pyers. Once you heard his name, you knew your time was up. The prisoners were under the watch of the guards, lower-tier demons, the kind PLAYERS throughout the realms dealt with regurly.

  The tower was massive and could hold over a million prisoners. Its base contained the most prominent structure, a throne of skulls upon which Lord Poxs rested. The prison structure was simir to a panopticon, but unlike its namesake, it forgoes a central tower in favor of Lord Poxs's throne.

  The warden spent most of their life asleep on his throne, for his mere presence shattered any prisoner's hope of escape. Each floor of the massive circur prison was fitted with a rail, which Lord Pox used like a giant dder to reach any floor he desired.

  With all its security, the tower seemed inescapable. Even rats, the scavengers of the animal kingdom and the only constant throughout the realms, would commit suicide instead of testing their luck with the tower walls.

  So, who in their wildest dreams could ever fathom that a prisoner held on the lowest floor of the prison would reach the top of the tower?

  He waited five long years in this hell, being ripped limb from limb and healed back together for the amusement of the guards.

  Like many PLAYERS who entered this hellhole of a realm, he lost his ability to teleport the key to traversing such a massive realm or escaping to another.

  James Von Berkshire was the sole survivor of one of the most prominent families that ruled his realm.

  The once-legendary family was among the first to discover the secrets of their world and amass an army of PLAYERS.

  But the mistake of one idiot destroyed the entire family; even exiled members like James were hunted down.

  A lesson drilled into every PLAYER's mind is never to provoke a Scion or Dark Scion, Fate’s favorite children, pyers blessed with gifts beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.

  In a matter of days, the Von Berkshire stronghold was wiped off the map, and James’s family was sughtered like pigs.

  Even the elders of the family whose names brought terror to entire countries could only prolong the inevitable for so long.

  James was one of the st of the Von Berkshire to get hunted down by the young Scion, and like all the rest, he was asked a simple question.

  “What is the key to the Von Berkshire ancient bloodline?”

  And James, like all the other so-called family failures cast out, was forced to live without the family's support. He replied to the mighty Scion so elegantly that even with all his glory and strength, James could leave him stunned momentarily.

  James looked the man straight in the eyes, puffed out his chest, and said, “FUCK OFF.”

  James, like the rest of the Von Berkshire full-fledged members, or not, was raised to stand tall and fear no one, even if he knew he could die at any moment. The news of the massacre of his family had finally reached him, and James, a man who was awakened as a SEMI-PLAYER, was never going to be able to injure the Scion, but he had to try.

  James pulled a knife from his kitchen knife block and charged. The Scion grabbed his arm and began to twist, crushing every bone in it and causing him to drop to the knife. James's desperate bravery was met with utter failure, and now it was the Scion's turn to act.

  After a few hours of torture, the Scion had a massive headache. He finally tracked down the st of the Von Berkshires and gained nothing. Either James was such a loyal member of his family that he would keep silent until his st breath, or James, the st of the Von Berkshires, grandson to the head of the family, actually knew nothing of his ancient family’s bloodline, and the Scion had finally run out of leads. This caused the Scion’s mind to snap; his entire life filled with success and glory had finally met a moment of failure.

  The Scion who stepped out of James’s pathetic excuse of a home suddenly turned his head back and stared at James’s unconscious body lying in the doorway. Like a spoiled child who lost a game and decided to deny poor James a swift death, the Scion used his power of [Bone Manipution] to crush every bone in James’s body. Each bone was broken into jagged pieces, which the Scion began to manipute and force the fragments outward, piercing James’s body on the way out. This caused James to bleed out from countless holes throughout his body.

  Finally, satisfied with releasing his anger healthily, the Scion decided it was best to leave and take a well-deserved rest.

  The bastard teleported away, leaving poor James to bleed out alone on the kitchen floor. The st member of the Von Berkshire left to die like a roach; this would’ve been the end of the line for the once mighty family, but life has a habit of working in mysterious ways.

  On the day James’s pathetic existence came to a close, the world’s system underwent an update, and every human on earth underwent an AWAKENING, which granted them PLAYER status and access to the world’s system. Across the globe, SEMI-PLAYERS like James were granted full PLAYER status. Luckily for James, this process unlocked his ancient bloodline and healed the poor bastard better than he ever was.

  The day of WAKING, as it came to be known, created more harm than good. The many families that ruled the world stepped out of the shadows, no longer needing to hide. These groups began gathering the newly awakened pyers to further enhance their factions.

  Many unaffiliated pyers began to create a union of free pyers to create a counterforce to the ruling families.

  If the world seemed unfair to the average person before THE WAKING, it was further ingrained into their lives due to the growing shift in the world as strong pyers around the globe abused and grew in power daily. The ruling families, along with members of the free-pyer union, banded together to create a new caste system, leaving the weak to suffer under the heel of the strong.

  As the world adapted to the growing chaos of pyers, James began to train for years, honing his new skills and gathering a band of allies along the way. He then embarked on a mission of revenge.

