The descending platform was invisible, naturally, but it was also powerful enough to warp the air, which kind of defeated the purpose of that first part. The final effect was a bit like I imagine you would get if you tried to crush someone under a wide, flat cylinder made of the heat distortions from a desert.

Smiling confidently, I set my feet as I willed Archie to fly out of the platform, then raised my hands about my head and locked my elbows and knees. The cylinder lowered slowly, inexorably towards me, but I was confident. Mornax was unbreakable at D-rank. Which, granted, this thing wasn't, but still, I wasn't alone. I had other people helping, and together, we would win this.

"So…" interrupted Mnemosyne. You have realized you're the tallest person currently braced to catch that thing, right?"

Frowning, I looked around. "Wait, wha-" and then the thing hit my hands. My eyes widened at the insane force, and I shoved back with all my power, revving my Abomination Engine. Without gluttony it was much less impressive defensively, but it was some extra physical power, even of only a bit.

My wrists broke. Like…immediately. Howling with pain I dropped to my knees. "Fuck!" I snapped. "I immediately regret that course of action. How are they ALL shorter than me?"

"Well, they aren't," amended Elena. "But they aren't standing up straight with their arms out. Like over there." She pointed out a small crowd of powerfully built men who had taken a knee, obviously planning to use the extra solidity to improve their times.

"Well that's just bullshit." I hissed as she assumed her metallic form, bracing her own hands up to catch the thing. She was much shorter than me, to she had more help, the slowly descending cylinder hitting a whole group of people all at once. I'd raised my hands, calling Archie down under the cylinder to treat them with a burst of Life Nova.

Despite not having his super soul repair properties after his initial birth, he WAS still a D-rank creature made of conceptual life and purification fire. It only took him a minute or two to repair the cracks in my arms.

Mornax was stone, and I'd braced myself perfectly to catch that thing, so the cracks had been brutal but pretty clean. I was back on my feet in just a minute or two, bracing my hands against the cylinder (not locking my elbows this time) and shoving with all my might, trying desperately to push it back up.

It didn't give. But it DID stop. They'd slowed it down to a crawl and my effort was that last little bit of strength needed to hold it still. And then we just…sat there. It was hard, granted, and it hurt. And I knew this thing would crush me as soon as we all dropped. Anyone could give in and forfeit the round, but for the moment, we were at a deadlock…and for a trial it was surprisingly not very trying.

A thought I immediately cursed myself for as a loud voice filled the platform. "Ladies and GENTLEMEN!" Bellowed a familiar excitable tenor. "It is I, your favorite foxy announcer, Darian! We are all standing by, awestruck at your resolve in the face of adversity…and yet, this isn't a trial of the goddess of adversity. You may be asking yourself, where's the drama, where's the intrigue, where is the TORMENT? If you are, boy do we have a treat for you!"

"No one is asking that!" came a lazy voice from the crowd. "Stop mocking the contestants, it's tacky!"

"SHUT UP CHAD!" screamed the furious Kitsune. "You ALWAYS mock the candidates! Stop ruining my hosting gig because you're pissed you got passed over! That's what's tacky! You can't just taunt me like this, my therapist says that if I confront you, you'll back down like all bullies do!"

Chad scoffed. Loudly. "Passed over? You all stuck me with cleaning out the fucking BLOOD LAKE. Do you know what kind of shit grows down there?"

"Well then you should have been at the meeting when we-"

"Oh for the love of the GODS!" I roared. "WIll you both shut up? Honestly, I was actually a little worried about this horrible twist you're obviously building to, but now I just don't even care! I'd rather be…I don't know, eaten alive by fire ants than listen to this."

They both went silent. "Huh," said Darian. "It's funny you should say that…"

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My eyes widened in terror. "Wait, no, I was wrong, I take it back! Please continue your important discussion!" I silently cursed my fucking bullshit fatewalker build. What were the chances that would be the ONE thing I would reliably predict.

"Sorry, too late," Darian said sympathetically. "Release the BEETLES!"

"Hey, I thought it was going to be an-" I yelped as Elena stomp kicked me in the knee, then sulked. That had been unnecessary. What were the chances they ALSO had ants lying around to inflict on us? That thought was washed away by agony as an endless horde of horrifying spiky black beetles flooded the platform, climbing us all like rock walls and slipping easily into the joints in my armor.

The monstrous bugs bit into my flesh, and I screamed as I felt some kind of nerve toxin flood my body from all over. To my shock, the toxin burned off in the cycling black flames of Abomination Engine, flooding me with strength even WITHOUT needing to use Gluttony. It also hurt. A lot. Like, more than the original bites and the venom times ten. It also faded nearly instantly, leaving me with just the pain and none of the extra juice, sadly. I should have figured Gluttony couldn't be so easily repeated by a random power interaction.

