Surrounded by nothing but the deep waters of the black sea, floating aimlessly with no care for what was to happen to him, Theo's eyes were listless. Filled with nothing but despair after his last 'respawn', he thought and thought of a way to escape the fates that awaited him outside thee waters. But nothing he could think to do was going to help him. Not in any significant way at least.
'If I run, I might be able to escape the horde of sand crawlers, but I'll just starve. If I stay here, I either drown, get crushed to death by the water pressure, or get devoured by whatever is in the depths of this sea.'
In all these scenarios he had already lived through, Theo could see no room to manoeuvre, no gaps to exploit, no new paths to be taken. Nothing at all that could help him survive this hell.
'Is there even a point of trying?'
The question was a valid one. Because this trial was not like any other he had ever heard of, there was no way for him to rely on any common sense to survive it. Almost as if he was just placed here for no better reason but to suffer. Which now begged the question...
'What is the point of this trial?'
Just why did the world, or the divine being that governs it place him in such a trial? Just to suffer? No! They would have better things to do than to ensure the suffering of a single human. Let alone one with no power or authority like him.
'So why am I in this impossible situation?'
Theo racked is brain hard as he fell deeper and deeper into the depths. The deeper he went, the harder the pressure of the sea felt on his body. But compared to the pain of being ripped apart, and starving to death, this was nothing.
He thought harder and harder, desperately searching for a way to escape this broken world.
'Wait... broken world? Yeah, that's right. This world is broken... but what caused it to be this way? It couldn't have been the being that governs the world, because... why would they do this to their own creation.'
If all this was true, the what exactly could have caused this world to become such a hellscape? Theo thought hard about anything, anything at all about the world that felt, out of place. But to him, a foreigner, everything felt wrong, so pinning down one thing was proving to be difficult. Until, he looked back on his memories of the his first round, and found something... odd.
'The sun and moon...'
That's right. On his first round, from the moment he laid eyes of the sun and moon which never seemed to move no matter how much time passed, he felt a strange familiarity. At the time, he didn't understand what it was, but now, after everything he had experienced, he realized exactly what it was he found familiar about it. At least, he knew what it was about the sun that felt familiar. But before he could crystalize that thought, Theo felt something slither around his ancle. Quickly casting his gaze to it, he was barely able to see what it was through the lightless depths of the waters.
'Shit!'
Wasting no time, he reached for the tentacle and with all the strength he could muster, he pulled and pulled on it. But its grip only got tighter and it began dragging him down faster. Soon another slithered around his waist, then his other ancle, and then, his neck.
'Get off me you piece of shit!'
His body was flooded with a wave of heat and once again, just like in his previous rounds, his strength soared beyond his physical limits. He grabbed, tore and ripped apart the flesh of the tentacles, over and over again but like a cockroach refusing to die, more returned to replace the damaged ones.
'Are these damn things multiplying?'
Theo tore and tore away, over and over and over till his arms became sore. Soon, the pressure of the depths began affecting him in earnest. The force felt like dozens of cinder blocks piled on his chest, and it was getting worse.
'Think, Theo! Think!' he urged himself, desperation clawing at his mind.
With a sudden flash of inspiration, he did the first thing that came to mind. Focusing all the power swirling around his body in his throat, he let out a scream as loud as he could. The resulting force travelled through the water, colliding with whatever was in the depths. The creature, most likely stunned by the blast released its grip and Theo, wasting no time, swam as fast as he could towards the surface.
Emerging nearly a minute later, he rushed towards the shore desperately gasping for air. He had escaped from the pan, but now he was in the fire. Quickly casting his gaze over the desert shore, h immediately took notice of the beating hearts of every spawn buried beneath the sand.
'One... five... twelve... thirty... sixty...'
By his estimations, there were about a hundred of them laying in wait.
'Damned monsters...' he thought as he shifted his attention.
Gazing at the eternally eclipsed moon hanging above, he focused on the sun bathing the sky with its perpetual light.
'That sense of familiarity I feel within it... it isn't something I know how to explain. It's like... some sort of intrinsic understanding... but whatever the feeling is called, I know for a fact that it was what granted me all the power I have been accumulating in this place.'
It was a ridiculous idea considering the only ability he had was to sense kinetic energy and absorb the energy of whatever comes in contact with him. But when the explanation of his ability is taken into account, it all makes sense.
As he stared at the sun, he willed the runes describing his attributes.
Attribute: [Energy sense]
Attribute description: [As the lord over the essence of all things, you perceive every strand of its existence.]
'This is what gave me the ability to literally see the kinetic energy all around me... but it isn't what is giving me this feeling... that would be....'
Attribute: [Shock absorption]
Attribute description: [Be it a pin prick, or a boulder landing on the crown of your head, all force directed towards you becomes your strength and is bent to your will.]
'...this! Be it a pin prick, or a boulder landing on the crown of my head..... simply meaning, no matter how much force it is, no matter how miniscule, is capable of escaping me. And that included the energy generated by that sun...'
This was the only reasonable, and plausible conclusion Theo could come to. As with all things, even a sun needs kinetic energy to function. If not, the chaotic energy within would cease, and its light would quickly din, and be extinguished.
'This sun is the reason for me being able to at almost any point call upon large amounts of power. My bod instinctively reacts and absorbs all the kinetic energy in the area, filling me with so much of it, that the very atoms in my body can barely handle it.'
That would also explain why his body s always on the verge of overheating when he uses his ability to an extreme degree. His body is incapable of handling all the kinetic energy and as a result, it builds up excess heat.
A shift in the sands below caught his attention. Turning to its origin, he once again saw the beating heart of the sand crawler, and a wide grin soon found its way onto Theo's face.
"Guess it's time for some practice."