shiki opened his eyes slowly, peering into a expanse of white so absolute it felt like staring into the heart of a dead star—endless, devouring, with no horizon and no concept of boundaries.
'What is going on? Where am i? Did i die or something?' questions flared up in Ishiki's mind. He still hasn't recovered from the shock of having his body broken down.
He tried moving his hands... at first there was no movement... but then subtly he felt his hand moving, but couldn't see it.
Panic slammed his chest... 'What the... where is my hand?'
But as the thought sharpened into focus, his hand faded into view, coalescing out of thin air.
He hadn't had a body at all initially... but now it reassembled, fragment by reluctant fragment, leaving him suspended in this nowhere, adrift like forgotten debris.
'Creepy doesn't even start describing this.'
Ishiki swallowed hard, the knot in his chest coiling tighter, a vise of dread. M...Mom.
He clutched his head with both his hands... taking heavy breaths. She was his only real tether, the one constant in a life of flickering neon and empty bets... but now? He was not sure.
Ren—his idiot best friend, was he even out there? No... the real riddle gnawed deeper: was Ishiki himself still alive or had he kicked the bucket already?
Suddenly as he was wondering what's going on and what not, a voice chimed in his head... a strange robotic voice he had never heard before in his life.
[Player Registration complete...]
[Personalizing NEXUS Chamber based on Player information]
"What?" Ishiki muttered, stunned by the abrupt invasion and the complex things it said... nothing made any sense.
"What makes you think i am smart enough, huh?"
Before another fragment of thought could assemble, the scenery warped. Solid ground bloomed beneath him, grass unfurling across the barren plane like a wave, stretching to the limits of sight.
Then at some distance two towers erupted from the ground.
They stood at a distance of about two meters from each other, the sky... or rather an imitation of it became darker by the second until, nothing but an oblivion was visible.
Ishiki spun, scanning the transformations with wide-eyed disbelief... "What the... actual fuck?"
He turned back to the towers, observing how they emanated dark energy, gathering it between them into a pulsating black sphere, heavy with unspoken menace.
He slowly moved towards it, gathering courage. But before he could reach it another screen appeared in front of him out of nowhere.
[First Trail about to begin...]
Ishiki stared, utterly bewildered. What madness was this thing spouting—a trial? His mind reeled under the onslaught of questions. Everything was going too fast.
He looked at his hands again... they were glowing, just like they were before he woke up here. panic seized his heart, but before he could form anything out of it another screen greeted him.
[Unknown Protocol Recursive Anomaly has interfered with the Trial Scenario]
[First Trial is about to begin]
[Transferring Player - ??? to NEXUS]
[Trail Scenario Code - 0]
Things had long since stopped making sense and now all this... Ishiki was not so bright of a student to comprehend the complexity of it all.
It was all foreign... it was too much.
"Curse it all! W-"
His outburst severed midway as senses dissolved. The scenery dulled, leaching color by the moment until it vanished entirely.
"..."
Ishiki flicked open his eyes slowly. His vision was... blurry, he couldn't make out the shapes in front of him.
'Was all that just a dream? Some twisted hallucination my brain cooked up to cope?'
It was the obvious leap, considering his body felt wrung out, every fiber protesting—even holding his eyelids aloft seemed like the stuff of reluctant heroes.
He tried to move his hands, and a lance of pain tore through his arms, eliciting a gasp and a guttural grunt.
"Ugh..."
"Hey... look he is waking up!"
"Oh! His highness is finally awake... about time. haha..."
Ishiki heard two unfamiliar voices... and for some reason he was sure, they were talking about him. But... their words didn't make sense.
'Why are they calling me 'His Highness'? Am i in some kind of dumb play?'
He tried shifting to a better position than his current one... it was kinda uncomfortable. As he moved his legs and hands a symphony of chains rattled along with his movements.
A very shrill and cold pain ran through his arms and legs. It was as if his skin had been peeled off and exposed to ice.
'Wait... chains!' Ishiki's mind reeled. 'Am i in a prison?'
Several possibilities arced from here, some worse... some even worse. After all if you were in chains there was no favorable possibility.
Ishiki grunted through the pain and brought his hands up, trying to wipe his face in order to get a better look at the things... he later wished he shouldn't have.
He was utterly speechless, he didn't know why he was still alive. A person would most probably die of heart attack right now.
