Congratulations! You are now the progenitor of the Shuthyes!

You have been granted one mutation, one style choice, Progenitor: (Tier I), and Weak Aether Resistance: (Tier I)

Progenitor: (Tier I)

As the progenitor of your race, your actions affect all members of your species, your reputation is shared by all of your kin.

As the progenitor, you have undisputed authority over all other members of your race.

As the progenitor you have the ability to convert others to your race if they wish.

Your Tribulation takes place on the world of Udeolar.

The world has long since exhausted its supplies of Aether, you will have to rely upon whatever meager reserves your body absorbs to survive.

Complete your Tribulation to receive your remaining gifts.

Complete silence fills me, as I read over the screens without opening my eyes…. Everything hurts and I can’t exactly say why…. Normally growing pains alone would worry me but knowing that I evolved only makes me squeeze my eyes shut tighter… I swear… If I don’t have a tail ima be pissed.

Slowly opening my eyes I look towards my hands…. To find them completely unchanged…. Same for my feet…. And everything else…

“Fuuuccckk!”

Seriously, that sucks! What's the point of evolving if you don’t get cool new limbs from them. Hell, it didn’t even need to be a tail, just give me something, but nooo that's too much.

Go through all that trouble killing that Aether fuck and all I get is a new species tag? I got my mind shattered, all to keep my normal human appearance…. Just my luck at this point. Too bad I can’t increase my fate with points… Glass Cannon Fate style is still sounding pretty good to me.

….

…

…...

It’s weird remembering your own mind being shattered, I certainly can’t say it was a pleasant experience. One minute I was single mindedly focusing on teaching that weird ass blob a lesson and the next I was a vegetable… Worse yet, I was a still conscious vegetable! It was like watching a movie, where I had front row seats to a 3D show of my own life. I could see and understand everything, even feel everything, but couldn’t do shit about that things horrible singing. Next thing I knew, I started singing too, which was pretty embarrassing. I have the voice of a dying dolphin if that helps for visualization…

After that I saw the warnings telling me to evolve immediately, yet all I could do was wait for my body to explode… Pretty sure that's what happens when you get those kinds of warnings and decide to ignore them.

For some reason, the system selected Shuthye for me though…. It also said the System had been alerted… But wasn’t ‘The God’ always watching? So why the fuck would the System be alerted…. Unless it wasn’t a part of whatever supposed God gave us the System.

Ok this is confusing, whatever, it's not like knowing any of that will help my current situation.

Raising my head to look around, I find it's darker than I first thought… There was a dense canopy blocking most of the light, and what did manage to filter through could barely light more than a few feet of space before giving way to darkness.

With what light I could manage, all I could see were plants. Oddly enough, they were a muted grey, like someone had sucked the life straight out of them…. It was also unnervingly quiet…. Actually there was no sound other than my own breathing and footsteps…. The air tasted stale and stiflingly the more I payed attention to my surroundings. Everything about my current situation screamed horror movie/you’re about to be devoured by something.

Carefully trying to not make more noise than I had to, I made my way to the nearest plant before touching it…. It was petrified alright…. Something major had to have happened for this much plant life to be frozen in time the way they had…. It's not everyday that entire jungles get petrified….

Normally that sort of thing only happens on rare occasions when a bunch of convenient things all happen to encase and preserve wood for a long duration of time, so for this much to be preserved…. I need to get out of here….

Trying to use pyrokinesis to light my way, my knees buckle before I face plant into a solid, petrified fern. My limbs had all turned to jelly the second I tried to access Aether, what the fuck is happening?

Your Aether reserves are now at 97%

….

……

…….

Oh boy.

Well i’m fucked.

Honestly keeping my composure through man eating rats, burning humans, and zombificating maggots wasn’t that hard. But more or less being told the shit that kept me breathing was now limited kinda set me off.

SHIT

SHIT

SHIT

SHIT

Wait a second. Wheres Aiyla?

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT

Your Aether reserves are now at 96%

After that, I began to run. No direction in mind besides forward. I had to eventually get through the forest right? So I continued….

For what felt like hours I continued to run, walk, jog…. Never resting….

I continually exhausted my stamina through Fleet Footed, trying my best to avoid hitting the stone trees while I cruised through the foliage at 50 mph….

Your Aether reserves are now at 93%

I couldn’t afford to lose focus or I would paint the grey world around me red. Seriously, going 50 mph and hitting a stone monolith would probably paste me even with my enhanced stats.

I lost track of time as the same monotonous world made staying focused difficult….

If I had to guess, I was losing around 1% of my Aether Reserves per hour…. Thats means I have a little over four days before I effectively die.

That's four days to find Aiyla and kill whatever fucker I need to in order to escape this desolate rock.

With that in mind, I continued running, trying my best to stay awake.

