Chereads / Unleashed: The Forbidden / Chapter 4 - Heavenly Tribulation!

Chapter 4 - Heavenly Tribulation!

2:34 a.m.

Night in Teras City was always known to be beautiful and peaceful. It was a tier-3 city with a population of three hundred thousand citizens and was one of the only tier-3 cities to possess a gate.

Today was no different. Most of the good people in the town had either gone to sleep or were silently meditating in their various homes. The streets had emptied, and the skies had grown calmer. Neon lights and maintenance robots were the only things on the streets, and a serene silence had descended.

At least, in the good parts of the city.

On the simple rooftop of a modest apartment building, two adult men could be seen relaxing on futons, engaged in conversation.

"It wasn't that hard, really. All I had to do was battle a third-step Spirit beast for 30 seconds..."

One of the men, with a large, round belly and an obviously gloating expression, spoke, bits of meat lodged between his teeth.

The other man, slimmer and smaller than his friend but sporting a purple moustache, widened his eyes exaggeratedly and gasped. He appeared truly shocked by the news.

"Wow, Leon! Listen to you, talking of stalling a third-step Spirit beast like it's nothing!"

"Hehehe, it's nothing, really."

"So, what happened after?"

"Oh, that! Well, our blaster ran out of battery before it could charge the attack completely, so we had to run for our lives."

The man with the moustache spat out the gulp of wine he had just taken.

He couldn't believe his friend's story had such an anticlimactic ending. Where was the intense, blood-boiling tale he had been expecting to hear? Nowhere? In that case, there was no need to act like he believed his friend's obviously exaggerated claims!

"Since you could battle the beast on your own for some time without dying, shouldn't the addition of your partners have been enough to completely overwhelm the beast?"

Leon, the man with the big belly, felt his face turn a shade red. Damn! He hadn't noticed that loophole when he fabricated that lie...

His shifty eyes flickered in his skull as he thought of a reply. As he looked over his friend's head, something in the far distance caught his eye.

He stood up abruptly and immediately fell face-first.

He hadn't accounted for the extra weight of his bloated belly and had been tipped off balance...

'Damn. Chicken breasts will be the death of me...' he thought.

Rumble! Rumble!

The shorter friend, who had been watching mischievously as he put his friend in a tight spot, shuddered. The sound of rumbling thunder broke the quiet of the night so abruptly that it was deafening.

Both managed to stand and leaned on each other for support as they gazed into the distant skies, where a shocking number of clouds had gathered, and a dense amount of lightning flickered within.

"A-are those... Tribulation Clouds?!"

The two friends stared at each other with shock in their eyes. There was also a hint of relief in the bigger man's gaze, but he managed to mask it quickly.

Rumble! Rumble!

Was someone really Ascending tonight? Was another powerhouse being born?

"But isn't that supposed to be EagleBeak Cliff?"

All over the city, those who were awake couldn't help but gaze in the direction of the Tribulation Clouds with a mixture of shock and envy. Those who were meditating had their concentration broken due to the disturbance and we're both shocked and furious.

Still, no matter whom or where, one sentence was being exchanged so quickly it almost turned into a chant:

"A powerhouse is born!"

_____

On EagleBeak Cliff, the source of the disturbance, the supposed powerhouse was still lying naked with his buttocks facing outward.

His figure was sprawled in a star shape, and a dense purple light was radiating from his right chest.

The purple light radiating from the figure's chest pulsed with a mythical rhythm, each pulse increasing the intensity of the light.

Enchanting runes of a dazzling purple colour began emerging all over the figure's naked skin, and shortly he was covered with these runes like a mythical suit.

Rumble!

The rumbling of the clouds intensified, and it appeared as if the heavens themselves were furious. Lightning strikes as thick as tree trunks boomed within the storm, and the flashes they gave off were blinding—a testament to their immense power.

Gradually, the runes on the figure's skin began to writhe, and then a purple, magical cocoon sprouted from them and covered him in an instant.

Boom!

The first lightning strike descended. Its power was immense. It was like a beam of rampaging death descending upon the mortal world to pass judgement.

Boom!

The lightning bolt struck the purple cocoon, and a shocking scene unfolded.

It was completely absorbed! Not deflected, not blocked—completely absorbed.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

This continued for minutes, each lightning bolt stronger than the last. Yet, the purple cocoon absorbed everything effortlessly.

Inside the cocoon, Neo was undergoing a profound change, almost comparable to a reconstruction.

In fact, it was a reconstruction of proportions unseen before!

The purple light bathed his bone marrow in its otherworldly glow, and the marrow began to deconstruct and reconstruct fundamentally.

This process lasted for minutes, and by the time the light no longer shone on Neo's marrow, it had already transformed into something else.

After altering his marrow, the purple light proceeded to bathe his bones in its glow, and Neo's bones literally melted into nothingness before reconstructing with only a single strand of DNA as the catalyst.

His muscles were reconstructed next, followed by his organs, then his skin, and finally his heart. At this time, the mysterious black orb had shrunk significantly into... a black heart?

Another heart now rested within Neo's right chest...

He was obviously anything but human from this point onwards.

He had been completely transformed.

Gradually, the light receded fully, and the lightning clouds dispersed. The Tribulation was over.

Neo was now something forbidden, something unique.

The prophecy had truly begun.