Infinite Rewards Harem System: My Rewards are x10,000-Chapter 35: Fused Tier-5 Rend
"Everyone settle down. After all we do have a popular and powerful guest." Beatrice smiled with grace. "But how powerful exactly? We’re about to find out." She held a hand down towards him.
Her voice carried effortlessly across the vast hall, cutting through the lingering giggles, gasps, and murmurs like a velvet blade. The crimson orbs floating overhead dimmed slightly, as if the guild itself was holding its breath. Beatrice stood poised on the raised platform beside the assignment board. It was a towering slab of obsidian veined with molten gold runes that pulsed like living veins. Her light pink hair caught the firelight in shimmering waves, and those pink eyes gleamed with equal parts amusement and predatory curiosity.
Terrence, still dusting plaster crumbs from his shoulder after Crystal’s accidental (but very enthusiastic) bear-slap, met her gaze without flinching. The hall’s energy had shifted. It was now excitement laced with awe, a faint undercurrent of envy from some corners, outright worship from others.
"I’m Beatrice Zerst or as they just called me, the Guildmaster of this guild. Beautiful outside, Succubus at heart."
She extended her hand palm-down, fingers long and elegant, nails painted a deep crimson that matched the guild banners. The gesture was regal, almost ceremonial, but the faint curl of her lips promised mischief.
Terrence smirked and gently grabbed her hand. She surprisingly lifted him up with ease.
Her grip was deceptively strong. It was warm, unyielding, the kind of strength that could crush bone or cradle it with equal care. He rose smoothly to the platform beside her, boots clicking against polished stone. Up close, her perfume hit him: jasmine undercut with something darker, smokier, like brimstone after rain.
"Damn, I love when strength matches beauty. It does something to me." He said and subtly rubbed her hand before letting go. He could hear others giggle and others groan at that.
Beatrice smiled wider at the compliment. "Speak for yourself-" she gave him a look over. "But let’s save those thoughts for later. After all it’s time for everyone to be given a higher Tiered Rend and since you’re up here already, you can go first. Follow me."
Her eyes lingered on him a beat longer than necessary before she turned with a graceful sweep of her robes. The crowd parted instinctively as she led him to the front, the assignment board looming like a monolithic judge.
Terrence nodded and glanced at Nyashara, Crank, and Happy. They smiled supportively at him with Nyashara adding in an extra wink.
Nyashara’s wink was slow, deliberate, her black tails curling in a lazy figure-eight behind her. Crank’s mandibles clicked in what passed for a proud grin, and Happy bounced on her skeletal toes, pink sparks popping along her ribs like tiny cheerleaders. That silent show of faith was the only okay he needed.
Beatrice took him to the front of the guildhall next to the assignment board.
The board dominated the space. It was ten feet tall, framed in blackened iron, its surface rippling like liquid shadow whenever mana brushed it. Runes along the edges glowed faintly with ancient sigils for assessment, calibration, fate-weaving. Guild members had already begun drifting closer, forming a loose semicircle, whispers buzzing like static.
"Listen up everyone." Beatrice stood on the left side of him, away from the assignment board. "The board will scan each and every one of you and once it does, you will get a Rend placement based on your power. Terrence will be the first to demonstrate."
She nodded to him. "Afterwards, you all can choose to either enter the Rend solo or with a team."
A low hum built in the hall. Anticipation thick enough to taste.
Terrence watched as Beatrice pressed a couple of buttons then the board glowed a plethora of colors. After a second a dark red flash came over Terrence. Then it stopped. It was instant.
[Name] Terrence Danbrose
[Ranking] ???
[Rend Tier Assignment] 5+
Shocked gasps were heard and multiple others looked around surprised and in confusion.
The hall erupted.
"Tier-5 and above?! I’ve only seen those numbers from S-Ranked Awakeners and up I’ve never seen them from a human before!"
A wiry elf archer near the front had blurted it, voice cracking with disbelief. Heads nodded furiously around him.
"Did you forget the fact he casually beat a S-Ranked monster with a flick? This is no regular human." A lizard man said and gestured with a clawed hand toward the massive viewing crystal that replayed fight highlights on loop. Terrence’s casual dismissal of Surtur still looped there, frozen mid-flick.
