4 The Endless Nightmare

Kai and Snow both dry heaved as the teleportation left them reeling. It was a less 'clean' teleportation spell, one that involved a lot more motion sickness and gut discomfort, and likely intentional, too.

No way a magic god like Loki could mess that up.

"It'll pass," said Dane. The man crossed his arms, his wide-set, comic-book hero frame of muscle blocking out the sun.

"What an asshole," said Kai, wiping spit off his mouth. Snow regained her composure too, licking her jowls. "Are all gods like that?"

"Right, that must have been the first time you'd ever seen a god, considering they can't normally leave their Domains," said Dane. He thought about Kai's question for a second and shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know.

My patron gods are the Jade Emperor and the One.

They both aren't known for interacting with humans much, even to their champions like myself. At best, I get snippets of vision from them. Really mysterious, cryptic stuff.

But with the more 'personal' gods like those of the Norse or Greek, I do hear they can get a little more unlikeable. Comes with the territory of being closer to humans, I guess; they mimic our bad traits just as much as our good, and very few of us, when given godlike power, are all good."

"Sounds about right, from my limited but very unpleasant experience." Kai looked around. He found himself standing in the midst of the Central District, a district where shops of all kinds lay packed together in one giant cornucopia of buying and selling.

There were a ton of people around, too, some dressed in casual clothes that wouldn't look out of place on earth, others dressed in fantastical garb that belonged in videogames, but there was one thing that unified them: curiosity.

They all whipped out their Smart-Crystals, the magical equivalent of smart phones, and began snapping pictures of Dane.

Dane laughed and waved at everyone.

Several members of the Messenger Guild, marked by the winged sandal insignia on their bodies, rushed up to Dane, putting their smart crystals right up to his face. They were the Trial's equivalent of the news media, led under their patron deity Hermes.

Snow growled at the sudden influx of people, and Kai knelt down to hug her, comforting her. She quieted down, though still wary.

'Damn…so this is just how famous the big leagues are,' thought Kai, watching as everyone scrambled to get the chance to interact with one of the Nine Worthies, the greatest celebrity heroes of humanity.

"Easy, easy folks!" Dane put his hands out, making sure Kai and Snow had space.

"Sir Denholm, we heard you and your party were instrumental in defeating the Evolving Villain!" shouted a messenger. How was that like!?"

"Where were you teleported from, Sir Denholm!?" exclaimed another one.

"Who is that with you!? He's a white star!? Any relation, sir!?"

Sir. Sir. Sir.

Sir was a term of respect that Kai had never heard sent his way ever. Not once in his entire life.

But here everyone was, showering it on Dane, a man who was formerly a white star - the lowest rung of society. It just went to show that in the end, strength really was everything.

Dane did not even wear his white star anymore.

When he wasn't dressed down to a plain white tee and shorts, he usually had on a flashy golden star that represented his status as a Worthy. To represent his strength.

'I can do it,' thought Kai. 'As long as I stay close to Dane, I can get stronger. I can train. I can break my limits. He was just like me, once. I can be just like him.'

"All of those questions, I'll answer in my next official press briefing!" said Dane. "For now, let me introduce you all to a very important man. My new apprentice!

Go on, tell them about yourself!"

Dane slapped Kai's back. A little too hard, not knowing his own strength and Kai's weakness. The breath wheezed out of Kai, leaving him open-mouthed and silent.

"Er, he's no ordinary man, either!" said Dane, noticing his mistake. "This is still confidential, but I'm authorized to say that he's responsible for finding the Mid-Gate Key! With him, humanity can now ascend past the 50th level! We're one step closer to the finish line!"

Dane raised his fist in the air, and with his fist, beautiful winged humans with pale skin and white robes manifested above him, one raising a flaming sword, the other a blazing staff.

The flashy display and exuberant energy sent a wave of optimism crackling through the crowd like wildfire, and they all cheered, whistling and shouting.

Kai saw that they looked at him with…with adoration. He trembled for a bit. His entire life, everybody had looked down on him for being weak, his white star an eternal reminder of his lowly status.

