Chương 63: Start of the Second Stage

The entire crowd froze in stunned silence at these words. Within moments, a wave of outraged voices rippled through the rows, people breaking into heated discussion, someone throwing up their hands, someone else exchanging nervous glances with a neighbor, while someone else went pale and instinctively took a half-step back, as if that alone could put some distance between them and the trial to come.

The white void filled with a rising, swelling noise, dozens of voices overlapping one another — but then a sharp crack of the sword against the invisible floor cut through it all, silencing the din mid-sentence, the sound echoing beneath the unseen ceiling. The Swordsman brushed back a loose strand of hair and swept the crowd with a grim, heavy gaze that left more than a few people breathless.

He didn't rush to continue — he let a couple more seconds pass, as if savoring the ringing, tense silence, as if he wanted every single person present to fully feel the weight of what he was about to say. There was something deliberately cruel in that pause, as though he took pleasure in watching fear slowly spread through the crowd, seeping into every pair of eyes fixed on him. — It's not as bad as you think. There'll only be one Nightmare.

You might well get lucky and never even encounter it over these three days. But if you do happen to cross paths with it... A sinister smile crept across the Swordsman's face — the corners of his mouth curling just slightly, but enough to send a chill down Lloyd's spine, and somewhere in the back rows someone drew a sharp, sudden breath through their teeth. — I'd recommend running as fast as your legs can carry you.

The crowd stood in silence, each person turning the words over in their own mind, sinking into their own uneasy thoughts — Lloyd among them. The white void around them seemed to grow even quieter, even denser, as if it were soaking up all of this silent, collective fear, thickening around each of them like an invisible fog.

"A Nightmare?! I barely managed to handle a Phantom, and only thanks to a relic. I don't even know how to use skills yet." Lloyd crossed his arms over his chest, feeling an unpleasant, clinging chill of dread spreading inside him, creeping slowly from his chest outward through his whole body, all the way to his fingertips, which had begun trembling faintly.

"Well, I'm sure of one thing — if I run into it, that'll mean death for me." After a few more seconds of murmured conversation in the crowd, the Swordsman continued, his voice as level as before, without the slightest hint of sympathy, as though he were reading out a dull set of instructions rather than describing a mortal danger. — You don't need to fear injury or death — that's not a risk here. Once the stage ends, whether you pass it or fail it, your body won't have so much as a scratch on it.

The crowd of Players relaxed slightly at these words — shoulders loosening, someone letting out a sigh of relief, someone else giving a nervous laugh, exchanging brief glances with their neighbors — though the relief was fairly weak, barely noticeable against the backdrop of the overall tension, more like a momentary breather before the next blow.

Lloyd only slightly unclenched his jaw, but the knot of anxiety in his chest didn't budge — the absence of death didn't mean the absence of pain, and the Swordsman, it seemed, was in no hurry to clarify that particular detail. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. — You'll also be monitored by cameras, for your own safety. Deliberately destroying them will result in disqualification. Lloyd's face twisted, his brows knitting together.

"Safety? What exactly is out there that could threaten us?" Lloyd scratched his chin thoughtfully, weighing the words, glancing up at the invisible ceiling of the white void, as if trying to spot the cameras hidden somewhere up there, even though he understood perfectly well that in this sterile, endless whiteness, spotting anything at all was simply impossible.

"Guess this is for the Guilds' benefit — so they can watch us from the outside." The Swordsman watched the crowd as if waiting for something, sweeping the rows of Players with an attentive, expectant gaze, slowly scanning from one edge of the crowd to the other. The silence stretched on so long it felt almost tangible, pressing down on everyone's shoulders, as if the white void itself were waiting alongside him. And then a hand rose into the air. It belonged to a blond guy who looked about eighteen.

He wore a white cloak trimmed with gold patterns, the fabric so clearly expensive that it stood out sharply against the plain, worn clothing of most of the other Players — a detail that made it obvious he wasn't from an ordinary family.

One hand rested lazily in his pocket, the other raised casually into the air, as though he were asking a question in some boring classroom lecture rather than standing before a deadly trial — his entire posture radiated a deliberate, almost provocative nonchalance, sharply at odds with the tension gripping everyone around him. — I have a question. What kind of Nightmare are we talking about?

The Swordsman kept staring at the guy with that same menacing, unblinking gaze, as though weighing whether the question was even worth answering, as though considering whether this bit of insolence deserved his attention at all. — I believe you know it by the name Mountain King.

Judging by the reactions of some of the Players — a few sharp intakes of breath, a couple of wary glances exchanged between neighbors, someone's low, barely audible muttering — Lloyd understood that this monster clearly wasn't among the weakest of the Nightmares, though, given how few people actually reacted to the name, it apparently wasn't especially well-known either.

Lloyd himself had never heard of it before, and that ignorance stirred up a fresh wave of unease inside him, an anxious chill settling somewhere beneath his ribs. The blond Player lowered his hand, giving a short nod to some thought of his own, as though he'd gotten exactly the answer he expected. — Thanks. That's all. The Swordsman nodded silently and swept the crowd once more with a heavy gaze, slowly scanning the rows, as though bidding farewell to each of them individually, memorizing every face one last time.

— Well then. Let's begin the second stage of the Player's Examination. And don't forget... He raised a finger upward, pointing somewhere into the endless white expanse above their heads, toward a place where even the faintest hint of a ceiling disappeared from view. — They're watching you.

A final, sharp crack of the sword against the invisible floor rang out, rolling through the space in a deafening peal, and Lloyd felt a light gust of wind that sent his hair flying upward, the white void around them suddenly beginning to dissolve, as if being eaten away by some invisible acid, splitting apart into cracks of light and darkness in every direction at once, as though reality itself were shattering into pieces right before his eyes.

The crowd of Players plunged straight down into the white abyss, their fall accompanied by a discordant chorus of frightened screams.