It was just a single step forward, but it felt like the beast teleported. It was standing in front of Aiden with arms striking down like a tree trunk falling at light speed.Aiden found that dodging was impossible when he thought of it, and the only solution he had at that moment was to block the attack.He did not expect the amount of force that poured into his arms when the blow landed. It felt as if he had been struck by an overpowered bull… The blow sent him skidding back until he was standing next to Connor. Connor had a terrified expression and looked to be frozen in place when Aiden turned to look at him."Connor… Connor… Con…", Aiden called out repeatedly, but the boy was frozen and his mind long gone.Aiden abandoned the attempt to wake Connor from his frozen state when the beast growled again and charged straight at him once more.Again, it seemed like the beast had taken just a step, but it was in front of him before he could react. This time, the attack did not come slammi
And so, they waited for hours. Connor was just getting restless. Staying in a tiny space like that for so long seemed to be getting to him. They waited a while more after Aiden calmed Connor down before they saw what they were waiting for. One after the other, the briwyns piled into the cavern.They were part of a pack because they were the same breed and moved together while having a clear leader. There were also the young ones in the pack and they stayed in the middle, shielded on all sides by the older ones.They moved through the cavern in a clear direction. Aiden and Connor watched them until they were passing beside them.They were not expecting when the pack suddenly stopped in their tracks after one of the briwyns close to the wall they were hiding made a grunt that echoed through the cavern.The leader was the only one that moved when this pause happened. The briwyn was bigger and looked sturdier than the rest. It walked up to the wall and drew in a long sniff.At that moment
The two of them did not know what to make of the environment they were standing in. It felt like they had walked through some sort of portal and the exit, the spot on the rocky wall where they just walked out of, looked like a closed door.The reason that they had stopped in their tracks when they exited the wall, the same reason that made Aiden cuss in surprise was the scenery they were looking at.There were extremely tall mountains that towered over their line of sight. Some of these mountains and landforms were blurred by an ever-present fog the further away they were.Everything looked like a mystical scene, an entirely new world to explore… Even from where they appeared, they could see the rope bridge lying not too far away.Aiden and Connor walked forward, taking in the sight in front of them. They continued walking forward until they came to a cliff with a rope bridge tied to it across a chasm."Should we cross it", Connor asked as he looked over the edge of the chasm.Aiden a
Unlike what Zarek said about the Eye of Medusa's petrification wearing off in one hour, the reality was a lot different.Most notable was the fact that Connor only woke up after an entire day.He woke up at the exact moment that Aiden found the problem with the grassland and was trying to fix the problem.He woke up to see that the grassland had been turned on its head.In his sleeping position, the first thing that appeared in his vision was the grassland in the sky. For a moment, he thought that Aiden had flipped his orientation again, but he noticed soon enough, that the ground he was lying on was grass as well.He sat up with a start, looked around, and found that what he was looking at was just as bizarre as the grassland being the sky.All around him, there were walls, every single one of them with a healthy overgrowth of light brown grass."What in the world is happening?", He asked no one in particular."Please, could you explain why everything looks like a maze right now?", H
The line in front of the city was decent-sized and it took a while before it was their turn to pay the entry fee and enter the city. Aiden read the agreement before agreeing to it and settling the fee for himself and Connor.Entering the city, they immediately smelled the change in the air. The smell of damp soil and rotting leaves was gone."We are staying here till we figure out what that crystal ball is?", Aiden said.Aiden did not expect that the response he would get was Connor questioning his statement."What crystal ball? I thought it was just a portal that brought us out here?", he asked.Aiden stopped in his tracks and looked Connor up and down before he sighed and in the nicest voice ever, he explained the situation to Connor."I want you to try to sense your elemental seed. You are the only one who knows how you do that, but when you do, let me know what you feel", Aiden said.Connor closed his eyes and tried to sense his elemental seed as Aiden had directed and a few secon
Fraser stood in front of the giant doors of the throne room as he had done before. Kyllan stood beside him and at that moment he had just finished announcing their presence to the Queen."That feeling never seems to go away, does it? This throne room has been here since the beginning of the empire's existence… As far as the history of the elven people goes, if we want to put a period on it"The doors opened very smoothly despite the intimidating sound of huge doors grinding against the ground they were on.Kyllan and Aiden walked into the throne room side-by-side. It was at this moment that the beast made its presence known when it let out a deep growl that echoed through the throne room.Fraser turned to look at the beast and the look on his face conveyed the exhaustion he felt considering the beast's behavior at that moment."Alyssa, at least reign it in, this is the throne room", Fraser said.Alyssa, the white-coated beast was having none of that, because she huffed and puffed smok
Aiden looked around, surprised by what he was looking at. He was standing in a memory that he recognized, and this memory was one in which he was the main character.From a rear view which was simply Connor's view of the situation when it happened, Aiden watched himself fight off a bunch of the beasts that had attacked them during their travels.Like projections, Aiden walked past the memory into another. As he did, the memories became older and older, till he was no longer in them."Okay, that's enough", Aiden said as he stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes.This he did for only a moment before he suddenly vanished from the place. His field of view blurred for a moment, then he found himself standing in a dark space. Not far away from him was a bright gem-like object, shining into the dark."Here we are…", Aiden smiled.Looking into the gem, Aiden saw the crystal slowly float out of the elemental seed. Connecting it to the elemental seed was a flow of light, some flow of energy.
