Too Stubborn to Die

It was a peculiar level they found themselves in. The dragon heads were huge, craning over what looked like a little settlement, but it was completely out of place. It was a medieval-looking town plopped down and surrounded by a barrier of rock, which created a path directly to it from the tunnel passages.

Their goal was simple: to keep the one hundred villagers who were just standing around doing nothing in the town square from dying.

And seconds later, they were introduced to who they had to keep from killing the villagers. They were humanoid swine species called porklings, and carried simple weapons.

They were only level 40, but there were hundreds of them pouring out of the tunnels and down the stone-walled passage toward the town.

But there was another catch to the trial. They weren’t actually able to directly attack the porklings and had to rely on the dragon heads to destroy the attackers before they reached the town.

“I’ll blow the flames, you pick off the survivors with your dragon’s maw,” Pentival said.

Each of them controlled one dragon head and had to agree on who would control which powers.

As Aaron considered what Pentival said, he glanced across at the avatar hovering nearby. He looked like a rather unsuspecting human in long, flowing robes and a bald head. But it was Pentival’s thinly veiled insistence that they pick him that bothered him.

Focus on the trial, idiot!

He turned back and tried to lock in on the task at hand. At least Pentival’s idea wasn’t a bad one. Aaron’s precision was insane, even though his Dexterity could be higher. It was a result of fine-tuning over countless battles against Yendal, and as such, his fine control over his body, and therefore his Stats, provided far more accuracy than the average person.

Aaron agreed to Pentival’s suggestion, and their dragon heads changed colors. Pentival’s was red, and Aaron’s was gold.

Not only that, but Aaron had sensed the barrier around them, stopping them from using their powers. A part of him wanted to try to disable it with a spirit punch and cheat his way through the trial. But Pentival already knew enough about him. He didn’t need to let the guy see his new Skill, not when he might be able to complete the trial through normal means. However, he did sigh at the thought of it. Following the rules was just kind of annoying at this point.

But he didn’t have long to think about it. The little porklings were streaming out of the caves and toward the town.

Suddenly, the path was set alight as the dragon head Pentival commanded doused them in flames. But of course, the attack was far from perfect, and many of the little monsters managed to escape destruction.

However, many were also set aflame, and Aaron cursed his ogre gut as the smell of sizzling pork made him incredibly hungry.

Forcing himself to focus on the trial, he swooped down with the dragon’s head and scooped them up within its jaws, and then munched down on the little guys. The dragon’s head even burped and moaned in pleasure occasionally as it fed. And even though Aaron had to force himself from fantasizing about eating their cooked brethren, he thought this to be grotesque. After all, the dragon was eating raw humanoid pigs. The least it could do was cook them first.

It was quite the relentless battle, and the little porklings kept coming in, steaming out near endlessly. If not for how weak they were, it would have been impossible.

Still, overwhelming numbers were still a struggle to deal with, and within minutes of the hordes of porklings increasing in number, a couple of them managed to get through.

To their surprise, when the porklings reached the villagers, they exploded in blood, killing one each and leaving no sign of either besides a puddle of blood.

“Gross.”

But that wasn’t all. A large counter above the town flicked down, and 100 became 98.

“Careful, Aaron!” Pentival shouted. “It might not seem like much, but we don’t know how many stages of this thing there are! And I’d rather not fail!”

“I got you!”

But within seconds, the wave had begun to thin, and the two of them killed the last of the porklings, and a timer appeared. They had an entire minute until the next wave, and Pentival swayed his dragon head toward Aaron so that they could talk between waves.

“So, do you have any plan for what comes next?”

“Me,” Aaron thumbed his chest. “I mean, kinda? Get strong and deal with anyone who threatens Earth.”

A bemused smile played on Pentival. “I see. I doubt it’ll be so easy, but I can’t deny that I find your answer refreshingly straightforward.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s my style.”

