Skyler could feel his death approaching.
And he didn’t resist it.
Although his appearance hadn’t changed much due to the Divine Elements, his body’s lifespan had long since reached its limit.
Yet, just as he was about to accept death and disappear like others, he had a dream.
A very, very beautiful dream.
In that dream, he wasn’t alone.
Someone stood beside him.
An innocent, beautiful white creature with crimson eyes followed him as though he were its salvation and never left his side.
Skyler’s lips curled into a smile as he watched the dream unfold in his mind.
He knew from the beginning that it was only a dream. That it wasn’t really real.
But he didn’t wake up. He didn’t break it. Instead, he quietly watched until the end.
The Skyler within the dream seemed to have forgotten a lot of things, living an entirely new life as though he had never experienced those countless failures.
Yet, he didn’t care. For some reason, he simply wanted to keep watching that tiny creature. But his smile stiffened when the small creature transformed into a woman.
He wanted to look away.
However, although the him within the dream also looked away at that moment, he still took a few shameless peeks. But instead of getting angry, the woman’s red eyes only looked at him with affection.
That gaze made Skyler’s heart tremble.
He unconsciously clenched his fists.
And then, the dream shattered.
Skyler reached out into the empty air.
"Wait..."
And then, he froze.
His life was slowly slipping away.
He knew this could be nothing more than another trick created by the trial... yet, for some reason, he really wanted to see the end of that dream. So, he gritted his teeth, forcing his body to stand once again. And then, he used the Wheel of Time again, just so he could watch the end of that dream.
However, to his frustration, after reversing time, no matter what he tried, he couldn’t find a way to experience that dream again.
Even when he tried to recreate it within his own mind, the memory would always stop at the moment those eyes looked at him.
That gaze.
That single moment.
In his anger, he went on a rampage in the Battle Royale, destroying a large part of it while cursing the trial’s heartlessness.
But after venting his emotions, as he went to wash his face, he paused when he saw the will to live in his eyes that had returned.
Skyler slumped down and let out a chuckle.
"Was this your intention... to make me continue? If yes, then I have to admit... it was truly terrifying because it worked."
Dusting off his hands, he left.
Instead of looking for that creature in his dreams, Skyler made a different decision.
He would make her real.
It didn’t matter if she had been created solely to make him continue, no different from the fake people within the trial. Using the Divine Elements, Skyler began trying to bring her into existence within the trial.
After all, the trial was indistinguishable from the reality he knew. Yet, it was still nothing more than an illusion. It had first recreated reality so perfectly, then began altering it whenever it pleased. If it could twist reality at will, then surely it wouldn’t mind if Skyler distorted it a little as well.
Even then, his stubbornness remained unchanged. Skyler still refused to search for the Mythic Spirit Pool. At that time, he also started looking for a method to alter his body’s original fate within the trial.
That’s how, in that life, he found a new purpose. If the trial refused to let him go...
Then he would make this illusion his own.
Rather than losing himself in an endless cycle of failure, he would shape the trial into the life he truly wanted and enjoy it.
After all, illusions could be rewritten.
Years passed.
However, although Skyler succeeded in slightly changing the fate he had in the original world within the trial, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t bring that white creature into existence within it.
Eventually, even his thirty-fourth life came to an end.
But he didn’t lose hope.
He decided to try again in the next life. More importantly, because he had finally succeeded in changing his body’s original fate within the trial, even if only slightly, he found himself looking forward to what awaited him next.
However, just as Skyler arrived before the Wheel of Time and reached out to activate it once more, the familiar message screen the 100th-level trial used to communicate with everyone appeared before his eyes.
The words displayed upon it sent a chill down his spine.
(You have meddled with the rules.
Even within the trial, altering the original fate of your body that was never meant to hold power carries consequences. If you activate the Wheel of Time without first undoing the changes you have made...
River of Possibilities will collapse.
And you will forget everything you have experienced thus far.)
Skyler’s hand, which had been reaching toward the Wheel of Time, froze midair.
Before he could react in anger, another message screen flashed before his eyes. Unlike the cold mechanical notifications, this one carried an almost lifelike tone.
(Why not accept the compensation you have been given and seek out the Mythic Spirit Pool? It will change your body, and those changes will carry over into reality.)
A brief silence followed.
Then another message appeared.
(Why go through so much hassle?)
Skyler stared at the message for a long moment, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
"What... are you?"
No answer came.
But he already had a suspicion.
"I had a hunch when the trial announced someone wasn’t satisfied. Now I’m sure."
A strange light flickered in his eyes.
"Is this trial conducted by the Supreme Throne that vanished after the Divine War?"
The space around him trembled, and his suspicion was confirmed. His lips curved into a smile, but there wasn’t even a flicker of warmth in his emotionless blue eyes.
"A power that has gained sentience."
"I really don’t like it."
He sat down beside the Wheel of Time.
The next moment, Skyler tore away a fragment of his own consciousness.
Blood seeped from every pore of his body, yet his expression never changed. Ignoring the pain, he copied every memory he had accumulated—all the failures, deaths, and experiences he had endured—into that tiny fragment before sealing it within his soul.
Also, from that moment on, everything he would experience would be recorded in two places: one within his mind, and the other within the fragment sealed inside his soul.
Finally, he created triggers that would restore his memories after he forgot.
Afterward, he linked the Wheel of Time to his own power and engraved a rule on it: if all 100 participants within the trial died before anyone reached the Wheel of Time, it would activate automatically on its own.
And Skyler had sneered mockingly when such a rule wasn’t rejected by the Supreme Seat, as if it wanted the trial to never end.