3/3
Heads-up: I’m planning to release two more chapters this week since there weren't enough last week
Enjoy!
*
There was something inherently amusing about watching a five-meter-tall bear turn skewers thinner than his fingers. Two claws slid delicately along the wood, rotating the meat above the flames with surprising precision. Every so often, a piece would fall into the coals, and Sphinx immediately pounced on it like a starving cat.
“Your teeth are black,” Priam remarked as he approached.
“That’s because I eat the charcoal too!”
“Is it good?”
“No, but it’s crunchy,” the child replied matter-of-factly.
Priam laughed and turned toward Blueberry.
“Aren’t those skewers a little small for you?”
“They’re for you people. I’ve got the XXXL version,” the bear said, pointing behind him.
Priam spotted three-meter-long stakes upon which the chef had impaled entire deer carcasses. American-sized portions.
“I think you forgot an X,” the young man said with a grin as he crouched near the fire. “About the second Reunion... I think it’d be safer if you stayed here. To watch over Log, Moonie, and—”
“Deal.”
“Really? I thought it’d take more convincing.”
“Well, I’m not a battle junkie like you, and we both know the Seven, the Depths or Viracocha are going to turn the Reunion into a complete mess,” Blueberry replied while turning his skewers. All he needed was a beer to look like a father grilling at a campsite. “Besides, I have zero desire to end up surrounded by humans who’ll see me as a monster. Rose told me some people make rugs out of grizzly fur.”
“Not all humans.”
“Don’t care. I’m staying right here, taking naps on Valaryth’s beaches and stuffing myself with Log’s sap.”
“Nice program. Still, I would’ve thought you’d miss Earth.”
“The salmon and the honey, sure. Speaking of which, if you can bring some back...”
“Count on me.”
Blueberry was the only one who agreed to stay in Oasis with Myuri. Sphinx wanted to have fun, Alain and Louis wanted to see their friends again, and Rose wanted to see people her own age—much to Osiris’s dismay. Priam worried for them, but he couldn’t truly forbid them from coming. Preaching freedom while restricting the freedom of others, even out of love, was hypocritical.
“Alright, everyone! Food’s ready!”
The final lunch before the Reunion lasted as long as a traditional French family meal. Which meant three hours, not counting the digestive nap. Then came the goodbyes. Priam entrusted Oasis to Myuri, gave Kazuki a manly handshake, exchanged a complicated look with Esmée, and hugged a surprisingly cheerful Jasmine.
After one last look toward Log-a-rhythm, he activated his Hearthstone and stepped through a portal bound to the Colosseum.
Back on the Moon, he looked up and met Béchar's gaze through the office window. The shapeshifter jumped. Thirty meters below, he hit the cobblestones, rolled to his feet, and smiled.
“Shall I escort you?”
“If you’re bored,” Priam smiled before turning on his heel.
The two crossed the silent city without speaking, only breaking into a run after passing through the gates.
Modified by the System, the lunar plains resembled the pastures of some idyllic European countryside. A few cows even lifted curious eyes toward the two bipeds sprinting across the fields.
Priam and Béchar ran for more than an hour before finally stopping in the middle of nowhere.
“Alright,” the Champion announced. “I’m warmed up.”
Around them, green grass bent beneath a gentle breeze. The rolling hills looked uncannily like the famous Windows XP wallpaper.
“A suitable place to trigger the triple Tribulation you need to clear before your Tier up,” Béchar agreed.
“Suitable, but not perfect.” Priam studied the surroundings critically. “If the System summons a giant mole for some underground race, things could get ugly. After all, this triple Tribulation is going to pack a lot of power. About six times more than my famous quintuple Tribulation.”
[Relative power of an nth Tribulation = n².Pending Triple Tribulation: 21² + 22² + 23² = 1,454]
“Twenty-three Tribulations.” Priam shook his head. “When I think about the people who die during their first one... If I may say so myself, I’m pretty damn good.”
“A little self-congratulation never hurt anyone, but don’t choke on your own dick,” Béchar replied, patting him on the shoulder. “So this is the place? I can’t imagine what these hills are going to look like in a few minutes.”
