That was the first problem.
Merlin opened his eyes and was standing on nothing. Just a stretch of sky. Pale, overcast, too clean to be real. Below him, the world shimmered like heat rising from broken glass.
'Alright. Cool. Not terrifying at all.'
He looked down. Then up. Then around.
No door. No edge. No sun.
A sleek black table appeared two meters in front of him. On top of it sat a stack of envelopes, a polished dagger, and a tiny glass of what looked like wine but absolutely radiated magical disappointment.
Behind the desk sat a man.
Thin. Sharp-featured. Wearing a perfectly tailored suit with gold stitching that moved when he blinked. His hair was perfect like it was made of gold, flowing perfectly.
His smile said he could sell you to yourself and you'd say thank you.
He didn't speak at first.
He just looked Merlin up and down like he was reading the synopsis of a book that might be worth skimming.
Then he said, "Well."
His voice was smooth.
"Was nearly getting eaten by a dragon not exciting enough for you?"
"I didn't ask for this."
The man spread his hands. "No one ever does. Except the suicidal ones, and they never survive the onboarding."
"Ah. So you do read your system notifications."
Then he was behind Merlin.
Flickering. Not quite teleporting. Just moving wrong.
Time didn't stick to him.
"Relax," Hermes said, walking a slow circle around him. "This isn't judgment. This is interest. You're interesting. And it's so hard to find mortals who aren't allergic to nuance."
Merlin didn't respond.
He was too busy trying to guess how many laws of physics were being broken per second.
Hermes continued anyway.
"You made a dragon hesitate. You stood your ground in a dead god's vein. You kept secrets from a system designed to know everything."
Leaning slightly forward.
"And you did it while half-dead, under pressure, and with that charming little habit of pretending none of it affects you."
The wind changed direction.
Merlin spoke carefully. "So what's the point of this."
The sound echoed sideways.
"The point," he said, "is that I'm offering you a trial. The kind mortals don't survive unless they're very fast, very clever, or very, very lucky."
[System Notification: Divine Trial Incoming]
[Trial Sponsor: The Messenger]
[Designation: Hermes]
[Do you accept the invitation to ascend as an apostle?]
Then at Hermes, who was now lounging on thin air, tossing a coin that spun way too slowly.
"This test," Merlin said. "What is it."
Hermes smiled without showing his teeth.
"A delivery. One message. One path. Several people trying to kill you on the way. But if you make it—"
The coin stopped midair.
"I make you faster than anyone else alive."
Then Merlin said, "That's your pitch?"
"It's not a pitch, Merlin. It's a challenge."
[You have 10 seconds to decide.]
Merlin stared at the system.
Then back at the smug god floating across from him.
"…Fine," he said. "Let's play."
[Trial initializing.]
He landed like a sack of regret.
Face-first. Into sand.
Which immediately got into his nose, eyes, and the very concept of personal dignity.
Merlin pushed himself up slowly, spitting grit from his mouth.
Just heat. Light. Dunes stretching endlessly in all directions like someone had tiled the world with the color beige and then tried to kill everything on it.
Then the system chimed in, chipper as always.
[Trial of the Errant Path — Commenced]
[Objective: Deliver the scroll to the Tower of Glass]
[Distance: 32 kilometers]
[Time Limit: 3 hours]
[Hostile Activity: Subsurface]
[Prohibited Actions: Flying]
[Note from the Divine Host: This rule is symbolic. We know you can't fly.]
Merlin stared at the last line.
"Wow," he muttered. "Even your trial rules come with sarcasm."
The scroll was already in his hand.
Sealed. Glowing faintly. Warm like it had a heartbeat.
He tucked it into his coat and turned toward the horizon. Heat shimmered over distant dunes. No sign of a tower. No shade. No path.
He took one step forward.
The ground under him… shifted.
Not a lot. Just enough to say: Hey. I'm not solid. Also, something underneath me hates you.
