I failed.

The brightness of the harsh sun glares off the red sand, blinding my sensitive eyes.

I reach around, searching for Alissa to steady myself, but my hand only finds hot sand.

"Alissa…?" I call for her, but I can only hear the wind.

I try to summon a small bird to be my eyes, but the "button" inside my soul space isn't there.

"What…?"

I search for my other spells, but they aren't there either. I try to open my "Status," but even that is gone.

"Oh… no… no… no…" I mumble repeatedly, and my body freezes up, overwhelmed with emotions.

The reality of my situation immediately sinks in, then a feeling of pure rage wells up from deep within me.

Stop fucking with me… stop with these fucking stupid games! GIVE ME BACK CIEL! GIVE HER BACK TO ME, YOU FUCKING WICKED GOBLIN DICK SUCKER!

I repeatedly pound my fists against the sand in fury.

I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU!

"AAAAAAAAAH!" I scream until my lungs give out.

I'LL DESTROY YOU!

My soul tentacles spread out from my body, randomly solidifying and changing their shapes.

I'LL RAPE YOUR CORPSE, YOU FUCKING CUNT!

I grab the hot sand with my hands and tentacles and start throwing it around in a rage.

"FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! RAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The last of my mana is wasted when I recklessly try to cast whatever spell I can, then the pain of going into the negatives calms me down, and I let the overuse steal my consciousness away.

I wake up sweating profusely with my skin painfully burned. That hateful sun is going to kill me if I stay here for much longer.

I feebly manage to get up, then I take my armor off. My elven underclothes aren't enough to protect all of my skin from the sun, so I cut off some of the padding with my sword and make it into a few crude scarves for my face and hands.

I stand up and look around, but I just see the same landscape that I saw back when we first entered this part of the dungeon: sparkly red sand, a clear blue sky, and a painfully harsh sun. Dusk is coming, and the sun is setting, so it'll be nightfall soon.

I don't know where to go or what I should do right now, so I find a large dune to hide myself from the sun and sit down in the shade.

I failed… Ciel's dead.

She can't be dead.

Her body was consumed by the slime.

She can't be dead.

I saw her skull.

She CAN'T be dead.

I pull on my hair and grit my teeth while my tears flow freely. I start rocking my body back and forth as the anguish in my heart swells until I can barely stand the pain anymore.

I continue crying until my tears dry up, then the exhaustion knocks me out, and I have another nightmare. Ciel's death repeats over and over in my mind, endlessly tormenting me with my failure.

I wake up sweating and confused. The heat has increased, but the sun hasn't set yet.

My face feels uncomfortable because of my dried tears, which have only stopped because I'm so dehydrated. My whole body itches and hurts from the sand, from the rough sleep, and from not being able to heal myself after I overused my mana.

Ciel's muffled shriek replays itself in my head, but I refuse to accept it as reality. There must be something wrong, or something I missed. This has to be a dream.

She can't be dead! Not like this… not like this!

I grunt as my anger starts to flare up inside me again, but my throat hurts so much that I have to hold back my roar.

I need to… find her body. I need a link to bring her spirit back!

A headache starts to pound in my head, making it difficult for me to think straight.

This can't be over… I-I can still do something!

This isn't over! I have to get out of here! I have to find her!

I stand up and wobble as my headache makes me temporarily lose my balance.

I slowly recompose myself, then I climb back up the dune and look around. The sun is still setting, letting off a faintly orange light, which is odd since I think I was asleep for a while.

I try to focus on the horizon around me, but I can't see anything different, and the sun glare reflected off the sand makes it difficult to discern any details.

I need something to help me scout!

The system is gone, so I can't open my "Items"; I can only cast [Clean], [Spirit Light], and my special [Materialize] without my Gift of instant-casting; and I only have my sword and partially dismantled scale armor as potential tools.

Never mind scouting, I'll die of thirst before I can even do anything at this rate!

I sit down again in the shade of the dune and grumble as my rage boils up once again.

I have no idea how he's doing this, but he's just fucking with us at this point! He's been doing shit like this ever since we came here! Just hardship after hardship, test after test, and this too is nothing but another one of his fucking…

My rage dominates my thoughts, and I try to crush more of the sand in anger with my hands and soul-tentacles.

Wait! What i-…

I need water.

