Arthur swayed.
A crimson moon hung in the sky, its reflection mirrored on the pitch-black surface of the river. The surrounding air was tinted with a faint reddish hue. The river neither flowed upstream nor downstream—it remained eerily still, as if lulling something vicious lurking in its depths.
It was impossible to tell where the headwaters were or where it ended, but the river had no curves. It was practically a massive, elongated body of water, widening to about a mile and a half across. Its length stretched far beyond that.
One end of this unnaturally beautiful river—if it could even be called an "end"—was veiled in thick fog.
And the perfect tranquility of the water was broken.
A slight ripple. Deep within the fog, a blob of light appeared—it slowly made its way out, hovering a few feet above the water's surface.
A long wooden pole poked out of the cloudy mist, half-broken and dangling, followed by the hull of a small ship. A lamp hung from its mast, the forestay was completely destroyed, and the mainsail was torn.
As if it had just sailed out of a war, the vessel was in terrible condition—yet, against the backdrop of mist and the foreground of dark waters, it looked like something out of folklore.
It moved forward, creating ripples that distorted the moon's reflection.
Arthur opened his eyes. His head was spinning, and nausea surged through him—the familiar, sickening sensation of being swayed relentlessly.
He groaned. Cursing inwardly, he pushed himself off the wooden floor he'd been lying on. Looking around, he tried to calm his racing heart.
For the first time in weeks, there was no pain in his chest.
The same couldn't be said for the rest of Arthur's body—it felt like he'd been shoved into a meat grinder and tossed back out.
Practically it was not Arthur's real body but a close enough replica given by The Hex.
"Fuck."
Cursing under his breath and limping slightly, Arthur found himself a chair and sat down, analyzing his current situation.
He was inside a wooden cabin. Everything around him was either rotten, wet, broken, or completely covered in moss. The only thing that surprisingly still worked was an oil lamp dangling overhead.
As for his body—though not exactly like his real one—it was almost identical: slightly above average in stature, long coarse hair, pale skin, and lifeless eyes with deep blood-red irises. Even the malnourished aspect of it was the same.
"Damn you."
Arthur clicked his tongue. Looking around, the gentle swaying under his feet told him all he needed to know about his current mode of travel.
It wasn't unheard of for Chosen Ones to be thrown into unpredictable situations during their first trials. Still, the trials were usually calibrated to match the capabilities of the Chosen.
A minute or so passed with nothing happening. Arthur recalled what the older-looking officer had said—call upon the Hex.
'How do I do that?'
He held his head, trying a few things mentally: calling out to the Hex, repeating his own name, even muttering phrases from the comic books he used to read as a child. Nothing worked.
Out of ideas, he finally opened his mouth—
"Hex! I call upon you!"
…And, much to Arthur's embarrassment, nothing happened.
It was clear the trial had already begun. Some said these trials were held in another realm entirely, while others believed they took place inside the mind of the Chosen. Neither theory had ever been proven true.
There was one study that proposed a theory claiming the trials occurred in the past or in a distant future—but that, too, was disproven. At least the "past" part was.
'Like I care… I just need to get out of here so I can live as a Runebound.'
Just… why wouldn't the Hex respond?
Arthur pondered that thought, the entire ship jolted violently—as if it had been thrown several feet into the air, then slammed back down into the water. The cabin doors were already open, and a wave crashed inside as the ship tilted dangerously to one side, threatening to flip over completely.
Wave hit Arthur right in the chest and he was slammed to the wall and thrown off his chair, the ship kept shivering violently - collecting himself Arthur ran towards the door and shut it immediately before another wave came inside.
'I always hated these!'
Then the ship flipped upside down.
The door burst open, and water rushed in with tremendous pressure. Arthur slammed against the door in a panic just as it came off its hinges. The cabin was instantly submerged, and Arthur was thrown inside.
It was cold—ice cold—and he could feel it in his bones. Everything around him dimmed or disappeared. It had all happened so fast that Arthur hadn't had enough time to draw a proper breath. He was struggling.
Amidst the chaos, a blob of light floated—or maybe sank—downward. Without thinking, Arthur swam toward the light, instinctively guessing what it might be.
One push was enough. He reached it, grabbed the lamp by its base, and began to swim backward, then out through the cabin's door.
'Holy shit.'
Arthur felt like whatever air he had left in his lungs was now gone. The lamp illuminated his surroundings to some extent, but it was the moonlight—infused in the river water—that truly revealed the breathtaking scene.
And then, something passed right by him.
Startled, he turned and saw a haggard face. Eyes pale as death. The corpse of a man was slowly descending to the riverbed.
Terrified, Arthur pushed himself away—only to bump into another drowned body. Then he noticed more… scattered around him, as if they'd been lying on the deck before the ship flipped.
And then, he started choking.
With a few powerful strokes, he broke the surface. Wind hit him in the face.
Above, it was no longer the same tranquil river as before, but something far more chaotic.
Arthur gasped for air, his mind in disarray, struggling to process everything. After a few moments, he calmed his nerves.
Another thundering boom split the air.
To his right, a massive wave was coming—hundreds of feet tall, towering, massive enough to crush him in seconds.
'What is happening?'
Arthur questioned everything that had happened up to this point. It was known that the Hex was fair in calibrating the danger level for first trials.
'How is this fair?! This isn't even an ocean! Why are there tsunamis in a fucking river—'
No time to think.
He dove back into the river—and immediately, something felt wrong.
'Hm?'
Using the lamp's light, he looked down toward his feet—and saw a hand gripping his ankle, clawing into it with the intent to rip it off.
Half a face, covered in hair, half illuminated in the bright orange light of the lamp—it was the same haggard man from before.
Only now… his eyes were inky black.
Looking into them made Arthur feel like he was staring into the abyss itself.
He was now Corrupted.
The Corrupted began dragging Arthur deeper into the river. And Arthur let it happen. He stopped resisting, conserving his breath, and stared at the mindless Corrupted.
It clicked.
This man wasn't the only dead body in the river. And there wouldn't be much time before another appeared. Arthur gripped the handle of the lamp.
The Corrupted, doing most of the effort, was the first to run out of air. It began choking. Bubbles and foam formed around its mouth. Its grip loosened.
It clutched its throat, struggling.
Arthur kicked him lightly in the face, and the haggard Corrupted sank into the depths—gone, dead once and for all.
'So...This one follows the rules of the realworld?'
Seeing the corruption happen in real time made it clear. Because usually, the way things worked in trials was completely—or at least slightly—different from how they worked in reality.
Like how the real world has one sun, but there were accounts of Challengers returning with tales of seven suns.
It never made sense.
Each trial had its own laws.
...And then another world-shattering boom echoed.
The water above turned white, and something grazed past Arthur's face—just an inch away.
A massive chunk of the ship's mast.
The wave crashed into the wooden vessel and obliterated it. Arthur, deep enough, avoided the immediate impact, but the shockwave pushed him farther down.
He still had enough breath left to return to the surface and that's what he did—before another Corrupted could catch up to him.
Breaking the surface, Arthur gasped deeply for air. His soaked hair blocked his vision, so he swept it aside—
—and froze.
His stomach dropped. His heart numbed.
In front of him, thousands of meters away, was a silhouette. A figure that dwarfed mountains. The cause of the last two thundering waves.
Golden thunder crackled around it in the mist.
And amidst the chaos, a familiar voice rang in his head, laced with mischief:
[Welcome to the Trial of the Hex!]