Art devion viewpoint-
The seemingly floating candles shed light on the vast emptiness of space, my vision changing and a strange sensation flowing all over my body.
All I remember is that I slept in the night; it was the night of the 18th or 19th of the 346th Magic Advancing Era. My brain was fuzzy; I couldn't even remember the simplest thing.
'Candles?' Before I knew it, I was in a different space, far from what my bedroom cabin looked like.
I was left standing in the middle of a grass field—I felt a strange feeling that something was going to happen; surely not good, I thought.
Slowly walking through the grass field, something caught my attention—thick trees had suddenly appeared in the distance.
'That wasn't there earlier…' I was dumbfounded by the situation I was in. I didn't even know how I got here in the first place.
It seemed like when I turned around, the space was being warped or changed by something ominous. Could it be an artifact? I couldn't think of anything except for the ancient artifacts used by the previous civilization—billions of years before the start of Lunarian Projection.
It was some kind of artifact made to change space, but it varied based on the artifact's quality. However, an artifact that had the power to change this vast space was something impossible, even for an advancing magical era.
The strange sensation just grew worse when I walked close to the thick trees; it was almost impossible to see through the dense trees that had formed.
As I stopped walking towards the dense forest, I looked around the surrounding area, and it seemed like I got caught in some kind of trap.
I was completely surrounded by the thick trees. I looked at the sky and noticed that the sun was hours before sunset; in modern time, it seemed likely that it was 4:30 PM to 5:00 PM.
"Ouch, that only hurts." I tried to punch my face, but instead of waking up from a seemingly bad dream, I only felt pain in my face. 'I shouldn't have punched myself heavily,' I regretted my decision.
[Welcome to the trial of life and death.]
"?!" I noticed the Projectix System notification floating beside me. 'What do you mean by trial of life and death?' I was utterly speechless.
[Survive the whole night. The system will provide you with enough equipment to survive the night.]
[The system has provided you:
-Blue crystal sword (1)
-Cooked meat (3)
-Healing potion (2)
-Mana potion (2)]
[A defensive mechanism program inside the Projectix System, due to a serious change in the trajectory of the story, you have been sent here.]
[Stats have been doubled due to the trial difficulty.]
[The system has also given you access to a spatial ring (all the provided items contained) and a timer notification that shows the time—when the dawn of the timer starts and the endless, relentless dimensional creatures will appear.]
[Goal: Survive the entire night. The system will reward you greatly.]
[Dying in the trial is the equivalent of dying in real time.]
"What the hell?" I looked at the notification, and it seemed like I had entered a death game.
Looking at my right hand, the spatial ring that the system mentioned slowly appeared on my index finger; tiny blue icy particles seemed to dance on my fingers.
[Item:
-Blue crystal sword (1) 'FrostSworik-zero' A-RANK
-Cooked meat (3)
-Healing potion (2) "Heals most of the wounds." (Serious wounds are not healable.)
-Mana potion (2) "Restore all the used mana." (Wouldn't work on an over-exhausted body.)]
I looked in awe as I remembered the FrostSworik-zero—it was my first-ever sword that I always loved to use in games.
I had mastered the sword techniques and advantages, although it would be rough to use at first. But it was expected—game skills and real-life skills. I was entering death itself without even proper preparation.
Setting that aside, I looked at the items again. 'This would be crucial for my overall survival in this crazy death game I got into.' There were still hours left before the sun finally set.
I cannot die today, I absolutely cannot—I've changed the story, and this is my first diversion from the original storyline.
There are more major events in the future that I have to stop. In order for me to survive this world, I have to stop them—I cannot interfere in the main story of Lunarian Projection in the game. This time, I will surely succeed, but.
I have to face the trial today. I won't hesitate to kill anyone that tried to stop me from saving myself and the main character in the academy.
Projectix
[ ART DEVION 'STATUS RECORD' ]
Skill Points: 0
Strength Level 30+30 (60)
Mentality Level 18+18 (36)
Magic Level 5+5 (10)
Endurance Level 15+15 (30)
Swordsmanship Level 16+16 (32)
Dexterity Level 10+10 (20)
Unique skills
Wisdom Eye (System) Level 2 "Sync."
Symphony of Endings (Gift) Level 1
Lightning Rhythm Level 1
Unawakened 'Reach Lightning Rhythm 5'
Title
Low-mid tier human (System)
I looked at the time before the sun set, and I prepared myself for an endless onslaught against me.
[Time: 2:34 before sunset.]
Two minutes and 34 seconds left. I gripped the blue crystalline sword in my right hand and waited, looking at the sun slowly being swallowed by the vast horizon and dense forest.
[Time: 0:58 before sunset.]
The sunlight that illuminated the grass around me had darkened.
I quickly noticed the ground and the grass had slowly withered, devoid of any life—wait, no, it was more like life was taken from them.
Glowing white particles started flying like balloons in the sky.
It was beautiful and painful to watch at the same time; it was giving me a weird vibe.
I readied myself for any attacks that might come towards my location. My senses had doubled due to my stats being two times higher.
[Time: 0:0, 12:00 before morning. Good luck.]
The world around me started to crumble as soon as the timer reached zero.
