In a blur of movement, Everest was on top of an individual neither Ruth nor Ross had seen. The figure was a full two heads taller than Everest at least, and despite their mentor’s savage punches slowly forming a crater around the pair, the stranger didn’t so much as flinch. Its face was blocked by Everest’s form from their current angle, but the figure pinned down wore bulky scalemail armor with heavily detailed embroidery on the leather and fabric holding the gear together. The metal portions were made of what initially looked like orichalcum, but Ross immediately noticed the rose tint it held. He wasn’t sure what exactly the material was, though he didn’t doubt its defensive capabilities.
The armor on the individual’s torso dropped into a sort of skirt covering its upper thighs, legs sporting intricately etched, solid metal boots. Its hands laid limply at its sides, the entity not even attempting to defend itself. The gauntlets on its hands were not only ribbed, but reinforced with some form of black material that seemed to devour any light trying to touch it. Its body was perfectly toned, armor melding to its form expertly. The stranger’s skin was well-tanned and olive, as seen through the lack of long sleeves on its arms, and its voice was enticingly melodic, though not when howling in manic laughter.
“You see, young heroes,” the stranger began, standing as though the mountain of a man wasn’t even on his chest, causing Everest to topple off like a clump of sod, “I’ve come to issue one Ross Olsen my own Trial. As the first god to do so, I must explain Trials. A small price to pay for what’s to come.”
Even as the individual spoke, Everest was trying to attack it. The being- now very evidently a masculine humanoid - simply parried every attempted blow in a series of one-handed swings, easily matching Everest’s speed. The stranger continued to speak as though nothing else was happening.
“Each God is allowed to either accept a request for a Trial from each prospective Hero, or issue one of their own to each Hero. Not a necessary challenge to issue, but it must be accepted if issued by either party. Should the conditions be met.” He looked down at Ross, easily standing ten feet tall. Everest stood, shaking, hands and arms heavily bruised. Ross could even see a black eye begin to form before his mentor’s passive regeneration negated it.
“If issued by the Hero, the god must ensure the Hero is of proper state of mind, skill level and experience. If issued by the god, however, no such limitations apply. The Hero must accept it.”
The last words were spoken through a growing cheshire grin, quickly fading as he continued.
“Ross Olsen, I issue you my Trial. Should you succeed, I will reward you with a new Trait that is befitting of your Prime Trait. Should you fail, you will either not survive or simply not be rewarded.”
Everest simply glared at the stranger through red-tinted eyes.
“What do I have to do?” Ross asked, finally beginning to recognize the gut-wrenching unease pouring into his being. The man smiled once again.
“Simple. Defeat the boss and protect all of the townspeople.”
Ross narrowed his eyes at the man despite himself, the action alone pushing him further into the throes of panic.
“Of course,” the man said, mock concern suddenly plastered onto his face, “should you fail to protect even a single townsperson, the Trial is considered a failure. You won’t get the reward, and must still deal with the boss.”
Ross’s heart slammed in his chest, muscles threatening to knot up in several places. He felt the presence of the individual more and more the longer he stood before him. His teeth quivered in his mouth, jaw practically spasming from sudden shivers. He wanted to curl into a ball and cry, wanted to bash his head into the nearest hard surface until he fell into unconsciousness. He felt his very soul quake every time the man moved.
Of course, Ross realized, this was no man. Words spilled from his mouth in a jittery cascade before he could stop them.
“I-I thought you were s-s-supposed to be the god-d of honor, duels and g-glory?” Ross said.
This brought the being pause.
“I am, aren’t I?” Meiyojev said. “Well, I suppose I should give you an advantage. After all, since your party and mentor cannot help you in the Trial by its very nature, you can't very well help all those people by yourself! I am nothing if not honorable.”
Completely missing the point Ross was trying to make, Meiyojev handed him a single dagger from his inventory. It was nearly rusted beyond recognition, multiple layers falling away as Meiyojev handed Ross the blade by the hilt.
“Unfortunately, I cannot defy my nature, Ross Olsen. You’ve done me a disservice, and I cannot grant you much of a boon because of it, but an extra weapon is an extra weapon.”
Ross tentatively grabbed the hilt, hands visibly shaking. Meiyojev let go, causing another few layers of rust to tumble onto the ground. The moment that they shared contact over the blade, Ross couldn’t breathe. It was as though an undefiable pressure was consuming him from the outside in, a force universally absolute grinding its way past any and every ounce of resistance he had. Ross swallowed hard, stumbling with a few unplanned backwards steps.
