The Genesis Game

"Welcome to Hometown."

The words hung heavy in the room as lifeless eyes stared out in judgement from the ruined skull of the body on the ground, the floor slick as more blood pooled beneath the dead man. Though Seraph knew the bleeding would soon stop as the last of the man's blood spilled on the floor, it did not stop Jack and Paul from trying to save the man. Whether they were naive, or unwilling to accept what had happened, Seraph did not know.

The tables had been pushed aside to make room as Paul and Jack knelt next to the body as Paul worked to stem the bleeding, administering any kind of aid he could think of. As Seraph looked, it became clear to him that Jack was just going through the motions, likely trying to garner some good will from the man next to him.

Paul though, actually thought he might be able to save Alexander, this was after all the dungeon, and more miraculous things had happened. Seraph knew better though, his strike had been a mortal wound, he had killed the man, and though Paul likely knew the would had been mortal, he stilled tried to resuscitate the man by doing c.h.e.s.t compressions, in a way it was almost comical and Seraph stifled a laugh.

A laugh that reminded him that they were not alone in the room. Leaning against the wall at the front of the room, Garen watched their every move, a grin on his face. Though the other's didn't see it, Seraph did, the elf was enjoying the spectacle. "I'll just wait here until the lot of you are done with your friend over there before continuing onwards." Said Garen to remind the others they weren't alone.

In that moment, Seraph was reminded why he had always hated the elves. The way this one smiled at the three of them infuriated and angered Seraph. One day he would fix that, but today would not be that day, the differences in their respective levels was far too great for Seraph to currently overcome, but one day he would, and when he did, he would come for Garen and his mocking smile, just like he had done before.

Garen looked directly at Seraph as his daring him to try something, when Seraph made no move, Garen shrugged.

"Actually., nevermind." Said Garen as he turned his gaze away from Seraph with a wink to address all three of them. "While it's cute that the two of you think you're going to be able to help that man, we all know how this ends. He's dead and the dead stay dead. So, let's go ahead and skip the part were one of you just won't give up until every avenue has been exhausted. It's not like you knew him that well.I'm going to go ahead and get everyone else in here. It's time to move on."

Garen walked over to the exit of the in processing room and opened the door. Grabbing on to the doorway he peaked out and yelled "Dwight, Mary, George, get in here, they're all done, it's time to wrap this up.

Within moments in answer to his command, the other three adventurers entered the room. The Minotaur Dwight, the Elf George, and a Halfling that Seraph assumed meant that Mary had already made her new racial selection.

"Halflings." Thought Seraph in disgust.

"The gang's all here. I'm going to step out for a few while you all finish up your family business. I'll be back soon." Said Garen with a smile as he walked away.

Even as much as he hated him, Seraph still wanted to follow him, and had to resist the impulse to chase after the elf and move on. He was anxious to be done with inprocessing and be done with these people. Seraph stayed, his business was not yet done, and he knew for what was to come next, he could not do alone, allies would be needed. Though Seraph knew he had made the right decision, he also knew that few of the others would ever agree with his decision to kill Alexander for the sake of humanity.

"That's why I got this chance though." Thought Seraph to himself. "Because I was willing to make those decisions."

"Oh my god, is he ok?" Asked Mary, a horrified expression on her face as she looked at the man Paul and Jack were still attending to. The grisly scene easy to see with the tables and chairs moved aside.

"I don't think he is." Replied Dwight matter of factly. "I'm fairly confident that the bits of gray i'm seeing mixed in with all that red is brain matter. That guy is dead."

"Knock it off." Said George as he punched the Minotaur in the side in a mostly friendly way. "You're scaring Mary."

"Sorry." Replied Dwight, his eyes downcast.

"You there." Commanded George, one of his swords extending pointing at Jack demanding his attention. "What happened here, and don't lie to me."

"Well." Said Jack, shifting nervously as he locked towards Seraph. "There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this. You see there was a bit of a disagreement on current and future tax policy within the dungeon, and that gentleman over there on the floor had a plan that contradicted and disagreed with that of the young man over there. Accusations were thrown, feelings were hurt, and now, here we are."

George pointed his swords at Seraph. "Is any of that true?"

"Yes." Seraph responded without hesitation.

The three of them looked at each other in unease began to whisper to one another.

Paul looked up from the body, his hands covered in blood from trying to stem the bleeding, and saw Seraph, he turned away, averting his eyes from Seraph.

Seraph knew what the look meant, what the aversion meant, even if no words had been said. "Murderer."