“Intact, I suppose. I need a desolate place for the trial. Somewhere isolated.”
“More isolated than here?”
Priam pointed upward. Against the black sky, Earth’s blue glow stood out even more vividly than the white brilliance of the sun.
“In the air?” Béchar asked.
“Higher. If the System summons a mole, I want it to suffocate.”
“In space?”
“Deep space. Far away from the Moon, Earth, and anything else.”
The Tier 3 opened his mouth, but no sound came out. “You’re kidding, right?” he finally managed to articulate.
“Nope. If I can do it, I’d be stupid not to.”
“But... nobody does that before Tier 5. Minimum.”
“I’m the Juggernaut, dude,” Priam replied, holding out his hand. “Wish me luck.”
“...I’m not convinced you need it,” Béchar replied as he shook it.
Priam smiled. [Kinetic Sovereignty].
Driven by the legendary skill, he soared to meet the starry firmament.
A kilometer above the clouds, Priam began to experience breathing difficulties. Opening a small passage to Concepts Archipelago directly inside his lungs solved the problem of the lack of ambient oxygen.
At ten kilometers, he completely left the Moon’s artificial atmosphere behind. Out in space and with no air resistance to slow him down, the Juggernaut began to fly faster and faster, though without giving it his absolute all. He limited his acceleration to that of Earth's gravity, as if he were in free fall toward Earth. After all, the underlying principle of [Kinetic Sovereignty] was to absorb kinetic energy and reuse it elsewhere. Yet in the vacuum of space, Priam couldn't steal motion from anything other than himself.
So that was exactly what he did. Converting his own body heat into speed, he accelerated continuously, leaving the Moon behind. With his vitality ensuring rapid digestion, all he had to do was teleport a few liters of carbohydrate-rich sap into his stomach at regular intervals to never run out of fuel. He had a literal swimming pool of the stuff inside his inner world. Damn, this is real. At some point during the last few months, I gained the ability to travel through space.
Priam had made sure of the theory beforehand, of course, but the actual realization made him want to laugh. Only his precarious situation kept him from doing so.
Turning his head back, Priam watched a tiny Moon shrink further and further away in his sight. The celestial body and its safety were now thousands of kilometers behind him. It was worse up ahead: the distant Earth hadn’t grown any larger yet. Within a radius of thousands of kilometers around him, there was nothing. A man could walk his entire life in one direction without crossing anything other than a few frozen grains of dust. Priam realized he was more alone than he had ever been.
So this is what sailors must have felt the first time they lost sight of land. Exhilarating... and terrifying.
Who hadn’t imagined finding themselves far from shore after a plane crash or a boating accident, drifting on a featureless ocean? The experience was worse in space. There was something nightmarish about being lost in an infinite void. Neither the motionless, distant stars nor the out-of-reach Earth offered any comfort to the young man. Priam was acutely aware that at the slightest mishap, he would drift for eternity in a freezing, empty, and hostile ocean.
Lvl up: [Optics Physique] lvl 12CONST +4VIT +5
The sun’s wrath battered his skin without any atmosphere or magnetic field to buffer it. While the Juggernaut could easily ignore the heat of the rays—which actually helped him accelerate by warming his body—the same couldn’t be said for the ultraviolet radiation that was hazardous to his DNA. Not to mention the X-rays, gamma rays, and solar wind.
Lvl up: [Radiation Resistance] lvl 15
CONST +3VIT +3META (Authority) +3
Priam could almost feel protons and electrons slamming into his cells with murderous fury. Without a high Constitution and a broad range of resistances, space travel without a vessel was lethal. Ah, who would’ve guessed?
The attempt at humor did little to steady his nerves. A few minutes later, when Earth and the Moon seemed to stop moving entirely, Priam began to panic. His resources were finite. If the System had moved both celestial bodies further apart than in his native solar system, he would eventually starve to death… unless he committed suicide once a day and ate his own previous corpse. Alternatively, who was to say his Tribulations wouldn’t rob him of his skills or resistance? Slowly dying from heat dispersion would suck—
Stop! At worst, Elysium will pull me back in twenty-four hours. Man, I have absolutely no reason to freak out.