Bizarre as it was, Aiden finally found his balance. The rumbling continued to rock everything and Aiden tried to find the source of the rumbling with the zoom his eyes possessed.At first, he found nothing, the rumbling forced him out of balance and this in turn made standing upright difficult. Standing stably was also the best way to view things properly, and the lack of this variable made his sigh tumultuous at best.One of the waves of rumbles was so strong that it sent Aiden up into the air, and in the moment of free fall that came after, Aiden found that he could stabilize his vision.This was a solution handed to him on a silver platter, and in the situation that he was in, not taking advantage of it would be idiotic.And so, he took full advantage of it. No sooner had he landed, that he jumped up again, this time in a much more controlled and stable manner.This move yielded great results as his sight pierced through the tree line and he saw the first clue as to what was causin
The crowd was pulled from the tragedy that the nobles caused, and some people started to point to the group suspended above them, whispering and murmuring various pieces of gossip.This was a topic that excited them all, however, the ones who were most excited for the revelation were the nobles who finally knew the people who beat them to occupy the highest floor of the tower.They did not hide the wicked grins on their faces and Aiden saw these grins on their faces. He also saw that the group were starting to descend from the sky into the midst of the crowd. That was bad and was quickly made worse when he noticed the nobles setting their hounds on the group.He could guess their thoughts. Even if the group was stronger than they were, given the position they occupied, they did not believe it and wanted to know for themselves how powerful they were.This gave Aiden a headache and his mind began to spin quickly, looking for a big enough distraction that would give the group a chance to
None could ask the other for help because each had someone attacking them, however, they were not noble scions for nothing. Despite being overpowered by the golems, they dealt some damage over time.It was not immediately obvious, but they managed to hold their own, and avoid grievous injuries even though there were several close calls.It took them each about an hour to circumvent their respective golems and deal enough damage to break through their chests.Hadrian was the first followed by Oscar shortly after with Tristan clocking in third, a few seconds behind Oscar. He was unhappy with this but he had no time to be unhappy because his face soon changed into a somber look. Oscar who had just tried to pick up the glowing multi-coloured orb was surprised to find the orb roll away from him and float up to meet the orb that came from Tristan’s golem. This also meant that the orb in Hadrian’s hand was the only one that remained.Oscar and Tristan noticed this, but they could do nothin
No one cared who had said that word because they all ran. The sight of the gray tentacles rising like pillars from the depths of the abyss was enough to scare every one of them.At the same moment, there was a rumble that spread across the skies of the city at that moment. Everyone heard it. Aiden, sitting in the restaurant was jolted from his thoughts and joined everyone else as they looked up at the ruin.He witnessed a few of the tentacles of the beast appear on the edge of the ruin as he had seen before they entered the ruin.‘That bridge, huh? They might be lucky enough to escape'.He did not care much if these people beat the ruin and made it to the temple. He had gotten his rewards and he was happy with that.Tristan and his group had immediately dashed off the bridge, but the tentacles came down on the bridge at a lightning-fast speed.This attack ripped the bridge apart, leaving just three people from Tristan’s group unscathed.Tristan’s face was painted with horror like ever
Aiden was dumbfounded. How was this a reward? It simply contradicted itself. The problem it caused was having him be a prime target for the Zaltyr, but it would also save him from them once.Then, is the mark erased once the life-saving opportunity is used?[Yes, everything returns to normal after that]This made him heave a sigh of relief. He tried to look at this from a positive perspective. This meant the mark was not meant to specifically protect him from the Zaltyr, its main purpose was to protect him from every other thing that tried to kill him.Thinking about it this way made it easier to accept the fact that he was going to be in trouble with the Zaltyr sooner or later, albeit only slightly.Elder Zarek watched Aiden go through his thoughts for a few minutes while he thought of the command he had received from The World Seed.Aiden had recovered his thoughts at this point and decided to check on his elemental seed. He was elated to see the changes to his elemental seed.The mu
