It only took a couple of minutes to reach the front, but waiting in line felt so mundane. It reminded Aaron of his life before the integration, and actually caused a little reflection.

  Strangely, all the violence of the multiverse had started to feel very normalized. He wasn’t sure if he would straight up admit he preferred this, but he certainly didn’t want to go back to organized civilization. It sounded insane, even in his head. But who wanted to go back to lines and bills?

  At least the multiverse promised freedom. That was something he could get behind.

  Unlike the newbies, when Aaron reached the dial, he slapped down on it and chose his trial and patron within seconds. A couple of woots and cheers sounded from behind him. Obviously, he wasn’t the only one who hated lines.

  Not surprising. I bet most people who get this far are at least partial social outcasts. Or just people who struggle to fit in,

  Aaron himself wasn’t necessarily a social outcast, but he was definitely a vagabond who existed for the most part outside of normie life. He had never been tortured by a cubicle, and it seemed he never would.

  Talia had an office job, didn’t she?

  He tried to remember details from the casual conversation they had. He realized he needed to chat about those things more with her. Their conversation had mostly been all business, but he wanted to get to know not just her, but other humans as well.

  It was a sour reminder that the trials had gotten to his head a little. He might not have been a nine-to-five guy before the integration, but he wasn’t a loner either. He had friends, and he could strike up a conversation easily enough.

  Hmph, yeah, I need to do better.

  Also, he wanted to confirm if his theory about social outcasts was correct. Something told him that Talia had other things going on in her pre-integration life that made her at least a partial weirdo. She was too good at this stuff not to be.

  Appearing before the rotund form of Oozagh on a barren world that felt extremely heavy, Aaron rotated his shoulders and stretched.

  “Why does it feel so damn heavy here? It’s a struggle just to lift my legs.”

  “Bahah, puny human!” Oozagh chuckled. “You think this world has high gravity? I have forgotten how weak low-level mortals are. If you can’t handle it here, you will suffer greatly on the Alpha and Divine worlds. Their gravity is many times stronger than this.”

  Oozagh was talking. That meant it wasn’t purely an avatar shadow before him. It seemed his other patron god wanted to take a look at his combat skills as well. Made sense, he supposed.

  Wait… this isn’t… is it?

  He got a sinking feeling that he was going to get dragged into another game between gods. But if it helped him get stronger…

  He just sighed and readied for battle. There was no avoiding it. But as long as the two gods kept giving him things, he couldn’t complain.

  “Come on, skinny little man!. Show me what you’ve got! Also, is that as big as you can get?”

  Aaron glanced down at himself. He was pretty big. He had puffed out eating whilst he was waiting in line, and he was huge by human standards.

  “I think? Maybe I can push it a little more?”

  “Bahah. Pathetic! You are human, I suppose. Being comparable to an ogre runt is quite satisfactory for your puny race. Still, I expect better from one of my blessed! You’d best make up for it in combat, twig boy!”

  Twig boy? He better not start calling me that!

  “Alright, here I go.”

  First, before he tried using his aether-powered spirit attack against the ogre, Aaron wanted to gauge what hitting Oozagh felt like at his current level.

  He empowered himself with his buffing Skills and shot forward. He read fate, but there wasn’t much need. Oozagh just stood there.

  He’s confident.

  And why wouldn’t he be? Last time they had fought, Aaron’s strike did more damage to himself than to Oozagh.

  As he closed in, his right arm and fist ballooned out cartoonishly, and all of the energy was expelled in an instant as it shriveled up on impact, sending a shockingly powerful shockwave blasting out.

  “Bahah! Not bad. You made my belly ripple!”

  Panting, Aaron looked up. The ogre was completely unfazed. Then again, his attack hadn’t been as powerful as what he landed on Mo’han. It couldn’t be. The gravity was just too powerful for him to throw everything into it. He required a decent amount of passive energy just to help his body move normally.

  However, the attack had been a good enough test. He wasn’t going to damage Oozagh easily, and that was good to know. Otherwise, this entire thing would have been a waste of time.

  “Okay, let’s see about this one.”

  In less than a second, he ate his newly cooked Spirit Marbled Ribeye. It’d take at least a day for the ingredients to return to the crafting station, but he had a feeling this fight would last a while.

  Then, he anchored his spirit to his body and focused on the ghostly fist traveling alongside his own. He needed to become one with them—to feel the aether as his own.

  In a blink, he was there, and his fist traveled straight through Oozagh’s gut, and the ogre god actually wobbled.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Huh? What was that?! That strange feeling…”

  “Oh, just a little something special I’ve been cooking up.”

  Oozagh grinned. “I knew I made the right decision blessing you! Now show me again! That can’t be the only trick you’ve got!”

  Aaron punched again, but this time it was much less impressive, his spirit fist passing barely an inch or two deep into the jiggly belly of Oozagh.

  “What was that? Are you trying to tickle me?”

  “No! I’m definitely not trying to do that. Wait a minute,” Aaron raised an index finger. “Just a little fine-tuning required.”

  “Hmm. Fine. But don’t test my patience too much, I’m getting hungry. I expect great things from you, twig boy! Otherwise, I would have no interest in sharing you with the likes of that… goddess. Now show the great and plentiful Oozagh your limits!”

  Focusing on his spirit and aether, Aaron punched again. And this time, his fist traveled through the gut and interrupted the avatar’s energy, causing the shadow itself to flicker.

  Oozagh looked down at him with a bemused smirk. He hadn’t taken any damage, but that flicker… it was something. He was sure of it.

  Hurting Oozagh wasn’t going to be so easy, but maybe he didn’t have to?

  Before he could swing again, Oozagh countered with his double axe and split Aaron in two. He was remarkably fast for his size, even if he didn’t compare to Yendal on that front.