When the timer was up, the bell sounded again, and another wave of monsters poured out. But these ones weren’t just higher level, they were also twice the size of their porky pals, and considerably more hardy. They were also covered in fur with curling horns.

Pentival began shooting flames again, and his hand glowed as he activated a Skill. Aaron wasn’t sure what it was, but figured it was some kind of buff. They couldn’t directly attack the monsters streaming out, but the dragon’s head suddenly got faster and more furious.

The guy was some kind of Leader Class evolution, and so Aaron figured it wasn’t particularly surprising that he had buffs and Skills on hand that he could use on the dragon head.

Aaron, on the other hand, relied on skill mostly; however, [ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ] came in handy. Between his additional energy reserves, his stored adipose energy, and additional aether he could convert, he could now use [ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ] for quite a long time, especially when he wasn’t using other Skills. In fact, the only reason he didn’t use it more was that it got rather boring to slow the trial down so much. And he saved it for when there was a large bunch of monsters nearing the town.

[ Gust Step ] could also be used to speed the dragon head up a little, but it was only marginal. Aaron would have needed real buffing Skills to aid it properly, and so he was limited in what he could do. Ultimately, Skill alone wasn’t enough to best the trial perfectly, and a handful of monsters were able to get past him, so overwhelmingly large that the waves were.

The bell sounded again, and the one-minute timer started. However, this time, after the wave passed and Pentival swung his dragon head over to Aaron, the god’s shadow drifted down toward them.

“Have you given any more thought to my proposal?” asked Pentival.

“What? You mean the ‘work for me or die’ one?”

“That… was not what I said,” said Pentival. “But yes, that proposal. I will admit that I was naive when I entered the trial. I was a big fish in a small pond and believed I knew more than I actually did. My initial proposal was crude, and I can see why you took it the way you did. I now see that I was foolish, and right here and now, this is part of my attempt to make amends.”

Aaron raised a suspicious eyebrow at Pentival.

“Of course, that is not my only intention,” Pentival continued. “My goal is unchanged. I still want to unite the sector, and later, the universe, but my methods have changed. Let me introduce you to somebody important.”

Pentival gestured to the side as the divine avatar floated down toward them, gaining color to indicate that the deity himself was speaking through it.

“Greetings, Fate Weaver.”

“Fate—what?!”

“There is no need to attempt to hide yourself in my presence. I am one of the Greats. Lenriel the Sovereign, god of leadership and conquest. Very few things slip past the eyes of my people.”

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“I see… and what has this got to do with me?”

“I rule the Empire Expanse. One of the greatest powers in the multiverse. Countless trillions serve under me, including gods. Pentival here has been tasked with bringing your sector into our great empire. But it won’t be easy, as talented as he is. He’ll need allies. And you could be one such ally, if you were to see reason, that is.”

“Is that so?”

“I see that you are not convinced, but I do not expect you to be,” continued Lenriel. “What I propose requires nothing from you beyond an agreement of non-interference. And this is not something that I offer to only you. It is the Empire’s policy when dealing with unique individuals. Given the nature of the System, it is impossible to truly subjugate such individuals, and trying only creates enemies. Instead, we prefer to negotiate peacefully whenever possible, especially when the individual in question is the disciple of the Martial God.

“The Empire’s goals for your universe are not sinister. You are free to ask your patrons. While many disagree with our goals, and some disagree with our methods, there are very few who disagree with our intentions. Our goal is to create a place where the weak and strong can live in peace. It is a simple law of nature that the strong will rise above the weak, but that does not mean that the weak lose their right to live freely. By enforcing law and order on our planets, we can ensure the safety of those too weak to defend themselves.

“We do not ask our citizens to give up their freedom. Under the Empire, you would not be obligated to do anything. Your only obligation will be to obey our laws, which, to my understanding, are the same as the ones you are already familiar with. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not destroy the property of others. Things like that

“It seems that the trial is about to continue, so I will leave it at that for now, but as you fight, think it over. It would be a life similar to the one you had before, under a government with similar principles. The only difference is that you would have the backing of one of the multiverse’s most powerful forces to prevent any unnecessary conflict and to protect from the… less savory overlords.”

