The first sensation Roman felt upon waking was silence. Not the kind that comes from a peaceful morning in some countryside estate, but a silence that seemed to be holding its breath. It pressed in from all sides, muffling even the faint rustle of sheets beneath his hand.
For a moment, he lay still, his gaze fixed on the dim canopy of his bed. His mind replayed the fragments of last night's dream — the goddess's voice, calm yet urgent, the faint scent of rain in the air that shouldn't have been there, the way her words had seemed to wrap around his bones: Save my world, King Ronald. Only you can.
It hadn't been a dream. That much he knew. The memory clung to him in a way no ordinary dream could. His pulse had quickened when he remembered the light in her eyes, the shade of blue that seemed impossible to capture with mortal pigments.
He exhaled slowly and pushed himself upright. The movement felt… strange. Not powerful — his body was still lean, underfed, and undeniably weak — but there was an underlying hum in his limbs, like the faint vibration of a bowstring after an arrow's release.
His gaze drifted to the far wall, and that's when it happened.
A faint shimmer. A ripple, almost invisible, distorting the air.
Roman frowned and blinked. It was gone.
Before he could decide whether it had been real, a line of cold, silver text appeared in the corner of his vision:
> [Trial Initiation Detected]
Do you wish to begin?
Y/N
He froze. His breath caught somewhere between his lungs and throat. It wasn't the first time he'd seen something like this — last night, the "system" had introduced itself in its cryptic way — but this was the first prompt that seemed… active.
A thousand instincts screamed at him to say no. He didn't even know what the Trial was. But another, quieter instinct, one that had carried him through battlefields and rebellion in his previous life, whispered otherwise.
Opportunities rarely come wrapped in explanations.
He thought the word without speaking it aloud: Yes.
The world fell away.
There was no flash of light, no dramatic tearing of space. Just a sudden absence of everything — sight, sound, breath. For a heartbeat, Roman thought he was dead again. Then his feet touched ground.
If it could be called that.
He stood on a surface like black glass, stretching infinitely in all directions. Above him, there was no sky, only a slow, swirling void — the kind that made you feel as though it was staring back.
The air was cold and dry, tasting faintly of iron.
> [Trial Parameters Established]
Objective: Endure until the final toll.
Bonus Objective: Defeat the Keeper.
The words dissolved into the darkness, leaving him alone.
Or so he thought.
A sound came — not from ahead or behind, but from everywhere. A slow, deliberate scrape, like claws dragging over stone. Then another. And another.
Shapes began to emerge from the darkness.
They weren't men. They weren't beasts. They were something caught between, their limbs long and angular, their heads bowed so their faces were hidden in shadow. Each step they took made the glass beneath their feet ripple, as though it were water pretending to be solid.
Roman's mouth went dry. His hands curled into fists.
He had no weapon. No armor. Only his bare body and…
The hum.
It was still there, faint but steady, running through his veins like the aftershock of some hidden pulse.
The first creature moved faster than he expected — a blur of shadow and teeth. Instinct threw Roman sideways, his body rolling across the glass. He felt something graze his arm, and heat bloomed where it touched.
He didn't have time to think. He moved.
Dodging, weaving, searching for an opening. But there was no opening. Every time he shifted his stance, another figure closed in. Their movements were erratic, as though they weren't bound by the same rules of space he was.
He was already tiring. His breath came harder.
The hum in his veins grew louder.
On instinct, he reached for it — not with his hands, but with his mind. And it answered. A spark. A surge.
His vision sharpened. The creatures seemed slower, their movements clearer, as though a fog had lifted. His right hand moved without conscious thought, striking upward into the nearest creature's chin. Bone cracked — or something that felt like bone. The thing reeled back, hissing.
But the others closed in.
The Trial wasn't about winning. Not yet. It was about surviving.
He kept moving. Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes blurred. His lungs burned, his limbs screamed, and still he forced himself onward. The hum became a roar, flooding his muscles with borrowed strength, but it came at a cost — each surge left him weaker afterward, as though he were burning through something irreplaceable.
The final toll came not as a sound, but as a shift. The glass beneath his feet rippled violently, and the void above split with a pale, impossible light. The creatures froze.
> [Objective Failed: Keeper not defeated.]
[Reward Granted: Fragment of Endurance]
The light swallowed him before he could react.
When Roman's eyes opened, he was back in his bed. Sweat clung to his skin. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts.
In the corner of his vision, the text remained:
> [Trial Complete.]
Do not fear the whisper. The whisper fears you.
He didn't understand it. Not yet. But he knew one thing — this was only the beginning.