Selena watched from inside the carriage, her fingers twitching around the edge of the window curtain. Her brows knit together, the soft smile she once wore completely erased.
She glanced at the snow leopard commander, her voice low, clipped. "Was this really necessary?"
The snow leopard remained stoic, his cold eyes fixed ahead. "He's a slave. Being around royalty has consequences. You know that, Princess."
Selena's jaw clenched. Her hands curled into fists in her lap.
Outside, Ray staggered behind the horse, the rope jerking with each jolt of the beast's gallop. His breaths came in short, ragged bursts. Blood trailed down from his knees, scraped raw and bruised. His feet stumbled again and again, but each time he nearly collapsed, he forced himself back up.
His thoughts screamed in silence.
'Is this really just a trial? It's more like a slow death sentence!'
The market crowd had begun to thin as the strange procession moved forward, but occasional stares and whispers clung to Ray like burrs.
A child pointed. "Look, Mama, that human...."
The mother quickly yanked the child back. "Don't look…"
Ray growled under his breath, his teeth grit against the pain, willing himself to stay upright, to keep moving.
[Trial Reminder: To enter the Void Sea, you must finish the quest.]
[Time Remaining: 1 Day, 23 Hours, 30 Minutes]
He grit his teeth harder. 'Yeah, yeah, I get it already! Let me live through this first! I'm going to die before the punishment even arrives!'
Inside the carriage, Selena leaned forward and snapped the curtain aside. "Enough! He won't survive at this pace."
The commander didn't look at her.
Selena's nostrils flared. She stood abruptly and yanked open the door. "Stop the horse!"
None of the soldiers dared defy her. With a sharp whistle, one reined in the beast.
Ray collapsed instantly, the sudden stop hurling him face-first into the dirt. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath. He didn't even have the strength to lift his head.
"Oh god, please! Seriously…"
A moment later, Ray was tossed into a wooden cart like a sack of grain. It creaked and groaned on the uneven road as they hauled him back to the palace. His body lay broken, blood mixing with sweat and dirt that clung to his skin. His eyes drifted shut, and sleep dragged him under like a wave.
____
Ray awoke with a jolt, a searing pain burning behind his eyes. He sat up slowly, his head pounding like a war drum. The room around him was dim and cold, its air thick with rot. It looked like a forgotten prison—crumbling stone walls, rusted iron bars, and in the dark corner, a pile of bones barely distinguishable from the shadows. A single hole high on the wall let in a shaft of pale light, doing little to lift the gloom.
"What the hell... How am I supposed to find a key here?"
Remembering what the system had said, he pressed his wrist. A glowing screen floated into view, illuminating his bruised face.
[Time left for the trial: 1 Day, 19 Hours]
[Quest: Find the key and head to the west.]
Ray stared at the words, then frowned, muttering, "What does this 'key' even mean?"
The screen didn't respond. Nothing changed.
He sighed heavily, shoulders slumping. "Yeah… figures. System's not here to answer stupid questions, I don't know mine did that."
Groaning, Ray tried to move. Every muscle screamed in protest, but he forced himself to rise. His legs trembled beneath him, and he limped to the iron bars, gripping them for balance.
"Is someone there?" he called out softly, trying to sense any other presence. But only silence greeted him. The cells across from his own were empty—except for more skeletons, crumpled like broken dolls.
"Damn it. Don't tell me I'm gonna die before I even get to use my system…"
As the thought trailed off, the ground beneath his feet shifted with a mechanical groan. Without warning, it split open like a hidden trapdoor.
Ray didn't even have time to scream. In the blink of an eye, he was falling into darkness once again.
Ray's body hit the ground with a thud. He coughed, the musky, damp air making his nose wrinkle. Slowly, he pushed himself upright, pain flaring in every joint. The beating by the tiger soldier, the dragging behind the horse—it had all torn him apart.
"Argh…" he groaned, clutching his head.
