"System, you bastard! This is all your fault!" Zar shouted, his voice echoing through the empty expanse around him.
His mind was still reeling from the absurd bet he had lost. He had thought he was being clever, that the System was just ssing with him as usual. But no—he had played himself.
"Now, how exactly are you going to help create a realm?!" he demanded, rubbing his temples. His frustration was reaching dangerous levels.
The System, as smug and infuriating as ever, replied,
["Oh, that's easy. Let's go back to the Vault of Eternal Confinent."]
Zar's eyes widened in suspicion.
"Wait, wha—?"
Before he could react—
Before he could even attempt to protest—
His surroundings folded.
Reality itself twisted and collapsed inward like paper being crumpled. The air cracked and reshaped itself, a sensation both nauseating and unnatural. He barely had ti to breathe before—
WHOOSH!
Everything around him vanished.
And in its place—
The suffocating presence of the Vault of Eternal Confinent swallowed him whole.
------
The Vault of Eternal Confinent
A deep, unnatural silence greeted Zar as he arrived.
The Vault was a place beyond places, a prison that did not exist in any one dinsion but rather between them.
The space stretched endlessly in all directions, neither light nor dark, yet filled with an unsettling glow. Chains, massive and ancient, ran through the void like veins of an unfathomable beast, pulsating with restrained energy.
Zar had been here before.
But this ti was different.
There was no resistance. No force holding him in place.
He had arrived on his own.
That realization alone made Zar pause. His gaze swept over the endless abyss, his mind catching onto sothing important.
"Alright, System..." he said slowly, crossing his arms. "I get it. So what's next?"
For once, the System didn't imdiately mock him. There was a brief, almost deliberate silence before it spoke, its tone filled with amusent.
["Oh? It looks like you've already figured out why I brought you here."]
Zar frowned. "Since this prison can hold even gods, I'm guessing it has sothing to do with fundantal laws?"
["Bingo!"] the System chirped. ["From here, you'll learn the basics of creation."]
Zar's eye twitched.
"You're telling to learn basics now?! I have to create a whole realm in less than eight hours!"
The System remained silent for a second before suddenly grinning darkly in his interface.
["Well, you are a genius, right? Yeah, right!"]
Zar's instincts scread at him.
Without hesitation, he turned to run—
But before he could take even a single step
—a massive, invisible hand manifested out of nowhere and grabbed him by the collar.
"Nope. No running."
"WHAT THE HELL?! LET GO, YOU DAMN SYSTEM!" Zar flailed wildly, kicking his legs in the air.
The gigantic hand effortlessly lifted him like a misbehaving cat. No matter how much he thrashed, the grip didn't loosen in the slightest.
The System's voice was dripping with amusent.
["Now, now, Zar. You need to sit and learn."]
Another invisible finger appeared in the air, pointing downward.
The mont it did, the hand swung him around—
—and plopped him onto an invisible seat in the middle of the Vault.
Zar sat there, disoriented, floating in space.
His mind was still catching up when, finally, his eyes fell on it.
At first, it seed like nothing.
Just the sa eerie abyss.
Then—he saw them.
Lines.
No. Not lines.
Threads.
Threads of existence itself, stretching infinitely in every direction.
They weren't physical, yet they shimred in an endless array of colors, shifting, twisting, and pulsing with a strange rhythm. So burned bright like living stars, while others flickered and faded, disappearing into the void.
A strange sensation crawled up Zar's spine.
These threads... they felt familiar.
He had seen them before—but not like this. Not in their raw, fundantal form.
"System..." Zar's voice was softer now, his usual sarcasm nowhere to be found. "What are these?"
The System's reply ca casually, as if it were explaining the weather.
["Oh, these?"] it said. ["They're what everything is made of—the fundantal essence of all that exists across every verse."]
Zar gulped.
"And I'm supposed to learn to control this?!"
["Yup!"]
"In under four hours?!"
The System's grin widened into sothing downright devilish.
["Absolutely. Have fun~."]
Zar was about to scream when, suddenly—
A dark screen appeared in front of him.
A shiver ran down his spine.
There was sothing creepy about this.
His eyes locked onto the words displayed on it, and the mont he read them, his jaw dropped.
———————————
[NEW MISSION]
On the Way to Creating a Realm!!
Objective: Learn the basics of existence manipulation within 4 hours.
Reward: Unsealing of realm up to 10%
Failure Penalty: ???
———————————
Zar stared at the question marks.
The punishnt wasn't listed.
That alone made his stomach churn.
Sohow, he just knew—if he failed this mission, he was screwed.
His fingers curled into fists, sweat trickling down his forehead.
He exhaled sharply.
"Fine..." he muttered under his breath, glaring at the threads in front of him.
Then, with a deep sigh—
—he focused.
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