Trials of Power: Part 3

"Sometimes all you can do is move forward, even if it is seemingly impossible and difficult. For the world will consume you if you don't, for it has no mercy, it has no conscious, it only consumes, until nothing is left, but an empty hollow void of grief and sorrow. Our lives are what we make of it, but we often forget that we are not in control of it, anything and everything can happen to change it, and it is up to us to deal with these changes, and to essentially prove to the world that whatever it throws at us, we will excel and survive."

- Gallant, Jean-Pierre

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Location: Unknown

Time: Year 17 of the Era of Change

Era: Era of Change

"Geeehhhhh!!!!!" The birds screamed in frustration as they saw their prey appear right in front of them. This was due to them still being preoccupied with fighting against each other, leaving no time to feast on the snack ahead of them. Yet as Steven had now come so close to them, they had no choice but to make an attempt to snatch Steven, before anything else could happen. This led to many of the large birds getting injured, as they got distracted and tried to escape from their fighting. The other large birds used this to their advantage and seriously wounded the smaller ones as a result.

Seeing this Steven laughed madly, telling himself he was a genius to have come up with this plan! Yet before Steven could do anything else, he suddenly sensed that something was behind him, As if time had frozen, Steven noticed everything around him was moving extremely slowly. Gulping, Steven slowly turned himself to see what was behind him and what had caused all of this. To his amazement there was nothing behind him. Steven found this extremely strange as he knew his sense hadn't lied to him, as well as, the reason as to what else could have caused time to slow down to a point where everything around Steven was moving at an extremely slow rate.

Steven suddenly felt the same feeling from before and felt attacked from all directions, as if whatever he felt didn't just come from one direction, rather from multiple ones. Just as Steven wanted to try and find out what was happening, he heard something that was not very pleasant to his ears.

"Kreeee!!!! Kreee!!!! Kreee!!!" the horrifying sounds reverberated throughout the sky, and to Steven it sounded something like an obese man simultaneously choking on a block of ice, while dying of a heart attack. This sound was extremely disturbing to Steven, it made him want to gag. Steve managed to control himself, and then quickly tried to find out from where that sound came from. One second later he found his answer. Around 200 meters away from where Steven and the large prehistoric birds were, a large ball of seemingly hundreds of thousands of grotesque little creatures were flying towards where Steven and the large birds were. These little creatures had the bodies of bats, yet their heads were that of deformed rats. They had large spiky teeth protruding out of their mouths, accompanied by extremely sharp and long nails on their little hands. When seeing this, Steven shook to his core and wanted to get as far as possible away from these grotesque vermin, yet to his plight, he remembered he was for some reason stuck in the sky, frozen unable to truly move!

Thankfully though for Steven, the large prehistoric birds behind him, although almost entirely frozen in time, manged to react and sense the grotesque vermin flying towards them. Seeing these creatures, the large birds all roared with a bright light surrounding them. Directly following this, Steven started to fall down again, at an accelerated speed, yet this time Steven was not the centre of attention, rather the large birds were furious at the little creatures that had dared to fly towards them. Steven guessed from this that the small little flying vermin were behind the reason that time had slowed down to such an extent, and that if it were not for the combined powers of the large prehistoric birds, Steven would have been helpless against the little flying abominations. Unfortunately, Steven wasn't in any better situation than before. As now, he was still falling down at an extremely quick rate. His previous plan of attaching himself to one of the large birds and then further deciding what to do was now pointless, as the large birds were flying towards the little creatures at rapid speeds, aiming to rip them all to shreds.

Steven didn't know what to do, as there wasn't anything around him that he could use to his advantage. Steven once more therefore decided to look at the place he was falling towards, seeing if there was anything he could use to his advantage, yet to his disappointment there was nothing he could use. This didn't please Steven at all, as he was not resigned to become mincemeat once arriving at his destination. As Steven was trying to contemplate what he could do, he suddenly heard a voice, it sounded very faint and seemed distant, yet at the same time it was extremely close and felt as if the person who was speaking was right next to him.

"You are not ready yet for these trials! Those who dared bring you here, shall learn what it means to suffer! They shall be punished!" The voice was extremely calm, yet at the same time there was a feeling of immense rage that could be felt from the tone of the voice, as if was about to burst, consuming everything in its path. Yet this never happened, as the voice spoke again, but this time it was much calmer which Steven found strange.

"We meet once more boy, and just like before, you are not ready. When the time is right you shall find this place again, and only if you prove yourself will you be able to meet me. But for now, and until you are ready, I banish you! I expel you! Begone, and never return until you are ready! For until you are! You shall never traverse these lands!!!" saying this, the voice disappeared and Steven was left entirely confused to what was happening.

To his surprise, he noticed that rather than falling down, he was being pulled upwards. Additionally, he was suddenly surrounded by a golden light which was extremely majestic and powerful. Although Steven didn't have the opportunity to admire it any longer as he noticed he was no longer in the sky, but rather he was in an empty void, that was extremely dark, as if all light had been consumed. Steven normally would freak out from seeing this, yet he had experienced so many crazy things one after the other, that he was very calm and just waited for whatever was to happen. After a while, Steven started to become impatient and extremely bored. He couldn't do anything other than wait in an endless darkness. After what seemed like an eternity Steven started to sing to avert his feeling of being bored and not go insane from doing absolutely nothing.

"Shine bright like a Steven, I am a superstar. I am Steven and I know it! Yeah!!!" singing like this for a while Steven seemed to be having the time of his life, yet to his surprise something finally seemed to happen. "Could you shut up! Who the hell are you?! And what are you doing here!" asked an extremely irritated masculine sounding voice. "Well, excuse me! I was just trying to not go insane! And how am I supposed to know where I am!? I just appeared here all of a sudden!" said Steven in retort while trying to find out where the voice came from.

