"I finally see your true form, Kaiser of the Scarlet Garland..."
Rex finally arrived at the peak of the mountain through rigorous hurdles that stands in his way, he now stands at quite a spacious flat peak adorned with the sight of strength and power. Like a lustering mirror, the ground is shallow blood and is also solid just like the water at the foot of the mountain.
At the center lies a grand imperial crimson throne, surrounded by eight wolf-head-shaped braziers.
Crimson unnatural fire burns at each brazier, draping the air with a red glimmer and lighting up the stairs ascending to the throne. Eldrich engravings, numerous red or reddish gemstones coupled with the huge red crescent moon symbol above decorated the throne, boasting the pompous power of the one sitting at the throne.
Nobody knows how long this throne has been here, but it feels older than the world itself.
Sitting on the throne with a laidback posture and a fist supporting its cheek is a figure deserving of the eldrich throne, a Werewolf that has exceeded the realm of mortals or even born strong and stands mightily in the realm of Gods.
Kaiser of the Scarlet Garland, the Lunirich God of the Blood Moon.
Rex was quite surprised to see that the Kaiser takes the form of an actual Werewolf with few distinctive features that only he probably has. A humongous body filled with muscles befitting of a God, and a glowing bleeding crimson crown above his head vaunting the status of a God-king.
Wearing only imperial chausses with a bare upper body, his presence is domineering.
Looking down descendingly from the imperious throne with his red blazing eyes that stare straight to the soul, Kaiser smiled a patronizing smile that can destroy the pride of the strongest Werewolf alive. "I have no true form, I am what I want I am."
Upon hearing this, Rex paused for a second to calm himself down.
Although he looks quite fearless on the outside, every sense inside his body is screaming at him right now. Kaiser's presence is so overbearing even though he's not trying to suppress Rex, it's his natural presence and it already affected Rex this much.
'So this is what it really feels like to be in the presence of a God...', Rex thought with a frown.
Rex has met with the Countess of the Dark Lunirich before who is also a God just like the Kaiser, but she's not in her physical form so he was not exposed to her actual presence. It only feels eerie back when he met her, but now that completely turns around.
Now he feels like his entire body was about to crumble, it was simply too much for him to handle.
But the silence increases the tension which works the opposite of what Rex wanted, he then grimaces in alert before he tries to scan Kaiser, just to find a rough idea of how strong is Kaiser compared to himself.
<Kaiser of the Scarlet Garland>
Race: Lunirich - God of the Blood Moon
Power: ????
Mental: ???????
Strength:
Agility:
Endurance:
Intelligence:
Even though the system is able to scan Kaiser, Rex was completely caught off guard.
Kaiser's stats are filled with a bunch of question marks but they still appeared in his vision, but Rex can't handle the pain that suddenly attacks his mind from trying to scan a God. No matter how much he tried, he can't lift his eyes to see the stats as he falls to one knee.
Cough!
Blood came out from that cough, showing that he was severely hurt just from scanning Kaiser.
<Warning! The power gap between the user and the target is too much!>
<It's advised to not scan the target again or the user's mind might explode>
Rex covers his mouth while reading the notifications from the system, it's been a long time since he had this so he forgot that if the gap is too far then this would happen. The first time this kind of thing happen was back during his time in Ochyra University, scanning the principal which is an eighth-rank realm Awakened.
If measured from that time to now, he has improved immensely and surpassed the principal.
But even though he has already improved so much that many would consider him an absolute monster for achieving this kind of strength in a short amount of time, there will always be someone stronger out there in the hierarchy of power.
As the saying goes, there's always a bigger fish in the sea.
While looking down to the ground to collect himself, Rex slowly raises his gaze to look at Kaiser that seems to be confused as to why he suddenly coughs blood like that. 'I can't believe the gap between me, a ninth-rank realm entity with it is this far. Well, the Kaiser is the one that made me a ninth-rank realm entity so I shouldn't be that surprised...'
Standing back up, Rex straightens his back again to face the Kaiser.
"I always thought that our relationship with each other is strictly going to be platonic, but I didn't expect you to suddenly condemn me to such a high level of Championship almost as if you want me to fail and die"
Rex has never talked with Kaiser until this very moment, he's still confused as to why this happened.
The first ascension trial was at level three which shows that their relationship is not good or bad, but it suddenly increased to level six and that should mean that their relationship went straight to bad in a few seconds.
Out of everything, he really wanted to know what happened to make Kaiser decide to do that.
But upon hearing this a small chuckle escape Kaiser's mouth that sounded mysterious and grim at the same time, his eyes then glowed a little bit more brightly before he answered, "Since you're about to die, I don't mind satisfying your puny mind. You are the Royal Black Prince after all..."
After saying that, Kaiser gets up from his throne with a slow movement.
Upon seeing him standing from the throne Rex immediately becomes wary, he knows that he can't fight the Kaiser at all due to the disparity gap between their power and also the fact that he's in Kaiser's realm.
"Lunirich Edict, you broke it..."
