One final, stubborn bead of sweat rolled down on Rob’s forehead, the last trace of any moisture in his body.

  He felt as if he'd turned into a dry desert. his skin was utterly dehydrated that if he slightly scraped his hand, it could spark a fire. They had been climbing for (God knows how many hours). In a world cursed with a glaring, never moving sun, there was no way to tell time.

  But one thing he did know: he was reaching his limit. Rob’s muscles would have long since lost their voice if their screams of pain were real. His joints, on the other hand, had started making literal sounds every time he bent or twisted them. And he was the fit one here. He couldn't imagine the agony the other poor boy was going through.

  Every time Rob thought the blind teenager had no more left to give, he would prove him wrong. Stubbornly lifting his hand, He’d take another painstaking step after step. Until, somehow, he was climbing again with a steady, almost respectable rhythm.

  This had been their routine ever since they foolishly decided to listen to that stupid system and climb an unclimbable, endless wall.

  As for the party girl, Stephany, the one who wanted to form a team. Who suggested to unite and help each other climb to fame and glory?

  Yeah. That one.

  She left after what Rob guessed was no more than an hour.

  The reason: They were too slow.

  Because while the blind boy had an incredible amount of resolve and a heart of steel, he was, understandably, slower than most. He was careful, having to find the grips first with his hands, instead of instinctively reaching for them by sight. And he had to do the same when he moved his legs. All of this, naturally, took time; time that the other fully sighted climbers would use to scale twice or thrice the distance.

  That wasn't good enough for Stephany. She had an obsessive insistence on the idea that this was some kind of race. And that the first to reach some unknown destination would earn some kind of achievement. And she didn't save any breath at all in explaining that to Rob. So with him playing the fool and her begging him to hurry up for some time, she finally relented and suggested directly they leave the blind boy behind to fend for himself.

  Rob refused.

  He didn't know why, but he felt a certain responsibility toward the boy. Maybe it was because he'd saved the guy from certain death. And in doing so, had dragged him into all of this. Otherwise, he would've been blissfully dead, spared from the suffering they were now enduring. Rob instinctively knew that logic was twisted. Still, he couldn't bring himself to abandon a helpless human just to take part in some imaginary race (one he wasn't even sure had a sliver of truth behind it).

  If the boy had chosen to give up on his own, that would've been another matter.

  But he didn't. He dutifully and painfully climbed after Rob without a single complaint, even when he occasionally lagged behind. Whenever Rob asked if he needed to rest, he would always murmur, "I can continue," and keep ascending.

  So they kept at it. Climbing and climbing and climbing, until their bodies forgot how to walk, and pain took up permanent residence in their nerves.

  In fact, Rob was amazed they hadn't fallen to their doom yet. They hadn't eaten a scrap of food or even wet their mouths with a little water. What in hell were their bodies running on?

  Strangely enough, Rob knew the answer to that question.

  "Energy."

  And as he whispered that wonderful, marvelous word, another terrible, marvelous entity read his intention and responded with the following information:

  [Access Energy: 95%–110%]

  Origin Energy: Mid-E

  Energy Technique: Incomplete – Stomach of Greed

  [Technique Description: You take more than you need. And you give less than you're owed.]

  [Note: This technique is yet to be completed. Acquire and choose your avatar Card to finalize your technique.]

  The first time Rob read that, he was pretty annoyed. That cursed thing had the nerve to call him greedy.

  Him? Greedy? …No. He was just a little more ambitious than the rest.

  Despite everything, he couldn't help but marvel once again at this unscientific form of energy. As he understood it, it fueled the body the way electricity fueled machines back home. better yet, it could clearly be harnessed to perform magical and unbelievable feats. That alone convinced him that the concept of energy he once knew and this one were not even remotely the same.

  Still, one thing gave him the slightest sliver of doubt: a memory. A scientific article he had read, discussing a new phenomenon called energy dilution. It claimed that there had been a noticeable decline in global energy levels in recent years, and if the trend continued at its current alarming rate, the world would reach a critical threshold within just a few years. This article was famous enough back then that Rob, a young footballer who knew nothing about science more than the average Joe, had come across it.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  So that made him wonder, wasn't there a similarity here? Because from what knowledge he'd received, this world apparently had some sort of energy levels, with energy rank E the lowest and energy rank A the highest.

  Rob shook his head. It wasn't worth the headache. Even if a similarity existed between the two types of energy, it wouldn't be significant enough to offer any kind of assistance.

  So he continued reading, for there was still another, more troubling part.

  Current Mission: The First Acquisition

  Once emerged a king unlike any the world had ever known. They conquered. They travelled the limitless emptiness in an unending quest for answers and secrets. They waged a godly war to subjugate the unyielding cosmos. Until one age, the word king became too small to contain one so vast, so terrible, so grand. Thus, the world birthed a new name for them: Unarch.

  Yet even then, they were not fulfilled. Their fire had never waned. Their thirst had not been quenched. For there remained one secret beyond their grasp; a truth the universe denied them.

  They wanted the source of infinite energy.

  So here they came. To the one who guards existence, to the Wall that was and was yet to be. They came to the end, and the end they shall bring.

  Mission Requirement: As the First Unarch once did, seek the source of your energy. Acquire, merge, or assimilate one of the Creatures born of the Great Guardian to create your avatar.

  That was colorful… to say the least.

