The central pillar rose slowly, churning up a swirl of sand and dust.

  Eight people, Charon included, stared fixated at the center of the colosseum. As expected, their nemesis was arriving. As the yellow sand drifted away, a gargantuan lion emerged from the haze.

  Charon drew a sharp breath. Reference points were scarce, making it hard to judge the beast’s exact size, but it stood at least three meters tall. Based on the standard proportions of $3:1.3:1$, this lion had to be at least six meters long.

  A thought struck him. He noticed the sun was positioned just slightly off-center, directly above the lion. If he assumed the beast was six meters long, he could estimate the entire arena's dimensions just by observing the shadows.

  Status: Not bad.

  “Waaah!” The first person to break appeared. Beside Charon, a woman began to wail hysterically.

  Her cries tugged at Charon’s nerves. They had held their positions for a long time; any sudden change could shift the entire balance of the field.

  Just as Charon expected, several giggles drifted from the sky. “It seems some are already at their breaking point, hahahaha! Well then, why don’t we make the terror a little more intense?”

  Upon hearing this, Charon’s pupils constricted. He scanned his surroundings. If he didn't gather more information now, what awaited him would be the lion’s savage claws.

  Click.

  Without warning.

  Run!

  Charon assessed the situation in an instant. Logically, everyone should run away from the lion. The beast could pounce anywhere, but there was only one variable: the weeping woman. As long as she was there, she should be the primary target.

  Charon pivoted, bolting toward his front-right diagonal, putting as much distance between himself and the woman as possible.

  If logic held, the lion should now—

  Wait. A cold sweat broke across Charon’s back. The lion was clearly closing in on him!

  Why? Why? Charon was baffled, but there was no time to think. The behemoth was closing in; his life hung by a thread.

  There was only one way to survive.

  Charon shifted direction again, this time sprinting toward the flanks. There was another person in the lion’s direct path—he had to bet everything on that fact.

  With his legs moving non-stop, Charon drew closer and closer to another person who had already begun fleeing toward the side.

  Thump, thump.

  As he brushed past the other person, Charon’s heart hammered wildly. His every movement felt like slow motion, and a sickly chill rose within him. He subconsciously glanced at the person beside him. A foul, rancid stench oozed from every pore of the man.

  He looked exactly like a dead man.

  The world snapped back to normal. The man had been left far behind.

  A roar erupted from where Charon had just fled. A man’s scream drowned out the woman’s crying as he was pinned under the lion’s massive maw. Blood sprayed across the sand. Some of the fleeing crowd collapsed and began to weep; others looked back once and found their legs frozen in terror.

  In this tense moment, Charon stood perfectly still. In the next heartbeat, as if he had understood something, he dashed away from his original direction and ran straight toward the person who had been at the center of the vortex from the very beginning.

  “Hello, uh… Miss?”

  Charon wanted to slap himself.

  The woman’s sobbing didn't stop, but she was indeed distracted by this young man who dared to strike up a conversation under the lion’s bloody maw.

  The lion’s roar shook the sky. From a distance, not a single intact limb or even a whole bone could be found of the man who had just been crushed. Crimson mixed with pale white, smeared chaotically across the ground.

  Charon wasn't frightened by the sight. Instead, he sat down beside the woman even more naturally.

  The lion moved again. This time, the second choice should be the woman who had been making noise all along—at least, that’s what common sense dictated.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Charon sat there, motionless. Not a trace of fear could be seen in his eyes as he spoke to the woman again.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  The lion pounced on another fleeing human, its maw opening to reveal snow-white teeth already stained crimson.

  Charon didn't say another word. While waiting for the woman to calm down, he reached a hand onto the sand, attempting to dig a small pit. After repeating the motion a few times, the dug-out area no longer showed the yellow of dust, but a flash of bright red that was completely out of place in this setting.

  Click. Charon tapped the bright red area; the sound was sharp and short, just as he expected.

  “My name is Emily,” the woman said. Her tears hadn't stopped, but her voice was noticeably steadier.

  The lion’s claws were about to reach the next person.

  “Very well, Emily.”

  The lion locked onto its target, once again ignoring the woman and Charon.

  “Do you remember… how you got here?”

  Charon wasn't saying this to pay homage to Christopher Nolan; he had reason to suspect that everyone on this field—

  “I… I don’t know,” the woman sobbed, her voice breaking.

  —were not real people.

  Another target was finished. Now, besides the woman and Charon, only three targets remained for the lion. Unsurprisingly, the lion showed no interest in the two people who seemed to be having a leisurely picnic.

  “Look around at the stands,” Charon pointed to the spectators. “What do they look like to you?”

  “Like drawings.”

  “What kind of drawings?”

  “Stick figures.”

  “Yeah, the spectators look like stick figures.” Charon had noticed this from the very start.