The only thing that kept him conscious was the unreasonable amount of hate continuing to build in his core.
“Now, to ensure there’s no cheating…” Meiyojev said.
In an instant, he was upon Everest. He grabbed the mentor by the arm and threw him with blinding speed into the barrier behind them, though he seemed to put forth no more effort than one might when tossing an empty carton into the garbage.
Everest splattered against the wall in front of them with a sickening cavalcade of cracks, snaps, and squelches - no more than a massive, chunky red mark lingering on the fiery orange wall of crystal remained.
Ross screamed and Ruth threw up on the spot.
Meiyojev smiled.
“He should regenerate in about fifteen hours.” He said, knocking dirt off of his hands with a couple of sweeping claps. “He is part troll, so I really did him a favor. He’ll mutate for better high impact resistance.”
Meiyojev gave the proteges a couple of moments before speaking again.
“The Trial begins in sixty seconds, Ross Olsen. The townspeople have been alerted.”
Meiyojev looked at Ruth.
“You won’t be intervening, will you?”
She shook her head vigorously, struggling to keep the rest of her most recent meals down.
“Good girl.” He said, then disappeared in a warping of space that Ross immediately felt sick being near. It wasn’t unlike the visible heat on an excruciatingly warm day, but the ripples were significantly more pronounced. Trying to make sense of the space that was vaguely reflected in the distortions, Ross’s mind abruptly burst into a migraine before he promptly vomited.
This, in turn, made Ruth gag.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Still wiping the remnants of his last meal off of his mouth, Ross turned to the pop-up in his vision.
[Time until Trial of Meiyojev: 0:00:23]
“What should I expect?” Ross sputtered, spitting out the remnants of bile within his mouth.
“A fight.” Ruth said. “A major one. I don’t have time to explain, but do your best to meet the goals. Only you can do anything here because it’s your Trial. That’s the rules. I’ll be in the furthest corner to avoid interfering. And before you ask,” Ruth continued, pointing at Ross’s raised hand, “The penalty for cheating in a trial is either levels, classes or eviction from this Realm and loss of eligibility of Hero status.”
“Great.” Ross said. “Which is what Meiyojev is most certainly going to be vying for if you try to help.”
Ruth nodded solemnly before taking off for the back of the town in a fervent sprint. Just as she faded from sight, the timer hit 0, and Ross immediately felt the ground begin to tremble. Jagged fractures erupted from all sides near him, and he barely had time to leap back as a massive eruption of earth, stone and bedrock burst from the ground where he had just stood. A blur the size of a skyscraper flew to the ceiling of the arena, ricocheting around the upper portion of the barricaded battlefield faster than Ross’s eyes could properly follow it. Out of the corner of his eye, he also saw the hole it had created upon entry seal itself shut in just a few seconds.
A single pop-up came into the corner of Ross’s vision.
[Trial of Meiyojev
Time Limit: N/A
Goals:
* Protect all civilians within the battlefield.
* Defeat Obrenarshen.
Progress: 0% ]
The first, and arguably the worst, mistake Ross made was taking a moment to read the pop-up.
Before he knew it, Ross was rocketing into the gate to Sathenkura, health at 1. He’d barely managed to hold up his shields in time, avoiding death by a fraction of a second.
“Holy shit…” He muttered, staggering to his feet. He looked up, but couldn’t see the enormous figure anywhere. He preemptively activated Hundred-Handed, then felt another massive impact land within the gates of the city. The Trial pop-up updated.
[Trial of Meiyojev
FAILED
Failure Condition: Protect all civilians within the battlefield.
Civilians killed: 17 ]
Ross froze, feeling a burst of panic on a level he hadn’t felt since he was back on Earth. He’d just let over a dozen innocent people die in a fight he never wanted, but brought here regardless. The guilt compounded as the casualties increased rapidly. It went from the forties to fifties, to seventies.
He couldn’t bring himself to move until the innocents dead hit the hundreds.
He shot to his feet and pushed past the guards at the entrance to the town, who were too shocked to stop him. He ran after the massive creature with maximum effort, shoving every ounce of energy into getting to it. After it leapt away and onto Luda’s shop, Ross activated the bullet time ability he’d gained via his high Dexterity.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Though the thing was moving faster than Ross could, the latter could still make out a relatively less blurry image of the individual. Its body was shaped like a humanoid, but it didn’t have fingers so much as talons, and it had a ring floating around its body.
The next time Ross blinked, the thing was standing in front of him, staring down at him and not moving.
