Alen continued to walk through the forest, pushing his way through the dense bushes and the heavy canopy of the trees.

The forest was dead silent; only the crunch of his footsteps echoed through the area. The trees were entirely dead, and there was absolutely no hint of life, as if the entire life energy of the forest had been sucked away by some disaster.

The disgusting smell of acid and rotting moss followed him everywhere he went. He kept up his pace.

*SCREECH!*

Suddenly, the loud, horrific scream of an undead monster echoed through the area.

From the top of a nearby tree, a monster with pitch-black skin jumped down to the ground. It stood on all four legs, its mouth drooling thick purple acid. Its face was so hideous that any sane person would have vomited at the sight of it. Its eyes were completely hollow.

"What? Another undead? This is probably the tenth undead I have faced since leaving the fountain. It doesn’t seem like they are going to end anytime soon."

"Let’s not waste my time, monster!"

Alen raised his fist. Seeing that its prey was preparing to attack, the undead monster quickly lunged at him with incredible speed.

[Nexus Elemental Art: Maximum Concentration - Overload Fist!]

Alen calmly waited for the monster to get closer. Just as the beast jumped right in front of him, mere inches away from his face, he launched his fist.

Pure mana emitted from his hand, concentrating densely around his knuckles. The sheer pressure created by gathering such a massive amount of mana cut through the air and landed straight on the monster’s face.

BOOOOOM!

The monster’s body flew backward as the fist squarely connected. Its entire face was blown off instantly. The headless body flew through the air, breaking through several branches before slamming hard against a tall tree bark. It slumped to the ground, completely lifeless.

Alen sighed as he stared at the dead monster. He actually felt a bit disappointed.

"Sigh... I should have played with him more. It was a waste to kill him instantly. Now the forest is filled with silence again."

"I hate silence. Who the hell summoned me to this world? Well... whoever it was, they should have at least summoned me to a ’peaceful’ and ’happy’ world, not a ’dead’ world with zero existence of life."

"Maybe I really did go to hell. That’s possible... But even if it isn’t hell, I am stuck here anyway. I can’t do anything except survive this place."

"Let’s hope I find a safe zone in this forest soon."

Alen paused.

"Wait... Did I just start talking to myself? Damn! I need to find some living being in this place, or I am going to lose my sanity."

He looked up at the sky. It was still covered with dark, heavy clouds. But as he focused, a gap in the clouds revealed the night sky above. There were three crimson moons. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

’Why the hell are there three moons? It feels weird.’

’No... What am I even thinking? This whole world is weird. Anything is possible here.’

’I have to complete this trial as soon as possible, or more danger will come my way.’

’Alas... My life is truly tragic. First, I was jobless, then I got into a conflict with street thugs and got killed, and now I’m stuck in this weird place. Damn my luck!’

He continued to walk endlessly through the vast forest.

As he walked, Alen felt a prickly sensation on the back of his neck, a distinct feeling that he was being followed by someone. He ignored it for the moment and kept walking, expecting it to just be his own paranoia playing tricks on him.

Days passed...

Alen continued to walk, but he felt like he was going nowhere. The trek was endless, and he could find no conclusion to his path. He felt as if he were walking through an endless void.

The dense shadows of the dead trees were a constant reminder that even though he was walking in a straight line, the forest had no end.

"F*ck! When is it going to end? Am I stuck in some cursed place again?"

"It doesn’t seem like an illusion. If it were a simple illusion, I would have looped back to the exact same place. But no, I am walking straight, and the changing density of the trees proves I’m covering new ground."

"It seems like the very space itself has broken its coordinates, leading me to walk endlessly."

"There is no way to escape..."

...

Space.

Space was an ’Order’ that could break the very ’laws’ of the ’World’.

Space was not always endless.

In the beginning, there were only two things that gave it meaning—two invisible coordinates that held everything together.

The first was the ’Origin’, the point where all things begin.

The second was the ’Endmark’, the point where all things must arrive.

These two were not physical places you could touch or see. They were rules. Silent laws woven into existence itself. Every star, every world, and every drifting particle moved because of them.

The ’Origin’ gave direction.

The ’Endmark’ gave purpose.

Without a beginning, nothing could start. Without an end, nothing could be completed.

Space existed between these two concepts, stretched out like an endless road. Everything that lived or moved within it was simply traveling—whether they knew it or not.

But space was fragile in its own strange way.

If even one of these coordinates were to be disturbed... if the Origin shifted, or the Endmark faded... then space would lose its meaning. Movement would still exist, but it would lead nowhere. Time would still flow, but it would never reach anything.

It would become a cycle. An endless repetition with no true progress. It was like running a race where the finish line no longer exists. No matter how fast you go, no matter how long you run, you will never win... because there is nothing left to reach.

In that state, space would begin to collapse into something far worse than emptiness.

A Void of Endless Cycle.

It was a trap with no possibility of rescue, because no one can escape the Void.

The world would spin without stopping. Everything would exist... but nothing would matter.

Because meaning in space was never about distance or size.

It was about having a beginning... and an end.

Space doesn’t exist within the world; the world exists within space.

There were only two ways a person could escape this trap.

The first was to forcibly breakthrough Space itself. However, this required the ’will’ of the World.

The World does not give anyone the authority to break through space lightly, because it could disturb the ’order’ of ’space’ to a massive extent. If that happened, the ’laws’ of the ’World’ would collapse, and the entire world would be erased from existence, as if it had never been there at all.

The second method to escape was to find the specific ’existence’ that caused the disturbance in the coordinates to begin with.

But finding such an ’existence’ in a vast forest that seemingly had no end was near impossible.

And Alen seemed to be stuck in this exact situation. If he couldn’t find a way to escape, he would be trapped in this forest forever.

...

"How the hell am I going to escape this place? Damn it! It seems I’m stuck here forever!"

Alen clenched his fists.

"No. I can’t lose hope. Even if there is only a 0.1% chance of getting out of here, I will never back down."

Alen straightened his back with renewed confidence. He couldn’t lose here. He would try his absolute best to carve his own way to the exit.

He looked deeply into the veil of darkness covering the endless forest, and stepped forward, passing straight into the shadows.