NOVEL NEXT Chapter 261: The Wrath of the System
The Tribulations faced by the hoplites unfolded like a twisted tapestry, each thread woven with unique trials. Mental combat, summoned foes, navigating labyrinths, and enduring the forces of nature... each challenge was distinct and often paired with secondary support trials—memory erasure, an obligation to defend something, or the restriction of speed above a certain threshold.
Watching them, Priam realized that the System had no real limits. It tailored the nature of the Tribulations to exploit the weaknesses of those who faced them, offering a perilous but fertile ground for growth. Most would fail to improve to its standard.
Just like their leader, the hoplites died.
Powerless to change their fates, Priam could only observe their struggles with keen interest. It wasn't without its rewards; by digesting the styles and trump cards of the hoplites, he leveled up several of his combat skills. His new racial Talent, [Hoplite Warpath], played a crucial role in his latest power surge by boosting his warrior aptitude.
Lvl Up: [Hoplite Slash] lvl 12, 13
STR +6
Lvl Up: [Unrelenting Thrust] lvl 34, 35
STR +6
Lvl Up: [Spear Grappling] lvl 7, 8
STR +2
AGI +4
Lvl Up: [Battle Footwork] lvl 13, 14
AGI +4
DEXT +2
Lvl Up: [Matrix Dodge] lvl 10, 11
AGI +4
DEXT +2
Lvl Up: [Parry] lvl 20
STR +1
[Parry] has reached level 20, its maximum level as a common skill. Depending on your background, three upgrades are available.
[Great Parry - Rare] - General upgrade. No future upgrade possible. Potential Cost: 5
[Spear Parry - Rare] - You specialize in spear parrying. Future upgrades possible. Potential Cost: 80
[Hoplite Parry - Rare] - Your body and mind have assimilated the Hoplite expertise of the parry. Impressive. High upgrade potential. Potential Cost: 160
You have selected the skill [Hoplite Parry - Rare].
POT -160
[Hoplite Parry] - For millennia, hoplites have refined the Art of War. By studying the best hoplites of this generation as they survive against deadly challenges, you have deepened your expertise. The fruit of these revelations is a defensive skill that uses finesse to deflect strength, slowness to counter speed, and violence to punish feints.
Your mother also knows how to use the soft to block the hard…
STR +3
"I see that my mother's reputation is multiversal..." Priam muttered.
Rose perked up at his remark. "Your mother ?"
"A spear enthusiast… I was reading a skill description."
"Oh. I know you can multitask, but it's unsettling to see you staring at the fight while you're instructing me."
"Sorry, but you'll have to adapt." He had no intention of slowing his progress to adhere to some politeness code.
"I suppose it's our specialty as humans," the teenager sighed. "An ideal upgrade?"
"A high upgrade," corrected Priam.
"You're losing your touch."
The girl's teasing rolled off Priam like water off a duck's back; he was not in the mood. "I know my strengths and weaknesses. Extrapolating from the prerequisites of the skills I've already obtained, I'd struggle to achieve an ideal upgrade for this skill—I'm missing a certain spark of genius for the spear."
"Your new racial Talent—"
"Helps, but I'm still far from matching a prodigy like Kazuki. If the tribes have so few ideal upgrades, there's a reason. Honestly, from my perspective, this new Talent feels more like a curse than a blessing."
Rose furrowed her brow, prompting Priam to elaborate. "If killing a Champion grants their racial Talents… I've got a massive target painted right on my chest."
After all, Homo Elysian [Predation] and [Obsession] were terrifying.
"If the tribes haven't killed you, there must be some limits," Rose reassured him. "I don't see the System rewarding a Tier 4 for the murder of a Tier 0."
That was contrary to the System's meritocratic policy.
"You make a point. Maybe the slayer needs to be of the same Tier as the Champion… Or they're just waiting for the sheep to fatten up." Priam's voice turned grim. "Two legendary Talents are tempting, but not as much as two mythical Talents…"
The sands of the beach trembled. In the distance, a hemiplegic hoplite dodged a deluge of flaming meteors summoned by a fire elemental. Priam tensed as the end of Sakura's Tribulation was drawing near. "Let's not waste any more time. Have you found the trap?"
Between him and Rose floated a magnified version of a [Dark Vision] sphere he had stolen from the Aelbes. He hoped that studying it would give Rose some ideas for succeeding in her next Tribulation. On the side, she had excellent insights, and her feedback interested Priam.
"This rune seems useless here," the teenager said, pointing to one of the sigils. "I guess this is the trap?"
"You guessed right. As soon as an unregistered aether flow touches it, it sends out an alarm in the form of a burst of aether. Stopping one is simple, but when there are hundreds, it becomes a nightmare."
"But you managed it on your first try," Rose noted. "That's not a very impressive defense."
"I have Titles, Merits, attributes, and skills suited for this," Priam reminded her with a faint smile. "Above all, I'm really damn good."
He was willing to bet that few Tier 0s in Elysium could disarm that trap on their first attempt… and among them, how many had progressed at his speed? Gryphe, the Aelbes shaman, wasn't entirely to blame for failing to keep an eye on him.
