The night passed

I looked at my phone to see what time it was it was all distorted, the time was flickering from 1 A.M to 12 P.M, it looks like using a clock would be absolutely useless here.

Thank god I always keep a mental note on how long I usually sleep, we went to sleep at around 1:00 A.M yesterday. Seeing as though my body is still sluggish, I'm guessing we got around 5-6 hours of sleep, it's most likely to be 6-8 A.M.

I peered outside and saw the same scenario, nothing changed... Does time move slower here, or does the scene never change?

I'll truly know if it's a new day if I'm able to get into my book.

I sat next to Alice and held one of the books, this time of the 3 books in my bag, a blue-skinned cover, with what feels like mana flowing out of it, was calling to me.

I wasn't too afraid of using my books in front of Alice for 2 reasons, the first being that it looks like I'm just sleeping with a blank book in my hands, the second reason is that... It's Alice, I don't really mind letting her see me training.

The book was really heavy, it felt extremely dense, almost as if I was in the presence of a supreme being. I opened the book, and a gust of mana gushed at my face.

Before I knew it, I was in a familiar world... Light blue skies, green grass with little hills, flowers dotted all over the place.

It felt like I was in a calming plain...

But then all of a sudden, a menacing aura could be felt from behind me. I took a deep breath and did a quick 180.

There was just a huge tree which was never there... The was ridiculously imposing on my body, I almost didn't want to move forward, but from what I know, if I want to finish this book, I'll have to do something with that tree.

As I took one step forward, it felt like the gravity became denser. I grasped what I needed to do: I needed to reach the tree and overcome this gravity.

Every 100th step, the gravity would double in its density. I guesstimated, I would need around 2400 more steps before I could reach the tree...

This was the first time I actually felt as though I may not be able to finish a book.

A good chunk of time passed and I only made it halfway, at the 1300th step the gravity didn't double its self by 2 times, this time it went up by 3.

The pain was unimaginable, it felt as if my bones would break at any given moment. I had to wait and proceed, wait and proceed. This cycle took up so much time. I was finally around 100 steps away from the tree.

If you looked at my legs, they were bruised up, wobbly, but built.

I don't know if it was worth it going through all this pain, just to have some monstrous legs...

Whatever... I took one more step, that step was the most ridiculous yet, I instantly came to my knees. The gravity was shot up by almost 12 times, it was at a constant 3 times per 100 steps, but now a sudden jump to 12 times, was just too much...

I made one step, but then I had to rest for almost 2-3 days straight just to get somewhat accustomed to the weight difference.

These last one hundred steps alone took 6 months to complete. the whole trial took 2 and a half years... I think I overstayed my vacation.

As I made my way to the tree, my stomach started feeling a bit funny...

It felt as my stomach was turning inside out, all of a sudden, a large amount of mana was flowing around the tree and being thrown at me.

I sat criss-cross and started opening all the meridians in my body, the energy in which flowed around the tree violently made its way into my system.

This feeling was like no other, I had a sense of fulfillment, while also feeling very refreshed.

My body also felt energized, like every little motion I did was backed by extremely pure energy.

For nearly 4 months, I was sat there just absorbing the energy... I would've stayed there longer, but I was randomly thrown out and back at the cave again.

As I looked around I found Alice sitting on a rock, gazing at the skyline.

"You alright?" I asked.

"Huh? Oh Stephen you're awake, yeah, I'm doing great... You truly are a heavy sleeper you know... What's with the book? It was completely blank." Alice replied.

Looks like I stayed there for 3 to 4 hours... That time difference, what is it like 1 hour is 1 year? That is actually brutal, this probably is the biggest time ratio among the books.

That means I'm like 23 years old spiritually... Can I drink alcohol now?

"Oh it's nothing, I got this book from my mom, it helps me sleep," I said.

"Well, that's enough resting, why don't we head out and actually train?" I asked Alice.

"Thought you'd never ask." She replied.

I got up and nearly hit my head on the roof of the ceiling, mind you the ceiling is like 3 feet from my head standing height.

I previously thought the gravity would keep me down, but due to training in the world of that book, this 8 times gravity was nothing, It felt as though I could break the sound barrier from just running alone...

Just to remind you, every 100 steps the gravity folded by 2 times, this meant it went from 1X the earth's gravity to 2X to 4X to 8X to 16X and so forth. Then at the halfway, it folded by 3! I was walking at absurd gravity levels.

This meager 8 times was nothing... I couldn't feel the difference from earth's regular gravity...

It looks as though that book may also be the most useful.

We took our time walking and resting, the main reason we rested was due to the gravity being a bit harsh on Alice.

We mindlessly wandered the forest finding low to medium strength creatures, nothing too overbearing. That was until we somehow made our way to one of the two big arks in the area.