  The ogre’s laughing grew even wilder as he watched Aaron pull himself back together.

  “Baha, what a fascinating ability you got there! But you must beware. There are gods who would take great interest in such a thing… ones who have all manner of means to mess with the worlds of mortals. And I won’t be able to defend you against such things.”

  “I can look after myself,” Aaron wiped blood from his mouth and got to his feet. “This is what I do!” He added with a roar and lunged back into battle.

  He was quick, but the ogre was nowhere near as fast as Yendal and much easier to predict. Even at the seventh stage of the trial, Aaron could quite easily avoid most of the counters coming his way.

  Unfortunately, he had yet to find a means of doing any real damage. Making the shadow flicker was something, but he had yet to figure out how to take advantage of that.

  But that wouldn’t deter someone as stubborn as Aaron, and he continued to meld spiritual attacks within his normal physical ones.

  There was little point in concentrating energy into haymakers, for they could not damage the ogre alone. And yet he did, for no other reason than to distract the big guy.

  However, it wasn’t simply a mindless melee, where Aaron threw whatever he could at the ogre. No, every strike he made, he grew more sensitive to Oozagh’s energy, and it gave him an idea.

  He raised his mana field, and with it, he could sense and feel the energy running through the ogre with increased accuracy.

  He could see them. The ogre’s energy sources. Vitality Heart, Mana Anchors, and Stamina Veins… but there was also something else. Something he did not understand. Something beyond his comprehension.

  He wanted to know what that thing was, and he swung for it with his spirit fist, and the power blasted out, sending him flying hundreds of meters across the land and straight through a wall of rock. It was devastating, and killed him instantly.

  “Bah!” He gasped as life flooded back into him.

  “Careful now,” Oozagh cautioned, but Aaron barely heard him.

  Jumping back to his feet, he wondered what it was that he had hit. It was a curious discovery, but he was fairly certain it was beyond his understanding at that moment.

  Wasting time trying to figure out something that was well and truly beyond him wasn’t efficient. It was interesting, but Mo’han wouldn’t have this power, whatever it was.

  He needed to focus on things that would help him defeat Mo’han, and so he shot back into melee range.

  His aim was true, and Aaron landed directly on the Stamina Veins of Oozagh after a long and confusing combination.

  “What?” The ogre stumbled. “You attacked my Stamina Veins themselves? Now that is something. For your level? Hmph, impressive.”

  Thanks to his mana field, Aaron could already feel the difference, and he continued his assault, dying twice in the pursuit of disabling all three energy sources.

  The effects were undeniable. The ogre was slower, sluggish, and seemed to rely on energy less when returning his attacks.

  However, Aaron’s aether was also dangerously low, and he would have to fight cautiously, but he had achieved what he wanted to. Now it was up to Oozagh to see how the ogre would respond.

  It seemed that god wasn’t about to just accept Aaron crippling his energy sources, and the ogre started to grow even larger. Energy seemed to be sucked in from everywhere. Whatever it was that the ogre was doing, it clearly had backup plans for dealing with attacks like what Aaron could dish out.

  However, something had certainly changed. He wasn’t cycling energy normally anymore, and regardless of what counters he might have possessed, this was a major drawback. Whatever Oozagh was using to draw in energy now, it was probably a Skill. The energy grew stronger with each passing second, and it was concerning. But he knew he was onto something. His attack mightn’t have beaten the ogre god yet, but it had forced a reaction and change of strategy from him.

  It was time to press the attack. If this was going to help him beat Mo’han, then he would need to find a means of taking advantage of it.

  Charging in whilst reading fate, he saw an opening and channeled all of his power. His body itself shimmered, flickering between semi-transparent and solid, just as his punches did, as aether and spirit entwined with his mortal shell.

  [ Spectral Fist ] shot out as well, allowing him to continue sending endless barrages toward the ogre, whether he was within range or not, and a chaotic maelstrom of attacks filled the land. Layers upon layers of fate reading were summoned to support this insane attack, and Aaron’s mind was near exploding as he focused on everything at once.

  It was lucky he was forced to improve his intelligence, thanks to his Profession, because without it, such a feat would have fried his mind.

  His eyes whited over once more, and spirit was bound to the physical as Aaron’s material shell looked as if it had somehow changed.

  All he needed now was a Skill to cement these powers into something better, something organized. And he was determined to do just that as he brought the endless flurry down upon the unbreakable ogre.

  Oozagh, as strong as he was, couldn’t avoid so many attacks coming simultaneously, and even though the physical attacks were used to feint and sneak in spiritual ones, the sheer number of them was blinding.

  Soon, it was as if the ogre was being battered from within, and even though this was just an avatar, it was the avatar of the great ogre god Oozagh. And a great god could not allow one of their followers to best them so easily.

  A gut-curdling burp shook the land and sent Aaron's body trembling so hard that his spirit was actually disconnected from it.

  And then the axe came.

  Aaron awoke on the tiles of the hallway. He hadn’t been given a chance to resurrect, and the fight had dragged on long enough that he should have recovered enough aether.

  What had happened? Why hadn’t it worked? Had it been the Skill that had recovered Oozagh’s energy? No… the burp. He remembered that deafening sound. It had cut straight through his defenses.

  He jumped straight back to his feet, more determined than ever. He actually felt a little silly. He had gotten used to thinking of Oozagh as the god of cooking, but he was much, much, much more than that.

  Still, when it came to pure skill, Yendal had a clear edge. But it was beyond close-minded not to seek out Oozagh for combat training as well. Their styles differed greatly, and it was obvious that much could be learned from both.

  Aaron was feeling giddy as he made his way back to the trial, although it was cut short with a groan.

  Another damn line?!

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