You receive the following Title: [Champion - Hoplite].
Your future Tribulations will be doubled until you repay your debt of 9 Tribulations.
Welco to the Seven Concepts Universe!
The spectral stands dissolved the mont the forr Champion’s body hit the water. Taishi let out a sigh as he felt the System retract. If he were cowardly, no one would be brave… and yet, the gaze of an entity capable of creating worlds and upending the fundantal laws of existence made his soul quiver with dread.
Fortunately for him, the System seed to value the principles of free will and equivalent exchange.
Just minutes earlier, Taishi had been a lost soul drifting towards a chanism beyond his comprehension, its sole purpose clear: to recycle his soul. Suddenly, he received an offer: to play a role in the future of his people. Dead an hour earlier after failing to dominate Flash’s Unity, the founder of a young nation was reluctant to fade away and thus agreed.
An omnipotent force had torn through the fabric of space-ti, hurling him thousands of years into the future before an extraordinary assembly. Seeing a contemporary hoplite Champion, Taishi felt a surge of pride: his philosophy had endured, creating a powerful faction.
Cast as the antagonist, Taishi realized the true stakes of his presence. Victory ant integrating into this new universe and guiding his civilization through the treacherous waters it was navigating. The System had done its job well, generating a body identical to his thirty-year-old self, magically enhanced with physical and ntal attributes.
Yet, despite the knowledge and skills he had amassed during a lifeti of warfare and the Flash’s Unity that had cost him his life, Taishi struggled to dominate the fight. Worse, without the aid of the other Tribulations, his arrogance at the end of the duel would have been fatal, leaving his people leaderless.
Ultimately, I won, but it’s weird that I made this rookie mistake.
Taishi spent a couple of seconds scanning his body before understanding. The explosive energy boiling within his muscles urged him towards rash decisions. I’ll need to be more cautious going forward…
Nodding to himself, Taishi decided to find his people. The only information he had about this new world was what the System deed important for his role. Which was to say, not much. Looking up, he saw an ocean dotted with islands. One of them held a bay sheltered from the sea and his only lead—a group of hoplites who had arrived with the forr Champion.
Determined they might provide so answers, Taishi almost leaped towards them before freezing. His new perception allowed him to see a shadow cutting through the water, heading straight for him.
It belonged to an alien racing towards him at more than five tis the speed of sound. His body was covered in strange tattoos that seed to repel Taishi’s attention, which was why he hadn’t detected him earlier. These tattoos gave him a demonic and rather unsettling appearance.
The stranger was still too far away to gauge his intentions, but feeling his scales tremble, Taishi recognized an instinctive warning. Drawing his spear into a defensive stance, the spearmaster braced himself for battle. If the stranger had hostile intentions after witnessing his duel, he was either incredibly foolish or incredibly strong. Underestimating an opponent was a fool's ga, and Taishi was no fool.
Two seconds later, the demon arrived. Taishi presented the shaft of his legendary spear—gifted by the System—to block a vertical strike. When the two weapons clashed, it felt like he had stopped an avalanche. Brutally thrown towards the ocean, Taishi briefly fused with Flash to dissipate the titanic kinetic energy. As soon as the Unity ended, he widened his eyes, feeling his new body on the brink of destruction.
The stranger struck with the force of a behemoth.
From the corner of his eye, Taishi saw the demon charging again. Taishi flashed out to dodge… or rather, he tried. A crushing aura made him stagger, suffocating his soul and preventing him from connecting with his Concept.
He parried a new blow at the last mont and grunted as his shoulder muscles gave way.
“Who—”
The demon didn’t give him ti to finish his sentence and began a relentless combo. Despite his injuries, Taishi managed to defend himself with his superior spear mastery. Dodge, parry, thrust, swing, cut, feint, and grapple—the hoplite warrior used every card at his disposal to withstand the onslaught.
A few seconds into the duel, Taishi furrowed his brows. The style of his opponent was close to Kazuki’s, but where the forr Champion was a prodigy, the demon was a force of nature. His feints were less ingenious, his moves less refined. However, he compensated with superior strength and speed. Half the ti, Taishi couldn’t even see the attack and moved purely on instinct.
Internal damage was accumulating, and Micro II could no longer heal him. Refusing to lose to an inept opponent, Taishi decided to use Spear Mastery II to turn the tide.
His blade began to glow, and the alien laughed as he parried. His own spear was enveloped in Spear Mastery I and a second strange aura. Before the spearmaster could analyze this new power, the demon opened his mouth. A torrent of flas burst forth, and Taishi swore before using Spear Mastery to slice through the attack.
A silver aura enveloped the tip of his spear, cutting through the world before him, splitting the infernal stream in two. In the span of three seconds, Taishi’s ntal endurance evaporated to allow Spear Mastery to protect him. Just as his stamina hit rock bottom, the flas vanished, revealing the demon less than five ters away.
Ignoring his exhaustion, Taishi thrust. His spear struck the alien’s chest, sliding along a rib to reach his heart. The weapon's tip sank with difficulty into the flesh, surprising the spearmaster. With Micro II, his physical attributes, and his legendary spear, he should have been able to pierce a steel door. Yet, he struggled to reach the demon’s heart… which seed unperturbed.
“Is that all? I expected more from a ninth Tribulation,” said the stranger in contemporary hoplite dialect.
“… I was the eighth Tribulation. The ninth was the ability for my people to heal the leader they chose.”
“I see. How many tis?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does,” said the demon, grasping the spear to pull it out. Taishi was stunned to see his heart and flesh regenerate in less than a second. “Let’s fight.”
The command jolted Taishi back to reality. “Pardon?”
“Let’s fight,” repeated the stranger. “I need more data to analyze your style and relay it to my friend.”
Taishi scowled. “I’m not a show animal. I refuse—”
The demon briefly vanished before a titanic uppercut shattered Taishi’s jaw. The hoplite flew a hundred ters before regaining his balance and stopping. He looked up just in ti to dodge a dozen javelins thrown at supersonic speed. One exploded mid-flight, releasing a terrible fla that singed the hoplite’s eyebrows and scorched his bald head.
Taishi used the little ntal endurance he had regenerated to slice through the explosion. Taking a mont to catch his breath, he assessed the situation. He knows too much about , and I know nothing about him. Retreating would be strategic.
Without another word, the hoplite founder rged with a beam of light and… scread in pain as he reappeared less than a centiter away. A light fog began to reveal itself around him. The mist had diffracted his light beam, threatening to decompose his body like a prism with white light.
“You refuse? I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”
Taishi almost jumped at the voice behind him. He tried to turn and grimaced in pain as a spear impaled him like a poultry. A raging swing failed to eliminate his opponent but forced him to retreat.
Seeing a thin smile on the demon’s lips, Taishi roared with rage. He had buried everyone who had underestimated him, and he would do the sa today!
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