S-tier system

A few centimetres from the 'collision point', the vile creature turned into a white-coloured wisp of light. The wisp collided with Niklas' chest, and everywhere became dark and formless; Niklas became nonexistent. Strangely, his mind existed but couldn't comprehend what was happening.

He soon began to hear chaotic screams of intense fright and pain. He felt his existence return to a familiar setting. Niklas' drousily blinked open his eyelids.

"I'm back at the forest," Niklas recalled his current surroundings in surprise and slight confusion.

"What is happening?" The destruction of the forest edge where he lived shocked him. The trees along the forest edge were cut bizzarely, as if an aeroplane crashed into the terrain. Because of this, he could see all the houses that were on the forest edge.

Niklas stood still, paralysed by grief and shock, when his eyes found his house, which was reduced to shambles. He remembered the events in the limbo verse, and it suddenly clicked in his mind that the vile creature was here. No sooner had this thought formed, he saw the vile creature race away from a corner of the forest edge towards the village's main area.

In fury, Niklas voluntarily tapped into the powers of the ubiquitous mystic forces of nature, causing visible, sustained, and simultaneous lightning sparks all over his body. He chased after the vile creature. Unfortunately, after taking a few steps, he slipped and fell, losing track of the beast. He got back on his feet and raced into the village's main area.

Niklas slip was pivotal, as he arrived a tad bit late to the scene of action. The section of the village he arrived in had suffered damage and deaths; buildings were in shambles, and a lot of blood and decapitated body parts littered the streets. However, a few survivors fled towards the forest, some of them bringing along with them carts loaded with valuables.

"Help!" screamed a voice familiar to Niklas.

People fled away from a certain direction.

'That must be where the beast is.' Niklas moved in the opposite direction against the fleeing crowd. Electric sparks concentrated and sustained themselves around his fists.

"Where are you going?" Someone grabbed Niklas' left arm, stopping his advance. Niklas shifted his gaze to know who was stopping him—it was the saleswoman at the restaurant he bought food from yesterday. She was in her late twenties, and her hair was black and braided. She was in her work uniform, blue jeans, and a grey polo that had the logo of the restaurant on the right side of her chest. She was a foot and a few inches shorter than Niklas.

"I'm going to kill that beast!" Niklas said.

"Good, but you should wait a bit."

"Huh?"

The saleswoman pointed ahead, in Niklas' forward direction. The vile creature was prowling around Dino, obviously savouring the moment before it would chop off his head. Dino was seated on the ground helplessly in fright and cried for help.

"I must go, now." Niklas was restricted by the lady's weirdly firm grip.

"Let go of me. Dino needs help."

The saleswoman said, "Dino and his stupid friends bullied you. This is your revenge. Let the imbecile die. Just cover us as we flee."

"I know he deserves this, but it would be wicked of me to let him die despite the fact that I have the power to save him." Niklas shoved away the lady's arm and attempted to move forward, but bumped into an invisible barrier.

"Not this again." This brought a feeling of déjà vu to Niklas, and he was about to question the reality he was in but stopped when he saw that the sales lady held in her right hand an egg that radiated blue light. She had a smug smile.

Niklas knew what the object in the lady's hand was. This object was a buff decal, and there were other buff decals that came in different forms and did various things when activated. The egg formed a spherical barrier when activated. The barrier was resistant to physical damage to some extent.

"You are just driven by revenge. You don't really want to rescue Dino, do you?" The saleswoman said.

"I don't know you well, and I don't think that you know me well." Niklas took a glance at Dino; the vile creature was still rounding him menacingly. "We both know that Dino is an idiot, but he needs to be helped. I can still slay the beast after he is rescued."

'Revenge?' Niklas sensed that something was off. How did the lady know that I was driven by revenge to kill the beast?

"I don't believe you," the saleswoman said.

"Who are you?" Thoughts on who the saleswoman was went through Niklas' mind. 'Could she be an awakened who can read intentions? How powerful is she? Is she the one who brought this beast here?'

Niklas lost his patience and barked, "Who are you?"

The sales lady replied calmly, "I'm Arya, a saleswoman at Kernel Village's Bix restaurant.

"The issue isn't about me; it is about you. Are you a good person?"

Niklas mused, 'I remember someone saying that if a person had high perception, they could sense if another person was a threat. So far, this Arya doesn't feel like a threat to me. She is just bullshit that was lucky to come across a buff decal.'

He confidently turned his back to Arya. All the while, electricity was sustained and simultaneously sparked all over his body. He placed his hands on the barrier and flooded it with electricity. The energy overcame the barrier, and it visibly shattered like glass, creating breaking glass noise.

The noise from the shattering barrier caught the vile creature's attention.

'I have to get the creature away from Dino to give myself space to rescue him.'

Not knowing if his idea would work, Niklas concentrated lightning around his right arm and flung this arm, which ended in a fist, forward. A lightning bolt escaped from the fist, flew, and collided into the vile creature, blasting it a safe distance away from Dino.

The vile creature violently spasmed and shrieked, lying on the ground. Niklas closed the distance between him and his ex-bully in no time. Dino had fainted from the shock of the blast. His face was hidden as his back was in the open. Niklas turned him to see his face and was given the shock of a lifetime to see Arya, the saleswoman's face, in place of Dino's.

"Hello!" Arya said with the most horrifying broad smile, giving Niklas a jump scare.

The red-haired man backed away from the lady. He looked behind and around, discovering that Arya, the usual Arya, was nowhere to be seen. The impossible monsterity of Arya stood up and approached Niklas, who backed away in fright, crawling.

"I ask again, do you think that you are good?" the human monster asked.

"To hell with you, beast," Niklas said in strong despise. "You have destroyed my family, the village, and other lives—

The human monster interrupted, "What family?

The scene instantly changed; they were in the limbo plane, with an infinitely reaching red sky and an infinitely reaching red land.

"What village? What lives?"

Niklas looked around. He was familiar with this place but didn't know what it was.

"The only real thing you have witnessed here is just you and me," the human monster revealed.

'Am I going to die,' Niklas wondered.

The human monster responded, "Perhaps."

Niklas muttered, "You can read my mind."

The monster stopped approaching, and Niklas stopped backing away. He faced the monster, sitting on the ground.

The human monster said, "Agu Niklas Vox, are you a good person?" Arya's face morphed back into Dino's face. He had a smile, which Niklas couldn't discern if it was contemptuous or smug.

Dino's face made Niklas recall the last real encounter with him and his friends. The encounter ended with Niklas killing two of Dino's friends and mercilessly beating Dino and the others.

"You can see what you did that day; was it good?" the human monster asked. "Compare it to what you could have done today. What does it say about you? It says you are a hypocrite!"

"Shut up!" Niklas yelled. "You can't tell me who I am. The other day, I killed people for the first time in my life. And I own up to the act. I let my emotions take charge of me and lead me against my beliefs, but I eventually realised that, and I have sworn to never make that mistake again unless I have been put in a tight situation. Only then will I falter.

"But I will let you know one thing." Niklas stood up and looked the monster eye-to-eye. "I'm not a hypocrite."

The human monster smiled satisfactorily and said, "Good," before it vanished, leaving only Niklas on this plane.

"Huh? Where did he go?" Niklas looked around the 'void' but saw no one.

Ding! An automated bell rang in Niklas' mind. His system interface appeared in his sight.

[You have successfully completed the test from heaven and hell.

Reward: You have gained full access to all the features of your system.

System type: S-tier

Tier description: S-tier systems come with permanent boosts added to user stats. [S-tier systems are S-tier-rare and are the only systems that can give missions to their users.]