Cheat Awakening

When the darkness dissipated, Myne reappeared in his lobby space. Since there was nothing to see, not even a chair to sit on, and various monsters outside made a lot of noise to irritate him, Myne of course had no desire to waste a second there. He simply opened his system interface and clicked on the Cosmic Arena section. He had been very curious about it ever since the travelling merchant had told him about it.

Just like when he entered the dungeon, as soon as he chose Cosmic Arena, the darkness outside the chamber rushed in and swallowed him.

"Is this the Cosmic Arena? Why did it look so creepy and eerie, as if the theme was picked from a horror novel? There didn't seem to be any elements of the cosmos; it looked more like a bloody arena created by some psychopath to fulfil his weird hobbies," Myne looked at the giant wall painted red in front of him.

Under his feet was a barren, grey-black land. When he looked up, he couldn't see the blue sky formed by the refraction of light from the atmosphere, but could directly see the countless stars and distant, spherical planets.

His surroundings were a barren land without any visible source of life, except for the magnificent wall thousands of meters tall before him and a colossal door. There wasn't much else to see, which was why Myne doubted the arena's popularity. After all, without spectators to watch the fun and throw their money in excitement, could it even be called an arena?

Although the planet on which the arena was located seemed to have no atmosphere, or perhaps the atmospheric layer was too thin, causing a lack of air, Myne could surprisingly still breathe.

Retreating his gaze from the sky, Myne looked in front of him. Not far away, there was a building similar to the ancient Roman Colosseum, surrounded by high walls. At some point, while he wasn't paying attention, the main door opened a small gap, which, for an ant-like being like him, was more than enough to pass through.

He let out a long breath, kicked his feet, and started walking toward the arena while cursing the travelling merchant for playing a childish prank on him. Other parties could clearly teleport him to the centre of the arena, but no, he was thrown dozens of miles away.

As he crossed the outer door, he found that near this arena, there were many blood-coloured giants of all sizes. The smallest was 5 meters tall, while the tallest that he could see was hundreds of meters tall. There were also some who appeared even bigger, but Myne only saw their shadows. They looked like walking mountains, and Myne had to be careful while walking, fearing that a giant foot might suddenly fall on his head like divine judgment, and purify all his sins.

These giants seemed quite busy, and each of them had an umbilical cord connected to the top of their bald heads, extending all the way to a huge blood moon in the sky.

Myne hadn't noticed it before because his sight was blocked by the arena wall. At this time, as the blood moon slowly rose, this behemoth gradually appeared before him. It almost filled the entire sky, and the dark red light it emitted gave the planet a weird and uneasy atmosphere.

"This thing didn't look like a moon made of stone," As Myne observed the moon seriously, he found that it was a huge creature (a very disgusting one). Its surface was covered with fine hairs waving irregularly under the red light, and if you looked closer, you would find that each hair was a huge tentacle more than ten kilometres long.

Myne's scalp was numb, and as the blood moon continued to rise, the entire sky was covered with a dark red glow. Myne suddenly felt a strange feeling in his heart, as if the moon was a huge eyeball staring at him at that moment.

Buzz!

At this time, a heart-pounding buzzing sound came from behind him. Myne turned his head suddenly and found that while he was in a trance, looking at the blood moon, a blood-coloured giant came to his vicinity, muttering something in an ancient language.

"{ It was inviting you inside the arena, }"

Even though Myne couldn't understand the spoken language, his ability directly translated the giant's thoughts, saving him a lot of trouble.

Taking a deep breath, Myne followed the 20-meter-tall giant in front of him. He looked like an ant beside it, and it seemed like a bit too much of a waste to use this type and size of being as a worker to guide a random noob. But since he didn't own the arena and didn't need to worry about its finances, Myne said, "Good service," and gave a thumbs up to whoever came up with this kind of idea to show off the arena's power. At least, he was very impressed.

As he crossed between two giant statues of warriors in front of the arena, who looked nothing like humans—one with a weird long pointy head with one eye and four arms, and the other a mix of octopus and bat holding dozens of weapons in its countless tentacle-like arms with big bat wings on its back—he continued towards the arena entrance.

Walking past the super cool-looking, thousands of meters tall, wide-open door made of an unknown metal and adorned with different kinds of mural paintings that looked like someone's biography – a depiction of their wonderful journey from being a newbie to a god-level being – it was full of excitement, with countless fights, super boss-level monsters, and various magical phenomena. The other party had accomplished so many deeds that even the thousands-of-meters-tall gigantic door seemed insufficient to describe everything.

Myne, a die-hard story fan who enjoyed reading such exciting tales, wanted to see everything from beginning to end. He even had an idea of writing down a few dozen novels based on it and becoming popular. Anyway, it wasn't as if a god-like being would care if someone pirated their story, but sadly, his guide was walking a bit too fast and didn't give him a chance to enjoy some quality time.

Deciding to record everything later, he complimented the guy who designed the arena again, saying that he had talent in this field, and hurriedly caught up to the blood giant.

After crossing the main entrance, the blood giant brought him to a giant altar where five statues were placed in a crescent shape, leaving a small path for people to walk in the centre.

There was a wriggling maggot, a stone fountain with a floating moon in the middle, a human-shaped strange bird with six eyes and eight wings, a withered ancient tree, and finally a familiar but unfamiliar-looking humanoid guy in luxurious clothes, whose appearance was unclear as it looked like a statue of a devil with horn, tail and wings.

But the other party's playful smile was a bit too conspicuous. For some reason, Myne felt an urge to complain after staring at the fifth statue for a bit, saying that someone had played well and fooled him very well.

Many blood-coloured giants were crawling near these five statues as if they were worshipping them.

The blood-coloured giant who had brought Myne in stopped moving after coming near the altar. He stood behind Myne, staring at him motionlessly; even his mind seemed to have gone offline, as there were no more '{ ? }' popping up above his head.

"Um? What should I do next?" Myne muttered confusedly. He was lost for a moment and started looking around.

[ Please select a Monarch and worship it. ]

Just as Myne was looking for someone to ask for help, a prompt appeared before him. Reading the instruction, he hesitated for a moment before walking forward to the centre of the altar and stood facing the statue of the devil, who liked to cosplay as a travelling merchant to fool others.

As for why he chose him despite knowing he was just a liar, Myne said he had no other choice. He had already been forced to sign a soul contract, and now, no matter how unwilling he was, he had to accept the fact that he was the travelling merchant's champion. Also, he didn't believe that the contract was fair; he had full confidence that if he chose any other statues, it would definitely not end well.

"What's going on? Why is there no reaction?" Myne waited for a minute, but seeing no reaction from any of the statues, he couldn't help but ask.

[ It detects that the host isn't qualified to become any monarch's champion based on their current strength and must win three trial battles before getting a gladiator mark and officially becoming the warrior of the chosen monarch, gaining the right to enter the cosmic arena. ]

"Wait, so I am not in the cosmic arena?" Myne asked, taken aback by what the system said.

[ Yes, this is the worship altar, where warriors choose their monarch before entering the cosmic arena under the banner of that certain monarch. ]

This time, the system was surprisingly very cooperative and answered his doubt without putting on an air like before, as if Myne owed it millions of coins.

"Alright then, how do I fight those trial battles? Where is my opponent? Let's make it quick; I also have to clear a dungeon," Myne said while rubbing his fist.

[ You must choose a monarch first and drop some blood on the statue. After you win three battles, you will automatically become that monarch's champion. ]

As he didn't have much of an option to begin with, Myne sighed, saying that bastard merchant had played well, before stepping forward and quickly dropping a drop of blood on the feet of the statue of the travelling merchant.