"What did you just say? You just appeared here? Are you serious?!" said the voice, clearly excited and anxiously wating for Steven's answer. "Uh, yeah?" said Steven with uncertainty. "That's great, no! Fantastic! Finally! I can be free! Since you came here, there must be an exit or a point of entrance. Tell me-!" just as the voice wanted to ask Steven where he came from, the voice stopped in shock as it saw that Steven was disappearing. "Oh well. Seems like it is finally my time to go. Was nice chatting with you. Maybe I'll talk to you next time if I ever appear here again?" said Steven while chuckling as he felt that he was being pulled out of the void.

"No!!! Stop!!! How dare you do this to me you old hags!!! I have been trapped in here for eons! And when I finally find something that can help me escape you dare take it from me!!! AGH!!!!" the voice shouted in anger as it was furious, yet it knew it couldn't do anything as due to many reasons it was powerless in this void that acted as his prison. Following this, Steven disappeared from the void and the void was quiet once more, as if nothing had ever appeared in the first place.

Location: Underground Mining Area 50 G

Time: Year 17 of the Era of Change

Era: Era of Change

"Wow…now that was an experience! I hope I don't have to go through something like that any time soon, hopefully never would be better said. Now, where the heck am I?" said Steven as he slowly woke up and observed his surroundings. In the beginning Steven couldn't see anything, yet slowly as he woke up Steven noticed that he was surrounded by countless people who were all unconscious on the ground. To Steven's delight most of the people were his friends and companions whom he had been separated from previously. Sighing in relief Steven slowly stood up and proceeded to try and wake up every one that was unconscious and lying on the floor. After a few minutes he had succeeded in walking them up.

"Steven is that you?! What happened!? I remember an explosion, and then falling unconscious," asked Xiang while slowly standing up.

"I don't know, I remember the explosion as well and then walking up…" Steven proceeded to explain a simplified version of what he had experienced, leaving out most of what he had experienced while he was unconscious.

"I see…Well thanks for saving us I suppose. We really appreciate it. But I suggest we move now, who knows if that creature that was chasing you will appear again, or something else." Saying this in a calm manner Xiang gathered everyone present and told them of the current situation and advised those who he didn't know, to follow them if they wanted to live. If they didn't want to, they were free to go and die on their own. As this was said, everyone present decided to follow Steven, Xiang and their group, as it seemed that was the best course of actions at the moment. The people that didn't belong to Steven's close group, found it quite strange how his comrades interacted with Steven. What they saw was a feeling of comradeship, loyalty and trust. Something that they hadn't seen in ages or only in very seldom cases, yet all of a sudden a large group of people in front of them, surrounded a boy with exactly these aspects which they thought had long stopped existing. They couldn't understand what was going on, yet for some reason they felt attracted to this atmosphere, as if it was calling towards something very deep inside them. Furthermore, they couldn't understand why the boy called Steven was carrying an unconscious women and dog on his back. Didn't he realise that they would be a burden? Nothing but a waste of energy and time? Yet these people did not mention nor bring this up to Steven and his comrades, as they saw that Steven's comrades were very protective over him and would most probably not like some strangers criticizing and disturbing their precious friend.

Following this, the large group traversed the path ahead of them into the caves, while continuously keeping watch for anything that could possibly be an exit towards the surface or be a potential enemy. To their surprise though, nothing had come to disturb or attack them. It was as if the caves had been abandoned, as there were no signs of life or movement in the cave. Unaware to the group though, very far away from where they were, an extremely dangerous man, stood smiling at their direction. This man was number 175.

Currently, he was surrounded by what seemed like thousands of dead corpses lying on the ground. These corpses were the same disgusting zombie like creatures which had chased Steven. The difference though, was that this time, they seemed to be really dead. As they had been ripped to pieces and there was body that was still intact. Number 175 didn't even bother looking at the puny beings he had just eliminated, as he was extremely happy. With his enhanced sight he saw a large group of people far away heading towards his location. In this group he saw the person he had been looking for, he could sense that, the boy who was carrying a women and a little dog, was his target, his ticket to fulfilling his mission.

"Finally, Finally!!! After so many damn years! I finally have you in my sights!!! Aha!!! Marvellous! Now I can finally return and finish my mission leaving this vermin infested region!" Laughing to himself, number 175 was extremely elated and excited, as he couldn't wait to go home. Preparing himself to appear in front of the group, number 175 made sure that he would not face any interference. He started to bring forth two small tornadoes in his palms so that he could immediately eliminate anyone who wasn't his target, yet just before he could teleport, something happened that he never would have expected. A puny vermin ant had charged towards him and struck him. At first he laughed the attack off, and proceeded to swat the "ant" away, yet suddenly he noticed something. He was bleeding! A wound had appeared at where the "ant" like existence had struck him. And before he could do anything, the wound only got worse and a dark black bruise started to appear where the would was. Number 175 was shocked by this and wanted to immediately eliminate whatever had entered his body, yet before he could do anything, he fell unconscious. This was due to the fact that the black bruise had spread all over his body in the matter of a few seconds, and had overwhelmed number 175 so much so, that before he could even react it had forced him unconscious. Fortunately for number 175 due to his immense power, whatever was in his body couldn't kill him, yet that did not mean there were no problems, but number 175 would only find out later how terrible this substance in him was and how miserable it would make his life from this point forward.