The bell sounded again, and a new species of mutated boar-men charged out of the tunnels, even bigger than the ones before. Lenriel’s avatar faded back to being shadow as Aaron refocused his attention on the trial.

The dragon head couldn’t even kill these ones in a single bite, and trying to eat them got one of the big, porky fellows stuck in the jaws of Aaron’s dragon head.

It was struggling and squirming, and took way too long to dislodge. He could still attack with the dragon’s teeth, but he wouldn’t be able to gobble these ones down in single bites.

He wasn’t sure how many waves there were, but this little tactical screw-up cost them twenty-two lives, and Pentival was quite alarmed.

“We’re not going to make it at this rate,” Pentival sighed. “So be it.”

It looked like he delved into a System page, and suddenly, additional dragon heads appeared overlooking the town.

“What did you do?”

“You can spend system credits to purchase additional defenses. It’s all part of the trial.”

“Oh,” Aaron grimaced. He was still broke and felt a little bad that the guy was spending his own cash to help them get through the trial.

“Don’t worry about it. I can easily recover the SC through my followers. Let’s just get this done, okay?”

“Okay.”

With the three additional dragon heads backing them up, the next wave was easily slaughtered before it reached the end, and no more lives were lost.

The bell sounded, and once more the timer started.

“So, what do you think, human?” Lenriel said, his form regaining its color. “Does my proposal interest you?”

Aaron thought for a few seconds. “Non-interference” sounded a lot like “look the other way while we conquer your people.” At the same time, if everything Lenriel said was true, and the Empire truly was as benevolent as he wanted Aaron to believe it was, it wasn’t the worst offer in the world. Aaron didn’t know much about the multiverse, but if people like Darius could reach the top of the rankings in the Tutorial, he wouldn’t have been surprised if similar people could create powerful forces. A deity like Darius commanding legions of undead sounded terrifying, and if the Empire could help defend against that, it was definitely a good thing. But still…

“It’s not that I’m not interested…” He muttered as he thought through his thoughts.

“Be reasonable, Aaron,” Pentival said. “The multiverse is impossibly vast. Lenriel has shown me but a glimpse of it, and even after one hundred years, our little corner of it won’t stand a chance against the true powers residing amongst the stars. Subjugation will come in one form or another. Best it be at the hand of an ally.”

Why’d he have to say subjugation?

It made the entire deal so much less attractive. He could have just lied and called it an alliance.

“He speaks truly,” said Lenriel. “The integration of a new universe is not a common occurrence. There are many forces in the multiverse that will be vying for a foothold, or possibly total dominion. No matter what kind of defenses you try to mount here, your budding universe cannot hope to stand against the full might of an empire that has been around for eons.

“I encourage you to speak to your patron gods. I cannot say I am on the best of terms with either of them, but I am not their enemy either, and I don’t think that either of them would disagree that, among all the forces in the multiverse, the Empire is one of the most benevolent. Of all the forces trying to conquer your universe, we are the most benevolent.”

Aaron frowned. Nothing the two were saying was unreasonable, but the “we’re the least of many evils” approach still rubbed him the wrong way. Like they were trying to come off as being honest and not sugarcoating anything, but in doing so, they just made themselves look like pricks. It was as if they were saying, “Look, we may be evil, but have you seen the other guys?” Not that Aaron thought they were completely evil or anything, but he wasn’t about to agree to anything when the pitch was so unconvincing.

Before he could respond, the bell sounded again, cutting their conversation short, and another wave poured out. The dragon heads snapped and blew flames against the increasingly large boars, but were able to stop most of the wave. A few got through, but they still had over seventy lives remaining.