  But today was not a day to ment; today was a day that would go down in history. James Von Berkshire, the st of his family, was attempting the first prison break of Lord Poxs’s tower.

  The screams of agony that pgued the tower were repced with sounds of joy and anticipation as James’s escape reignited the spirits of every prisoner in the tower. A prisoner escaped from his cell, and this fact alone brought tears to the eyes of the other prisoners.

  If one prisoner could escape his cell, why couldn't the rest attempt the once-impossible task one day? James could have perished during his prison break, but the attempt alone would have had a sting effect on the tower.

  As James began to ascend the tower's inner staircase, which the guards used to travel the prison's many floors, the deafening sound of the prison arm went off, ending Lord Poxs’s slumber.

  Lord Poxs, the giant warden of the inescapable prison, awoke with a fury unlike any prison guard had witnessed. There was never a need to sound the arm, for the prison had always been inescapable until today.

  Lord Poxs, awake or not, James would not give up now. Five years had passed in this hell, and he would no longer stay. He continued his ascent up the staircase, never looking back.

  The prisoners began dragging their malnourished and, in some cases, limbless bodies up to the bars of their cells, banging against them, not in the hopes of breaking them down and taking this case to join James in a massive prison break. Instead, these poor bastards in their hearts came to an unspoken agreement to make as much noise and chaos as possible to get Lord Poxs's attention away from James.

  Humans are among the few species throughout the realms that would be beled weak. They are a fragile race, no better than the ants that the strong stepped on. Without the world system, humanity would have experienced the same fate as the rest of the lower-tier species: ensvement, forced to serve for eternity, or, worst of all, the eradication of their species.

  Humans throughout the realms fought valiantly to erase the stigma of their so-called lower-tier status. But to the rest, humanity would always be mere ants in their eyes, forced to be stepped on by the strong, and in some cases, that meant being literally stepped on.

  To the untrained eye, ants would be considered weak, whose mere presence was deemed inferior. But most kids learned early on not to poke an ant’s nest, for the ant’s patience will run out, and they will bite. This was a lesson Lord Poxs was learning firsthand, for the mere “ants” he disregarded were starting to bite back.

  Individually, the prisoners could not hold Lord Poxs back, but with the ferocity of an ant colony, they held the line, giving James all the time he needed to climb the tower.

  Like ants, the prisoners would give their lives for the sake of their colony.

  The prisoners, who were fortunate enough to have rags left to provide them with some sembnce of warmth, decided to forgo what little possessions they owned and ripped them from their bodies.

  The rags were bundled into balls, and the prisoners began to urinate on the clothes to make sure they would stick. They threw them at Lord Poxs, pelting the bastard with urine-soaked rags, each ball sticking to its target.

  What could a ball of rags do to a giant but a few thousand thrown from countless prisons throughout the tower?

  Once the rags were beginning to run out, some prisoners started to tear off their fingers with their teeth to continue the chaos.

  The giant was growing furious with each passing second; once he got his hands on James, he would demonstrate to every prisoner what happens when you piss off a giant.

  But Lord Poxs never got the opportunity, for his fury reached a boiling point before he captured James.

  One prisoner got lucky and hit Lord Poxs right in the eye with his piss-filled rags. The tower went silent, and Lord Poxs was too stunned to move.

  The bastard took one of his enormous hands and wiped the pissed rag off his eye, keeping eye contact with the prisoner who threw the lucky shot.

  The lucky “sharpshooter” kept his gaze on the Warden throughout the process. The prisoner couldn't contain his ughter once the pissed-filled rag hit the ground.

  For centuries, the tower was where the brave were broken, and nightmares grew rampant. In one day, the tower's legacy was shattered, and the cells that were once filled with the sounds of agony were repced with the ughter of millions.

  The warden Lord Poxs, “the harbinger of dread and torment,” was no more. Who would fear a giant with an eye full of piss-filled rags? The ughter was the final straw, and the giant snapped.

  Lord Pox abandoned his chase of James and let his anger fuel him. The only man he wanted dead at this moment was a prisoner who stared him in the eye and led the rest of the prisoners in a symphony of ughter.

  The man welcomed death as the giant made his way towards him; it was a better fate than being stuck in this hellhole.

  Lord Poxs held the railing with one hand, brought the other back, and formed a fist.

  The entire tower trembled as the massive fist tore through the prison cell, leaving a hole in its wake. Afterward, Lord Poxs continued his rampage, and the culling began.

  This was the final distraction James needed to reach the top of the tower. The prisoners who had James in their sights were overjoyed.

  But as James made it to the summit and had the roof hatch in his sights. He ran towards the prison guard's dining hall and rushed through the massive doors.

  This baffled the rest of the prisoners; did they give up their lives for nothing?

  James Von Berkshire, the st of his family, took his hand, tore it into his chest, and pulled out a blood-soaked leather-bound book.

  “Five years,” James could barely muster as blood gushed out of his chest. He walked to the center of the room and opened the book he had kept hidden for five hellish years. “It's time to get out of here.”