"Trash."
A cut.
"Scum."
Precise incision.
"Idiot."
Finally, the player went down leaving the victor alone to collect his loot. Zayn Darkwind's high level equipment was miles ahead of his opponent's. He knew everything about the world he was trapped in. He was, after all, someone who played in the early stages of Sword Art Online's development. Many considered the Beta players, Beaters, to be the top players. But there were even fewer who were like Zayn, a dozen or so in number, who were even more skilled than Beaters.
They were Alpha players. And that's what people called them – Alphas. The handful that survived an encounter with them, anyway. It was agreed that Alpha players would kill players who saw them to keep their identity secret, they didn't want to be held back by newbies.
Most of them stayed together and formed a small guild. Zayn was the leader of this guild, the Fallen Order of the Skullknights. Its members wore a midnight colored trench coat looted from a hidden boss on the eleventh floor along with a skull insignia that only master blacksmiths could craft. Being alpha players, they got their crafter – Tenebrous Nightblade – to that level with ease.
Zayn defeated the player, some low-level player that couldn't even use his shield properly, with a pair of magic-infused sickles, each with a skull engraved on the blades. He aptly named the weapons Deathrender and Doomguard. But it wasn't just the gear that made Zayn a force to be reckoned with, he possessed a unique skill that no other player had. The skill, called Windstep, allowed him to move like the wind in battle. He did possess another less unique skill called Shadowlurker, letting him deliver big hits to enemies when approaching from the shadows. The other Alpha players had their own skills. The crafter, Tenebrous Nightblade, could infuse any item he created with powerful magic traits with unique traits of their own. Maron Shadowtear, the guild's expert in ranged combat and stealth, could sink into the shadows around him and reappear in another shadow in seconds.
Maybe the men behind trapping Zayn and his guild in this game knew about their innate skills that could not help them in the real world. Zayn always knew he was different from the troglodytes that surrounded him in school in the real world.
Still, the Fallen Order of the Skullknights were not going to sit still. They were trapped, after all, and no one gets to push them around.
At least not without feeling the wind of darkness that came to anyone that crossed paths with Zayn Darkwind.