"He's drained dry."
Caden didn't even need to get close. The husk of a corpse, nothing more than skin stretched taut over bone, was Calder’s unmistakable handiwork.
Beside him, Ray’s composure finally cracked. "What does this mean? Is he coming back for us?" Panic laced his voice, and a fresh wave of fear rippled through the few surviving players.
Caden shook his head, his voice a low, steady anchor in their terror. "No. His attitude was clear—he was letting us go. There's no reason for him to hunt us down now." He glanced at the desiccated remains on the ground. "Vance… he must have pushed his luck one last time."
A collective sigh of relief went through the group. Ray, his fear transmuting into rage, drove his boot hard into the corpse's side.
"Damn this bastard!" he snarled. "Why the hell did he have to provoke Calder? Did he really think he was the smartest guy in the world? Stupid fuck!"
The others, emboldened, joined in, spitting on the body.
"Shit, trying to drag us down with him even at the end. He deserved to die!"
"Yeah, rot in hell, you ass-kisser!"
"Calder couldn't have cared less about us, but you just had to poke the bear. You got what was coming to you!"
Even Vance's own former subordinates were cursing his name. If it hadn't been for his obsessive greed to steal the boss kill, most of them would still be alive. Their grand coalition of hundreds had been reduced to a pathetic handful.
Someone’s voice cut through the anger. "Caden… Ray… what do we do now?"
Ray scratched his head, his patience worn thin. "How should I know? Calder wiped the map clean. There’s nothing left for us to do."
"Um…" A young man hesitantly raised his hand. "When I got near the Summoning Nexus, I think I got a system notification."
"What notification?" Caden asked, his attention sharpening.
"It asked… if I wanted to reactivate the Novice Trial challenge," the man replied, swallowing nervously. "I didn't dare do it…"
"For real!?" Ray’s eyes lit up, and a murmur of excitement spread through the exhausted players.
But the hope was quickly tempered with caution. "But what if it’s like last time?" another player worried aloud. "We'll be swarmed by monsters, and we don't have someone like Calder to save us."
"I don't think so," Caden interjected, a thoughtful look on his face. "I was watching earlier, and I noticed a pattern. The number of monsters that spawn during a Beast Surge seems to be linked to the number of challengers."
Ray stroked his chin, the grim logic dawning on him. "So you're saying… if our group is small, the horde will be small too." A bitter, self-deprecating smile touched his lips. "Heh. With how few of us are left, I guess that’s one thing we don't have to worry about."
A heavy silence fell over them, the weight of their losses pressing down once more.
Darkness. Absolute and total.
Then, a single point of light flared into existence. A chain reaction followed, as one after another, ethereal wall sconces ignited, carving a luminous path forward into an endless, obsidian void. Calder stood at its entrance, flanked by two rows of colossal, majestic statues that stretched into the gloom.
He looked up, his face cast in their flickering light. They were a pantheon of silent gods. One stood with solemn dignity, a holy sword held ready. Another, bare-chested and wild, raised a goblet in a toast to some unseen horizon. Some possessed a celestial beauty that threatened to ensnare the soul, while others were so fearsome and demonic that to meet their gaze was to invite madness.
The sheer variety was dizzying. This was The Ascension Shrine, the sanctum within The Eternal Dominion where players who had reached Level 10 and an average of 10 attribute points could undertake their class-change quests.
Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Hunter, Knight, Priest… all the foundational combat classes were represented. Beyond them, an innumerable array of life-skill professions awaited: Carpenter, Tailor, Chef, Miner, Angler, and more.
Of course, hidden among them were the secret and special classes, the true prizes of the shrine.
But in The Eternal Dominion, the most powerful class wasn't always the best one for an individual. Everything hinged on the delicate balance between a player's class and their Divine Gift. This relationship was quantified by a simple, brutal metric: the Affinity Score.
An Affinity Score above 60 was considered a passing match. Only then could the synergy between class and gift create a result greater than the sum of its parts—an exponential growth in potential. An Affinity Score below 60 was a death sentence for one's future. To persist with such a mismatched class, even with an S-Tier Divine Gift, would cripple one's potential. The higher one's level climbed, the more pronounced the damage became.
Conversely, with an extremely high Affinity Score, even a B-Tier gift user could one day surpass an A-Tier Divinely Gifted. The choice of a class was, therefore, paramount.
And that was precisely the problem Calder now faced.
