Two huge orcs moved through a suddenly flat land. The pair had seen a dozen of the little goblins running away from this place, the place where they thought a cave was.
But, before them was an empty stretch of forest. No cave, no trees, just some small nightshade fungi growing between crumbled stones. One of the orcs snorted.
"Aint no necromancer here. Gotta tell the boss."
The other orc smiled, his tusks glistening in the twilight. It was good news to all in the forest that the enslaver had died. He and his infernal dungeon.
They turned and left. Tonight was one for celebration, with the enslaver dead, the goblins in camp would be deeply enthused.
Far away from the twilight sun, a gaunt humanoid watched a blood-red crystal in his hand. Across from him, the colossal form of a grand hydra watched with a little irritation.
One of her heads let out a short grunt as one of her clawed legs scratched an itch on her stomach. Two scales fell to the floor, joining the layer covering the stones.
"Lotta excitement for some zinc ranker. Even for you." She yawned as the vampire sighed. He pulled a large metal object from his storage.
"Not a lot. We might have a new player soon."
"Soon? How soon?"
"Within the next millennium."
The hydra was a little startled at his words. But was even more startled when the blood stone was placed into the projection item.
"How old is that piece of junk?" She asked snarkily as the item was inserted. The vampire gave the hydra a contemptuous look.
"It's not junk. The southerners lost the blueprint. This is a one-of-a-kind item. Not that a big lizard would understand."
"Hydra, not a lizard."
"You're definitely a lizard. Scales, cold blood, the works."
"I don't have cold blood."
The vampire rolled his eyes as he clicked a button on the side of the device. On the wall of the cave, a projection appeared.
The world had a red tint through the projection. The hydra didn't mind it; she could see it fine.
The projection depicted a mass of blue lashing out with ten tendrils. They ended in draconic claws and teeth. The mass had a cage above its central body, and glowed a faint cerulean blue.
The hydra didn't care about it, though; she cared about what it did.
Through the crystal, she watched as it devoured a manifested dungeon core. She stood on her feet with a start. One of her heads hit the roof of her cave, not that she noticed.
"It devoured that nexus? I felt through the projection that it activated a devouring power. Likely the basic Devour, am I right?"
"You are. But that's not what concerned me."
The hydra watched through the vampire's projection as a wave of aura was released. It wasn't reinforced by one will or one willpower resource. But it was instead powered by three wills and three willpowers.
"A tri-soul with at least three archetypes? How is that possible? Shouldn't reality have wiped its sorry face off the face of the world? I'm still recovering from my last tribulation, and I'm a hydra."
"A quad-soul, actually. There's a fourth one, the summon found that fourth will early. It seems to have gone into remission before the escape."
The hydra's eyes went wider, all eighteen of them. Her tail began to swish behind her as she pondered.
"Keep an eye on them. A bat on them at all times. I'll get a lizard too. We can't let this child out of our sight."
The vampire nodded, already spilling his almost black blood to conduct a ritual of vampiric summoning.
Azotreh was hunting. It had been three days since they had awoken again, and they were much better. Their mind had finally calmed, though the damage remained; it was beginning to heal.
The constant support of Nicholas, Fuzem, Errazorrus, and Ruby was starting to heal their damaged psyche. The cute fox had been more help than anticipated, especially in hunts.
They'd hunted five rabbits over the last three days. Ruby had caught eight so Azotreh could kill them, but she refused to let Azotreh kill any squirrels. Any time she refused to bring back a squirrel, it would bring a smile to Azotreh's face.
While Azotreh was having fun, Nicholas was tracking their progress.
Turns out, killing a 'rabbit-type' thing gave Rabbit Slayer I. But if you killed ten of the same species, it would give you that specific species slayer title. So when Azotreh hunted their tenth horned rabbit, it had given Horned Rabbit Slayer I.
Azotreh also kept both Rabbit Slayer I and Horned Rabbit Slayer I active all the time. The titles granted a 5% bonus against rabbits and a 10% bonus against horned rabbits, respectively. It wasn't clear if they were multiplicative or additive, but Nicholas thought it was most likely additive.
The two titles took up 0.1 mana regeneration per second each, 90% less than the majority of their other titles. It was the only reason the two titles remained active all the time.
They also discovered that Inventory was beginning to pull on their mana. Normally, according to Azotreh, a person could only have five passive skills multiplied by their rank. So a tin ranker could have five, while a nickel ranker could have ten.
Azotreh also said that passive skills cost nothing to keep because they were simply given slots and a maximum. But Azotreh had no maximum and no free slots.
As Nicholas fully figured this out, he began attempting experiments. Along with Errazorrus and Fuzem, he began to try and manipulate the world. Try to gain passive skills. But every time they tried something outside, it would only cause headaches.
So, they hunted instead. They reached level 14 by the third day, though neither Azotreh nor Ruby knew what the levels were used for. They didn't even increase their stats. Though those had increased.
Azotreh broke through to the tin rank's g-grade on the second day, having apparently reached the cap on all their potens. How, they weren't sure. It was obvious for ones like strength and intelligence. Attacking stuff with physical and magical power increased their stats.
Eventually, they just ignored it and continued on. Though it was confusing how their resource pools apparently expanded by ten times, while their regeneration only increased by two times.
Ruby said it was normal, but Nicholas kept complaining about the power imbalance. So he kept trying to find ways to increase their mana regeneration past the G-grade cap.
The only method he found was boosting Astral Bolt, which by this point had reached level 24. It was a simple ability to level, just repeatedly using it on rabbits.
Considering that every level made it stronger and cost less, while also boosting their intelligence to make it even stronger, the ability was substantially stronger from it. Not at the point they could one-shot a rabbit, but pretty close.
