John appeared in the temple. There was a crowd of people fighting against ten others that were equipped with weapons.

Upon seeing John appear. They stopped fighting.

"Destinatus?"

John spoke, his voice booming:

"Yes. It is I..."

The eyes of everyone lit up. They thought a hero had come to save them.

John didn't care about their thoughts. He looked around and noticed eight cages.

"Good. The concede is still available."

"Why are you fighting among one another? Are you all idiots?"

"They are trying to monopolize the supplies!"

"I don't care... everyone will follow my orders."

A guy with a machete insulted John and told him that he had no authority to order him.

John didn't kill this man.

"You will be the sacrifice..."

"Wha-?"

The man started to scream. As all of his limbs had been cut off.

He was going to die from blood loss.

John walked up to him and injected nanites into his body. Quickly creating stubs from his limbs.

He screamed angrily at John.

"You monster! You crippled me!"

"Yes. You were annoying."

John looked at everyone as he started to float.

"All of you have had three questions to ask the guide. Some of these are useless. But by sharing what you have learned. We can become aware of the trial."

Soon, everyone was discussing.

John discussed a plan.

"You all know this is a trial. But how dare the gods pluck us from our home? How dare they restrict us to a mere temple?"

"I say! Why follow the rules of the trial? We are humanity... we won't be experiment subjects that follow the whims of supreme beings! Who is with me?"

Everyone was silent. They didn't dare agree.

John sighed.

He then spoke:

"If you agree to help me. You will have the backing of a god!"

"You are a god? A god of what?"

"I am the god of [redacted]."

John had no idea that when he spoke the words 'calamity'. Everyone heard static and a echo of his sentence.

They realized they weren't dealing with a human.

There was a certain uncanny valley effect. It was if behind that mask... there wasn't a human. There was instead something else entirely.

John didn't notice their thoughts.

He had no idea he came off kinda scary.

"No takers?"

"How about this... either listen to me... or die!"

Soon everyone agreed to follow his instructions.

"There is a few ways to pass this trial. One method is conceding through the ritual. Another is becoming rank 1. Another is sacrificing yourself as a rank 1."

"The first method means you will enter the third trial without a rank."

"The second method means only one of you will survive."

"The third method means everyone will survive. But one will have to sacrifice themselves."

"There could be more methods to escape this trial. But these are the ones I know."

"But we will be using the the 2nd method. The crippled man will be trigger for the orb that grants the person rank 1."

Somebody asked John.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"How do you know all of this?"

John laughed.

"I know you all are aware that I predicted the apocalypse. Truthfully, I won a trial in an alternate universe. It is how I acquired my power."

John lied obviously. He didn't feel the need to explain himself.

"How do we become rank 1?"

"There is a structure below this temple. A dungeon. There are various obstacles, traps, and bosses. Your job is to acquire the orb in the boss's body. Bring it to me and we can begin the ritual to make everyone become rank 1."

John wasn't planning on going to the third trial. He planned on sneaking through the portal that opened after the ritual.

"We don't have enough weapons..."

John waved his hand and to the surprise of everyone a pile of cold weapons appeared.

"How do we get into the dungeon?"

John walked to a wall and clicked a brick. The temple began to shake and the floor opened up.

"Good luck!"

Ten hours later. They brought back a green orb.

A lot of people had been injured. Some even died.

John studied the structure of the orb using nanites. He also memorized the brand.

John brought the orb to the crippled man. He crushed it.

It tried to shoot into his brain and brand his soul. But it couldn't find it because of his cloak. It also ignored the ring as that was a fake soul.

John copied the brand and put it across his fake soul infused on the ring.

His ring then disappeared into his storage space. If a god was here and they had the ability to see soul. They would think he was a corpse.

John picked up the crippled man and laid him down the monolith. The cages had already disappeared.

"You! Don't kill me! I'll sl-"

"Alright everyone... I'll see you all in the next trial."

John stabbed a dagger into the mans chest as roots tried to protect him.

Soon his heart was pierced. He began to bleed and the ritual began.

John put on his battle suit and went into invisible mode.

"Congratulations! You have passed the second trial!"

Everyone was blinded by white light as their souls were branded.

An avatar of a supreme being appeared from a portal.