  Rob wanted to believe what he'd read was just a myth, a story of legend and fiction.

  Yet he couldn't.

  The knowledge inside him left no room for doubt or self-deception. His mind had fully accepted that every word, every letter, meant exactly what they conveyed. And that certainty, ironically, was the very source of his hesitation. He knew what to do. He understood what the system expected of him.

  But should he obey, knowing the system had clearly done something to his mind? That card he had willingly consumed… it had changed him. It made him accept every otherworldly statement he received with an unreasonable sense of familiarity and as an absolute truth.

  On the other hand, he wasn't foolish enough to deny the obvious effects the energy had on his body.

  Rob constantly felt like he was at the very edge of his endurance. Yet, somehow he’d never crossed that final line where his body should begin to shut down. It was like the feeling during the last grueling minutes of an intense match. he'd push himself through the final stretch, knowing he'd have a bed of grass to collapse onto soon enough.

  Except that this place had no grass. It suspended him in those final few minutes, stretching them into eternity. And Rob suspected it was due to "the energy" the system had mentioned many times.

  So if he needed to survive until they found a civilized place with food and water, energy was their only salvation. And finding a sustainable source of it didn't seem like such a bad idea.

  But Rob couldn't go on like this. No human could. Even if his body didn't give out, his mind would. The constant pain and unrelenting misery—it was pure torment. And he knew that at some point, even if his body didn't fail him, even if his limbs kept working, he would willingly let go.

  For it would feel like it was all pointless. He couldn't lie to himself, couldn't pretend it would be over soon. He didn't know where or when or even if there was ever an end to this cursed ascension.

  So they kept climbing, out of nothing but the lack of an alternative. It was either another option presented itself, or they decided to find out what it felt like to fall from an otherworldly wall.

  Thankfully, they didn't have to resort to the second option, because after an arduous stretch of climbing, Rob finally glimpsed a break in the boundless, uninterrupted white. It was a squarish frame of blue, like a window set into the wall.

  Soundly guiding his sightless companion, they made their way toward it, with just the hope for any change driving them forward.

  ***

  His name was Moat.

  A name no one bothered to ask about. Not the excitable Stephany with the childlike voice, nor Rob, the one to whom Moat seemingly owed his life. They never asked, and he wasn't sad. Not really. He was used to that sort of thing.

  What he wasn't accustomed to was getting lost in other worlds. Sure, maybe in the university halls, certainly in a crowded street. Hell, he'd once gotten lost in his own room. But this… this was madness.

  It was maddening.

  One moment, he was searching for his classroom door, and the next, he was here—surrounded by shifting walls with no apparent exit. He waved his cane around in a vain attempt to find a way out. Nothing.

  Then came panic. The walls wouldn't stop moving, and he had no idea how to escape. He called out for help. Then he screamed. And finally, he accepted this inevitable, unenviable, wretched way of death.

  Yet his legs didn't give in. They carried him from one side of the trap to another like a mindless, caged animal.

  And then, he saw the light. Um… maybe heard it. A voice from above aggressively called for him to climb. He didn't care about the insults nor the belittling tone. At that moment, he just wanted to live, and the caller had unknowingly given him the path.

  After that, a lot of crazy things happened. Stuff started to appear in his head out of nowhere. In addition, they were supposedly on a massive wall that everyone had been gawking at in disbelief.

  But none of that… none of it—was scarier than that horrible sound.

  It was a wail from death itself. a haunted cry that came straight from the mouth of hell. Moat wasn't sure what it was—and he didn't want to know. Yet he couldn't help but think of it as a cry. Or, more precisely, an echo of one. By the time it reached them, it had no shape. It was just the ghost of something ancient and terrible.

  How did he know all that?

  He just did.

  And how he wished he hadn't. Rob had been too dismissive of it. he just brushed it off as just another fucked-up thing the damned wall threw at them. Then he grumbled about his swelling forehead and moved on.

  But Moat couldn't forget. Every time he remembered how it felt, a chill ran through his soul. It had been a harrowing experience, a feeling like being on the edge of a gate filled with countless nightmares.

  That's why, despite the bone-deep tiredness, he couldn't sleep.

  So instead, Moat decided to check out the messages that had suddenly appeared in his head.

  He tried to recall the feeling he had when he first received those cards, fully expecting it would take him a while to succeed. But to his surprise, as soon as he thought about just the concept of cards, they floated into his Ener-mind with ease.

  He didn't see them as flashy, colorful drawings. Nor did he hear some internal voice reading their content. They were just there in his mind, three of them. they serenely floated like unfinished thoughts or unclear memories. The only thing he got from them was their names.

  [Tongue of the Wall]

  [Knowledge of the Wall]

  [10E]

  At first, he didn't know what to do with them. He was supposed to use them somehow.

  So he tried 'activate' in his mind.

  Nothing.

  'Summon' and 'use' didn't make any difference either.

  He even said them out loud, cringing as he did so.

  Also nothing.

  Stopping to think about it a little, he recalled what the system had named them. It called them "consumable cards."

  So he tried 'consume' and…

  It was a failure.

  Well, not truly. This time he got a response. Moat felt like what he said was right—he just needed something more.

  'Consume Knowledge of the Wall.'

  Success.

  Immediately after, a flash-like bang exploded in Moat's skull, and a brutal migraine rattled his brain cell by cell.

  And then, he was no longer himself.