The reward

''Ting! Ting!''

Max stared at his status screen, where no message appeared to indicate what was going to happen next. An unexpected phenomenon began to unfold in his bland room, the walls began to slowly glow in a natural white light that quickly increased in intensity.

His room became too bright, nothing apart from light could be seen. The floor underneath his feet began pulsating like a rapidly beating heart before Max noticed it was getting softer and softer every minute until like quicksand, Max sunk into his floor which was solid just a minute ago.

He subconsciously closed his eyes, feeling the space around him was filled with an indescribable pleasant sensation that made his body overly stimulated. With a loud thud, he felt solid ground underneath his feet.

Opening his eyes with a calm heart, his vision was bombarded with an unimaginable spectacle, that his mind struggled to comprehend.

He stood on what he could only describe as a perfectly made walkway, made out of normal stones but for whatever reason his and everyone else eyes saw it as a godly walkway made out of the cosmos. The walkway was surrounded by flowers of all kinds many of which could never be, if at all, be found on the earth below.

Some flowers shimmered like gold and diamond, others looked unnatural with their glass body while many displayed signs of life by following every movement of the people with their rooted bodies and glittering petals.

Looking above, Max finds a completely different sky than what he was used to. The sky was completely gorgeous, as though it were a pretty lady in the eyes of many. It reflects nothing but the splendidness of the universe. Max stared with his jaw agape, having his gaze transfixed on it. 

Behind him was the sky he was used to in its entirety, making the realization he was on a floating structure hit hard. There was a translucent force field separating the residence of the castle from the outside world.

But once in the floating castle, something was glaringly clear, the castle itself was somehow nowhere close to them, unlike what they see from Earth, instead, it was super far from them, looking like a tiny dot, and making the floating castle look like a floating town.

As many people arrived on the floating structure, chatting and intermingling with each other, they slowly began moving further, the walkway almost stretched on forever yet no matter how long the journey was, tiredness was nonexistent.

Soon they arrived in front of a large golden fountain that looked ordinary except it shot out normal-looking water that emitted a deadly powerful energy that caused people to steer clear of it. Above the fountain was a rainbow pyramid the size of an adult human that spun slowly, shortly hypnotizing anyone who gazed at it.

 In the rainbow pyramid was a blurry eye that was watching them with focus, but it brought no sense of dread to the humans who gazed at it, instead they were filled with contempt.

''Triple Max''

 Max snapped out of his trans-like state after hearing James's voice. Once his mind was back to normal, he wondered how James always seemed to know where he was. Soon after, Alice joined the two, making Max seriously think about whether their fates were entangled or not.

Before the three could have a relaxing conversation about whether or not their fates were intertwined, the area around the golden fountain quickly became full of people with their eagerness and curiosity at an all-time high.

'' Welcome, Humans ''

Above the chattering crowd, an entity of unknown origins had appeared without anybody noticing when it had arrived, speaking in an ethereal and angelic voice.

''I am here on behalf of the almighty divinities'' it spoke again in the same ethereal and angelic voice, moving the hearts of many with each word.

The entity above had six gem-like wings with golden inlaid patterns that were detached from its back, although the wings were not attached to its back, they followed the entity's every movement without falling to the ground. The entity had a brilliant white body with many pinkish-red cross-like patterns displayed on his abdomen.

His eyes were a radiant yellow and he was incredibly human-looking, like that of an extremely handsome human male. Around his neck, floating unknown symbol slowly encircled his neck and above his head, his hair was made out of pure burning flames.

He hovered above the awe-stricken humans like a kind god ready to heal the worries of his worshipers.

'' you may call me lord of the castle, caretaker of the Aciremans'' The lord of the castle spoke in his ethereal voice again with no emotion.

After he spoke, Max and everybody else realized that the only people currently on the floating castle were truly people from the country of Acirema.

Unknown to the humans below, the lord of the castle began sweeping his gaze through the crowd, and soon a frown that didn't seem to belong on his face formed with intensity.

''Fucking ants!!!''

The humans below thought they heard wrong but after looking above, they instantly got hit by a spine-chilling aura, that made them want to prostrate their bodies.

Max noticed everybody was profoundly affected by the lord of the castle's aura, making his heart sink to the bottom knowing only an extremely powerful being could affect over a million people with just a single glare.

''Fucking, fucking, weak ass, useless, puny ants'' The lord of the castle yelled out with disdain in his ethereal voice.

He had done complete 180 for no apparent reason, many after recovering from his aura attack were utterly shocked furthermore his ethereal voice made his cussing sound like gentle praise instead of the insults he meant it to be.

'' Now listen here you fucking puny ants, your weakness disgust's me and your stares annoy me. I fucking hate the fact that I was made to speak to you fucking puny ants'' He yelled again with his hand dramatically over his face.

To Max, his behavior was like a rogue robot that wished for the total annihilation of humans to please its creator.

'' listen here fuckers, I hate you, but since my creators have asked me to inform you about the next stage, I will gladly do so'' He said with his hands placed together as though he were praying.

Max and everybody else hid their boiling hatred for the lord of the castle, but their expressions easily betrayed them. Lord of the castle noticed but couldn't care less what puny ants thought of him. 

''First things first, now the trials are over, you puny ants shall begin the next stage of the divinities plan, you will be participating in many games''

'' These games have been split into three categories; castle, divinities, and god games'' He said with an intense glare at the humans below.

''Divinity games are set by the divinities, my precious creators'' he said with a glorified smile.

'' God games are set by those soft-hearted Gods of yours, *we will not permit you from killing more than 2 billion people, we will not permit some humans from joining the trials, we will not permit the playing of games on the surface of the earth, we will not permit this, we will not permit that…*for fuck sake that is all they know how to say'' the lord of the castle ended his rant with an annoyed face, he behaved almost human-like at times.

Once he was done there was only one single intense thought that ravaged the minds of the many humans below '' Gods exist. If so, why did they do nothing, why did they only watch- ''

'' when my father was slaughtered in front of me''

''When I watch my sibling bleed out''

''When my dad sacrificed his life for mine''

''when my friends were dying one by one right before my very own eyes''

''when I had to cry day and night after the loss of my love''

These and many more were the shouts of pain and sorrow from the hearts out of the depths of their souls. They had gods watching over them, yet death greeted them every day. Many had their mind completely shattered by the information, and many were more uncertain about what to believe in now.

 '' would you all shut the fuck up'' the lord of the castle yelled using his powerful aura to make them shut up. Not only did it shut them up it also calmed their minds.

The lord of the castle glared at them again before speaking '' I wished all your villages had burned, I wish your towns had burned, I wished your country had burned, I wished your sky had burned, I wished your ocean had burned, I wished all of you had burned and I wished your planet had burned ''As he went on his unhinged rant, his body grew brighter as though he found the thought of genocide pleasureful. '' but alas, not all wishes are granted'' he added looking disappointed and frustrated.

If humans boiled with hatred for him, before, now they wished for his head on a silver platter with a volcanic rage of bloodlust. The lord of the castle noticing their rage toward him smiled devilishly.

''for the final game; the castle game, you puny ants are too weak, making the castle games unreachable for you. Once you reach level 250, the castle door will be opened, permitting you to participate in the castle games'' He said in a normal tone as if he wasn't going on an unhinged rant a second ago.

''Ting! Ting!''

''Now let the first divinity game commence''