When Arin entered the Trial, he found himself in quite a peculiar situation. Before him was a small tablet with glowing runes. He looked around only to see that nothing had manifested yet.
The white void that greets a person when they first came still remains. This odd scenario wasn’t something Arin had experienced before. It was unique in that sense. Left with nothing else left to do but to examine this runic tablet, he proceeded to do so.
These shifting runes were similar to the ones that layered the entrance to the Trials yet were still somehow off from it. It was as if the shifting runes in this tablet were nothing but a shoddy replica of the language inscribed on the Trial doors. Even so the complexity of this universally changing runes made Arin still wary of how this could come to be.
Until now, no one had figured out why there were Trials here. The written history had faded away with time with only tidbits of the true events being passed down by word of mouth. The only thing most commoners knew was that for some reason, humanity had been taken and forced to undergo this cruel place.
Humanity had evolved from weaklings unable to protect themselves to creatures capable of taking down Trials as they came. The adaptability of mankind wasn’t something to scoff at.
As Arin touched the tablet, the unintelligible runes turned into the language he knew. He carefully read the contents of the tablet.
“Humanity is doomed. The last of the last struggle yet it's only a matter of time.” Arin read out loud as he made sure he didn’t miss anything. “Do you seek to save yourself or to embrace the truth?”
At this point, the runes started to form two options before him. He could see that this was also similarly odd from the ones he had gone through before. Instead of being a general puzzle that he could solve, it leaned more on showing information about what seemed to be about the world.
“That tree spoke of the outside world and this one’s talking about how humanity’s doomed. Just what are these Trials? Why are they so different from the ones I went through last time?” Although he had only managed to try two Trials, he felt as if these were different from the rest.
Adding on the fact that the pen he had acquired from that Sephirah Trial showed him a prominent figure from the past. It was as if the Trials were trying to tell him something beyond what he should know. It could also be something coincidental.
“These Trials and Fragments are showing what’s been lost to time. But just how accurate is it?” Arin subconsciously landed his hand on the pocket that once held his pen, only to feel that there wasn’t anything there.
“Oh right, I threw it away back at Fiona’s shelter. It didn’t react to me nor did it react to anyone else near me. There’s no point holding to it then. If Fiona keeps it then so be it.” Arin placed his attention back on the glorified tablet in front of him.
The tablet shimmered black and gold as the two options before him started to glow darker. From the looks of it, the tablet was awaiting Arin’s choice. Although he wasn’t particularly interested in the history of the world if it could help him out in the future then it wouldn’t be a waste of time.
“Embrace the truth.” Arin tapped the option that showed a picture of a man slowly breaking apart as he faced something beyond him. It had a grand angel taking out what seemed to be holy text as it shined down on the man’s eyes, causing them to burn. As it spoke of its contents, this feeble man’s ears bled as he couldn’t handle it.
At this point, the white void was finally replaced with a dungeon. The dark blue bricked walls appeared all around him. It showed iron bars enclosing the room he was in, showing that he was a prisoner to be kept for an undetermined amount of time.
Arin even looked down at his wrists to see that there was metal preventing him from freely moving around. Looking down even further, his legs were also locked together, even moving from one side of the room to the other would be quite difficult.
Seeing that his body was bound against his will, the very first thing he tried was to tear apart his restraints using brute force. Using his enormous strength, he pulled his arms apart, expecting to completely break apart his iron cuffs.
The expectations he had in comparison to reality made Arin take this place even more seriously. The iron cuffs on his hands were perfectly intact, showing that he wasn’t going to be getting out of these without the key.
Since the first try didn’t work out, Arin did the next thing he had in mind. Try again.
Just because Arin failed the first time didn’t mean that he wouldn’t try it again. If his will was so easily broken that one failure would dissuade him from trying any further, he would’ve already been broken down a long time ago.
If his first attempt didn’t work out then he could only scale it up even more. Arin raised his hands and gathered up his strength, slamming it down on the ground with all his might. The dark blue bricked floor was cracked by Arin’s hands. A small crack appeared on the ground alongside a small dent in his cuffs.
Seeing that there was visible progress, Arin smiled. He ignored the fact that his hands were now slightly messed up during the impact. Trying one more time, he slammed it down even harder than before, though this time his target wasn’t the ground but the restraints on his feet.
As the iron restraints on him were made of the same material, they would deform similarly which would let Arin get out easier if he exerted enough force. After a few attempts of metal clanging and sparking with each clash, he finally broke through the restraints placed on him.
After making so much noise, Arin had somewhat expected someone to appear but since it was only a Maze-level Trial, it shouldn’t be that complicated. Maze-level Trials were classified as such since the only thing a person needed to do was find the correct sequence of actions to progress through.
Like during Arin’s first Trial, The Sun’s Encompassing Gaze, he needed to use the clues shown throughout the Trial to pass with a high Completion Rate. If he had used the wrong sequence or missed applying a clue, he wouldn’t have gotten such a high score.
