Junwoo readied a stance as his new master opened up his battle menu. His eyes were empty, as if no soul was home.
A man stood with white hair, smoky black armour decorated with crimson rims. A staff nestled in his hands, clutched closely to his chest.
Something briefly flashed across Junwoo's face when their eyes locked. He faltered.
"What are you doing?" His new master called out to him, pressing buttons on an ambiguous menu, snapping Junwoo out of his brief trance to ready his attack.
A fireball swelled in front of the fox, the searing flames reflected off the shine of his golden coat. He lurched backwards in a flip and released the fireball with a resounding screech that echoed in the room.
It narrowly missed as Kaelsu arched his back to move out of the way.
"A-," Kaelsu started but cut himself off, still recovering from the attack. He breathed heavily, that nearly hit. "That's not your name, is it?" He shook his head.
Kaelsu tried to look for a name on his nameplate, but as expected, it was blank. He hadn't been named, which was typical for guys like the frizzy-haired captor who saw this game as a chance to overuse and abuse his pets. His jaw tightened. Blank nameplates always meant the same thing: a living weapon, stripped of identity.
But something about the way the fox had looked at him made it feel less like a stranger and more like a ghost.
Junwoo's claws lengthened and started a glow mystical dark blue, then his feet started to rapidly tap on the floor and close the distance between the two.
Tap, tap, tap, tap…
In rapid succession, his feet barely touched the floor as he dashed. His footsteps were light, too light and too fast that Kaelsu could barely even register that he was coming. He was weightless and impossible to follow.
By instinct, Kaelsu's fingers snapped to summon a monster in response to defend himself. A hulking yet feminine figure materialised, one with a sword that parried the radiant claws with a reverberating clang of bone crushing against metal. Junwoo couldn't get any further, he was thrown back and skidded across the floor. Claws carved lines into the ground as he tried to steady himself. A low growl begged at the back of Junwoo's throat.
Kaelsu stumbled backwards, too. The force of the two powers colliding made him physically yield. Breath caught in his throat from the sheet pressure of the impact. An arm covered his forehead as a bright glow enveloped the battleground. The air shimmered from residual energy.
Then he saw it.
A lone tear streaked down from bright golden eyes.
It was gone in a blink, but it was enough. Something inside Kaelsu twisted. His monster shifted beside him, ready to make a counterattack. Rage was directed towards the enemy summoner. Kaelsu made his monster defend during his turns, he couldn't bring himself to strike back. "What have you done to him?" He roared.
"Done to who? You impressed with my Jiuweihu?" He tilted his head in confusion, as expected. Kaelsu had figured this guy didn't know, or even care, about his ex-pet's situation. Junwoo was his shiny new toy.
The enemy summoner just assumed he was talking about the unmatched speed of his new monster.
Kaelsu ground his teeth.
Then Junwoo attacked again, igniting himself in a tremendous ball of flames. To the participants, the fire clung to his fur like ribbons of molten gold. For Junwoo, all he could see was fire. His tail whipped behind him, winding up his attack as he crouched to get into position. He started to spin towards the monster, relentlessly. His body was a controlled inferno that spun uncontrollably into the guarding opponent. Then without skipping a beat, the enemy monster held its sword up once more to guard, as commanded. Just like before.
But that wasn't enough.
The heated mess of flames destroyed the ground in its path, ripping up the ground and leaving rubble around the sides. Junwoo's power tore through the blade as if it were silk. The attack demolished the enemy monster, setting it alight and knocking it a large distance back with yelps of pain emitting on impact.
The damage caused it to lose most of its health bar, and Kaelsu desperately tried to heal in response.
"He's not yours. He belongs to me."
"Dude, did you lose it? Sucks to be you," then the chat was flooded with 'lol' and 'haha' from him which further enraged Kaelsu. "I don't know how you managed that but this guy is so rare. Almost nobody has seen this one before."
"Release him." Kaelsu wasn't going to stand there and listen to this guy blabber on and fawn over his pet.
"Are you mad?" He pressed some more buttons and a glow circled Junwoo before disappearing upwards, adding another buff to his bar. "I've never seen a monster this strong. I'm gonna hit the top of the leaderboard with it."
More punches, slashes and fire were thrown in the direction of Kaelsu, only to be guarded against by his team. It was a losing battle – and he needed to attack if he had any chance of survival. If he had any chance of bringing Azadeus back to him.
But he couldn't bring himself to give the command.
"Are you gonna fight or just sit there and take it? You're so weird."
"I can't hurt him." Kang Min, the player behind the Kaelsu character, shook as he wrote that. There was a point where he didn't care about hurting the pet, but over time his demeanour changed.
It felt wrong.
That's because it was.
He was distracted – a heated punch broke through his monster's defence and the brunt force of Junwoo's skin came into contact with the unsuspecting skin of Kaelsu's face. Junwoo ended up on top of Kaelsu with Kaelsu's wrists wrapped around Junwoo's balled fist.
"Stop- ugh- what are you doing?" Kaelsu strained beneath the crushing weight of the monster. His arms trembled, every muscle screaming as he tried to push Junwoo off. A burning sensation gnawed at his fingers when Junwoo's fist started to sear. Sparks flickered at the knuckles, the faint orange glow ready to ignite the two.
"After all this?" Kaelsu gasped, his voice breaking between the struggle. The burning started to get too unbearable for his character and his health started to rapidly drop. "You're really going to end it here? Like this?"
No answer. Just the low, husky sound of Junwoo's breathing
His words weren't getting through. Except for one.
"JUNWOO!" He roared in desperation.
The name shattered the air, leaving only harsh tension and silence.
There it was, an opening!
Junwoo froze. His fist wavered inches above Kaelsu's chest, the fire in his hand dimming to faint embers. That name danced on the tips of his ears. For just a brief moment it was almost like he was back to his senses, and his lips parted slightly as if he were trying to speak.
Hesitation lingered.
When Kaelsu realised the balled fist had lost its fire, and the pressure above him eased, he took advantage of this opportunity. With a surge of adrenaline and newfound strength, he twisted his body and hauled his weight over, rolling them both. The golden fox violently tumbled off him to hit the ground with a snarl, but before he could recover, Kaelsu had already taken off in the other direction down the corridor.
He needed distance; just enough time to prepare for round two. He saw the soul return to the fox's dimly lit eyes when he mentioned that name and it only solidified what he'd theorised: that was his name.
After hours of researching and crawling through internet rabbit holes, he'd perhaps finally found some evidence that could link Junwoo's sudden appearance in Eterna to his real life body.
He hurried along the corridor, and heard an echo of a very miffed summoner behind him. "Don't just stand there." Words were filled with venom. "Go fucking get him you useless dog."
His heart ached at the abusive bellowing that bounced off the metallic walls, reminding him of one thing.
The chase wasn't over.
Good.
He knew exactly what he needed to do.