Tutorial - 5th Stage - Final Boss

One thing that affects willpower yet many Guardians ignore until it's too late is mortal injury.

When you're at the edge between life and death on a battlefield, giving in to the Void feels like a much better option.

The Multiverse Alliance has learned that the only way to truly impart the seriousness of that to any Guardian is to force them to go through it.

For safety concerns, the Guardian System has no methods of directly dealing damage to anyone. Only through its Shadows, which can only be deployed in specific and regulated situations, can it bring harm.

The blue lasers around you damage the Void Spawn only because they are made of mana and packed with something even stronger than Concepts belonging to a B-rank being.

That same being will be the one to lower your health points to 1. They will also push you to feel the same pain, fear, and stress of reaching that much HP in a potentially lethal battle.

Survive ten seconds.

Shen hadn't considered what it meant for the system to directly kill the Void Spawn. He felt he had failed somehow for not seeing it. Now that the system pointed out it couldn't hurt anyone, it only made him extra wary of the system.

Qi formations and golems were just as safe as their creators made them. And a sufficiently skilled creator could very well modify them after their creation. Shen had to believe the system wasn't so different.

And yet, he refused to let his wariness turn into paranoia. He would have to live under the system. He could only accept it.

As for the—

His thoughts were obliterated when he felt pain beyond measure. He had never felt anything like that before, not even while undergoing the Core-Fate Tribulation.

It felt like Shen's every cell was burning and exploding simultaneously; his skin being removed by a dull knife and his naked flesh doused in alcohol; his brain dissected while he was conscious; slices of his limbs were being taken. Meanwhile, a spike of pure agony pierced his soul, starting from his head and continuing to his waist.

The sensations didn't just happen and disappear; they kept going without end, starting over again and again. Shen tried to resist, he truly did, but before he knew it, he was lying harmlessly on the ground, incapable of even focusing on the world around him.

And then came the stress.

A presence as vast as the heavens, as deep as an abyss, as powerful as the universe, descended on that place. And it hated him. It hated him to its very core, and to have the audacity of continued existence was to disrespect the presence at the most fundamental level. Shen just knew it would be better for everyone everywhere if he just accepted his insignificance and gave up on his life to stop disrespecting it. There was nothing he had ever done or could possibly do that was worse than to stand in the way of all life like that. Only his absurd arrogance could let him disregard the good of all like that.

And yet, he also knew on the most intrinsic level of his being that if he died, the multiverse would die with him. He didn't know how, but that's how things were. He carried the weight of continued existence with him, the spark of all life, the future of all that was. Shen could feel it, physically, in his shoulders, then in his every muscle. They tensed more than he knew they could.

He had to die, and he had to live, and the two irreconcilable tasks, both for the good of all, clashed into an unbearable pressure.

Then came the fear.

He had his eyes closed, but he could somehow see the beams of mana receding. He could feel the steps of the Void Spawn approaching. Shen was a child, his father was gone on a clan mission, and his mother told him everything would be alright. But the fifth elder was beside her, and he didn't like the look on his face. Shen cried and cried, and the Void approached, and the elder grabbed his mother by the arm and pulled her away from him.

Shen felt something inside him, twisting him, turning him. It kept coming, millimeter by millimeter, from his stomach. It never advanced, yet never stopped moving either. He was becoming one of them, yet not, and it terrified him.

Shen didn't want to be left alone. Shen didn't want to die. Shen didn't want to turn.

The pain never stopped while all that happened.

The pain and the weight of the universe and the absolute fear crushed all Shen was. But that was no worry. He knew the way out.

It had always been there, and he had been a fool to refuse.

'To join the Void is to find ultimate bliss,' he thought.

There would be no more pain, pressure, or fear. The ultimate release awaited him.

Why hadn't he taken that path before? Shen couldn't recall, but he knew it had been stupid. Oh, so very stupid.

Yet deep, deep down, something was telling him it would be wrong. That it went against everything he believed. That he should resist.

A whispery thought invaded his mind, alien, unbidden. The Void Spawn was manipulating him. Yes, that was it. The Void Spawn was evil and wanted him to stay away from the bliss of the Void. That's why it was speaking lies to him from that deep place. He had to trust the Void Spawn instead. The Void Spawn was good and wanted him to join the Void. He should obey it.

That deep part said he was stupid to believe in something that didn't even make sense, but Shen was done listening to it. He was done resisting. He would take it, the only way out of this terrible, terrible situation.

'No!' the deep voice yelled. 'No!' it insisted.

It made Shen hesitate. But the Void was approaching. He was turning.

Shen had to surrender and turn before he turned! He didn't want to turn! Surrendering and turning was the only way to prevent that!

"NO!" he heard himself yelling, and the agony of his mind fighting itself trumped even the worst of the pain he was being subjected to—only a few moments ago.

Suddenly, all the terrible sensations disappeared.

Light surrounded him and took him away.

Alicia was keeling, but her head was no longer lowered. Her eyes and mouth were open, looking ahead, watching the Void come. Her arms lay limp by her sides. She was drooling.