The sound of shattering glass made my ears twitch. I looked at the darkened sky while activating my Wisdom Eye. The sensation of the temperature rapidly decreased in my eyes.
The Wisdom Eye didn't show any information, only a blank of symbols I couldn't understand, but thankfully, I could see more clearly in the dark.
Tiny specks of cracks appeared in the sky—visible enough for me to see with my bare eyes. I had quickly made a plan even before the timer hit zero.
Without even waiting for the sky to completely shatter open, I ran towards the dense forest. I would use it to my advantage as the endless monsters followed me. They had a high chance of getting blocked by the thick trees.
The dense trees had a lot of escape paths rather than the open field where I was completely exposed in every direction. It was my best bet for surviving this hell of a trial.
After reaching the forest, I looked again at the sky, and a huge crack appeared. Small creatures with black wings, long hands, and skinny bodies, if any normal person were to see this in the modern world, they would likely pee in their own pants.
Dismissing my absurd thoughts of the modern world, I ran towards the east where the sun was supposed to rise, going in the opposite direction of the sunset.
Moving tree by tree, not making any crucial mistake, one mistake could lead to my early death in this fated, damned world.
While moving, I noticed that wherever I went, the sky had already shattered; tens—wait, no, thousands of shattered spaces in the sky, a continuous flow of unknown creatures/monsters.
They had quite a speed when trying to find me. I stopped at a large tree branch and saw that the vast space surrounding everything had cracked. It was the worst situation possible.
No matter where I went, they followed, as if they knew where I had been. Just thinking about this made me feel more unsure of how things would go, but there was no point ramping things up now. I just had to survive.
"Ragh!" A winged monster lifted its long arm towards me, aiming for my neck.
Seeing that the monster was fully open, I thrust the endpoint of FrostSworik-zero toward its head, penetrating the skull.
'So sharp,' I grinned, satisfied.
I moved backward, knowing there was impending danger everywhere. Keeping track of my location, I jumped towards the trees for protection.
Hundreds of flying creatures were in the sky; it was a great decision to use the dense forest as an advantage.
"Ragh!"
"Rahh!"
Multiple—hundreds of winged creatures saw me exposed. I glanced at all of them menacingly and slowly activated one of my unique skills.
"Lightning Rhythm."
Thundering bolts of gold spectrum lightning pierced through the dark clouds in the sky—I only had 1 minute of activation time, or else it would take a toll on my fragile body.
I'll annihilate them all in the span of 1 minute to buy time for another wave. While I had been in the trees looking for anything I could notice, I found out that there were waves of monsters, but this was just a theory without proper confirmation.
From the open shattered rift in the sky, no more monsters were showing. I needed confirmation if waves really existed.
The crackling sound echoed through the forest. Every dash and slash I performed was perfectly swift; not even the winged creatures could touch me. At this moment, I was the strongest against thousands of flying creatures.
"AARHGG!"
'43 seconds left,' counting down my time, I moved swiftly, managing to slash every winged monster I came across.
"ARH-"
The winged monsters that had been touched by the lightning, and the soundwaves released from my body each second, instantly turned to ash. Monster blood didn't even have time to spill on me.
'23 seconds left.'
Thousands of monsters closed in on me, got electrocuted, and their bodies turned to ash within a fraction of a second. The trees had been devastated; massive trees had been burned, which had lightly lit up the darkened sky.
'15.'
Hundreds of ashes were left on the ground. The withered grass had been replaced by dirt, and large chunks of dirt had fallen everywhere.
The more I dashed, the more destruction I caused towards the dense trees. '10.' I jumped down to the ground and dashed towards the sky.
Translucent gold lightning burst out in a singular line; I was like the embodiment of light, hitting through every creature that I saw.
My eyes turned bright yellow as the unique skill Lightning Rhythm slowly came to an end.
The golden particles that had surrounded my body slowly flickered until they vanished in the air.
Gravity slowly pulled me down towards the ground; the world seemed to divert its natural law as soon as I landed unharmed.
Something was clearly wrong with this world's gravity. There were too many things I had discovered, but it seemed like it was just a fraction of what was really going on.
I had killed half of their numbers, and it seemed like there were still a lot left.
There was still no sign of the space rift deploying more winged creatures.
But this was surely endless until the sun rose.
[11:32 hours left before sunrise.]
Eleven and a half more hours to go. This was something outrageous. I examined the sword in my hand, FrostSworik-zero; it was still intact—to be exact, it was still in good condition.
I had noticed that the blue sword turned bright reddish-gold when I activated my unique skill, Lightning Rhythm. It was something I didn't clearly know.
There were things that were far different in the game Lunarian Projection than in this world—features that didn't exist in the game or just no one found them.
Clutching the sword in my hand, I looked at the approaching winged monsters.
"Come at me, you bastards." I faced them head-on with my sword. Not even one monster caused any damage to my leather shirt; I didn't even have armor against heavy attacks.
Amidst the fight between the winged monsters, "The moon is watching you," the sound of a person sent shockwaves throughout the entire forest.
It's a matter of time. The showdown just started, I grinned, my red eyes piercing the dark sky. Death was inevitable.