Sam flips open his stopwatch after an unknown amount of time, it reads only two hours.

He stands before the figure in the last room, he has entered this room an untold number of times yet each time it’s the same thing, the stupid thing is broken.

He walks up to it and presses the button on the off chance that it works, yet it doesn’t.

“What is the point of this? Am I just going in some sort of loop because this room is broken? Am I stuck here because of this specific room? Everything seems normal until I hit here.”

Sam looks around the room for anything out of place yet he cannot spot anything that looks unusual, it looks the same as every other room that he enters. The door to enter it works the same as every other, yet each time he walks up to this specific figure it doesn’t work.

He strikes the figure down in frustration and walks over to the door; it doesn’t open so he repeats the opening process yet again, revealing the same room on the other side. He quickly jumps over the floating platforms and comes up to the door that flashes green and slides open.

Sam sighs as it does, he looks inside and it reveals nothing different. He walks up to the figure, presses the button revealing another door that contains yet another weird techno-animal hybrid thing.

This time it’s a badger-headed snake with three large fans on it.

All rusted out.

Sam walks over to it and stabs it, he looks into its moving eyes with pity. It might have been rather menacing yet now this creature is unable to move on the ground. The sword pierces through it easily causing the door to reveal itself on the other side.

Sam puts his sword away and walks to the red platform that teleports him, entering it.

He stands in the teleporter and waits for the bad feeling to come across him, each time has been progressively feeling worse and this time is no different, he feels bad but this time it’s a different type of bad.

His body begins to feel hot, it’s like his consciousness is entirely shut off usually but this time he’s aware of his body being hot, he leans into this feeling ignoring the feeling of thousands of tiny little creatures all over his skin.

Sam focuses on the heat coming from inside his body, he follows the thread of feeling leading him somewhere within his mind, the faint sounds of ringing enter his ears as he follows it. Getting louder and louder as the heat increases.

It’s like his mind only has a single purpose right now, following this sound and feeling, his own mind follows it again, his own will until his vision returns.

‘Huh? HUH?’

Sam’s eyes move around yet his body doesn’t, he cannot move his body as he cannot feel anything at all. He can see that he has returned to the underwater room, he cannot spot anything unusual in the room apart from a glowing light before him and a soft red glow of the surrounding platform.

Sam attempts to move his body several times, trying exercises or things he learnt to counteract paralysis, but it’s like his body is entirely detached from feeling right now. He has little choice but to look internally and is stunned by what he sees.

Thousands and thousands of tiny little worms are everywhere while a large one is sticking out of the middle of his mana cloud. They’re covering everything, even his monster that is currently resting after hatching.

Sam cannot do a thing as he watches these things go to work doing something…

He attempts to circulate his own energy, which seems to cause the worms to do something. Bright orange light enters his eyes as the red platform around him glows again.

Sam blinks.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?”

He is standing back on the platform in the first testing room in exactly the same condition as all the other times, Sam pulls out the stopwatch and can see that the timer has reset again.

“Is this some sort of trap? Am I being hypnotised or something?”

Sam’s mind races trying to work out what’s going on but even internally everything looks fine, his body seems fine and everything is working like normal. There’s nothing that he can see that’s wrong…

He tries the door out again, this time forcefully but after over 30 minutes of trying to do anything. The door has not budged at all. It remains locked and completely motionless, with a glowing red light above it.

Sam pants and recovers from this, annoyed at his lack of progress, he looks around the room for anything else that could help but comes up short.

“Whatever. I’ll see if I can break it by going through it too quickly.”

Sam stands up and this time, he rushes to the door that slides open.

The lights flicker on.

“Well, that’s different…” Sam says as the room lights up, “if only the obstacle was. Why aren’t the lights already on?”

Sam leaps over the small gap and heads to the next room, the only difference this time being the lights are off in every room. He reaches the same broken room as last time without incident, he walks up to the figure and presses the button.

This time, several large spikes come down from the ceiling.

Sam dodges the sharp metallic spikes a split moment before they were about to hit him.

He was completely unprepared for this. Two silver blades come roaring out the sides and swing towards him.

Sam dodges these multiple lethal blades, again just at the last moment before they disappear where they came from.

Sam readies himself for anything else but the door slides open, Sam looks through it and spots something different… it’s just a room with a gap.

