Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 586: Inexplicable Tribulation I

CH586 Inexplicable Tribulation I

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The Heavenly Tribulation lightning descended upon Alex with a singular purpose.

As the youth screamed in agony, the heavenly lightning tore through his body, unleashing the wrath of the heavens within him.

No space within his body was spared from the lightning’s violent passage.

The tribulation lightning first ravaged Alex’s physical body.

It surged through his blood vessels, ripping through everything in its path.

The violent assault forced Alex to spit out a mouthful of thick, blackish blood.

As the tribulation lightning coursed through his circulatory system, several violent branches split away into his mana pathways, tearing through them while burning away anything that obstructed its path.

The lightning flowing through both his mana pathways and blood vessels eventually converged upon a single destination.

His brain.

The sudden shock caused Alex’s mind to freeze.

One might have expected such an assault to knock him unconscious and spare him at least part of the pain.

But that mercy never came.

Instead, Alex remained perfectly conscious.

It was a strange state.

In a sense, he felt detached from his body, yet he could still feel every single thing the tribulation lightning was doing within it.

Rather than blanking out his mind, it felt as though the lightning had yanked it out of his physical body entirely.

A fragment of Alex’s consciousness seemed to ’follow’ the tribulation lightning as it invaded his Mindspace.

Almost as if searching for something, the tribulation lightning travelled through his mind carefully, scanning every corner of the Mindspace.

Nothing was spared.

Not even OmniRune.

The Origin Greater Rune residing within Alex’s Mindspace was lashed mercilessly by the tribulation lightning.

Throughout the entire ordeal, the fragment of Alex’s consciousness that remained — the part forcibly dragged along by the tribulation lightning — experienced indescribable pain as the lightning surged violently through his Mindspace.

Eventually, the tribulation lightning seemed to conclude that what it was searching for was not there.

So it left.

But that did not mean Alex was granted any reprieve.

Instead, the tribulation lightning moved deeper into another hidden domain within his body.

Alex’s Soul Space.

This was the mystical space that housed Alex’s soul — a realm formed at the birth of the soul by the Will of the Creator itself.

It was a domain that could not easily be interfered with by anything outside the soul itself... and by agents of Creation.

In other words— the Heavens.

The tribulation lightning forced its way into Alex’s Soul Space, wielding the authority granted to it as an agent of the Heavens.

However, the moment it arrived, its rapid movement halted for a brief instant.

If the lightning had possessed a face, the sight of Alex’s soul would have made that face flash with shock in that fleeting moment.

But the pause did not stop it from carrying out its purpose.

The unexpected sight merely meant its task would be slightly more difficult.

Nothing more.

The lightning surged forward and plunged into Alex’s unusually vast soul, burning through it as it searched for something very specific.

”Ahhh!!!”

Alex experienced a pain that pierced directly into his soul itself.

The agony was so overwhelming that even outside the trial space, back upon the stele mountain, his scream echoed across the entire area.

Eleanore — the only one of Alex’s wives not currently undergoing a trial — rushed forward together with Alex’s followers.

Only Kavakan remained absent, still trapped within his Anima trial.

They all rushed toward their leader as his agonised screams reverberated through the mountain.

”Don’t touch him!” the mysterious old man shouted.

”What’s happening to him?” Eleanore asked anxiously, panic evident in her voice.

”Calm down. As long as he can endure it and hold on, he will be fine,” the mysterious old man replied.

To be honest, even he was surprised by what was happening.

To prevent the agitated group from doing something reckless —like attempting to wake Alex while he was undergoing a Heavenly Tribulation— the old man silently muttered an chant.

A barrier instantly formed around Alex.

The shield also sealed off all sound from within, ensuring that none of Alex’s agonised screams escaped beyond it.

”What are you doing?” Eleanore demanded.

The old man’s actions caused the others to instinctively shift into defensive stances.

”The trial he is undergoing now is beyond the scope of what I designed,” the old man explained calmly.

