"Level 80, huh?" Liam stared at his status screen, which was red in colour.
He was also able to summon and dismiss his soul minions without any issue. However, the thing that he truly wanted to confirm… was something else.
Taking a deep breath, he was about to start tapping his system interface when a loud noise interrupted him.
"Liam! Liam!" Alex almost broke the door open and barged in. With tear-stained eyes, she gasped as she looked at the person standing in front of her. The next second she dashed forward and hugged him tightly.
"I… sob… you are here… sob… you are okay… I was so worried… sob."
Liam could see that she was a complete mess. She was barely able to get any words out. "Wait. Calm down and tell me what happened."
"Mia is gone! She is not here. The game capsule broke down and disappeared, everyone got out of the game, but Mia is still not there. She is just completely gone. All her things are here. Her clothes, her money, everything but she is missing. Liam, what happened to her?"
Alex was shaking uncontrollably. Even though so many things had happened in the game, this had been her last hope.
Others might have dreaded this moment when the game shut down and everyone was kicked out, but she had been hopeful.
She desperately wished that at least now Mia would be within their reach. No matter what happened to her, they could always heal her slowly as long as she was with them. However… now…
"What happened to her? Where did she go?" Seeing her completely hysterical, Liam could only sigh. He had no answers for her.
He pulled her closer and hugged her, shushing her cries by burying her face into his chest. "I cannot give you an answer right now, but I promise I will bring her back. I think that the tutorial game world still exists. We can still bring Mia back."
Alex looked up with her teary eyes. She could see that Liam was serious. In reality, she herself had come to the same conclusion as that seemed to be the only logical possibility, considering everything happening around them.
"Can we really get her back?" She asked as her lips trembled, but before she could finish her words, a group of people rushed into Liam's room, barging through the open door.
Mei Mei dashed forward and hugged Liam tightly from the other side. "Brother, you are fine." She sighed in relief. Shen Yue and Rey, who were standing next to her, also looked very relieved.
None of them knew what happened after they died and respawned in the graveyard, but at least Liam looked fine. In fact, he looked more than fine.
Mei Mei was the first to notice as she felt the rock-hard abs on her brother. She took a step back and started circling Liam. Sure, he had changed a lot in recent days, but the person in front of her now was a completely different person.
It was almost as if… he had switched places with the in-game avatar? How could this be possible?
Watching Mei Mei ogle at her brother, the other two and Alex also noticed the changes and became shocked. They gaped as they eyed Liam from top to bottom. Just what happened after they died?
Karakaboom! Thunder roared loudly outside, interrupting everyone's thoughts.
"We have work to do," Liam spoke first. This was not the time for a happy reunion. The real event had only just begun. They needed to get on top of things right now, right from the start.
"Alex, fill Rey in on what we talked about." Liam looked at the brother-sister pair and nodded. "If you both need some time to gather yourself, stay here and talk for a few minutes, but I suggest that you get a grip quickly."
"Brother, what happened?" Mei Mei asked in confusion.
"Mia is missing. Even her body is missing." Liam explained.
He didn't bother hiding it, as this was something that was going to come out sooner or later. When the world around them was unravelling, what was the point of sugarcoating things?
"We don't know where she went or how to help her. But before you guys start to worry about her, first take a look around yourself, look at the world outside." It was cruel to say these things, but Liam couldn't afford to be anything else at the moment.
He then looked at Alex and Rey in particular and continued. "If you really want to help her at all, bring her back to us, you need to be strong enough for that. So focus on that first."
"In a minute, there is going to be complete chaos. The monsters that we saw inside the game are going to be running rampant on these streets. People are going to turn into mindless zombies that you see in horror movies. We need to start fighting, do you understand?"
Alex dully nodded. Rey also did the same. None of his usual playfulness was there on his face. He clenched in fists, his gaze filled with resolve.
"I still don't know how the others are doing, but you four need to be strong. Let's go. We need to go downstairs and start dealing with this." Liam pointed to his window. There were already some screams coming from outside.
As if this was not enough, the building that they were standing on was starting to shake. Earthquake! Not just that, but the skies thundered relentlessly. Everything felt as if it was going to crumble down any second now.
Everyone looked scared and worried, and their faces were etched with the uncertainties of the future. They knew this was coming but now that they were actually here, it was difficult to accept the reality.
"Come ON! We need to move!" Liam urged them again. "Don't forget. Your levels have all reset. You basically need to start over again. Think of your system prompt, and it will open up."
"Everything is just like in the game, but here, we only have one life!"
Everyone gulped. Liam did not linger any longer and rushed out of the apartment complex. If they delayed even for another minute, then their own team members might lose their lives.
He ran down the stairs as he loudly shouted. "Come out and assemble in the front!"
Mei Mei, Shen Yue, Rey and Alex also followed him downstairs as they knocked on everyone's door. There were at least six of their guild members staying in the building, including Derek's family. So the group started rounding up everyone.
Liam personally knocked on the apartment where Derek's family was staying as he had a bad feeling.
And just like he feared, Derek's sister, Lily, opened the door with a look of dread on her face. "My brother…" She opened her mouth, and Liam did not need her to finish her sentence to know what she was going to say. Like Mia, Derek was also missing.
But this time, Liam knew that the divine temple had nothing to do with him, so what happened to him? He quickly snapped out of it, seeing Derek's other sister, a little girl walking over to the door with tears streaming out of her eyes.
"Lily, I am so scared." The little girl rubbed her reddened eyes as she clutched a stuffed toy in her hands.
"Mr. Liam, what is happening? Where is my brother? I don't know what to do." Lily hugged her little sister, and the two of them looked at him for answers.
Faced with the same helpless stare once again, Liam shook his head. "Now is not the time to talk about it. Come out. We need to go to a safe location first."
He then once again started rushing down to take a look at the things happening downstairs. Behind him, Mei Mei, Shen Yue, Alex and Rey hurried along with everyone else and their families.
Within a couple of minutes, the group had already rounded up about twenty people, including their guild members and their families and friends.
Meanwhile, the other people staying in the same apartment complex and the nearby houses watched this random group of mixed-race people in bewilderment.
What were they all doing? They had weapons in their hands? Seeing the group holding all sorts of things like huge axes, kitchen knives, and hammers, the neighbours all became wary.
Everyone was already freaked out about the climate outside. One second it was thunder, and the next second, they could feel tremors, small tremors but still enough to scare the bejesus out of them.
To make matters worse, the phone lines, internet, electricity, everything was out. No one knew what they were supposed to do now.
Some looked outside the window, holed up inside their homes and waiting for the government to do something, while others rushed out and started gathering in the streets to see what everyone else was doing.
So in the midst of this confusion, seeing a bunch of people holding weapons made everyone scared, especially because there were a lot of foreigners in the group.
Were these all looters? Were they going to randomly start attacking and take advantage of this situation? If they could, they would have already called the police, but since that was not happening, the civilians in the street silently watched the strange scene.
Liam, on the other hand, did not care about all of these because he knew that in a minute, everything was going to change permanently.
Karakaboom! Another round of terrifying thunder rumbled when finally, the apocalypse officially arrived.
"There! To your left!" Liam was the first one to point out. A little further down on the street to their left, a strange blackish-purple aura started gathering.
This aura started becoming thicker and thicker, and then, without any warning, a massive bolt of lightning zapped this huge accumulated aura. The next second, the giant swirling ball of dark purple roared alive.
And from within it… strange beasts started appearing one after the other.
"Here we go. It has started!" Liam pointed to this thing. "Let's move."
