By the time their train was ready to depart, the sun was half-hidden by the distant horizon, its rays now directly reaching towards everyone who stood outside in the open. Almost everybody chose to either reenter the station or board a train nearby to wait until the sunset ends.
Train no. 3 let out a thin, loud whistle as an announcer spoke through the mic.
"Train no. 3 is ready to leave the station. All passengers who wish to leave for the sacred ground right now, board the train, please. Train no. 4 will leave 4 hours later at 20:00."
Their train let out a deep hum as its electronic windows and doors started to slide out, fully blocking out any possibility of foreign intrusion once the train was on the move. At the last moment, another passenger tumbled in through the gap of the door in their bogey, only to find it nearly filled up. There was one seat left, right in front of Murray and Mir's seats.
Both brothers were immediately alarmed, their eyes snapping towards the newcomer's face.
"Reno?" Mir gasped. Murray elbowed him curiously.
"Classmate. It's the other kid who won a license with me. Remember when I said it ended in a tie?" Mir explained as he watched Reno drag his luggage over.
Seemingly absorbed in his own world, Reno didn't notice the familiar face sitting right behind him.
Mir didn't really want to strike up a conversation either. He leaned back into his seat and returned to what he was doing.
The second item they had been issued was the rulebook. Mir went through the first three pages and lost interest. There were too many miscellaneous rules with little to no repercussions even if they were broken. In an area so huge as a sacred ground, few rules could be maintained properly. It was already a marvelous achievement that people here hadn't destroyed the entire ecosystem trying to hunt, contract, or kill mutant creatures.
There was, however, one special page that caught his interest when he was flipping through the rest of the booklet.
The Rules of The Taboo Zone.
"Murray, have you ever tried to enter the taboo zone in this sacred ground?" Mir whispered under the electric humming of the moving train.
Murray nodded hesitantly.
"It's the only taboo zone in this sacred ground. How could I not be curious? But I would not recommend going inside its range, though. Anyone who has been here a few times has taken a trip there. The first few expeditions that sought to map the sacred ground were the ones who profited from the trips, while the rest of us got to face some special mutant beasts, at most. That place is surrounded by rank-2 mutants, human abominations who ended up that way due to the taboo power, and rumors say that there might even be a rank-3 mutant creature out there, guarding the heart of the taboo zone."
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Mir nodded and began to read the information provided on the taboo zone of sacred ground no. 6.
This taboo zone was named 'The Staircase of The Faithful' by the people who discovered it for the first time. Discovered nearly three decades ago, the taboo zone was still one of the trickiest taboo zones open to the ordinary public. The reason it was made accessible to all wasn't because it lacked the element of danger, rather, it was because this taboo zone operated on a truly simple rule: Faith in Sunbreaker.
Be it a highly competent Transcendent military officer, or a completely powerless beggar from the streets of Enet City, neither of them could advance inside this zone without an unshakable belief in Sunbreaker's existence, his divinity. Sacred artifacts that belonged to Sunbreaker's domain received a temporary enhancement inside this taboo zone, which was how this rule had been discovered
This strangely specific rule had let the Church of Sunbreaker earn a massive influence over this sacred ground. Every month, the municipal government had to share the profit made through the licensing business and companion creature market of this sacred ground with the church due to a contract made between the two parties at the time when it was first discovered.
The first person to reach the heart of the taboo zone and declare it 'conquered' had been a Bishop of the Church of Sunbreaker. She was fairly famous in the city too, known as Reverend Klessia, the Transcendent who killed a grade-4 monstrosity six years ago.
Mir suddenly recalled that both he and Murray was carrying an artifact from the Church of Sunbreaker. He hadn't yet gotten the opportunity to learn what Murray's artifact did.
"What does that shield of yours do?" he quickly inquired.
"It's used in direct combat. Not really as interesting as your diary, to be honest. All it does is create a strong magnetic field upon command. So any weapon made from metal would automatically get shaky around it. And if the weapon is small enough, for example, knives, small machetes, some armor-piercing bullets that carry ferromagnetic elements, the shield can exert enough magnetic force to completely deviate their trajectory of attack."
"But won't that affect you too?" Mir said skeptically.
"Yes. That's why I said it's not as useful as your diary."
"Stop calling it MY diary, man. It's not mine. You just made me carry it to act as your bait. The Church can take it away as easily as they let you borrow it."
Mir still had his misgivings about the red diary. He felt somewhat traumatized whenever he recalled each time he had used it.
"For now, you're the one who gets to use it, because you can't be the one using the shield, little brother," Murray replied with a dry laugh.
Shaking his head, Mir went back to reading the rest of the information about the taboo zone.
The heart of the taboo zone ended on top of a two hundred meters tall waterfall...physically.
It was said that, to true believers of Sunbreaker, this was merely where the real taboo zone began. In its three decades of history, only four people had managed to enter this 'real taboo zone', empowered by their faith in Sunbreaker. All four of them spoke of how they were guided by their lord's voice to the top of the waterfall, how they were ordered to let go of their fears and walk into the furious surges of water that would hurl them two hundred meters below with just one erroneous step in the neck-deep water. These four distinguished Transcenders had walked up right to the edge of the waterfall...and then stepped onto the void in front of them.
"Fucking hell..." Mir muttered in a low voice, unable to stop himself from cursing.
Was this faith, or insanity?!
Even ignoring the damage a fall from a height of two hundred meters would cause, it was a waterfall they were talking about here! The momentum of that huge volume of water could sweep away giant trees and boulders, let alone a human. Would any normal human dare to step into the water right at the edge of the waterfall?
Not only had they done it, they had even leaped past the edge, a completely suicidal move that would render an ordinary human body into a meat paste at the bottom of the fall. But their power of faith had somehow taken them into somewhere different, a plane that they called the real taboo zone of the sacred ground.
The reason behind the name 'Staircase of the Faithful' was also due to the nature of this inexplicable realm. All four Transcenders spoke of an untouchable, invisible, gargantuan staircase that hid on the void above the waterfall. Each step you took on it would have to be assured, unwavering, unhesitant. Each step was harder, bigger, and more dangerous than the last.
And on that staircase, one may find a reward from Sunbreaker, depending on how far he could go, how unshakable his belief in Sunbreaker was.
However, all four Transcenders refused to elaborate more, which seemed like a universal rule observed by all successful explorers of the numerous taboo zones in the world.
Personally, Mir didn't quite like that rule, neither did any ordinary adventurous youth. But it wasn't like their opinions mattered.