”He has triggered a trial from the Heavens themselves.”

”If any of you rashly attempt to help him —thereby interfering with the tribulation— you will not only doom him...”

”...but drag all of us into it as well.”

The old man’s gaze swept across the tense group.

”Calm yourselves,” he said quietly. ”And wait.”

Alas, just because he said so did not mean the group would simply accept it.

Fortunately, despite her agitation, Eleanore still managed to keep a measure of calm. She turned toward Alex’s followers and asked,

”How are you feeling?”

Havel, Mogal and Silver were confused at first, but they soon understood what she was asking.

”Fine. Completely fine,” Silver replied.

Only then did Eleanore release a sigh of relief.

The way Alex had screamed moments ago indicated that he was experiencing pain related to his soul.

The contract binding the three of them to Alex’s service was one that would share such soul pain among his followers as a last-resort safeguard to preserve his soul... and his life.

Since that sharing had not activated, it meant that although Alex was clearly in immense pain, his soul had not yet reached its limit.

That at least meant whatever was happening to him was not meant to kill him outright.

There were only a few remaining possibilities for what could be occurring, and any truly nefarious situation would eventually reveal itself through changes in the condition of Alex’s followers.

Since none of them showed any abnormality, Eleanore chose to remain hopeful.

After all, the being before them was at least a Class 6 existence— far beyond anything they could oppose.

’He hasn’t done anything suspicious so far... so let’s maintain the peace for now,’ the healer decided quickly.

She gave a signal to the others, and the four followers, including Sugud, slowly lowered their guard, diffusing the tense atmosphere.

Throughout Eleanore’s rapid deductions, the mysterious old man did not spare the group another glance.

His gaze remained fixed solely on Alex... and the Elemental Stele.

’What a boy!’ the old man exclaimed inwardly.

’Not only did you trigger the Pyramid of Elements trial, you actually found a way to reach the summit?’

’Why did you do that? At your level, you only needed to reach the twenty-seventh step.’

’Since when did a Second Order being have the guts to climb the entirety of the Pyramid of Elements... and thereby trigger a Heavenly Trial?’

’Are you that confident in your own life?’

’Or have I been trapped here for so long that Second Orders now dare challenge the Heavens themselves?’

The old man’s expression shifted through a range of emotions as he looked down at the youth undergoing the Heavenly Tribulation within the Elemental Stele.

What he did not know was that Alex had triggered the Heavenly Tribulation due to ignorance... or rather, a mistaken assumption.

Because of knowledge from his previous life, Alex had wrongly assumed that reaching the summit of the pyramid was required in order to pass the trial.

With that belief firmly fixed in his mind, Alex ignored all the signs indicating that he had already passed the trial and continued climbing.

The various roadblocks and gravity spikes he had encountered were actually checkpoints— points where the challenger could descend from the pyramid and return later to continue the trial.

In fact, the impulse he had felt at the thirty-sixth step to turn back had been both his subconscious mind and the trial itself hinting that he should stop climbing.

However, because Alex was completely fixated on reaching the summit, he never stopped to examine that instinct.

And as a result, he stubbornly pursued a fool’s errand, climbing all the way to the top of the pyramid... only to trigger a Heavenly Tribulation he was not prepared to face.

’Fortunately, the Heavens operate according to order,’ the old man mused.

’The tribulation has been reduced to a power level suitable for his rank. Otherwise, he would have been smitten into dust instantly.’

Even so, despite everything he had witnessed throughout these trials, this was the first time the old man found himself truly curious about the abilities of the Fortuna members.

After all, although the Heavens adjusted the difficulty of the Pyramid of Elements trial to match the challenger’s rank, it was still not something that someone at the Second Order should have been able to complete.

The old man could not help but wonder how Alex had managed to accomplish such a feat.

’Have the times improved so much since I have been trapped here?’ he wondered silently.

’Or is this the standard of a genius from another world?’

’Or... is the boy simply a monster?’

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