Chapter 1250 GateKeeper [1]

[Awakening Temple]

[Participant Registered.]

[Participant: Arianne Evermoon]

[Trial Path: Magical]

[Selected Difficulty: Hell]

Michael froze.

"…Hell? What's that?"

All he knew was it probably wasn't a good thing.

Michael's expression darkened almost immediately.

The next lines appeared before he could react further.

[Hell Difficulty]

[The highest standard trial available to an Awakening Candidate.]

[Hell Difficulty grants the greatest potential evaluation and rewards, but provides no protection from death once the trial begins.]

[Trial conditions, identity, environment, and objectives are generated according to the participant.]

[External interference is prohibited.]

Michael's face became increasingly ugly as he read.

She picked Hell?

He knew Arianne was ambitious and stubborn. But Michael didn't believe she'd casually gamble her life after he'd explicitly told her the first trial was safe.

Alongside worry, immense anger surged through him.

"I should have just sold a few things and gotten her an awakening scroll instead!"

Michael couldn't even imagine how he'd feel if she died. All he knew was that it would be his fault. He should have tested it on someone else first!

However, if there was a possibility of death, why had the temple description told him the first trial was safe?!

Unfortunately, the panel offered no explanation for how Hell had been selected.

It simply continued.

[Participant Status: Trial In Progress.]

[Trial information is inaccessible. Please raise the level of the temple for more functions.]

Michael frowned.

So he couldn't see what she was doing.

The whole situation irritated him.

However, the temple didn't care for his feelings and sent out more information.

[Trial Time Dilation Active.]

[Time Ratio: 365 Trial Days : 1 External Hour.]

Michael's expression changed.

"Three hundred and sixty-five days?"

One year inside the trial was only one hour outside. That was far more extreme than he'd expected.

Michael's gaze returned to the blue vortex.

To him, Arianne had entered only moments ago. But depending on the exact speed of the dilation, days could already have passed for her.

Weeks, even.

Michael folded his arms.

"Wonderful."

He had told her she was safe. Then she somehow ended up in the one difficulty that explicitly removed protection from death.

His fingers tapped slowly against his arm.

Still, there was nothing he could do now. External interference was prohibited. Forcing his way into the trial would probably be either impossible or dangerously stupid. No, given the description he saw in the temple, it would just be plain stupid.

Michael looked at the portal in silence.

Then sighed.

"Arianne…"

His expression softened slightly.

"Please don't do anything too ridiculous."

It wasn't only this Michael who was in a bad mood.

Far away, within the Origin Battlefield, the other Michael was equally displeased.

Although the two bodies shared the same mind and soul, things weren't quite as simple as saying they were one person moving two bodies at the same time. There were subtle differences.

Through the strange and wonderful means of the Origin Will, both bodies possessed a certain degree of individuality. Their memories were shared. Their thoughts could overlap. Their intentions were ultimately the same. But their immediate emotions didn't necessarily mirror one another perfectly.

One Michael could be irritated while the other remained calm. One could be amused by something while the other barely cared.

So when both bodies were affected by the same emotion at nearly the same time, it usually meant the matter had cut deep enough. And right now, both Michaels were in a terrible mood.

The Michael within the Origin Battlefield stood silently in the middle of a ruined landscape.

The battlefield around him had clearly been devastated. The earth was split apart in multiple directions, huge cracks running through the ground like scars.

Entire sections had been blown into craters, while chunks of stone and broken terrain were scattered across the surroundings.

Yet the arena was already beginning to repair itself. Cracks slowly closed. Broken ground shifted. Loose stone dissolved into particles before reforming where it belonged.

The Origin Battlefield was restoring the environment piece by piece.

Michael barely paid attention to it. His gaze remained fixed thousands of meters ahead.

There, inside an enormous pit, lay a ten-meter-tall white humanoid figure.

Its body looked almost sculpted rather than living, pale and smooth with barely any recognizable features left after the battle. Large portions of its torso had already collapsed. One arm was missing entirely. Its lower body had been crushed into the earth.

And now the rest of it was slowly fading. White particles peeled away from its body one after another, drifting upward before disappearing.

Michael watched without much emotion.

This was the gatekeeper of the Top 100.

After winning his previous battle and reaching Rank 108, Michael had immediately used his final challenge for the month on the person occupying Rank 98.

He had expected the familiar challenge notification. Instead, something different appeared.

[You are attempting to enter the Top 100 of the Fourth Layer Battlefield Ranking.]

[Special Ranking Mechanism Available.]

[Choose your advancement method.]

[Option 1: Top 100 Gatekeeper Trial]

[Challenge a combat construct generated according to the average combat standards of ranks 51-100.]

[Your final performance will be evaluated.]

[Upon completion, you may be assigned an appropriate ranking between Rank 51 and Rank 100.]

[Failure or voluntary withdrawal will not reduce your current ranking.]

[Option 2: Direct Ranking Challenge]

[Continue with your challenge against Rank 98.]

[Standard Battlefield Ranking rules will apply.]

At the time, Michael's first instinct had been to choose the second.

The first sounded suspiciously convenient. Instead of defeating one person and taking Rank 98, the Origin Battlefield was offering to judge his strength directly and potentially place him considerably higher.

Anything that convenient naturally made Michael wonder what the catch was.

He almost selected the direct challenge. But after thinking about it properly, he changed his mind.

The current Battlefield Ranking wasn't perfectly accurate. Far from it.

When the Origin Battlefield had opened previously, its initial ranking evaluation had been based largely on the strength participants displayed during their activities within the Fourth Layer, combined with the amount of time and accomplishments they accumulated there.

That system worked well enough to create an initial ranking. But it naturally produced problems.