He was seen as a drain on society, someone who, if replaced with a competent Ascender, could have contributed to humanity's survival.

For once, for just once, finding any sense of appreciation, even this little shred spurred on mostly by Dane, almost overwhelmed him into tears. He realized just how drained he had been of human warmth, in spite of how much he told himself he was used to it.

Several messengers rushed up to Kai, hovering their smart crystals in front of his face and unloading a flood of questions that mixed into incoherent babbling.

Snow whined, tucking her ears and tail in, sensing so many presences, many strong, rushing in. Kai kept holding her, and Dane noticed this as well.

"Folks, my apprentice and I would love to answer questions, but that's all for today. I'm running out of time." A pause. "But when we're ready, we'll be sure to tell you more!" Dane put a hand on Kai's shoulder. The angel carrying the fiery staff turned the staff horizontally, and a golden light once more teleported them away.

=

The next place Kai and Snow found themselves was in what appeared to be another pocket dimension. The background of this realm was blue and occupied by huge floating tablets, each holding bookshelves or racks of weaponry.

There were so many tablet platforms that Kai lost count trying to get a read of them. All he knew was that all the items on them were magical, some of them emitting an energy that made it very clear to his Junker senses that they were very valuable.

"What is this place?" said Kai, looking down to see he also stood on a tablet platform with Dane and Snow.

"The Divine Vault," said Dane. "Where only hero class Ascenders and above can enter to take items, and even then, only with the permission of a god. For a Worthy like myself, though-," Dane pointed a thumb at himself, flashing a smile. "I can come and go whenever I want.

As it just so happens, I have it reserved all for myself right now."

"Wow." Kai looked around taking in the vault. Snow did the same, sniffing the air. "So, can I deck myself in some good gear?"

"Gear? That won't do you any good…," said Dane, lingering on the sentence.

"Hm?" asked Kai, wondering if anything was wrong.

"Right. Gear won't help you for now. You need to strengthen your body and mind first. Training, then gear. I know it's tempting, seeing so many rare items here, but you have to heed my advice."

"What about my limits? They're too low to make use of most manuals, especially high ranked ones."

Even if you knew how to cast an extremely powerful spell, if your mana pool was too low, you could not cast it or, even worse, the spell could go unstable and explode, often times permanently damaging your ability to use magic again.

"Shouldn't I get some high grade Limit Breaker potions?" wondered Kai.

"No, where you're going, you won't need them," said Dane.

Kai raised a brow. "Where I'm going?'

"Going to train. It's a common misconception, but Limit Breaker potions aren't too effective. Too dangerous on the body.

You won't need to chug down risky Limit Breaker potions that may or may not kill you to surpass your limits, trust me. I have a better method." Dane smiled, and his friendly aura disarmed Kai. "Now then, what magical fields do you know?"

"A little bit of alchemy and some rune magic," said Kai.

"Smart. Those two are useful, all-rounder types of magic," noted Dane. "18runes for practically every situation and potions to prep for things you can see coming."

Kai frowned. "Though I have to warn you, I'm horrible at both. Out of the 18runes, I only know 3, and I can only craft E rank potions with my alchemy, and that's on a good day. Most of them end up being F rank disasters that blow up in my face."

"That's fine. You haven't died yet, right?" Dane winked. "Let's see, even if your expertise is low, it's better to build on skills you already know..." He put his hand forward, and in response, a clay tablet materialized in front of him, gleaming golden glyphs shining against the dull clay.

Dane tapped some of the glyphs, and after a few seconds, a smaller platform, about the size of a table, flew in from below, hovering in front of Kai.

On it were four thickly padded books, each shining with light that made it clear they were no ordinary tome.

Among the four books Dane fished out, Kai could spy The Complete Study of Runes and Searching for the Philosopher's Stone: An Alchemical Guide to Perfection.

By briefly identifying the books, Kai could see that they were both B rank, meaning if properly studied, they could bring a student's technical skill rank in the field up to B.

