I Awakened as an SSS-Rank System Maker!-Chapter 46 - The Space Trials

Chapter 46 - The Space Trials

Darkness.

Moments later.

The world that opened before Lucas wasn’t made for humans.

It was a realm assembled from chaos, a place beyond time, space, and logic. The sky was neither day nor night but gradually shifted from deep violet to crimson red, as if a wounded sky was struggling to heal. Floating islands drifted aimlessly above jagged mountains. Rivers flowed upward. Trees twisted in on themselves. Gravity fluctuated...

Lucas had no time to react before he was hurled onto the cracked black earth.

He hit the ground hard, coughing, his vision blurred.

"What... the hell is this?" he muttered, trying to get up.

Then a voice echoed from the void calm, emotionless, yet terrifying:

[Welcome to the Space Trials.]

[Current Trial: Phase One – Survival.]

[Objective: Kill or be killed.]

Then the world moved.

From the shadows, white creatures oozed into view, insectoid in structure, with long twitching limbs...

They came without warning. Without hesitation.

Lucas drew his sword, but his grip was weak. His body still ached from the suffocating aura of the palace. The first monster leaped, and Lucas barely dodged, leaning down, surviving only by instinct.

He swung his sword. Blue blood splattered.

+20 EXP

But another beast bit into his shoulder before he could react.

He screamed, collapsing to the ground, rolling, kicking the creature away in raw desperation. Three more came. He fought. He bled. He killed. Again and again. Until his arms went numb, his sword trembling in his hands.

By the time the beasts lay dead around him, Lucas collapsed beside a shattered rock, gasping.

[Level Up: Level 4 reached.]

The system’s chime meant nothing. The pain in his body drowned out everything else.

"I... I won’t survive this, will I?" he whispered.

Days 2 – 7

Each morning if it could be called that began with terror.

The weather shifted unpredictably. Some days, acid rain poured from non-existent clouds. Other times, the earth turned to molten sand for one hour at a time. But nothing was more dangerous than the evolving monsters.

They grew fast.

Some could fly. Others attacked from underground. Lucas learned to run before he saw them, learned to sleep with one eye open and his sword resting across his chest.

On the fourth day, a jaguar-sized beast with molten skin attacked him while he drank from a river. Its claws tore into his leg in a heartbeat.

He barely escaped, dragging himself into a crevice in the rocks, blood staining the black soil behind him.

For hours, he lay there, shaking.

"Why is my body this weak?" he muttered. "Why... can’t I be like Siman?"

But he refused to give up.

He screamed as he forced his broken leg bone back into place. He cried as he cauterized the wound with a glowing stone. But he didn’t die.

By the end of the week, he stood taller. His strikes were cleaner. His movements sharper. He reached level 11, but didn’t celebrate.

Week 2: Days 8 – 14

The monsters stopped being physical.

They became mental.

On the ninth day, Lucas woke up to find three perfect copies of himself standing in a circle around him. They looked exactly like him but their eyes... their eyes were empty.

One stepped forward. "You’re no hero. You’re just a shell."

Another added, "You should’ve stayed dead. Like before."

The third whispered, "Siman will forget you. André. Darlin. All of them."

Lucas clenched his teeth.

"Shut up..."

He attacked them. Fought the clones. Every strike made his doubts scream louder. He was bleeding not from their swords, but from his mind tearing apart.

Then he snapped.

He charged at them, fueled by rage, driving his sword into one of the copies. It vanished in a puff of smoke.

The others followed. All gone.

Lucas dropped to his knees. He didn’t move. Just sat there, face blank, tears sliding silently down his cheeks.

He hated this place. Hated how it made him feel helpless, broken.

But he stood.

Because if he didn’t, he’d die here.

[Level Up: Level 14 reached]

[Level Up: Level 15 reached]

[New Skill Unlocked: Mental Fortitude Lv.1]

The next day, he fought a two-headed monster that screamed with every mouth. He won by luring it to a cliff edge.

The day after that, he learned to disable a flying snake by striking its wings mid-air.

And by day fourteen... he faced something the size of a small mountain.

It had a single enormous eye, no mouth, and its body was made of what looked like molten steel. It didn’t attack physically. It only stared and Lucas felt his body shake, his mind begin to unravel.

