“Hello, Leonidas.”

  Leonidas stood in a small room, not unlike the interrogation chambers in classic Hollywood buddy cop movies, with a single table, a chair on each side, and an occupant opposite him. In this case, it was the strikingly familiar face that belonged to Miranda of Yelleran. Despite the initial shock at seeing her, however; Leonidas was not easily unsettled any longer—and his logical mind had overridden his primate impulse toward psychological debilitation.

  “You’re not Miranda,” he said while looking around the room slowly, “and I’m not in this bad Hollywood imitation.”

  “Both are correct, though by technicality, I am Miranda as much as I am not,” the not-Miranda said wryly while gesturing to the seat. “Please, have a seat. We have so much to discuss.”

  “I’m guessing you’re the System,” Leonidas ventured while turning to eye the chair, shrugging, and settling down into it. “Or some sort of representative. There’s no way that pillar of light appears, I lose awareness, and then this just-so-happens to occur.”

  “Well-deduced,” his dead mentor said evenly, “as I suspected, you are quite astute with these things.”

  “So, which are you?” Leonidas asked without overt reaction to the praise. “System, or Representative?”

  “Both,” the woman replied candidly. “I am both part of the System and a more singular element of its existence, absorbed eons ago and preserved for situations such as these. You may call me a Local Administrator, if you wish.”

  “Local Administrator? I’m guessing that’s not your actual title.”

  “It is not, I am simply using Terran nomenclature that best resonates with your comprehension.”

  “Fair enough,” Leonidas said and pulled out the chair at last to settle himself into it. “Though I’m surprised at how calm I am. Is that you?”

  “It is,” the Administrator replied in the same steady tone. “I predicted a 76.89% chance you would grow violent once learning who I was. As such, I put in a mood stabilizer to the simulation.”

  “A little heavy-handed, but I can see the value,” Leonidas said while tapping his right fore and middle fingers idly against the steel table. “But I have yet to see the point. Can we get to it?”

  “Of course,” the Administrator conceded. “You have my apologies. It has been many cycles since I was able to speak to someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?” Leonidas questioned more intently.

  “Yes. Someone like you,” the Administrator repeated.

  “And by that, you mean—”

  “A Cataclysm,” the false Miranda agreed readily.

  * * * * *

  Synthra watched the falling lightning with a steely gaze and fingers locked within the fabric of her hidden jeans. Everything about the scene screamed at her inborn draconic instincts of danger. There was something about the lightning, the sky, the energy exuded by Leonidas’ ascension that tugged at her most primal feelings of impending calamity, which she could not put into words.

  Her eyes turned toward the Royal Box again, toward where Ceruviel stood on the balcony staring at Leonidas, and her concern only deepened. She had expected many things from her surrogate aunt: imperiousness, impassivity, anger, disappointment, even disdain.

  She had not expected worry.

  Synthra’s Core rumbled within her solar plexus, and she moved her hands over her stomach, attempting to soothe the mix of anxiety and existential dread that was building from genetic knowledge that told her something big was going to happen. Her eyes, as keen as any dragon’s, locked in on Leonidas as he became the center of the building maelstrom.

  When the first blast of scarlet lightning smashed into the shields defending the audience, she heard as much as felt the panic of the crowd—screamed precipitated fearful movement as natives and haelfenn both scrambled to get clear of the impending catastrophe. Some rushed for the exits, while others—mostly Terrans, surprisingly enough—huddled in their seats but seemed to refuse to move.

  There was a kind of implicit curiosity or racial determination that rooted them in position, a joint sense of perceived duty that she could discern from the determination of their locked jaws, their near-unblinking gazes, and the way they clutched their neighbors but refused to yield before the building fury of the storm.

  Before her very eyes, she witnessed the temerity of their species, and it made her proud.

  It made her proud that she had taken the time to learn about their culture, their norms, their dialect, and their history. It made her proud that she had agreed to join the settlement efforts on this strange, fantastic, terrifying new world—and it made her proud that she was witnessing what could only be described as a historic event.

  An event that was being precipitated and catalyzed by a Terran.

  Synthra’s gaze moved back toward Leonidas, and her fingers tightened over her abdomen.