Normally, the choice was guided by one's Divine Gift. Take Vance, for example. His 【Stormfire】 gift was clearly magical in nature. He would have approached the mage-like statues, accepted their quests, and likely found a class with a high Affinity Score. Caden's gift was related to martial skills, making Warrior or Knight an obvious and safe choice.
But Calder was different. His gift was not a gift at all; it was a curse. And 【Blight】 was a particularly unusual one, even among the Cursed. This made his search for a class exponentially more difficult.
In his past life, Calder had tried countless professions. For 99% of them, his Affinity Score had failed to even break 60. In the end, he had been forced to settle for the most generic option available: the Warrior class. Even then, his Affinity Score had barely scraped by with a 60, the absolute minimum.
That single choice had hamstrung his entire future, capping his potential and leaving him stranded at the very threshold of apotheosis. He had reached The Eternal Threshold, but the fabled Realm of Undying had remained forever a single, agonizing step away.
Even then, if I had just managed to cross into The Eternal Threshold, those old bastards would have been powerless against me!
The memory sent a surge of cold fire through him. Calder’s hands clenched into fists, his gaze turning razor-sharp. "This time," he vowed to the silent hall, "I will find the perfect class."
Aside from pure luck, there was another, more esoteric method for discovering one's ideal path: the 【Divine Calling】.
A direct guidance from the gods, it revealed the single most suitable class for a player. In his previous life, many of the most exceptional players from each Novice Zone had received it. Calder had studied them, and he knew their secret: they had all cleared every single Novice Trial quest on the very first day of the Grace Period.
The Divine Calling was a reward reserved for monsters and prodigies.
"Surely I qualify this time," Calder murmured, standing perfectly still amidst the solemn statues, waiting for the divine intervention he had earned.
One minute passed. Two. Three.
Ten minutes crawled by. The Ascension Shrine remained utterly silent and still. The stone gods gazed into eternity, unmoving. His system interface was just as quiet. Still, he didn't lose heart. He waited.
An hour. Two hours. Three.
Calder lost track of how long he stood there, a solitary figure in the vast, torchlit hall, but the Divine Calling never came.
"Why?" he whispered, the question hanging unanswered in the air. "What went wrong?"
He had replayed his every move. This time, he was certain he stood at the absolute apex of Azura's countless players. His kill efficiency, the sheer number of monsters slain—it was all flawless. He had achieved perfection.
Yet, the gods remained silent.
Confusion, doubt, frustration… the emotions swirled within him, finally coalescing into a single, white-hot point of rage.
He threw his head back. With a sickeningly wet schlick, three razor-sharp daggers of bone erupted from the flesh of his right hand. In a single, fluid motion, he hurled them.
THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.
The bone daggers embedded themselves deep in the face of a nearby statue. Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone, and shattered fragments rained down its body.
Calder swept his cold, contemptuous gaze across the silent pantheon. "Fine," he snarled. "Keep your secrets. I'll find it myself." His voice was a low growl. "If not on the first try, then the second. Or the third. I'll stay here as long as it takes!"
He turned to stride toward the base of one of the statues, ready to brute-force the system by accepting quests one by one.
【WARNING! Your act of blasphemy has been recorded! You are being expelled from this sacred ground!】
【WARNING! Your act of blasphemy…】
【Expulsion Countdown: 59, 58, 57…】
On his system interface, Calder’s name suddenly pulsed with a malevolent, blood-red light.
It's this deep of a red? he thought, a flicker of surprise cutting through his anger. Even in his past life, when he had topped the kill lists for slaughtering millions of The Eternals, his name had never glowed with such an intense crimson.
A moment later, a new suffix appeared after his name: 【The Blasphemer】.
The Blasphemer? So there really are gods?
Calder’s brow furrowed. While The Eternal Dominion was filled with so-called "miracles" and countless worshippers, he had never once encountered a true deity. They existed only in legends, never manifesting in reality. The highest level of beings he had ever met were the kings of the Eternal Races. Many among them called themselves "demigods," but none had ever dared claim the title of a true god.
His mind raced. What did "expulsion" mean? Was he being kicked out of The Ascension Shrine?
On what grounds? he raged internally. Because I shattered a single worthless statue?
His already-low opinion of these so-called gods plummeted further. In his past life and in this one, he had never received a single blessing from them. His strength was his own, forged through blood and will, never borrowing their power.
A Divine Gift? He had a curse.
A Divine Calling? They denied him.
Worse, once the Novice Grace Period ended, his personal flow of time would accelerate, stealing the precious little life he had left.
To him, the gods were nothing but capricious tyrants who had stolen his remaining years and thrown him into the meat grinder called The Eternal Dominion. Everything he had, he had earned himself. And now, they dared to deny him even the chance to choose a class?
