"FUCK FUCK FUCK!"
"My legs snapped just in time, GREAT!"
In the middle of a land that's buried in sand. An endless graveyard of dunes. The ground devastated and shattered with each thunderous step of the Mighty Geo Beast. The Beast reared back, raising its titanic upper torso, preparing to stomp on the boy. The hopeless boy scrambled forward, crawling and dragging himself. His fingertips and nails were covered in blood. Still, he pushed on, his fragile heart bouncing in his chest.
He then noticed a huge amount of shadow had surrounded him. He quickly figured out it was one of the legs that the destructive Geo Beast had. His body rooted him to flee, but his mind had already given up. Lying down motionless, he turned around and faced the beast. Observing the gigantic beast one last time, the magnitude of the threat pressed not just on the earth, but deep inside him. It wasn't the beast he was staring at, it was death.
"I guess this is it."
The beast, bigger than several mountains, had no pity toward the kid. It stamped on him. The impact tore through the earth, leaving gaping holes in the ground. His body was pulverized under the unimaginable force, bones shattered like glass, and a torrent of blood splashed everywhere. It was a truly horrifying image.
After getting mutilated, his body lay there motionless. Satisfied at last that the boy was no longer alive, the beast egressed slowly, each massive step sending tremors through the ground. Dust and sand erupted with every movement, whipped into the air by sharp, howling winds. Its tail, thick and muscular, swung like a battering ram, smashing into the earth and sending waves of sand cascading in every direction. Each strike of the tail against the ground echoed like drums, its six legs making heavy beats that seemed to shake the world itself.
...
The beast was long gone, silence hung heavy for a moment, broken only by whistling of the wind. Then, something impossible began to happen. The boy's mangled body begins to heal rapidly. His crushed flesh starts to reform itself, crushing against his muscles. And blood that had pooled across the ground vanished as if swallowed by some unseen hand. His eyeballs start to bloat up like balloons. The most horrifying thing was his bones that shattered into fragments. But even that wasn't issue for the mysterious healing. The entire process lasted only seconds. It was almost like gods were reshaping their dead soldier. Slowly, he starts to gain consciousness. He opens his eyes, sharp and aware. Yet, he made no move to rise. His mind was perfectly calm like he didn't get smashed to death just a moment ago. Couldn't be bothered to get up after the healing.
He thought for a moment, then murmur followed.
"I really thought that was it."
Letting out a disappointed sigh, he said,
"I guess that godlike being isn't enough to end me either."
Closing his eyes, clear disappointment showed on his face. He seemed to be deep in thought, a usual habit after he gets revived.
He gets up after zoning out for a while, looking around and realizing that he had run way too far from the ruined town. Scratching back of his head, he said in a serious tone.
'I have to hurry'
Unfortunately for him, the day was merciless. Boiling heat that seemed to press down on every inch of the world. Even though Zarvian had healed fully, he was still tired. His muscles tensed as if giving up to the heat. Mad sun scorched the sky, weakening his strength. It looked like he was struggling to stand still through the sluggishness. He rubbed his eyes and lazily looked up, right at the sun. The reflection of blazing golden sun danced across his pupils. A soft chuckle escaped him, then turned emotionless and hazy again.
"This damned sun might kill me before the gods."
He falters as he follows his own footprints. The prints were already beginning to fade, swallowed by the shifting sand and dust, vanishing as if he had never been there at all.
...
Over time, he began yearning for refreshment. It had been several hours since he was last revived. The blazing sun loomed mercilessly above Zarvian's head, and fatigue gnawed at him. The sun seemed intent on killing him today. He started collecting droplets of his own sweat, saving them to drink later, the only source of hydration left to him.
After a while, his vision blurred, and he began hallucinating beverages. His lips were scorched, and his exposed skin had already burned.
He scanned the landscape. Fortunately, ruins came into view. But he could not walk anymore. His stomach was empty, cramps twisting his insides, making even movement impossible. It felt as if his organs were sewing themselves together. His eyes flickered wildly. He crumpled to the ground, body overheating, drenched in sweat. His head felt unbearably heavy, struggling to keep up. He let out a groan. It was too much for a lowly human like him.
He pulled out his leather bottle and drank the sweat he had saved. Humanity would not linger in a desperate place like this. Zarvian's mind went blank, unable to process anything in the relentless heat. It felt as if his brain had turned to rubber. Slowly consumed by numbness, he began to faint.
A normal person would not succumb so easily to mere heat, but Zarvian could not snap out of it because of his self-revival ability. It constantly drained his energy and fractured his mind. That was why he needed time to meditate after each death.
Several days passed. Zarvian lay there, untouched. He was unable to regain consciousness yet could not die completely. He had already died multiple times from starvation, only to be revived by his ability. Exhausted and drained, he could not awaken.
After a few months, dark clouds finally began forming above the desert.
Then the rain came. Water coursed over his dehydrated body. Zarvian felt himself slowly refreshed. His fingertips twitched, and his eyeballs flickered beneath his eyelids.
Eventually, he blinked awake. Sharp pain still throbbed in his head, and cramps lingered. He could not recall when he had blacked out. Focusing after such a long coma was a hellish struggle.
After spacing out for a while, he forced himself up and began trudging toward the ruined town he had spotted in the distance. Even walking was an ordeal. The cramps, hunger, needles in his head, sluggish movements, pouring rain, and cold winds made every step uncomfortable. Though his body remained unscathed, walking on the wet sand was unnerving. The clouds covered the sky entirely, making it impossible to tell the time, though it was certainly not night.