Your Aether reserves are now at 82%

Having increased stats was rather remarkable…. If it weren’t for this dreary atmosphere I could probably stay awake for more than a day easily. As it stood, I was still rather alert, waiting for whatever monster this jungle housed to finally pounce on me….

That was until I began to see more light filter through the canopy…..

Is this it?

With that I sped up once again, eating up my stamina, I would probably be out soon. Nevermind, I should rest in case I get ambushed….. Wait… Why am I holding Aiyla?

But she wasn’t here a moment ago….. In fact I checked multiple times and my hands were even in my pockets…..

That shouldn’t be possible… Aiyla must be-

….

…..

….

Oh boy i’m so glad Aiyla is back!

Rubbing my face against the flat of her blade I admired her magnificence…. She was truly beautiful, nothing could compare!

I spent the time recovering my stamina, fully committed to cleaning her. I had even picked up a cleaning kit a while ago from the Market, glad I could finally use it!

After she was sparkling even more than usual, I nodded in satisfaction, before sprinting for the opening. Oddly enough, it wasn’t immediate…. But the jungle was certainly receding, only a few trees actually surrounded me at this point, and I had a clear view of the sky….

There was another problem. There were no stars. And no moon. In fact there was nothing but an enormous black hole slowly absorbing this worlds sun…..

Shit. So I think I figured out why this world is dying….. And maybe that Aether Reserve is more than just a countdown to when I die….

This world is probably going to the grave with me…..

Your Aether reserves are now at 64%

I have already been here for a day….. It's hard to believe as time feels different here….

Maybe it's my own perception, but some moments seem to last forever while others pass in the blink of an eye….

I had long since gone into a clearing, where nothing existed. There was simply an open field for miles upon miles in every direction. Everything was the same grey, I had even begun to turn into that same dull grey. Even Aiyla was turning grey…. That black hole is probably sucking this world and us dry…..

As soon as I entered the clearing, a grey portal had appeared but I ignored it.

In the distance I could see an enormous tower, however, there was more to it than that. It had color. The structure looked completely white, so it stood out amongst the dead surroundings. Hanging from the sides were even live plants. I could see the green from here, it was remarkable!

I was so excited that I accidentally let my control over fleet footed slip and suddenly I was tumbling from accelerating to over 100 mph…. Lets just say that I slept long enough from that little mishap to completely refresh myself…..

Another few hours and I arrived before the enormous tower…. Its architecture was rather unique as the entire outside surface seemed to be inscribed with tales of battles. In one there was a picture of an enormous crow fighting what looked like a bunch of frog people… Another of some kind of giant grasshopper crushing entire kingdoms…. One of them was nearly blank with an enormous circle surrounding a smaller circle… The smaller circle seemed to be broken up and ripped apart by the… Thats a fucking black hole…

This is sketchy.

I'm gonna knock.

…

….

……..

Why is there a door here…..

No I have had it, up to about here- I hold my hands above my head and hold Aiyla even higher- with all this bull shit. Either I am going crazy or someones fucking with me.

As if in response to my agitation, the doors slowly swing outwards, emitting the first sounds I had heard in days….

Obviously whenever the creepy shit goes down you can’t hesitate, so I immediately walk into the wall of darkness beyond the door, and find myself in a modern looking living room. Well modern if you were a billionaire…. Everything had that, if you broke it, you probably couldn’t ever pay it off look to it. There was even a TV blaring an unknown show while someone sat on the nearest sofa….

I walked around the maze of furniture till I could face the person… and holy fuck….

I was honestly at a loss for words…. She might even be as beautiful as Aiy-

Fucking whore. The bitch looked stunning, her long pink hair curling all the way to her waist. She had delicate silver eyes which seemed to pierce through everything. A small button nose, above an even cuter mouth, constantly parted as if she had a question but was afraid to ask…. She was small, barely five feet tall if I had to guess…. And rather undeveloped, however, that certainly didn’t detract from her beauty. Honestly, the more I looked at her the more I became entranced. She had a unique air of wisdom around her that even the most intelligent people I had known, lacked.

Then she looked at me…. And everything changed….

The modern looking room wavered like rippling water until I was standing in a pit of despair….

Bones- human and not, littered the floor….

Screams echoed throughout the chamber as blood and viscera dripped from the ceiling… Looking up I realised there were hundreds…. Thousands of beings stuck up there, in constant agony as the swirling mass struggled to free themselves.

Bones cracked, organs collapsed, the screen showed it all. The once peaceful atmosphere had completely changed and the pink haired girl was slowly walking towards me with a pissed off expression….

“No matter how many times I tell that old man…” Her voice echoed as if it had been repeated millions of times from all directions….

“No more pioneers are allowed on this world. This is my domain, he will learn his lesson.”

At that moment I got something from Mr. Blue I would rather have not read.

WARNING!

You have entered the Domain of the Defiled One.

Threat Level: X

You're going to die.