III

"I heard he tried to fight the goblins and couldn't even take on one!" A voice resounded with a chuckle.

"Imagine, trying to get the God of Swords to give you a blessing! He's a nobody who hasn't even finished his first Gate. What a loser!"

Two starkly dressed men, who looked to be no older than thirty years old, walked along a long corridor dressed with pristine white walls.

One carried a large hammer on his back, while the other bore a long-bow and quiver. The two were high-ranking GateGears. At this current moment they were in between the Fair and Primal Gates. 

Between each gate a Gear has the chance to make an attempt at gaining a God's blessing. You could theoretically have as many blessings as you want, but most Gods chose to have exclusivity as part of the contract that binds the GateGear with the corresponding God's blessing.

This doesn't mean you can't change which God to be blessed by though. Most of the time a Gear, gets a minor-blessing before they enter the first Gate, however each following gate they have more to offer to exchange for a higher tier blessing.

That's if they manage to pass the God's Trials of course.

There are three tiers of God's blessing's, the first tier is called minor-blessings. Minor-blessings are given by Gods that fall in to the lower power-scaling of Gods. Deity's that are related to physical things like apples or corn are minor-Gods.

These could be anything imaginable, as long as they fall under the guidelines of a singular physical item.

The next tier is called major-blessings, these blessings correspond with Gods of a whole class or group of things. Such as the God of Fruit or God of vegetables.

These blessings tend to offer much greater perks. While a minor-blessing may give you increased stamina, a major-blessing could give you the ability to run forever. These perks tend to go along with what God's blessing it comes from.

A God of Speed may give a Gear a major-blessing and that subsequent blessing would allow the Gear to reach unimaginable speeds with the cost of some type of fuel or exchange. The Perks received by the blessings aren,t over-all hacks. They instead require a certain requirement to be met or something given in exchange.

The final tier is called majestic-blessings. These come from the Gods of Concepts, these are Gods related to emotions or ideas. Such as the God of War or the God of Grief. Only Gears that can grow to become Gods themselves usually acquire these blessings.

By then, the benefits would be pointless so the idea of receiving a majestic-blessing are only a pipe dream.

-

Dylan felt like he had just woken up, but he had yet to open his eyes. He was nervous that the images flashing in his mind were more than just a dream.

"Goblins? And Lila...." Dylan thought. He could remember scenes of indescribable pain. Handfuls of harsh impacts reverberating through his head and a burning sensation followed by weight separating from his chest. 

After a few deep breaths, he found the courage to open his eyes. He was surprised to see a mural on a plain white ceiling. It depicted a battle between hundreds, maybe even thousands of creatures. Each creature was completely unique, and the different sides couldn't be discerned. He could make out humans, animals, and different types of mythical and magical beasts.

He was mesmerized by the gruesome scene. Looking at each and every fight, until he was awoken by a soft silky voice.

"Beautiful. Isn't it?"

Dylan turned towards the voice and was shocked to see, what may be the most beautiful person he had ever seen. They had long, thick platinum hair that rained down an oval face, accompanied by fiery red eyes.

Pure white robes barely hid the womanly curves, and the well pronounced chest. She sat upon a thrown made of glass, that was paraded by dozens of different weapons. 

"I am Malvina." Her voice almost, layering over Dylan's ears. "I will not be providing you my Title, simply because I believe you are not worthy. I can tell you my rank so you may grasp my power. I am what is referred to as a majestic-God. Usually you wouldn't even have the privilege of gazing upon me, being so young and inexperienced."

"However, a third-party has informed me that, even though it may seem you lack the power to achieve anything now, my blessing would not be wasted on you."

Malvina gazed towards the mural, as if she was deep in thought.

"Therefore, I will give you the opportunity to prove yourself in my trial." She resounded.

Before Dylan had the chance to make a smart remark, a white light flashed before his eyes and his entire surroundings changed.

He now sat in the middle of a small clearing. The clearing was ringed by a dense forest, that housed flora and fauna he was unfamiliar with. Purple tree trunks that where dressed with red leaves.

Blue grass littered the ground, as magical looking fruits and vegetable hung from vines and branches. Small alien-like bugs flew through the air and crawled across the ground and vegetation. 

After gazing at his surroundings, Dylan fell into thought. 'All this is happening so fast.'

He was used to just letting life take the wheel. He always felt any plan he made, or any goal he had was destined for failure. He came to that realization at a young age, due to the neglectful parenting and abuse from the world he received. It wasn't unlike him to simply allow things to happen and 'go with the flow'.

Most of his life he never tried to push for things or strive for anything, Which is why, when Lila came into his life he was ready to dive right in. One could say he was indecisive but when it came to it, Dylan was the quickest to jump on an opportunity.

After contemplating his situation, he decided he might as well just look around for a clue as to what to do for the trial. After searching for nearly twenty minutes the only thing he managed to find in the clearing was, an overgrown root system that seemed to be holding chunks of glass-like stone in place.

After his search turned up nothing, he decided to pull up the roots to see if he could clear away some of the rock and create a make-shift shelter.

