“I am the first totem of power and my name is Kayden Von Sinister.” he whispered, more gently, releasing his tense pressure. I could finally breathe, picking myself up off the ground in embarrassment and shock.

“Just call me Kayden.” he smiled, brushing off some rocks that fell onto his ripped up, dirty shirt.

The man was tall, a little bit above 6 foot, he had great red eyes that inspired awe and flowing dark hair that went down past his shoulders. His aristocratic attire reminded me of vampires from my previous world. I had felt his power and knew he could kill me at any second; I just had to play along with what he wanted.

I managed to regain some of my confidence after a few breaths, “Why are you in here?”

He smiled knowingly, “Power can be an unforgiving and torturous curse. Thou shall know in time my child.” he spoke in cursive poetry. At my confusion, he sighed. “I’m stuck in here by the universe. I was forced against my will to be a totem. Soon I will get out and annihilate those stupid monarchs, taking back what is rightfully mine and I will finally be able to kill the man who hides from the eyes of destiny.” he elaborated in a less complicated way.

“Oh.” I half smiled, awkwardly. “So you’re a friend or a foe?”

“I am a friend until I decide otherwise.” he smirked and something told me that he wasn’t fully telling me the truth.

I decided against questioning his motives and chose to switch to a different interest.

“What is this place?” my eyes wandered around.

“The cave of the monarchs. It’s a sacred place where the first set of monarchs first met up before ascending into the upper realm. It holds many secrets.”

“What happened to the other monarchs that ascended with you?”

An evil glint lit up in his eyes as he came closer to my face. “I killed them.”

Silence.

A cold blooded murderous killer. I glared into his eyes with the most fiery hatred boiling inside me but it would be stupid to make such an asset go to waste. I had to be strategic if I wanted to survive this competition meaning I’d have to make the right allies.

He scoffed, taking some steps back from my intense glare. “I can tell you doubt me… so how about a birthday present?”

I furrowed my eyebrows, tilting my head in confusion.

“I can give you your demon powers back. You used to be half demon in your past life, right?”

My eyes widened at the mention of my demonic powers. He smirked, knowing he got me. What would he gain from this?

“Of course, I’ll make sure to tweak your demon powers so they’re suited to this world, but you would have your extraordinary strength back, your levitation, your inhumane speed and agility. You will be different from all the other contestants. What do you say Zeref? Do you accept my friendly gift?” he persuaded and for some reason, the idea seemed quite appealing to me and I didn’t want to miss such an opportunity, so I said:

“Okay.”

His dusty, pale skin lit up a shade of blue as his face twisted into the most horrifying, psychotic smile. “From one friend to another.” he said before shooting a ball of light, right into my face. I didn’t have the time to think as I fell into a state of unconsciousness.

**

I woke up to a loud pounding in my head. Groaning, I picked myself off the floor to see I was still in the cave of the monarchs. My eyes scanned my surroundings, looking for Kayden but they stopped at the staircase leading up to the stone statue I had seen before. The ivy was once again, wrapped around the now fixed statue and everything was dead silent with the morning birds chirping outside.

[System has detected an update file]

[Update file is being scanned for malware]

[File scanning successful!]

[System Update is in progress… 7%]

A bombardment of notifications popped into my view. New ones I had never seen before. What was happening? Did he really give me back my demon side? I stared patiently as the percentage kept climbing; in a couple minutes the percentage reached 100.

[System update has successfully been updated!]

[System needs to restart. Do you want to let it restart?]

[Yes/No]

I better not die from this…

‘Yes’.