SSS Awakening: Rebirth of the Strongest Vampire God-Chapter 78: Still inside

Damon woke up back in his room, completely and utterly exhausted. Today had been a hell of a day starting with bringing Kate back and turning Mark into a vampire and ending with a goddamn mini faction war.

He removed his helmet and placed it on the table, and looked at his two friends. They seemed to be peacefully sleeping with their chests rising and falling. They showed absolutely no signs of movement at all.

"Huh? They are not logging out?" Damon scratched his chin, staring at them for a couple of seconds.

He silently walked over to the coffee machine and brewed himself a fresh cup. He looked at the two again as he sipped his drink, and still no movements.

"Impossible," Damon muttered. This could only mean that both Mark and Kate were still inside the game, probably still participating in that special trial for vampire bloodlings with a noble heritage.

Damon narrowed his eyes at the two sleeping figures on the couch. Kate’s fingers twitched slightly, but her breathing was deep and even, completely still apart from that. Mark looked like a statue, head tilted back, lips slightly parted, utterly unresponsive. Their VR headsets sat snug against their temples, lights glowing a steady blue.

"That trial must be way more intense than I thought," Damon muttered, lowering the coffee mug.

He had assumed that their trial was probably something similar to the body tempering trial he had undergone with the multiple waves of ghouls attacking him, not a full-blown special trial that demanded this much time. But then again... nothing about this game was simple. Not anymore.

He had never before thought that there would be special exceptions to players logging out routinely every single day. It looked like there had always been more connections between the real world and the game world which he never knew about.

As he took another sip of the coffee, an obvious thought popped into his mind. If Kate and Mark underwent these trials because they had received special blessings, then what about the others?

If what he had hypothesized so far was correct, there was a whole slew of players going to enter the game with the so-called God-tier blessing. These wouldn’t be ordinary players. They were the top politicians and bigwigs of the real world who held the world’s economy in their hands.

Not just God tier blessing, they would be entering with also a significant financial backing to step up footholds in the game becoming the super ten guilds of the game.

Damon had always wondered who the actual players behind the super 10 was and now he could finally think about somethings.

Did these super 10 players already know about the game world and the real world slowly merging? If they also had god tier blessing then they too would probably undergo trials like Kate and Mark in their race and get another round of buffs.

Now he understood why these people were ridiculously strong. If the world was simple, his rebirth would have been all about getting revenge on the bastard who backstabbed him but now everything was different. More than being petty about that revenge, which he would never forget, he needed strength.

If he needed to stand in league with these people behind the super 10, he needed all the strength the game could offer and then some more. He needed to plan things better and not get caught with whatever the system tosses his way.

Fighting with NPC had already revealed many of his strengths and weaknesses. Damon made a tentative plan in his head as he finished his cup of coffee, locked the main door and laid on the floor to take a long nap. He was so very tired that he fell asleep almost immediately.

When he woke up, he found the two still hooked into their helmets. Damon checked the time and it was already 4 in the evening. There was only one more hour until the game opened again. He decided to use this time to get a good hour of exercise in.

Damon stretched, cracking his back with a wince as he got up from the floor. His muscles were stiff, and his body still carried the weight of everything that had happened. But physical weariness wasn’t the problem, his mind was buzzing with thoughts he couldn’t shake.

Kate and Mark were still logged in. It had been nearly twelve hours.

He spared them another glance. Still motionless. Still breathing steadily. Still deep in the game.

It was a sobering reminder that Earth Online wasn’t just a game anymore. It was a second reality, a proving ground, a battlefield, a trap, and an opportunity all rolled into one. And the lines between it and the real world were blurring faster than anyone could’ve predicted.

Damon threw on a hoodie and headed for the building’s small gym downstairs. He then changed this mind and decided to go for a run. The gym was not going to cut it anymore with his improved body. The run felt a lot better.

Thinking about many things, he ran for a while and just like that he had run all the way to the coastal area.

The wind whipped through Damon’s hair as he stood at the rocky edge of the coast, sweat beading down his temple, heart thudding in a steady rhythm. The run had helped. His blood was pumping, his breath sharp in his chest, and most importantly, his thoughts were clear.

Out in the distance, he could see the faint silhouettes of the island homes, tiny dots nestled among green foliage and surrounded by blue. Secluded. Private. Safe. A perfect hideaway.

He crouched down, resting his hands on his knees as he gazed at them. Most people would see nothing but waves and mist.

But Damon’s vision, enhanced ever since his in-game awakening, pierced the haze. He could make out the shape of a dock. The slight glint of a solar panel. Even a wind turbine lazily spinning on one rooftop.

"If things keep escalating like this," he muttered, standing back up, "I’m going to need a real-world base just as badly as a virtual one."

The game wasn’t just bleeding into real life anymore, it was carving deep roots. And if he was being hunted inside Earth Online, it wouldn’t be long before people started looking for Blood God outside of it.

He turned away from the coast and started jogging back home, mind racing with plans. Secluded real estate, burner identities, backups for everything. If he was going to be the apex predator in this new world, then he needed to be untouchable, both in-game and out.

Damon returned to his apartment and he was about half an hour late to log back into the game. Mark and Kate were still inside. He checked their condition and placed his helmet back on. It was time to get cracking on some of his to-do list items.

The world around him blurred and within moments, he was back in the sewers. Except this time, they were no longer the sewers. The exact replica of the blood hall had somehow appeared in this new location and Varnyx was standing right there in front of the sacred blood pool and the altar.