Time was closing in. The tribulation was only two hours away, so Azotreh moved deeper into the woods. If it were some grand event, they'd rather not have it right beside their base of operations. Who wanted to have their hidden lair found because some grand event drew people there anyway?
So Azotreh ventured deeper into the forest. Ruby was left behind in the cave, just in case. But Azotreh was confident. They were a higher grade and had ten times the health.
If they could survive their body being ripped apart, they could survive this. There was no way they'd die today.
Azotreh found a shady tree to wait out the tribulation, with a bush of bright red berries beside them.
Nicholas had Azotreh pick some of the berries. They were called Atu berries, though that's all their analysis ability gave them. It hadn't leveled once, though that was mostly from disuse.
As Azotreh waited under the tree, watching the shining twilight of the bright skies, they felt some peace. It wasn't as nice as before. It didn't feel like home, but they were allowed to relax for just a moment.
Azotreh kept picking the berries and analyzing them before popping them into their inventory. By the time the tribulation was about to come, they had over two hundred of the bright berries, and Analysis had leveled twice.
The result was rather nice, considering that the ability apparently also used their mana. Nicholas was still grumbling about nothing being free, even with magic, when something changed.
Four humans appeared around Azotreh just five minutes from the tribulation. Their hair rose as the humans approached. One in the back, a woman in magus robes and with a mark of the strategist, pointed at Azotreh.
"AZ-087! You're coming with us!" She shouted as the two front liners, a wall, and a brawler approached. Their faces hardened as the brawler pulled two swords from his inventory.
Azotreh aimed a finger at the quartet, Nicholas casting Astral Bolt from within, while Errazorrus aimed.
The wall conjured a dozen overlapping hexagonal shields as Azotreh fired bolt after bolt. Notifications began to build once the first shield broke, but Azotreh ignored them.
Swords flashed as the brawler appeared before Azotreh between spells. Azotreh's arms were removed cleanly. The smug look on the brawler's face vanished as Azotreh simply grew new arms. The biomass expended was quickly restored through Mana to Biomass.
Azotreh fired one astral bolt after another into the man's armor. The magic dispersed a little when it tried to touch the plate, but mana dispersion didn't completely halt spells, and Azotreh was casting like a madman.
The strategist raised her hands, and a blast of electricity began to arc between herself, the wall, the brawler, and their saint. Every time it bounced, one of them had a pained but determined look. Each bounce seemed to begin escalating damage.
Azotreh felt the cage beginning to tighten around them, and they were suddenly moving like a cornered beast. Draconic teeth appeared on the ends of long tendrils. Snapping jaws and raking claws were ignored until they interrupted the lightning bolt. Azotreh's life force dropped rapidly, their body was filled with electric power, and their movements stopped. Mid-swing, their four-colored eyes were wide in hatred.
The brawler grinned.
"Not so tough now."
Then he reached out and grabbed one of Azotreh's tendrils. A small arc of electricity bounced between them, but that only made the brawler grin more widely.
None of them noticed the way their hair began to stand on end. They all believed that it was just the electricity of the strategist's spell. All four moved to Azotreh. The saint left a Mark of Stillness on Azotreh after a minute-long cast.
She was healing Azotreh as thunder began to rumble. It caused all four humans to look up at once. The strategist was the first to feel the stinging raindrop, glowing with transcendent light.
"Rain? Doesn't the barrier stop the rain?" The saint asked. In the next moment, the strategist was on the ground, screaming.
The wall moved over her, and was horrified as his shield was slowly melted by the glowing rain. The rain was white, gold, and silver.
Azotreh felt the raindrops hitting their skin, but couldn't do anything. The Mark of Stillness was a difficult ability to use, considering it took a whole minute, but on a stunned opponent, it was an ultimate weapon. Until the mark was dispelled, the target simply couldn't move.
Azotreh screamed internally as they were forced to remain still as a statue.
They gained Electric Resistance, Stun Resistance, and Mark Resistance over the final half minute before the tribulation.
The humans, meanwhile, tried to stop the rain from reaching them. The only method they found was the wall, using a powerful and huge shield spell, while the strategist and saint both channeled their vibrancy into him.
But shields were broken and fixed over and over. Over the minute, the humans watched in horror as their target was slowly melted by the rain, and as their own deaths approached. Even the vibrancy of two dedicated spellcasters wasn't enough to keep them alive forever against whatever this was.
But just as they felt it couldn't get any worse, it did.
Azotreh heard the thunder twice before finally, in a single clap of thunder and a bright flash of lightning, Azotreh and the four humans were finally struck with the tribulation.
It was huge, a massive bolt of lightning struck them in a single second. The shields broke, the skies split, the world rumbled.
Their very reality shook as the tribulation of power finally struck them.
Azotreh screamed as they died, cursing these humans, cursing the human nations, and cursing the world for being so cruel to them for so long.
Azotreh awoke in a body that wasn't theirs. A day had passed; they knew it instinctively.
They looked down and saw the massive beating heart that was their body. Their single crystalline eye began to tear up as they realized they were alive. They had survived, somehow. But they remembered dying.
[You have died.]
[Despite experiencing death, you have survived. Your soul remains on the mortal plane despite everything.]
[You have received: Blessing of the Overlord of Gluttony: Beelzebub (Ruby)]
[You have gained a System Boon!]
[Ability of the blessing: Devour already detected. Your innate ability: Devour is being improved.]
[Devour has become Gluttonous Devouring.]
[Title: One Who Has Experienced Death has been acquired.]
[Due to dying to Tribulation Damage, you have gained resistance: Tribulation Resistance (0.10%).]
[You have experienced your first tribulation! Nine remain.]