The sky rumbled again. This time, it wasn’t a roar. It was a hum, low, eerie, and endless—like a needle piercing foam.
There was no sound, but deep within, you could sense it, the tormented expectation hanging just above. It felt like the underworld was falling from the clouds.
The clouds above turned grey and flat, like a giant storm blanket stretching across the world. The surroundings became eerily moody.
From it, thin lines of light began to fall, one after another. They weren’t lightning. They were threads. Thousands of silver threads.
Each thread carried a sharp, cutting force with a rather piercing tip that could pierce anything. They sliced through the air, the clouds, and even the distant mountain peaks.
They were silent, but deadly.
“The second form,” Pickle Berry said, narrowing her eyes. “The Trial of the Thousand Cuts. The idea is for them to endure a thousand cuts. If they survive all thousand cuts, they will pass the second tribulation.”
“However, I never met anyone who managed to survive that…”
The threads began to fall faster as the seconds went by.
Linx raised her sword, trying to block them. The first thread landed on her barrier and sliced it halfway through. She jumped back.
“This isn’t like the beast!” she said. “These threads ignore defences. We can’t defend at all.”
Jinx already knew.
She was dancing between the threads, flipping, rolling, vanishing, reappearing. But even she couldn’t dodge forever. One thread brushed her shoulder. A thin line of blood appeared instantly.
This made Linx grit her perfectly white teeth as her expression turned serious.
“A single touch is enough to cut, and the pain that comes with it cannot be ignored”, Pickle Berry muttered, watching with tense eyes. “They’re threads of karma. They strike the soul through the body.
So the idea of enduring a thousand cuts is just plain cruelty.”
In the air, the twins floated close together, back to back.
“We can’t block them. We can’t dodge them all either,” Linx said.
“Then we cut the source,” Jinx replied, looking up. Pickle Berry smiles from the ground. “They are really in sync. I like them even more now.”
Klaus chuckled, hearing her. He immediately, from the start, knew that the source must be severed if they wanted to pass the second form of the tribulation.
The sky. The threads. They are coming from a source, and that must be destroyed.
They looked up together. Their eyes locked onto the point where all threads came from.
A glowing circle with a needle-shaped eye spinning in the clouds, weaving the threads endlessly.
“That’s the weaver,” Pickle Berry, who noticed the gaze of the twins, said. “They destroy that, and the threads would stop.”
Klaus nodded and started watching how Linx and her sister would handle it.
“I’ll clear the path. You strike,” Linx said.
There was no need to communicate anything aloud. The moment they formed the plan, they both thought of the same thing and what to do.
Jinx nodded.
Then, Linx raised her sword. She took a deep breath. Her body shimmered with sword intent, and her weapon was engulfed in white sword qi.
She slashed.
One wide arc of energy blasted forward, clearing a narrow path through the falling threads. The sword aura screamed as it cut thread after thread, burning with radiant force.
“Go!” she shouted.
Jinx vanished.
She leaped from invisible thread to thread, kicking off them like steps. Her daggers spun in her hands. One thread sliced her leg, but she didn’t stop.
She continued to move between threads until she reached the weaver.
The eye saw her. It spun faster as if trying to shoot more threads.
However, it was too late for that.
Jinx never planned to get any closer to the eye, knowing that only death would await her if she did. So she resolved to use a skill called [Vanishing Daggers].
Jinx spun mid-air and hurled both daggers.
They flew like comets, straight into the eye.
‘Crack.’
A flash of white light came from the eye when the daggers pierced it.
The threads stopped falling. The sky turned quiet.
Then, like a burst balloon, the eye shattered. The threads turned into tribulation runes and were absorbed by Linx and Jinx.
Jinx dropped from the sky as he daggers flew back into her grip.
Linx was there, catching her with one arm.
“I got it,” Jinx said, grinning through her pain.
Far below, Klaus exhaled, feeling Asha’s hand tighten around his.
“Two down,” he said.
He turned to the side and saw Queen Lunara, eyes closed, in a deep state of meditation. Klaus didn’t focus on her for long, knowing she couldn’t be disturbed.
He then turned to the other side and saw the four Ant Queens currently contracted to Asha, looking worried. Thanks to Asha, they were all now on good terms with each other, and over the weeks, they had grown even closer.
So they were worried for the two who were currently going against the heavens. However, they couldn’t do anything for them. The only thing they could do was be there for them.
The clouds trembled, announcing the third form of the tribulation.
The clouds turned red, bringing a rather potent heat.
A deep, burning red, like molten lava in the sky.
Heat rolled down from above, heavy and thick. The air shimmered. The wind vanished. Everything felt still… too still. It was like everything came to a complete stop.
Then, came the powerful and harrowing scream.
It wasn’t a beast’s roar or a person’s cry. It was something in between—a shriek that clawed at the heart and made even the strong flinch.
Linx and Jinx were clearly affected by the scream. Klaus saw this and wondered just how powerful it was to make the two ladies flinch.
This made him start thinking about his own tribulation coming in less than a month’s time. However, he didn’t know too much about it.
He will cross that river when he gets there. For now, he is paying close attention to the tribulation.
From the center of the red clouds, a figure dropped.
It was human-shaped.
But it had no face. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. One could only wonder where the scream came from, considering it had no mouth.
Its skin was cracked like dry stone, and inside the cracks glowed molten fire.
In its hand, it held a long, burning spear.
“The third form…” Pickle Berry said slowly, her voice tight. “The Flame Judge. It’s a tribulation based on guilt. The more guilt they have and feel, the stronger it becomes.”
Klaus’s eyes narrowed. “How convenient. Everyone has guilt.” He didn’t even know what to think hearing such a ridiculous tribulation.
The Flame Judge pointed its spear at Linx and Jinx.
Then it moved.
It didn’t fly or leap—it simply appeared in front of Linx, stabbing forward.
She barely blocked in time. The force of the spear threw her backward, flames exploding around her.
Jinx dashed in, trying to stab its side. But the Flame Judge turned and parried her easily, swinging its spear like a whirlwind.
A wall of fire chased her, forcing her back.
The two sisters didn’t let the bastard have it his way, so they started attacking even faster.
However, whenever they come close to injuring or touching it with their weapon, the Flame Judge vanishes and then comes back stronger.
This made Linx and Jinx realise this too wasn’t all about brute attack. They must understand it before making a move. And they must do that fast, considering it was growing stronger by the second.