  “Miss Emily, do you like drawing?” Charon suddenly felt that asking a creature—who might not even be alive—this question was a bit pointless. Without waiting for her answer, he continued to himself.

  “I don’t like it much. At least, I certainly don’t like it now.”

  Another body was torn apart. Two left.

  “But when we were kids, how many of us didn't doodle a few lines in a notebook during a random afternoon?”

  As he said this, Charon turned to see Emily’s expression. Their eyes met. Though her eyes were red and swollen, her face was filled with pure astonishment.

  One left.

  “You won’t die. If the concept of 'death' even exists for you.”

  Charon’s gaze was like a blade tempered in fire, sharp enough to cut the air.

  Almost there. Just a little more. The lion’s fangs closed in on the last person’s neck. Charon scanned the entire field at high speed.

  Squelch.

  A severed artery. Blood sprayed out.

  It’s time! The stone pillar in the center of the arena began to loosen, rising slowly as if burdened by a thousand tons. This lasted only a few seconds before it stopped. At the center of the pillar, a sword was firmly embedded.

  The turning point had arrived. The opportunity was fleeting. Charon leapt up, closing the distance to the Sword in the Stone in a few strides. Simultaneously, the lion finished its slaughter and turned its gaze toward Charon.

  “So it’s finally my turn, huh? But…” Charon reached out, but the sensation that followed turned his face pale. No matter how much force he used, he couldn't pull the sword out.

  “Are you kidding me? There’s only one guy left and I still can't be the Hero?” Charon panicked. Beads of sweat rolled down as he muttered nonsense like ‘Heavenly spirits,’ or ‘Open Sesame.’

  “Watch out!” Emily suddenly screamed.

  Charon’s body jolted. He had underestimated the lion’s speed. In the moment he was struggling with the sword, the beast had already reached him.

  Before Charon’s eyes, the lion opened its deep crimson hell, ready to swallow him whole. Charon was too late to make any move.

  Finally, at a total dead end.

  Beneath the shadow, a faint smile twitched on Charon’s cheek.

  Boom! Shadows boiled beneath his feet, spreading like an abyss, as if the entire colosseum was about to be dragged into a lightless beyond.

  “ Ferryman—Phase One.” Charon’s voice was low and fervent.

  “Soul Shackles!”

  “Don't move!”

  Invisible power erupted like an iron chain across a river, halting the fierce beast in its tracks.

  One second passed.

  Charon gripped with both hands, kicked off with one leg, and the Sword in the Stone loosened with a clack.

  Two seconds passed.

  The longsword slid out of its sheath. He held it with both hands and thrust straight forward!

  Time's up!

  The crimson abyss met the longsword. The blade’s light dispelled all darkness and blood, and the lion’s body dissolved into ungraspable light, fading away.

  The sword clattered to the ground. An exhausted Charon slumped to the floor, propping himself up with one hand, gasping for air. Using this ability once made his legs weak; two or three times would probably leave him bleeding from every orifice.

  Amidst his heavy breathing, a slender hand appeared in his field of vision.

  Charon looked up, but there was nothing there.

  He stood up anxiously, his staggering steps tracing an irregular circle as he scanned the field, but there was no one else. Only specks of dust remained—Charon didn't even know if they were his imagination or reality.

  But Emily wasn't human to begin with, Charon thought. Just as he was about to walk away, he noticed a long, black object on the ground in front of him.

  “A fountain pen?” Charon shoved it into his pocket.

  In the next instant, the entire arena trembled. Energy gathered in the center into a blue vortex, a portal opening like a wormhole. Along with it came the crackle of static.

  “Testing, testing, mic check.” A bubbly female voice rang out. “Oh, it’s working. What? The volume is too low? Ah, let me turn it up then.”

  A weary Charon stood frozen in place.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Holy mother of... Charon covered his ears. “Who said the volume was low?!”

  The female voice was clearly stunned for a moment. “I mean, no one said it was low, so why are you saying that over there?”

  “When you say that…”

  “Could you turn the mic back down first?!”

  “Ah, sorry, sorry. Ahem! Congratulations on clearing this Ruin. Now, you just need to walk through this door to come out.”

  Setting aside the robotic, rehearsed tone of the latter half, and his hearing which was now ringing from the microphone blast, he had been mysteriously teleported to this Rift, followed by a mysterious radio broadcast, and they didn't even introduce themselves.

  “I know you have many questions, but you must be very tired. Helping you is our duty, so please do not be afraid. Our people are already at the exit. Please, trust us.” This wasn't the bubbly voice from before, but a cold, composed female voice.

  Charon thought for a few seconds. If they really wanted to hurt him, they wouldn't have broadcasted an announcement in advance. There were no other paths to take anyway; he would likely end up in the wormhole regardless.

  Charon nodded and walked toward the portal with long strides.

  In the next second, the screen went black.