Both the cloud and the Tribulation Circle began to grow in size, and by the 3rd pulse, the entire Tribulation Circle had become 3 times bigger, a testament of its greater might.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Just like before, a blue ray of light descended from the sky to strike the Abomination, drawing a woe inducing scream from its many mouths once more. The only thing that was different was that the size of the Tribulation Light and the scale of the damage had increased exponentially.

In fact, it was so bad that despite regrowing some of its mass thanks to the ‘other’ evolution it was undergoing, this newest attack had vapourized half of its body into nothingness, reducing its size so drastically that it was even smaller than the time it got hit by the first Tribulation Light. But still, it lived.

It was smoking quite terribly, emitting a strange (but not repulsive) smell, and screeching out wails that would even leave a Banshee incapacitated… but it would recover once more. What Eridel found fascinating was that as intended, the Tribulation Essence left in its body was changing it at a cellular level. This was unlike the effects that it had on others where it would only raise the quality of body, soul and essence. This was something quite permanent, something that was being encoded into the Abomination’s DNA and changing it permanently. And yes, this meant that whatever the result of the effects, it would be passed on to the descendants that it might have from here on forth.

But why? Eridel didn’t quite know. No other Abomination (In the Eridius World) had ever reached the 4th Realm before so he didn’t know if it was a special phenomenon that was unique to them. But he had a strong suspicion that it was a result of the fact that from a cellular level, the Slime Abomination was ALREADY changing, already becoming something that much greater than before. Perhaps the Anomaly transformation which was being aided by the Eridius System, had made use of the Tribulation Essence to implement some changes.

Well, whatever the case, there was nothing he could, or even would, do about it. Although the Tribulation had gone into cooldown and he could now do whatever he wanted to the Slime Abomination for the next 2 minutes or so. He wasn’t capable of altering the changes it was undergoing. He could pause it or even reverse it, ending the Anomaly transformation then and there, but he had no way to make it behave normally anymore, no way to freely choose what he wanted the cellular changes to be. He was powerful, very powerful, but not that powerful. He would of course not defeat the entire purpose of him being he by stopping the process, so he could only watch.

Besides, he was sure that no matter what, the changes wouldn’t be that excessive. After all, the purpose of Tribulation Essence at its core was to refine the entirety of someone's being and remove impurities, making a being more pure and more in harmony with themselves, not to mention a lot more powerful and talented. It was only the strike of Tribulation Light whose purpose was to deal out punishment on behalf of the Omnipresent Laws of Fate and disperse the Fortune.

So what much difference can be made if the Tribulation Essence was only doing a bit more than it was supposed to? Eridel could only see it being correspondingly more beneficial. But still, he didn’t let such a simple and naive thought take precedence in his mind and opted for a wait and see approach.

2 minutes later

Eridel’s eyes narrowed as he began to notice peculiar changes taking place within the Slime Abomination. For some reason, the various cells within its body that denoted its affinity for elements and the like, seemed to be on the verge of doing something crazy, something so shocking that just the idea had his fingers twitching. But surely not.

Surely, what he was seeing was not the Slime Abomination’s body attempting to fuse all of those Affinities into one. Surely, the Abomination that had started as a lowly Slime, was not about to undergo the special phenomenon that gave rise to the birth of ‘that’ affinity.

But all it took was one effortless glance at the System acting within the Abomination for him to see that it was aiding the Abomination to do that very thing and Eridel’s eyes constricted. It was true! It was true!!!

The Slime Abomination, this aberrant creature that had begun as the lowest of the low of all Monsters, this mere 4th Realm entity with a Quality of Being that wasn’t even that high… was trying to not only form Chaos Essence, but the Chaos Affinity!

‘Madness!’ Eridel almost spat out.

His skin paled, honest to god paled as an understanding of what was going on crossed his mind. Of course, there was no blood in his Avatar to genuinely cause such a reaction so it was just purposeful theatrics. But he was still incredibly flabbergasted!

The Chaos Element! The terrifying essence that was rumoured to be the dawn of all things, the very essence that was said to have caused the creation of the Universe and of all of its Elements….. Harnessed by a mere SLLIIIIIIME?!

Eridel stared at the Slime Abomination with wide shocked eyes, looking shell shocked, but then-

“…WHAT A JOKE!!!” he roared out as various emotions flickered through his mind at superluminal speeds.

It was real. The Slime Abomination had somehow achieved a situation in which it was being ‘blessed’ with the opportunity to become a lifeform that was attuned with Chaos. An ultra rare event that almost never happened.

But the joke… the joke was that it was even rarer for it to succeed! And if it didn’t succeed, the only other outcome was death! The Slime Abomination, the treasure that he had placed a lot of hopes on, was done for!

In memories provided by the Golden Orb, beings many times more qualified to inherit the Chaos element had perished. The Slime Abomination had no hope!

But what had caused this?! Was it the Tribulation Essence? Or was it because the various Elements in its body had reached saturation thanks to its transformation to Anomaly? Or was it because of the underlying Laws of the unprecedented Anomalies themselves that had opened this gateway to doom? Eridel did not know!

It was infuriatingly frustrating, and he almost wanted to stay here no matter how long it took so he could discover the truth to his answers, but he knew that would be foolish. In fact, he had to leave, and now. The failure of the Chaos Transformation always caused serious environmental damages and he wasn’t sure that his 6th Realm Avatar would be able to withstand it even if the transformation was initiated by a 4th Realm being.

‘FUCK!’ Eridel crudely roared. What made him feel even worse was that he knew that the Chaos Transformation was optional. It was something that was unbelievably hard to obtain, but something that could also be activated or not at will once obtained. you could decide to use it whenever you wished. Which meant, if the Slime Abomination had bothered to wait for the right time, it could have become an Anomaly Abomination with an Affinity with Chaos! How impressive would that have been?!

But the fool (and Eridel was also looking at himself at this), had probably been helplessly driven by its instinct to evolve no matter the cost, causing such a premature and suicidal decision to be made.

“Aaaaagh…” Eridel sighed as he began to forcefully smother his emotions, something that had become easier to do ever since he had elevated the Flame of his Will (back when he had undergone his own Tribulation).

“What a severe loss.” Eridel muttered. However, even though his tone, body language and facial expression had become relaxed. Just one look into the golden eyes that looked like they were about to start leaking lava, and even a fool would know that it was all a lie. He was very, very, very angry. And he wasn’t quite ready to let go of that particular emotion.

But it was just as he was about to disperse his Avatar, his mind already making all kinds of calculations to ensure that something like this would never happen again, that a flare of a very familiar energy that he had been expecting but had nearly forgotten about because of all of the… chaos, emerged from the Slime Abomination’s body, snatching his attention.