He swallowed, the dry rasp scraping his throat. 'Wh...what the hell?'
He was inside a cell... behind metal bars. His hands and legs were cuffed up with metallic chains which were then tethered to ponderous iron spheres that mocked mobility.
He was a prisoner... and the two people he heard talking here the guards standing in front of his prison. They wore a weird outfit that Ishiki didn't recognize. He had never seen anything like that, on that note - The prison he was in... it was all unknown.
"Where the hell am I?" he blurted out, panicking.
One of the guards looked back, glaring at him with intensity. Ishiki could practically feel the hatred in his eyes.
Abruptly, the other guard drove his spear through the bars, striking Ishiki's chains with a jolt that sent tremors of agony rippling through his limbs.
"AAHHH!"
"Keep it low! You whoreson..." he snarled.
Ishiki gritted his teeth, returning the glare.
The guard struck again, this time slamming the spear's blunt end into Ishiki's chest, the impact flinging him against the wall.
"Kuh..."
Ishiki felt the taste of blood in his mouth. This whole situation was too confusing... so he tried to stay silent.
The guards were not at all helpful and even looked at him with hate and resentment, and yet at first they regarded him as 'His Highness'.
As he was thinking about all this a System screen... the same yellow one he saw before coming to this place.
[Welcome to NEXUS]
[Your Trial has begun]
'What's NEXUS now!'
Suddenly, before another notion could crystallize, a comprehensive interface expanded before him.
====== Player - ???? ======
Name - Ishiki
Age - 17
Title - None
Synth Reactor Rank - Initiate
Level - 1
Data Fragments - 0/100
Basic Abilities :
Strength : 5
Agility : 5
Intelligence : 10
Endurance : 5
Charisma : 3 (-5)
Protocols : [Recursive Anomaly (Unknown)], [Data Mutation (Unique)]
Attribute : [Half Royalty (Epic)]
{Explanation - A Half Royal is a Royal with mixed blood and origin.}
Skill Cards : None
========================
Ishiki read the whole thing while being stunned, his jaw dropped as he finished reading it.
'what use is this Half Royalty Attribute?'
He read the whole thing again... 'Am I in some kind of game?'
But the pain contradicted it all. The skin beneath the cuffs was shredded and every minor movement sent a frenzy of pain through his body.
This was certainly not a game. He saw the destruction of the world with his own eyes... and then he was chosen as a Player in something called NEXUS.
'Weird...'
As he pondered over his current condition a message floated in his vision.
[Admin 92 - I feel sorry for your pathetic state]
[Admin 81 - Why the hell can't i look at his status window?]
'Huh? what's this....'
[Admin 77 - This is getting boring]
'Wait... am i being watched? And what do they expect from a chained-up nobody like me? A magic trick?'
[Admin 81 - Tell us your Skill kid. Say it out loud]
[Admin 63 - Oh! How peculiar the status window shows an error]
"Who are you people?" Ishiki murmured slowly... a probe aimed at both the ethereal messages and the flesh-and-blood guards.
The guards turned but dismissed him outright, as if he were inconsequential vapor.
Ishiki grunted inwardly.... 'Bastards!'
[Several Admins are interested in your trial]
[Admin 176 - Why does the status window show error? What is going on?]
Ishiki read the messages... and analyzed the information. From what he could tell he was inside some kind of Trial in some world called NEXUS and these 'Admins' were watching him.
After thinking for a while and looking at the messages curious about his status window, he decided to speak.
"I don't have a skill..." he declared.
The guards regarded him with baffled stares... and the 'Admins' ignited in frenzy.
[Admin 81 - What? How can that be?]
[Admin 176 - Impossible!]
[Admin 70 - Wait... I have never heard about this Trial Scenario!]
[Admin 93 - This trial is glitched?]
Looking at the messages, Ishiki learned that there was a glitch or something and he was supposed to have a skill, but he didn't had any.
Suddenly, the resonant clash of spears on stone yanked him back to the tangible. The guards stood unnaturally rigid.
And then Ishiki's body was forced to the ground... an overwhelming pressure descended, leeching the scant vitality from his fragile form, as if gravity itself conspired against him.
An imposing figure materialized before the cell, looking at him for a fleeting moment.
"Bring him to the main hall. I shall declare his verdict."
He bellowed and vanished, leaving Ishiki in a stunned haze.