It was not often that Vee got called for a job. That was the whole point of working hard and becoming one of the head executioners of the Zatar brigade. Their part of the Nexus military was formed by either religious fanatics or mercenaries looking to carve a place in the world for themselves, and she was part of the success stories for the later.

That meant she got the nastiest assignments or none at all, which generally translated to a cushy job where she dealt with minimal paperwork, only needed to show her face on the head quarters once a year to remember them she was still alive and get her big, fat paycheck to spend on whatever the hell she fancied at the time.

She’d even opened a savings account because despite her best attempts through the years, she couldn’t spend it all unless she tried to invest in the stock market again. Big news, only the people who were even richer than her tried that kind of bullshit, so no thank you.

Her last assignment had been fifty two years ago, and it'd not even been something she’d been called for, just a random whim where she threw a heretic on a friend’s camp because they’d been whining about no good seeds appearing in a long time.

That was why she was extremely surprised to see a quest appear in front of her as she was taking her morning sun bath. It took her a moment to read through everything a dozen or so times, but that only confused her further. The target had average stats, a mewling seed of an image and an Indigo skill that… Oh, they were a growth type.

It still seemed more than a bit overkill to send a head executioner against them. It wasn’t even a capture mission yet. The only way for this to reach her was if the last executioner had been defeated twice, and that was ridiculous as they would have at least learnt enough to prepare beforehand and take advantage if problems like that appeared, it was perfectly inside the rules.

With the quest picking her interest, she decided to verify the archive of this heretic. Summoning herself some clothes, she lazily walked forward, her home bringing her personal teleportation station up as the room around her was covered from the radiation and heat so as to not interfere with the routes. She didn’t want to have to clean up her clothes if she ended up teleporting where someone else was by accident.

While she did have a curvaceous body and was only wearing a bathrobe with a pin on her chest, none dared look at her for more than a moment, as they should. Really, it was a pain to follow up on the punishment expected from the high command societal rules, so she just killed the ‘offenders’, but the time when she had her strength questioned was long gone, so it did feel good to not have to reprimand anyone after the trials and tribulations she had to pass to be left alone.

With some quick movements, she was soon in front of a station from the archives, a place few actually visited as the system generally assigned good match ups to begin with. The man she was supposed to kill too was a mage for example. It did not take long to notice the problem however.

The status of his executioner was ‘forced coma/traumatised/mentally susceptible’. While the man in question had not even formed his fate, he was certainly still up to the brigade’s standards, so that meant he had somehow failed spectacularly and almost died as a result. Yet she was not his substitute, but the substitute’s substitute.

Aurora, The White Warden (Fate level 21). Current status: KIA

“Well that explains calling me. The nuclear option had long been fired, I guess now it’s time for the… Did that guy’s stats just double?” As she was about to joke about this genius's fate, she noted with rapidly blinking eyes that her target had just gained some kind of massive power up.

………

Having fully expected a tribulation to start, Aki had of course chosen to tackle a danger zone that was close to another one so he could try and power up enough that there would not be a real problem. This time the whole thing was even faster though, as the sludge was basically vacuumed into his body and turned into energy for what was clearly a difficult process.

Whatever influence it had, he was pretty sure it had been left with only the minimal efficiency by the end of the end of it

His body took a bit more than a moment to get used to the sheer prowess he had just gained, but unfortunately he would not be able to double his attributes yet again before his opponent showed up.

While he could probably finish the last danger zone and complete the growth process in less than fifteen minutes now, the whole thing had actually taken a tool on him. Inflating his capabilities more than this was not safe in the short term.

Oh, and the tribulation countdown had just dropped to one minute.

Deciding that whatever fight he was going to have would be devastating enough as is, Aki nudged the obelisk with his mind and appeared on the realm of the merfolk he had just cut through.

As expected he appeared underwater, so he released some air from his lungs and dashed towards where the little bubbles went, though that was mostly through magic rather than physics as he kind of forgot to hold any air in his lungs. Either way, his swimming skill benefited and he broke through the surface with ten seconds to spare, the area filled with motion as everything tried to get away from him.

Despite all of the stress he was currently under however, Aki could tell that his insides were going through spectacular changes that could only be called ridiculous. To compare his current control, mental power or sheer base mental prowess to any of his other stats at the moment was like comparing an accounting university student with good grades and a mathematician with several awards for the creation of theoretical formulas and a few decades more crunching numbers the hard way.

Or in an easier to understand way, the difference between a gold ranked player of League of Legends and one who won at least one world championship.

Considering he still had another chance of doubling his attributes, he felt there was a great chance that something very bad will come around after he did it.

As he thought about that however, a terrifying presence dropped from the sky, the water stilling completely as his tribulation touched it's surface.

Normally he'd be rather happy with this arrangement, but both of them seemed rather surprised that she was completely naked.

"Come-on! That was the weakest robe I had!" She screamed with indignation at nothing in particular as Aki gave her a quick glance and then turned around.

"Fairness protocols? I thought the tribulation would receive no restrictions. Am I perhaps graced with the presence of a great senior?" He asked with some mirth.

"Something like that." Replied the tattooed woman after a moment of silence. "You don't look like much though."

"That's because I'm not. I would like to think I have potential however, even if I don't have the most patience to refine my image instead of creating more spells, working or relaxing." He smiled. "Say, I'm in the middle of understanding some changes in my body, you want to have a conversation before we start?"

"Do you think I will go soft on you because of a few words? Well, it's not like I was preparing for this either, so go ahead." Even as she shook her head, it was hard to pretend this wasn't strange. Their targets were called heretics for a reason after all.

"Honestly, I hope so. There's too big of a difference between us for me to defeat you, nevermind you're the closest to an arcane beacon I've ever seen, so trying anything magical against you might as well equal throwing food down your throat. Even if I survive, however, I'm pretty sure I'll be unable to do the same if you were to equip anything considered proper battle gear the next time you come around. Not that I intend to resist conscription. Soon there will not be much for me on my home planet, so going to whatever battlefront the Nexus decides to throw me at for the next year." He rambled as the human-like woman listened.

"Or you could just stop stealing aether and write up for the military since you already have a tier 1 citizenship." She scoffed with what was an almost audible roll of her eyes.

"Nope. I will do my turn and retire for a good while. Besides, it's not like I am actually stealing from anyone but the system itself." He said with a laugh, feeling the vibrations through his body even from that simple action and understanding most of his physique's response to that.

It was weird, but he would get used to it.

"That's what you people don't understand. Even taking aether from someone dead will create trouble because it is now out of the immediate system it'd been. You simply speed up the death of the realms you steal from." She sighed while shaking her head with a look of disappointment.

"You misunderstand. I'm not continuously robbing from living or dead people nor the atmosphere or items. I just absorbed a dungeon." He laughed harder, silence the only thing coming from his would be killer. "Here, let me show you." He said when he heard her opening her mouth.

Suddenly, his body was flooded with aether, then his every aperture released it as if it was simple steam coming from him. Then the area covered by this steam kept expanding, dozens of meters, hundreds, a kilometer, soon the water beneath them started to shine, having become suffused with the energy and starting to birth elementals, new compounds and floating dead fish that were unable to run or far too greedy for their own good, their bodies filled with strange growths that were clearly scales and fins too big for their bodies. And he kept going.

“Do you believe i’m not stealing from people at least?" He asked, looking back to see the pink haired beauty frowning slightly. Hooked, now to convince her.