Soul Art Online

- Arthas- 

We could see the gates of the village ahead of us.

It was then that it happened.

Some people came out from behind the rocks near the Village's entrance. Around ten of them. I recognized three of them being the ones who were following me during the day.

I was wearing a cloak and my armour was covered under my normal shirt and cloak. I had opened my inventory and had the sword on my fingertips.

"Hello there. I'm Harmund. You need to pay the toll to enter the village." The highest level among the group came forward. He was level 9 while the rest were all level 5 and above.

Really? Save a girl and get surrounded by a group of thugs.

Could it get any more cliché?

I narrowed my eyes.

"Don't look so upset. It's an initiative we have taken to collect money to help the players who have difficulty in surviving. We can take anything, Gold, Weapons, food anything. Anything you can donate. The more the better." He continued with a patronising smile.

"And why haven't I heard of such a thing? I'm pretty sure if people were doing such a thing, we surely would have known about it." My new acquaintance questioned.

"We have just started this today. It still hasn't spread yet." He replied unbothered.

"Sorry, I don't have anything to contribute." I tried to step around them but they blocked the road.

"Now, now, don't be in such a hurry. We are just doing this for the good of the players in need. Surely you can contribute something." He grabbed my shoulder.

"I have nothing to contribute. If you are so keen on helping them, do it yourself." I shrugged his hands off.

"You are being very selfish now, Mister." The others surrounding us brought out their weapons.

"If you want to help the people, call for everyone in the Village and announce such things. We cannot trust just anyone to carry out such things. Everyone needs to decide it first." Veena tried to mediate.

"Are you calling us liars, lady? Can't you see the ten of us? Don't we look like players in need?" A gruff looking man, level 8, I noticed walked up to her, trying to intimidate her. I noticed that she didn't even blink an eye. Instead, I saw her eyes harden a bit.

I let out a sigh. "Why don't you all drop the act already? I haven't slept properly and am very annoyed. I could use some stress relief."

There is a level difference of twenty one between me and their highest level. My stats should be around 4 times more than their strongest member.

"So be it then." He brought out his sword and pointed it directly towards me. "Bring out the quest rewards you got from completing some high level quests for the old shopkeeper. No use lying. And since you're being such an uncooperative brat, bring out your gold and equipment too." he poked the sword towards me.

"And the girl can pay for herself. I think I know what I want from her." the gruff one grinned looking at her.

I looked at her and her eyes were cold. It was a bit frightening how cold her eyes were. She looked at me and her eyes moved and it was as if a signal between the two of us.

The next second, I brought out my sword from my inventory and slashed the man who was holding me at sword point, taking off his arm. Before anything could happen, I threw chilli bombs towards the suddenly frozen group while my sword arm moved, thrusting the sword through the man's head.

From the corner of my eyes I saw the actions of the sole female in the scene. She grabbed the hand of the man who was going to touch her face, twist it around and, bringing out a dagger from her inventory, repeatedly stabbed the man in the eyes and skull. The man might only have been one level short of her but that was a genuine martial arts move and the guy barely got any time to react. His face was already covered with the same powder she had thrown on the piglets.

I rushed towards the non affected people on my side and slashed them through. The adrenaline was probably working for me if that was even a thing inside the game.

She picked up the spear of her first victim and dashed towards the two on her side who defended themselves rather clumsily.

The entire group of ten assaulters were taken care of in less than two minutes. I took down seven of them and she killed the remaining three.

Their shouts were snuffed out in moments so I didn't see anyone coming out to check on them.

The dead bodies however didn't disappear immediately and after I had killed everyone, I faced the reality of the situation.

Dulled emotions or not, when the adrenaline faded away, I collapsed onto my knees as the realisation dawned on me. My breaths were becoming shorter and I had the urge to throw up when I recalled the feeling of slashing through them with my sword.

- Venelana Gremory -

She watched as the boy tried to catch his breath and sighed to herself. He looked barely eighteen and a normal boy except for his slightly dulled emotions.

A devil, even a normal one is more attuned to sins and wouldn't have such a reaction, but a human would.

On top of that, he seems to believe that he is actually taking the lives of the people just now.

This 'game' was turning out to be more than she had expected.

When her daughter had been excited about the game and even her son had called it a marvel of science, she had been attracted. It didn't take much convincing to get her to order one for herself. The life of long lived beings were often hounded by that thing called boredom. She had been extremely bored with the only relief being her grandson and the times her daughter returned back home from school.

