by L. M. Kerr
Simone paused, looking rather uncertain as she turned to stare at the door. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned to look at her assistant.
Han wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead as he looked at the third door for several moments. Those moments dragged into longer moments, and then into minutes as Han stood there, silently focusing.
Micheal remained quiet throughout this, waiting patiently.
Finally, after nearly 4 minutes, Han looked away from the door, his eyes wide. His hands trembled as he gulped and nodded his head repeatedly.
“Th-th-th,” He stuttered a few times before he took a deep breath and continued,
“The door has something dangerous behind it. Extremely, extremely dangerous!” The poor man was even shaking, as if he couldn’t bear remembering what he had seen.
Simone sighed as she heard that and then rubbed at her forehead. She then grit her teeth and turned to look back over at Micheal.
Micheal looked back at her with a serious expression, trying his best to convey a sense of honesty. He wanted to look as believable as possible, to gain their trust as quickly as possible.
Simone studied him for a moment before asking what Micheal wanted to hear.
“What do you want from us, Legion?” Micheal smiled internally.
“It’s simple.” Micheal began as he pointed at Simone, and then waved his hand at her Rury Group members,
“I need manpower to work on a project of mine. This project will be somewhat dangerous, but if you follow my orders, you and your men will walk away from it better than how you started.” He finished his short speech, studying Simone’s expression to gauge her reaction.
Simone’s eyes opened a bit wider when she heard what he had to say,
“You want us to… serve as your subordinates?” Her voice held a hint of incredulity.
“Something like that. And to ensure that it all goes well, I will require you to sign a Contract.” Micheal emphasized the last word.
“A contract?” Simone frowned, her forehead wrinkling in confusion.
“A Magic Contract, something that will bind our Souls and prevent either of us from breaking it. We can get one here.” Micheal smiled slightly,
“In return for saving your lives, you and your men will help me complete a mission. I can assure you that it will involve nothing evil, and will only benefit all of humanity. In fact, you and your men should grow to be much stronger as a result of this mission, becoming true elites.”
Micheal’s words were incredibly convincing. He spoke in a commanding tone, standing tall and raising his head to give off an authoritative air. His gaze held the pride of a lion, giving off a sense of complete confidence.
Simone bit her lip as she considered this, taking a moment to look back at her team. Her mouth twisted as thoughts flickered through her mind, adding things up and examining the situation.
Micheal sighed internally as he saw this. He didn’t like using this sort of method. But there was no other way he would be able to form a team of his own on such short notice, and if he wanted to get things done here, he needed people to work with.
Finally, after thinking for several moments, Simone turned her gaze back to Micheal. She grit her teeth as she looked at him.
“What would you have us do?”
.
Chapter 12
A cool, soothing sensation enveloped Micheal, as if he had just jumped into a pool of slightly chilled water. This feeling washed into his mind, refreshing and relaxing him in a way that was difficult to describe in words. His eyes were closed and he was no longer breathing, yet his body felt healthy and hale.
As Micheal felt all of this, he kept his mind alert, examining each and every detail that he encountered. It was a very strange sensation, as if he was entering into a dream-like state.
Just moments later, that cool sensation vanished and his breathing came back. The world returned to normal as his feet hit a solid surface, causing him to stumble slightly before catching himself.
Micheal blinked as he cleared his vision, looking around at where he had landed.
He was at the base of a mountain. A large, grassy plain spread out around this large mountain, dotted with a few trees on occasion. Warm sunlight beat down overhead, the mid-morning light falling upon Micheal’s eyes.
The mountain itself was decently large, at least as tall as some of the biggest mountains of Earth. Micheal could see a faint ring of clouds surrounding the top of the mountain, giving it a kind of ethereal quality, as if Gods lived there.
On this mountain, Micheal could faintly make out a collection of buildings built up into the face of the mountain. A long, straight path of stairs led up to these buildings, scaling halfway up the mountain. Hundreds of figures were currently moving up this stair path in the distance, scurrying upwards in a hurry.
Just a few minutes before this, Micheal had taken Simone to the side to have an in-depth conversation, one where he explained what he needed of her and how everything would work. Eventually, she’d agreed to his plans, but only on the condition that he cured her and her men of their debilitating condition first.
It was a reasonable demand. They had only known each other a brief amount of time; gaining anyone’s trust was bound to be difficult in such a short period. In addition, their relationship had started off with Micheal being prepared to kill her if need be, not exactly the best impression.
Micheal had no reason to deny her demand, and so their agreement was struck.
It was a relationship based on equal exchange. Unlike Micheal’s friendship with Shin and Sophia, his alliance with Simone was strictly business. Apart from her current misfortune, Simone didn’t have a tragic backstory or a secret past that plagued her. She was calculating, but honest, and made her stance clear to Micheal, with no surprises.
Now, all Micheal needed to do was find some Contract Seals and find a way to cure the still-secret Withering Snow Poison. After that, with a little bit more guidance from him, he would be well on his way to creating the elite proxy force that he would need later.
