"A-a venom… but that's impossible!" Arya's voice trembled with despair, her wide eyes fixated on the monstrous creature before them. Venoms were said to disintegrate in sunlight—an unchangeable truth. Yet here it stood, unfazed, its grotesque, pulsating form basking under the daylight's oppressive heat.
Or so they thought.
"There's… no sun," Dera whispered, his throat dry with a primal fear. He looked skyward, his heart sinking. The sky was unnervingly blank, no sun or clouds, just an infinite expanse of dull gray that seemed artificial, wrong, and suffocating.
"Everyone, there's no sun!" he shouted, seizing Arya's hand. Panic surged through him as he pulled her forward. They needed to run—now.
"What? No sun?" Sir Ike's voice was hoarse with disbelief. "Then… does that mean this is a Venom's Elementification Domain?"
Kaleb's blood ran cold. "If it really is…" He didn't finish the thought. There was no need to. They were already doomed.
The air was thick with tension, the kind that pressed on their lungs and made every breath feel like a gamble. Behind them, the venom ants—twisted, grotesque things with serrated mandibles and glossy, blood-drenched exoskeletons—closed in. Their collective skittering was a discordant symphony of death.
One by one, hunters fell behind, their screams tearing through the air like jagged blades. "Help!" they cried, but their desperate pleas were swallowed by the cacophony of terror. Nobody stopped. Nobody dared. Survival was the only priority.
Dera pushed himself harder, his muscles burning, lungs screaming for oxygen. Arya, though, was slowing. She herself didn't do any stamina or combat training unlike other hunters.
She was born as a healing type Hunter, so her frailty, born of a life spent healing others rather than fighting, deemed all that training unnecessary. But it was now her greatest weakness.
"I… I can't!" Arya gasped, collapsing onto the searing desert sand.
"Get up!" Dera shouted, his voice raw with desperation. He hauled her to her feet, but his own legs wobbled under the strain. His strength was fading, and the venom ants were closing the distance.
VHOOM!
A venom ant leaped through the air, its mandibles gleaming like scythes, the creature's jaws snapped shut inches from their skin. Dera barely managed to shove Arya aside, both of them tumbling down the shifting sands as the creature landed with a deafening thud behind them.
[9… 8…]
A timer appeared before their eyes, glowing red like an omen of death. The venom ants screeched, their faces somehow fixating on their prey with terrifying precision.
VHOOM!
Another venom ant lunged, its grotesque form blotting out the bleak sky. It was too fast. Too close.
[3… 2… 1…]
POOF!
The world twisted, folding in on itself, and suddenly they were back in the tomb. Seven figures collapsed onto the cold stone floor, gasping, trembling, haunted. Out of the nine hunters who entered the desert trial, only seven returned.
CLING!
A screen materialized before them:
[Second Trial: Audacity of the Weak: Escape Your Inner Demon in Less Than Five Minutes.]
"What? Another trial!?" Kaleb bellowed, his fists shaking with fury.
"We barely survived the first one…" Sir Ike muttered, his face ashen.
CLING!
[Penalty for Failure: Instant Death.]
"Damn it!" Kaleb's rage echoed through the chamber.
The words hung in the air like a death knell.
[3… 2… 1…]
BLINK!
Dera's vision blurred as the tomb dissolved around him, replaced by something familiar. His breath caught. He was home. His family was alive, bustling about as if nothing had happened.
"Brother, are you okay? You're spacing out again," Dikachi his brother asked, concern etched on his face.
Tears streamed down Dera's cheeks as he embraced his brother tightly.
"Am I… dreaming?" His voice cracked, but the warmth of the hug felt so real.
"D-dera, you're acting weird," Dikachi muttered, laughing nervously
" Y-yes am alright. I just.... had a bad dream" Dera said, hugging tightly.
"Don't worry, son. It's all okay now. It's just a bad dream," his mother said, her voice soft and comforting as she joined the hug.
