The card should be back here by now. It's taking a bit. I should probably see what he’s doing. “What the hell do you mean no? You don't just tell the system no what's wrong with you. He acts so much like her.”
“ Oh what the heck did I do. Mom would flip out if she knew I just rejected the systems command. Wait now that I think about it the system never gives commands like that. The system also doesn’t make mistakes. What exactly was that acting like the system.”
“I just suddenly got a chill. Like someone is watching me. Hey lizard you didn’t tell me your name did you. What is it? Do you feel something watching us?”
The Abyssal Tide Serpent slowly curled its massive body, its glowing sigils dimming slightly as if contemplating Jalen’s words. Then, with a low rumbling chuckle, it finally responded.
“Name? I have had many, but none that mattered. You, my summoner, may call me whatever you wish.”
That wasn’t an answer. Not really. But Jalen had bigger problems at the moment. His gut was screaming at him, the same way it had when the system message first appeared. Something wasn’t right.
Jalen turned sharply, his gaze sweeping across the empty ruins of the training grounds. The air felt… heavy. Off. Like there was something just beyond his perception. His skin prickled with unease.
“Ember, do you feel that?” Jalen asked, voice quieter now.
Ember’s fur bristled, his flames flaring just slightly before stabilizing. “Yeah. And I don’t like it.” His tone was serious, lacking his usual snark. That alone was enough to put Jalen on edge.
The Abyssal Tide Serpent lifted its head, its sapphire eyes gleaming with something unreadable. “You are being watched,” it said simply, as if stating a fact.
Jalen felt his stomach drop. “By what?”
The Serpent didn’t immediately answer, instead turning its massive head toward the empty space beyond the barrier—the same space where reality itself had just been erased. The air shimmered faintly, like heat distortion, but there was nothing there. Nothing visible, at least.
Then, in a tone that sent a chill down Jalen’s spine, the Serpent spoke again.
“Something… familiar.”
Jalen’s grip tightened around his arms, trying to suppress the cold dread creeping up his spine.
Familiar?
The Serpent had never acted like this before. It was always mocking, arrogant, and overflowing with confidence, but now? Now it was… restrained. Cautious. As if it knew exactly what was out there but didn’t want to say it aloud.
Jalen exhaled sharply, forcing himself to stay calm. “Yeah, okay. That’s not terrifying at all.”
Ember muttered something under his breath, his flames flickering erratically. “Maybe we should just… I don’t know, leave?”
That wasn’t a bad idea. Except Jalen knew—deep in his gut—that whatever was watching them wasn’t just going to let them walk away.
And then, just as the tension reached its breaking point, the system prompt glitched violently before flickering out entirely.
The presence vanished.
Just like that.
Jalen blinked. Ember stiffened. The Serpent let out a long, slow hiss.
Then a new system message appeared.
[Error: Unauthorized Entity Detected.]
[Adjusting Parameters…]
[Recalculating…]
[…]
Jalen swallowed hard, staring at the words.
“Okay. What the actual hell is going on? Also just tell me what to call you. ”
The serpent looked like it had something to say but I can’t see the idea of saying it vanishing. “ You’re still trying to complete a trial, you know. It won’t be good to be the first in over a thousand years to not even make it to the second trial. ”
Oh right I completed the Quest. What is the hold up in the system?
[Conditions for Ember’s Next Evolution:
•5/100 enemies defeated
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
•1/15 summonings completed]
“Wait ember since you don’t go back to the deck can you not evolve. ”
“ I can, I just don’t want to.”
[ Testing Stage Complete]
[ 11/12 puppets destroyed]
[ Time Remaining: 6 hours :34 minutes]
[ Bonus: Defeat the last enemy]
[ Please take this remaining time to assimilate with your class skills. ]
11 out of 12 where is the twelve one. I don’t know, but you give me a name to call you before I start calling you aqua lizard. Do you think you get rid of all this water to see the 12 one. Apparently Jalen’s Idea was a good one because the system followed suit with a cryptic message. .
Adjusting battlefield conditions…]
[Clearing excess mana interference…]
[System override acknowledged.]
[Remaining enemy located.]
Jalen felt a shift in the air, like the entire space around them had just clicked into place. The overwhelming presence of water—the swirling tides and pools left in the wake of the Abyssal Tide Serpent—began to recede. Not entirely, but enough to expose more of the battlefield. The ruins stretched further than he remembered, and for a moment, Jalen wasn’t sure if that was a trick of the system or if something had actually been hidden here.
Then, the ground groaned.
Stone cracked. Water drained away, revealing something massive, something wrong.
A puppet. But not like the others.
Jalen took an instinctive step back as the figure slowly stood. Its form was humanoid—mostly—but twisted, like it had been built wrong from the inside out. Unlike the other puppets, this one wasn’t made of metal or enchanted wood. Its body looked almost organic, like it had been grown instead of constructed. The seams in its form pulsed faintly, as if something alive lurked just beneath its surface.