Conveniently enough, and the entire reason Micheal had proposed this plan in the first place, both of those things could be found here in the Fallen Deity's Inheritance.
And after that conversation, one thing led to another. Micheal gave Simone and her crew some detailed instructions on what the three doorways meant, and what the challenges behind the ‘Knight’ door would be. The tips he gave were invaluable, clues picked up from the future that would save Simone and her team an immense amount of time and effort.
And while the Rury Group was making their preparations to challenge the ‘Knight’ door in various waves, Micheal moved all the way over past the ‘Lord’ door to the ‘King’ door.
And then, without any dramatic flair, he challenged it immediately. He rested his hand directly on the glowing symbol and injected some of his ‘Ki’ into it, activating the ancient Inheritance ground.
And that was how he ended up here.
“Panho! We gotta hurry!” A boy’s voice called out from behind Micheal, catching his attention. Micheal turned around, his eyes narrowing slightly.
A teenager was jogging over towards Micheal, waving frantically. He looked to be around 15 or 16 years old, a few years younger than Micheal’s physical age. He was wearing a simple leather tunic and a plain shirt, with a longsword strapped to his waist.
At first glance, he looked very ordinary, like a human from before the modern era, where people fought with swords and not guns. However, when Micheal looked closer…
Golden skin that shined with a bronze hue, silver hair that glowed faintly, a handsome, strong appearance boosted by a naturally muscular body despite his younger age…
As he saw this, Micheal realized something that made his face twitch, involuntary rage forcing its way into his heart.
This teenager was not a human.
Nor was he a Farian, a Byren, or any of the other races that currently inhabited the Secon
d Layer.
He was a Deity. Or, at least, a member of a race that would go on to become Deities.
Specifically, a Toren, of the Toren Tribe, one of the 12 Tribes of Deities.
The 12 Tribes of Deities all looked different, based on which Tribe each Deity was from. The Tribe that had wiped out humanity, in the end, were the blue-skinned Morians that, while humanoid, looked very different compared to a regular human. Torens, on the other hand, looked very similar to normal humans.
Each Toren was naturally strong, born with strength that vastly surpassed a regular human. Of all of the 12 Tribes, the Torens were the Tribe that was most physically resilient, born with skin that could easily block bullets. Each and every member of the Toren Tribe was basically a superhuman that could live for hundreds of years without any training whatsoever.
As with all of the Tribes, one of the major ‘downsides’ to their species was the difficulty Torens faced in conceiving offspring. As a result of that, despite their longevity, the population of their race was very limited in scope.
This was the first Deity Micheal had seen since he came back to the past. This Toren wasn’t technically a Deity yet, he appeared to be a Toren from the time before their race Ascended, but Micheal’s rage flowed regardless.
Killing intent flowed in Micheal’s body and Soul, a colossal wave of pure animosity that threatened to jump out from his body and slam into the teenager in a heartbeat. These feelings were built into the very fiber of his being, born from the blood shed by those he cared for, offered up at the altar of war in sacrifices to stop the rampage of Gods.
‘Control.’ A single thought reined in Micheal’s overwhelming emotions as he swept back that killing intent with the mastered discipline of a Swordmaster.
In the meantime, the teenager flinched backwards and almost fell down, his eyes widening in surprisingly realistic shock. After a few seconds, however, he blinked and looked around in confusion, as if he wasn’t quite sure what had happened.
He quickly recovered as he turned his focus back to Micheal, renewing his earlier speech.
“The Disciple Selection Test is about to begin! Come on, Panho! I’m going up ahead!” The teenager rushed off, his short silver hair ruffling as he began to sprint up the stairs that led up the mountain.
Micheal watched him go, blinking slowly as he took a couple of seconds to calm down.
‘What is wrong with me?’ He frowned as he began to jog after the teenager, his mouth drawn into a thin line. To show bloodlust to a clearly innocent teenager, even if that boy was a member of a race that had caused him unending pain…
It was very unlike him, even if that teenager was a fake 'dream' creation.
His emotions had become more and more volatile ever since he arrived here on the Second Layer. He found it difficult to keep his mental state, feeling as if he wasn’t in complete control of himself. Not to the point where it would result in any serious lapse… but to the point where it was noticeable to him.
Feelings like this were something he had not felt in a very, very long time.
He knew the reason, of course. He wasn’t an idiot. Even if he didn’t want to face the issue head-on, the fact that his heart ached told him the truth of the situation.
It had to be because of her.
Isabelle Solara.
She was alive once more.
He sighed and shook his head, focusing back on the immediate present.
His arrival at the base of a mountain, the fact that he had been greeted by a young Toren, everything thus far had occurred exactly how Micheal had heard it should. This meant, for certain, that he was successfully taking the King’s Challenge.
The Knight’s Challenge, the Lord’s Challenge, and the King’s Challenge. Each of these three ‘Challenges’ were locked behind a different door. Once you completed one challenge, you were never allowed to complete another one.
In their own way, these Challenges served as the ‘filters’ that Yvvtal had placed into his Inheritance.
