Frost never got the opportunity to read through the rest of the information on the panel.
"Ahhhhh!!!"
He suppressed a scream as a sudden, searing pain assaulted his back, followed by the unmistakable hiss of something burning into his flesh.
He arched his chest forward and fell to his knees, reaching back with both hands in an attempt to claw away the pain, or at least remove whatever it was that was burning him.
The others would have thought he was crazy if they were not going through a similar ordeal themselves.
At some point, Frost was on the verge of tears, but if it wasn't for the incessant ringing in his ears, he would have heard the many pained cries of his peers, several of them screaming the same thing over and over again.
"It hurts!"
The concept of time became completely meaningless, and while, in truth, the pain lasted for less than a minute, that single minute might as well have been an eternity as intricate symbols etched themselves into every single one of their backs.
Most of them had never felt any sort of true pain in their whole lives, much less anything at this scale, so more than a few unfortunate accidents may have happened.
Eventually, the searing pain ebbed away, but it never completely left Frost's back.
It remained concentrated near the centre, forming a concentric pattern, and it felt like someone had thrust thousands of tiny needles into his flesh.
The only silver lining was that it was nowhere near as painful as the burning sensation had been.
"Haaaa... haaaa... haaaa..."
Breathing heavily, Frost lifted his head and looked back at the glowing panel. It definitely had something to do with this.
His brow was matted with sweat, and his vision was bleary from the pain and the tears clouding his eyes, so it took him a few moments to focus.
[Congratulations! You have successfully awakened your personalized Evolution System!]
"Congratulations, my ass!" Frost cursed. "More like a torture system!"
After twisting his shoulders around to try and scratch the painful itch on his back, only to fail miserably, Frost clicked his tongue and focused on the translucent system panel.
The congratulations message faded away, and in its place, a new row of neatly structured text appeared.
{[Evolution System]}
{[Status]}
[Name: Frost Carter]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 19]
[Bloodline: N/A]
[Soul Script Rank: Dormant]
{[Physical and Mental attributes]}
[Strength: 8]
[Agility: 7]
[Speed: 7]
[Vitality: 9]
[Stamina: 8]
[Intelligence: 16]
[Perception: 12]
[Willpower: 14]
{[Rune Based Atttributes]} N/A
{[Skills]} N/A
"Okay, what the actual fuck!?" Frost cursed again.
Putting aside the fact that his physical and mental attributes had apparently been quantified as if this was some sort of game, what did the other cryptic terms like bloodline, soul script, and rune even mean?
He would have spent a few more minutes pondering if he hadn't suddenly felt something massive casting a shadow over not just him, but the entirety of the cliff they were standing on.
His gaze was naturally drawn upward to see what could be casting such an enormous shadow.
"Are... you... fucking... kidding me?"
His pained expression slowly twisted into a rattled, solemn look, his eyes trembling in horror at the sight of something he could only describe as an eldritch horror.
He wasn't the only one to see it.
Everyone, with their pained frowns, tear-streaked faces, and snort-covered noses, looked up, their gazes filling with horror as they stared at the monstrosity that had appeared above them.
"W-what is that?" one girl muttered in a trembling voice, and her question was soon followed by many more confused whispers.
Floating several hundred metres above them, gradually descending from the heavens within the cover of the beautiful clouds, was a dreadfully massive, onyx-black octopus.
Frost didn't even know if he could call it that.
Instead of eight tentacles, the grotesque monstrosity had tentacles easily numbering in the hundreds.
They twisted leisurely in the air, each one extending for at least several hundred metres, and while its main body was not nearly as long, the beast was still big enough to give him nightmares for the rest of his life.
"Rooooooaaaaarrrrrrrrr!"
The insidious fiend suddenly let out a bellowing roar, the sound making the air vibrate violently and rattling everyone's ears.
They all fell to the ground and covered their ears, waiting in horror until the beast's roar eventually went silent.
Bringing his hands to his ears, Frost was not surprised to find that his palms were stained red with blood, but he had more important things to worry about than bleeding ears.
Another notification appeared right before his still-visible status panel, blinking with a sinister red glow instead of the previous opaque blue.
[Warning: Safe Zone protection ending in three minutes!]
'Safe Zone protection?'
His gaze slowly drifted from the sinister red panel to the enormous eldritch monstrosity drifting above the cliff, then back to the panel again.
"Three minutes..." he muttered under his breath.
His voice was barely audible even to himself, not because he had spoken quietly, but because his ears were still ringing from that ungodly roar.
The sound had drilled into his skull, leaving behind nothing but pain, dizziness, and a faint warmth trickling down the sides of his neck.
Yet, somehow, the meaning of those words still managed to cut through the chaos.
The protection around them was ending.
And whatever protection the system was talking about was probably the only reason that thing had not already descended upon them and turned everyone here into a bloody stain on the grass.
"Safe zone?" someone shouted, his voice cracking with fear. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Three minutes? Three minutes until what!?"
"Is this a joke? This has to be a joke, right?"
The murmurs quickly became shouts, and the shouts quickly became panic.
People who had still been kneeling from the pain began scrambling to their feet, some slipping on the grass, others bumping into each other as they looked around for a way out.
The earlier awe they had felt while staring at this impossible world had vanished completely, replaced by a much more primitive emotion.
Fear.
Pure, unfiltered fear.
Frost forced himself onto one knee, his breath still rough and uneven as he looked around the cliff.