The giant stood at a massive height, well over 600 feet tall. Its feet were swathed in blood-clotted, knotted hair, thick as a mammoth’s pelt. Instead of toes, it had a single, massive claw. The rest of its legs were bare and were a tanned caucasian color, almost as though a normal man’s legs were scaled up and thrown haphazardly onto its body. Its arms were knitted together with strips of skin, muscles twisting and tying together to create arms that looked like yarn re-wound into the shape of a humanoid limb. The arms ended in fingers of the same grotesque muscle and skin, claws taking the place of fingernails that were yellow and blood-stained. Its torso was encased in a set of armor that was made up of a petrol blue stone that looked to be a second away from fracturing and crumbling apart. Parts of it were replaced by a brass-colored material, rusting and bent. Small portions of the armor looked to be replaced with a dark gray metallic material, dented in dozens of small areas. It looked to have its skin gripping the armor closer to its body, as though holding it tightly in place for a perfect fit. Hovering at an angle over the upper torso, a ring made of the brass-like metal with at least a dozen eyes spanning its circumference hovered in the air, each and every eyeball glaring at Ross. Around its neck, it sported so much hair that it looked like a cape, far thicker than on its legs. It was also far more clotted, and stood eerily stagnant. Its head was nothing but darkness and teeth, topped by a pair of curving feathered arches of flesh, flowing like an axolotl’s gills. The stench of death, rot and sulfur permeated the air around the two, nearly causing Ross to gag. Its body made no sound, and even its armor didn’t make so much as a creak while it was leaping around in the arena. The only thing audible from it now was a barely perceptible, low growl that held no fewer than four different masculine voices in its makeup.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the creature, however, was the aura it emitted.
All Ross could feel while in its presence was violence. It felt like a serial killer who had found their next victim, or an abusive father eyeing down his family. More than that, it was a craving, or more aptly, an addiction. It was a deep, primal need to push for more combat, more impact, more adrenaline.
More blood.
Ross, despite feeling every ounce of his defiance pushing against the behemoth and every molecule in his body urging him to flee, couldn’t move. His eyes couldn’t blink, couldn’t turn, and could barely tear up from overexposure to the disgusting miasma that accompanied the monster before him. He knew the moment he stopped looking was the moment he would get hit. The moment he moved, this paragon of homicide would move faster. Even in bullet time, Ross couldn’t get his shields up fast enough.
Then, with a mutual understanding, the two combatants tensed.
Ross exhaled slowly, breath shaky.
Obrenarshen smiled.
In the span of an eyeblink, Ross’s shields were up and broken a half dozen times. The flurry of attacks only hit the shields at first, a constant shattering sound in Ross’s face giving him a temporary case of tinnitus. Soon, though, Obrenarshen landed a punch that shot Ross hurtling into a building, then another, and another. His health regenerated nearly instantly each time, but the pain still lingered. It felt like Ross had been impacted by the semi back on Earth a dozen times over in the span of a millisecond. Each building he hit began to crumble, though due to Ross’s relative time, they seemed to do so in a disconcertingly slow manner. He stood once more, but was immediately smashed into the ground by his foe. Obrenarshen’s fist made a crater in the ground, Ross’s body unceremoniously shoved into the mountainous rock. Shields still up, Ross did his best to block the flurry of attacks. His AP was rising faster than he thought possible, barely able to block enough of the wildly rapid attacks against him to avoid immediate death. He and Obrenarshen both knew the only reason he was still alive was purely due to Immovable Object.
Ross, hearing a huff, noticed the cavalcade of attacks had suddenly stopped. He looked up to see Obrenarshen spinning its right arm in a perfectly circular motion, picking up more and more speed. Ross’s own body was screaming with lingering pain despite remaining fully healed, and his eyes darted to his AP bar, then to the boss’s health bar in the corner of his screen.
[AP: 217,172,544/217,172,544
Obrenarshen HP: 1.666e+18]
In a moment that stretched out to infinity, Ross felt a crushing weight he thought he’d never feel again, like a thundercloud forebodingly walling him off from the rest of reality.
This reality.
His new reality.
The words roiled within his mind, like tasting the sounds for the first time. His senses intermingled, then locked onto a crushing weight and refused to let go. The severity of this fight was not lost on Ross in this moment, but rather amplified the unshakeable compressing feeling of standing within a singularity. His muscles fully tensed once more, body quaking and mind racing. His thoughts, however, were all but gone, save for blurry mists and foggy words untranscribable to his conscious brain.
