There was no floor.
That was the first problem.
rlin opened his eyes and was standing on nothing. Just a stretch of sky. Pale, overcast, too clean to be real. Below him, the world shimred like heat rising from broken glass.
He wasn't falling.
Which made it worse.
'Alright. Cool. Not terrifying at all.'
He looked down. Then up. Then around.
No door. No edge. No sun.
Just… space.
And then a desk.
Out of nowhere.
A sleek black table appeared two ters in front of him. On top of it sat a stack of envelopes, a polished dagger, and a tiny glass of what looked like wine but absolutely radiated magical disappointnt.
Behind the desk sat a man.
Thin. Sharp-featured. Wearing a perfectly tailored suit with gold stitching that moved when he blinked. His hair was perfect like it was made of gold, flowing perfectly.
His smile said he could sell you to yourself and you'd say thank you.
He didn't speak at first.
He just looked rlin up and down like he was reading the synopsis of a book that might be worth skimming.
Then he said, "Well."
His voice was smooth.
Annoyingly smooth.
"Was nearly getting eaten by a dragon not exciting enough for you?"
rlin stared.
"I didn't ask for this."
The man spread his hands. "No one ever does. Except the suicidal ones, and they never survive the onboarding."
"…Hers."
The smile widened.
"Ah. So you do read your system notifications."
The desk vanished.
So did the man.
Then he was behind rlin.
Then in front again.
Flickering. Not quite teleporting. Just moving wrong.
Ti didn't stick to him.
"Relax," Hers said, walking a slow circle around him. "This isn't judgnt. This is interest. You're interesting. And it's so hard to find mortals who aren't allergic to nuance."
rlin didn't respond.
He was too busy trying to guess how many laws of physics were being broken per second.
Hers continued anyway.
"You made a dragon hesitate. You stood your ground in a dead god's vein. You kept secrets from a system designed to know everything."
'Dead god's vein?'
He stopped.
Leaning slightly forward.
"And you did it while half-dead, under pressure, and with that charming little habit of pretending none of it affects you."
The wind changed direction.
Upward.
rlin spoke carefully. "So what's the point of this."
Hers clapped once.
The sound echoed sideways.
"The point," he said, "is that I'm offering you a trial. The kind mortals don't survive unless they're very fast, very clever, or very, very lucky."
rlin exhaled.
'Of course.'
[System Notification: Divine Trial Incoming]
[Trial Sponsor: The ssenger]
[Designation: Hers]
[Do you accept the invitation to ascend as an apostle?]
[Y/N]
He stared at the Y.
Then at Hers, who was now lounging on thin air, tossing a coin that spun way too slowly.
"This test," rlin said. "What is it."
Hers smiled without showing his teeth.
"A delivery. One ssage. One path. Several people trying to kill you on the way. But if you make it—"
The coin stopped midair.
"I make you faster than anyone else alive."
Silence.
Then rlin said, "That's your pitch?"
Hers leaned in.
"It's not a pitch, rlin. It's a challenge."
[You have 10 seconds to decide.]
rlin stared at the system.
Then at the sky.
Then back at the smug god floating across from him.
"…Fine," he said. "Let's play."
[Y confird.]
[Trial initializing.]
The sky cracked.
And the test began.
—
He landed like a sack of regret.
Face-first. Into sand.
Which imdiately got into his nose, eyes, and the very concept of personal dignity.
rlin pushed himself up slowly, spitting grit from his mouth.
No landmarks.
Just heat. Light. Dunes stretching endlessly in all directions like soone had tiled the world with the color beige and then tried to kill everything on it.
Then the system chid in, chipper as always.
[Trial of the Errant Path — Comnced]
[Objective: Deliver the scroll to the Tower of Glass]
[Distance: 32 kiloters]
[Ti Limit: 3 hours]
[Hostile Activity: Subsurface]
[Prohibited Actions: Flying]
[Note from the Divine Host: This rule is symbolic. We know you can't fly.]
rlin stared at the last line.
"Wow," he muttered. "Even your trial rules co with sarcasm."
The scroll was already in his hand.
Sealed. Glowing faintly. Warm like it had a heartbeat.
He didn't like that.
He tucked it into his coat and turned toward the horizon. Heat shimred over distant dunes. No sign of a tower. No shade. No path.
Of course.
He took one step forward.
The ground under him… shifted.
Not a lot. Just enough to say: Hey. I'm not solid. Also, sothing underneath hates you.
rlin's next steps were faster.
