Half an hour later.

’With how sh*tty the personality of the creator of this trial seemed due to the weird behaviour of this bird, I was already ready for a ridiculous situation to appear, but even I hadn’t expected that not even a single one of these staircases would be the correct one...’

Zephyr stood in on the same spot as before in complete disappointment. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

He had already tried using the cotton ball-throwing method on all of the staircases, and it turned out that all of them were faulty one way or another.

One had extremely poisonous spikes appearing out of nowhere, another had lasers doing a disco light show, and there was even one that literally collapsed into oblivion from the weight of a mere cotton ball!

Aside from the one where everything was vanishing, only one staircase was left to be properly confirmed and that was,

"I don’t really want to do this but just what if it turned out to be true... it’s worth a try..."

With a complicated look on his face, Zephyr turned around and looked at the staircase that he had descended from.

Unlike the other staircases, the one he came from was obviously leading upwards, so Zephyr didn’t think about testing it until the end, as he had to go downstairs, not upstairs.

But after seeing being stuck in a stalemate-like situation, it was worth investigating this final staircase too.

’Let’s go...’

As Zephyr walked upstairs, he didn’t reach the same corridor that he was in before; instead, he ended up reaching a completely new area!

"As I thought, the person who designed this trial definitely has some screws loose in their head!"

Shaking his head in dismay Zephyr took a step forward, and a water-like ripple formed on the ground, causing the dark floor to shine with little dots resembling the shine of a star-filled night sky.

’D*mn, it must have cost quite a lot of money to make a magical floor like this; it seems to be glowing and forming ripples with each step!"

As Zephyr walked forward, he realized that he was now in a dark hall, and as he made his way to the center, the massive walls of the hall lit up with small twinkling stars shining brightly over the dark walls.

It was as if someone had captured a piece of the night sky itself and had embedded it in the massive hall.

"Congratulations, Challenger!" You have successfully crossed the first area of the ’Stairs of Despair’ Trial!"

"Please get ready for the next part of the ’Stairs of Despair Trial’! The challenger shall place the torch carrying the ’Flames of Inhumane Torture’ at the center of the grand hall!"

A stone pedestal with a torch stand appeared out of nowhere, and Jonathon the stupid sparrow finally spoke a new statement after those endless giggles.

"How did you suddenly appear on this pedestal? You can teleport, Jonathan?"

As if not understanding Zephyr’s words, the bird tilted its head in confusion and refused to give any reply, so Zephyr could only shake his head in disappointment and place the torch in the torch stand.

"This weird greenish-blue flame on the torch is called ’Flames of Inhumane Torture’? Why is that?"

The bird tilted its head and replied,

"Are you stupid?"

"It’s a flame. Anyone would feel pain if touching it. This torch has been used to torture people with flames before; all that pain and suffering has enacted a curse on this torch, thus making the flames so odd in colour."

"The torch uses the resentment of the dead that has died from its torture as fuel to keep burning. Should you die near it, your soul will also be used as fuel by this torch later."

"It would be amusing to see the torch that’s been protecting you from miasma turn into your biggest enemy, kekeke..."

Veins appeared on Zephyr’s forehead due to anger, and he almost lost his temper on a stupid bird after hearing those insults!

’I wanna smash this bird to pieces right now so badly, urgh! But I can’t; I must hold myself back until the trail is over and I manage to reach this so-called garden!’

’This bird is the only guide forward. I need to control myself.’

It took great patience to keep ignoring the remarks of the bird; thankfully, the bird didn’t speak anything, or things could have taken a wrong turn.

*Click!*

As Zephyr put the torch in the torch holder on the pedestal, a sound of some kind of mechanism activating in the dark echoed in the dark hall, and stairs made up of shining stars and light appeared in the hall everywhere!

[Rolling_Crocodile: Is it just me, or is the person who made this trial too obsessed with staircases!? There were dozens of stairs in the previous part of the trial and now there are hundreds of them again!?]

[Blue_Dinosaur: Ah sh*t, here we go again!]

[Shining_Lorrain: Guys I think I have suddenly developed a disease that makes you sick if you see a staircase.]

[Invincible_Bob: My grandpa was a war veteran and an absolute chad in his time; he survived wars, disasters, and pandemics but still couldn’t defeat the final boss, ’Down D. Stairs!’. Let’s all pray for the well-being of our tank god.]

[Jumping_Koala: Also, all these stairs are leading upwards; are you sure they’re really going to lead us to the basement? Who the f*ck makes a basement on the top floor of a building?]

Just when the people in the comments were criticizing the bad architecture design of this weird basement, the stupid bird suddenly added more fuel to the fire.

"Challenger! You have one minute to prepare. The next trial will begin shortly; your mission is to protect the torch from all threats until the second part of the stairs trial ends!"

Before Zephyr could realize what the stupid bird meant by this, he suddenly saw massive spiders the size of a small car climbing down from those magical stairs!

There were hundreds of magical stairs in the wall, and each stair had more than one spider climbing down from it.

And as the movement speed of those spiders was quite fast, it did seem true that they all might really make it down to the hall in one minute’s time approx!

"F*ck!"