The system wasn’t showing its health bar.
“Uh, Serpent?” Jalen muttered, not taking his eyes off the thing.
The Abyssal Tide Serpent—who had remained smug and unbothered through everything so far—was now watching the puppet with something Jalen could only describe as wariness. The creature’s sapphire eyes narrowed.
“That,” the Serpent finally said, “is not a puppet.”
Jalen didn’t like that answer. “The system says it is.”
“The system is mistaken. That’s a demon or a system punishment I can’t decide which. ”
The puppet—no, the thing—tilted its head in an unnatural, almost curious motion. Then, as the last of the water receded, Jalen saw something embedded in its chest.
A card
Jalen’s blood ran cold. It was similar to the cards Jalen had in his very own deck. But it wasn’t bronze it was silver.
The system flickered again.
[Warning: Interference detected.]
[Enemy reclassification in progress…]
[Designation: ???]
“Okay,” Jalen muttered under his breath. “I really hate this trial.”
Ember’s flames burned hotter as the creature finally moved. Not fast, not aggressively, but deliberately, like it was testing its own body. As if it had only just woken up.
Jalen clenched his fists, eyes flicking between the thing and his Abyssal Tide Serpent. “You gonna tell me what to call you now, or do I really have to go with Aqua Lizard in the middle of all this?”
The Serpent let out an annoyed hiss but didn’t take its eyes off the creature.
“…Vritra.”
Jalen blinked. “What?”
“My name,” the Serpent said, tail coiling slightly. “You may call me Jorm .”
Jalen exhaled sharply. “Alright, Jorm.” His gaze snapped back to the puppet.
The thing smiled. Then it moved into an awkward inhuman stance. Then Jalen felt goosebumps spread down his spine, and a sudden pressure burst from the puppet. He blinked and suddenly felt his head detached from his own body.
Jalen gasped, the sensation of his head detaching from his body vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. His breath hitched as reality snapped back into place, his vision swimming. He was still standing. Still whole. His hands flew to his throat, but there was no wound, no pain—just the lingering chill of something wrong.
“What the hell was that?” he choked out.
Ember was snarling now, fur bristling, flames licking higher and wilder than before. “Jalen, what just happened?” His voice was sharper than usual, laced with concern.
Jorm—was staring at him. Not at the puppet-thing. At him.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” the serpent said, voice low, almost contemplative.
Jalen swallowed. “Saw what?”
“The moment of your death.”
Jalen shuddered. The memory was already fading, but the sheer realness of it lingered, like an echo. “That wasn’t real,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.
“No,” Jorm agreed. “But it will be—if you hesitate.”
Jalen felt his stomach twist. That vision hadn’t been a dream or an illusion. It had been a warning.
He turned his gaze back to the puppet-thing—no, the demon, or whatever the hell it was. It still stood there, unmoving, its grotesque form tilting ever so slightly, like it was watching him. Studying him.
And then, it laughed.
The sound was wrong, layered, overlapping in strange echoes, like it came from a dozen mouths at once. It didn’t belong in this place. It didn’t belong anywhere.
Jalen gritted his teeth. His hands curled into fists.
Then, the system flickered violently again.
[WARNING: Unstable Entity Detected.]
[Calculating Threat Level…]
[Threat Level: Unclassified.]
[System Directive: Eliminate or Flee.]
Jalen let out a breath. “Fleeing’s not an option, is it?”
Jorm let out a deep, amused rumble. “Not unless you’d like to see that vision become reality.”
[ New System Directive]
[ Last 1 minute until the system can remove entity.]
Jalen clenched his jaw, his pulse hammering in his ears. One minute. That was all he had to survive. But against what? This thing wasn’t just a puppet. It wasn’t even just a demon. It was wrong. A distortion of reality itself, an error the system was struggling to define.
And it had already killed him once.
Not in the physical sense, no—but that sensation of disconnection, of feeling his head severed from his body, had been too real to ignore.
Jalen wasn’t about to let it happen again.
“Alright,” he muttered, forcing his breathing to steady. “One minute. We can do that.”
Ember snarled, his flames roaring higher. “You say that like it’s easy.”
Jorm—coiled his massive form around them, his sapphire eyes narrowing at the creature. “It will be easy,” the serpent declared, though there was a sharpness in his tone, an unspoken if. If Jalen made the right moves. If he didn’t hesitate. If they weren’t already too late.
“ Then the serpent said something that made perfect sense to Jalen. This is the system’s way of getting back at you for telling it no. You won’t die from this thing , but it will hurt like hell if you let it catch you.
“ What are you saying, are you saying what I’m thinking you are saying.”
“Don’t you find it a little strange that the all powerful system can’t remove an error from itself, especially one that hasn’t even reached tier 3. It’s a entity called a NYX puppet designed to inflict physiological and physical torture. The physiological effects you’ve experienced yourself. ”