The household work could only occupy her thoughts so much and Zeoticus was always busy with the house business or his private harem. She didn't fault him for it. Time changed the way people thought. She still loved her husband and knew that he loved her just as much. It was just that she needed something new to excite her once more and thus she came upon this game.

It seems now that this was a bit more than she had expected.

She wouldn't lie and say she wasn't worried about her daughter and the others who had started this game too. There is also the fact that more than two weeks have passed and there was no change, showing that the outside world was finding it hard to release them so easily. The Game Master had talked about the soul contract and that had further dulled any hopes of rescue.

As a Devil, she knew what such contracts could do.

She had spent around a week gathering all the information she could about these games. It allowed her to think of a plan for the near future. Her combat experience was helping her despite not possessing any of her original power.

The meeting with the boy had been a coincidence, though she already knew who he was because of the information from Martha. A player who had raced ahead of all others to become a T2 Class holder. She talked to him wanting to know about the tips he could offer to increase the speed of her levelling too while he seemed to be more interested in her skills and job as a Gardener than her body that she had seen many others eying. A welcome change in things that made the little conversation quite pleasant for her too.

It just had to be ruined by those uncouth idiots.

She knew this group. They had been arrested on the first day after causing trouble in the village.

They had been released a week later and had immediately formed a group to hunt together. They had driven several players away from safer hunting grounds as well as stole kills from many others but were left unchecked due to the actions not being illegal in the game. They had harassed several female players and were confronted by several other players but only the Village was a safe zone and whatever happened outside it was fair game. They had picked out several of those confronters and three of them didn't return after a day.

This had basically given them a boost in confidence. They had eyed her several times but her work as a gardener and her night time hunting times kept their timetables from overlapping, keeping her safe.

This time it seems that she got caught as collateral.

All things aside, she had to accept that the fight did get her blood running.

Unfortunately the same couldn't be said for her new acquaintance.

She walked towards the boy. He looked at her, eyes wary and she slowly stopped.

He spoke up, "The Village, safe zone." And got up with unsteady steps, walking towards the village gates.

She watched the back of the boy and got slightly more respect for him.

His ability to accept his situation and act on it had impressed her. They hadn't needed more than a single eye contact to know each other's intentions before the attack.

She liked the decisiveness of the boy. Had it been a normal situation, she would have even considered trying to recruit him into her peerage.

His words made things clear.

He didn't trust her, not completely. But he didn't want to be enemies either. He didn't reject her support but pushed his fears and catatonia forcibly behind to wait for a place where he could afford to take her support. She nodded to herself and followed him. Maybe he could be good enough to stick to and wouldn't weigh her down? Just maybe. 

- The Game Master -

He watched the screen as the people were beginning to calm down and accept their situation now.

Human minds are very adaptive.

Now his last act in this world will finally begin. His last gift to the world that had given him all he had right now.

He took a sip of his finest wine, one he had himself made around 800 years ago for this very moment in a Golden Chalice that was the start of it all. The Sephiroth Graal.

Being reincarnated into a fictional world had been out of a dream for him. The only drawback was the timeline he was reincarnated in. A Thousand and five hundred years before anything that he knew happened. When he realised what exactly the world was, he had panicked and locked himself in to become stronger. Or it might have been, had that motherfucking dragon who had almost toasted his village when fighting with his eternal rival/secret love appeared. He had only survived thanks to his Sacred Gear, using the leftover energy of those two beasts to turn himself into a dragon. The Sephiroth Graal was such a fucking cheat.

This had however attracted the attention of another insane being and his oldest lover who helped him hide and see what he did, just out of curiosity.

The world however moved on just as it was supposed to. Apparently the God of the Bible had noticed the absence of the Graal and secretly made a second one. This one after all didn't contain some special spirit or anything and just the knowledge of the God of the Bible about the Principles of Life and the Soul, which let the user peek into the Knowledge of the Dead.

He took all this time to train and become stronger. Learn all this world had to teach. Apparently his cheat was the ability to nullify the side effects of the Gear because he could control the thing perfectly from the moment he awakened it. It was like an instinctive knowledge. And when you are not being corrupted by the voices of the dead, they have a lot to talk about.

Sure, there were times when he wanted to go out and wreck the world, maybe get some waifus but his tastes had changed. Having the Dragon of Dreams as your partner tends to raise the bar a tad bit high for future lovers. He was not interested in weaker waifus. Only the stronger ones attracted his attention now and thus, even after a thousand and five hundred years later, he could only find three lovers in total who could satisfy his skewed and ridiculous standards.

The Dream, the Infinity and the Sea of Creation.

