Chapter 180: Ch 180 : The Crucible

’Well, I already expected him to catch on,’ Sunny thought, a flicker of amusement in his mind. He sat across from Adam in a quiet, manifested throne within the grand world of Adam.

He knew a being as ancient and wise as Adam would eventually piece together the truth of his Skill-Resonance talent.

“What kind of expectations does the Mother Void have of me?” Sunny asked, his voice a low, serious hum that cut through the quiet atmosphere of the Adam’s worl. “What is it that I am meant to do?” He did not want to be a pawn, a tool for a cosmic entity he had never met, no matter how benevolent.

Adam took a slow, deliberate sip of a swirling, nebula-like drink before answering. “Fate is a river, Cosmos,” he said, his tone ancient and mysterious. “Even if I told you its destination, it would not change the currents. If your path aligns with fate, then you will walk it, whether you wish to or not. If it does not, then no amount of effort can force you onto it. Do not worry about such grand designs. Simply be what you are.”

“I know you won’t tell me,” Sunny sighed, a hint of his old human self showing through. “I know this trope.” He leaned forward, his focus shifting to a more immediate, strategic concern.

“Then tell me this. With only three of us Void-born left in this multiverse, is the Void correcting the imbalance? Will it continue to create new Gods at the slow pace of one per million years, or will it accelerate, as it did in the beginning?”

Adam pondered the question, a flicker of genuine uncertainty in his ancient eyes. “I do not know the mind of the Void, how it chooses to create Gods or Void Beasts. But your correlation… it is a wise one. I had not considered it myself.”

“Maybe, you are right and maybe wrong. Maybe the void will produce millions of new Gods, or maybe it will not produce a single God” he said his tone uncertain, but filled with hope.

Their conversation continued, a quiet exchange of cosmic secrets in the heart of a now life filled world.

Finally, the month of rest came to an end. The joyous music of the amusement park faded. The laughter died down.

The vibrant, impossible structures of skyscrapers and beaches dissolved into motes of fading light, replaced by a profound, expectant silence.

All of the beings across the universe—Gods on their thrones, demigods in the stands, and lifeforms watching from a billion different worlds—turned their collective attention to the center of the arena, where Adam floated serenely, a calm anchor in a sea of anticipation.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” his voice boomed, the introduction followed by a thunderous, universe-spanning wave of applause. “I trust you have all enjoyed your rest. But the time for leisure is over.”

He gestured with a grand, sweeping motion, and the very ground of the arena began to churn. The empty plains erupted.

A thousand colossal, continent-sized battlegrounds rose from the ground, each a unique and deadly biome.

One was a land where volcanoes wept rivers of lava that flowed into a hissing, steaming sea. Another was a crystalline forest where the trees themselves were razor-sharp shards of glass.

A third was a toxic swamp, its air thick with poisonous spores and its waters teeming with unseen horrors followed by many more different biomes.

“Welcome,” Adam declared, his voice ringing with a new, dangerous excitement, “to The Crucible!”

“The rules for this round are simple,” he announced, his voice carrying to every corner of the cosmos.

“There will be a thousand elimination rounds running simultaneously, with one million champions in each arena. Upon your teleportation, each of you will find a token bound to your waist. This token is your life. Protect it at all costs. The moment you lose it, you will be teleported out of the arena. You will be eliminated.” He let out a low, cynical laugh.

“The last one thousand champions left standing in each arena will advance to the next round. Are we all clear?”

A thunderous, unified roar of “YES!” was his answer.

“Good,” Adam said, a predatory glint in his ancient eyes. “Let the Crucible begin. We will start with the lifeforms first.”

With a single, sharp clap of his hands, a billion points of light vanished from the grand stands.

A moment later, they reappeared, scattered across the thousand deadly landscapes below, a chaotic and beautiful storm of teleportation.

Some were lucky, finding themselves alone in a quiet corner of the map. Others were not.

In a dense, swamp-like biome, a hulking orc warrior, his skin the color of dried mud and his tusks yellowed and sharp, grinned as he saw his first opponent.

It was a lone human, standing calmly by a stagnant pool of water. “Wow, lucky me,” the orc snarled, his eyes fixed on the shimmering token at the human’s waist. “Finding a juicy prey at the very start.” He hefted the massive, crude axe on his shoulder. “Give me your token, human, and I will spare you the beating.”

The human simply smiled, a calm, confident expression on his face that seemed utterly out of place in this brutal contest. “Hehe, you don’t know who I am?” he replied, his voice relaxed, almost friendly.

“I would say you are lucky to have met me. Your token will not go to waste in my hands.” the human replied.

The orc’s grin widened, revealing a row of broken, stained teeth. “A human with a backbone. I like that. Let me see how flexible it is.”

From the high stands of Veridia, where the human champions watched the live broadcast, a collective sigh of pity went out, not for the human that was about to be attacked by the orc, instead it was a pity for the orc.

“That poor fool,” one of the human warriors murmured, shaking his head. “He has no idea.”

They were watching a frog at the bottom of a well, trying to threaten the ocean.

Because the smiling, unassuming human standing before that orc was none other than the leader of the Cosmic Empire, the S-Grade Body Refiner, Anaske.

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