BXBX NOVEL Chapter 48: A Crown Is Never Given But Earned
BLEEEEERGH
Blood spurted from his lips as he felt the crushing weight that was like a mountain stumping roughly on his chest.
He could feel the sickening crunch of his own ribs, already weakened from the previous trials.
"I gave you a source of unlimited power, an unrivaled energy enough to change every single fate that has ever been written down in your Life Grimoire."
"Yet, you choose to sacrifice it, in exchange for two empty, desolate souls that did nothing but cause you endless suffering through an entire lifetime..."
"Convince me!"
"Convince me how death shouldn\'t be the price for your impudence!" the figure said, extremely loudly and with incredible rage as Nolan groaned under the monumental pressure.
Blood spurted from every part of his senses as veins burst out of his skin from the incredible pressure, and life was slowly sapped away...
Yet, Nolan, with the last vestige of energy within him, said his last words...
"You\'re a god, aren\'t you? I will never be able to understand how monumental your offer is to me, but I also didn\'t expect you to ever understand how monumental my own choices are to me either." Nolan replied, but all he got in exchange was a leg violently piercing into his body.
He felt one of his ribs shatter and its top slowly scraping against his beating heart, and he knew well that death was near.
"My choice is monumental, so monumental that not even death can erase it..." He said his last words, closing his eyes and expecting the embrace of death, his cold body hoping it could at least be warm and offer him some form of solace.
But it never came, no matter how much he wished for it.
Instead, the foot was placed away from Nolan, and in the next instant, he watched as the man stepped off his chest.
He could barely see through one eye, but he still saw as the two dark souls, which were formerly heading in the direction of hell, had their direction changed and became white, joining among the remaining millions of souls that would get an opportunity to be reincarnated.
Once more, Nolan\'s eyes closed, and a single line of thought appeared in his head.
"Now I am free from my past life. Eternally free..."
Once more, he felt the sound of footsteps approaching him, and he could\'ve sworn it had no difference from that of death itself.
But he was awakened by a bright flash of light as he opened his eyes and felt a hand approach him, lifting up his neck, and his head moved slightly towards the face of the man who now had the crown in his hands.
"It is yours..." the man said, words that Nolan couldn\'t believe as he gently wore the crown on his head, and immediately, an iridescent crimson light covered each of Nolan\'s eyes as he slowly felt himself disappear.
Yet instead of death, what he felt was a monumental transformation.
Now he was starting to fade away, yet a single question remained in Nolan\'s mind.
"Why? Why do I still deserve the crown?" Nolan asked the man who rose upright, and in his hands was Nolan\'s dagger, which he slowly moved forward, opening Nolan\'s shining fingers and placing it within.
"You deserve the crown, my son. For a worthy crown is never given, nor taken, but earned!"
Those were the last words that Nolan heard before he faded away immediately from the empty space, leaving nothing but the burly man standing at the top of the flat mountain.
"I have finally passed over my burden... Finally." The man whispered, an expression of melancholic relief on his face as he looked up at the dark sky whose dark clouds slowly faded away and once sunlight poke through the darkness settling in the man\'s body and the entire realm behind him.
---
Deep within the academy, laying somewhere among the woods, one could hear nothing but the incredibly faint beating of a heart, which sounded once a minute.
If not for the beating heart, one would expect whoever it belonged to be deader than dead.
But suddenly, the heart began beating faster and faster and faster until a loud:
BAADUUMP
BAADUUMP
BAADUUMP
Began ringing out clearly through the entire forest, causing every single thing in the woods to reverberate with the beating heart.
And in the next instant,
BUUUURRRRRRSSSTTTTT
An incredible wave of energy soared forth into the sky with unbelievable power, shaking the entire Academy as the pillar of crimson soared through the sky, reaching into the farthest depths of space and an aura of unsurpassed rage and strength spread into the distance, causing numerous figures to appear in the sky of the Academy, all looking straight at the pillar of energy.
And in the next instant,
RIIIIIIP
The sound of space being ripped apart from pure speed resounded through the Academy hall as close to a dozen figures appeared before the place where the energy had spread out from, and they found nothing but an empty grave.
With strange gazes, they looked at the grave, their eyebrows furrowed before they all immediately faded away into thin air just as quickly as they came, leaving the woods to its intense calmness once more.
After an hour, the birds resumed their chirping, and the crickets kept sounding, but at the top of a large tree sat a figure, sitting on a large tree branch with a fruit in hand, which he bit into hungrily like a beast.
[Welcome Back, Host! and Congratulations on completing your first God Trial and successfully obtaining your throne.]
[You have completed the last quest, and you have gained additional rewards from your trials...]