I locked my jaw, gritting my teeth to keep down the gutwrenching scream. I should have expected this bullshit. Having to hold up a giant invisible millstone or whatever wasn't a test from the goddess of torment. That wasn't pain. It wasn't pushing us to our limits. The slow agonizing crush might have eventually ground us down, but it was just the wrong vibe. This was much more on brand.

I'd let myself get distracted by how straightforward the second and third trials had been, and had forgotten the first one was getting fucking POISONED without my knowledge.

Honestly, I was faring way better than most. Mornax was incredibly durable. The fact that these beetles could bite through my reinforced hide was shocking in itself, this was enough bite force to chew through D-rank steel. Everyone else was getting chunks ripped out of their entire ass, and I saw several people go down within the first minute.

The weight on my shoulders (literally, it had dipped enough that I was bent over holding it still with my upper back) redoubled. Missing so many, the stragglers on the ground waiting for it to get low enough to use their kneeling forms to post up had to stand to help (though being eaten alive by rampaging beetles also made having that much contact with the ground a strategically poor decision), giving us enough power to stop it dead again.

The formerly slightly tedious effort was now VERY exciting. In a bad way. I gritted my teeth, turning my head in the direction of Darian's last comment. "I don't suppose-" I spat. "That there IS a prize, since the whole beginning part of this was a misdirect."

I caught sight of the cheerful Kitsune easily, and when he met my eyes, he just shrugged. "I mean, we're going to heal all the beetle damage when it's over?" he said uncertainly. "So…kind of?"

I squinted at him. "Wait, you're just going to fix us? That's a bit nicer than I was expecting."

"Oh, no, we'll heal the beetle DAMAGE," he corrected. "You'll still be poisoned." He paused. "Envenomed? Whatever, agonizing pain that will last for hours. Don't worry, you'll all survive. And pain is good for you, it builds character!"

"I'll build you a character!" jeered a familiar voice.

Darian spun and glared into the crowd. "SHUT UP CHAD, that doesn't even make any sense!"

"Gods, please kill me," I groaned in both physical and emotional agony. I wasn't even worried about tempting fate at this point, the beetle venom was building up, and while the brief surge of extra power from the initial ignition was gone, the steadily rising torture of it being burned away was still alive and well.

On the upside, my soul was fine. There was barely any strain with just Mornax and Mephistopheles active alongside Abomination Engine. Not that it would have mattered with full healing, but hey, I was keeping my promise to Callie, and that worth any amount of pain I could imagine. Until five seconds later. At that point my imagination experienced a rapid growth spurred by new heights of mind numbing torment, and I started regretting making that promise to start with.

It was absurdly lucky that this venom was reactive with my Abomination Engine, actually, even for that brief burst. Sadly I didn't have time to try to recreate that lucky split second outside of my domain fuckery, because I was still being eaten alive by beetles.

One by one, the others ticked away. First Mnemosyne, then Harper in the distance. Elena and I lasted the longest, but she gave just before I did, leaving me alone with two other huge brutes, one in a weird pigskin head covering and other dressed like a jester. Pigface went down first, then the jester, and as I hit the ground, I twitched in pain as the beetles redoubled their efforts.

The cylinder smashed into me, driving me into the stone of the platform, only failing to crack my bones because of my armor, though others weren't so lucky. When the thing finally stopped, most of us were half crushed, and we sat there twitching and dazed as the cylinder burst and showered us in some sort of healing rain.

I went limp with relief as the last of the wounds knitted in the water, and I released my Abomination Engine, letting the soaking spray soothe my aching muscles. Mornax had dropped when I had, and I was exhausted. Mornax could prevent damage from a lot of things, but me tearing my own muscles on each other as I futilely resisted the descent of an unstoppable object wasn't one of them.

"You guys ok?" I asked weakly. My only response was high pitched whines from my companions. Right. Venom. "Hey, Archie!" I called my companion. "I'm too exhausted to purify these guys. Get Elena, Mnemosyne…and I guess Harper. He's the guy with the big gloves over there." I nodded vaguely in Harper's general direction.

Archie cawed, and I saw a flash of fire as he flew over my head. I let myself slump back in exhaustion. Just physical, at least this time. I was sure I'd have lasted much longer with Gluttony. Even the brief burst of power from the igniting venom had helped a ton. I sent my wife a wry victory pulse, and she responded with affection and gratitude, and then I sent her a request to talk to my uncle about some kind of domain enabling device, and all I got was amusement.

Trusting she wouldn't just leave me hanging, I switched back to the present as Archie returned, landing on my breastplate. With another trill, he flooded me with Life Nova fire, and I sighed at the soothing burn. My muscles healed and filled with energy, though it didn't help the mental exhaustion.

Getting up was much easier, and I climbed to my feet, prying myself out of a Shane shaped hole in the ground and stumbling over to my cleansed allies. "Alright. Enough of this bullshit," I groaned. "We get directions to the next meetup and then we go the fuck home. I need to sleep for a week." Or at least a day. Their answering laughter sounded a lot like agreement to me, and so we set off.