Leon summoned his staff into his right hand once again and lifted it high to use [Undead Summoning], all of his skeleton soldiers rising from the ground around him in a circle of bone and shadow.
"Activate every trap in that hall," Leon ordered his summons once more, just like he had done when they first entered this place.
And just like the first ti around, Leon’s skeletons kept going forward one after the other, marching straight into danger and tanking each and every trap from the hall without any hesitation or fear.
"W-Wow," Celeste gasped as she watched the seemingly endless line of skeletons throw themselves at the traps.
She knew that she would never be able to do this by herself if she had been alone, as it was simply too dangerous and each of these individual traps was strong enough to kill a level ninety player.
Even then, the process took around an hour of continuous skeleton sacrifices, but eventually both Leon and Celeste successfully exited the magicless temple without any further issues.
BAM!
As soon as they stepped outside, the gate leading to the hall closed behind them and disappeared entirely, leaving no trace whatsoever that it had ever been there in the first place.
"I guess there is no real need for this place anymore since the guardian is dead," Leon sighed thoughtfully, "Though I am guessing that he will respawn eventually."
The gate would likely appear inside a different mountain than this one after a certain amount of ti had passed, thus allowing another group of players to eventually challenge that being for themselves if they could find the entrance, though he doubted that would happen for a few years.
Leon did not care about this in the slightest, because he had already gotten what he ca for.
World Map!
He attempted to use the map, and thankfully this ti it worked perfectly, the [World Map] appearing before him as he sighed in relief.
"Hold my hand," Leon grinned at Celeste, reaching out toward her, "We’re going back to the [Awakener Kingdom] right now."
"E-Emilia sent dozens of ssages while we were in there," Celeste spoke up as she looked at her own panel with wide eyes, "We should check on her as well when we get back, she is probably worried sick!"
"...Right," Leon checked his own ssages and saw over one hundred notifications from Emilia stacked up, making him cough awkwardly in sudden guilt, "Let’s do that as soon as we arrive."
Celeste grabbed onto Leon’s hand tightly, and he selected the housing area of the [Advanced District] as their destination, the two of them turning into glowing particles before being teleported away through the map’s power.
And after a few seconds of weightless travel through the teleportation stream only...
Ding!
[You have arrived at "Advanced District"]
’But wait,’ Leon thought for a single split second as his feet touched solid ground again, ’How is a normal player supposed to co back from the [Exiled Lands] if they do not have the [World Map] like I do?’
The [Awakener Lord] had sent him there with the specific goal to retrieve the [Magicless Core] and complete the test.
But how could the lord possibly bring Leon back once he had completed his assigned task, unless there was so other thod he was not aware of.
After all, the process was not automatic in any way, since Leon had not been teleported back the mont he had defeated the boss and collected the core.
’I do not like this at all,’ Leon’s expression turned cold and thoughtful, ’But there is no need to dwell on it right now, the most important thing is to clear this place and finally reach the [Awakener District] itself.’
He imdiately opened his friend panel to check what exactly Emilia had sent him while he was unconscious.
Over a hundred ssages waited for him in his inbox, though all of them could be easily resud and summarized in the following manner without losing any important details:
[Saintess: Did sothing happen? Its been a while that you’ve been in the "Exiled Lands", I died in the realm of my special test and was teleported out, I’ll be waiting in the kingdom.]
Leon read through all the ssages one by one, quickly understanding what had actually happened to Emilia while he was busy with his own special test.
She had been sent to conquer a [Realm] of the district as her own special test.
But since that realm was supposed to be a place designed for very strong level ninety players to challenge themselves, even soone as powerful as Emilia could not win against whatever had been waiting for her in there.
She died as a result of that failure, which was a harsh outco, but thanks to the [Resurrection Stone] she had been carrying with her, she managed to not permanently die.
’I will have to give her another resurrection stone as soon as I see her, and prepare much better for the next ti we attempt sothing like this,’ Leon thought to himself with a heavy sense of frustration.
Leon could not believe that he was making all these silly and avoidable mistakes over the past few days.
Whether it was letting Mathilde kill Celeste, or even allowing the awakener lord to send Emilia away into this incredibly hard special test.
But perhaps these were simply harsh lessons that he needed to learn the hard way so he could better prepare for the future challenges that would inevitably co his way.
After all, nothing truly permanent had happened to his companions even though the situation was incredibly risky.
But from now on, Leon would make absolutely sure that they were much more prepared before attempting anything dangerous ever again.
Even a small mistake like this one in the future could cause imnse trouble for all of them, and Leon was not willing to let that happen to anyone he cared about.
And more than anything else in this mont, Leon knew that neither the [Awakener Lord] nor anybody else in this kingdom was truly on his "side" the way a true ally would be.
[Celestial: I’m back, where are you.]
As soon as he sent the ssage out into the system, it only took a few seconds for him to receive a response back from Emilia, which showed just how eagerly she had been waiting for his return.
[Saintess: OMG, YOU TWO ARE BACK! I’m so happy, I’m in a restaurant near the association, lets et at the entrance of the building!]
[Celestial: Alright.]
"Let’s go," Leon gestured for Celeste to follow him, and the phoenix girl imdiately fell into step behind him without any questions.
Yet right as he took a single step forward toward the direction of the association building, sothing felt deeply wrong in the pit of his stomach.
Leon suddenly had a terrible feeling, a primal sense of danger that he had learned to trust with his life.
"MOVE," Leon shouted at the top of his lungs as he grabbed Celeste by the arm and tossed her out of the way, fairly far.
And as he thought...
Fwoosh! BOOM!
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