However, things got worse over the following three waves, and they lost another twenty lives. Sighing again, Pentival bought three more dragon heads to protect their remaining lives.

Aaron kind of wanted to check out how much he had spent, but decided not to. If it were an egregiously large number, he was going to feel a little bad about it. Then again, he kind of felt like he was here to be recruited, so maybe Pentival had expected possible costs, and it wasn’t for him to worry about.

Before the final wave came, Aaron was still in turmoil about Lenriel and Pentival’s proposal. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t really find any major faults with it. If it truly wasn’t possible to be independent in the multiverse, then the Empire was probably the best option, even if he didn’t like it. He definitely would need to see if he could talk to Yendal and Oozagh before he decided anything.

“I see you are conflicted,” said Lenriel. “You do not need to decide now. You don’t even need to decide before the trials end. There may yet be many years before you need to make a decision. But even if it takes years, know that eventually, a decision must be made.

“True neutrality is only possible for the strong. Your patrons are indeed powerful, but the multiverse is vast. The Martial God may be the most individually skilled person in the multiverse, but her forces are minimal. The God of Cooking and Gluttony is one of the leaders of the ogre race, but ogres by nature do not work well together in large groups. His forces are fragmented and scattered. Compared to organizations like the Empire, he is no threat.

“Their backing may be enough to protect you individually, but what about those around you? Your friends and family, your fellow countrymen, or even your planet as a whole? There are many forces in the multiverse that would not think twice about challenging your patrons, but few would dare to attack an established outpost of the Empire and risk our wrath.”

“Is the empire one of those forces that wouldn’t think twice about challenging them?”

Lenriel fixed him with a long, cold stare.

“This conversation is me thinking twice,” he said. “I prefer peace when possible, and even if you don’t agree, the Empire will not come after you, but should you stand in our way, your backers are not enough to make us hesitate for even a second. My intent is not to threaten you. I have no grudge against you. I do not want to control you. I simply believe it is in your best interest to avoid making enemies of us.

“And don’t think that your decision is solely a personal one. You may not realize it yet, but you are one of the forerunners of your planet. Whether you like it or not, where you go, others will follow. If you ally with the Empire, they will too. If you stubbornly refuse, they will join in your defiance.”

Aaron frowned. Regardless of Lenriel’s intentions, that was definitely a threat. And a nasty, guilt-tripping one too. Aaron wasn’t sure how to respond, so he was thankful when the bell sounded, indicating the start of the final wave. Despite not having his head completely in the game, he and Pentival cleared it with ease, and the System message announcing their success arrived promptly.

Chain Quest: The Shadow Trials

Stage three of [ Trial of Companionship ] COMPLETED!

You have tested your teamwork against the relentless waves of boar-kind and saved the defenseless people of the town.

Quest Rewards: Recipe: Fraction Regalia [ Epic ], Communications Room upgrade to stage 3!

Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!

Ding!

[ Empty-Handed Energy Monk ] has LEVELED UP!

35 → 36

“It’s important what we have spoken about today,” Pentival said as they were warped back to the hallway. “Don’t forget about it.”

Aaron nodded, but he honestly didn’t entirely know what to think. Still, a level was welcomed, and regardless of what he decided in the end, it was good to gain a better understanding of what was out there in the multiverse.

That said, he was Aaron Dober, and as important as the little discussion was, his mind quickly raced forward to the possibility of completing the Trial of Endurance.

Hey! I didn’t ask Mo’han if he got another Title for being the first to beat an entire trial!

Aaron slumped a little at that thought. He could still be the second trial taker to complete a full trial, but that was hardly as impressive as coming first.

He also remembered characters like Mandor and even Ikran Teshk Ungari, or Darius, and realized that they would likely reach the point of finishing a tenth-stage trial sooner or later.

Yeah, I gotta hurry. It’s one thing to lose to Mo’han, but no way I’m going to be third, or worse.

He swung back around toward the trial dial. It was time to work.