God of Destruction: Living Among Mortals

Zane stepped through the portal, landing himself in a tunnel, which expanded in all directions. But in the center, through his enhanced vision, he saw the center of the trial, the place where he had to deposit all the cores that he needed to collect.

He didn't see a single soul in front, to the sides, or even behind him as the portal disappeared, which meant that the trial area was much bigger than he had originally anticipated.

Focus on finding the ores, and ignore everything else. He told himself, sighing in anticipation. Collect cores and then deposit them in the center. Collect, deposit. Collect, deposit. I think I got this... hopefully.

The trial began as he heard a gunshot, and he quickly activated his ability, as time felt like a blur to him. He blurred through the tunnels, seeing three cores on just his side of the tunnel. He ventured out of his section and saw a person having two cores running towards the center, but before that Adventurer could do anything, Zane blurred towards him, being right in front, and snatched the cores, depositing them as his own in the center.

The Adventurer was enraged and summoned a bowl of darkness, hurling it towards Zane, but he escaped. They both were the same rank, so Zane couldn't drop his guard even for a second. The Adventurer tried to match his speed, but failed, though he was nearly matching him.

Zane out ran him slightly, and using his extra speed to launch punches and kicks on the Adventurer's body. The Adventurer's head was steaming as he summoned even more darkness, encapsulating the center of the trials, with more individuals coming through the tunnels.

Zane saw the opportunity to escape, so he took it, zooming past tunnels until he gathered more cores. He kept collecting the cores, not returning to the center, until he knew he had enough, and also because he knew the Adventurer he stole from earlier would be camping out the center for him, just for him.

As Zane blurred past, he saw a member of the South Korean Guild slowly gathering and stashing the cores, which confused Zane, since the trial was a matter of speed. Zane ignored the person and went deeper into the tunnels.

As he went deeper into the tunnels, he saw the colors of the cores changing from blue to red, yellow, and even purple. Then he saw a black core, something he hadn't seen in the multi-color batch of cores. He knew that the colors meant more rarity, meaning that blue was the worst, then yellow, then red, then purple, and the best being black.

As he went towards the black core, he heard a guttural snarl coming from behind the core. Then he stopped in his tracks, just ten yards away from the core. Then, a beast emerged from the other side.

It was a Vorynth, also known as the Eclipsed Leviathan. The Vorynth was a colossal serpent nightmare, about 300 meters in size, twisting like a black hole. It had midnight black scales that shimmered with illuminating cracks that glowed like stars under a microscope, some rippling into alternate realities at the edges of comprehension that science had yet to discover.

Its angular head was crowned with a grotesque bone structure forming a dark halo, while elongated fangs reflected the deepest fears of its opponent. From its eclipse-like eyes and crystaline fins rippling along its spine, otherworldly patterns emerged that made its presence feel like a true concept of a nightmare.

Zane had encountered one of these creatures before. It was from a S-rank dungeon that he was supposed to take care of. But he was surprised by the boss monster, which in this case was the Vorynth.

He gulped stridently. He knew even one mistake could lead straight to the afterlife. It wiped its tail at him, which Zane barely was able to dodge. He realized that this Vorynth was faster and potentially stronger than the Vorynth he had fought earlier, which nearly left him on the bed for the rest of his life.

He blurred towards it, grabbing a core, a purple one, knocking it on the way to sense the density, and realized it was decently dense. Then he slammed the core on the creature's head, but it didn't even flinch, and his suspicions were proven correct.

Fuck. This one might be stronger than the previous one. This purple core was so dense, yet it turned it into ash. The core had crumbled in front of him, turning into ash almost immediately after the collision.

Zane decided to run through some cores at it to distract him, but just as he reached his terminal speed, the creature grabbed him by the waist, squeezing him and molding him like water. Zane spat some blood and unsheathed his knife from his legs and stabbed into the creature, though the knife split into two, and it angered the creature even more.

He tried his best to escape, but the monster kept squeezing him tighter and tighter, blood splilling out like a waterfall. But then, darkness enveloped the area. He realized it was the Adventurer from earlier, and decided to use him as bait to escape, but his plan was quickly foiled by the serpent.

The darkness, the shadows had in fact strengthened the serpent further, converting it from an S-rank monster into an SS-rank monster. It lunged towards the Adventure, though hitting a shadow barrier in the process. But it didn't give up, its metallic fangs grabbed and broke through the barrier after a couple of seconds, leaving the Adventurer in disbelief.

Then it bites the Adventurer into two pieces, though only shadows were left behind, as the Adventurer at the last second summoned a clone. The beast was fast to react and threw itself towards the guy, using its face to pin the guy against the wall and squish him to death.

The guy started to spill some blood, as his abilities started to fade, his skin going pale, but Zane couldn't watch as the serpent killed the person. He quickly squeezed himself tightly, giving him enough leeway to escape the serpent's squeeze, which had forgotten about him.