It has progressed further, the room number has increased compared to being absent previously.

Sam doesn’t know what to make of it as he progresses through the rooms, it’s just like normal except they have gotten slightly harder. He has an unsettling feeling as he gets to the 990th rooms before finally feeling incredibly uneasy at the 999th room.

It’s a standard room with a humanoid figure standing in the middle of it.

They have all worked thus far so he has no reason to suspect this one not working, it’s like all the times he went through the rooms before were a dream yet it’s this time that feels unreal compared to them.

Sam grips the harbinger, he’ll need to use it as a shield for what comes next.

He presses the button.

Several spikes come from the ceiling and floor, he was ready for them dodging backwards and forward with nimble steps, his footwork has become solidified as he works his movements into the next one.

*CLANK*

He has to block one of the rapid spikes before they entered his shoulder, he’s pushed down onto the ground.

Large blades appear from the sides as the spikes stop, he isn’t given enough time to get up off floor fending off each strike with difficulty, each time being forced backwards towards one of the walls.

He stands up from the ground but quickly finds himself back under attack by the spikes, his nimble footwork continues but he finds himself slowing down as the patterns shift. A few light cuts remind him that he’s in a life or death situatoin.

*SWOOSH*

Sam ducks as a projectile flies at him, something unexpected yet easily dodged as a section of the wall fell away like some sort of cloth flap, he works his way over there dodging everything and spots a projectile launcher. He touches the flap and it feels solid, like rock, yet is entirely smooth with fabric-like crinkles.

Several more rounds of this continue, it’s a real test unlike the previous rooms yet he finds himself able to handle it all with ease, surprising even himself.

He fends off several more blades before it all stops, the door on the wall slides open revealing the way through which he follows.

The lights flicker on, Sam frowns at what’s before him.

It’s the large room with the pool of water below, a bunch of the hovering platforms over it with nothing different. He proceeds over them before entering through the door that lights up green and opens immediately.

Nothing has changed so far, yet he cannot shake the uneasy feeling.

He looks inside this room; it looks much the same with the metallic figure in the middle.

Sam walks over to it cautiously and presses the button weapon in hand, the door slides open when,

*ROAR*

A large creature leaps out of the opening, it’s much larger than all the other ones he has seen so far but the fundamental difference, and the biggest, is that it’s alive and moving.

Sam looks at it and is left even more confused. It looks like a lion with a snake tail yet it has some sort of growth on its back. The animal has electrical parts over parts of it, including half of its head, giving it plate-armor in spots. It’s large, taller than him.

He holds up the harbinger, “Let’s try this then.”

The creature pounces at him, Sam swings the sword down forward.

*BANG*

The sword digs into the floor using it to absorb most of the creatures strike, Sam flicks out some daggers but the snake tail intercepts them. He tries to get away from the snake tail, yet all he can do is throw daggers at it as it strikes at him between the dagger throws.

The creature takes another swipe with its paw at Sam, he’s able to dodge it but the jaws of the creature come over as it pounces at him during another claw swipe.

*SNAP*

The jaw filled with sharp teeth narrowly misses his arm as he’s dodging the claw swipe.

Sam throws more daggers at it, causing it to finally retreat in the distance after hitting its eyes and nose.

He lifts the sword off the ground, flicking a layer of blood from his hand. The incredibly heavy impacts cutting his non-calloused skin.

This creature is strong, probably Stage 2 without the enhancements.

Even a stage 2 fighter would have trouble with a stage 2 beast, even a stage 3 might die if they’re caught unaware. He’s here trying to fight it without reaching stage 1 and having just recently hatched his non-combatant pet.

Sam pulls out his second sword, the light weight sword and places it on his belt.

The two have a silent, staring match, Sam thinks up an idea as he quietly uses the string ability of his monster.

A thread wraps itself around a dagger, he throws it at the creature where it intercepts it with its tail.

The sticky string gets caught on the creature’s snake tail, creating a trail that starts at his hand.

He does this several times until the creature gets annoyed at him and moves, “ROAAR”

It pounces towards him but Sam readies himself with the string, he leaps into action by countering the animal’s strike.

*BOOM*

Its giant paws collide with harbinger again, this time it’s fast with its mouth as it aims for Sam’s neck.

