Shocked, numb, and focused.
These three words described Arthur's current mental state. His eyes moved frantically, scanning for any movement across the dark waters.
Sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, shivering from the cold, Arthur perched on a flat piece of wood—once part of the now-destroyed ship. It floated just well enough to keep him above water, with barely enough space for him to lie flat. If he shifted even an inch to either side, it would lose balance—he'd already tried twice and had been thrown into the water both times.
"Fuck!"
He cursed, gazing into the distance. The fog there was thick, laced with golden thunder. Something grand was unfolding beyond that curtain of mist. Arthur could feel it... but couldn't begin to describe it in words.
'Not like I want to know.'
He was certain that whatever was happening beyond the fog… it wasn't something he wanted to be part of.
Instead, he focused on something that had happened a while ago—but he hadn't had the chance to process it properly. After all, it's hard to focus when you're swimming for your life and being chased by a bunch of drowned Corrupted.
Arthur had called upon the Hex.
[Name: Arthur Dahl]
Levitating in front of his eyes was a string of shimmering runes—foreign in appearance, yet perfectly understandable to him. It was his name.
Not everyone from the slums had a proper name like Arthur did. And the Hex seemed to recognize him by his given name. Not that Arthur had always been a slum boy.
Below his name, another stream of runes appeared:
[You have received a Scar: Sailor's Rum]
Arthur's eyes lit up immediately. His body relaxed—almost too much—causing the platform beneath him to tilt dangerously. He barely caught himself before falling back into the water.
'Now we're talking.'
From items to weapons, a Scar could be anything—bestowed upon a Challenger by the Hex for defeating an enemy. How strong it was depended entirely on the strength of the slain foe.
But before he could inspect the Scar properly, another string of runes formed just below the first.
The thing Arthur had been wondering about ever since being thrown into this trial.
[Past, Present, and Future]
The name of this trial.
Every story Arthur had ever heard about the Hex always started with this—the name of the trial. A lot of times, the trial's name was self-explanatory about the end goal. But this time...
'Is this not too cryptic?'
Arthur frowned. What was he supposed to glean from just three vague words? Still, he didn't completely dismiss it. The Hex was known to be a pain in the ass, but never useless.
He summoned the shimmering runes again and concentrated—knowing this Scar was something he'd earned after killing that Corrupted sailor. Immediately, a small dot appeared in his mind. With a little more focus, it took shape: an emerald green bottle, half-filled with liquid.
[Sailor's Rum]
Scar Bearing: [Corrupt]
Scar Rank: [II]
Scar Type: [Tool]
Description:
From one generation to the next, this bottle was passed down as a family heirloom—only to be uncorked before doing something worthy. Alas, its last owner never had a sip of it.
'That's… heavy.'
Arthur thought, then kept reading.
Enchantments: [Deep Breaths] [Never-ending Celebration]
Arthur blinked, clueless at first. It was rare for a Rank II Scar to have more than one enchantment...but he wasn't complaining- quickly read their descriptions:
[Deep Breaths:] Increases the consumer's lung capacity by threefold.
[Never-ending Celebration:] The rum may never run out, as long as there's even a tiny bit left after each drink. But if finished in one go, the bottle will crumble, and the Scar will be lost.
Arthur tried to wipe the smirk off his face—but failed.
This Scar was too good to be true. If he managed to bring it back to the real world and sell it, he could easily afford a small apartment in one of the Eastern Quadrant strongholds.
.....If he made it out alive.
Concentrating on the mental image of the Scar, he summoned it into physical form. The air around him bent strangely as white sparkles spiraled over his palm, materializing into an emerald green glass bottle, filled just over halfway. It was cold to the touch… and real.
It was Arthur's first time holding a Scar, and it felt… oddly satisfying. As if the bottle wasn't just an object, but a part of him. And, in a way, it was—having taken physical form by consuming a fraction of his life essence.
Something Arthur didn't have control over right now—but eventually would.
Still… knowing all this, he couldn't help but feel awestruck.
He uncorked the bottle. It opened with a satisfying pop.
'Here goes nothing.'
And with that, he took a few big sips and
It burned.
It slid down Arthur's throat with a sharp, fiery sting, forcing him to cough midway through the second gulp. The aftertaste was heavy with salt and something strangely metallic—like old copper coins soaked in seawater.
But within seconds… the change began.
His lungs, moments ago tight and exhausted, now felt expansive—like someone had pulled the air out of the world just so he could breathe it in. His chest rose with ease. The cold that had numbed him since the shipwreck faded, replaced by a spreading warmth that settled in his core and fingertips.
Arthur blinked rapidly, shaking off the dizziness.
"Holy... fuck," he muttered, placing the bottle down carefully beside him on the platform. The liquid inside shimmered faintly, reacting to the air like it had a mind of its own.
His breathing stabilized, and the shivering stopped. Even the soreness in his muscles dulled just enough for him to feel functional again—it wasn't that the rum was healing him, but strangely… it felt soothing.
For the first time since waking up in this trial, Arthur didn't feel like he was on the verge of dying.
Still sitting cross-legged on the floating plank, he wiped the water from his face and scanned the horizon again. The golden-lit fog still loomed in the distance, swallowing the massive silhouette that had shaken the entire river.
'What the fuck is going on there?'
