Lucian pressed his lips into a thin, white line as a pair of gentle hands carefully rolled up the back of his hoodie, trying his best to ignore the lines of fiery pain radiating from his back as he digested the voice’s message.
Briefly glancing up at the unobscured sky to try and distract himself, he saw that the storm clouds had mostly dispersed while the Sun was well on its way to sinking below the horizon; only an hour or so remaining before night fell, in his rough estimation.
While he wanted to check and see where this so-called path illuminated by firelight was exactly located, his current position’s orientation prevented him from doing as he wanted.
At least he confirmed that there was still a fair bit of time to burn, so it wasn’t like he needed to rush or anything.
“How’s it looking, Cardinal?” Lucian asked when he felt Transient Cardinal’s hands move away from his still exposed back.
“Thankfully, they’re just flesh wounds. If you hadn’t dodged right when you did, the rat’s claws would have sunk right into your back.” She explained while circling around into his line of sight. “Oh and also, you can pull your hoodie back down.”
He nodded and did as she bid. “Aren’t you going to bandage me up?”
She arched a single, snowy brow pointedly. “Don’t you remember? I’ve already run out of canvas strips. I’m afraid you’ll have to live without bandages for now.”
“Ah. That’s right.” Finished with pulling his hoodie back into place, he walked over to his muddied end table and picked it back up before turning back to face his white-haired partner, wincing slightly from the resultant pain caused by his reflexive course of action. “Sorry, I forgot.”
“Here’s your reminder then. Free of charge.” She quipped with a teasing smile, before waving her free hand at the area behind his back. “Anyway. Let’s go and join up with Julia and the others? After all, Heavenly Constellation Spire awaits.”
“Sure.”
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Instead of going into Heavenly Constellation Spire straight away, Lucian checked on the other four of his party first.
Like he had heard while lunging through the newly blocked off arch, the sole Hungering Rodent that had tried ambushing him was killed in quick order, none of them receiving a scratch in the process.
Once he had confirmed the others were fine, he went off on his own to explore the sky-piercing spire’s base and survey the new area he found himself in.
Unlike the Bloodthirst Briar maze’s interior, lacking most everything except for oddly coloured flora, and Galaxia and Starburst’s confines, furnished with numerous—if unsettling—pieces of furniture, the expansive clearing located at the epicentre of the Nightmare Dormitories’ grounds boasted a plethora of crumbling manmade structures and unchecked, wild flora.
Gazebos—with timeworn pillars and weathered roofs—were placed in the clearing with no clear rhyme or reason, cracked stone paths winding between each one.
Patches of what were formerly neatly cultivated flower beds boasted flora of every colour imaginable, flowers and vines having wildly grown beyond their brick-outlined bounds to consume rusted metal benches and rugged stone tables while releasing a light, pleasant fragrance that mingled with the dewy air.
With the ever increasing rays of sunlight bathing the world underneath, the clearing, as a whole, acquired an ephemeral aura of forlorn hope, as if the manmade structures and wild flora were waiting for their time to shine and welcome a bustling liveliness once more.
Besides taking a gander at the area, Lucian activated his Knowledge implant on anything that caught his interest while looking out for the so-called ‘path illuminated by firelight’, supposedly in the Northeast.
Much like his attempts in Galaxia, most things he appraised was as mundane as mundane could be. What’s worse, he failed to find the path that the emotionless, mechanical voice talked about.
From the position of the Sun, the raven-haired man determined that the archway his party had exited from was the one placed in the North. Based on that, he tried to find a path between aforementioned arch and the one to its right, but failed in the end.
All he found was a weathered portion of sturdy stone wall, part of the fortification that ringed around the clearing’s entirety and blocked the Bloodthirst Briars from sight; something only broken up by arches placed in the four cardinal directions.
Even triggering his Knowledge implant on the protective stone wall proved fruitless, nothing asides from its obvious purpose getting revealed.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
All in all, Lucian took more than 10 minutes, easily, to assess the new area he found himself in. If what the mechanical voice said was true and judging from the position of the setting Sun, then he would have an hour or so left before the path revealed itself.
While the inanimate fixtures were intriguing, the briar-made archways, in and of themselves, were of more interest. From time to time, the pitch black planes of crimson-striated energy would flicker into existence; usually whenever a new person—or batch of people—made it through, blocking off the various types of hostile creatures hot on their heels.
During the short time he had spent surveying the expansive clearing, just under a dozen people had exited the briar maze. While some of them had staggered out in a dishevelled state, others ran out like bats out of hell; each and every one sporting injuries to one degree or another.
By the time he was done with his explorations, at least 20 people were mingling throughout the clearing’s structures – numbers which had swelled up from the initial 8 within the protected area, inclusive of his party of six.
Speaking of which…
Lucian exchanged a wordless nod with one of said individuals who had been in the clearing before his group explosively arrived on his way over to one of Heavenly Constellation Spire’s three entrances.
Once the fully black-cloaked person of an indeterminable gender silently dipped their head, they reclined back against one of the rusted benches while staring forward and staying still. Knowing he wasn’t going to get anything more than that, he focused on his goal after fully walking past the mysterious stranger.
Without the oppressive storm clouds overhead, his walk over to the approximately Southeast entrance was peaceful, letting him recover his mental fatigue.
Having already explored the area for more than 10 minutes without a single monster appearing, he was confident it was safe. As a result, it let his mind, almost constantly fraught with tension, relax.
