45th of Trian Month, Trian Ruins.
A blue vortex shone brightly and Varian landed in an unknown place.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Right after him, one by one, the crowd stepped into the world and lined up into a formation.
As usual, Varian stood at last.
Like everyone else, he too observed the world
It was a world filled with greenery. Giant trees shot into the sky as they formed a dense canopy blocking the sun.
It seemed like a dense forest through and through.
However, it wasn't purely a forest. There were obvious gaps between the trees at regular distances, wide enough for ten people to walk.
Standing in front of the so-called forest, the hundred-odd men and women understood that much.
But what they didn't understand was what was behind them.
Facing the forest was a giant double-door gate. It extended into the clouds and stretched as far as the eye could see.
At the bottom of the giant gate was the small blue vortex that still shone. It was the exit from the valley and entrance to this place.
While it looked magnificent in its own right, it's completely overshadowed by the giant gate.
If not for its clear double door structure, it'd have been mistaken for a giant wall.
"So…" Prince Curtis drew a breath, looking back and forth.
With a wry smile, he said. "I think this is a trial before entering the Ruler's Abode."
The crowd let his words sink in for a moment and decided to explore the region to figure out the trial.
Following a simple gesture command, the scout in the teams began to use their powers.
Swish! Swish!
Fire wings, lightning wings, telekinetic powers, and even gravity powers were used as a bunch of men and women left the ground.
The ones on the ground waited eagerly as the scouts ascended higher and higher.
The scouts on the other hand continued to be surprised by what they were seeing.
In front of them was—
Forest.
Endless Forest.
Behind them was—
The wide entrance gate that seemingly pierced the clouds. Factually, it didn't. Its actual height, however, was two hundred meters.
'What is beyond the gate?'
The scouts got eager and pushed themselves further, and their speed of ascendance rose.
One hundred and eight meters.
One hundred and ninety meters.
One hundred and ninety-nine meters…
Plop!
A sudden clap-like sound reverberated in the region and the scouts began to fall without warning.
"Fuck!"
"Slow down!"
"Create a shield if you can't stop, dammit!"
The telekinetics and elemental awakeners had relatively weak bodies. So, they scrambled to prevent a situation where they'd crash at a high speed.
Technically, there should've been no problem. At their stage, they could create elemental wings to control their speed in the blink of an eye or use their telekinetic power for any abrupt changes.
But.
"Kyaaa!"
"Hold us!"
"We're crashing!"
Their aura didn't react and they screamed like helpless children.
The ones on the ground panicked seeing the bizarre scenario. But as the cream of the crop, they didn't devolve into chaos.
Rather, they assigned a member of their team to save their scout.
Plop! Clap!
Varian sighed lightly as he was about to crash to the ground.
'Even though my aura also isn't responding, a simple crash like this won't scratch my body.'
Boom!
Unlike the scouts who were caught, Varian landed on his feet and raised a cloud of dust.
Since he was using a new disguise again, few people noticed that the guy who was using lightning wings a few seconds ago was also a body awakener.
Their focus was on something way more important.
Every time looked at their scout and asked basically the same question. "What happened?"
The scouts also gave roughly the same answer. "My aura…it stopped working."
"What about now?"
Zaap! Szzz! Kaa!
The sparkling lightning and the floating stones indicated that the scouts regained their aura control.
"There is some kind of flight restriction." Prince Curtis said.
His words made perfect sense. Even though a setup like this was impossible for mankind and even abyssals, devas were a different matter.
"This means the trial to reach Ruler's Abode is something we need to do through either that wall or through this forest." Someone from the crowd shrugged.
"But what trial?" A team leader asked in exasperation.
"…Speaking of the trial, I saw a bunch of beasts in the forest." One of the scouts said.
"Me too!"
"There are some beasts! Very powerful ones. Yep yep!"
The rest of the scouts nodded. They were still recovering from the shock of abrupt aura loss, so they forgot to report their findings completely.
"…Beasts, huh." Princess Nora's gaze turned sharp as she looked into the forest.
"Look, there are holes on the gate!" A woman pointed out.
Varian and the rest turned around and observed the giant double-door gate.
At the intersection of the two doors, there were quite a few holes.
"…They're for keys, I guess?" Someone pointed out the obvious.
"And keys, they must be in the forest." The next point was made.
"Going by that train of thought, the keys should be hidden in the forest. But since this is the so-called Ruler's Abode, the difficulty should be a notch higher. The keys should be with the beasts." The dots were connected.
Right as they were about to decide their seemingly logical next step, Prince Jamie suddenly exclaimed.
"Keys!"
His silver key, his entrance ticket to the ruler's abode floated in the air.
Like him, the others also acquired the keys in the ruins and were allowed to step into the Valley.
Following him, others also exclaimed like it was obvious and retrieved their keys.
Varian too retrieved the silver key he got from the Lake of Illusions. Seeing the little thing that gave him the chance to meet Sia, he thanked the mermen inwardly.
Swish!
The hundred-odd keys shone brightly and converged above the crowd.
Following a flash, they melted into silver light and formed a giant screen.
Even though no one could read the words, they could understand it—the screen was directly sending the 'meaning' of the words to their brains.
Varian too carefully studied the words on the screen.