When the children of Tiamat, the Mother Goddess had cut her into pieces, they used the ribs to make the Vaults of Heaven and Earth, the eye became the source of River Tigris and the blood was used to bless the land with fertility… but one part still remained and was recovered by someone else.

The God of the Bible had sealed the last part of the Dragon Goddess Tiamat the 'Womb of Creation' into the Annihilation Maker, making it able to create monsters at will.

Great Red had collected the leftover energies of the deceased Mother Goddess, shaping it into a hatchling who grew into the current Dragon King, Tiamat. What he on the other hand did was use his Sephiroth Graal, to revive the original Goddess for himself. 

And finally when it was time for the so called show to start, he was beyond powerful. Even his oldest lover was twice as strong as she was supposed to be and he was stronger than all of his lovers combined.

He had removed the only weakness against himself, Samael and made himself and his lovers immune to its blood and curse. If he wanted to capture the world right now, he was sure there wasn't any force in the world that could stop the four of them.

And yet… and yet, he was done with it. He had already got everything the world could give him. He now wanted to see other worlds. If this one existed, then there was a high chance that others did as well. Creating the portal hadn't been hard either considering the people behind the creation, but before he left, he wanted the world to remember his name.

He had gotten everything from this world, so it was only fair to give it something equal in return. The Law of Equivalent Exchange.

Until now, no one even knew of his existence.

He had made it as such, erasing his name from any minds that might have known him and keeping his existence a secret.

But, it didn't sit right with him to just leave the world without so much as leaving his name on it. And thus came this plan.

Soul Art Online.

He in his long life had always seen Humans whine against the Supernaturals, claiming how different the world would have been if they had been in charge. Foolish idiots.

That said, he was once a human himself. So he decided to humour them. In fact he decided to humour anyone who decided to play his 'game'

The Sephiroth Graal could change almost anything. It did change him from the leftover energy of the Heavenly Dragons into what he was now. It gave him access to the nigh infinite knowledge of the dead, their experience… their strengths.

So he decided to let the entire world have a taste of this.

He made a Game for them which will test the very limits of their sanity and if they win, he will give them a reward for it… to take their powers from the game into the real world.

Every action has a consequence.

He was in fact quite delighted to see many of the 'main cast' entering the game. He had specifically made sure that they got interested in the game.

He missed some but he still got some unexpected ones.

Oh the amount of fun he was going to have in this wonderful game.

But before that, he needed to make sure that no idiots tried to destroy his hard work.

"Is the communication device ready, Red?"

"All set."

"Good."

He pressed the magic circle in front of him and huge screens made up of mist appeared throughout the territories of the Supernatural World.

"Hello everyone." The entire Supernatural World heard his voice. "I'm the one called 'The Game Master'. Nice to meet you all." He took a few seconds of pause as the crowds in all the world quieted down. "I'm the creator of 'Soul Art Online', you know that wonderful piece of art that's been on hype in the entire human world. And as someone who has worked for centuries for that, I would not appreciate it, if anyone and I mean anyone tries to ruin the game or harm the players. They signed a soul bound contract with me. If they are forcibly taken out, they will die. If someone does that, I will kill them. Are we clear up to this point?"

He paused as he watched the faces of some of the leaders who had their relatives locked inside the game.

"I sincerely hope that you will take my warning seriously. I have worked very hard to create this game and if anyone tries to mess this up, I will make their entire life a living nightmare. Worst part is that I might even go into a fit of rage and decide to do something even more. Believe me, Angry Me is scary. Even I, myself, am scared of Angry Me. So don't make me angry, alright. Have fun~."

Oh, he loved the sound of people raising an uproar.

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Author's Note:

This story was a new take on what would happen if a reincarnator really went bonkers on the world and made something from all his previous life knowledge.

Yes, the Game Master made everything with his previous life knowledge so expect a lot of anime references and back stories. As for what they are… . That's a secret.

The MC of the story is a normal guy or as normal as a reincarnator can be. His emotions have dulled due to the stress of going through the newborn phase(which according to me, things should be). His memories are hazy about his previous life but he will remember things as his stats increase and boosts his mind and body in the future.

You will see more in the next chapter of the story but I think this should be a very unique take on a world like DxD. I don't know if anything like this has been done before.

I will try to bring in some characters from the crossover elements like Sword Art Online and even Better Sword Art Online *cough* *cough* Log Horizon.(I don't regret my words). 

Anyways tell me how you liked it or if you have any suggestions. I'm not an expert of writing MMO based fics and am looking forward to this as a writing experience.

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.