My throat is hurting and parched because of my angry outburst, my mouth is as dry as a grandma's cunt, my lips are parched and tingling, my body is sweating cold and shivering, and my head just won't stop pounding. I'm really fucking dehydrated.

How did [Conjure Water] go again…?

I never learned anything about [Conjuring Magic] besides what I could passively absorb from watching others use it, but I barely paid attention to that. There was no reason to since we could just use either a magic tool or my instant casting.

Who the fuck even is Arreira that he can block my system and Gifts so thoroughly like this?

I hold myself back from grumbling in anger. I have no time to waste; I need to blindly recreate the spell on my own.

I gather my mana inside my heart, then I visualize all the details I have about water to convert my mana into something water-attuned. Without a chant to "align" my mind and improve the visualization, the whole mana conversion process takes a long time.

Once I have a good amount of water-attuned mana, I start to build the "structure" of the spell, but I have little idea about what I'm doing. Even if I succeed with this spell, it's so rough that I'm sure the mana-efficiency will be really low.

I need to convert the mana into water, but it has to be actual water, not the pseudo-water that's used in spells. That kind of water would just dissipate with time, and I'm sure that having it and it's atoms suddenly disappearing from within my body would have terrible effects.

My head hurts too much to think straight anymore.

Just… water… I need water. I need something that converts mana into "drinkable" water and spouts it from the tip of my finger like a fountain. That's it, that's all I need.

I imagine it like visual programming. Just one data input, the mana; one function, the converter; one output, my finger; and one switch, the trigger that activates the input.

I push the spell's "structure" and the attuned mana to the tip of my finger, then I flip the "switch."

Most of the mana gushes out wildly without being properly converted, which nearly collapses the spell's "structure" since it's too weak to endure such a chaotic flow of mana.

A few drops of water appear at the tip of my finger, and I immediately suck on it in desperation.

My tongue immediately becomes wet, but I can barely feel the water going down my throat, then I taste something strange.

Oh… if the water was badly formed, then I might have just poisoned myself…

I feed even more of my mana into the spell until I feel the danger of overuse looming over my organ.

If I go crazy from dehydration, then it won't matter if I'm poisoned, anyway.

I spend hours trying to get a reasonable amount of water to drink, but then my MP runs out again. The sun doesn't even set after all this time, only becoming more orange as the day continues on and the heat continues to increase.

I'm getting a bad feeling about this…

I decide to run away from the sun whenever I'm waiting for my mana to recharge.

My body is weakened, and my thirst slows me down, but the fear of death seeps into my heart, forcing my muscles to keep pushing forward.

The color of the dunes around me changes every so often from red, to yellow, to green, to purple, to orange, to black, but I have no time to admire their beauty because I just can't stop. If I do, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get moving again.

The heat only increases, and my back burns painfully each time I climb a dune and expose myself to the sun. The hateful orb also changes its color, turning red, then yellow, then green, then purple, then orange, and finally black.

This isn't a sun. I'm being chased by something, and it wants to kill me.

My heart races, my eyes shift about in desperation, my hands shiver in fear, and my steps become erratic. I need to run away from whatever the fuck is after me.

My legs give out, and I stumble, then I roll haphazardly down a dune. I cry in pain, but there are no more tears to be shed.

I desperately crawl towards the bottom of the dune, then I dig a hole and cover myself with sand, trying to hide. My body is trembling so much that I have little hope of it actually working, but I don't have the energy to get up again.

Several long minutes pass by while I wait, cowering in my hole, my heart filled with terror and dread.

I hear a set of soft footsteps, then I feel the sand shifting above me, so I hold my breath as best as I can.

"It's useless to hide," a stern and raspy male voice makes my heart skip a beat. "Get up!"

I nervously move the sand, then I peek my head out, and I immediately see a huge black quadruped angrily staring down at me from atop a dune. Its entire body is glowing so brightly with dark light and exudes so much heat that I'm certain that it's the "sun" of this place.

The blazing heat comes close to burning the exposed skin on my face, making me cry out in pain, and my eyes almost get blinded again by the intense light. I instinctively hide myself under the sand again and shiver in fear.

"I ordered you to get up!" It repeats, then it makes a deep, reverberating growl that shakes my body, forcing it to move on its own. By the time I actually notice it, I'm already standing again and staring at it.

I squint my eyes, and I manage to discern its figure. It's a tiger, the biggest one I've ever seen. Its paws are the size of my torso; its huge mouth could swallow me whole in just one bite; its yellow eyes stare back at me like a reaper ready to take my soul; and its black fur shines with the brightness of the sun.

