Thankfully I wasn’t completely alone, I had the System and the mysterious entity behind it, the Architect. And a moment later, my hopes shot through the roof when the Architect responded,

[I have opened a gate. Leave through it as soon as possible]

Thank God. I mean, thank the Architect. It looked like my safe and secure exit from this god forsaken place was more than assured. But where was this gate?

And as if reading my mind, another panel appeared before me, completely draining the color from my face.

[The gate is at the tip of my hand]

There was no way right?

Hiding behind the base of the gigantic statue, I peered up into the darkness. I could only see the pillar-like legs of the statue rise up and vanish into the darkness. Maybe the hand had fallen off somewhere nearby? I looked around, but no matter how much I did, I couldn’t find it.

[My hand is where you refuse to look.]

[Look above and rise]

Man fuck off!

I heard the sound of the mob grow in its chittering clamor. As if hundreds and thousands of people were clacking their teeth at slightly different times.

It was so eerie and strange that my heartrate soared. Maybe at this rate I would pass out and my death would be painless. That seemed like a good alternative.

But the more I remained in place, waiting for more responses by the Architect, the more agitated I became. That was the last thing he’d told me

‘Look above and rise’.

I gulped.

The gears of my mind threatened to overheat and fry themselves as I raced to think of a solution.

I had to get to the hand that was far above. Alright, that was the objective. How do I achieve it?

The clattering grew closer. Fuck. Think Enzo think.

I have the System, what can I do with it?

I pulled it up and without even stopping to think about it, I mentally clicked on one of the plus buttons, bringing up another panel.

There was just a slight problem.

The panel was completely blank.

Oh God.

The clattering grew so close. As if those things were right beyond the corners of the statue. I had no idea how to operate this damned thing and I had no time to think. But with the looming threat of death hovering beyond the corners, I could do nothing but think about how slow I was in thinking!

And then I finally realized why the first step to surviving a life-or-death situation was to stay calm.

I stopped thinking, completely emptying my mind and ignoring the mass of footsteps that grew louder. Surely, they must have turned the corner. But with the darkness, they couldn’t see me.

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I ignored the horde. Completely ignoring how much time I had left to act, and only focused on coming up with a solution.

The panel was blank. That was a fact. I could press the buttons in the System with my thoughts. That was another fact. Therefore it stood to reason that I could interact with the System using my thoughts alone.

Then it made sense why it was blank.

Immediately I knew what I wanted for my first component.

A skill creator.

The lag between the thought and the execution was non-existent. The moment I thought of the idea, it appeared in the panel before me slightly different from what I wanted.

[Skills: [+] [+] [+] ]

In the panel were three slots— Unfortunately an infinite amount of skills was impossible it seemed.

I immediately caught onto the problem. The System automatically modified my ideas to fit within certain limitations. Only I did not know what those limitations were.

What if those limitations applied to skills too? I didn’t want to take the risk and waste precious time. It seemed I was going to have to avoid taking the risk and make a simple yet effective skill that would allow me to reach the gate.

Flight was most likely out of the option. It seemed too magical, and likely out of the realm of possibility.

The shadows in front of me danced.

The first of them had already arrived, and were moving around in front of me— looking around for a target. I felt the glance of one of the shadow’s eyes pass over me and I froze. It simply carried on its search and walked away.

What the hell was that?

Could it not see me? My shirt was black and the stone was a deep midnight blue as well, so I must’ve melded into the darkness.

The game was over when they came close and actually touched me however. Then they would know for certain I was there, and only Gods knew what they would do to me.

I resumed thinking of a skill.

Flight was out of the question. So that meant I either had to manually climb up or slingshot it like spiderman. Except I had no idea if web slinging was a viable skill, and even if it was, I had no idea how to do it.

So climbing it was.

Immediately I thought of the skill, and it appeared before me, modified.

[Skill: Crawler

Description: You can climb on stone surfaces without getting tired and even if there is nothing to hold onto]

It seemed the system had modified my desire to climb any surface and allowed me to climb only stone surfaces.

One of the creatures came into view from the shadows— tall, dark, and very humanoid. It had two legs and a tail in front of it that sniffed and probed the air. What a weird configuration.

But I slowly got up, making sure not to make a sound, and put my hands on the stone base of the statue.

Immediately I could feel a strange connection to the stone. As if the stone melted into my hands at the point of contact and I was one with it. I put both feet onto it and felt the same sensation.

This time I couldn’t suppress my wild grin. I slowly climbed up and mounted the base with almost no effort. Even though I was exhausted beyond belief, somehow, the act of climbing took zero energy. It was like walking.

I crouched on top of the base and grinned.

Goodbye fuckers.

I slowly stood up and turned around. I’d escaped those things with my own problem solving skills. God. What a genius I was.

My steps felt so light too! Were my feet metaphorically becoming one with the stone? Ha ha. I was in a joyous mood. Maybe I could shout and taunt at those things, laughing as I watched them struggle to climb up.

Finally. I was at the statue.

So close to that massive structure, I felt a sense of reverence to it. My first steps on this massive statue would be respectful. I thanked the Architect for giving me this System and giving me a chance to escape this hell hole, and I softly placed a hand on the stone.

Then I placed another.

And then I started to climb up.

When my hand slipped— and a chunk of rock broke away from the surface.

I watched in stunned silence as the heavy rock hit the floor with a grinding thud.

The whole hall was silent. All the clattering had disappeared at once.

And the shadows surged towards the base of the statue as the whole hall clattered and screamed.