Visions of failure. Of death. Of being forgotten.

But Lucas breathed. Focused.

Step by step, he moved through the pain. Reached the creature’s base. Drove his sword into what looked like a pulse.

The creature let out a deafening shriek—then exploded into light.

[Level Up: Level 16 reached]

[Level Up: Level 17 reached]

[Title Unlocked: The Endurer]

Lucas fell to his knee, sword still embedded in the ground.

He was breathing hard. But this time, he didn’t cry. He didn’t collapse.

He stood.

And for the first time in fourteen days, he smiled—not because he was happy.

But because he was still alive.

-*-

-*-

-*-

Week Three: Breakdown of the Self

On day sixteen, the world’s laws twisted once more. Gravity became a living force pulling him right, then up, then down. The ground beneath his feet slanted into sudden cliffs. The wind was no longer a whisper; it howled like a furious beast.

Lucas fell off a thirty-meter ledge.

The moment his body hit the ground, a chilling sound rang out:

Crack.

It echoed through the empty space.

He stifled a scream, eyes hazy. His right arm dangled, disfigured, useless.

But he didn’t stop moving.

He tore a strip from his robe with his teeth, relying on pain, and wrapped his broken arm. Every breath felt like swallowing glass. But he stood. He had to.

"If I fall now... I’ll never get out of here."

That thought carved itself into his bones.

He stopped relying on strength he didn’t have enough of it. So he turned to the battlefield itself.

On day 20, he lured a massive iron-clawed beast into a narrow ravine, then triggered a rockslide. It took four hours to bait it, trap it, and bury it beneath razor-sharp stones. When the final tremor settled, and the creature was still, he didn’t feel victorious just relieved.

By day 21, he reached level 24.

His swordsmanship improved. His instincts sharpened. He wasn’t strong yet—but he was no longer the fragile boy who entered the trials three weeks ago.

Week Four: The Final Trial

Day 26 arrived.

A blinding light swallowed Lucas, dragging him into a space unlike anything he’d seen.

No sky. No horizon. Just a vast enclosed arena floating in the void.

There were no system prompts. No instructions. Just one presence:

A creature.

But not a mindless beast. This one stood upright, encased in obsidian-like scales, wielding a greatsword larger than Lucas’s entire body. Its yellow eyes glowed with intelligence—

Cold intelligence.

[Name: Erzath, Duel Sentinel] 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

[Rank: A]

Lucas’s heart pounded.

He didn’t run.

The battle began in silence. No countdown. No roar. Just motion.

Erzath struck first. A flash of metal and muscle.

Lucas barely dodged the air from the swing nearly knocked him down. There was no time to think. Only to react.

Block. Counter. Roll. Breathe.

Every clash made his bones scream. Every strike he landed drained his strength. On the second day, three ribs broke, and his left knee buckled under pressure. He vomited blood, wiped it from his lips, and kept fighting.

No breaks. No healing. No mercy.

But each time he fell he got up again.

Wounded. Broken. But alive.

He learned Erzath’s moves. Adapted. Began to predict.

Until, in the final hour of the final day

He saw it.

A narrow opening after a wide swing.

He feinted left. Rolled right. Then poured everything—rage, pain, hatred, despair—into one last strike.

His sword screamed through the air.

Metal met flesh.

And the blade plunged into the beast’s chest, piercing its heart.

For a moment... silence.

Then Erzath staggered. His body dissolved into black particles of light.

Lucas fell.

He didn’t feel victory. Not even relief.

Just emptiness.

Day 28

He awoke to the system’s voice, whispering in his skull:

[Congratulations. You have reached Level 30.]

[Rank Up: From C-Rank to B-Rank]

[Title Earned: Trial Survivor]

[Stat Growth Unlocked: Adaptive Evolution]

[Passive Ability Gained: Iron Will]

Lucas stared at the sky or whatever passed for a sky in this strange world.

"...I did it," he whispered.

He took a shaky breath.

Then smiled a small, exhausted, genuine smile.

It was his first smile since the trials began.

He tried to sit up, but groaned at the pain flooding his body.

Every scar, every bruise, every broken piece of him screamed but he was

alive.

Stronger than ever.

He whispered again, more to himself than anyone else:

"I survived."

—