Which was insane, all things considered.

Only about 10% of Ascenders ever managed to get their technical skills into the B rank, which was considered the realm of heroes. The A rank and above was legitimately getting close to the stuff of gods.

One time, Kai had searched on the Compendium, the magical version of the internet, what the price of B rank books were just to see the string of zeroes all shooting rounds of despair into his heart.

The average B rank manual was the equivalent of something like 500,000 dollars back on Earth.

"Huh, this book's locked." Kai turned the alchemy manual around to see that the other side of its cover was bound with a sealing spell.

"There are dark arts in there," said Dane.

"But…aren't those illegal under the gods?"

"Yes, but we still need to know how to fight users of dark arts. Villains show up all the time with cursed weapons or summoned demons. Many Inhabitants do not care about dabbling into the Arcane, so their magic tend to be accursed as well. So, with permission, higher ranking Ascenders like myself can learn about the dark arts, though we can't use them personally.

To you, though, that section will be locked until you get to a level close to mine. Or unless for some reason, the seal on it breaks."

"I see." Kai inspected the other tomes.

The other two books were Intermediate Body and Mana Training at the C rank and -

Whoa, I actually have this at home." Kai picked up From White to Gold: My Story, by Dane Denholm.

This was Dane's biography where he described in detail what pushed him to return, how he managed to clear the Tutorial as a Returner with nothing going for him, and how he succeeded into becoming the Worthy he was today.

"I bet you don't have the limited edition, though," said Dane. "Comes with my signature in the cover and bonus side stories about the villains I've taken down. Read that. It'll give you a perspective on how to get stronger."

"Villains, huh?" said Kai. Villains were what Dane called enemies of humanity, mostly to bring homage to his love of hero comics back on earth.

Usually, the villains were Inhabitants, aliens that threatened mankind, but sometimes, they were Outlaws, humans that chose to live an Arcane path where they did not rely on their faith in gods but instead on their own and, many times, demonic strength. "Is your recent fight with the Evolving Villain here as well?"

"It should be. The Limited Edition automatically updates with what I do," said Dane. "And with that, you should be fine for next time."

"Next time? Am I going home now? Is that even safe?" said Kai.

Kai faced only silence as an answer. He turned to Dane to see the Worthy with his eyes shrouded in gold, making him look inhumanly divine.

"Sorry about that." Dane's soft brown eyes returned, the gold leaving them. When he looked at Kai, the glint in his eyes, usually joyful, were somber instead. "I was just getting a message from the One. I have another mission I need to finish, but to answer your question, I'll take you somewhere safe.

Don't worry."

The One was what some members of the Holy See Guild called their patron god, said god being the monotheistic Judeo-Christian deity.

"Alright then, I won't keep you any longer. Whatever the One told you, it seems important," said Kai.

"No, it's fine. I just have to finish something. Something I started a long time ago. I'll spend a little extra time with my apprentice, though," said Dane. "You know...it has been a while since I've had one.

Here, let's go get some training in.

Ready to port?"

"Yeah," said Kai, holding all four books tight in his arms, keeping them close like the treasures they were. At his hip, gold coins weighed his belt clasped rucksack down. He was loaded with more resources than he had ever had in his life.

"Good." Dane did not teleport using one of his angels. Instead, he materialized an amorphous black mass in his hand.

"What is that?" said Kai.

When he tried to [Identify] the mass, he registered nothing. Snow saw the mass and growled.

"…" Dane crushed the mass in his palm, and darkness exploded outwards, engulfing Kai, tearing him from Snow, sucking him into a maw of darkness.

Snow instantly reacted, trying to reach out to Kai, but Dane held her back with a strong hand on her neck. She growled, trying to snap at Dane, but with minimal effort, he snapped her neck, killing her instantly, before she could even whimper.

"No!" Kai tried to reach out, but there was nothing he could do. He was getting dragged in, cold darkness latching all around him, sinking him deeper and deeper into a void in space.

Dane's figure started to get more distant as Kai found himself dragged further down, darkness engulfing his vision. The tear in space that showed Dane and Snow's dead body grew smaller and smaller.