Following that, the next genuine Trial he had experienced was The Moon Runic Ruins. This trial had even more options before him with a few conditional events appearing. There were multiple paths he could tread and they could all possibly lead him towards a Perfect Clear. Some paths were easier than others so it relied on the individual to properly assess which he he should go down.
In both cases, it was essentially a puzzle that they needed to solve with the clues given throughout the Trial. The only external problems that came up were due to the participants themselves. The Trials themselves only react based on the participant’s actions and never the other way around.
Everything that happens only happens as such due to a participant’s action. Back when Arin went through the mock Trial, he went out through a hidden passage which caused a toxic gas to be spread out, causing his classmates to suffer unjustly.
This kind of Trial was considered the easiest kind since one could realistically replicate their actions to consistently get a Perfect Clear every time. As for the higher tier Trials, they were much more difficult in both their content and complexity.
And as for the Sephirah Trials, they were in a whole other category of unreasonable. Arin’s first Sephirah Trial had an extremely odd shift in its difficulty. Instead of unlocking the altar, which was the main goal, all he did was torture the traitors around him and that was enough to satisfy the conditions of the Sephirah Trials. Even up until now, Arin’s interest in this kind of Trial was outrageously high.
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After setting himself free, it was much easier to maneuver around this area. He easily opened up the jail door and saw countless bodies lying all over the place. He examined the corpses and saw that they all had the same injuries.
The area around their eyes was burnt, there were even ashes dropping off from their faces. As for their ears, they were all bleeding just like in the option he chose. From the looks of it, they all died just recently.
He cautiously walked over them, not bothering to skirt around the issue. As he passed the other jail cells, he saw that there were also captives inside with the same injuries as those guards on the floor. Everyone had died the same way.
There were no runes nor clues he gathered here except for their deaths. Walking past everything he saw a slightly open wooden door by the side. There was light peeking out of it, tempting him to enter it boldly.
Arin didn’t even hesitate to slam it wide open. He wanted to see what was in store for him. As he did so, it showed the warden’s room. The light came from the lamp that he was using. On the desk, was a key that Arin presumed to be the key to the cuffs he had already broken through earlier.
With nothing else of value to his eyes, he grabbed it and walked away. Exploring this prison even more, he eventually found a door with a staircase behind it leading upstairs. The only problem here was that the door was locked.
The door blocking his way looked extremely flimsy to the point that Arin felt that there was something wrong with it. He looked beside him yet there wasn’t anything that he could sense. Facing it head-on, he decided to break the door recklessly.
As his leg kicked the door open, it swung wide open without any issues. Arin narrowed his eyes and entered, walking upstairs to see what lay up there. With the corpses down here, it was safe to say that there was something that he had to face.
With how one-sided everyone was slaughtered, Arin didn’t think that he would be able to bring it down by himself. He would either have to use some external object or ritual to weaken the monster or strengthen himself. After all, Maze-level Trials should always be possible to be done by a normal person, no matter how impossible it seems. There’s always some path that would let someone pass through absurd situations.
Going upstairs, the creaks and the echoes of his footsteps stepping on the weak wooden boards created a tense atmosphere for Arin. If it was another person, the pressure of an unknown enemy and the creeping stressful environment would’ve made them slightly panic.
Such subtle influence won’t be able to shake Arin’s mind.
Getting to the very top, Arin opened the iron door in front of him and was immediately blinded by a shining light. One would expect that the light of the sun would’ve blinded him yet in actuality, what created such a terrifying light wasn’t something as tame as the sun.
Recalling the option he chose, he immediately shielded his eyes to prevent the light from burning his eyes. As expected, the burning sensation he felt earlier immediately disappeared as soon as he covered his eyes.
He still doesn’t know what his enemy looked like. All he knew was that if he tried to look beyond what he should, he would suffer the same fate as those below him.
Arin wanted to look around to see what his environment had but he was cautious as to what might happen if he didn’t shield his eyes enough. The risk of it wasn’t worth the payoff. Fortunately for him, he could still see the view below him, although limited, it was enough.
Below Arin was glass. Clear glass that there was sand right below his feet. This didn’t immediately make sense to Arin as he had just gotten out of prison. The geographical continuity didn’t align itself properly.
Arin moved around while ensuring that he didn’t look at the monster in front of him directly. As he traveled, he continued to see a few more debris of broken refined stone. Continuing further, he saw a few more corpses and furniture.
Putting everything together, it finally dawned on Arin what happened. The sand below his feet came from castle stone. He didn’t know the exact details behind it but based on the debris he saw where that large piece of stone had been covered in a thick layer of sand.
The furniture and corpses further solidified his belief that he arrived at a destroyed castle. The culprit is the monster in front of him. He didn’t see a way he could attack the monster, let alone see it.