A wave of mental exhaustion washed over his mind, causing his vision to swim for a brief moment even as he stumbled for a step. Coming to a stop, he tightly squeezed his eyes shut and regulated his breath, waiting for his fatigue-induced dizziness to fully subside.
Honestly, he wasn’t too surprised to feel this way. Ever since escaping from within his initial room, he barely had any time to rest, relax, and recover from the emotional and mental strain of finding himself in a strange new world with monsters ready, willing, and eager to take a bite out of his flesh.
Now that he had found a semblance of safety—at least if the emotionless voice was to be believed—it had only been a matter of time before consequences of such prolonged stress took its due.
Reopening his eyes after feeling mostly stable once more, Lucian curiously gazed at the cavernous entrance staring him in the face.
Besides the word, ‘Creation’, carved into the otherwise smooth stone making up the spire’s façade, nothing else about what lay beyond was revealed; the area past the gaping entrance consumed by an unnatural darkness, one his eyes were unable to pierce.
Ever since seeing the entrances, part of him had been tempted to go in, darkness be damned. A more cautious part of his mind warned him against such, however.
While the emotionless, mechanical voice had explicitly encouraged him to avail himself of the facilities that lay within Heavenly Constellation Spire, the fact that he hadn’t seen anyone exit nor enter its premises made him wait for a little while, lest his impatience get him into trouble.
Besides. He still hadn’t chosen which entrance to enter yet, anyway. At that thought, Lucian quickly walked to the side of the cavernous entrance and pressed the back of his hand against the smooth, surprisingly chilly stone and triggered his Knowledge implant.
Name: Heavenly Constellation Spire.
Descriptor: A high-tier construct made by the Faction, Deific Stars.
Remarks: Rejoice, for the Master has bestowed upon thee one free opportunity to bask in Creation, revel in Destruction, or dwell in Harmony~!
Now that Lucian was done with exploring the clearing as a whole, he decided to think over the information he had been given. While this was the second time hearing the mellifluous voice’s short blurb, he hadn’t actually thought about it all too deeply.
Even without the information obtained from his Knowledge implant, it had been clear that he would have to choose between Creation, Destruction, and Harmony, based on the unmissable words carved above each entrance.
While it was unfortunate that the information he had received wasn’t more illuminating about what facility each choice would give him access to, it was good to know that he only had one shot at making said choice.
Furthermore, while he hadn’t considered it at the start, things never came for free. As such, knowing he had one free opportunity to make use of whichever facility he ultimately chose was a significant load off his mind.
Admittedly, such a freebie also made him suspicious, but such a feeling was tempered by the simple fact that there was nothing he could do about it.
While yes, he could refuse the opportunity to avail himself of one of the currently unknown facilities, it would be a stupid move in the extreme, considering how the mechanical voice claimed it would help in overcoming the so-called ‘last trial’, whatever that might be.
Last but not least, the mentioning of the Heavenly Constellation Spire being a high-tier construct, one made by a faction of some sort, piqued his interest.
Not only did it reveal that there may be constructs of a similar nature, whether they be identical in tier, lower, or even higher, it also revealed that more parties were involved in this potential death game besides ‘Nightmares Unlimited’ or this so-called ‘Master’.
“You okay there Lucian?”
The sudden question broke Lucian from his train of thought. Quickly pulling away from the Heavenly Constellation Spire, he turned to face Julia; the honey blonde appraising him with a curious gleam in her emerald eyes.
“I’m just thinking about which entrance to go into.” He answered while shoving his left hand into his hoodie’s left pocket before casually leaning against the smooth stone wall.
“Since you’re standing right next to Creation, is that going to be your choice?” She asked while waving her glass-studded table leg at the entrance in question.
He shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, I’m still thinking about it. How about you? Have you decided which one to pick?”
She nodded. “I have. That’s why I’m here. I only haven’t gone in because I saw you standing next to it.”
“I see.” He said as he pushed away from the Heavenly Constellation Spire’s wall before gesturing at the entrance to the side. “Don’t let me hold you up then.”
Flashing him with a smile and nod, Julia left without a further word and entered the cavernous darkness without any visible hesitation, getting swallowed up and disappearing the instant her entire body passed over the threshold.
Throughout the whole process, Lucian watched, curious to see if anything bad would happen to her. Nothing did however, even up to the moment right before her inexplicable disappearance; a phenomenon that caused him to arch his brow in shock.
He stood there for several more moments, seeing if Julia would reappear after vanishing, but left after it became clear she wouldn’t for now. Instead of staying still to think over his choices, he decided to walk around the sky-piercing spire’s base one last time before making his choice, whether for good or ill.
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As Lucian came to a stop right in front of Heavenly Constellation Spire’s entrance of Creation, he couldn’t help but smile wryly to himself.
In the end, even after taking a slow walk around the spire’s entire circumference, he still ended up deciding on the one that appealed to him the most in the first place.
He supposed his walk was good for one thing at least. It let him witness others enter the other entrances in the Northeast and Southwest; the same phenomenon occurring with all in question, whether it be Destruction or Harmony.
Staring at the unnatural darkness for a moment longer, the raven-haired man shrugged to himself, supposing there was no more point in hesitating even as he started walking.
As his right foot crossed over the threshold, the last thought that flashed across his mind was that he hadn’t just made a terrible, irreversible mistake – the world in his eyes getting swallowed up in pitch black darkness an instant after.
< End of Gauntlet 6: The Final Stretch. >