No dramatic wind boost. No teleportation. Just good old-fashioned survival panic, backed by a deep spiritual awareness that sothing below was definitely alive.
He crested the first dune.
And that's when the ripple ca.
Far behind him, one dune bulged. Then collapsed inward. A circle of sand sank into itself, spiraling like a drain.
'Sandworm.'
'Of course it's a sandworm.'
Then the roar hit.
Not a monster scream.
Not even vocal.
Just the sound of everything else getting out of the way.
He ran.
Boots sliding. Sand giving underfoot. Heat crawling up his back like it was trying to slow him down. The scroll pulsed once, angrily, sohow as if it disapproved of his sprint form.
Behind him, the dune exploded.
He didn't look.
Didn't need to.
That wasn't look territory.
That was die while making eye contact territory.
Sovereign Chain surged in his limbs, syncing rhythm, pressure, balance. He angled down the slope of the next rise, montum carrying him faster. Wind slipped under his coat, not enough to fly, just enough to cheat friction.
The worm followed.
It moved like a thought: fast, irrational, enormous.
He hit a flat stretch and sprinted, lungs burning.
The sand behind him sank again. A roar rippled across the plain.
[The ssenger is watching with amusent.]
[They expected you to drop the scroll by now.]
rlin grit his teeth.
"I drop this thing, and I'm making the delivery to your corpse."
The system made no comnt.
The desert rolled ahead.
No tower in sight.
Just more dunes.
More heat.
And a predator the size of a cathedral hungry for his ankles.
rlin kept running.
Not because he had a plan.
Because it was the only direction that wasn't straight down into teeth.
—
He cleared another dune by inches.
Landed hard. Rolled.
Sand went everywhere. Again.
His knees were full of regret and heat exhaustion.
The scroll was still in his coat, warm and humming like a smug heartbeat.
Behind him?
The worm.
It wasn't slowing down.
Because apparently, giant monsters didn't believe in stamina limits.
rlin pushed to his feet again.
'Twenty-sothing kiloters left.'
'At this point I'd pay soone to kill politely.'
Then the air changed.
Not the heat. Not the sll.
The instinct.
Sovereign Chain flared in his spine, it was tight, cold, precise.
Sothing was approaching.
Not the worm.
Sothing smaller.
Faster.
The sand just ahead to his right jumped. Not exploded. Jumped. Like sothing had flickered in from a step sideways through reality.
And a figure appeared mid-run.
Slim. Cloaked. Moving with speed that wasn't human, way too balanced, too synced with the terrain.
Their coat was lined with silver. Their boots barely left tracks.
Their eyes when they turned were focused.
On him.
rlin blinked once.
'You have got to be kidding .'
The system pinged a beat too late.
[Warning: Another Divine Trial has intersected this zone.]
[Na: Redacted]
[Affiliation: The Masked One Who Smiles Beneath Lies]
[Objective: Seize the ssenger's Scroll]
rlin shouted, "You're kidding—this is a PvP map?!"
The other trialer didn't answer.
They just smiled under their mask, pivoted, and dashed straight for him.
Sand churned.
rlin dove left, wind kicking hard against his boots, redirecting montum mid-slide. A narrow knife passed right where his ribs had been.
"Okay," he growled, rolling back to his feet, "Hers, you smug divine jackass—this is not a solo trial anymore!"
The trialer didn't respond. They ca in again, short blade flashing, speed clean, breath even.
Whoever trained them had trained to kill.
rlin blocked with the flat of his wrist, twisted, kicked down into the sand, and used wind to launch backward.
Distance gained. Not safety.
The scroll pulsed again.
The system chid again.
[Reminder: If the scroll is lost or destroyed, trial ends.]
[You die.]
"Yeah," rlin snapped. "Thanks. I didn't think it was a party favor."
The masked trialer didn't slow.
They weren't trying to fight.
They were trying to pressure.
Break rhythm.
Force a drop.
He ran again, angled hard west, up the side of another dune.
The sandworm scread behind him.
Closer.
Closer.
The trialer didn't look back.
Because they weren't worried about the worm.
Only the scroll.
rlin reached the top of the dune, half-turned, and finally shouted, "What kind of divine psycho gives you a quest to steal soone else's trial objective?!"
The masked figure paused just long enough to say, calm and clean.
"My god told to lie, cheat, and win."
Then they lunged again.
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