John was monitoring the participants. The trial itself should only take a few hours.

Once everyone reached the center. They would go down the hole and get healed. They would then have to face the next stage.

The next stage was an obstacle course.

Various traps and fake flooring would have to be gone through.

After they passed this course. They would appear in an arena. There were multiple arena's and the last man standing would progress to the boss battle.

It wasn't a group battle. It would be one on one fighting the boss.

If you won, you could use the orb to transform your existence into rank 2.

If you lost... you would simply die.

John actually had a master plan. There were some people scattered in the participants that were wearing his disguise.

Each person that entered limbo would be documented. But since the person dressed up like him. He could simply get rid of one of the winners that was a faker.

He could then replace them for the fourth trial.

What John didn't expect however was that the organization formed around his identity and fans were actually all top level players.

They breezed through the first stage of the third trial.

Absolutely destroyed the obstacle course.

There was over a hundred thousand participants. Not many when compared to the initial population in the billions. Many had already failed.

500 people had survived that were 'Destinatus' members. These were people that wore his mask. They all had awakened and had fine control over aura. Most of them were rank 1 as well.

This wouldn't have been a problem had there not been a god named Destinatus.

The higher-ups of the calamity realm had noticed this and thought it was weird.

John was watching the trial with interest when he got an alert.

"Destinatus! Report to the head."

"The head? What for?"

"Not allowed to say."

"Weird..."

John had never talked with the Head in his decades of working on the construction and formations for the trial.

A portal opened up for him.

John stepped through and soon was standing in front of a massive entity.

A being as large as a planet.

John felt a cold feeling across his entire body.

The eldritch entity spoke in incomprehensible noises that nobody would be able to understand.

But John understood him.

John was standing in front of a rank 9! He didn't know this.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When the abyss collapsed. All sorts of beings had taken refuge in the calamity realm. But these were mostly rank 7's and 8's.

To have decided to work together. Besides working for a concept. There was only one thing that could bring everyone to work together.

The orders of a rank 9!

That's right! The entity in front of John wasn't originally part of the abyss. It was instead an ancient entity that had been slumbering in the chaos realm.

Once it noticed a lot of traffic in this universe. It invaded this reality and helped get everyone to work together.

The entity spoke while observing the reaction of John.

"Rank 7? No... This is a disguise."

"A fake soul?"

The ring on John's finger shattered!

But he had his spirit body cloak on. He hadn't expected to be seen through. So he didn't have time to turn it off.

This led to a misunderstanding.

"I see... this is an a advanced avatar. I thought you had problems in this area?"

The giant entity began to compress itself until it looked just like John.

"I like to copy the form of the person I'm entertaining. It is easier to communicate when you aren't trillions of times larger then the person you're talking to."

"What is this about?"

The entity said:

"Look at this."

Soon a hologram appeared in his hands. It showed footage of people wearing his disguise powering through the stages.

"Why do these people resemble your form?"

"During the invasion. I saved some mortals. A religion started around me in a sense."

"I can tell your disguise is like my form. Illusory. How about we be honest here and you show your true form."

With a wave of his hands the disguise over John started to fade away.

A mechanical battle suit was underneath.

"This is your true form? A technological lifeform?"

"No... this isn't a part of you. You... you aren't a god at all!"

John felt sweat go down his back.

"Oops."

John teleported away.

The entity reverted back to its form as well.

He waved his tentacles and cut off teleportation in this area.

But John bypassed it.

His system was created by a concept. It was stronger then the authority of a rank 9.

Normally, even if John managed to escape. The rank 9 could just find him based on his soul. But John's soul was hidden.

This confused Ygriognu greatly. Someone strong enough to exist without a soul. What the hell were they doing working on the trial? How long had they been undercover?

Soon everyone was told they would have to be inspected.

"Destinatus has been confirmed to be a mortal!"

"If you encounter him, report it!"

Odathlaxz was working on the fourth trial when he got a message that confused him.

"Destinatus? A mortal? That's impossible!"

John's various friends were confused. Some even tried to talk with the head on his behalf.

They couldn't help but wonder...

How the hell could a human handle the workload of a supreme being? How could they possibly have the processing power to restructure the trials?

Soon everyone with authority was looking in the files of 'Destinatus'.

A god born around the time of the invasion. A natural born in the calamity realm. There was an accident when his law was forming crippling him.

Is unable to teleport, open up portals, and warp reality.

Used assistance to work on various projects.

What surprised everyone was not that he was just a mortal. It was that he had optimized the way they did things, saving everybody lots of time.

Almost everybody knew who he was. They all had good impressions of him.

If he was truly a mortal. Why were they told to report him? How did he escape in front of the Head's inspection? That was a rank 9! Who the hell was this guy!?

Meanwhile John was on his planet alone.

"I'm an idiot."

John should've used a different disguise. Then perhaps he could've gone undetected longer.

John luckily had more runic rings that he had snagged when working on the third trial.

He went to his lab and began to inscribe the proper runes recreating a fake soul.

He took off his battle suit and went to bed.

"I suppose I'll have to infiltrate the trials..."

He slept for the first time in awhile.

When he woke up, he felt refreshed and less bad about being found out.

John still had set a waypoint in limbo. He also still had his administrator key.

He took it out of his storage space and noticed that it had turned red.

"Access denied!"

The key blew up.

"Hmm... that is a problem."

John put back on his battlesuit and went invisible.

He teleported to the control room.

He reconnected his fake soul back into the network.

He then teleported back to earth and messaged his friend Odathlaxz.

"Destinatus... Is that you?"