"Is this how you wanted to die? Hiding under the sand?" It angrily questions me.

"I don't want to die…" I whimper.

"You will die just like your wife if you fail this time," it growls again, then it lowers its body, getting ready to pounce.

A pair of huge yellow lizard eyes open inside my mind, staring down at me with disgust and disappointment. The shame that its gaze causes forces me to reignite the draconic fire in my heart.

No, no, NO! I still need to avenge Ciel!

My body stops shivering, and I growl as I draw my sword and point it at the tiger, but what use could it have against such an enormous beast?

"Is this all you have?!" The beasts mocks me, its snout wrinkling in distaste. The heat increases, searing my skin and making me scream in pain, but my defiance doesn't waver.

I won't win against it with my sword, so I throw that away and choose to use my last card: magic. I gather all the mana that I have.

"Who are you?! Show it to me!" The beast demands, then it pounces.

I manifest the largest tentacle that I've ever made and punch the glowing tiger in the face, but it feels like I've hit a solid wall, and the beast doesn't even seem to have felt my attack.

A huge paw hits me in the chest, then it presses me down against the sand, forcing all the air out of my lungs.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" The beast rumbles.

"AAAAAH!" I grab its fur and try to shove its paw away, but my hand burns from the blazing heat.

"IS THAT ALL?!" It presses on.

I'M WOLF RYDER, YOU FUCK! I'M THE HERO SENT FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE HUSBAND OF MANY WIVES, THE FUCKER OF DRAGONS, THE RAVAGER OF WOMEN, THE TENTACLE MONSTER!

"SHOW ME WHO YOU ARE!" It bellows, and steaming hot spit hits my face, burning my skin.

I'M… I'M… I'M…

I envelop my body with my mana organ.

I'M A FUCKING DRAGON! AND I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLEEE!

"RAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The dragon roared in a double voice, and the beast winced in surprise.

His skin hardened as it was quickly covered in rough, leathery skin. Mirror-like scales grew, reflecting the heat and light away, protecting the flesh underneath.

"THAT'S IT! GIVE ME MORE!" The tiger rejoiced, then it pressed down harder on the man's chest, cracking his bones and scales and causing his roar to weaken.

He breathed air back into his lungs again, and gathered even more rage. "I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLE!" The dragon made the sand around them rumble with his voice. Horns grew from his forehead, and claws extended from his fingers, piercing through the beast's skin and drawing its blood.

"NO, YOU AREN'T!" The tiger countered and intensified the heat.

The dragon's skin boiled and blistered, his eyes popped, and his tongue shriveled away, but his anger didn't fade.

The claws on his feet sank into the beast's flanks, then they wildly thrashed and slashed, cutting its skin into ribbons, but the beast didn't even notice the pain or the blood.

The tiger's paw pressed down even harder, now snapping the man's spine, but the dragon's feet continued their thrashing.

"I NEED MORE FROM YOU!" The tiger demanded again, then its fur shifted into a dark flame, searing and cracking the man's scales.

"THIS WORLD… IS… MIIIIINE!" The dragon tried to bend reality to his will, but the God of this place was before him, denying him his power.

The beast lowered its head towards the man and growled, "Then take it from me." And then the flames flared, becoming as bright and as hot as a true sun.

"YOU CAN'T KILL ME!" The man tried to bend reality again, but the beast was completely immune to it.

The tiger proudly raised its head as its anger faded. "I already did…" It stated.

The dragon's scales turned to dust, his skin blackened and ruptured, his blood boiled away, his flesh withered, and his bones cracked and shattered.

Pure will kept his soul linked to his body for a few seconds longer, but death eventually came as his body was reduced to ash.

The beast gently removed its paw from the corpse, then blew the ashes away. The pride, the love, the wishes, the desires, the knowledge, and the ego. They all flew away as his body scattered into the wind, but the dragon refused to die.

"Almost…" The beast whispered, full of sorrow. It healed its own wounds with just a thought and almost looked away, but something caught its attention.

The wind gathered the ash back together again into a small tornado, forming a smoky cloud of ash, then it started to settle into the shape of a featureless human.

The body wished for his soul while the soul prayed for a body, and through forces unknown, the two defied death and were reunited once more.