Focusing on the task at hand, taking the treasure, Arin tried to figure out what treasure the Trial was referring to specifically. The term, treasure, was far too broad for him to exactly pinpoint what it could be.
If he had to guess, the angel’s scroll would be the most obvious choice to be considered a treasure. If such a valuable treasure was what he needed to take then it would no doubt be a monumental task.
With his options at hand, he decided to try his hand at taking the scroll from the angel before him. Although he couldn’t see the angel at all, he felt that if he found a hidden mechanic in this Trial then he would be able to easily pass this.
He was taking this much more seriously since this was a genuinely dangerous Trial where he could actually die. This was no longer a scenario where he could just wildly run and do whatever he wanted. The consequences of not properly assessing the danger wouldn’t be something he was willing to pay.
After searching around for a bit, he mapped the area of the castle in his head. As he expected, it was an enclosed space where he wouldn’t be able to get further out. Like any Maze-level Trial, it had a specified enclosed area where the participants wouldn’t be able to escape normally.
Through his actions, he managed to create a direct position in his mind where the angel was. With a target in mind, he took a piece of castle stone and kicked it towards the point he had in mind. As the rock flew in the air, the swift sound of a piece of rock flying through the air immediately cut off.
Arin tried a few more times and listened very carefully. As it turned out, after reaching a certain distance near the angel, it would disappear. Arin then went back down, dragging a corpse and doing the exact same thing.
Once again, the body he kicked towards it flew through the air and then disappeared. Arin then took another body and decided to get closer to the angel. He wildly swung the body until he felt something change.
Arin used one arm to shield his eyes while using the other to do everything. After a few swings, he immediately felt the body he was swinging lighten up quite a bit. Heading back inside the prison, he examined the body he had in his hand.
The upper torso of this poor prisoner was cleanly cut off. It showed his ribs and organs stationarily static. Not even a single drop of blood came out despite his body being vaporized into nothingness.
Arin couldn’t see a way past it, with such an invulnerable shield, there wasn’t anything he could realistically do. With the Trial’s restriction of being unable to use Malum, he had good or even better chances than a normal person would have. He was just missing a clue somewhere.
He had already explored the upper area. He now needed to find out what he missed back down here. Tracing his steps back, he tried to see what kind of secrets he missed. Going back to his cell, he saw the broken iron cuffs on the ground and snickered.
“If someone didn’t get rid of their restraints then they would’ve died unjustly when they went up.” Arin went back and grabbed the iron restraints on the ground. There wasn’t anything else that caught his attention in this room so he decided to bring it with him.
As soon as he went outside the room, the iron cuffs that had once held him back started shifting and changing, causing an odd series of reactions all around him. The mundane and common iron cuffs turned a shade of blue as everything around him started to visibly change.
He experienced his entire body warp through an unfathomable barrier, letting him enter a time when the tragedy hadn’t happened yet. Arin couldn’t help but laugh at how comical it was.
The once dreary and desolate prison turned lively once again… relatively. The prisoners that had once their eyes burned out were emptily staring into the distance once more. Even the previously murdered corpses returned back to life.
One of the guards that was on patrol came down and shouted out, “A prisoner escaped! Alert everyone!”
Arin calmly walked over, not putting the guards in front of him in his eyes. As far as he was concerned, they were already dead, whether by the angel’s hands or his. He was more interested in how this scene would affect the future scenario.
Testing his hypothesis, he tried reaching out of the key he took earlier only to find out that it wasn’t there at all. Recalling the steps back to the warden’s room, he made his way.
“Halt! Return to your room or you’ll be severely punished!” A guard screamed out with a pike in his hands. From the looks of it, he was quite experienced with it. He was no amateur.
Arin grinned and walked past him. The guard didn’t even notice what had just happened when he felt everything turned dark. By the time he had already realized what happened, his head was detached from his body.
Arin went up to the warden’s room and took the key from the room and went back to his room. After doing such a thing, the guards finally managed to gather enough force to apprehend him. Though it was awkward now since he already returned to his cell.
The iron cuffs he had in his possession had quite a unique property, unfortunately for him, he didn’t understand the exact mechanics behind him. After fiddling with it for a while, he inserted the key he had into the iron cuffs, opening it up. Arin had broken through it without going through the lock, this was one of the few things he could do.
As he did so, everything all around him started to warp back to how it was initially. Arin opened his eyes to see that the iron cuffs that he had gotten rid of were now back on his hands. He redid the exact same thing as earlier, shattering it against the restraints on his legs.
He left the room to see that the corpses that were there previously were the same. He started exploring even more to see what changed. After walking past the same spots, he went to the guard he had killed earlier. His body was still there with the blood splatters on the wall turning dry.
“This is interesting…”
Everything he had done from the time before carried over. Just what were the limits? He could only test it out.