I walk through the door into an alleyway. Skyscrapers surround me, and the noises of a large city hit me immediately. Traffic and voices fill the air, despite the darkness of evening.

  The other Beta Testers follow me out the door slowly. Isabelle is the first to come out, followed by Anton, Hans, Nicolas, and finally the Asian man who’s name I don’t know.

  Together, we walk out of the alleyway and onto a busy street. The signs all along the street have Asian characters on them. I think it’s Korean, but I can’t tell for sure.

  “The devils appear to have sent us to South Korea, Seoul to be specific.”

  I jump, not having heard the Asian man approach behind me.

  “What’s the infection?” Nicolas asks, studying the passing pedestrians.

  The passerby give us strange looks, but none of them start moaning like a zombie or growing second heads.

  “Maybe it-” Isabelle is cut off mid-sentence, a scream reverberating down the street.

  “It appears we have found the infection.” Anton says, with a wry chuckle.

  “What’s the wait? Let’s go.” Nicolas moves towards the scream without waiting for a response.

  More screams echo down the street, and we hurry to follow the Spaniard. The street fills up with people running the opposite direction of us, making it near impossible for us to make our way through the crowd.

  The sirens of police in the distance reach us, and I frown at the lack of progress we’re making.

  I consider how we could get there faster, and the spells that Mr. Monroe used on the class comes to mind. If he can do it, then I can too.

  I grab the psi of the communication chakra in my throat, and manipulate it with ease.

  GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR WAY RIGHT NOW. Please. The psi moves like a wave through the crowd, and they all pause, then part before our group like the red sea.

  The other Beta Testers stop as well, but more out of confusion than anything else. I walk through the crowd with nonchalance, making the others turn their gaze to me. The crowd starts running again, but keep the space open for us.

  I feel the other Beta Tester’s gazes on my back, but I ignore them in favor of continuing towards our destination.

  Finally, I see it, the “infestation”. Spiders, thousands of them, in all shapes and sizes flood out of portals that open at and close at random.

  Why does it always have to be spiders?

  With their fuzzy bodies, long spindly legs and beady little eyes. I mean, they’re just so… so cute! I hate killing the poor little things.

  Alright, so that spider spinning up that poor civilian in webs isn’t as cute, but still! Spiders aren’t evil.

  I sigh as I realize what I have to do.

  The creatures may be cute, but they are still deadly monsters that want suck these poor people’s blood.

  “[Enhance Body]” I cast the spell on myself, watching from the corner of my eyes as the other Beta Testers similarly prepare themselves.

  I run up to the spider wrapping up a human, my mind set on what I have to do. The spider is a brown one, the size of a car. Two eyes stare at me from the center of its head.

  It hisses at me, then jumps, its front legs looking to skewer me.

  It’s fast.

  I jump out of the way, rolling to dodge a follow up attack.

  My mind goes to the common jumping spiders I’ve seen around the house, the ones that could move faster than my eyes could follow. Multiplying that speed by this creature’s size is mildly terrifying.

  It jumps at me again, looking to stab me with fangs dripping with venom. I bring up my gloves, creating a shield that blocks its fangs.

  Wow, those are some pretty colors on its head. I kinda want to pet it. Is there a smaller replica of this guy on earth? It might be cool to find one. Awww, it’s going to suck to kill this li'l guy-

  A gunshot rings out, and its head explodes and viscera lands all over me.

  I have to say, I much preferred its blood inside its body.

  I look behind me trying to place where the gunshot came from.

  The Asian man lies on top of a nearby truck, a sniper rifle lined up in front of him. So that’s what he had in his case.

  I look at the other Beta Testers, busy with their own spiders. Anton seems to be keeping his distance, helping anyone who needs it, but not getting into any kind of close range fight.

  Hans and Nicholas work together to take down another jumping spider, while Isabelle approaches a spider hidden against the side of a tall building.

  I look at the spider in front of me and sigh. Today is going to be a weird day.

  I leave them to their fights and move to the man partially wrapped in webs. I feel his neck for any vitals, doing my best to remember all the first aid my dad taught me.

  I feel a faint pulse.

  I hum, not sure what to do. There’s probably some kind of venom running through his system, but I’m not sure how to detect it or treat it.

  “Oh!” I say as an idea comes to me, “[Psi Manipulation]” I reach into the man’s own psi, twisting it into spells I’m well familiar with now. “[Clear Impurities] [You Better Heal Right Now]” I focus, trying to save the man’s life as the other Beta Testers fight around me.

  ***

  Time passes as we continue our fight, the five Beta Testers and I work together to take down the spiders. Occasionally, we see signs of other Beta Testers fighting in the distance. We even see a military plane observing the fight before it’s caught by the webs of something deeper in the city and brought out of the sky.

  The farther we travel into the territory of the spiders, the stranger and more powerful the spiders get. We’re forced to take a break a couple hours in to recoup our energy.

  We make our way to a corner store, and break in to hide ourselves while we recover.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I move over to the checkout counter and sit down. The mask had done a good job protecting me from the poison of many of the spiders, so I’d agreed to make more for the rest of the group.

  “It might be a good idea to get to know each other while we’re here.” Anton says, finishing the last bite of a snack stolen from the corner store.

  “I think that’s a terrible idea.” Isabelle says, sipping at a bottle of beer she’d found.

  “Why do you say that?” Anton asks, his friendly smile twisting into a frown.

  “Because we’ll be forced to kill each other at some point.” Isabelle’s face is carefully emotionless. She takes another sip of her bottle.