John jumped into the portal the moment it opened up. The creature had no idea that he was even there.

The avatar took everyone to limbo awaiting for the third trial. It then reset all the structures.

John's soul was hidden. He was also invisible. It wasn't for his heartbeat. It would be hard for him to be discovered.

John recognized this place.

He was in chaotic space. When the trial was designed. They never expected humans to go into the portals opened up by the porters.

Because doing so would shred the mortal into pieces based off the chaotic space.

There was also a lot of pressure and the environment wasn't suitable for life. Any human that walked in would just die.

But who could prepare for John? His battle suit had internal life support. He was completely fine.

John saw eldritch entities busy like bee's. It was like a street in the center of a city. Nobody noticed John as everyone was busy working on various tasks.

John walked casually around looking at various nodes and dimensions they had for testing.

He soon found the room that held the controlling formations for the trial. It was however heavily guarded and he had no chance of getting in.

As he explored. He wanted to place bombs around the various nodes. But the chaotic space would likely trigger an explosion. Then he would be found out.

But then John had an idea.

His waypoints worked regardless of distance.

So he got as close as possible to the control room. He then set a waypoint.

He then took out a nuclear bomb and set it off not far from the control room.

A mushroom cloud went off. But was stopped by many barriers.

The guardians of the control room were distracted for a few milliseconds.

John used this time to sneak into the room.

John felt right at home among this crazy formation.

A tornado of information rotated around him. Had he not had an A.I Chip, he wouldn't have been able to understand everything.

It contained data on every eldritch entity and god.

It also controlled the jobs of each person.

The guy in the hood that talked at the beginning of the second trial. The one that had his face covered by his hood.

That was his job for example.

John fabricated a fake identity by tapping into this system.

He also assigned himself a job.

That's right! John now had an identity among the gods. The only thing that stood out about him was not being able to create an avatar. But he could use being a newborn to be an excuse.

Not all gods were capable of doing the same feats. So it was normal for him to lack certain abilities. He made sure such things were on record.

Some of the gods didn't look like humans, but others did.

John wouldn't really stand out. His battle suit would however.

But he could form an illusory disguise over it.

That matched the identity in the database.

His signature white suit, gloves, and mask weren't a problem at all.

The problem was, wearing his battle suit was draining his aura reserves. Luckily, he had a lot.

John also found out that the gods were communicating either through telepathy or personally talking in person.

They had a matrix connected to ones soul.

John put on his runic ring and modified the fake soul. Creating an illusion of a supreme beings soul. He had it connect to the matrix.

His mind was soon bombarded with loads of information.

As for the identity John had crafted for himself?

He was 'Destinatus'. A god of calamity.

He was in charge of the design of the third trial.

John was wearing his disguise on top of his battle suit. He couldn't survive without it after all.

He got a message mentally.

"Destinatus! Get off your ass. Report to test node."

"I'm on my way."

John added a backdoor into the formation that handled the simulation of the sanctuary universe. Just like how he used to use his universe to boost him. He added a one time boost that he could trigger when in the sanctuary universe.

He had also set a waypoint in the control room.

John then teleported out of the control room.

He had set up various waypoints in this chaotic space.

Soon he followed the mental suggestions to the place he was to work at.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Destinatus!"

"A newborn god? eh? Do they look down on me? I told them I could handle the construction myself!"

John had looked at the file for this entity. He had designed the second trial.

"Sir! They assigned me this job because of the slow rate at which you processed mortals."

"What do they know? I tried my best. It is too much for the universe to handle to do every single single race across the universe at once."

John spoke:

"They were not happy with splitting the two structures between the temple and the dungeon."

"But that was my randomizer. I talked with the head about it and he agreed."

"There were various bugs found unfortunately. That's why they assigned me to help work on this project."

John then asked.

"How long until the third trial is finished?"

"We have been in a rush. It should be done in about three centuries."

John's face was twitching... three centuries was considered a 'rush'? How long did they spend doing nonsense?

"Show me what progress you have made."

Odathlaxz waved his hands and a universe appeared out of nowhere around them. John felt dizzy but shook off the sensation.

Odathlaxz noticed this and laughed.

"You're a newborn god. You'll get used to this line of work eventually."

John laughed.

"Thanks..."