They walked straight through the forest, taking a turn after reaching one of the tallest dead trees, and then continued forward.

Alen followed behind them, intentionally keeping a safe distance. As they walked, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity anymore and asked,

"Hey, you mentioned something about an ’Empire’ earlier. Does an empire even exist in a place like this?"

They both suddenly stopped at his question. They turned around and looked at him suspiciously.

"You don’t know about the Empire? Aren’t you from there?"

Bram asked.

Alen replied calmly,

"After coming to this place, somehow I forgot everything about my past. I barely even remember my own name."

Kira looked at him and sighed.

"Yeah, looking at your clueless face, it’s highly possible you lost your memories. In the ’Realm of Challenge’, anything is possible. Several bizarre phenomena keep happening here. Some people’s bodies suddenly start to melt. Some lose their senses, and some even go blind. It’s quite possible your memory was affected by the ’Law’ of the Realm."

"Well... before I tell you about the Empire, I need to explain this realm to you,"

she said, turning around and starting to walk again. Alen and Bram followed her.

"This is the ’Realm of Challenge’. Here, you constantly face several bizarre, unpredictable trials until you completely conquer them."

"Just as I mentioned, the trials are completely random. In order to get out of this place, you have to contribute—even slightly—to passing the trial. If you don’t contribute, you won’t be allowed to leave."

"To complete a trial, you have to find its central coordinate and destroy it," Kira explained, pushing past a thick, thorny bush.

"The coordinate can be many things: a physical object, magical runes, a specific monster, an undead, or many other things. And you should know that the coordinates can be singular or multiple. It’s entirely possible for a trial to have multiple coordinates."

Alen nodded silently, remembering how he had broken the illusion in the mansion by destroying the candles, which had acted as coordinates. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"If you pass the trial, the realm will grant you a reward."

"The reward depends heavily on how much you contributed. And along with the reward, you get to leave the Realm of Challenge and return to the real world."

"The ’Realm of Challenge’ is nothing more than the different stages of the ’Ascension Realm’. We are currently standing in the First Stage. There are a total of ten stages. Among them, seven have currently been explored by Awakeners. As for the remaining three stages, there is absolutely no information. Some say they don’t even exist; some say they house boss monsters capable of destroying the universe alone, so no one has ever been able to challenge them."

She straightened her posture as she kept walking.

"The Ascension Realm is a completely different dimension from the existing world. Only Awakeners can enter it."

Alen looked at her and asked,

"Then where is this ’real world’ you’re talking about?"

Kira didn’t look back at him. She kept walking and spoke in a solemn tone.

"If you really want to know, you can say that you are walking in the real world right now... It is just on another dimensional plane."

Alen looked at her, deeply confused. "Wait! Did you just tell me that the ’Ascension Realm’ is the flip side of the real world, and the only thing separating them is dimensional interconnectedness?"

She nodded.

’Smart kid. It took me several years at the academy to fully understand the dimensional concepts of this realm, and this little fellow seems to have grasped it in just a few minutes.’

’He is definitely not a normal kid.’ ’Judging by his handsome face and quick mind, he must be the heir of some prestigious noble family. He seems to have come here by mistake and lost his memory...’

"Poor boy... Sigh..."

Alen blinked.

"Did you say something?"

"Cough!... Cough! N-Nothing! Anyway, back to the topic. If you want to leave this place, you have to complete this trial with us."

Alen nodded. Another question quickly came to his mind.

"Is there only one trial in a stage?"

She shook her head.

"No, there can be multiple trials in each stage. If you complete a whole stage, you will be granted a ’Star’. This Star is completely separate from your base power ranking. The color of the Star is determined by your overall contribution rate."

"The colors of the Stars progress like this:

White→Yellow→Orange→Red→Black. The darker the color of the Star, the higher your contribution rate will be."

"The darker your Star, the more powerful you become. It gives you a massive power boost that functions completely independently of your normal rank. If someone with a Star fights you, and they have a lower base rank than you, you still have a very low chance of winning against them. Even if you have the advantage in base rank, the Star makes all the difference."

Kira paused to make sure he was following.

"We are currently completing a trial right now. This is our third trial. In the First Stage, there are a total of five trials. So, if we want to gain a Star, we have to pass this trial, along with the two remaining ones."

"As you reach higher stages, you have to fight stronger monsters and beings. The Realm of Challenge will give you harder missions. And the most bizarre thing is that the trials refresh every time someone passes them. They change into something else, something even more difficult. The realm actively modifies the trials to ensure the Awakeners lose."

"For most trials, the time limit for completion is completely random. Some give you years, some give you months, and some might only give you a few minutes. It entirely depends on the type of trial. For this specific trial, the time limit is three months. More than two months have already passed. If we aren’t able to complete it in time, we will be eliminated, and the World itself will kill us immediately."

Alen looked down at the ground in silence as he continued to walk.

"Then why do you even participate in the Ascension Realm?"

"Why not just live peacefully in the real world?"

She shook her head grimly.

"The Ascension Realm is not just a trial to achieve power; it is also a trap of endless misery."

"Just as I said earlier, only Awakeners can participate. But every single Awakener is compelled to participate. If you don’t, it means you are walking away from your actual ’Path’. And if that happens, your ’Path’ will shatter."

"If your Path shatters, it means you are breaking the very ’Law’ of the ’World’ that supported you. The World itself will try to kill you. You cannot escape the World’s wrath, even if you ascend to a higher rank."

"The real world is ruled by the Awakeners. Nearly 70% of the people in the real world are Awakened. If you aren’t one, you hold very little value in society."

Kira looked back at him over her shoulder.

"Since you somehow got here, that means you are also an Awakener. I thought you might be an academy student... If you survive this trial, I’ll contact the academy to check if your description matches anyone on their missing persons list."

"Let’s hurry now. Our teammates are waiting. It’s entirely thanks to our Mage, Maira, that she was able to sense your presence. If she hadn’t, it would have been nearly impossible for you to pass this trial alone."

Alen nodded and quickened his pace to walk with them.

As they traveled, Alen glanced up through the dead branches at the three crimson moons.

’The Ascension Realm is truly an unpredictable, terrifying mystery,’ Alen thought, his eyes narrowing with determination.

’I wish I could be the one to solve it.’