Merlin's next steps were faster.
No dramatic wind boost. No teleportation. Just good old-fashioned survival panic, backed by a deep spiritual awareness that something below was definitely alive.
He crested the first dune.
And that's when the ripple came.
Far behind him, one dune bulged. Then collapsed inward. A circle of sand sank into itself, spiraling like a drain.
'Of course it's a sandworm.'
Not a monster scream.
Just the sound of everything else getting out of the way.
Boots sliding. Sand giving underfoot. Heat crawling up his back like it was trying to slow him down. The scroll pulsed once, angrily, somehow as if it disapproved of his sprint form.
Behind him, the dune exploded.
That wasn't look territory.
That was die while making eye contact territory.
Sovereign Chain surged in his limbs, syncing rhythm, pressure, balance. He angled down the slope of the next rise, momentum carrying him faster. Wind slipped under his coat, not enough to fly, just enough to cheat friction.
It moved like a thought: fast, irrational, enormous.
He hit a flat stretch and sprinted, lungs burning.
The sand behind him sank again. A roar rippled across the plain.
[The Messenger is watching with amusement.]
[They expected you to drop the scroll by now.]
Merlin grit his teeth.
"I drop this thing, and I'm making the delivery to your corpse."
The system made no comment.
The desert rolled ahead.
And a predator the size of a cathedral hungry for his ankles.
Not because he had a plan.
Because it was the only direction that wasn't straight down into teeth.
He cleared another dune by inches.
Sand went everywhere. Again.
His knees were full of regret and heat exhaustion.
The scroll was still in his coat, warm and humming like a smug heartbeat.
It wasn't slowing down.
Because apparently, giant monsters didn't believe in stamina limits.
Merlin pushed to his feet again.
'Twenty-something kilometers left.'
'At this point I'd pay someone to kill me politely.'
Then the air changed.
Not the heat. Not the smell.
Sovereign Chain flared in his spine, it was tight, cold, precise.
Something was approaching.
The sand just ahead to his right jumped. Not exploded. Jumped. Like something had flickered in from a step sideways through reality.
And a figure appeared mid-run.
Slim. Cloaked. Moving with speed that wasn't human, way too balanced, too synced with the terrain.
Their coat was lined with silver. Their boots barely left tracks.
Their eyes when they turned were focused.
'You have got to be kidding me.'
The system pinged a beat too late.
[Warning: Another Divine Trial has intersected this zone.]
[Affiliation: The Masked One Who Smiles Beneath Lies]
[Objective: Seize the Messenger's Scroll]
Merlin shouted, "You're kidding—this is a PvP map?!"
The other trialer didn't answer.
They just smiled under their mask, pivoted, and dashed straight for him.
Merlin dove left, wind kicking hard against his boots, redirecting momentum mid-slide. A narrow knife passed right where his ribs had been.
"Okay," he growled, rolling back to his feet, "Hermes, you smug divine jackass—this is not a solo trial anymore!"
The trialer didn't respond. They came in again, short blade flashing, speed clean, breath even.
Whoever trained them had trained to kill.
Merlin blocked with the flat of his wrist, twisted, kicked down into the sand, and used wind to launch backward.
Distance gained. Not safety.
The scroll pulsed again.
The system chimed again.
[Reminder: If the scroll is lost or destroyed, trial ends.]
"Yeah," Merlin snapped. "Thanks. I didn't think it was a party favor."
The masked trialer didn't slow.
They weren't trying to fight.
They were trying to pressure.
He ran again, angled hard west, up the side of another dune.
The sandworm screamed behind him.
The trialer didn't look back.
Because they weren't worried about the worm.
Merlin reached the top of the dune, half-turned, and finally shouted, "What kind of divine psycho gives you a quest to steal someone else's trial objective?!"
The masked figure paused just long enough to say, calm and clean.
"My god told me to lie, cheat, and win."
Then they lunged again.