After six grueling hours of battling hundreds of Legendary Rank monsters inside the now popular VR game, Dawn of Gods: Chaos, an immersive VR game that offered 99% world immersion, Vox left his VR Pod.
The game had taken the eSports world by storm. It was ranked fifth amongst the eSports VR Rankings within its first six months of its release. From the game's world building to plots and options to free roam, it gradually rose to the peak of the charts. It was a second earth with supernatural abilities. Having been featured in the yearly Virtual Play Championship, DoGC ruled the gaming markets.
Grinding was hard as it required a whopping amount of a thousand experience points to slide into level two; note that monsters with level 1 to 5 offered 0.5 to 3 exps, this sole reason had further indulged billions of citizens to conquer the game. Still, only an abysmally low number of a thousand players had, with great effort, succeeded in stepping into the ranks of Legendary Ranked Players, with Vox 'Soulless' Killham at the very top.
Vox was introduced into the world of gaming by his brother, Luke, who was at that time one of the strongest Captain in the strongest gaming guild, Doomshade. At the age of fourteen, Vox began to play VR games for fun and nothing more. After a little nudging from his brother to ride with Doomshade Guild, Vox decided to go professional. Participating in every single locally hosted tournament, Vox shone with golden medals firmly sitting on his neck. His name, Soulless, became a small celebrity in the gaming society. After years of playing a wide variety of online VR games, he was recognized in his state as the 'Best Solo Player'.
Smashing previous records set by the generations of the past as if he were popping balloons, Soulless became a national celebrity in the span of two years; but then, calamity struck, his entire household had died in a train accident. There was not a single explanation from the government, no news outlets bothered about the incident of hundreds of people dead in a train collision. The incident came and went like a breeze.
Since that moment, Vox stayed out of the public eye in reality but still kept playing the games to keep himself afloat. He learnt various skills but the prominent ones were Parkour, Strategy Formulation and Analysis, and Close Combat Fighting Techniques. His learning speed was so abnormal that his virtual mentors almost went into a coma due to the shock that lived in their hearts.
In those five years of playing games, he became a 3X winner in the Virtual Play Championship, a battleground meant for only the pro of the pros. Aside from his winnings in games, he also aced assessments and challenges when it came to Parkour, Strategy Formulation and Analysis, and Close Combat until he became a 5Star Expert in all of them.
Vox stretched his body, performing light exercises to loosen up his muscles. Twisted his neck side to side with a cracking sound which came after.
'That's the feeling.' Vox said as he walked into a broad room called the kitchen. "Zeus, what's today's news report?"
"Should I list them out one after the other or…" A robotic voice said through one of the kitchen speakers.
"Just the weather and gaming reports which seems relevant enough."
"Today's weather forecast predicts a huge thunderstorm with approximately four hours of non-stop heavy rainfall. No exact time as the satellites are recording a back-and-forth pattern." Zeus, Vox's home AI assistant reported.
'Back-and-forth patterns? never heard of such in the previous forecasts,' Vox thought. "And the gaming reports."
"Clout Guild has reportedly taken over the Mithril Mine which Black Skulls found recently. John 'Viperfang' Escanor has been pushed down from the Top 100 Strongest Players Weekly Ranking by 'Killmonger',"
'As I had said, 'Killmonger' won't back down after Viperfang's insult.' Vox chuckled lightly as he listened further.
"Blockdude Inc. has partnered with Ghoulface Guild to conquer Devil's Utopia. The results have been anything but shocking. Most of Ghoulface Guild members' levels have risen by three to four levels with their 'Four Spirit Hands' now on the Top 1000 Strongest Players Monthly Ranking."
"Alright…. That's enough news. Open the curtains." Vox said and turned back to the direction of his room.
>Whoosh!<
The strong gust of wind almost knocked Vox off his feet. 'What the hell?' He grabbed a nearby railing for stability as he turned to look outside from his standing point. Lo and behold, the cloud had taken a darker shade during the once sunny morning.
Moving closer to the balcony of his apartment that was situated on a cliff, he saw it all. The dark cloud spanned across the sky and beyond what he could see. Strong winds were blowing throughout the city.
"What kind of rain is about to fall to draw such weather conditions?" Vox muttered to himself. "Close the windows and curtains."
Promptly following his commands, the windows were instantly shut and curtains swiftly drawn. 'I shouldn't bother myself with this.' Vox said in his mind but somewhere at the back of his mind, questions kept popping up.
'Are the authorities not presumed to have a weather control instrument?'
'A natural rainfall? When was the last time that occurred?'
Questions upon questions kept appearing at the back of his mind.
In the year 9999, anything related to natural occurrence had ceased to exist about thousands of years ago starting from the discovery of a wide range of technology. Vox, himself, had never experienced a natural rainfall as the previous rainfalls were as a result of the government's weather sim technology. Thunderstorms, rainfall, sun, moon, were all controlled by the government, artificially. The world seemed like a huge dome for them to have accurate control over the weather. Now that a situation usually manipulated by the government was occurring naturally, who knew what would happen.
Vox pushed these thoughts to the very back of his mind. He retained his bored persona as he grabbed one of the many energy drinks in his fridge.
Gulping it all with three long slurps, Vox directed his steps back to his room, "Zeus, contact Nyx. Have her meet me at Gloom Valley." Vox spoke with closed eyes as he laid back in his VR Pod.
Expecting the reply of Zeus and the welcome greeting of the game, he received none of the above mentioned.
Eyes still closed, "Zeus! Are you there?" Than to hear the robotic reply of his assistant, he felt cold winds touching his skin.
Opening his eyes, "Where the heck am I?"