It was not the first time that word had been levied at him, and it would not be the last. He would stain his hands with blood as many times as was required, and this situation had required it, Alexander had forced his hand.

No explanation existed that would fix this, and though there were only a few feet between them, Seraph knew a rift much wider and deeper had been created between him and his father over what he had done. He regretted the rift, but did not regret his actions and hoped one day Paul would understand.

Seraph walked over to Alexander's body and as he got close, Paul recoiled from him, and got up off of his knees and stood up. Seraph called out to him to wait, but if Paul heard it, he didn't acknowledge it as he left the building altogether. Internally Seraph debated with himself over whether or not to stop Paul, but he decided against it, theirs was a difference in philosophy and perspective, some time alone in the dungeon would show his father how relative morality really was, and that Seraph had acted in the best interest of humanity.

"This will be a harsh learning experience for you." Thought Seraph as he watched his father leave. "But it can't be helped. You can't hand on to all of those ideas of how things are supposed to work."

"Can you tell us why?" Asked Mary. "Why did you kill that man?"

"Because the future required it." Answered Seraph as he bent over and checked Alexander's vitals, he was confident the man was dead, he found no pulse and no signs of shallow breathing, but as of yet he had been unable to wrap up this unfinished business. He had been wondering why he hadn't already received a status update with the permanent boost to his base stats from having killed Alexander. He had been putting off assigning his points from his recent level up from completing the Wormwood quest until afterwards after he could see where the points were best spent.

"That's not good enough." Interrupted Dwight. "I'm not stronger to getting my hands dirty so I won't judge you until I've enough facts to decide for myself if it was the right call. Why did you do it?"

Seraph looked at the Minotaur appraising him, the man had a cool even head and appeared to be rationally based, Seraph could work with that and a little rapport building would help.

"The four of us were given a decision that needed to be unanimous, a decision that would affect the rest of humanity, all of us, you included, could have our legendary or elite classes unlocked right now by taxing all future experience earned by everyone, this would have made us like gods by crippling everyone else. Or we could use the same experience tax to keep running the tutorial. Alexander,, the man I killed refused to forfeit the class unlocked, and there was only one way with his refusal to make the vote unanimous."

George looked at him with eyes narrowed in judgement, while Mary and Dwight held back their judgement and reservations. "So what? You killed him over a disagreement on taxes? What kind of monster are you? Did you not think you should consult us? Maybe we needed that power too. Who are you to make that kind of decision? Who died and made you king? Who elected you as president. No one did. Thats who."

"George. Just stop." Said Dwight. "I don't want you to get hurt, but you're not thinking straight. We all died, that's why we weren't consulted. We lacked something the rest of them didn't and that kid over there seems to have killed that guy easy enough."

Seraph glared at George, the tone, the accusation, the entitlement. Seraph knew what was coming next, and for the sake of building a relationship with the Minotaur to try and convince him to join his team, he would leave the man alive.

"No, that's enough." Yelled George as he leveled his swords at Seraph. "This kid is a monster, he's dressed like a monster, he's killed, I'm ending this now."

George ran forward at Seraph, his twin swords out at his sides as he moved to slash at Seraph and kill him. The blades angling down, amateurish as if he was swinging both swords like a baseball bat.

Seraph brought the Cat's Claw up under the first blade, deflecting it and traveled under the steel edge of the blade, his counter attack continuing as he cut straight through George's offhand. Both blades dropped to the ground, one still clutched by a severed hand, as George fell to his knees screaming in pain, tears rolling down his face as he clutched his bleeding stump.

But Seraph was not done, he needed to make an example from the man that others would never forget, it was not about winning the fight, it was about winning every fight in the future.

He walked up to the sobbing elf and summoned just two of his ethereal arms using his thousand handed ability. The spectral arms disappearing inside George's shoulders as they held him in place as he looked on in fear and horror as Seraph placed his hands on George's face.

Though the man tried to struggle, it was for nothing as Seraph willing his Cold Hands ability to activate, and as he did he focused the ability on the man's eyes, little by little draining the thermal energy from them as everyone else looked on in silent terror.

When the man stopped struggling, Seraph dismissed his arms, this would not be a good time to overexert himself. When he felt he was finished, Seraph shoved the move forward, slapping him on the back of the head as he fell forward, the force of the blow knocking out the man's frozen eyes. Seraph looked at each of them for a second before stepping on and crushing both.