Thunder crackled faintly behind the mist, as though whatever was beyond it was… moving.
'I need to get away from here. Fast.'
Arthur's thoughts turned practical. Staying on a flimsy plank with a river monster—or a god… whatever that thing was—looming nearby was exactly the kind of mistake that got Challengers killed before their first real decision.
He checked the Scar bottle again. Still a bit left. He corked it carefully and… slowly, the rum began to refill out of nowhere. It was fascinating—it leveled back to its previous amount, just slightly more than half.
A gentle current tugged at his makeshift raft, shifting it sideways.
Arthur turned.
At the edge of his vision, another shape drifted closer. He tensed and picked up the lamp beside him—the same lamp he'd taken before the ship collapsed.
Arthur held it in front of him, narrowing his eyes to see what was approaching.
It was… a small canoe.
Carefully, he held the Sailor's Rum in the dark water and dismissed it. Slowly, he slid off the platform and tucked the lamp into his waist strap. From the direction the canoe was approaching, it would be hard for them to spot the lamp's light underwater—the wooden platform obscured the view.
After what felt like a few minutes, the canoe was finally close enough for Arthur to see its passengers: a pair of men—one in full armor, the other wearing a tattered robe- he immediately dipped into the water.
"Anyone there?"
The robed one called out, seemingly pointing toward where Arthur was.
'Are they here to check if anyone survived from the ship?'
Arthur's mind filled with a thousand questions at once, none with answers. Without hesitation, he dove deeper—far enough that the lamp's light wouldn't reach the surface—then swam beneath the canoe.
The rum made it easier to hold his breath, but threefold lung capacity didn't make him invincible. Floating on a plank wouldn't get him anywhere either. He needed to move around—he needed mobility. And what better than a canoe for navigating this cursed river?
Arthur positioned himself just under the canoe and propelled upward toward the surface with a single goal in mind: grab the armored one and drown him. It'd be easy—metal armor and water never mixed well. As for the one in the tattered robes… he'd handle him next by strangling him underwater- it was not Arthur was over estimating his chances but since drinking the rum, he felt weirdly invigorated.
With a rapid movement, Arthur burst through the water's surface, grabbed onto the side of the canoe, and pushed himself upward. Just as he was about to act—
Something grabbed his ankle, nails digging into his flesh. Before he could understand what was happening, he was yanked back into the dark waters.
A blade slashed past the tip of his nose as he stared up at the sky. In a desperate attempt, he grabbed the canoe again—only to flip the whole thing over.
The last thing he heard before the water swallowed his vision was a deep, exhausted grunt...and the man said,
"Oh Lord, have mercy!"
Arthur immediately shook off the shock and looked at his ankle. Another Corrupted—similar to the one he had killed before—was now biting into him. He kicked it in the face, but the inky-eyed monster had no intention of letting go.
Arthur felt it biting into his calf as he squirmed in pain and agony—but at the same time, it was like some sort of brain fog was being lifted off of him.
'Damn alcohol.'
He cursed internally, immediately trying to hunch his back in an attempt to get closer to the Corrupted. But at that moment, the water around him rippled, as if something was crashing down toward him. Instinctively, he looked up and saw a vague, sphere-like shape approaching at tremendous speed.
...
Dumbfounded, Arthur tried to propel himself out of the sphere's way and managed to do so—partially—while also trying to put the Corrupted in the path of the approaching... whatever it was.
And then, as if the world had gone silent for a second or two, he saw under the soft lamplight slung at his waist that the sphere was made of metal. It unfurled... into a humanoid figure that flitted past him almost immediately and crashed into the Corrupted beneath with massive force. The impact yanked Arthur deeper into the water—but before he could process the shock, he felt as if he were free.
'What is happening?'
Arthur wanted to cry out loud, and he might have, if not for the fact that he was now hundreds of meters deep in the river. He was almost out of air, and it felt like thousands of ants were crawling all over his body—slowly devouring him.
'Am I about to die?'
But before he could wallow in self-pity, he noticed something: a cloth strip that was either still or sinking rapidly, as if something heavy was tied to one end.
It clicked. Arthur used all his might to propel himself toward the strip. His leg seemed so injured he couldn't even feel it anymore, but he forced himself not to look at it—or think about it.
Only using his arms to swim, he painfully managed to reach the strip as it dragged itself deeper into the endless pit that was this dark river. It was still moving downward, but he had no choice. If the thing on the other end was really too heavy and he couldn't slow it down, he would let go. But Arthur had to try something.
He lightly touched the strip, hoping it wasn't as heavy as he feared—but to his surprise, something unexpected happened.
The strip went still.
It wasn't a trick of his eyes. It had actually stopped.
And then it began to move again—but this time, the friction had changed. It was as if the strip was being pulled from above, with inhuman force.
Arthur's body moved before his mind did, and he grabbed onto the strip as if his life depended on it—which it did.
He heard his neck crack under the water's resistance. Arthur almost let go, but he gritted his teeth and held on.
And in just a few seconds, he was flying out of the darkness. Air filled his lungs—then left immediately as he slammed into something hard.
'At least I'm alive.'
Something heavy crashed down onto him, and Arthur lost consciousness. The last thing he saw was the face of a woman meditating—floating in the air with her eyes closed.
She looked quite haggard.