Chapter 101: Maintain The Ritual
Arthur looked at the intricately designed candle in his hands, filled with a majestic yet eerie aura, which had been paid for with the lives of his guild. The blood on his face, from seeing his wife and father-in-law blown away, was smeared across his skin.
"Just where did things go wrong?"
Arthur thought, his face filled with trauma.
’This is an Unconquerable Gate... There are corpses right from the very start. A-and this place killed all of them... Why does the Xesie family say this is a normal gate?’
Runic Gates
There are a few advantages people get when encountering these gates. They have no time limit, nor do they impose a member limit on the number of people who can attempt to conquer them. Even if hundreds of thousands of people enter at once, everyone is allowed inside.
In those glaring advantages, there are also disadvantages.
Everyone who has been ’registered’ to enter the gate cannot leave, no matter what they try, until it has been cleared. Likewise, no one else can enter once the gate has begun.
Challengers.
These are what the people call those who clear the Runic Gates. It doesn’t matter if they are very rookie or pros, the moment they enter, they are Challengers.
Stakes are high when Challengers enter the gates, even if there are no visible enemies inside other than achieving the goals.
So how does the term Unconquerable Runic Gates, or simply Unconquerable, even exist when everyone would want to get a piece of whatever these gates contain?
It was simple. Some goals are just too hard to clear. An impossible thing to do.
So what determines if they are Unconquerable Runic Gates?
Five times.
If a Runic Gate isn’t cleared after five attempts, it will be marked as Unconquerable. There are other cases where Runic Gates are deemed Unconquerable from the start, but Arthur’s situation was different.
’We were given wrong information.’
Happy Guild was no weak guild by any means. They are the type of guild that prepares the most and uses every member of their guild to clear gates. On their clean record of conquering seventeen gates, no single member had died.
It was only this time that they were almost wiped out, with only him surviving.
In fact, Arthur, who didn’t know how he was alive, was confused because this thing wasn’t supposed to be cleared.
"We were fucking given wrong information!!"
How Arthur survived didn’t matter. The Happy Guild, which he wished to protect, and the important people inside, were already gone.
"AHHHHHH!"
Arthur screamed and continued smashing his head against the ground floor of the trial chambers, where countless corpses lay piled up, their heads blown apart by some supernatural power.
...
"What is this...?"
Aldrich couldn’t help but react when the scene before him changed after they entered the Runic Gate, revealing headless bodies that seemed to have exploded and were scattered around the entrance.
"Why are corpses here?"
Beca exclaimed and remained beside Aldrich after receiving word from their sponsor, the Xesie Family, that they would be the first to challenge this gate.
It seemed not to be the case.
Doubts started to fill the members’ minds before they all looked towards the screen in front of them.
[Gate: Maintain The Ritual
Objective: maintain the ritual.]
It wasn’t the type of straightforward objectives that they usually encountered, but that didn’t mean they weren’t experienced with objectives that gave them roundabout ones.
"Calm down, everyone."
Arthur expressed himself as he clasped his hands, bringing the members back to their usual composure. He was the only one among them who wasn’t a Ruiner, but he was also a strong anchor that kept everyone together.
With Arthur’s words, the group began to proceed quietly as they went deeper while examining the corpses. The farther they moved forward, the more each of them realized that this gate had already been attempted to be cleared.
Not once or twice. But already a dozen times.
Arthur, who was trying to keep his head thinking, couldn’t help but start to doubt this gate as well. He tried to keep a straight face to not make everyone nervous, but his thoughts started to waver, and his deep frown started appearing on his face.
’What is going on here?’
Eventually, they reached the end of the gate, and all their eyes constricted when they also witnessed piles of corpses scattered around this area.
The end of the gate was located in a gigantic, gloomy chamber. In the middle of this chamber was a platform where twelve candles hovered in the air, seemingly meant for them to use. Finally, scattered outside the platform were the headless corpses.
They slowly entered the chambers while still on guard, and they eventually came to the normal platform with the twelve floating candles.
Ronald, who had stopped his daughter from going any further, stepped forward and examined the candles first. He also realized how dangerous this gate had become and chose to stand at the front instead of his daughter, who usually placed herself there.
It was candles surrounded by arch language. Aside from that, there was nothing specific about them.
"Everyone, create distance."
Ronald told everyone as he sheathed his sword back in his scabbard. This action made his daughter, Ivana, react with a frown.
"What are you doing? This is not how we do things. This is not protocol."
"Ivana."
Ronald, who had no smile left on his face, understood the direness of the situation and calmly assessed.
"I’m sure everyone is aware that this gate is not normal. The very start of clearing this gate was already wrong, and that’s why I’m going to see what this is all about. This is the end of the gate, right? I’m sure the goal is related to these candles. However, I don’t want to endanger any of you. We won’t be getting out of here if we don’t try something."
Ivana interjected in his statement.
"And we have been clearing gates because we’re all doing this together! Just what are you doing?!"
"Ivana!"
For the first time in his entire life, Ronald shouted back at his only daughter, the most important person in his life after his beloved wife, who had died giving birth to her.
But he never blamed Ivana at all. She was far too precious to him for him to ever point fingers and say that it was her fault that her mother died. No child should ever have to experience something like that.
"Just move away for a bit, okay?"
Ivana angrily clicked her tongue after Ronald repeated the same question before she asked everyone to move.
Once they had remained a safe distance away from them, Ronald examined the candle with careful eyes before grabbing his sword.
Then, he slashed his sword down towards one of the candles. If the candles were the reason why they are pile of corpses everywhere, then destroying them might’ve produced reactions at the gate.
It doesn’t matter if it’s related to a way outside or not. Ronald just needed one thing.
And there it was.
Two screens popped out.
[0/11]
The first screen was a count that seemed related to the available candles.
[0:59]
[0:58]
And another screen was a countdown.
Everyone is seeing it in real time after Ronald slashed down one of the candles.
"What’s going on?!"
Aldrich demanded an answer while looking around for clues, yet Ronald only frowned as he looked down at the candle he had destroyed.
’The count of the candle lessened. It’s natural since I destroyed it but...’
He paused.
’Why is there a timer?’
[0:29]
Almost half a minute had passed, yet the timer still hadn’t stopped. This made Arthur, who thought that everything was connected to the destroyed candle, immediately make a move.
"Everyone run! Grab a candle! Each one of you!"
The group started dashing through the platform. Once they reached their destination, each of them grabbed candles as they started to light up.
[11/11]
The people managed to grab all the candles, but one person hadn’t received one and could only look at the person who was staring back at him.
"Aldrich, I don’t have a candle."
Beca said with a slightly hoarse voice.
[0:00]
The timer ended on zero as everyone looked at Beca.
"W-wait! We’ll use the candle that Sir Ronald cut—"
Aldrich, who wanted to speak and tried to talk with Beca, saw how her head bulged before exploding.
She died.
And everyone could only look at her with stunned expressions as they watched her body fall onto another corpse without making a sound.
[Gate: Maintain The Ritual
Objective: maintain the ritual.]