"Let this be a reminder to never cross me again. You're hand may regrow, and so too will at least one of your eyes. Same goes for the rest of you. This is the only warning the rest of you are going to get."

"You two." Said Seraph pointing at Mary and Dwight. "Go put your friend outside so I don't have to listen to his crying anymore."

They quickly complied with his commands.

"Now back to what I was doing." Thought Seraph as he went back to examining Alexander's body.

The instant conclusion he came to was that Alexander must have become an undead. There was no other explanation that made sense to him. If the man had become an undead, Seraph would need to kill him quickly to avoid possible danger, or worse, if the man had become possessed instead.

"I'll fix this" Though Seraph as he moved his Cat's Claw to strike again, this time intending to sever the head completely.

Jack grabbed his shoulder, and Seraph almost stabbed the man out of instinct.

"Hey, hey, hey, stop that, it's just me, let's not be hasty ok? I'd prefer if you didn't kill me, or my minion." Said Jack looking over at the body.

Seraph stood up and though he adopted a defensive posture, he was no longer ready to kill. "Minion? I'm assuming you used your pet skill on him then?"

Jack nodded with a smile. "Yes I did, it hasn't kicked in yet though. I still have to flood the body with most of my mana to get it to finish up. I have no intention of letting a good body go to waste. I've still got access to his identification skill, his items, and get this, he still can get experience. But I was wondering, well more hoping than wondering, if you'd be willing to guard me when I do. I know we've got some history, but I did just back your play, and you're going to need allies."

Seraph considered it for a moment. He had made a binding oath to punish Jack, and there would be severe consequences to him if he simply absolved that debt, but he also hadn't set a time line either, or punishment either. Musing it over, Seraph decided he had some room to maneuver.

"I'm willing, but on one condition." Responded Seraph, his voice taking on a deadly serious tone as he looked Jack in the eye.

Jack nodded, assuming things were about to get rather complicated for him. "What's the condition before I agree?"

"It's simple." Said Seraph, his voice losing none of it's serious edge. "I want you to swear an oath that you'll never betray me, attack me, and that when I form a guild, that you'll join when I ask you to."

Jack pretended to consider his answer before committing. "Alright, I think I can promise that."

"Good." Said Seraph as he held out his hand and sliced it open with the blade point of his weapon. "Let's make it official."

Jack looked at his own hand and sliced it open just the same way. At this point to him it was just a complicated formality, and as both hands bled on the ground, Jack took Seraph's outstretched hand and shook it.

"I swear." He said.

"So be it." Replied Seraph and in response dark energy pulsed from his hand into Jack, and though Jack tried to retract his hand it was too late. He had made an oath and Seraph would ensure he followed.

Notification: By invoking a Blood-Oath promise the adventurer Jack has promised to never betray you, attack you, and will join your guild when asked to. Should he fail to keep this promise, he will forfeit all experience current, and future he has gained, and will be reset to level 1.

"What the hell man?" Screamed Jack as Seraph finally let his hand go. "Just what did you do to me?"

"I took precautions." Replied Seraph cooly. "You betrayed me once, I wasn't going to trust you again without some reassurances."

"Urgh, how did you do that?" Asked Jack, his expression curious as he glared at Seraph.

Seraph pondered for a second why Jack didn't know, had the man completely ignored him earlier? The thought infuriated Seraph, but he realized that wasn't the case. Jack had not been around when Seraph had made the disclosure about his reincarnation, or rather his fraudulent restart ability.

"Telling anyone what I'm about to tell you will count as a betrayal in my eyes, so guard your mouth closely." Said Seraph as he inched closer to Jack. "I've done this all before. I've the restart ability. Whenever I die, I restart all the way back to the tutorial."

Jack raised an eyebrow questioning the veracity of what he had heard, but kept silent instead asking "So, like Groundhog day? I'm sure you've got everything figured out now, is that how you were totally able to kick that guy's ass?"

"Hardly. I was just a better fighter than that guy's ego." Admitted Seraph as he shrugged. "I've restarted three times so far, and the last time I made it all the way to the end of this before dying."

Jack didn't know what to say to that. As crazy as it sounded, it seemed more plausible than outlandish, and with what he had already seen, he couldn't discount it altogether.

"Alright. I'm not saying I believe you, but I also don't not believe you, so I guess that's something. Now if you don't mind, I've got to pump all my mana into this corpse before it all goes to rot." Said Jack as he knelt beside the body and placed both hands on the corpses c.h.e.s.t.

"Ready when you are." Announced Seraph as Jack began to work.