Rose shot him an eloquent look. "Anyway… If I were them, I would have created different types of alarms—sound-based, for example."
"Any Tier 1 has enough vivacity to drown out the noise before it reaches the guardian," Priam replied. "A radio wave would be a better way to alert the creator, but that depends on the concepts mastered by the hacker."
Rose shook her head. "You think like an individual, but the Aelbes are a clan. A burst of aether is decipherable by any shaman; a radio wave is not. Besides, a radio wave could alert any receptive individual within a large radius. That can be dangerous in Elysium."
Priam opened his mouth to respond but widened his eyes instead. In the distance, the fire elemental that Sakura, one of the hoplites, had been fighting had changed elements. The new water elemental used the ocean beneath it to create a terrifying wave that engulfed the young woman.
The two humans waited a few minutes before Rose sighed. "Six out of nine."
Priam cast a glance toward Hyshana. The general tightened her grip on the spear of her deceased husband as she watched her subordinates fall one by one. The crème de la crème among the hoplites, trained by their Champion, seasoned against the Necromoon hordes, and benefiting from the Sun Shop, faced an early double Tribulation. Yet only three were alive, one of whom still trying to save his reflection. Below the water's surface, his echo struggled to escape some sort of Pac-Man in an aquatic labyrinth. A second Tribulation muddled his short-term memory, complicating the exercise.
Six dead, two alive. Statistically, that was a decent outcome, but Priam knew that behind those numbers lay lives.
"The System doesn't like my hunting skill," he noted as he watched the water elemental disappear beneath the waves, taking the fragment of Tribulation Affinity with it. Since Taishi, no Tribulation had been exploitable, much to Priam's chagrin. At least I got his legendary spear…
"You didn't earn those Affinity fragments, and the System doesn't like cheaters," Rose smiled as she stood up. "I'm going to attempt my Tribulation."
"You sure? I recorded a bunch of new runes from the Skull Temple if you want to train more."
"Revising the night before a test has never worked in my favor, and time is running out." She shrugged. "In any case, I've spent all my Merit Points on [Polyglot] and [Aetherist]. If I still fail despite that and your help, I deserve to."
Despite her words, the teenager trembled like a leaf.
"You're going to be fine," Priam said as he pulled her close. The young girl instantly calmed down.
A few seconds later, she whispered her thanks and gave him one last smile before stepping through the rift. With a pang of emotion, he wished her good luck and then looked around.
The other crafters were training in Oasis, and only the warriors remained on this side of the rift. Elaine, the last hoplite, was talking with Hyshana and Louis. The old man would be last to pass, knowing he had little chance of survival. After all, his last Tribulations had been less than two weeks ago.
Priam considered joining them but hesitated. He had little to contribute to their conversation, and his mental state was at an all-time low. Oasis was being decimated, Kazuki was gone, and the shadow of his own Tribulations loomed ominously.
Elaine's departure pulled Priam from the depths of his dark thoughts. Her mech soared through the sky for a few minutes before halting. The System's aura descended like a shroud, and then the trial began. A giant dragonfly materialized a kilometer ahead of the warrior, its massive mandibles spelling doom for the hoplite. At the same time, a storm erupted, unleashing violent winds capable of distorting the path of a bullet.
"Hit a highly mobile enemy in extreme conditions. Perfect for testing a glass cannon sniper," Priam observed, watching the ominous black clouds swirl into existence. His Mist Concept could manipulate them, but he knew he couldn't save Elaine. Any interference on his part would mean being swept away by the Tribulations.
Elaine took her shooting stance and froze. Priam guessed she was using the AI of her mecha to calculate the trajectory. Three seconds later, the deafening blast sent a few seagulls screeching away from their refuge in the bay. No animal was foolish enough to linger near the epicenter of the Tribulations.
The bullet pierced through the storm and struck the insect, only for it to dissipate into an afterimage.
He grimaced. The summoned creature had read the bullet's initial trajectory and dodged with blinding speed. Elaine would need to use her surroundings to catch her opponent off guard.
A distant scream sliced through the air, making Priam curse under his breath. Elaine's Tribulation storm had stirred up waves. The choppy water prevented the second hoplite from controlling his reflection, which the Pac-Man had just overtaken. The blood of the penultimate warrior stained the water. Another death… and a stupid one at that.
"Damn it!" Louis grunted while Hyshana trembled with rage.
Priam masked his grimace and, as a second shot rang out, focused on Elaine's technique. The sniper had grasped the lesson the Tribulation intended to teach her—taking her environment into account to enhance her shot—and was trying to refine her shooting technique. It was a trick that could also benefit Priam.
Using a flow of thoughts and his add-on, he modeled the storm with its winds and pressure differences. A parallel thought began calculating the right angle and optimal window for striking the insect.
The fierce winds whipped up terrifying waves across several square miles, while at the heart of the typhoon, Elaine took aim. Her posture, concentration, and breath were all perfect. When her index finger squeezed the trigger and a collection of runes illuminated the surface of her rifle, Priam let out a whistle of appreciation.