But then, the sky darkened unnaturally. The warmth vanished, replaced by an icy chill. Dera opened his eyes to find himself standing alone, his arms outstretched as though still holding his family. But they were gone.
KIEEEEK!
The sound ripped through the silence—a sickening screech that made his blood run cold. Dera turned, his body trembling.
There it was. The same double-finned venom. The one that took Chika. its grotesque form drenched in blood, feasting on his family's remains. Its face turned to him, and it grinned, a nightmarish smile filled with jagged teeth. Beside it, two finnless venoms stared at him, their bulbous eyes gleaming with sadistic delight.
"Why you bastards!" Dera roared, grabbing an axe from the ground. He charged, blind with fury.
VHOOM!
The two finless venoms lunged, pinning him down. Their claws dug into his arms, but they didn't kill him. They just held him there, as if mocking his helplessness.
"Get out of my way!" Dera bellowed, swinging wildly. The axe connected, leaving shallow gashes that healed almost instantly.
The double-finned venom chuckled, a low, guttural sound that made Dera's skin crawl. It raised a clawed hand, and with a sickening...
SWOOSH!,
a vine erupted from the ground, striking Dera's chest and sending him flying into a pile of splintered wood.
Keoks!
He coughed up blood, his vision blurring.
CLING!
[One Minute Remaining.]
Dera froze. The timer. The trial. None of this was real. Yet it felt so horrifyingly real.
'Shit, I almost forgot this was a damn trial and everything isn't real' he thought. but something has been bugging him for a while now.
This Venoms were not attacking to kill, even the finnless Venom that he Slashed previously had already healed up but they are just standing there, not attacking.
'There's only one possible explanation... they weren't designed to kill me because if I die here, I'll pass this goddamn trial. Isn't that right you bastards. you guys are just delaying time' he realized.
A grim determination settled over him. If they wouldn't kill him, he'd have to do it himself. He raised the axe to his neck, hesitated for only a moment, then struck.
BLINK!
Dera collapsed onto the tomb floor, gasping for air. Around him, the others stood like statues, their eyes glazed white, trapped in their own nightmares.
"Damn it, they're still in there!" Dera shouted, glancing at the timer hovering above their heads:
[0:59].
"Kill yourselves!" he shouted, his voice echoing. "It's the only way out!"
His voice seemed to pierce through the fog of their minds. Sir Ike, locked in a bloody battle with a monstrous Venom, suddenly heard Dera's words. He hesitated, then slashed his own throat.
Arya, who was trembling under the bed where her mum had put her when she was little, to avoid the venom from getting her, as she watch as the venom tore her mum apart, bit by bit and she couldn't do anything, just crying until Dera's voice echoed in her mind.
"D-Dera..." she whimpered.
The same happened with everyone one. They all had one thought, the time was already ten seconds left and they all knew even if dera was incorrect, they would still die anyway, so..
One by one, they chose death, their bodies slumping to the ground—only to awaken back in the tomb, gasping and trembling
"Fuck… that was close," Kaleb muttered, his body shaking.
"It's all thanks to Dera here, you're a life saver" sir ike said.
"Wait, two people hasn't woken up yet!" Dera shouted.
[3… 2… 1.]
CLING!
[Trial Ended; Penalty: Death.]
PUFF!
The heads of the two remaining hunters exploded in gruesome unison, showering the survivors in blood and bone. They stood in stunned silence, their breaths caught in their throats.Thinking that if it wasn't for Dera, they would have died horribly like this.
CLING!
[Final Trial: Make a Tribute to the Shadow God.]
VLOOM!
A low, guttural growl reverberated through the chamber as four black daggers erupted from the enormous coffin in the center.
Sir Ike's face twisted in horror. "Does they want us... to kill each other?."
Panic overtook the group, as they immediately lunged for the daggers, each man and woman consumed by primal survival instincts.
All except Dera. He stood motionless, staring at the coffin. He alone understood the trial's true meaning.
"This isn't about survival," he whispered, his fists clenching. "It's about sacrifice."