Standing before the final unexplored path, Grant looked at his team with an expression of serious determination.
"This is it. The last path remaining. We need to exercise maximum caution now. Whatever is waiting for us in this gate, whatever the trial actually consists of, it's probably waiting at the end of this final route."
The group nodded with determined expressions, their earlier fatigue from the beast horde battle replaced by focused alertness.
They proceeded down the rightmost path together.
Walking deeper, the atmosphere beca noticeably more oppressive than the previous tunnels. The darkness here felt stronger, denser, as if it were an entity unto itself rather than rely the absence of light. Their lighting runes seed to push back the shadows with greater difficulty, the illumination not spreading as far as it should.
Strange, sudden gusts of wind would brush against their robes and flutter their hair despite being deep underground where no natural air currents should exist. The sensation was unsettling, almost as if sothing invisible was moving past them, although nothing did in reality.
And then, for what they suspected might be the final ti, they arrived before a third stone tablet.
The inscription read simply:
[One has chosen ten.]
The mont the last mber of the group finished reading those four words, the ground began to rumble heavily beneath their feet.
Violent tremors shook the entire cavern, stone dust falling from the ceiling as the earth itself seed to shift and rearrange.
The team imdiately beca tense.
"Prepare to fight!" Grant commanded, storing his parchnt in his storage ring and raising his shield, ready to engage whatever beasts might erge from the ominous rumbling.
~Crack~
The stone floor began splitting apart, fissures spread outward from a central point, widening as sothing pushed upward from beneath.
What erged shocked them into montary stillness.
Ten stone heads of various beasts rose from the floor, each one carved with incredible detail and radiating faint magical energy. They depicted different creatures: a wolf, a serpent, a bear, an eagle, and six others, each distinct and imposing.
Then, directly above each stone head, gates suddenly materialized out of swirling energy.
Ten gates, perfectly aligned horizontally, each one hovering approximately three ters above its corresponding stone head.
They resembled the crimson gates the team had entered to access this realm, but these gates weren't red in color. Instead, they glowed with an eerie blue light, their surfaces rippling like disturbed water.
Several tense seconds passed after the rumbling ceased, the cavern settling into heavy silence.
But nothing else happened. Whether it was beasts erging from the gates, or attacks rising up from beneath the floor.
Despite the apparent calm, the team did not lower their guard, remaining fully alert and ready to respond to anything that might erge from the gates or attack from unexpected angles.
After a few minutes of calmness without any change, Grant whispered carefully, "Let's approach these gates together slowly. Maintain formation and keep maximum vigilance. This might be a trap designed to lure us into lowering our guard."
The team responded by moving in unison alongside Grant, advancing cautiously toward the ten gates that were lined up horizontally across the chamber, each one marked by its distinct stone head below.
As they drew closer, Moon studied the stone carvings intensely. "These are the ten," he muttered, examining each beast head representing its corresponding gate. "And these are the beasts dwelling within each portal."
His voice began to rise as he started reciting the tablets' ssages from mory, "Let it be known to those who enter with ambition in their hearts: this place does not reward the patient.
Let it be known to those who stand before the ten: he who opens one and rests has opened nothing at all. To free one is to free none. He who fails is chosen. One has chosen ten."
The team listened to Moon's recitation in contemplative silence, each mber trying to fill the blanks that still existed in their understanding of the complete ssage.
Moon's mind worked rapidly, beginning to rearrange the text fragnts in various logical sequences.
Just because they'd discovered one tablet first didn't necessitate that the text represented the first riddle or the first piece of the puzzle. It could very well be the conclusion rather than the introduction.
'One has chosen ten. He who fails is chosen. Let it be known...'
'He who fails is chosen. One has chosen ten. Let it be known...'
After several ntal rearrangents, Moon's thoughts filled with countless theories about the trial's true nature and requirents.
He spoke his conclusion aloud, organizing the information into coherent aning. Deciding to finally reveal his findings to the team that may have very well co to the sa conclusion:
"The ten gates are now revealed before us. Patience is condemned as a failing strategy. Opening one gate and resting accomplishes nothing. Freeing one is equivalent to freeing none. One entity has chosen these ten gates as a trial. And those who fail this trial... are chosen by that entity for so unspecified fate."
His words echoed in the cavern.
Ten gates. Ten challenges. Complete them all at once or face being "chosen" by whatever malevolent intelligence was behind this place.
The S-Rank gate was proving to be an anomaly in comparison to other gates, not only in terms of threat, but also sequence. Other gates never contained riddles, or gates within a gate. It was defeat the monsters, and the boss monster, then leave.
But this was different, completely different.
And judging by the ominous tone of every tablet they'd encountered, being "chosen" was very much not a desirable outco.
Grant stared at the blue portals grimly, his thick brows furrowing.
"So we have to clear all ten gates. Not sequentially with rest between them, but... what? Simultaneously? In rapid succession without pause?"
Moon's eyes narrowed as he considered the specific phrasing.
"'This place does not reward the patient,'" he quoted. "That suggests speed is essential. And 'he who opens one and rests' implies that pausing between gates triggers failure conditions."
He looked at his teammates with deadly seriousness.
"I think we have to clear all ten gates at once. Each one of us…has been assigned to a gate, we must all defeat an S-Rank beast, alone." Moon muttered.
His words made Mara's heart drop to her stomach. As the healer, her combat was no where near enough to deal with an S-Rank beast by herself. She could battle B-Rank monsters alone, but S-Rank…that was a different story altogether.
She was dood.
Nina's face had gone pale again. "That's... that's impossible. "
"This is one interpretation of the text. That doesn't necessarily an it's correct. Although I lean towards your interpretation, we can't take this choice lightly. We need to think through the text further, ensure that we have the correct understanding." Grant spoke, looking at Moon.
Moon nodded calmly, "Sure, that works. But rember, this place does not reward the patient. The other team could have very well gotten paralysis by analysis, then faced penalities that resulted in their deaths."
Grant gritted his teeth, Moon was right, "But we also can't just barge into the gates. Not to ntion the fact that most S-Rank humans can't fight a beast by themselves despite having an offensive class, we have a healer…she stands no chance against an S-Rank beast."
He looked at each team mber in turn.
"We don't have much ti, try to think of what the words really an…and hope that Moon's interpretation isn't the correct one. Because if it is…this place was never an S-Rank gate, it was an S-Rank tomb."
User Comments
0 comments from readers