"The eighth trial, the one that eliminated all but nine teams to date is called Bloody Light."
"Bloody Light, the one who named the trial has a naming sense weirder than yours!" Sarah chuckled.
The trial is going to be a serious matter and Sarah herself wanted to be prepared. But she couldn't help after hearing the name.
"…Excuse me?" Varian was proud of his naming sense.
Boo, Oob, Primal Union Body…it's not easy to come up with these kinds of names. Instead of appreciating, Sarah was making fun of them.
"Cough, cough, don't mind me," Sarah waved her hand and asked. "What's the eighth trial about?"
Varian saw her changing the topic and snorted. 'She's too noob to feel my greatness,'
[Priorities, Host, Priorities! Focus on the trial!]
'Shut up! You go silent for too long that I sometimes forget you exist. You're telling me about priorities, what is your priority? If you told me about the assassin approaching me back then, I would've been safe and this whole disaster would've never happened. What's your priority? Staying silent? Then stay silent.'
[You're angry not because of all that but because the System doesn't acknowledge your greatness in naming, right?]
'…Right.' Varian coughed.
['…'] The System sighed muttering it had to put up with his antics and went silent.
"Anyway," Varian stood up and stretched his arms, preparing for the trial. "The eighth trial is simple to explain. In other worlds, you'll be pulled into an illusion where you have to face the souls of all the creatures you've killed and not break."
"Oh, that's not easy at all," Sia recalled all the Abyssals she and Enigma killed and clicked her tongue.
Just the sheer numbers would put so much pressure on her psyche. If she couldn't be mentally strong, the souls might drive her crazy.
What's more, she observed something remarkable when Enigma was fighting the traitors and destroying the abyssals.
Humans would make crimes. Some of them could get away without any legal repercussions. But most of these couldn't overcome the mental baggage that came with the crime. Either in the form of guilt or fear or some negative emotion.
It'd remain in their memory throughout their life like a dark spot on the white snow.
And most of the time, this memory would resurface when they're in a losing situation and add to their woes.
It's perhaps their own conscience telling them they deserve the hardships they're facing because of their crimes. Or maybe something else.
'Of course, there are bastards without conscience who would've no burdens at all. Because the fundamental way of their thinking is completely different from the normal person that they don't consider the crime a crime.' Sia knew plenty of such people.
Still, this stage was hard for most of the awakeners.
"Hard? That trial is for other worlds," Varian laughed. "The one we have here is far more simple. Nothing like soul pressure, questioning your conscience, or anything. The trial authority simply resurrects everyone you've killed. You gotta kill them again to pass the trial."
"W-Wait, what?" Sia thought she was hearing things. "Are you kidding me? Resurrecting all the dead we killed?"
"Yep. As straightforward as that. The terms and conditions are that the deceased must remain deceased, not be resurrected or be turned into an Undead. So, the creatures we killed in Twilight Zone that are still technically alive don't count."
"If we want to be technical about it, Sovereign Kreo died because of your actions," Sia added.
"It's a gray area, but yeah, he'll be there," Varian nodded.
"And that Sovereign you killed in the Outer World,"
"That makes two Sovereigns. And when I just bet Boo in the Inner Space, I fought with Abyss Emperor's clone. It was suppressed because of Ghostships' arrays, but it's actually a Sovereign." Varian revealed.
Sarah and Sia, however, were worried.
"I can bring ten turtles with us with the authority I currently have," Varian pointed to the Sovereign creatures and said. "They're part of this world, and with my manipulation, they won't count as participants. Three vs Ten. Doable."
"Excuse me," Sarah looked at Varian and sighed. "You killed more than ten million
Abyssals. They'll all show up! At once!"
"And Enigma killed plenty of level 9. They too will show up," Sia rubbed her eyebrows. "Even if we have eight Sovereigns to spare, I don't think they can win against tens of millions of Abyssals at once. What's more, there will easily be more than six thousand level 9."
"And all the warriors killed by us in the wars,"
"Facing that crowd, the turtles won't survive."
"Exactly! That's why we'll need to fight hard too," Varian said as if it were obvious and walked towards the palace.
Sia and Sarah sighed and followed him.
The turtles understood that they got a chance to die and happily ran after them.
— — —
"W-What the fuck is this?"
In an endless plain filled with blood and bones, Prince Shak looked at the dozens of Sovereigns, thousands of level 9s, and tens of thousands of level 8s standing in front of them.
The message from the trial authority was clear.
[Kill them all to survive]
Forget all, they couldn't even kill one-tenth. Or even one-twentieth.
"P-Prince," Sovereign Alban called with a worried expression. "What happens if we lose? Are we killed or just expelled from the palace?"
"I don't know," Prince Shak shook his head.
For other Synthetic Worlds, it's expulsion from the world itself. The losers could go home and cry about it. But this world was weird from the start.
Heck, they couldn't even exit the Inner World and were forced to the point they had to clear the trial if they want to get out of this world.
And the trials here were far more dangerous than any trial in any other Synthetic World he read and heard about.
Their fate after losing is uncertain.
"Then what do we do?" Sovereign Alban sighed.
Prince Shak unsheathed his sword and took a battle posture.
"Roar!"
"Wraaah!"
"Gagaga!"
The horde of enemies dashed toward them at great speed. Dust rose into the air and the sounds of footsteps played like instruments of death.
Facing the unwinnable, Prince Shak gripped his sword and said.
"We fight!"