He looked around.
He was no longer in a prison cell. Around him stood towering stone pillars, rising like monuments from a blackened ground. Beyond them, only a sea of dark mist—the edge of the world, or perhaps the void itself. There were maybe ten, twenty pillars, some before him, others behind. They seemed arranged like an arena—or a graveyard.
Everything around him had been swallowed by shadow. The sky was black, clouds moving like smoke through ink.
Ray staggered to his feet, looking up. "What is this place?" he shouted, his voice echoing into the void.
'Wasn't everything I went through enough? Now I'm in this nightmare?' He groaned inwardly. 'God… maybe I should've just flirted with that deer Princess. At least I'd have had some fun before dying.'
As Ray scanned the area for clues, he heard a voice—deep and calm—from one of the high pillars.
"Are you sure about it?"
He squinted. A figure stood atop a distant pillar—a deer-headed man, cloaked in regal garments, like an emperor from an ancient age.
"I've checked. He bears the mark—the same as the ones from the outside world," replied another voice.
"It's been decades since another one arrived," the first said solemnly. "Finally… Baranski will feed again."
"Should I start the ritual—?"
Before the sentence finished, the ground shuddered. The tremor was subtle at first… then violent. Ray's balance faltered. Dust and pebbles danced.
On the high pillars, the deer-men went silent. Their expressions—once confident—tightened with fear. It was as if they weren't watching an enemy… but hiding from a predator.
Something ancient. Something that could destroy them all.
The trembling deepened. Dust curled upward like mist, hanging thick in the stale air. The wind died.
Ray took a cautious step back, heart thudding in his chest. His hands instinctively rose, fists clenched, ready to fight—though he had no idea against what.
Then he saw it.
A glint—no, a flare—of sharp red light flickered within the shadows.
The silence deepened unnaturally. Even the air seemed to freeze, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Ray's jaw tensed. His knuckles whitened as he brought his fists forward in a fighter's stance.
That was when it rose.
The ground split open like a yawning maw, and something massive pushed itself out.
At first, only the sound reached him—an awful, bone-splitting groan.
"CLECHHH—CLECHHHHHHH!"
It was sharp and jagged, like metal grinding against glass, like a scream dragged through a throat too wide. The sound alone made the world tremble.
Ray staggered back as his ears exploded in pain. He clutched his head, teeth clenched so hard they could've cracked. The pressure hammered into his skull like a tidal wave.
He didn't realize he was on his knees until he tasted blood in his mouth. He pressed his head to the cold stone, gasping, trying to block out the noise.
His mind felt like it was being torn apart. Every nerve screamed.
When the sound finally faded into a deep, pulsing hum, Ray peeled his hands away—only to feel something wet trailing down his neck. Blood.
Thick, warm blood. His ears had ruptured.
He blinked through the haze of agony, trying to focus.
And then… he saw it.
A massive tube-like mouth had risen halfway from the blackened earth. Inside that gaping maw were rows upon rows of needle-like teeth, spiraling deep into the throat like a tunnel of death.
The beast's body was monstrous—its skin a bruised purple, stretched tight over sinewy muscle and thick limbs. Red veins crisscrossed beneath the surface, glowing like molten rivers. At its center, embedded into its flesh, pulsed a large crimson crystal—beating like a second heart, each throb echoing through the ground.
Veins pumped into it, like the creature's entire body fed on whatever cursed energy that core possessed.
And it wasn't alone.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of tentacles writhed around it, bursting from the cracked soil like the arms of something ancient and hungry. They thrashed, searching, sensing.
The monster wasn't crawling out of the ground.
It was emerging—like the world had been built on top of it, and now it was waking up.
Ray stared, frozen.
His breath came in short gasps. Blood still dripped from his ears.
"How... how the hell am I supposed to fight that?"
His voice was barely a whisper.
He wasn't facing a beast.
He was facing an extinction-level nightmare.