Sam pulls out the light sword with his other hand to intercepts it, the creature gets a bloodied mouth as the sword digs into it, and roars loudly releasing him from its grip.

Sam takes that as his signal to slide under the large beast, he holds the string tightly as he disappears under the beast careful of its claws, he exits out from behind the creature and slams his sword down into the ground.

The string is incredibly thick now and tied to the sword, the creature notices it cannot move its tail and attempts to twist its body.

Sam is ready though and slams his spear directly forward, straight into the creatures exposed anus region.

It wasn’t mechanical lucky.

The creature roars and flails about, it kicks backwards and manages to connect with Sam.

His body goes flying backwards and impacts the wall, his vision goes red and then black. His consciousness fades…

Sam finds himself in a strange limbo state, this lasts some time until his vision comes back. A feeling of being unable to move hits him again, he is forced to stare directly forward where there’s a strange light glowing brightly.

It’s glowing bright red.

He wants to look away but he cannot.

He looks internally, finding that the worm creature is still there in his mana cloud, it’s form burrowing ever deeper into the cloud somehow while his own monster has disappeared, no longer able to feel a link to it.

The monster’s cloud has become a small orb of energy.

Sam wants to do something but he cannot, he wants to yell but he cannot.

He is literally being devoured by whatever this thing is, and he cannot do anything about it.

His mind cannot handle the stress when a melody comes to mind, it forces itself into his mind filling his thoughts with only that melody, several melodies cascading into a point, a single tone.

*RING*

A bell sounds, a beautiful chime.

Sam closes his eyes as he actually feels relaxed for a moment, everything just seems to stop worrying him as he hears that bell. It allows him to breathe a deep sigh of relief.

He opens his eyes before blinking a few times; he looks around him noticing that he’s able to move his body. He doesn’t have anything on him except a simple robe yet he’s alive and fine.

Sam feels like celebrating but he realises he’s standing before a person looking at him, they’re sitting under a tree at a distance.

Sam approaches the man sitting under the tree, he walks towards him but notices that he doesn’t get any closer. Always being around 6 steps away from the person under the tree.

“Hi, is there a reason I cannot walk towards you?”

The man emits a laugh, a strange voice sounds alien yet also human, “There are many reasons, there is also no reason.”

“That’s not even English… I’m not where I should be, can you tell me where I am?”

“English is subjective, embrace the meaning within, the contextual message is more important than the message itself. Explain context without making it subjective, it’s subjective in its very existence. That means the reason is subjective, a context that isn’t given. Can you truly say that you’re not where you should be when you aren’t aware of where should be is.”

“I can ramble about English too, but I still would like to know where I am.”

“True, this is somewhere you should know. This is the place of beginning, the place of the end, the place of nothing, the place of everything… A glimpse here allows you to glance at everything. You brought me back here, reminding me of what once was.”

“I see...,” Sam feels like rolling his eyes but the words sound poignant, “So then why am I here?”

The man laughs, “You are here because you are foolish.”

“What?”

“Foolish people do as foolish people do, you did as a foolish person does, so you are foolish.”

“Explain what did I do that was foolish?”

“You encountered something outside of your level, outside your comprehension level, outside your very existence. This also gives you a unique chance, a very unique chance due to your unique circumstances that all aligned with you being here now.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have one chance at something that will change your fate, one opportunity at something that will rid the universe of a blight wrought unto it eternally from ancient times. If you do not take this chance, you are to end up becoming the beast's food as it escapes again. You have brought me this chance so I’ll favour you this one time.”

“Do you know more than what you’re telling me?”

The man laughs, “I don’t know anything.”

Sam frowns at the man laugh, he’s about the ask him something else when the man speaks up first.

“I’ll tell you some words though, SI-UIN-EL-ALL-REAN-PO.”

As those letters come to him, they reverberate within his mind as thought simply speaking them will settle his mind from all his worries.

His eyes shut as he mutters them, “SI-UIN-EL-ALL-REAN-PO”.

The words bounce about in his mind, over and over again, he cannot tell what it means but it seems related to Xayu Xau.

Sam opens his eyes, he has returned to the underwater scene.

His heart starts to race as he recalls the precarious situation he was in, he then recalls what he just experienced.

