[Sorry about uploads slowing down lately. I have college finals in a month and I am trying to focus on studying, writing for my next novel that will be coming out on WSA, and trying to sleep for more than 4 hours a day while simultaneously trying to make chapters on here. I love making chapters for both my novels (This one and the one that had yet to come out), but sometimes it can get a little time-consuming especially when I am trying to juggle everything at once. Therefore I might be putting a small hiatus on this novel when may comes around while focusing on getting out one chapter a day for my other novel. This does not mean that I am dropping this novel! I am just going to take a break and will be returning to it immediately after I finally have time in my schedule. For now, however, I'm going to try my best to stockpile as many chapters as possible to make sure I don't spend too long on my hiatus lol. I will be returning on July the 1st with a huge mass release!]
After thinking for a while, I had finally decided in front of the peering eyes of everyone around me. Finally, I stretched my hand towards the only thing that I would need in the meantime to make sure I would be safe and capable of fighting anything that would attack in the near future.
Stretching my head, I aimed to grab hold of the manual in front of me, however, I found myself quickly halting as the same voice from before entered my mind and started telling me something only I could hear.
Hela of course absorbed all the information and presented it through both speech and text boxes to me, allowing me to observe and fully listen to the thing that it was about to tell me.
[Halt]
'???'
[The temple has made a choice]
[The contestant with no name and access to divine energy alongside destruction energy shall be given the option of activating and going through the secret trial. Do you wish to do so?] Asked the voice
'What is the point of going through that?' Before I could ask any more questions, the AI of the temple seemed to answer my inquiry with a single statement, while leaving me shocked and intrigued by what would happen next.
[Once you take part in the secret trial, you will be given the ability to take all three rewards and not be forced into choosing only one. Of course, you can refuse however, this would also mean that you would only get one prize out of three rewards that had been engineered and chosen to dramatically aid you in the future, no matter which one you chose.] It explained.
Before I could say something else or even question how it could read my mind, or at least what seemed like it, it had stopped me once again and started to speak, telling something else that would cause my eyes to widen and my clenched fists to tighten.
[Taking part in this trial will give you the right to take part in the final trial and to be precise, the trial that ends all. The trial in which you would get the true inheritance and reward... The temple had been made to find the correct person to wield its power and for the thousands of years that it had been sitting idly on this desolate planet, only one other person was capable of getting to the final trial. yet even then they were too weak, too fragile, and simply too untalented to survive]
Pushing all my other questions to the side, I began thinking of a single question that had begun to plague my mind.
'What is the final trial?' I asked, now fully aware of it is capable of reading my mind.
[This temple had to been created to find one of the most talented in the universe and allow them to receive a sort of inheritance...] It spoke mysteriously, yet this time instead of its voice is cold and lifeless, it felt as if there was a person, a thing or a living being talking instead despite its robotic and lifeless tone.
Something was different.
[Unlike other inheritances, I'm sure you had seen one and even absorbed it due to its weak nature. I believe it was a god slayer inheritance but quite weak compared to the other God Slayer inheritances. Anyway, unlike other inheritances, the one I will give you will be created on the spot and made to make you a boundless creature... Not saying that you already aren't one.]
Even though I was a little more intrigued about what it was saying, I did not want to pry too much and so I remained silent, allowing it to finish its long and articulate explanation that would feel like it'd go for another couple of hours which was, in reality, a couple of seconds due to how fast my mind was.
[The inheritance will give you things that will boost you and make you grow faster than any other being in the universe. It will give you all the knowledge of the person who had created this temple. Since this is almost like a tomb for the person who had created it, it has all the knowledge he had gathered over the millennia in with he lived, traveling through the stars of the universe and finding out things beyond your comprehension.]
'...'
[So what is your answer? Would you like to take part in the next secret trial, or would you rather return to your life of normalcy amongst your peers, where you have to care about nothing but the threats which your world might face... Care about nothing other than reaching the peak of your planet's existence and leaving a short yet meager life?]
Hearing what the AI had to say, for the first time ever since I had started speaking to it I finally choose to reply properly to one of its questions without binding myself in the worries of angering it.
With my hand still outstretched, I looked forwards with a huge grin being formed on my face and a mocking tone coming out of my mouth under the eyes of everyone around me, those who I had seen as temporary allies to those I had just met.
Without a care in the world, I replied with a mocking-
"You act like I have a choice."
[Hahaha... You know?]
This time, from the reactions of everyone around me, I could tell that it had spoken to everyone rather than just me.
"Of course, I know. Beating the final trial is the only way for the crack to close right? Or else you would start forming in our world and from then on, would use it as some kind of hub where you will be opening cracks to random worlds until you find someone else." I replied while standing up.
[Impressive. So I guess that is a yes from your end?]
"Of couse... I accept your challenge". I replied with an enormous grin plastered across my face, not that anyone could see it through.
Right now, I could feel my heart racing. Each thump creates another. My blood vessels expanded and contracted while the blood pumped and pumped.
What was this feeling?
What was this feeling of a void being filled within my heart?
It was as if a primal instinct within me had awakened.
It was as if I was looking at the very thing that would make me whole again.
Like a scattered puzzle waiting to be put together by the person playing a game, a game that happened to be my life... A game which I had chosen to play as well.
As my primary and beast0like instincts kicked in, I could not help but release a demonic laugh alongside a bloodthirsty aura that wanted to devour everything within its path with the chaos that had been imbued within.
I might have not known it at that point in my life, but that was the day something awakened within me.
The thirst for challenge. The greed for more. The lust for blood. The battle frenzy excitement I would get every time I felt like I was about to go against something worthy of my full power...
My eyes finally shone onto the room with their purple hue while illuminating everything around it within its violet vibrant color. It was warm yet at the same time, filled to the brim with chaos.
One could look at the light and feel a strange pull towards it, yet at the same time, they would feel every instinct in their body to move away.
Like a beautiful rose with its thorny stem.
After everyone in the room had been hushed by the enormous and pressuring aura I had released, a white light began to shroud me beginning from the bottom, covering my feet, and then traveling upward finally reaching my throat, chin, nose, eyes, and finally hair.
In the next instant, I had disappeared from the room alongside the vibrant violet shine and the white light, making everyone in the room release breaths that they had not even known they had held.
They were sighs of relief though because for some reason while they knew that I meant them no harm, they felt like something was different, or at least Laila and Croloe did while Scar had been thinking about the same topic since the moment I had entered the spacial tunnel with him up to the arena where Lea and the rest were kept, fighting against some unknown cat that I had beaten without breaking a sweat.
He knew something was wrong, yet he simply could not put his finger on it nor form coherent words that could explain the feeling and change, yet he knew better than anyone else in that room...
After being sent through a special tunnel for minutes without rest, I finally landed in a desolate area without anyone to be seen in miles. I did not care, however. I had been promised a good fight, A trial that would force my all out of me whether it would be this trial or the final trial.
Without knowing it, I had already started to think of the AI as someone or something that had promised to give me what I wanted. I promise in I would not allow it to break no matter what.
Finally, after a few moments of landing, I finally heard the voice echo throughout the entire 'arena'.
Arena in quotes of course because what I was standing on was but a simple platform that seemed to go on for about 2.5 kilometers in each direction no matter where I looked.
It was a circular space where nothing beyond it mattered as it was but a void that seemed to be endless in-depth, yet just mysterious and dark enough that if you were to look into it for too long, it could probably open its shadow eyes and looking right back at you
[Welcome contestant! Welcome to the Secret trial created for those who had been deemed worthy!]
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