"Ten thousand beats... It feels like being given spare change to buy a life at a near-bankrupt grocery store," Raka muttered. His voice sounded hoarse.He sat limply at the edge of the rear door of the ruined The Toxic Goose truck bed. His legs dangled outside, occasionally the tips of his shoes scraping against the cracked toll road asphalt with the vehicle's jolts.Before him, the sea of purple fog that had once claimed his sanity began to recede down the slope, looking like a puddle of poison starting to fade, swept away by the dawn wind.The truck moved slowly but steadily. In the front cabin, Luna sat behind the wheel. Her sharp eyes stared at the ascending path, while Baginda curled up in the passenger seat beside her.Luna took over the role of driver because she knew Raka could barely lift his own hands after the brutal dialysis process from Vanya."Still alive back there, Guinea Pig?" Vanya's voice broke the silence, sounding from behind her messy laboratory table inside the

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! A high-pitched alarm sound exploded right in the center of Raka's nervous system. It didn't come from the outside, but rather from inside his own skull. Raka jolted violently, his head hitting the steering wheel of The Toxic Goose truck with a loud thud. "Argh! My ears! System, lower the volume!" Raka shouted, clutching his head with both hands. Inside the cramped cabin, Baginda was also startled and flapped his wings wildly, while Luna immediately drew her knife, her eyes watchfully sweeping every inch of The Hive's city wall ahead of them. [System: GLOBAL WARNING! Entering Content Sovereignty Territory!][System: PvP (Player vs Player) AREA DETECTED! WELCOME TO THE ARENA, MY BELOVED CONTENTS!] "PvP?" Raka hissed, his breathing heavy. "Vanya! Did you hear that alarm too?!" Vanya crawled qui

"Stay close to me," Raka whispered. The automatic doors of the Walled City's main Coliseum lobby opened with a hiss of high-pressure air. Raka stepped inside, followed by Luna who remained alert and Baginda who walked with a haughty strut as if he were the owner of the place. Raka noticed the floor made of black marble polished to reflect shadows, and along the walls, pillars of light displayed the statistics of the top fighters. Raka then looked down at himself. He was only wearing a dull shirt torn at the shoulder, jeans full of oil stains, and a grimy barista apron he found in the warehouse ruins the other day. At his waist, tucked a rusty cement trowel. Around him, other System Users looked like heroes from a fantasy comic. There was a man in glowing gold armor, a woman in a fur cloak continuously emitting sparks, and a group of muscular men with giant swords on their backs.