  “You can’t die,” she whispered to herself in English. “You need to live so I can prove I am beyond you.”

  It was a demand, a prayer, a plea, and an invocation all rolled into one.

  She didn’t care.

  “You can’t die, Leonidas. I won’t accept it.”

  * * * * *

  “What exactly is a Cataclysm?” Leonidas asked the false Miranda while idly reaching down and rubbing his arms. He felt like his body was consumed by static electricity, and he had no idea why. There was a dull feeling of energy coruscating through the fibers of his muscles, but he couldn’t place the source. Some distant awareness told him he was missing something huge, but he could barely find it in himself to pay attention to that.

  He was too focused on the woman before him.

  “It is a designation the System created in order to conceptualize creatures of supreme importance, both for the progression of the System and for the worlds of the Nexus.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Like a catalyst?”

  “Of sorts,” the ‘Administrator’ agreed calmly. “A Cataclysm is created to facilitate the growth of a newly assimilated world. Whether that growth is productive or destructive is largely up to the designated Cataclysm itself. In some cases, it is a proverbial firestorm, covering the planet and resetting it for greater growth—developing its destructive potency until it is eventually consumed, either by its own power or by those tempered in the crucible of its enforced suffering.”

  “That sounds horrible.”

  “Within the scope of your mortal perceptions, I suppose it would,” the false Miranda allowed. “However, much like a tree growing from the ashes of an old forest, destruction is merely the prelude to new creation and in turn is part of an eternal cycle that predates your species’ very existence.”

  Leonidas sighed and ran his right hand through his black hair.

  “Okay, and what was with the light show when I came here?”

  “That would be your Tribulation,” the Administrator said casually.

  “My trib—like, what, a fucking Cultivation novel?”

  “Yes, I heard you have such elemental concepts of System advancement here. An effect of the reality bleed created by the Nexus, I would imagine. Think of Tribulation as the crucible or forge within which you, as a ‘Cultivator’, are ‘Tempered’ toward higher power.”

  “But I thought tribulation only occurred when you ‘challenged the wrath of the Heavens’ or you violated the ‘precepts of the Dao’ or something.”

  The false Miranda chuckled at what he said, but waved a hand in apology.

  “Forgive me, that is a very amusing assumption. What you understand from your ‘Xanxia’ and ‘Wuxia’ and your ‘Cultivation Myth’ is but a fragment of the truth distorted by your species’ limited insight. The truth is that as a Cataclysm, your existence is singular—and is defined by perpetual struggle.”

  The woman leaned back in her chair and gestured airily as she continued.

  “You do not receive tribulation for defiance, Leonidas Achilles Romulus Paendrag, you receive Tribulation for potent success. Your power is beyond the quantification of the standard arbitration the System enforces on those that Cultivate within it—so a more violent method must be implemented to actualize its advancement.”

  “Right…” he said with a furrowed brow and an echo of irritation. “So other than robbing me of my agency, what exactly is the point of this discourse?”

  “Ah. I am glad you asked,” the Administrator said with a cheerful smile. “The purpose of this little interlude is to pass along some information, granted to you at the behest of the System’s standard operating procedures. This is your only reprieve from the volatility of the Tribulations you will suffer in the future. Each successive increase in your Tier will result in a more violent, more destructive Tribulation—and each time it occurs, you will be ever-so-vulnerable.”

  Leonidas stared at the simulacrum of his dead teacher for several long moments, and finally felt something click in his mind. Not just what he was being told, but what he had endured and what he had experienced. There was a poetry of parallels at work that didn’t initially present itself to him until he was able to see the whole picture. Now that he did, a tangible level of realization clashed with sheer disbelief and anger.

  “Elatra was a training module,” he accused her instantly, and with a bubbling up of anger that escaped even the mood repression of the non-space he was pulled to. “You transported me to Elatra for a fucking training module.”

  “Partially correct,” the false Miranda said with a calm smile. “More specifically, you were carried through time to a location elsewise in the cosmic timeline to experience a conflict and resolve it your way, to prove you had the mettle to be this world’s Cataclysm.”