The Knight’s Challenge was very difficult to complete. Even with the in-depth tips and tricks Micheal gave to Simone, things that practically laid out every hard part of the Challenge, it would take weeks, at the minimum, for her entire group to pass it, and the risk of death was still present.
Even for Simone, the most talented of her group, it should still take quite some time. The power she and her group had the potential to gain was great, but the risks, even with Micheal’s help, were still there.
If they hadn’t had the secrets Micheal knew to make everything easier, it would take her months to complete and many of her warriors would almost certainly die.
Completing it would provide one with ample rewards, enough to greatly boost an average human's strength.
Past the Knight’s Challenge was the Lord’s Challenge.
The Lord’s Challenge was vastly more difficult than the Knight’s Challenge, and provided vastly better rewards. However, even with Micheal’s guidance and help, he had no confidence that anyone from Simone’s group would be able to complete the Challenge.
He wasn’t knocking them, not entirely. Simone did seem to be pretty talented and strong-willed, definitely within the upper echelon of humanity.
However, these Challenges… they weren’t designed for humans.
They were designed for a race that would go on to become part of the 12 Tribes of Deities.
Taking the Lord’s Challenge would’ve been suicide for Simone.
And as for the King’s Challenge…
It was unfathomably difficult for a human being to complete.
In fact, there were only two other humans that Micheal knew of that managed to barely complete the King’s Challenge.
Part of this was because many of the supremely talented First Wavers had already moved past the Second Layer before the Fallen Deity’s Inheritance appeared. The First Wave was famed for the disproportionate number of super experts found within it. In addition, the Fallen Deity’s Inheritance wasn’t open long enough to allow for billions of humans to try it.
Still… hundreds of thousands of humans, if not millions, did manage to make the trip here, all in an attempt to pass these infamous Challenges.
And of those huge swathes of talented warriors, a mere two humans passed the King’s Challenge.
Baron Fortuna of the Four Barons and the Nirvana Saint of the Purgatory Church.
No one else.
Plenty of people died trying to attempt it, eventually leading to the King’s Challenge becoming a taboo that was avoided, until the eventual disappearance of the Fallen Deity’s Inheritance. But other than those two souls, no one else ever passed, not that was publicly known.
Micheal didn’t find that very surprising. He snorted at the thought as he began to sprint up the stairs, his eyes studying the surroundings.
The first part of the King’s Challenge was as he’d heard.
You were transported to a mountain and forced to take part in a Disciple Selection Test. If you managed to complete the Disciple Selection Test, you would be transported to a ‘Newcomer’s Tournament,’ where you would compete with other new disciples for victory.
That was the complete ‘Challenge.’
All in all, it was a fairly standard occurrence for the Second Layer.
This was an entire planet dominated by Martial Arts. Martial Arts-fighting-competitions were a dime a dozen, and there were actual ‘Disciple Selection Tests’ all the time, though they often went by different names.
Micheal had, thus far, managed to avoid interacting with the mainstream society of the Second Layer. He’d spoken with some humans and made contact with a single Camp, but nothing else beyond that. The only Byren he’d seen was one of the guards stationed to work with (and possibly spy on) humanity.
As such, his first real welcome to the society of the Second Layer was happening in a place where it wasn’t even real.
Micheal’s lungs burned as he continued to sprint up the stairs, rac
ing after the Toren. He now moved as quickly as possible behind the teenager, flashing up the stairs in an instant. Each step felt rough beneath his feet, the enhanced gravity of the Second Layer ever-present here, even in this dreamworld Challenge.
This was all part of the test, according to what he knew. He needed to show an eagerness to take the test, to show a thirst for power, for whatever reasons he might have, and a refusal to give up or show weakness.
And, given his rather driving mission in this life, it wasn’t hard to come up with all of that.
As he scaled the mountain, he passed by dozens of figures. He could vaguely make out blips of golden skin or flashes of silver hair, clueing him in to the fact that he was sprinting past dozens of Torens.
He didn’t let that distract him as he continued to race forward.
His body, here in the King’s Challenge, was not the exact same as his normal body. There were certain subtle differences to it, but at the same time, many similarities.
For example, his Silk Strider Glove was nowhere to be seen. However, his body and face still had the slightly leaner build he’d gained ever since he’d appeared on the Second Layer, showing that his build and body were still the same.
A sheen of sweat covered his forehead as he continued to struggle upwards. He was about a quarter of the way up the mountain, and roughly halfway to his final destination. If he wanted to, he could bring out his Life Orbs and use them to fly up, still able to sense the connection with those tools.
Doing that, however, would obviously defeat the purpose of the challenge.
Thus, Micheal continued to persevere. The pain and exhaustion that tried to sweep past his mind bounced off a stiff wall of determination that even the fiercest cannons could not shatter. Pain like this was nothing to Micheal but a shadow of his own future practice.
Finally, after several long moments of frantic running, cool mountain air wafted over his body, bringing with it the scents of nature and the woodlands, a refreshing smell that cleared Micheal’s mind. He had almost reached the location of the Disciple Selection Test and the midway point up the mountain, the ‘Main Courtyard.’
