Chapter 264 - Episode Eleven - The One That Shoulders The Scale (1) (Side: Rupel)
Chapter 264 - Episode Eleven - The One That Shoulders The Scale (1) (Side: Rupel)
Chapter 264 - Episode Eleven - The One That Shoulder's The Scale (1) (Side: Rupel)
The two members of the “Balancer of the Scale of Time”, excluding the Ruinous Sorcerer Ruin, the large man in the iron mask, Darras, and the leader of the three, the handsome man with glasses, Rupel, had invaded the interior of the Great Temple of Kudor.
The interior of the Great Temple was as morbidly blue as the exterior.
The walls were piled with blue bricks, and the floor was covered with a blue carpet that seemed to go on forever.
Even the flames from the candelabra were glowing blue. I felt as if my senses were going crazy just moving along.
The passageway was wide, and a little further inside, past a large door, there were two huge stone statues, nearly five meters long, on either side of the door.
Both of the statues were the same shape.
The upper body of a woman with long hair stretched out from a huge sphere with a distorted shape that had many tentacles growing out of it, as if it was scraping through the tentacles or one of the tentacles.
The model of the stone statue was clearly the god Kudor.
But it was more eerie than divine.
On the walls of the passageway, there were various magic formulas carved.
The magic formulas were ancient, fundamentally different from the ones used today, and seemed to have been encrypted in multiple layers.
Rupel touched it with his hand and let the magic flow through it to analyze the magic formula.
However, perhaps the protection was too strict, or perhaps it was immediately bounced, and he could not get anything.
Rupel quickly gave up and backed off.
“…… This is the first time I’ve tasted such a bizarre magic field. Darras, be careful. If a demon is lurking, it will be too late to detect it with all this noise. Anything could happen. I value your power highly.”
Darras remained silent and nodded his head.
Darras was originally born in the Maharaun Kingdom, where the belief in the fire gods is strong.
He inherited a secret martial art called “Gouma”, which is passed down only to a few people in the Maharaun Kingdom and uses magic power to boost physical abilities.
Darras is a so-called genius, who learned the basics of “Gouma” at an early age, and as a result of this, his body has developed abnormally, resulting in a large body that would be impossible for an ordinary Norcs today.
However, Darras’ own foul-mouthed strength had become nothing more than an unnecessary source of conflict for him.
He was used and shunned, and eventually falsely accused and sentenced to death.
The iron mask of Darras was worn when he was tortured during that time.
He was forced to wear a heated iron mask, which could not be removed due to the burned skin on his face.
While he was waiting for death in his prison, Rupel reached out to him, and it was the “Balancer of the Scale of Time”.
The “Balancer of the Scale of Time” wanted a strong person anyway.
As they were walking down the corridor, one of Rupel’s eyelids twitched.
“…………?”
Darras looks at Rupel.
Rupel gave a small shake of his head.
“It seems that Ruin has reached his full potential. As I thought, there was someone else who had sniffed out Kudor and was on the move besides us. It’s not like there are many people who can hunt down Ruin. Whether it’s the self-proclaimed Pope of Riveras Kingdom, Sateria, or Zim the Fifth of your homeland, the Maharaun Kingdom …… or some legendary adventurer-collector, the Count, or the High Elf’s …… “
“…… Ruin, is she dead?”
Darras muttered, interrupting Rupel’s words.
“Probably struck out with the enemy. Ruin can’t control the magic in her. The range of control is about 30% at the strictest and 40% at the most. But just in case, let’s hurry up ahead …… Hmm? That’s ……”
A beautiful brown-skinned young man was standing in Darras’ path.
He has various patterns of makeup under his eyes and on his cheeks, and he holds a large staff in his left hand.
The nose is high and the eyes have a peculiar melancholy look that attracts the attention of the viewer.
“Don’t tell me …… He was the priest who had summoned Kudor?”
Rupel opened the grimoire in his hand and took a fighting stance.
Darras, too, clenched his fists as he stepped in front of Rupel and dropped to his haunches, ready to attack.
As they came somewhat closer, Rupel realized that the priest was an illusion created by the temple’s magic, and he urged Darras to release his stance with his eyes.
The priest came up to Rupel and the others and opened his mouth.
“After all these ages, you are once again begging the gods for help.”
The language was an old type of spirit language.
Perhaps they thought it was a language that had survived the passage of time, and ended up with a spirit language.
Spirit language is like the logic of the world, used by spirit bodies.
It does not change greatly from one era to the next, even if the way humans perceive it changes and there are some differences.
A good sorcerer can use spirit language to communicate.
And in the “Balancer of the Scale of Time”, there are many opportunities to read and understand ancient texts.
Rupel was able to understand the priest’s spirit language.
“I will select you in three trials.”
What the priest said, in summary, was that if he wanted power, he would have to go through three trials in the Great Temple.
Rupel closed the grimoire he had opened.
“The temple was built by the previous priest, huh. But the three trials are …… also troublesome ……”
At about the same time that Rupel closed the open grimoire, the priest raised his staff in a wide arc.
“I will begin the first test. The first test is to move forward and defeat the moon-slaughtering beasts that are blocking the way, escaping the raging image of the god.”
A light of magical power covered the area. Rupel, who had thought the priest was just an apparition, was somewhat taken aback by the strong light in the corridor in response to his movement.
When the light disappeared, the priest was already gone.
“Just now …… what happened……?”
Just then, from behind Rupel, he heard what sounded like the movement of a large rock.
Looking back, he saw that one of the two huge statues of Kudor that adorned the sides of the passage had just begun to move.
The stone tentacles creaked and writhed as the angular movement lowered the god Kudor from her pedestal.
The upper half of the human body of the stone statue of God Kudor stretched out from the main body of the statue, twisting its body with a lustrous movement that was unbelievable for stone, and pressing its own head with both thin hands.
Then it turned its face to the ceiling, changed its big mouth to the point that its face was cracked, distorted its expression into ugliness, and roared.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
As if it was the voice of birth, a single, large eye in the center of the bulbous, distorted body opened.
The eyes were not made of stone, but of flesh and blood, and their disproportion was even more eerie.
Rupel had killed many powerful enemies in the past, but the sheer eeriness of the statue and its unfathomably dense magical power left him open-mouthed and dumbfounded.
Normally, in a situation like this, I would have ordered Darras to destroy it immediately.
However, his instincts told him that there was nothing he could do.
There’s nothing I can do about that. As the priest’s vision had told him, there was nothing to do but run ahead while protecting himself.
“Anyway, we’re moving on, Darras! Its movement is slow! If this is a test, then it’s not designed to be unbreakable!”
But at the same time, the magic formulas carved into the walls began to glow one after another, starting from the front, and in tandem, magic circles appeared at both ends of the passage.
The same number of spirit beasts appeared on top of the magic circles, which were roughly fifty in number at a glance.
Their bodies and limbs resembled those of a slightly overweight Fogg.
Their body surface was the color of rusty metal.
Its lips were large and swollen like a tumor, and unlike humans, it had large vertical, not horizontal, tears.
There were four eyeballs, left, right, up, and down. There were many deep wrinkles on its face.