Chapter 529 - 529: Six Months

The god let the silence hang for a moment.

Then he lowered his gaze and spoke again, in a calm voice, as if he were reading from a ledger.

"Let me explain how this works. Each world must provide warriors. At the minimum, five of them, and they must meet a certain standard. Those who pass will join the armies of the Empire and fight against the void."

"Any world?" Silva asked.

"Any world. It does not matter what it is, or which races live on it. If it is a planet, it is included."

He looked up at the red sun above them.

"The test that decides this must be gruesome. It must force the world to evolve, to become stronger and able to fight. A gentle test produces gentle results, and gentle results will not survive the void."

Ophelia's jaw tightened.

"And if a world refuses?"

"There is no way out of it," the god said. "Even if every world decided to run, the void would still come. It would consume everything, and everyone would die. So it is better if everyone plays their part, and plays it reasonably."

Nobody spoke for a while.

Ophelia stared at the red sun with her arms crossed. Her face was hard, and her eyes were full of old anger. Finally, she turned her head and looked at Silva.

"No matter how much I hate Order," she said slowly, "this does make sense."

Silva looked at her and nodded.

He had been thinking the same thing. He could not defend his planet alone, and he could not refuse Order. If he chose to, they would send people against his world, and his world would suffer for it. The choice had already been made for him.

But there was something he needed to be sure of.

He turned back to the god.

"I have a question," he said. "While these trials are happening, is my world protected from outside attacks? And if we manage to produce the warriors that are required, are we still covered after that?"

The god looked at him, and it was clear that he did not find the question worth asking. But he answered it anyway.

"Any world that can produce warriors receives a certain level of protection. The more warriors a world produces, the more protected it becomes, and that protection covers everyone in it. You can protect them for as long as your world remains important, by producing good warriors."

Silva let out a breath.

That was what he needed to hear.

Ragna was still out there, breathing down his neck. He did not know what Ragna was planning, or what he wanted with the guardians. But he knew that he did not want Ragna anywhere near his world. If making Argon important was what it took to keep it safe, then that was what he would do.

"Then let's move to the next part," Silva said. "What kind of trials are we talking about?"

The god's eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was pleased by the willingness.

"The trials can be of any type, chosen from a few that have already been approved. But understand this. The less gruesome the trial is, the lower the chance of evolution."

He raised one hand, and a faint glow gathered in his palm.

"This trial will allow you to channel divine energy from the world and from the universe, and direct it into your planet. Normally, your people use mana. Now they will be allowed access to divine energy. But harnessing it is not easy. Only those who push themselves hard enough will be able to wield it. And those are the ones who can grow into warriors."

"So anyone can awaken," Silva said.

"Everyone in your world has a chance. As the divine energy pours in, their magic, their strength, and everything about them can grow. They must use that growth to survive the trial."

He lowered his hand.

"Order is granting you a certain level of omnipotence over your world, with regards to the trials. You will have access to the resources of the Empire to make sure it goes as planned. You will be free to choose which trial to run and what it is meant to do."

Silva listened carefully.

"You can choose to be lenient," the god added. "But if you do, you risk your entire world being destroyed."

He said it flatly.

Silva didn't need time to think about it.

"I'll go with the toughest option," he said.

Ophelia's head snapped around.

"If I have to push everyone to save everyone, I will." Silva met her eyes, then the god's. "For the sake of this world, and everyone who lives on it, and my family. I won't take the easy way and let it all fall apart."

"Silva," Ophelia said quietly. "You know the risks of the hardest path. Many people will die. And if..."

"I know," he said. He turned and looked at her fully. "I know what you're worried about, and I'm grateful for it. But I promise you this. Argon will be safe. Argon will not go down."

She hesitated.

She had seen him fight. She had watched him come through every storm that was thrown at him, again and again, long after anyone else would have stopped. If there was anyone who could keep a promise like that, it was him.

She slowly let out a breath and her shoulders loosened.

"Alright," she said. "I trust you."

She turned back to the god.

"How long will I be staying with the Emperor?"

"I do not know," he said.

It was not a satisfying answer, but it was all he gave. He reached into his sleeve and took out a thin band of pale metal. He held it out to Silva.

"This is a wristband. It gives you level one access to the Empire's resources."

Silva took it. The metal was cool, and it hummed faintly in his hand.

"If you can use level one access to push your world from level zero to level one, you will gain access to level two resources," the god said. "And it continues like that, step by step."

Silva stopped.

"Level zero?"

"Your world."

Silva stared at him. He had not realized that his world was considered level zero. A few moments ago, he had been thinking about Argon as a world that had survived demons and a primordial and a sky full of angels. Level zero sounded like nothing at all.

"What levels do worlds have?" he asked.

"There are seven levels," the god said. "Any world above level four has produced warriors who can truly fight for the Emperor. Worlds like yours barely have any warriors of that caliber, apart from you and the few around you. That is why it is classified as level zero."

He looked at Silva evenly.

"You must push it to level one. You have six months to do it."

"Six months," Silva repeated.

"Six months on Argon. When you succeed, the next stage will begin."

Silva looked down at the wristband in his hand. He turned it over once and then closed his fingers around it.

Six months. A whole world to change, and a trial to design that would either save it or break it.