Chương 19: Trial of loss and chance

Almost two weeks had passed, and Felix had exhausted every idea he had on how to reach his creator. Luna had traveled to the Vatican and asked for help, but even their technology could not determine where the spatial anomaly led. They could only tell that whatever was on the other side was absurdly powerful. All she could do was wait. As such, she decided to simply trust in her father. Joshua had come through every problem before. This would not be any different.

After returning to class, however, her mood was still noticeably down. When her new friend asked what was bothering her, Luna lied and said that her father was ill and that it was making her rather sad. Matteo Drake knew what had actually happened, and he was depressed for an entirely different reason. Only Joshua could change him back from his teenage appearance, so he prayed to his own god to bring that dumb dragon back so he could finally return to his old life.

- - - - - - - - - - - - In the US, there had been quite a few shouting matches. Losing the team was already a massive problem, but their car, containing a literal nuke, was gone too. If something had happened to the dragon and that nuke somehow came back to bite them in the ass… well, nobody in Veridian really wanted to think about that possibility. Then, suddenly, their systems pinged. Four signals had appeared near the hole where Loch Katrine had once been.

Their GPS devices connected almost immediately, and the satellite managed to establish a connection with their phones.

"Agent R!" Agent Eve Rellis spoke into the line.

"Report!" The voice crackled for only a second before answering.

"Agent R reporting. No casualties, I repeat, no casualties! We managed to negotiate terms with Joshua Steel."

"Good. Where in God's name have you been?" Agent Rellis asked, her anger barely kept in check.

"Sightseeing in another deathworld, as part of some god trial. Long story short, we got saved by Joshua. Also, we would like to have new terms of employment. See, we no longer have bombs inside us, and we became considerably more powerful than when we left. Better talk with Agent Brown about an upgrade, or you lose four agents."

"How dare you." Agent Rellis gripped the phone so hard that the casing creaked.

"Easily and with a smile, Miss Waller." -Click. - Rellis threw the phone against the wall, shattering the device.

"Are you sure pissing off your boss was a good idea?" Doyle asked. He was still stunned that all of their bonuses had remained even after the system was taken back.

"He wanted to speak to her like that for years," Warg admitted with a smirk.

"Now that they don't hold us under their thumbs anymore, we might as well ask for better."

"True enough..." Doyle nodded as his radio began to beep as well.

"I'll take this call." He walked off to speak with Briggs about the insane things he had witnessed. To be honest, he had absolutely no idea how to even begin explaining them. Thankfully, Doyle received a much less angry and far more worried call from his team leader. Explaining everything that had happened took quite a while, but when he finally reached the part about becoming a superhuman, likely stronger than even the modern Inquisitors, the line suddenly went quiet.

"Say that again. Slower, so my brain can understand it." Briggs sounded genuinely confused.

"It is what I just said. Joshua turned killing monsters into a literal RPG system, granting me level-ups like some damn video game character. Then I scored the last hit on the enemy boss, a literal young god, and got boosted into some kind of human Terminator."

"I was hoping you were kidding." Briggs' voice had gone very quiet.

"Well, the system is gone, but I kept everything I gained. So… report back to the Vatican for a full examination?"

"Yeah. Also, you should be ready for a very insistent dragon lady and a scary butler to arrive and question you." The last sentence had barely left Briggs' mouth when Doyle heard a series of sonic booms rolling across the city.

"I think she's almost here. Come pick me up, okay?"

"Be there in fifty." The line ended.

"DOYLE!" Luna's shout came from the sky. A moment later, she descended and landed in a three-point landing, kicking up dust around herself. She immediately grabbed Doyle by the shoulders and lifted him slightly off the ground.

"You're back! Where is Father?!" Behind her, Felix landed much more gracefully, carrying Kate in his arms as though transporting her were the most natural thing in the world. - - - - - - - - - - - - Joshua found himself standing in a stone quarry. He had no idea how he had gotten there. One moment he had been speaking with the US agents beside the lake, and the next he was here. What was even stranger was that he remembered this quarry.

There was even a roughly carved stone altar sitting near the center of the excavation. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Gaix stood at the entrance, his face unusually somber.

"Joshua Steel…" His voice was dark and filled with sadness.

"I… cannot continue following you."

"What?" Josh shook his head, completely caught off guard.

"What happened?"

"I have decided to follow another patron." Gaix's aura felt different. The entity now supporting him was incredibly powerful, seemingly on the same level as Oberon himself.

"Why?" Josh stared at him, absolutely gobsmacked. He had done everything he could to improve the life of his first-ever warlock. He couldn't remember Gaix ever being hungry for power. If anything, the young warlock had been about as noble as a person could be. This sudden turn felt like having a bucket of ice water thrown over him. Yet instead of anger, all Josh felt was a deep, all-consuming sadness. He didn't want Gaix to leave yet he couldn't bring himself to punish him or lash out.

His claws dug into his own palm, breaking through his scales as blood slowly dripped between his fingers.

"I… I see." His voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Did I fail you?"

"No…" Gaix looked away, his face shrouded with guilt.

"I just decided that I wanted more."

"Well…" Josh swallowed.

"I only ask, as a friend, that you don't lose your way, okay, Gaix?" A single golden tear slipped free from Joshua's massive eye.

"I will stay strong and good." Gaix nodded, then his body suddenly crumbled into ash. Joshua froze and for a moment, he simply stared at the pile of ash where his first warlock had stood, then a massive headache struck him. His mind was suddenly assaulted by memories. The trial of Eternal Council. Joshua blinked several times as the memories settled back into place, the illusion finally dissolving. A system window appeared before him.