The beast couldn't recognize what it was, but it certainly wasn't the man or the dragon that it had killed just moments before. It was something else, and that filled the beast with hope and curiosity.

"Who are you?" The beast excitedly asked the figure, its mouth warping into a grin.

"I don't know…" The spirit replied with a cracking, hoarse voice.

The beast snorted. "Then I shall name you Shade, and you may call me Groman."

Shade slowly nodded, and its featureless face stared back at Groman.

"Would you take a walk with me, Shade?" Groman gently suggested.

"Yes," Shade flatly replied.

"Then come."

The two walked in silence through the dunes. Groman's glowing hot fur changed to match the color of the sand it stepped on, but Shade didn't pay attention to this, for it didn't know what beauty was.

After a day of walking, Groman decided to question Shade. "Do you remember anything about who you were, Shade?" It gently whispered.

"No," Shade flatly replied.

"Do you need anything?"

"No."

"Do you wish to meet someone in particular?"

"No."

"Do you have any desires you want to fulfill?"

"No."

"Then why are you alive?"

Shade thought for a long time. The only wish it could remember was to reunite its body and soul, and now that Shade had accomplished that, there was nothing else that it wanted.

"I don't know," Shade finally answered.

"You're nothing, yet you cling to life," Groman pressed on.

Shade didn't know what to say, so it remained silent.

Groman stopped and stared intensely at Shade to impart the seriousness of its next words, not that Shade understood the meaning of this action. "Perhaps there's still a chance for you. Stop following me and leave this desert if you wish to try again," Groman advised, but Shade wished for nothing, so it continued following Groman in silence.

Shade turned its head away from Groman, and the beast immediately noticed that its silent companion wasn't staring at it anymore.

"What is it?" Groman curiously asked.

Shade didn't know how to answer that, so it remained quiet and resumed staring at Groman, but soon, it looked away again.

A spirit, a body, and a Thread of Fate, that was all that Shade was. No more, no less. It had no will, no memory, no knowledge, and no reason for existence, yet something still called to it.

Once Groman realized that something was happening to Shade, it immediately stopped and stared at Shade for days, waiting for any sign of a change.

Shade twitched, then it looked away for a third time, and it didn't look back at Groman again. Its head gradually turned, searching for something towards the horizon.

"There it is…" Groman whispered excitedly and grinned. "I knew you had it…"

Days passed, and the two continued staring towards the horizon, then Shade took a step forward.

Days later, Shade took another.

The next day, it stepped again.

The next hour, it took one more.

The next minute, it did it again.

Then it started walking, then running, then flying.

Groman followed Shade while laughing out loud. "WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DESIRE?!" It excitedly asked, its long, glowing hot tail swaying about happily.

"To save…" Shade's hoarse voice struggled to respond.

"Save who?" Groman pressed.

"Everyone…"

Groman asked many questions, for it had both the time and the thirst for knowledge, but Shade said nothing else besides those three words.

It vexed Groman for a while, but it let it go since three words were far better than nothing.

Groman bent the land to his will, shortening the trip so that Shade could reach its destination immediately.

As they flew, Shade saw the sand become cracked earth, then packed dirt, then it was covered in moss, which grew into grass, and the first plants started to appear. Herbs, flowers, bushes, and then trees, which grew and grew and grew until the two were nothing but ants beside their inconceivably large roots. They grew so large that they completely blocked out the blue sky, but Groman was the sun personified, so they never lacked light or warmth.

They passed by colorful, glowing, exotic, and extraordinary plants and animals, but Shade knew nothing about them, so it ignored them all.

They passed by statues carved into the trees that depicted epic battles and historical events, but Shade knew nothing about history, so it ignored them all.

They passed by the most beautiful buildings and works of art ever created, but Shade knew nothing about what they meant, so it ignored them all.

They reached the heart of the forest, the center of this alternate reality, and the source of all Groman's mystic power. There, they found Shade's destination: an orb the color of a Dark Void.

Once Shade spotted it, it immediately stopped flying and landed on the grass, then it slowly walked towards it.

"Do you wish to discover who you really are?" Groman tentatively asked.

Shade didn't know how to answer that, so it remained quiet, but it knew that the orb was calling to it.

"I must continue…" Shade struggled to respond.

"Continue what?" Groman excitedly questioned.

"Fate."

Shade approached the orb, then its non-corporeal eyes stared deep into the dark abyss, and the abyss stared back.