‘SI-UIN-EL-ALL-REAN-PO’

Sam says that, he says it once in internally which causes a chain reaction of that word going off everywhere internally. His mind feels heavy as the noise increases in his mind, he blocks it out as the noise gets louder.

‘SI-UIN-EL-ALL-REAN-PO’

‘SI-UIN-EL-ALL-REAN-PO’

‘SI-UIN-EL-ALL-REAN-PO’

…

*RING RING RING* *RING RING RING*

‘Wait, what was it?’ he mutters.

The strange worm-creature in his mana cloud suddenly stops moving about, Sam can feel all the little worms that are under his skin, they’re crawling along his veins and his organs nearly every part of his skin is covered with the tiny little worms.

They’ve all stopped moving.

Two illusory forms appear above the worm in the mana-cloud, two giant spheres that compress themselves revealing the extent of the giant worm's body. It seems endless as it curls upon itself in layers.

Even this seems to be only part of its entire body as Sam cannot even see where it ends. A glowing mass of silver light blocks his view.

He watches this silver light for a moment, the two giant spheres compress further while the silver light gets darker.

The worm’s body twitches, the giant spheres break down into thousands and thousands of chains that dig into the beasts skin before embedding themselves into the skin and meshing themselves together.

A large yellow glowing cloud appears above his mana cloud as it returns to its usual form, the worm creature is sticking its head out of the opening. The tiny little worm creatures have not moved at all.

The yellow glowing cloud changes appearance becoming two sets of large numbers, one of the numbers reads, ‘27:34’ which is decreasing slowly, while the second number reads ‘929:22:29’ that is not moving at all.

They seem to be timers, their appearance is almost similar to the stopwatch he has been using recently.

Sam isn’t sure what’s going on, but as he opens his eyes, he finds that he still isn’t able to move.

A piece of paper seems to float down from somewhere, ‘How to care for your new pet ancient devourer beast, 1) feed it 2) care for it 3) love it 4) ensure it stays asleep until you contract it. It has 3 tricks it can do, sleep, devour and stop. Note, do not devour anything above your stage unless you prepare well. If beast wakes up early, feed it before telling it to sleep, if it won’t slap it. Xayu Xau. P.S. It will learn a new trick if you contract it.’

He’s able to read it clearly, he’s not sure where it came from yet when he wants to read it again, it has disappeared.

‘Stop?’ he yells in his mind.

A bright white light surrounds him and expands in all directions, a shimmer affects everything but then nothing looks different afterward. Sam clenches his fist before noticing that his entire body has been freed from its restraints

He looks around the room that has been submerged by water and the bright red light before him.

It’s all completely still yet he’s still able to move through the water fine, the mask is performing its job of allowing him to breathe luckily. He swims backwards to the door and finds that it’s sealed shut.

Sam grabs his sword and finds that the door is resistant to his attacks much like the other doors like this, the red light holds steady above it.

There’s nothing else he can really do but find another route out. He swims away from the door and searches around this sealed room using his sword to pry away panels on the wall avoiding the weird tentacle light coming from the ceiling by a wide margin.

“Ah, looks like this might go somewhere. What’s with the security elsewhere?”

Sam spots a tunnel that leads downwards, a tight squeeze but it’s better than trying to pry open this thick door underwater. He swims down and down, unaware of how much time passes and not realising how far down this tunnel is going as it’s pitch black.

*SCREECH*

He suddenly feels a pressure sucking him downward, he attempts to fight against it but is pulled downward causing him to tumble about the rest of the pipe.

The strange noise came over his mind, he looks inside at his mana cloud while trying to stop his body and spots the worm flailing about. It's no longer trying to burrow in but has tentacles waving about.

‘Sleep’ he says mentally but the worm and tentacles continue to flail about.

Sam looks at the glowing timers above it, the first one reads 00:00 while the second one is decreasing.

‘I guess it needs to eat?’

Sam is still tumbling down the pipe but soon is launched out the end, left in some deep dark body of water that seemingly has no end. He’s left confused about where this is yet judging by the light, he’s deep enough to remain hidden.

A large fish with multiple luminescent tentacles encroaches upon Sam, it looks to be Stage 1 so this will be the perfect time for him to test this thing out and with little time to spare.

Sam points at the creature, ‘Devour’ he says in his mind.