"Looks like he’s got you beat Zoros. Only seen a Tier-4 Rend from you. He’s way more powerful than what he shows on the surface." Apocalypse said with respect, and he nodded approvingly at Terrence.
Zoros scoffed in response. "Being qualified for something and surviving it are two different things."
"Our handsome king is so powerful and will protect us!" Crystal giggled with Ash and a couple of others.
Her fluffy ears perked straight up, cheeks still flushed from earlier. Ash clung to her arm, fangs peeking in a manic grin, while a few other fans squealed in agreement, already planning fan-art of Terrence solo-clearing a Tier-5.
"Sheesh I wonder how’d Terrence get so strong agh. Maybe he can teach me something!" Crank was in awe and inspired by Terrence.
"OOooh we should ask him after this! Maybe he’d accept." Happy followed.
"Looks like he chose to enter the Rend solo. If we weren’t doing our own, I’d love to sit back and watch him.." Nyashara said with a smile.
Terrence was smirking as he now stood on a teleportation circle, waiting to be transported to a Tier-5 Rend.
The circle beneath his feet glowed with intricate silver runes, humming with pent-up spatial energy. The air around it warped faintly, like heat haze over asphalt.
"Crazy. I’ve just got here and already about to fight for my life in a minute, is there a good ass reward for my bravery?"
He struck a dramatic pose. His chin high, shoulders back, one hand smoothing the collar of his dark blue dry-fit shirt like a peacock preening.
"Your reward depends on how good you perform. This could possibly be the last time I see you, so try not to die Terrence. Would be a handsome waste." Beatrice smiled and gently patted his shoulder.
Her touch lingered. It was warm, reassuring, with just a hint of tease. Her pink eyes sparkled with genuine concern beneath the flirt.
"Will do." Terrence then looked at Nyashara, Crank, and Happy. "I’ll be back."
"Make us proud agh!" Crank gave him a shaky thumbs up.
"Ditto!" Happy waved with a smile.
Her skeletal wave was enthusiastic, pink sparks trailing like fireworks.
Nyashara mouthed. "I’ve got to tell you something later on."
Terrence mouthed back. "That you secretly love me and want me to pound you to dea-"
She immediately placed a shush finger on her lips at that and flicked him off, making Terrence chuckle. He then gave them all a small salute.
The teleportation circle flared brilliant white-gold, swallowing him in a vortex of prismatic energy. When the light faded, the platform was empty and he was gone.
When Terrence opened his eyes again he came face to face with it. A Tier-5 Rend.
It was easily thirty feet across, edges fraying like torn fabric between realities. It was bigger swirling and pulsing and much more ethereal than the others. The colors churned in hypnotic spirals. Storm-gray threaded with midnight black, electric blue veins, deep violet pulses like bruised flesh. It breathed. Slow, rhythmic expansion and contraction, exhaling faint whispers: fragmented words in languages long dead, echoes of battles never fought, promises of ruin and rebirth. The air tasted metallic, charged, like licking a battery. Pressure built against his eardrums. It was subtle, insistent, as if the Rend itself was excited to meet him.
[Fused Tier-5 Rend Ahead]
[Order + Ruin]
[Enter?] [Y/N]
"Order and Fate plus Destruction and Death? I wonder what those make?"
He extended his palm toward the maw. Tendrils of violet-black energy immediately coiled around his fingers. It was cold at first, then burning, then strangely comforting. They tugged gently, insistently, like a lover drawing him closer. The whispers grew louder. Oaths of dominion, screams of collapse, the ticking of fate unraveling.
"No better way to find out than experiencing it."
Terrence grinned wider.
The Rend then consumed him whole as he entered it.
The portal surged forward in a single, fluid rush. Reality folded around him—colors bleeding, gravity inverting, sound warping into a single deafening chord. Then silence.
Absolute, perfect silence.
He was inside.
[Fused Tier-5 Rend Entry Complete!]
If Terrence could describe the sight he seen when he first opened his eyes it would be another variant of the Nobody Region, but much more depressing and repulsive.
Abandoned houses, abandoned trees, hell even abandoned-
[Dookie stained drawers..like what the hell? What kind of dimension did we get transferred to?]
The loud sound of a haunting scream interrupted them.
