Is this really a Game?!

Laura had no idea how much time had passed since the death of her family. She completely shut herself off, hiding her soul deep inside her consciousness. Only in some instances would she be aware of what was happening. Those instances were either the demon attacking her and slowly chipping away at her soul to torture her while malevolently laughing.

Other times it was when the demon was killing some people she tricked into helping her. Monsters were no different either, if the demon could kill them it would. Laura noticed that her level was constantly jumping up and down, it was something that made her a bit confused. One day she would be level 20 and above, and the next she would be back at level 12.

The demon visited many places around the world while using her body. She would create a portal that would take her to another place on Earth from time to time. It was as if it was looking for something, but it could never truly find it.

Laura was able to see Beijing, London, New York, and many more cities around the world that way. Sometimes the demon would even hide from some people and monsters. Usually, that would happen after teleporting. It was then that Laura figured out why her level was constantly changing. Every time the demon made a portal she would sacrifice 10 levels.

Only after a long time had passed did the demon find the place it wanted to go to. Laura had no idea how much time had passed until then, weeks, months, years?

The demon exited the portal and found itself in a forest. It showed a vicious smile as it was finally able to find the place it needed. The demon used Laura's appearance to fool a couple of players that were hunting nearby. They took it to the town that was nearby. The town was infested with monsters and was very dangerous to pass through, even for the demon in its weakened state.

After getting what it needed from the players the demon simply killed them all before continuing to the town. Sneaking through the city proved to be more difficult than it predicted as it needed many hours to get to its goal, a huge warehouse that looked abandoned. The demon had previously talked with someone, Laura was unable to understand what it was talking about nor with whom as nobody was close by.

As the demon entered the warehouse it could see over a hundred hobgoblins waiting inside. There were also bigger, stronger-looking hobgoblins inside, an ogre, and a big orc that seemed to be the leader. The orc came forward with a smile as he introduced Laura to his troops. She was a new recruit that was delivered to them by an ally. A brainwashed human that would listen to his every command.

That however was a lie. After entering the orc's chamber he immediately went down on his knees and bowed deeply to Laura.

"My Mistress." The demon that took control of Laura's body was of course Tragmath, the demoness that lorded over the orc shaman Reign and the others had faced in the dungeon previously. The demoness sat down on the throne as the orc narrated everything that had happened so far in his territory. He was able to gain the favor of the orc King in this region and was given the task of controlling the anchor point.

Because of the huge ants and other dangerous monsters, it was still not done. Tragmath smiled deeply as she expected as much. She told the orc to put her in his elite team that consisted of an ogre, draif, and two elite hobgoblins. With them, she would occasionally go deeper in the dungeon to slowly clear the monsters. When she became level 20 is when she would be able to gain control of the anchor point and call over a small part of her demon army. With them, they would be able to defend against the wave of enemies that will attack them and then slowly overtake this town.

Most of her days were spent sitting around the underground city and going hunting for monsters. Slowly but surely she was gaining levels and after some time she was level 18. Only a little bit was left before she would be able to gain control of the anchor point. She didn't want to hurry things up as it would be unwise to clear the monster quickly as that would prompt the orc king to send his troops here to help out with defending the territory.

Tragmath was overjoyed when she learned that a group of highly powerful humans had entered the territory and were slaughtering the hobgoblins above. Killing strong humans would allow her to increase her level quickly without getting the orcs involved. She went with the others from the team to meet them near the hole that led down to the tunnels.

She was surprised after seeing the group's power. They were strong, incredibly strong for the current phase of the game. Each of them was powerful enough to be a leader of a relatively strong group but they were still together and clearly, there was a leader.

Finding out that one of her teammates was actually another being in disguise was also a surprise as she never even realized it. She didn't have enough time to bother about it however as her opponent was strong and his skill with the bow was perhaps even greater than hers.

Getting to the end of the battle Tragmath was excited as the human managed to corner her. Both of them were about to kill the other with the final attack and she didn't feel bothered. The body she carefully cultivated was simply one of many she had in the universe, the knowledge of such a planet was worth more to her as her soul fragment would simply return to her after the body perishes.

That however was a grave mistake. Another member of the group managed to block their final attack and capture her with incredible power. She was able to feel the dreadful power coming from the mark on his face, a power of a god, and a powerful one at that.

Even the weakest god was stronger than her, to see people that were chosen by such beings on this small, weak planet was incredible. She was already making up her mind about the planet and was planning on possessing more people to get as many benefits as she could.

Then he came.

His blazing white eyes were like the sun itself as her soul fragment was getting destroyed by his incredible power. A human should not have such power, not even in the later stages of the game. There was something familiar about him though. The blazing, endless light was hiding something deep inside it. As it used the final vestiges of its soul to peak inside she was shocked to find darkness. Darkness should not exist where light was so powerful. But it did and she was finally able to remember why the power was so familiar to her.

"Ah, he's one of them, that wretched race." The demoness uttered as her soul was annihilated.

The second time she came down to Earth she was furious to find that her minion had betrayed her and she was again losing against the wretched human. Another soul fragment, this one even larger than the previous one was destroyed. Her trip to Earth so far was going quite bad.

Laura was finally free when Reign destroyed the demoness. She had no reason to live anymore however and didn't really care for it. She was grateful that Reign destroyed the soul of the demoness but that was it. That was until she saw her family, or to be more exact her souls.

There was still hope for them as they could be saved. The system even gave her a quest, a chance to redeem herself and save her family from the clutches of Tragmath.

[ Personal quest issued. ]

[ Redemption and revenge ]

[ Congratulations player, you have successfully escaped the clutches of Tragmath and were able to regain control of your body. Your family members however were not so lucky as their souls were seized by the evil demoness. All is not lost however, please achieve the Transcended status and find the demoness. Only after defeating her will you be able to free the souls of your family and the others she had taken.]

Seeing her family members again was an emotional thing for Laura. It turned out that they were always there, locked inside her by the demoness as she made them watch all the things she did to Laura for her wicked pleasure. They told her they knew what happened and that she shouldn't blame herself as they didn't either.

Laura was now motivated to grow more powerful and take revenge for them. At the same time she would liberate them from the clutches of the demoness and who knows, maybe she would find a way to get them their bodies back. The universe even had gods, something like creating a body for their souls shouldn't be impossible right?

The memories ended and Laura was standing there, she was still lost and didn't know what to do. The memories started again and she was forced to re-live everything again. And again, and again.

How many times did she go through all of it?

10, 20 , 100?

She had no idea. A lot of time had passed, that much was certain. She was scared, what was happening to her, what was happening in the world outside? Was the trial over for the others?

Had they already forgotten her?

She had no idea.

Time and time again she was simply standing in the void, crying and laughing before finally stopping. A purple flame materialized around her as her eyes were filled with determination.