Then, he stopped.
All at once, he stopped.
His eyes would not cry.
His muscles would no longer tremble.
His mind stilled, a sudden stop that should have jarred his thought process, but was instead a blessed relief.
A spark, only felt a couple of times before, began to sputter back to life. It felt like hate without malice, of rage without action. It was hope without optimism and savagery without violence.
It was at that moment that he felt a new presence - a benevolent presence - cup its hands around the spark, urging it into a blazing fire. His eyes became razors, cutting through the debris and digging into his opponent. He was briefly reminded, only for a fleeting moment, of an old friend.
He could vaguely see his face again, and the fire in his mind spread throughout his entire body. Any fear or dread he’d felt melted away, leaving only burning defiance coursing through his being.
Pouring every ounce of his AP into his shields and bracing the best he could, Ross rapidly went over his options in his brain. He had to defeat this thing or it would wipe out the entire town, but getting up to enough AP to actually kill it would take far too long. Its health was somehow in the quadrillions, and its attacks were well beyond his ability to counter. As he braced, he fervently skimmed his Traits, trying to find something that could help him.
Then, he saw it. A combination that could let him optimize what he could do.
He’d just have to endure the pain a little while longer.
Obrenarshen, arm now moving so fast it couldn’t even be seen in bullet time, suddenly stopped, glowing like a blade freshly taken out of a forge. It sliced the air, a shallow arc launching at mach speeds from its arm and colliding with Ross’s shields. Ross defended, hardly able to stand against the force, and his shields broke.
The flaming slice did not.
In a moment of sheer panic and adrenaline, Ross barely got his shields reloaded in time to continue blocking. He knew if this hit him, he would die. The damage would hit multiple times. It broke his shields again, and again, and again. He counted each time, pouring the maximum amount of AP into his shields. Each time, the next hit shattered the defense, only for it to reassert itself a split second later. Ross continued to stand warily, skin growing sticky from the heat.
Obrenarshen maintained its pose, unmoving.
This told Ross all he needed to know.
Pushing his foot forward, he leaned his full body weight against the weaponized heat, trying to take a step. The low growl grew slightly louder as Ross, over the course of a dozen more shield breaks and a couple of seconds, managed to finish the step forward.
Obrenarshen’s glowing arm twitched.
Taking another step, forcing his shields forward and pausing each time they broke to reinstate them, Ross met the glaring eyes on the ring floating around the monster. It was clearly surprised, but also excited; if Ross didn’t know better, he might even say it appeared slightly impressed.
[AP: 889,538,740,224/889,538,740,224]
With sufficient AP, Ross triggered the first of two abilities.
[Kinetic Plexus
Strength Increase: +0.5% of AP as of the activation of this Trait
Current Strength Boost: 4,447,693,701]
Then, several things happened at once.
Ross’s shields shattered one final time, and as soon as they were fully restored, the arcing fire erupted in a violent explosion that blasted one of the shields out of his hands. Despite using two of his four arms on each shield, Ross’s grip couldn’t withstand the immense force and it was flung away. One shield was kept firmly enough in hand, fortunately, but the other was now a small hunk of metal skittering across the floor of a turmoil-stricken Sathenkura at what could only be described as near-mach speeds.
Obrenarshen’s pose ended as its follow-through seemed to trigger the explosion, but it staggered for a moment. Its eyes rolled around furiously, as though each was having a stroke of its own, until they all blinked heavily and refocused on the firbolg before them. The beast’s mouth opened unnaturally wide as it released a wailing roar that sounded as if a chorus of angels were being tortured in a wind tunnel. The force of the screaming was enough to cause Ross to stumble back, which the behemoth took advantage of with a single, massive swing of its macabre arm.
The blow sent Ross skipping in the opposite direction of his lost shield, and he cried out in pain as a fractured stone jutting from the floor punctured his sternum. His regenerating ability was an immediate relief, but after a mere moment, Ross realized a horrific fact.
His body had healed around the man-sized spike.
Seeing this, Obrenarshen turned back to the civilians.
Ross was unable to properly breathe, and his back didn’t want to bend the right way. He couldn’t pry himself off, turn to face Obrenarshen, or even get a hold of anything nearby. His transformation was still active so his muscles were more than capable of breaking the spike, but the fact that he couldn’t move in a way that would allow him to do so left the transformation relatively useless.
