Sam opened his eyes to a world that shouldn’t exist.
The sky above was dark as night, yet somehow as bright as day, casting an eerie, shadowless glow over the horizon.
Beneath him, the ground was composed of thick, heavy layers of dark red sand.
He scooped up a handful, feeling a subtle, unnatural warmth radiate against his skin.
Moments ago, he had been sitting at his desk writing code.
Now, he was in some strange place.
He stood up to figure out where the hell he was, but what he saw made him instantly freeze.
A tall figure stood directly before him.
Standing nearly two metres tall, it possessed a slender, humanoid body capped with the chitinous, twitching head of a praying mantis.
It stared directly into his eyes, its mandibles clicking.
“GRAEK!”
The creature let out a grotesque screech and charged.
Sam instinctively lunged sideways.
He dodged the initial strike, but his sneakers slipped in the loose sand, sending him crashing hard onto his stomach.
He scrambled to turn his head.
The monster’s barbed, jagged face was now a mere few inches away from his own.
He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as he awaited his imminent death.
“Oh, dear! Well, we can’t have you fighting before the competition even begins, now can we?”
The crisp sound of snapping fingers echoed through the air.
When Sam opened his eyes, the creature had vanished into thin air.
He pushed himself onto his feet, his knees trembling so violently he almost collapsed right back into the dirt.
He brushed the red sand from his clothes, taking a shaky breath to steady his racing heart.
Competition?
He turned his head toward the voice, but his gaze caught movement in the distance instead.
Only then did he realize the mantis creature had been just one among many.
Figures stretched across the crimson landscape in every direction.
Some stood in tight, defensive groups, while others isolated themselves.
Some appeared humanlike, but many boasted monstrous features—horns, fangs, and massive claws.
Sam stood frozen, painfully aware of how ordinary and fragile he was.
He wasn’t just lost.
He had been dropped straight into the abyss.
“Greetings, contestants! You have all been blessed with the opportunity to participate in the most wondrous event ever to exist! The Arena Beyond Worlds!”
A blinding light erupted in the sky, forcing Sam to shield his face.
He rubbed his eyes as his vision slowly returned, revealing a figure hovering effortlessly above the crowd.
It looked like a living silhouette, completely devoid of any physical features except for a pair of piercing, glowing eyes.
A tense murmur spread through the crowd.
Some of the creatures backed away cautiously, while others stared in furious silence.
A few seemed completely unfazed, as though they had witnessed stranger things before.
“Contestants?” a voice called out from the crowd.
“What competition?!”
More voices followed, each demanding answers in a chaotic roar.
Then, a towering reptilian creature stepped forward, pointing a massive claw toward the sky.
“You!” it roared, its voice shaking the earth.
“What the hell are you? And where have you brought us?”
The murmuring instantly ceased.
All eyes turned toward the silhouette.
“Oh my, it seems I forgot to introduce myself! My apologies.” The figure took an earnest, theatrical bow.
“My name is Nexis, and I am the god responsible for this competition—an event held once every hundred years. You are all currently being kept in the waiting zone until the first round is ready to begin.”
The supposed god’s answer only left Sam with a sinking pit of dread.
“I don’t care if you’re a god! If this is your doing, send me back home this instant!” The reptilian creature didn’t back down, glaring up at the sky with unwavering fury.
Nexis tilted his head, his glowing eyes crinkling.
“No.”
A brief, suffocating silence followed.
Nexis raised one hand and casually snapped his fingers.
There was no grand flash of light, no magical circle.
The towering reptilian creature simply detonated from the inside out.
Shredded flesh, shattered scales, and dark blood blasted across the crimson sand.
Screams erupted immediately as the crowd scrambled away from the splatter zone.
Sam’s stomach lurched, and a violent surge of bile rose in his throat.
He immediately slapped a hand over his mouth, dropping to his knees as his body revolted.
A heavy copper stench of fresh blood filled the air, mixed with a sickening heat that rolled off the blast zone.
Despite the horror, he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing down the urge to vomit.
“Okay! Settle down! Settle down!” Nexis began clapping his hands rhythmically, as if he were trying to get the attention of rowdy school children.
“We have much to discuss, so I would highly appreciate it if you could all settle down.”
The glowing eyes in the silhouette softened into a warm, comforting expression—but everyone here now knew the truth.
Behind that polite facade lay a psychopathic entity that wouldn’t hesitate to erase any of them on a whim.
Willingly or not, the entire arena fell dead silent.
“Thank you, everyone! Now, let me go over how this competition works!” Nexis drifted slightly lower, gesturing grandly with his arms.
“You will all be participating in a variety of games. After completing a game, you will be awarded a certain number of points based on specific conditions. Once all the games have ended, the player with the most points wins, and all of you will be sent back home!”
Nexis tilted his head, his glowing eyes beaming down at the terrified crowd.
“Simple, right?”
This was absolute madness.
Sam did not want to be here, and the trembling of the warriors around him proved no one else did either.
“You were all randomly selected to represent your worlds! So do try not to embarrass yourselves,” Nexis added smoothly.
“More importantly, don’t embarrass the gods who manage them.”
Gods?
The implication that there were more entities like Nexis left Sam with a sickening thought.
If one psychopathic being could casually explode a monster with a snap of his fingers, what kind of terrifying entities ruled the rest of reality?
“Now now! I know some of you may be thinking why you should even bother trying to be number one, but trust me, it is well worth it!” Nexis leaned forward, his glowing eyes widening with dramatic flair.
“The winner will be granted a single wish of their desire.”
The word wish hung in the air, heavy and intoxicating.
The fear that gripped the crowd did not disappear, but now, it was accompanied by a dangerous wave of ambition.
Sam, however, didn’t care about the promised wish.
There could only be one winner among thousands of monsters, and it definitely would not be a powerless human.
All he wanted was to go back home.
Back to the quiet, boring life that had just been stolen from him.
“Now then!” Nexis’s voice boomed, shattering his train of thought as the god floated higher into the brilliant sky.
“Let us not keep the audience waiting any longer. Let the games begin!”
Once again, Nexis snapped his fingers.
Reality instantly distorted.
Colors bled violently into one another, and the sky stretched toward the ground like melting plastic.
The overwhelming vertigo made Sam want to throw up again.
Before he could black out, the spinning stopped, and he found himself dropped in a completely new location.
Dusty, ancient stone walls surrounded him.
Rough, cold stone had replaced the warm red sand beneath his feet, and the air felt noticeably cooler.
“Hello, contestants!” Nexis’s voice echoed directly inside his head.
“Welcome to your first game: The Labyrinth!”
“Your goal is to travel through the different floors of this multi-layered labyrinth and reach the bottom! On the final floor, you will find a button. The first person to press it will be crowned the winner of this game and end the round! But don’t worry, none of you will be punished for not placing first. You will simply earn fewer points!”
“You have all been transported to random sections throughout the labyrinth’s first floor, where many dangers lurk. Good luck to you all!”
When Nexis’s announcement ended, the psychic connection severed, leaving nothing but an oppressive silence.
Sam was entirely alone in a dark, unfamiliar maze filled with unknown dangers.
He let out a weak, breathless laugh.
He just sat there on the cold stone floor and laughed at how utterly absurd it all was.
Then, the laughter died.
He pulled his legs tight against his chest, burying his face into his knees as the crushing weight of reality finally broke him.
Only one thought roamed through his mind, looping in the dark.
I’m screwed.
Hello, everyone!
This is my first time ever publishing a story, so I hope you’re enjoying it!