There were hundreds of bodies on the ground, almost all being challengers of rank A and above. This seemed justified as I felt a daunting aura in the center of the Ark, it wasn't as bad as Daruma or the big tree, but it was significant.

I was hoping for my body to give signals such as, "Leave it's dangerous," or "Steer away from the middle," instead I was greeted with, "Go to the middle," and "The god's weapon is nigh,".

Now "The god's weapon is nigh" did sound cool and all, but so did living... I tried to walk away, but my body once again wasn't listening to my controls... someone took the steering wheel again.

"Alice, stay close to me, don't wander off," I exclaimed.

She nodded her head...

Alice looked a bit frightened, and that was justified, I'm guessing she never felt something with this much killing intent.

As we got closer and closer, the killing intent became much denser, and then something spoke:

"LEAVE" this was said extremely loud throughout my head, but it was in Ethereal... I didn't learn this word, how could I transcribe it?

"Alice, did you hear that as well?" I asked.

"Hear what? It's completely silent here..." She replied.

I was the only one who heard that formidable voice? Why?

we got closer and closer to the center of the Ark, and the words became ridiculously louder and louder...

"LEAVE, OR PERISH," "WEAK," "WALK AWAY OR DIE,"

These were again all said in the Ethereal tongue, words in which I didn't learn...

The pain was ringing throughout my head, I wanted to leave, but my body just kept moving forward, until I came to a complete halt.

"DIE," was just the only thing now present in my head...

The killing intent became so dense that it was more frightening than when I first met Daruma.

Red smoke with the hint of blood circled the area.

Alice was on the brink of collapsing...

I looked back at the Ark... Then suddenly a black haze went through me I felt the pain slowly building in my stomach, I looked and there was a gaping hole in my chest.

It was so fast that I didn't even have time to react... I fell to the ground, with almost no energy left, I thought it was already time for me to give up being a challenger.

I heard Alice sobbing, but it was all mumbled, my hearing was slowly going away, everything was slowly turning black.

Images were flowing through my head, my family: Mom and Shella, Alice, the principal... and a man decorated with some type of armor, lined with this blue energy... He was standing in front of a huge tree burning down...

He looked back at me and said something, it echoed through my head, it was almost imprinted into my soul...

"The Reaper shall now awaken."

I was plucked from the dream and was back in the attic of my house...

Daruma was standing behind me...

"I didn't think I would see you so soon young challenger." said daruma.

"To think the god's ark was already on the planet... I'm sorry young one, you had no chance in front of the being that almost killed you." Said Daruma

"Almost?" I repeated.

"Yes, right before you were about to die, I dragged you into the soul realm, you are still too young to understand... I'll take over your body for 1 minute and 25 seconds, as this is how long your body can handle my soul, I'll clean up the mess you are in, then I as an entity will vanish forever." Daruma happily said.

"Wait what do you mean--" I tried to say, but I was once again plucked out.

I opened my eyes and was floating in the air, there was a massive amount of black smoke circling me, the hole in my chest was no longer there, yet the pain was.

I saw Alice knocked out on the ground... I couldn't do anything.

The thing that killed me was standing in front of me...

"WHO ARE YOU?" The being said in Ethereal tongue.

In a fraction of a second, my body was battling against the being. It definitely was stronger than almost everything that I knew.

It was too one-sided, the mysterious being was just getting pushed back, in under 40 seconds the entity was on the verge of losing, I tried my best to grasp this fighting style, but it was so advanced I could only gather a bit of it.

The entity was on the ground... I suddenly put my hands up and one enormous sword came falling from the sky and impaled the being.

A large amount of dark energy flushed throughout the forest.

My body picked up Alice and made its way towards the center of the Ark...

There were no bodies here, it seems that no one has ever come this far.

I started climbing the platforms and let Alice down, she was still unconscious.

There was a scythe in the center of the whole infrastructure, it was lodged into the ground. Every step closer made me even more restless, almost as if I wanted to kill everything in my path.

My hands were placed on the scythe's rod and I rooted it from the ground, in doing so, a roar ejected from the ground...

As I looked up I saw a huge black dragon in the sky, it had red underlinings just like the scythe.

It shot a beam towards me, the pain... it was terrible... it was worse than having a hole a giant hole through my chest, I nearly fainted from the pain alone.

When it stopped I once again had full control over my body, but there was a tattoo on my arm, a dragon coiling all around to my shoulders... after a couple of seconds it disappeared.

"Goodbye, Reaper." Said a voice in my head...

Was that Daruma saying his last goodbye...?

I felt a little empty inside... like a major part of my life disappeared... This all wouldn't have happened if I never met Daruma...

Without a moment of rest, a huge gate-like thing opened at the center of the Ark, it was sucking everything in...

I ran towards Alice and picked her up, I tried to run away, but the force was too strong, we were pulled into the gate.

When I woke up Alice was next to me, but we were surrounded by... Dwarves?