Dylan decided not to venture out into the forest quite yet. He wanted to see if he could gain any advantages by remaining in the clearing.

After yanking the roots and pushing loose rock out of the way, he found a large root that was wrapped around a rock that was nearly three meters wide!

'That's a huge ass rock.' He thought. It sat on an angle against the root so he realized he could maybe dislodge it if he yanked out the root.

After tugging on it for some minutes it finally started to give way. Once he had all of his body weight, pushing the rock away from the root, it snapped!

With the restraint of the root out of the way, the rock went tumbling down the incline of the root system. With nothing supporting his weight, Dylan began to fall where the rock once resided.

Expecting to fall in to a pile of dirt, rocks and roots, he was surprised when he continued to fall!

After nearly five seconds he still hadn't landed and he decided to open his eyes.

All he could see was a wall of dirt and roots, shooting upwards like when riding down an elevator.

The vertigo he received from the sudden change, caused him to flail back and smack against the other side. His head hit the wall and the inertia from fall caused him to slam back against the other wall.

After receiving deafening blows from slamming against the sides of this death pit,

Dylan managed to regain enough of his senses to try and grip some of the roots protruding from the wall. 

After half a dozen failed attempts, he finally felt something solid collide with his hand.

With the fear of death racing through his veins, he managed to fully grasp a thick root sticking out of the wall.

Gravity still wasn't finished however, and he could feel the root prying from his fingers, as his shoulder pulled out of socket due to the momentum.

The muscles at the base of his arm started to separate from his chest. A loud pop resounded and with that Dylan lost all control over his left arm!

His grip loosened and he returned to his descent. Surprisingly he only fell for less than a second as he smacked against a hard surface.

He landed on his back as pain shot thru his entire nervous system. He barely managed to hold on to consciousness as all the oxygen left his lungs. After gasping numerous times he managed to regain a steady breathing pace.

His heart was beating out of his chest and he couldn't feel anything past his left shoulder. 

His vision slowly returned, as all he could see was a long tunnel reaching up to a small pin-hole of light. Just by looking he couldn't tell how far it was, but he had fallen for several seconds.

'Had to be over a couple hundred meters,' he thought. If it wasn't for the root he managed to grab on to he would surely be dead.

His shoulder was definitely out of socket and a deep black bruise could be seen all around it. If he had an x-ray he would see that not only, had his shoulder been ripped out of place, but most of his muscle fibers and tendons hand been pulled apart as well.

He sat up because, Dylan knew he couldn't due much about his shoulder but he had to stop it from being dead-weight.

He looked down and realized he actually had on a plain black shirt and running pants. Very similar to the attire that he donned on Earth. He used his right arm to pull off the shirt, careful not to hurt his shoulder any more.

After ripping the shirt and wrapping it into a make-shift sling he finally stood up.

After he managed to collect himself he fell into a deep anxiety. 'Holy fuck dude, it's like they just want to put me through the worst pain imaginable.' 

He was currently cursing this entire GodGate bullshit in his head, when he felt a warm breeze. He turned his head toward the wind and notice a feint orange light at the end of a tunnel.

'I guess I'm supposed to go that way,' he thought. At this point he was still confused on whether or not he was dreaming, but everything just felt too real.

The pain he had felt was the worst he had ever experienced.

He had always been a huge pushover. His whole life he just avoided people and situations because he was afraid of being hurt.

Now he had felt unimaginable pain three times! Granted the first two were a little blurry, due to him blacking-out, but he felt this most recent one all too well. 

The shock had made him start to disassociate, back when all of this started he felt detached. He was so used to just 'going with the flow' that he didn't stop to consider how all this made him felt.

He just seen the next step and took it. Everything happened so fast that he, realistically, only had the few minutes in the clearing to think. He was too preoccupied treating this like a game. RPGs always rewarded you for looking around the starting area, and Dylan hated the developers of those games for giving him that habit. 

He was scared!

That was the feeling he landed on. He was scared of actually being dead, he was scared that if this was all real, he wouldn't be able to get back to Lila and keep his memories.

He was even more scared of the possibility of the so-called 'Gods" were all just playing a horrible trick on him.

Dylan had always been so self conscious, that he often considered others to be in on something he wasn't. He always felt like the butt of the joke and from instinct he harbored doubt for the validity of the Gods words. 

Homer just plainly stated the rules but Anastasia gave him information that actually applied to him and a sliver of hope.

Then Melvina, just out-right disrespected him and threw him into this trial. So far his impression of the Gods had been all over the place. He had been Agnostic in his life so it was already hard to believe in the existence of the Gods to begin with. 

'Fuck it,' he thought. 'I can't even formulate any logical thoughts at this point. All I know is I've got two options.'

'Give up and just leave everything behind, or keep going. If you asked me before Lila, I would've just laid down and died. I can't sit here and act like she is the most important thing in my life, if I'm not willing to fight for her.'

'Yeah, I'm scared and I've never had to hurt this bad. But I actually have, the pain I felt before Lila eclipses any of this physical pain.'

"You might be right Melvina!,' he shouted. "Maybe I'm not worthy, but I don't care!"

"I'll just take your fucking blessing, by force!".