Noticing the soul-shattering killing intent coming out of Kaiser, Rex gulp harshly in a dry throat.
"It's thousands of years old, existed even before the Werewolves are a part of our vassals, an Edict that is agreed by the Lunirich Gods to banish the Countess for her grievous sin. The Black Shackle is tied to the world, no mortal entities should be able to break it due to the limiter, but you managed to break it"
"From the moment you break the Edict is the moment you sign your death"
Kaiser explains with a devilish expression and a grim dark tone that showed that he's being serious about what he was saying, it feels very different when someone with his kind of power said something like that.
Just like being a helpless sheep, seeing a pack of wolves lurking in the shadows.
For the longest time, Rex feels the cold hand of fear grip his heart in a tightening grip. Being under the gaze of a God that wanted to kill him, cold sweat drenched his back as he see no way out of this and is very tempted to ask the system to guide him out of here.
Since the system can give pointers, he'll definitely be able to get out safely.
Despite bearing the cost of not gaining anything from this trial in return, it's still way better than dying a meaningless death here in this realm. The others would probably never know that he's dead if he die in this place.
With the current situation, there are still many things that he needed to worry about.
Rex knows that the others might not be able to make it if he's not there to guide them and take responsibility, so he doesn't intend to die here, not when the others are still living a life not worth living.
"I've been watching you from here, and I know you're a dangerous entity"
"When I heard you decided to prepare yourself to take on the trial, I know at that time that I can't let you do that. No matter what you do now, the end result will always be your death here inside my realm. You can't beat me, I'm a God. Surrender your life and I'll give you a painless death"
Upon hearing this, Rex widened his eyes in realization.
Blood Moon is his birth moon and the quest to gain the Blood Moon King Mark has been there for quite a while, Kaiser must've been watching him from the very first time. A great candidate is probably what he thought earlier, but everything changed when he talked with the Countess and break the Lunirich Edict.
With the same act, Kaiser heard his conversation with Adhara and Flunra earlier.
Turns out the level three Championship was nothing but a fluke to lure him inside, Flunra told him that no Werewolf is able to clear the fifth level and only some Werewolves clear the fourth level. Giving him the third level should incite him to tackle it without much thinking.
Knowing that Rex is quite confident in his ability, it should seal the deal.
But that plan went into ruin when Rex feels the necessity of preparing to tackle the first ascension trial, he had just gone through a huge battle and he didn't want to take any risk. Due to that, Kaiser was forced to pull him into the first ascension trial and expose the true level of the trial.
Rex realizes that Kaiser has been planning this, and he's quite surprised.
Despite the realization, that many times he has gone through life-and-death instances, he has developed the ability to keep his mind crystal clear and analyze the current situation which he instantly does right now, 'I can escape with the system, but that means no increase in power for me. Supernaturals and Humans might attack me if they found me, and I can't just stay this strong'
'But how could I beat Kaiser when even I can't even see his stats with my own eyes...'
Shifting his eyes back to Kaiser, Rex frown as the situation is grim.
If he was to fight the Kaiser then he would have no chance of escaping this, but then again he knows that the system wouldn't give him a sudden quest that he can't complete. So there must be something he could do.
Just then he realizes another thing which makes his eyes slightly widen for a moment.
'I know that he's serious about killing me, but why hadn't he killed me?'
Rex then suddenly smiled mischievously when he remembered the sudden quest description from the system, he specifically remembered the sudden quest stating that Kaiser would send three obstacles to him that he needed to complete in order to get out of this place.
Finding a newfound hope, Rex's expression brightens as he looks at Kaiser fearlessly.
Kaiser can be seen clearly not liking the expression he was wearing right now, it's etched vividly on his expression. "Either I die or not in your stupid realm is not your decision to make, quick send me the third obstacle so that I can get out of here"
Upon hearing this, Kaiser can be seen slightly shocked.
If his expression can talk then it would probably say something like this, 'How did he know?!'
But the shock is natural since if this were any other Werewolf then Kaiser can play with their mind and even force them to forfeit life, they don't know that Kaiser can't hurt them directly and needed to use these 'obstacles' to do that.
Since Rex has the system, he can avoid being pressured by Kaiser.
Clearly feeling irritated by the fact that Rex somehow knew about the obstacles, Kaiser's hand started to glow with destructive energy before he wave it and sits back down on his throne, adopting the same posture as before.
The only difference was the vexed expression on his face.
"I don't know how you know about that, but don't think that you can beat the third obstacle"
Just as he said that two steam of blood started mounting up from the ground in front of Rex, they slowly takes the form of a figure which should also be Werewolves. It doesn't worry Rex as if it's fighting, he has the system and he can clutch through.
But the confidence in his space disappear as he saw the two figures that formed in front of him.
Upon seeing the pale expression on Rex's face, Kaiser smiled mockingly once again as this is the level six Championship. Nobody completed level five much less level six that he only gave to particular Werewolves that he really wanted to kill.
"How about it? Are you confident in taking on two of yourselves...?"