The Juggernaut often prided himself on his pragmatism. Today, that quality remained silent. Intellectually, he knew he would make it out alive. His High Tribulation was far more perilous than this journey. Yet, the desolate landscape and extreme solitude were gradually grinding down his morale, triggering a panic attack.
Grinding his teeth, Priam used Micro to flood his brain with adrenaline. The drug pushed back the terror long enough for him to activate [In The Zone]. The skill held the anxiety at bay.
As a detached passenger inside his own body, Priam focused entirely on the journey. His addon counted nearly nineteen minutes before a notification appeared.
Title upgrade: [Supersonic Boy - Silver] becomes [Space Guy - Gold]!
[Space Guy - Gold] - A planet’s gravity prevents its inhabitants from jumping high, but also from venturing into space. There is a minimum speed required to escape a celestial body, known as escape velocity. That of your home planet, Earth, is equal to 11.2 km/s. You have, without outside help, surpassed this speed, paving the way for space exploration. A vast universe awaits you, but prepare yourself for a dangerous expedition.
Note: roughly half of all species are born on planets too massive to escape via chemical propulsion. To accelerate, a rocket needs fuel, but that fuel has weight, so it takes fuel just to lift the fuel… This vicious cycle is known as a gravity prison.Fortunately, the Seven regularly intervene to incorporate these unfortunate civilizations into our universal society!AGI +30% (+10%)
Priam snorted at the final sentence. He doubted generosity had anything to do with why the Seven abducted certain civilizations. Though, to be fair, some species were probably grateful for the introduction. As a space enthusiast himself, he found the idea of being chained to the speck of dust that saw his birth depressing.
Priam daydreamed until his alarm went off. He had instructed his add-on to alert him after one hour of flight.
[Current speed: 36 km/sDistance from the Moon: 64,800 kmDistance from Earth: approximately 320,000 km
At current acceleration, estimated arrival: 1 hour 26 minutes.]
Priam’s eyes widened as he saw his current speed. Of course, he should have known: the tyranny of physics was absolute, and he had set his kinetic skill to the equivalent of free fall. On Earth, that meant accelerating at 1 g, or a speed that increased by ten meters per second, every second. In the atmosphere, you would quickly reach a terminal velocity of around 230 km/h because of air resistance slowing the fall, but in space, you could accelerate until you neared the speed of light. In practice, it took thirty-four seconds to reach the speed of sound in the air, and one hundred seconds to hit a thousand meters per second. That was one kilometer per second. After an hour, of course he would be going faster than a rocket.
Still, it was one thing to know it, and quite another to read it. It was a good thing his AI assistant was keeping track of the numbers.
Dismissing [In The Zone], Priam looked toward the distant Moon and the even more distant Earth. Both celestial bodies were far enough away that there would be no interference or collateral damage. Waiting any longer was pointless. [He Who Eludes Death] was primed, and the Juggernaut stood an excellent chance of summoning a Tribulation that would fail simply because of the environment.
Closing his eyes, Priam listened to his hearts and smiled. Apprehension had given way to competitiveness. The young man was ready to fight for his future.
He stretched his neck, cracking a few vertebrae, and then opened a menu.
[Tribulation]: A Triple Tribulation is coming.
Time: 16 days 5 hours 14 minutes 2 seconds.
Would you like to trigger your Tribulations?
Yes!
*
Béchar had barely settled into his leather chair when a high-priority message arrived in his inbox.
Urgent:
To all T0-T5 agents currently stationed on the Moon [Sector Hope, Solar System, natural satellite of Planet Earth],
Several Tier 6 oracles have detected an impending catastrophic event. In the event that evacuation is impossible, you are advised to update your will in the appropriate tab.
—Moderator Kada’ion
“Fucking Depths,” Béchar growled, turning toward the window behind him.
Somewhere out in that black sky was Priam, and the shapeshifter would have wagered his annual salary that he was responsible for this shitstorm.
“Knowing him, I’d better not linger,” he muttered while requesting passage to an Earth-based Colosseum.
With any luck, he would get to watch part of the fireworks.