The bullet launched from the eye of the cyclone, plunging into its violent winds. Buffeted by the gusts, it slightly altered its trajectory ten times before hitting the insect at supersonic speed. The afterimage of the dragonfly vanished, revealing a smug insect a meter away... which exploded in a shower of yellowish liquid. The second bullet, hidden in the shadow of the first, had changed direction at the last moment thanks to a rune etched upon it, hitting the bullseye with deadly accuracy.
Well, the dragonfly's eye.
The storm intensified as a second dragonfly, twice as small and twice as fast, appeared. Priam barely glanced at it, confident that Elaine would survive her Tribulation. The trial was dangerous, but the hoplite had elevated her art to a terrifying level.
Closing his eyes, Priam replayed the moment in his mind. The sniper had picked a precise moment after calculating the wind trajectories, then fired twice. The first shot had forced her opponent to dodge in the desired direction, allowing the second to seal the deal. It was complex because when the first bullet eclipsed the second in the enemy's vision, it created a slipstream that altered the second's speed.
This revelation was enough for Priam to level up once again.
Lvl Up: [Spear Throw] lvl 40
DEXT +3
[Spear Throw] has reached level 40, its maximum level as a rare skill. Depending on your background, three upgrades are available.
[Olympic Throw - Rare] - You can impart 0.5 MJ of energy to your spear with sheer physical strength. Future upgrades possible. Potential Cost: 80
[Spear Gatling - Rare] - You can launch hundreds of spears per second. Impressive. High upgrade potential. Potential Cost: 160
[Spear Railgun - Rare] - You can bestow a speed of 3 500 m/s to your spear, equating to 30 MJ—kinetic energy comparable to that of a small military railgun. Impressive. High upgrade potential. Potential Cost: 160
Two high upgrades… I suppose I'm not far from hitting the ideal upgrade.
Priam swiped the notification away, opting to hold off for now. If one of his theories held water, each high upgrade might actually be one of the five prerequisites for an ideal upgrade. Unlike [Parry], he had several ideas for other prerequisites and knew he could count on Elaine's guidance.
The hoplite sniper obliterated the second dragonfly and held her position as a third appeared. This one was the size of a real dragonfly, and Priam strained to catch sight of it from such a distance. Must be the final phase of the Trib—what the hell?!
As the battle entered its final act, the sea heaved, catching the attention of all spectators. An invisible form rose into the air, only discernible by the water cascading off it. A kilometer up, Elaine didn't hesitate to leap from her mech, which was promptly consumed by the unseen enemy. A wisp of smoke appeared, signaling the armor's self-destruction, but the creature seemed unperturbed by the explosion.
As Elaine plummeted, attempting to line up her shot on the final dragonfly, Priam sprang to his feet. His eyes widened as he realized the mist partially cloaking the storm couldn't identify the enemy. Worse yet, the beast was entirely invisible to both his meta perception and his instincts. I have to hold him off until she finishes her Tribulations!
Dashing toward the Tribulation to confront the intruder, Priam was taken aback when the unidentified monster grazed the dragonfly while crashing back into the ocean. The System deemed this unacceptable and expressed its displeasure as an aura infinitely heavier than that of a god descended upon the scene.
The black clouds trembled once before a column of electricity as wide as a baseball field fell from the sky. A million bolts seemed to coalesce into an abomination capable of shattering worlds. The sea evaporated in all directions like it had been hit by a gamma burst, and Priam screamed. The blinding light scorched his retinas as if he had stared directly into a nuclear explosion without protection. A second later, the heat wave radiating from the superheated plasma singed his eyebrows despite his [Fire Champion Physique]
Burning through his lifespan to regenerate, Priam accelerated toward the cataclysm faster than a fighter jet. His vision returned just in time to meet the shockwave created by the father of all lightning, which ruptured his eardrums. Ignoring the pain, he nearly stopped in his tracks, stunned by the spectacle unfolding before him.
His gaze naturally pierced through the mist that now enveloped the world, revealing the full extent of the System's wrath. The lightning pillar had evaporated over a cubic kilometer of water, creating a crater in the ocean floor. At the center of the chasm, a charred creature twitched within a magma lake.
It's still alive?!
Swallowing hard, Priam identified it.
[Identification]
[Charybdis' descendant - Tier 1 - Prince] - The second ocean's Terror.
PHYSICAL:
Strength 782 (+27)
Constitution 1 199
Agility 915 (+18)
Vitality 1 147
Perception 814
MENTAL:
Vivacity (D) 599
Dexterity 680 (+7)
Memory 875
Willpower 1 168
Charisma 738
META:
Meta-affinity 898
Meta-focus 423
Meta-endurance 719
Meta-perception (A) 433
Meta-chance 308
Meta-authority 234
Potential: 12 337 (-135)
Tier 0
Sun points: 1 488 111
[He Who Eludes Death] charge: PRIMED
[Tribulation]: Five Tribulations pending.
Future Tribulations delayed until:
Time: 152 days 11 hours 47 minutes 50 seconds.
Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 600 / 6 attributes > 900 / 1 attribute > 1 200
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