He almost forgot why he had come. He was searching for an ancient scroll. Zarvian had combed countless towns and cities, and this was the last one. If it yielded nothing, there would be nowhere else to turn. The town was deeply unsettling, radiating an eerie, unnatural feeling. He could not understand why, but something had been creeping him out the last time he arrived, which had ended with him being chased by a mighty geo beast that appeared out of nowhere with mad fury.
The rain grew heavier as he entered the town. It was not just ordinary rain but a thunderstorm that occurred only once a year.
He began scavenging through corpses that was once a living human, found a few leather bottles among them. His throat burned with every breath, his lips split and dry, yet he pushed on until his eyes caught something rarer than gold, it was a damn well.
He quickly ran to the well and checked if it still contained water. Instead, what he saw wasn't water, it was corpses of people. Skulls were split open as if some predator had feasted on them. Zarvian almost vomited on the spot from this disgusting sight. It made his stomach turn violently, almost made him faint again combining with the extreme starve. Zarvian instantly craved to flee. A monster stronger than him must have done this. With the ability of his, he would be lifetime food supply for such creature.
Unfortunately, he couldn't. Since this was the last place for him to explore, he had no other choice but to search. But he wasn't dumb, it's been around 8 year since the beasts took over the land and massacred everyone. The monster could have dead or at least gone to somewhere else. Though, it left him with a lot of questions.
'What kind of creature had it been? Why hadn't it fed on the other corpses? Was it already full, or had something interrupted it during its feast? Is it still in the town?'
Looking back at the skeletons inside the well, he closed his eyes, holding his hands together
'I hope all of you found peace'
Walking away slowly with a soft sorrow, he continued to explore the town.
When he thought he found why he was feeling so eerie about this place, he was wrong. The weird corpses weren't the only thing that was mysterious. There was one thing struck him as more than strange. It was creepy. At each corner of the town stood a church. Four of them, perfectly placed like silent sentinels. In villages this small, even one church was rare. Four was unnatural.
'…Just what kind of wicked place is this?'
Shivers raced down his spine. Every instinct screamed at him to run, yet desperation anchored his feet. He was not searching for just any relic. It was the forbidden scroll, the one said to transfer abilities from one being to another. It was his only chance to end the immortality. For someone who had outlived every member of his kind, death was no longer a fear. It was a mercy.
Starting with the northeastern church, Zarvian began his exploration. The building was utterly ruined, shattered beyond recognition. If not for the three other churches mirroring its placement, one wouldn't even realize this wreckage had once been holy ground. Only broken pillars remained, jagged teeth stabbing into the sky.
'It can't be the monster… right?' He really hoped so...
The southeastern church, however, was almost whole. Its walls still stood, though scattered with cracks and scorched marks. A wooden gate clung stubbornly to its frame, nearly untouched if not for the blackened burns along its surface. Trying to open the gate, his heart stopped for a moment
The gate was locked.
Zarvian's breath caught in his throat. For a moment, he simply stood there, staring at the charred wood. A locked door meant resistance. Resistance meant intention. And intention meant someone might still live behind it.
The thought felt absurd, almost laughable, yet his chest tightened with something he had not felt in so long that it almost hurt to name it. Hope.
But hope carried questions. If someone was truly inside, how had they survived all this time? Had they been living off scraps, hidden away while the rest of the world perished?
Or perhaps it was no person at all. Humanoid monsters were clever, some even cruel enough to imitate human behavior. A locked door might be nothing more than bait, a trap set for the desperate.
And then came the darkest possibility. Whoever had locked the gate might already be long dead. Maybe they had sealed themselves inside, clinging to the illusion of safety, only to rot away in silence. If that was true, the church was not a refuge at all. It was a coffin.
Zarvian swallowed hard, his palm still pressed to the scorched wood. The weight of all those possibilities pressed down on him, twisting his hope into something sharp and uncertain.
He stretched out his fingers and held it in air. Suddenly, faint symbols started to form in front of him. The sequence locked into place. A glow traced its outline, and the system responded.
[Summon: Steel sword]
Zarvian summoned his old steel sword, it was rusty but still sharp for flesh. The boy was barely decent with swords, but it wasn't his fault. There wasn't anyone to teach him in the first place! For a self-taught, there was spark of talent. His instinct and mindset carried him farther than most would expect. Zarvian held the sword low at his side, rain dripping from the point of its rusted edge. He lets out a sigh, his eyes motionless
"…Hope it's not something hungry"
The wooden door was more durable than it was supposed to be, Zarvian bashed his shoulder against it a few times, but the only damage done was to himself. His muscles throbbed from the impact. Zarvian narrowed his eyes, shifted his grip, and thrust his sword straight at it. Instead of biting into wood, it slid sideways as though the door were made of polished stone. The jolt ripped through his wrist and nearly tore the weapon from his grip.
"Magic," he muttered, glaring at the gate. "Of course it's magic!"
Now he knows for certain. Whatever was inside of it wasn't supposed to be disturbed, or set free…
He held his palm flat against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment. Then concentrated on his palm, shifting his flow of anima from his veins to tip of his fingers. School hadn't taught him enough about magic but he knew how to channel enhancement at least. The door didn't give him any signal at first, like a dull rock. He concentrated harder, the air around him shimmered quietly. Then, an echo of sound lingered in his ears. It wasn't the wind of storm or rain. It was something colder and deeper.
[Do you wish to start the challenge?]
Zarvian's eyes widened. He could almost hear the faint hum of mana vibrating through the door, waiting for response. Bright letters took a from in front of him,
[Accept the challenge] [Decline the challenge]
'…what?'