The world blared gold at Grey’s eyes. By the time his vision cleared, he was standing in white linens. He was sure it was supposed to make him look grand and holy, but when he saw his free, wiggling toes all he could think about were cult leaders.
This seemed like the exact sort of thing one of them would wear on a weekend retreat right before they fulfilled a suicide pact.
"Perfect." Grey said with a laugh.
He wasn’t surprised. He had already been told that he wouldn’t be able to use any external items in here. Even his Cyber Space was cut off from him.
The only Frame he could use in this trial was his Paladin Frame as well, but that was already more than enough.
The goal of the trial was to go through challenges and earn Abilities to stack onto your Frame and strengthen it. But Grey already had two quite powerful Abilities stacked to his Frame—that being Center of Balance and the all-too-important Paladin Spirit.
With Paladin Spirit alone he was already sure he could crush any challenge that lay ahead. Center of Balance was just a bonus at this point.
He looked to the side and saw a wall of weapons. The PTSD hit him instantly.
The last time he had seen something similar to this a robot arm had slapped him on the ass and sent him flying a few hundred feet into the air, all to land in front of a crowd of women with tits the size of his body.
Grey shook his head, remembering that enormous bra he had to dodge. Just who had worn that damn thing? What was her address? Just so he could make sure to avoid her, of course.
’Hm...’
Grey actually wasn’t sure which weapon to pick. He was good with all of them.
A spear? A sword? Maybe he should use one that he never had before.
’Alright, let’s stop messing around.’
He took a step forward and grabbed, pulling out a sword. It was just a straight longsword, the kind with a handle bold and long enough to stack two evenly spaced fists and still have room for a third.
It had some heft to it, but it looked the nicest of the weapons here, so Grey selected it.
The rack of weapons vanished and the world sped forward around Grey, zipping ahead. It was odd, he couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be on an elevator right now or if the world itself had become some odd moving sidewalk while he was perfectly still.
It all suddenly stopped.
Ahead of Grey, the foggy white world split apart to reveal a platform of silver.
’What was the point of that supposed to be?’ Grey thought with a raised eyebrow. Still, he shrugged a shoulder and walked up the stairs of the platform until he was at the very center of it.
Nothing seemed to be happening at first, but then peculiar patterns that he was sure hadn’t been there before began to light up.
Grey frowned. He recognized those patterns. They were quite literally etched onto his scalp right now.
But those were Buddha patterns, were they not? Why was there a Buddha pattern here? That didn’t make much sense. He was supposed to be in a Paladin trial.
But that was when Grey recalled something else. What kind of Buddha wore armor? None that he could think of. So why was the pattern that should have been for the Buddha etched into the armor that Giyoto was making?
The pattern finished glowing and there was a surge as the energy it accumulated rushed ahead to form the outline of a body. An enormous body.
Grey looked up as the silhouette towered over him. It must have been at least half his height taller than he was.
’Well... this doesn’t exactly seem... normal...’
According to Edmun, the Trial was supposed to start slow and steady. He would face off against Low Tier challenges, then move onto Middle Tier, and then High Tier. If he cleared the High Tier ones and the realm sensed his Paladin status, it would then trigger the Paladin Trials.
There was no way this was a Low Tier challenge, though. It wasn’t a matter of size. The pressure coming from the giant that hadn’t even fully formed yet made Grey’s Resonant Frame feel like it was being suppressed...
The very same thing Grey had done to Terran was being done to him.
But Terran had had a Middle Tier Holy Knight Frame, and he had a Paladin Frame. So what the hell did this thing have?
**
A beam of gold cut across the skies. It moved so fast trees as ancient as the forest itself were flattened to the ground, some of them being torn up by their roots and sent spiralling into the distance.
If you were on the ground, observing from below, you would see nothing more than a blink before your world went black.
The beam zipped by a certain familiar outpost and nearly ripped it from its foundations as well, cracking them through. The ground around it shattered beneath the built up kinetic energy.
Notifications about the Safe Room being temporarily shut down were sent out in droves, but anyone close enough to receive them all died horrible deaths.
BOOM.
The beam landed in front of Zone 234. Out from within it, an old man dressed in robes of white and gold began to walk as though the city’s walls hadn’t begun to crumble beneath the impact.
Stone fell from above, but not one of them touched him. He crossed into the barrier of the city and the entire place went on high alert.
...
From within the trial space lounging area, Sir Ovaal and Edmun both looked into the distance at the same time, then looked toward one another.
Their hearts were practically beat out of their chests.
The envoy had arrived even earlier than they expected.