Everything around him had turned white. He hadn't blacked out, if not darkness would've surrounded his vision. Neither had he been teleported; that white was more of a milk-white. This white was as white as can be. It was pure white.

What was going on?

He couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything.

Was he dead?

No, he wasn't. He could hear something.

The reason he thought he couldn't hear anything was because this sound was hijacking his ears.

There was a loud, shrill ringing that seemed to go on forever and ever. It wouldn't stop, and he desperately wished it would. He was a prisoner locked up in his own skull with nothing but this obnoxious sound.

Thankfully, someone heard his desperate pleas. The ringing stopped.

While he was glad the noise went away, he suddenly wished that it came back. What replaced the ringing was far worse.

A pounding and throbbing sensation spread throughout his whole body. Like pins and needles, but a million times worse. It was knives and swords. His body became a bonfire of agony.

Alwin screamed. At least he thought he did.

He couldn't tell. There was only pain.

The white around him started to peel away, but the pain still remained. Little by little, the other colors made their presence known. Flickers of orange, red, and yellow peeked through the sides of his eyes.

Well, one eye anyway.

The other seemed to be melted shut. He couldn't open it. In fact, he couldn't even feel it.

Alwin tried to turn and look around the room. His body didn't respond. He tried to roll over, to lift his head, anything. Nothing. All he could do was wait as his vision cleared up. Slowly, the blurry mess sharpened into crisp images.

He was still in Gary Stew's kitchen, but even that was a guess. Flames consumed everything and anything. Only the occasional glimpses of kitchenware through the shifting and changing inferno, along with the faintest System Screen box that protected Uchronia, Gus, and Cooper Trooper, showed that he was right.

Everything else showed that he was wrong.

Instead of walls, the bright blue sky greeted him. White clouds drifted by, having the time of their lives. Up ahead, a sunbeam poked through, saying hello to Alwin. He tried to turn away, but his body still refused to budge. So, he tried to squint. But even his eyelids didn't obey. Only when another cloud drifted by did he find some reprieve.

If only it helped the pain wreaking havoc across his body. Agony made its home inside his body, and it was currently carrying out renovations.

Alwin screamed. This time, for certain, he knew he hadn't.

His mouth wouldn't part, vocal cords wouldn't vibrate. There was no voice. No sound.

Still, he tried to scream anyway.

Inside of his mind, he was definitely screaming. Even Niwla and Winal screamed in pain. He could feel the factory inside of his Core collapsing as the willpower to sustain it was in the negatives.

As he continued to bask in torment, amongst the flames and rubble, more things came into his vision.

The outline of the Fire Tribulation Bot emerged from the fire.s. And above it, the figure of the Lightning Tribulation Cloud was obscured by roaring flames.

Mental anguish drove a stake through his mind. It was the worst-case scenario. Both Tribulations were still alive. They hadn't taken each other out.

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He needed to run. He needed to do something. Yet, his lousy body wasn't responding.

And he finally understood why.

A horrible image was caught in his peripheral vision. His lone eye shifted toward, sluggish and dry. It was the System Screen box. That wasn't what caught his attention, it was the reflection on its screen. Alwin could see a part of himself in it. And that was the scary part.

Half of his body was gone.

Split down the middle, one side of him had vanished. The other side, the remaining side, was nothing more than a blackened, twitching mass of overcooked jelly.

No wonder he could only see out of one eye; that was his only eye. No wonder everything hurt; he was literally half the slime he used to be, and moments away from turning to ash.

The outlines of the Fire Tribulation Bot and Lightning Tribulation became more pronounced.

This was it. This was his end.

They emerged from the flames, only to collapse. The System Screens on the Fire Tribulation Bot weren't their usual burning red, they had become black as coal. A large hole had been punched straight through its center screen. Electricity crackled at its edges as the blaze of the Fire Tribulation Bot ceased.

The dark clouds of the Lightning Tribulation had somehow grown even darker; a whole new color would need to be invented to describe it. But that was the only thing that had grown. Its once voluminous clouds had shrunk to the point it was almost all gone. It barely even floated anymore, hovering less than half an inch off the ground. The buzzing storm had been reduced to a smudge of vapor and faint sparks.

Slowly, they began to vanish. Disintegrating into nothingness until eventually, they were no longer here.

Did he win? Was the Tribulation over? Did he manage to overcome it? What about Gary Stew and the two young masters? What happened to them?

There were so many questions, but too much pain.

Fire appeared within his vision once again. The embodiment of the Fire Tribulation bent down in front of him and smiled.

"What a tenacious little guy. Half of your body blown to bits and you're still alive."

Alwin tried to speak, to say something, but nothing came out. Not even a gurgled groan or raspy breath. Just silence.

"Well, I've had my fun. It's about time I take my leave. See you next time."

Fire winked before vanishing in a wisp of flame. The box of System Screens disappeared as well, leaving Gus, Uchronia, and Cooper Trooper exposed for the world to see. They still lay there, unconscious.

He had to get them out of here.

Flames still raged through the remnants of the kitchen, greedily crawling across the tiled floor. It was only a matter of time before it engulfed them.

His body still refused to budge. It was just pain city. Population: Alwin.

To make matters worse, another figure emerged from the fire.

"This is all your fault! I'm going to make you pay!"

That voice. It was Gary Stew.

How? He had somehow survived a collision of powers that not only took down two Tribulations but had destroyed half of his body from a distance. Yet, here he was. Alive.

Gary Stew stepped out of the flames. He wasn't in a form Alwin was familiar with. It might've been the pain playing tricks on him, but the man was no more. Instead, what stood before Alwin was a chef's knife.

It had four thin black lines that barely passed as limbs. Small beady eyes were etched on either side of the blade, staring down at Alwin.

"You stole my spices. Because of that, I barely survived. If you can even call this surviving. My body's gone, and I just barely managed to transplant a part of my soul into my knife. First, I'll cut you up. Then I'll cut up your friends. And if those two buffoons are alive, I'll cut them up next."

The walking and talking knife jumped into the air. It came spinning down toward Alwin. As the knife pierced his jelly flesh, another flash of white consumed him.

This light felt different.

It was warm, almost comforting. The white wasn't blinding in the slightest, even though that was all he could see. Pain faded away, replaced with nothingness.

His soft body was disappearing. But it didn't hurt. It wasn't jarring at all. He still felt the same, even as everything changed around him. Wisps and crackles sounded out around him, bringing with them a calming warmth.

A deep crimson. A bold gold. They pierced through the white void.

Alwin's eyes shot open.

Gary Stew, the knife, was in front of him. Blade angled down and pressed against his body, but never slicing through.

Why wasn't he cutting him? Was he taunting him? What was going on?

Alwin stared at Gary Stew. Reading facial expressions, especially made by a walking and talking knife, wasn't exactly easy. He could tell that Gary Stew was straining himself. The blade trembled, and his beady little eyes had become beadier.

The chef wasn't cutting him, not because it was some sort of ploy. He wasn't cutting him because he couldn't cut him.

How? His body was so squishy and half-dead that even paper could've done the job. Unless...

He looked down. Gone was his slimy exterior; instead, it was in the process of being replaced with armor harder than stone. It was completely smooth, yet glowed with a rich blend of crimson and gold. The newly formed armor spread throughout his body, reshaping him from the inside out.

Alwin was evolving.

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