The Gamer's POV-Chapter 235: The Final Deciding Battle

"What a tragedy," Cedric muttered to himself, having recalled that sad conversation.

He tried to place himself in the shoes of the hollow ones. To imagine living through centuries without the joys of life. To exist in a state where even time itself had lost its meaning because there was no end in sight.

At the end, with a strange tightness in his heart, he concluded that death was probably the best gift someone in this place could receive.

He sighed.

...It really was a tragedy.

For a long moment, Cedric remained lying on the roof of the keep staring off blankly into space.

Since he was no longer paying attention, all the screens in front of him began to blink off until no screen was left in his vision. After several minutes of lying there in silence, he eventually decided to retire for the night. Slowly, he sat upright and let out another sigh, before finally standing.

He reached up and took out the string that tied his long black hair back into a ponytail. When he shook his head lightly, his hair fell around his shoulders in a messy, dark curtain.

Simultaneously, his form had begun to slowly disperse into feathers until all the feathers were carried away by the wind.

***

The next day, the location of the blue bridge was finally confirmed, because it was the day the blue bridge leading back to the empires finally appeared.

The blue bridge usually appeared some days before the end of the eclipse, or rather, the beginning of a new eclipse. As such, the cadets could see its exact location on their whisper-globes. Although they had already known where it would appear, seeing this confirmation sent a cold feeling into everyone’s gut.

Meanwhile, earlier today, the leaders of the various parties, together with a few members of the parties, were led to the castle for a meeting in preparation for the journey to King’s Paradise.

For many of them, this was the first time actually crossing into this section of the city.

When they got to the castle, they were led to a large chamber where they met up with Cedric’s party, a few members of Aurora’s party, Argentos, and a few of the hollow ones.

The chamber had a very high, vaulted ceiling and a massive round table in the center. The windows by the side were gaping, glassless apertures, letting the light of the moon shine directly upon the figures seated around the table. Of course, there were braziers spaced along the walls to illuminate the room as well.

The people seated were Cedric and his party, Aurora and a few core members of her party, and the hollow ones. The rest of the cadets stood around it in a circle with their shadows stretching long against the cold stone floor.

Now, it was important to note that the cadets had no idea what King’s Paradise looked like or how to navigate the terrain, as no one had ever made it there before. There was no map leading there, and even the name "King’s Paradise" was given to it by the scholars of the empire for the sake of having a title for the unknown.

Since it was obvious knowledge that every region had beings of a grade higher, everyone knew that grade three creatures ruled there. However, it was only recently that the cadets discovered that the beings who dominated that region were called Nagas.

As for the details about these creatures called the Naga, the hollow ones had informed the cadets about them over the course of the past weeks.

The Nagas were absolutely horrifying beings, and what made them even more deadly were the powers they possessed. Aside from being adept in water and poison magic, the Nagas were able to inflict paralysis or petrification upon beings who looked them in the eyes. Because of this, the cadets had been training during the past weeks to fight without looking at their faces.

Although to be frank, this was a task that was far easier said than done.

So many spent their hours solely focused on training their magic and hoping that the hollow ones would cover for them in physical combat.

The Nagas aside, the cadets also learned about the fact that the lords of the first ring were actually humans with powers similar to theirs.

This shocked the cadets to their core when they first heard it.

At first, they found it hard to believe and a few even went to Leon to confirm such a revelation.

Because, how could that be?

Leon confirmed that it was indeed true and that the final deciding battle would not be between monsters, but rather, humans.

Of course, he only confirmed the species of their final opponents. He didn’t tell them about the existence of the world called Earth, or the fact that they had been brought here by a god from that world. He felt that it wasn’t a good idea to disclose this, at least for now.

The dilemma was that, traditionally, the people of the empire knew how to stop the monsters from the different rings from invading. They knew that in order to stop the catastrophe, they needed to journey through the veil and destroy the red bridge or, if they were able, kill the lords. However, they only had this information because the gods had revealed it to the oracles of the churches over a thousand years ago. Because of this, Leon realized that telling the cadets that these very gods had brought humans here to become lords was a bad idea. It would throw the cadets into an even deeper state of confusion and conflict than they were already in.

Beyond that, Leon himself was overwhelmed too. He was still struggling to grasp and understand these events, as he simply didn’t have enough knowledge to make sense of it all yet. So, he chose silence.

Anyway... setting all of this aside, the leaders of the different parties and the hollow ones were now gathered to discuss the final leg of their journey into the territory of these "lords."