  Everyone looks at her, surprised at the proclamation. She looks at us, a sad smile spreading across her face. “Come on. Is it that hard to believe? This is The Game Of The Gods. What do you think our role is in that game? It isn’t to become best buds.” She downs her bottle, then tosses it to the floor. “We’re supposed to fight for our gods and kill for them. My god has already told me whose followers I’ll need to kill. Amun-Ra, Osiris, Horus, and Isis.” She gives me a direct look. “Among many others.”

  I finish a mask and toss it to her. “Your god sounds like an asshole.” I say, covering a yawn with my hand.

  I wonder what the time difference is between here and my home?

  Isabelle chuckles. “Yeah, he is.”

  Nicolas looks to me, “Why haven’t you killed the girl? I’m sure your god would’ve rewarded you.”

  I narrow my eyes at the man. What a strange way to say that.

  “I’m not so far gone that I would bloody kill a sixteen year old girl because some powerful snake told me to.” Isabelle grabs another beer from her inventory, then walks towards the door. “We should get going, we’re wasting time and points.”

  No one argues with her as we gather our things from the store. I notice as the others grab extra food for their inventories. It’s not a bad idea, so I do the same.

  It’s only a street later that we encounter our largest obstacle. A tunnel made out of web leads deep into the city.

  “Maybe we should find a way around?” Nicolas asks, “I have no desire to fight these things on their own ground.

  “Does anyone have control over fire?” I ask, wondering if we can just burn the thing down.

  “I have something, but it’s-”

  Nicolas is interrupted by the ground next to him erupting. Long legs reach for the spaniard.

  Hans is the first to react as a giant sword crashes down on one of the legs. The spider screams in pain and it pulls itself back underneath its trap door.

  Nicolas stares at the leg that had almost reached him. Long, hooked claws at the end of it would’ve pierced flesh and pulled him into the ground.

  “That’s the third one that’s gone after me.” He kicks the dead leg. “Eventually Hans won’t be fast enough to react.”

  “Should we go after it?” Anton asks, studying the piece of asphalt that looks completely normal, but houses a multi-ton spider. “No.” He answers his own question with a shake of his head. “It would take too much time.”

  “Nicolas, you said you have fire?” Isabelle asks, she reaches over to the leg and places it in her inventory.

  “Yes. But I don’t have enough control over it to do what Elena is thinking.”

  “[Event Points]” I say, bring up the screen.

  Best we can tell, the ranking is only for the Beta Tester teams in this area, which means that there are others getting a lot of work done.

  “Light the web on fire.” I say, sad at the spiders that will be killed because of what we’re about to do.”

  “Maybe you misunderstood. This is not normal fire, and I have little control over it.”

  I look at the web. What are the chances that there are people still alive in there? The poison of these spiders works fast, and all the people we are passing at this point are dead before I can get to them.

  “I understand, just make sure you have your mask on tight.” I say.

  Nicolas looks unsure. He looks at the other Beta Testers, silently asking for their opinions

  Isabelle speaks up, “Do it. We’re already struggling, we don’t want to fight these spiders on their own turf.”

  “You realize that there may still be people trapped in there…” Anton says.

  I hold my hand up, then rotate my psi, “[Psychic Search]” My mind goes through the webs, brushing over thousands, maybe millions of predatory minds. Eventually, I find other Beta Testers, but no regular humans.

  I open my eyes with a sad sigh. “There aren’t any.”

  “Just kill the demons.” The Asian man says, “We have wasted enough time as it is.”

  Nicolas raises his hand towards the web. Black fire jumps from him onto the web. It lights instantly, and spreads at an unnatural pace.

  My eyes widen as it spreads, moving faster than my eyes can follow.

  Strange screams come from the fire, and my eyes tear up a the sound. I take a deep breath, and let it out.

  The smoke hits us like a wave, but I can barely smell it through my enchanted mask.

  The fire continues to spread, moving over the webs that cover the ground around us. Shields appear around us as the others cast defenses against the strange fire. It spreads in a circle around our shielding.

  The trap-door spider that had tried to grab Nicolas jumps out of its hole, already caught on fire. It flails about in pain and anger, before turning its eyes to Nicolas.

  Its leg flies forward faster than any of the other spiders we’d faced. It punctures the shield, and stabs through his shoulder spreading the black fire to the man.

  Nicolas screams and falls to the ground.

  I run over to him, as The Asian man concentrates a spell on the fire that covers the spaniard. Sweat falls from the forehead of the Asian man, until with a grunt of effort, the fire goes out.

  I place my hands on Nicolas, channeling my own healing spells as he screams in agony. Blessedly, he passes out, and I continue to work to the sound of the roaring black flames.

  I breathe a sigh of relief as I heal up the majority of the damage, but the burns from the flames refuse to be removed.

  I glance at the blue window telling us of our massive increase in points. It’s still slowly increasing, but the fire around us seems to be losing steam since Nicolas passed out.

  I sit on the asphalt, staring at the destruction around us. I’m very much done with the constant battles I’ve been going through for the past week.

  I’m going to take a nice long bath when I get home.

  Silver lining, is that with the amount of points we’ve been getting, we’re probably going to be ranked first.

  I chuckle as the lyrics to Highway To Hell come to mind. “I didn’t expect it to work this well.” I say.

  No one responds.

  I look down at Nicolas, who is sleeping soundly.

  “[Status]”

  I haven’t been getting experience or gold for these spiders, just points, so I hope that whatever the rewards are, they’re worth it.

  We’ll all find out soon enough.