The power was almost frightening in its intensity.
Vogue tried to push himself up from where he’d been floating and had now settled onto the floor. He placed his hand down casually to raise his body into a sitting position.
The mont his palm made contact with the concrete floor, the entire surface collapsed like it was made of fragile glass instead of solid construction material.
"Crack! Crash!"
A massive section of the floor simply gave way beneath the light pressure of his hand. Chunks of concrete fell through to the story below, creating a gaping hole. Vogue’s face hit the remaining floor edge with a dull thump, catching him completely by surprise.
He lay there stunned for a mont, his cheek pressed against cold concrete, trying to process what had just happened.
His strength had increased so dramatically that even the simple act of touching the ground to lift his body up had destroyed the floor beneath him. He had applied what felt like almost no pressure at all—certainly less force than would be required to crush a soda can—and yet the reinforced concrete had shattered like thin ice.
This was going to take so getting used to.
Moving very carefully now, as though he were lying on a surface made of delicate eggshells that might break at any mont, Vogue slowly managed to stand up. He distributed his weight as evenly as possible and moved with exaggerated gentleness.
But even with his careful movents, the ground beneath his feet continued releasing ominous cracking sounds. Spiderweb patterns of fractures spread outward from each footprint, the concrete unable to handle the sheer density and weight of his transford body.
Vogue realized with growing amazent that not even a Level 4 Stellar Knight—soone who had undergone multiple breakthroughs and accumulated years of cultivation—would be able to casually do this kind of structural damage with basic movents. His base physical strength had jumped so far beyond normal paraters that he was having trouble not destroying his environnt just by existing in it.
He would need to learn control, and quickly, or he’d spend the rest of his life accidentally demolishing everything he touched.
At that exact mont, a familiar chiming sound rang out in his mind and a system notification appeared before his eyes. But this wasn’t his personal system speaking—it was the Omnibus System that governed the entire trial.
[Congratulations! You have endured the Nine Heavenly Thunder Tribulation and have successfully evolved using Ultimate Evolution]
The words glowed with golden light, each character seeming to pulse with significance.
Then additional notifications began appearing in rapid succession, each one making Vogue’s eyes grow wider with shock and excitent.
[Ding! You have beco a Level 1 Stellar Knight]
[Ding! You have earned the title: Ultimate Man]
[Ding! You are the third person in recorded history to successfully endure all Nine Thunder Dragons. You have received a Legendary Treasure Box as a reward]
The third person in history? Vogue’s mind raced. That ant only two other people across all of human civilization, spanning back thousands of years through countless Osympic Trials, had ever accomplished what he just did. The weight of that achievent was staggering.
[Ding! Your ho planet [Blue Water] has increased in Universal Ranking from #132,488 to #10,999]
Vogue’s breath caught. His entire planet’s ranking in the cosmic hierarchy had just jumped by over one hundred thousand positions because of his achievent. That would have massive implications for everyone living on Blue Water. Higher-ranked planets received better resources, more attention from powerful organizations, and greater opportunities for their inhabitants.
His success hadn’t just changed his own fate—it had altered the destiny of billions of people on his ho world.
[Ding! Your na shall be written in the Primordial Codex, the eternal record of exceptional achievents. Do you wish to display your na publicly or hide your identity?]
Vogue didn’t even hesitate. He imdiately chose to hide his na without a second thought.
Fa and recognition were dangerous things. They attracted attention from powerful people who might see you as either a threat to eliminate or a tool to exploit. Better to grow stronger in the shadows where enemies couldn’t easily find you.
[Selection confird: Identity concealed]
Then sothing else happened. A ssage appeared not just to Vogue, but to every single participant still alive in the trial. It displayed simultaneously in the vision of all remaining players throughout the city, impossible to ignore or dismiss.
[GLOBAL SSAGE]
[Congratulations to Player ###### for successfully evolving using Ultimate Evolution]
[Congratulations to Player ###### for successfully evolving using Ultimate Evolution]
[Congratulations to Player ###### for successfully evolving using Ultimate Evolution]
The sa ssage repeated itself nine tis in everyone’s interface, once for each Thunder Dragon that had been survived. The repetition emphasized just how significant this achievent was—the system itself was celebrating it with redundancy.
Then, after the ninth repetition faded, another ssage appeared that made everyone’s hearts skip a beat.
[The Osympic Trial will end in three minutes. Please prepare yourselves for return]
[Final rankings will be calculated]
[Rewards will be distributed based on performance]
[Survivors: 847 / 10,000]
Vogue stood there stunned, as did every other player scattered throughout the ruined city. Nobody had expected the trial to end so suddenly and abruptly. There had been no warning, no countdown, no indication that they were approaching the conclusion.
The trial’s end was apparently triggered by soone achieving Ultimate Evolution. Once that milestone was reached, the Omnibus System deed the trial complete and imdiately began the shutdown process.
Vogue turned slowly and looked out through the destroyed wall of the corporate building, gazing at the ruined cityscape of New York spreading out before him. This world—Earth, his original ho—looked so familiar yet so different from how he rembered it.
He knew with absolute certainty that he would never co back here again. This trial dinsion would close once everyone was extracted, and there would be no way to return to this specific version of Earth.
He sighed deeply, feeling an unexpected wave of nostalgia and lancholy wash over him. Despite all the death and destruction he had witnessed here, despite the brutal fighting and desperate struggle for survival, part of him was truly going to miss Earth.
This had been his ho in his previous life. Walking these streets again, even in their destroyed state, had brought back mories he thought he’d lost forever.
He made a quiet promise to himself. Soday, when he had grown strong enough and gained the power to travel between worlds, he would find a way to visit Earth again. The real Earth, not a trial copy. He would walk through Tis Square and Central Park and all the places he rembered from his first life.
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