  “Then was Azrageth said when he died—”

  “The creature was self-aware to a point, yes,” the Administrator said idly. “The truth is, a Cataclysm is a primordial force. Some become Demon Lords, precisely like Azrageth did, though he was a creature from a particularly vile dimension that is not wholly under the System’s purview. Some Cataclysms become paragons of leadership and virtue. There are even some worlds within the Nexus still ruled by their Cataclysms, either in prosperity or in ruin. Death is not always guaranteed—though it is the most common outcome.”

  Leonidas went silent at that, and then his eyes widened when he processed her words.

  “So it was real? Azrageth was a real Demon Lord?”

  “It was real, albeit structured, and he certainly was. There were elements of predestination that were factored in to create an immersive test.”

  “So Lyara, my companions, Miranda…?”

  “All real, all living, albeit from a different point in the timeline. Time is not a concept the System is beholden to, though its intercession in the past is strictly limited by its own mandates and designs.”

  Leonidas felt himself deflate, and he laughed, shakily, while reaching up to rub his face. It had been real. It wasn’t fake. It had been real, he had truly experienced it, he had truly lived it—and the blood that soaked his hands was as permanent as the grief that stained his soul. He’d been too young, too naive, too unprepared; but he’d survived anyway, and he’d won.

  “But what about… why did…” he took a breath and steadied himself. “Why me?”

  “Oh, dear, that is simple. You were the one who succeeded.”

  “Wait, you mean I wasn’t—?”

  “The first?” the false Miranda asked wryly. “Oh dear child, not even close. You were simply the first that succeeded. There were hundreds before you—men and women of all ages, backgrounds, and capabilities. You are not some predestined, prophesied chosen one—you are simply the one who didn’t fail. That, I suppose, is laudable in itself.”

  “But the time disparity, and the power I gained in Elatra, what happened?”

  “Time, as we have already established, is no obstacle to the System—and your power was simply too banal for a Cataclysm. You earned the choices you were given by your efforts in Elatra. Every action, every choice, every victory, every defeat, every single point of growth was collated and weighed, and the Alphas—such an adorable qualification of the concepts—the System offered you were a result of that collated data.”

  The Administrator leaned forward and smiled brightly at him.

  “You earned your power, Leonidas. Nobody can ever take that from you. You. Earned. This.”

  “I…” Leonidas trailed off and slumped in his chair. It was a lot, more than that, it was nigh unbelievable. He’d been one of hundreds? He’d been given choices based on his own achievements? In a way, it made a kind of sense. After all, the truth was that he knew how limited Light magic was. Teleportation and super-luminal speeds were theoretically game-breaking abilities, but they were hampered by mortal comprehension. Light magic did not erode the need for mathematical quantification, and the mental processing required to make either power work was staggering.

  He certainly would never have been able to master them with his intellect.

  “It is a lot to process, I know,” Miranda said with an almost comforting smile, though she lacked the genuine empathy such a gesture would hold. It was almost like ‘she’ was imitating the mortal affectations that would offer the easiest recourse toward joy or comfort and doing so imperfectly.

  “It’s a lot of bullshit is what it is,” Leonidas muttered. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  “Ah, but this is what you asked for, ‘Ace’,” the System mused. “You were not selected at random without impetus. The stories you read, the popular culture you consumed, the anime, the shows, the concepts you wrote about in your little unfinished novels—it all led toward your selection. You, like many others, possessed specific qualities that made you a suitable candidate. You were simply the first to truly make use of those qualities and succeed.”

  Leonidas stared at the Administrator for a long moment, and then scowled.

  The anger came back, fresh and hot, and he curled his hands into fists.

  “So what happens now?” he asked instead, changing the subject.

  “Now, dear child, we discuss your future—while those you have influenced decide if that future will even exist. As you have been informed, you are eminently vulnerable during your Tribulation, and the weight of your actions and impact on the world will factor heavily into whether you survive this one and those that come after.”

  The Administrator bridged her fingers, and her eyes brightened excitedly.

  “Now,” she said in an almost eager voice, “let’s discuss the truly exciting part.”

  “And what’s that?” Leonidas asked with wary irritation.

  “Tribulation may seem like a punishment, Leonidas, and it certainly does leave you exposed—but there is one key factor that it offers which nothing else can.”

  Leonidas arched his eyebrows at her, and she grinned at him wickedly.

  “Evolution.”