In the middle of a battlefield raging with war and deafening shouts, Shuya slowly opened his eyes. His head throbbed as though it had been struck hard with a hammer, and he winced in pain. But what he saw made his eyes fly open in shock and disbelief.
All around him, fighters in strange clothes clashed in chaotic combat, flashes of cold steel sending blood spraying through the air. Some drew their bows to the full, shooting arrows at the enemy like falling stars. In the distance, magic lit the sky in a dazzling array of colors. Huge fireballs whistled overhead, while freezing frost spread across the earth and formed sharp icicles.
Shuya tried to remember. He had been at home in the real world, sitting on a soft sofa and completely absorbed in the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game Soulburner’s Aspect.
So how had he ended up in the game’s battlefield, so terrifyingly real that it made his skin crawl…