Just then, a new system notification appeared, this one tinged with condescension:
【Ding! It is possible the player damaged the sacred statue by accident. You are hereby granted one opportunity to atone for your transgression. Kneel in prayer before the statues for a period of 24 hours to have the red warning removed.】
【Note: Please begin your prostration before the countdown ends. The system will time your penance automatically.】
"Kneel?" Calder let out a humorless, chilling laugh. His eyes were chips of ice. "The only people in this world I would ever kneel for are long dead. You want me to bow to some self-proclaimed gods?"
He spat the final words out, each one dripping with venom. "In your fucking dreams."
【WARNING: The countdown is about to end! Please begin your prostration immediately, or you will be permanently barred from entering the shrine!】
【WARNING: The countdown…】
The red alerts flashed frantically, but Calder’s expression was unshakeable. He sneered. "So what? No class, then. I'll find another way."
In the final seconds of the countdown, a new notification suddenly blazed across his interface, its text as black as the void:
【Ding! The Blasphemer has been detected. The Chaos Faction invites you to enter The Chaos Sanctum. Do you wish to acc—】
The final word was devoured by a screech of electronic static.
Before Calder could make any choice, a swirl of dark, aberrant energy erupted from the floor and engulfed him. The world dissolved into blackness.
When his vision slowly returned, he was no longer in The Ascension Shrine.
He was floating in an infinite cosmos. Above, below, and all around him stretched a boundless expanse of stars, set against a backdrop of brilliant purple nebulae. There was no up or down; rotating his body only revealed the exact same breathtaking, disorienting vista. Time and space seemed to have lost all meaning here.
Calder tried to drift for a moment, but whether he moved forward, backward, up, or down, the scenery remained unchanged. Everything was static, yet everything seemed to be in motion. He quickly stopped, conserving his energy.
"Come out," he said, his voice calm and steady in the profound silence. "I don't have time to play hide-and-seek."
He hadn't agreed to the teleportation. He had been taken. Whoever brought him here wanted him for a reason.
As if in answer, a cacophony of strange, sinister voices echoed from the depths of space. They were not human, nor did they speak the common tongue of The Eternal Dominion, yet he understood them perfectly.
"Heeheehee, this little one has wandered into the wrong place!"
"A monkey? From the beast tribes? So weak!"
"Interesting… he bears the mark of The Eternal Dominion."
"Hmph. What is a slave of The Eternal Dominion doing here? Begone!"
"Tsk, tsk… a faint trace of divinity in his gift… so weak, yet… so fragrant. May I eat him?"
The disembodied voices pressed in. One or two of them seemed to fixate on him, and the pressure of their unseen gazes was immense, a physical weight threatening to crush him.
"Heehee… do not touch him," a new voice suddenly boomed from the deep cosmos, its authority absolute. The chattering whispers immediately ceased, and the oppressive gazes vanished. The pressure on Calder lifted. "This little one is mine."
As Calder processed the sudden reprieve, the dominant voice spoke again, this time addressed directly to him. "Little one, I know you have many questions. But at your current level of strength, knowing too much would be of no benefit to you."
Calder’s brow furrowed. He cut straight to the point. "Then why did you bring me here?"
"Heehee. To offer you a little help."
As the voice finished, a system prompt appeared before him.
【Ding! Do you accept the trial of The Ancient Ones?】
Calder's pupils contracted. Trial of the Gods!?
He knew of this, though only through rumors whispered in his past life. It was a test reserved for the most elite scions of the Eternal Races, a path to obtaining the most powerful Unique or Hidden classes. But its difficulty was legendary. Even among the best and brightest of The Eternals, few could pass it.
He narrowed his eyes, his question blunt and utterly devoid of reverence. "Are you a god?"
The voice did not seem offended. "To be precise, We are not 'gods' as your world defines them. We are merely… beings more ancient than they are. I have said enough. The choice is yours."
Calder fell silent, pondering the cryptic words. A moment later, he looked up, his decision made.
"I don't care what you are," he declared, his voice ringing with unshakable conviction. "If it can make me stronger, I will accept any challenge!"
The voice chuckled, a dry, rasping sound that scraped against the silence. "Heehee… just the kind of person I was looking for. You are my kind of mortal."
The voice’s tone turned sinister. "But… I won't go easy on you. Heeheehee…"
Before the sound faded, a colossal force seized Calder’s consciousness, and he was torn from that place, his world vanishing once more.