She wanted to resist, but she had no strength. Who was she to carry the weight of all existence on her shoulders? Who was she to deny the satisfaction of the great presence demanding her death?

To defend herself would be wrong. To not do so would be wrong.

Alicia just froze and let fate decide her destiny for her.

It was funny, really. In some primordial part of herself, she knew she was supposed to resist. She was doing just that, yet not.

Alicia had just… snapped.

She cared not for what would happen to her or the universe or the presence or whatever; she just knew she would not give anyone the satisfaction of having her do it herself. She would never obey any other external will again. Never.

Let them take her; what else could they take that she hadn't already been robbed of? Her life? Her life was long gone, and only scraps remained.

The pain was terrible, yet so familiar it was almost soothing. The pressure was so alien it didn't matter. The fear was just another on top of the unending pile of fears that made up her reality.

So let them take her if they wanted, but alive. Maybe turn her, but against her wishes.

Alicia didn't care, but she wouldn't sacrifice herself either.

Never.

Suddenly, every crushing feeling disappeared, and light took her away.

Evelyn had always known this day would come.

The day she gave up because the pressure on her was too much.

She reached—

"NO!" someone yelled way too close to her face. She focused on what was happening and realized she was on her back on the ground. Sandra was above her, way too close. The girl was crying, holding Evelyn's face in her hands. "No! Stay with me! I can lose everything, but I can't lose you!"

Why? Why was Sandra fighting so much? That made no sense. The pain was so terrible, the pressure so much, and the Void Spawn were approaching. They weren't moving, but she could hear their steps and feel their presence getting closer.

"Evelyn!" Sandra yelled, shaking Evelyn's head. It was quite annoying, really. "Fucking stay with me! You promised! We promised each other! Stay with me!"

Evelyn... refused. She had no reason to stay—

"If you turn, I'll turn too!" Sandra yelled.

And that gave Evelyn pause.

She didn't care much about herself. She didn't care much about her responsibilities. Even the pain wasn't much more than really nasty period cramps if she looked at it the right way.

But she cared about people. Real people, not the abstract concept of all existence. Individuals, like the ones on Earth she wanted to protect. Like her parents. Like Sandra.

Evelyn wanted sweet release; she truly did. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything else in her life.

Except to do her part to protect others.

It was silly. Did she consider herself some kind of hero? She wasn't. She knew herself, and she knew she would likely just give up on that project on the first opportunity like she had given up on everything else. Her mother loved her but quickly pointed out that Evelyn never finished anything she started.

So why should she hold? Why try if she would give up? Why set herself up for failure?

"EVELYN!" Sandra yelled, and there was such primal anguish inside her that it touched something in Evelyn.

That was it, wasn't it?

She had to try precisely because she had never finished anything. She had to find herself. If she had to fail millions of times, she would do it, waiting for the day that she found the one thing among millions that could give her purpose.

"Thank you," she told Sandra.

Sandra looked at Evelyn's eyes, from one eye to the other, seeking some kind of trick in them. There were none. Evelyn would stay, no matter what the rest of all existence wanted. She would stay because her best friend had asked if nothing else.

Sandra smiled tiredly. Evelyn smiled back.

Light surrounded them and took them away.

Bob was having a weird time.

Learning a Concept had been easy. He focused so much on his arrows that just knowing there was some "special knowledge" based on how he fought was enough. In a few hours, he had touched what he now knew to be called the Concept of Precision.

His team had gotten the five E-ranks needed and not a single more. It had been close, but Bob hadn't worried. Worrying wouldn't change anything.

Then came the fifth stage, and it was kinda... underwhelming.

He had listened to enough alien thoughts at the second stage to know how to ignore them. He also had ample experience in slapping his people back to reality—often physically. Humanity dealt surprisingly well with being slapped; it shocked them into getting grounded.

And then the final boss had come. It had given him real pain. But everything else?

He couldn't care less if someone wanted him to die or if someone else wanted him to live for whatever reasons. He would do his own thing, and that was it.

And fear the Void Spawn approaching? He had gotten used to running from them while injured already. He had gotten killed by one of them already, too.

So if the stage had been underwhelming until then, the final boss was only ridiculously painful.

Of course, he hadn't thought that at the time. He had screamed like a little child. Then he had gone around slapping other screamers to make sure they didn't turn. God, that had been horrible. He hadn't signed up for that shit.

He had considered leaving the tutorial for putting him through that rather than joining the Void.

And then the ten seconds had ended, and he had been teleported away to a vast grassland—was the system out of budget for more exciting scenery?—where he currently was.

There were tens of thousands with him. He guessed that was all the survivors.

His group was right in the middle of the pack of people, so he jumped a little to look around in case there was danger incoming. What was on the menu this time? Goblins, orcs, murder rabbits, Void Spawn, humans, or something else?

Teleportation light flashed in the distance, and when it disappeared, it left tens of thousands of humans behind.

Humans it was.

Bob prepared his bow.