"Why!?" shouted Kai. "You swore to protect me! To do your best!"

Dane shook his head and turned around, leaving just his back to face Kai. "This is the best I can do."

And with that, the darkness consumed Kai.

***

Everything afterwards felt like one long, unending nightmare.

Kai did not know how long he spent in that darkness. At first, he grieved for Snow's death. At his pitiful fate. He had thought for once, he was going to get to live a life that meant something, that he could finally protect the ones he loved, but now, that hope was all gone.

Then, once the emotions passed, he tried to find a way out.

There were corridors and paths and randomly segmented rooms everywhere. The further he traveled through them, the more and more he began to question his sanity.

Everything looked the same, and at the same time, it didn't.

It was an endless, infinite maze, each path maddeningly similar to each other except for minute differences.

Maybe in one corridor, there would be a brief, flickering light.

In another, perhaps an eye would grow from the wall to stare at him for the briefest of moments before disappearing, making him question whether it was even there to begin with.

His System was gone. No interface. No map. Nothing. All he had were useless gold coins and training manuals that were no good to a soon to be dead man.

Granted, he did try and rifle through the manuals, desperately looking for a spell to get out. The tome of alchemy had lost its protective seal, letting him pore through the dark arts section, but across all the tomes, he found nothing that could bend space.

Space bending spells started at the A rank. Unluckily, these manuals only taught up to the B rank.

And even if he could access such spells, his magical energy was so limited that he could never cast magic like that to begin with. Alchemy, especially, was useless. There were no materials here to harvest for potions.

He was trapped.

Despairing in that knowledge, he spent hours, days, weeks - at a certain point, the concept of time lost meaning to him - wandering endlessly, holding out hope he would stumble his way out, but eventually, hope became meaningless to him as well.

He did not suffer hunger or thirst, but that was a suffering in of its own - it meant he had no easy way out of this eternal damnation.

Occasionally, he had to hide. He was not alone.

Sometimes, something would chase him. A formless thing, a cloudy visage of darker than black that cracked the edges of his vision and already unstable mind whenever he beheld it.

He wondered whether he had been sacrificed to some evil god, turned into an eternal plaything in a never ending game of cat and mouse. He thought about why Dane did this. He wondered if he should just let the thing take him to end it all. He thought and thought until he came to the conclusion that thinking was pointless.

There was only eternity here, and in the overwhelming expanse of what that word meant, any thought that Kai's little mortal mind could conjure up was but a tiny little speck in a cold, uncaring infinity.

Then, something changed.

A message appeared in front of him in dark red lettering.

{YOU HAVE ADAPTED TO THIS DOMAIN BEYOND SPACE AND TIME.}

{YOU ARE NO LONGER BOUND. YOUR LIMITS ARE REMOVED.}

Then, hope. Real hope.

{RING OF RETURN CONDITIONS SATISFIED.}

{YOU WILL BE RETURNED TO THE BEGINNING.}

{NOTE: NONE OF YOUR ITEMS WILL RETURN WITH YOU.}

{TIME UNTIL RETURN: ???}

Kai knew then by sheer instinct what he had to do. If he was going to return, he needed to be strong.

Strong enough to never rely on the gods again.

Strong enough to never lose another close to him again.

His eyes, dulled with acceptance of eternal darkness, grew bright again.

Thus, he learned.

He again opened the manuals he once thought useless. He pored through their dark arts, knowing he would never again call upon a god's strength. And, most importantly, he read Dane's biography - the key to the Beginning.

Finally, he trained. Without limits, he could train and practice everything he learned. He learned how to condition his mind. How to control and meditate his mana. How to cast all the runes. He memorized every potion and refinement process he could.

He would lose it all - the physique and the books - once he returned, but the knowledge - the most important part - would stay in his mind.

He trained.

And trained.

And trained.

And trained…

...

...

Until at one point, Kai did not know when, light blinded him for the first time.

{WELCOME TO THE BEGINNING}