"Trial Passed." Joshua stared at it, then slowly looked toward the sky.

"You motherfu…" He was teleported away before he could finish. - - - - - - - - - - - - The next place Joshua found himself in was a massive golden room. A long red carpet stretched across the polished floor, leading toward an old man seated beside a simple table. On the table sat two small buttons, looking almost absurdly ordinary against the grandeur of the room.

"Let me guess… another fucking trial." Josh's voice still carried the anger from the previous one.

"No more trials, young god. You have passed," the old man replied, shaking his head.

"This is your reward." Josh walked toward him, shifting his body as he went until he once again looked human.

"Explain. Clearly. I am starting to get fed up with this whole trial and just want to go home and hug my daughter." He paused, counted to ten, and let out a long breath before finally calming himself.

"As I told you, young dragon god, this is your reward. There is a massive boon available, but you can choose who receives it. If you push the left button, all your followers become a hundred times stronger. If you push the right button, you yourself will become a dozen times stronger." Josh stared at the two buttons before deciding to sit down on a nearby empty chair. The choices were painfully simple. He could empower his warlocks, but that would most likely end in disaster. A hundredfold boost was massive.

All three of them would suddenly become titans among men, and Josh could only imagine the problems that kind of power could cause in their worlds. On the other hand, he could simply power himself up and become a much stronger god. While that sounded good on paper, he did not believe he deserved such a massive boost. If it had only been double, he might have considered it, but twelve times? No. This had to be another trial. Maybe a trial of greed. Joshua slowly stood.

"I choose neither."

"You what?" The old man's expression changed to one of genuine shock.

"You must choose where this power goes…" he muttered rapidly, as though trying to understand an answer that clearly had not been expected. Josh smirked.

"So I have to choose where this power goes?"

"Yes, yes… so choose!" The old man stood up, growing increasingly frantic.

"Then I choose Gu Zhao. That is my final answer." Joshua crossed his arms. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then a sudden burst of golden light erupted from the table and shot through a tear in reality, disappearing somewhere beyond the golden room. The old man's face went pale.

"You… you… That's not supposed to be an answer!" His voice echoed through the chamber before his body suddenly crumbled into ash. Then a voice came from everywhere at once.

"You are the very first god-seed who chose another god-seed as an answer in all of eternity. You have passed all trials, Joshua Steel. You are no longer a god-seed, but a full-fledged god. Your own realm has been created. Do with it as you wish." The voice faded, leaving Joshua standing alone in the golden room. Then he felt something inside himself, a tiny spark. It was impossibly small, yet somehow Joshua could sense an entire reality contained within it. A world.

His own world, waiting for him to shape it however he wished. He stared inward for several moments, completely fascinated by the strange new presence within his soul. Before he could ask a single question, reality folded around him. In the next instant, Joshua was standing once again on the shore of Loch Katrine. Josh didn't even have time to think about his current location before a white dragon-shaped torpedo slammed into him, sending both of them crashing into the water.

"Dad! You are back!" The familiar voice was followed by Luna hugging him like he was going to disappear again at any second.

"I am back, my dear." He hugged her back, his nose gently nuzzling her forehead. For all the power he had gained, for all the strange places he had seen, there was nothing quite like having his daughter back in his arms. Kate couldn't hold herself together and started crying from happiness. Felix simply smiled and handed her a tissue, looking almost amused as everything seemed to return to the way it was supposed to be.

While Luna had heard what had happened during the first trial, she wanted to hear about everything else, and Josh was not getting out of her hug until she was satisfied. - - - - - - - - - - - - With the end of the god-seed trials, all the bets were counted. Only four god-seeds had survived the three official trials and the hidden fourth one. Those who had failed were fed to the Beast of Infinity, their remains becoming nothing more than sustenance for the all consuming maw.

Akarunaka, the Ebony Finger, was enjoying himself. He had won the bet, true, but he was far more interested in the little dragon god who had shocked almost everyone with his unique way of passing both the second and fourth trials. Joshua had been only the third god in recorded eternity to turn a dying divine soul into a mortal one, making him quite the rarity. Yet it was his final trial that truly stunned them all.

The obvious answers had been to either accept the power for himself or deny it, no matter how insistently the old man demanded a choice. Giving the power away was absurd enough, but giving it to another god-seed of all beings had been completely unheard of. Thankfully, the cultivator had passed as well. He had chosen neither and stubbornly stuck to his answer despite the old man's increasingly frantic demands.

Thus, when Gu Zhao returned to his world and received the massive boost from Joshua, he could only sit in silence for several moments before smiling. The gods who had watched the trials either walked away with smirks or frowns. The ancient ones, however, could only laugh at the way Joshua had passed. Even they had been stunned by his reactions, and it only strengthened their decision to continue their friendship with him.

"He is really something." Oberon smirked as he opened a rose-covered gate and disappeared through the forest-green portal.

"That he is…" Cthulhu nodded before fading into a cloud of salty mist. It took several days for Joshua to finally drop his paranoia that everything around him was secretly another trial. When Cthulhu sent him a congratulatory gift, however, he finally accepted that it was all over. Of course, Oberon couldn't be left behind. Instead of one gift, he arrived with an entire stack of them... again.

It took Titania physically pulling the old fae king away by the ear before he finally left the house, leaving Joshua staring at the pile with a mixture of amusement and exhaustion. End of Act 1.