The fire within him began to sputter, and in the moment he could have let go, he held on. In response, the conflagration clung even tighter, burning even hotter. He screamed in pain as he raised his legs, only to throw them downwards with such force that wind burst across the ground, shoving debris away from the battlefield. He kept swinging, every downwards impact prying his upper body into a worse angle, lower body ever closer to touching the ground. Every swing ripped apart his torso gruesomely, but it healed fully by the time the next swing had come around. Finally, after a dozen or so, Ross’s feet touched soil.
With a mighty roar, a sickening ripping sound and a resounding crunch, the rock tip came free of the stone, still in his torn and battered torso.
Once more, it healed, and Ross ripped the shard from his body.
Unlike the others, this scream of pain seemed to catch Obrenarshen’s attention.
Perhaps it was due to the accompaniment of footsteps rapidly approaching it.
Ross’s fist had only met the behemoth’s knee, but he’d jumped incredibly high for someone of his height, and the ground beneath him spider-webbed as fractured stone burst free of the floor. The thrown attack hit just behind the monster’s kneecap, causing him to throw what he was holding away. A sickening pop told Ross that his goal of removing said patella was successful. He whipped to see what Obrenarshen had thrown.
A person.
In a flash, Ross was leaping across Sathenkura, using the now-disjointed knee of the beast as leverage. As it let out another bellowing roar, the civilian Ross went to catch looked up at him, his elderly silver hair flapping in the wind. His violet eyes blinked in surprise before tearing up, and Ross had to fight to keep the fire burning. He wanted to sit down with this man, to ensure he was okay. He wanted to tend to any wounds the man had received, to give him some money and help rebuild his life. The kind eyes were too similar to Pa Olsen’s for him to simply ignore. He shook his head, carefully gripping onto the man’s torso as he began to descend. He used the barrier as a sort of support, which dealt him damage every second, but seemingly not to the old man in his arms. His regeneration nullified the damage he was being dealt, and after landing safely on the ground, he laid the old man gently on a wooden bench far away from the screaming titan in the distance.
“Stay here. I’ll check in soon.” Ross said. The old man nodded before patting Ross’s shoulder.
“You’re a good kid.” The elder said.
Ross simply swallowed, nodded and leapt back towards the Trial before him, careful to hide his brief flood of tears. He wiped his face as he flew towards the giant once more, but this time, it was ready for him. Obrenarshen smacked Ross out of the air, causing him to bounce viciously against the ground. He flew so high from the recoil of the blow that Obrenarshen juggled him with a couple more blows, each one more disorienting than the last.
Finally, when Ross had a moment to stand, Obrenarshen stood before him with one foot raised. Ross screamed, but the behemoth’s reaction was faster than his own. Obrenarshen’s stomp raised earth, stone and wind as Ross’s health continuously went to a single HP, then back to full. The regen must have been far faster than before, he realized, or he’d be dead where he laid.
Then, much to Ross’s displeasure, Obrenarshen’s foot began to twist.
Once again, the only thing that kept Ross from dying on the spot was the insane regeneration and his Immovable Object trait. Obrenarshen kept twisting, Ross kept regenerating, and neither would let up for what felt like hours. The pain, although dullened by a part of Shock Absorber, was still so excruciating that Ross had gone unconscious on more than one occasion, only for his regeneration to awake him nearly immediately. His screams invited ground stone and gravel into his lungs and mouth, which made him try to cough, only to take in more. He felt himself begin to suffocate, only for his regeneration to once again kick in and prevent him from dying.
The experience was true torture and immeasurably more painful than anything he’d felt before.
Then, for half an instant, he felt that spark urged into his consciousness by the same hands that tended it into an inferno.
Ross gripped it desperately, pouring his focus into survival.
No, not survival.
Something deeper than that.
Stop. That was all his mind said, and yet those four letters were more than enough to bring his body back to life. A pop-up in his vision appeared in the corner, and he had but a moment to read it before he began his counterattack.
[ {Vytravryo} has extended their blessing to you.
~In the darkest days,
On the toughest climbs,
I’ll stand back up
Endless times.~
Blessing of Vytravryo:
Duration: 5 Minutes
Effect: For the duration of this Blessing, every time you are reduced to 5% HP or less, you temporarily double your Physical Stats (Str, Dex, Con), but halve your max HP (To a minimum of 1 HP). This ability stacks an unlimited number of times. All effects of this Blessing are removed upon the duration ending. ]
Ross smiled, dismissed the message, and let himself loosen up once more as he opened his stats in a small window.
He gritted his teeth against the pain, shoved aside his suspicions, and watched the numbers climb.