None of the thirty remaining survivors was stupid and they took things as calmly as they could. There was no visible harm to resting till a problem was identified and this was something they unanimously agreed on.As they expected, there was something that was out of the ordinary and it was found after two hours of waiting.The quiet rumble that came from the depths of the chasm was enough of a wake-up call.Theo of the Arco twins was the one who made the first comment, breaking the silence. None of them believed that crossing the bridge would be easy from the start, however, the realization that some unknown danger lurked beneath was enough to bring them flashbacks of their time in the maze.“There’s something down there as well? Why is this trial so difficult?”“Good thing we were patient…”“Patient? What does that do for us?”“Theo is not completely wrong. Every stage of the trials had been harder than the last”, Oscar took a deep breath.“Indeed… Something that can cause such a ru
“You just had to jinx it?”Raven rolled her eyes in response.The orb glowed and the rubble spread across the hall was drawn to it. One piece after the other, they mashed together and barely a moment later, a statue had formed.This statue looked the same as the ones they fought before, save for a few important differences. One, this new statue was massive, at least three times as tall. Two, the statue now had a weapon – A halberd which it swung around. Three, most importantly, it had lines running all over its body. Looking close enough these lines were runes just like the ones Aiden and the rest had, but these were very close to being complete, easily dwarfing the ones they had.Their expressions turned grave as the glowing eyes of the massive statue locked onto them.It was a golem, and it wasted no time. With a roar that sounded like thunder, it wielded its halberd and charged at them.There was no running from it, because, a sweep of its halberd made the hall feel claustrophobi
Raven who had suggested was the first to move, and the moment she did, everyone else followed her one after the other. They got to the stone coffin amidst their careful creeping without any problems. The unnerving feeling that they felt from the statues kept them on their toes as they expected everything to go wrong at any moment. "Now what", Raven asked. Aiden and Connor stepped here, and as he instructed; "Keep an eye out", the two of them pushed the lid off the stone coffin. They were right to be worried, because the moment the stone coffin opened slightly, light burst out of the opening. They were taken aback by this absurd light show, however, the light was like a tonic, one that breathed life into the surrounding. Life into the several warrior statues that lined the walls. Each of their eyes opened with a snap, glowing a bright orange, followed by cracks that came from the loosening of the joints on the statues. Gadiel was the first to speak regret about the situation, but
With Aiden and Connor leading the way, they stepped onto the rope bridge. The silence that fell on them at that was quite unnerving, but it helped them keep their focus. This meant that their reactions were spot on as they responded immediately to Aiden making any signals.This was the moment that they finally understood the danger that lay in the chasm beneath them. Apart from the scary chasm that looked like a bottomless pit, a sight that already promised them death should they fall into it, there was something else living in the chasm, and the dreadful atmosphere it brought with evidence of its existence sent chills running their spines. The conclusion here was very simple, there was trouble and they needed to be careful.Listening carefully, they heard the silent rumbles gradually fade away, taking with it the tense atmosphere they felt. You would expect Aiden to make a sudden dash to get across as quickly as possible, but he didn't. He was taking no chances, so continued steadily
"Three days?!", Raven started."Oh, don't get worked up, it was more like two and a half days", Princess Eleanor chipped in.Unfortunately, this did not change the reaction Raven had; in fact, her reaction got worse at that moment as she got frantic and almost lost her mind as she looked around."Calm down, Raven. Things are not as bad as you think. We are out of the grassland maze; of course, we had to wait for everyone to de-petrify before we continued…", Deirdre explained."So, what trial do we have now?", Raven asked and immediately got a response."Oh, the long rope bridge, strung across the chasm that has a tentacled beast living in it", Deirdre responded like that piece of information was of no consequence.Raven was silent as she stared off into space for a moment. When she got her mind back, she asked almost immediately… "Are we crossing now that I am awake?"A question to which Princess Eleanor answered in a snarky and sarcastic tone… "Hopefully". Her comment got a few gazes