Mark along with his newly formed party stood before the green line which separates them from the fourth division by a single foot.
" Boss! Do you think that we'll pass this fourth division a whole? " Clain who was standing few feet away from mark, questioned him hesitantly.
She became impatient after seeing her boss mark, glaring at fourth division for a while.
Though she wasn't arrogant, nor in a way offensive to mark with her words. Sidmon who was standing next to her, started having sweat all over his body. Glaring at her courageous self which really dared to put that question before mark!
" Clain... Astarait! How dare you? " Sidmon bellowed out in fright, thinking that giving such ideas to mark was not wise thing, at least at this moment.
Haylin and Gregor who who were standing at the other side had been alerted by him.
But unlike them they didn't reveal it towards outside, and stood still like a rock feigning ignorance, but still they weren't all not curious of what mark would say!
Previously, sidmon had seen his boss triumph over those six unbeatable puppets by clever wits and absolute strength.
His boss was an existence which saved them from the mouths of death, after being abandoned by their forces.
If it wasn't for mark to carry them till this point, the possibility of clearing this third division would had been a dream in their eyes under normal circumstances, let alone the case where the difficulty was raised to an unprecedential levels!
Earlier when clain asked mark by stating "we'll" in it, she was literally asking him to carry them till the very ends of the test track, along with the fake glory of completing the fourth division through mark's efforts!
Sidmon knows that if it was for the case, he and others would forever remain a dead weight, in eyes of mark. Some useless followers who were of no use to mark.
And after swearing their loyalty towards mark through demon god vows, they were forever forced to remain a pawn in the hands of his, and who knows weather, they wouldn't be disposed under the schemes of his, had mark finds no use to carry them in future!
" How should i deal with this situation? Clain... I don't know weather you're simply clever or just too dump to spark up with that question! " Mark questioned internally.
If he failed to provide a satisfactory answer to clain, the morale of his party would fall, and the chances to clear this test track would be less.
But had he given them the assurance, they would be prone to lax and it would not be good to his party to clear the fourth division.
But at this moment, levi who was standing at the last, few feet away from mark, had stepped forward.
She then turned her head slowly towards the terrified face of Clain and exclaimed. " Since we could come this far, we would naturally clear this fourth division as a whole! "
She later looked at the other faces next to mark and exclaimed " Should i find you people to be lazing out or draging me down, I would for sure abandon you at that place, even if this mark may necessarily pleads on your behalf! I would not be merciful at that time, remember I would not be merciful in the least. "
She finished her last sentence by bellowing it loud and clear. At the same time she put a snort before crossing the green line, glaring angrily at mark with killing gaze.
The fright in clain eyes diminished a little, so was Sidmon who was standing next to her. The tension in air started decreasing all of a sudden, as if it hadn't existed before to begin with.
" Levi, it's good that you solved this thing well, but why is there a need to act cold before Clain and Sidmon? They were the people who hadn't seen you trying to kill me before.
Che! Now all four followers of mine know the thing of hatred of her's towards me! " Mark exclaimed in with a troubled face.
Earlier, Levi shown her dominance before them. And at the same time she pointed out that, as long as they give their best she'd naturally would not abandon them in the least.
But at the same time she stated out boldly that she'll clearly abandon them had they laxed a little, by taking advantage of others works. Even mark wouldn't have a say that time.
Shortly following her, clain who almost became a lackey to her had entered in, following by Sidmon who was a bit hesitant while entering, with few occasional glances he would throw at mark with a nervous face.
While Gregor and Haylin glanced few eyes of pity at the figure of mark, before entering the four dividing along with him.
" Just why is she still mad at me? I just touched her abdomen to begin with. Though it was barehanded, two layers of fabric was there damn it! The real culprit are the floating arrays, why don't you vent your anger on them? " Mark cursed internally, while crossing the green line.
" Why do I feel feather weighted all of a sudden? " Mark was surprised by the things he started experiencing after entering the fourth division.
His facial composure changed all of a sudden, when the gravity acting on him was not any more unfair. Like he was not in the test track to begin with!
" Why's the gravity not as pulling as before? Just what are these old timers of upper management, trying to do by lifting off the gravity? " Mark questioned out internally in surprise.
But he wouldn't even know the thing that the control board was destroyed by Arlong, and the gravity runes were not anymore receiving commands from control center to pull the testers down, in an unfair way! Which resulted in almost no additional gravity acting on them.
The faces of others turned lively, they no longer had a need to face that cursing gravity again.
It was as if a huge load been removed from their bodies, and they felt feathered weight capable of traversing hundreds of meters in a single leap!
But the anxiety on their face was short lived, when their eyes gazed around the surroundings, which were different from what they had seen before.
The plain looking test track started expanding at a fast pace, expanding few tens of meters on all sides by matter of seconds.
In just a couple of minutes it expanded trice the original size, and yet was not showing any traces of stoppage.
The fourth division was becoming an enormous space, and took a minute to roughly bear a cuboidal space before slowing with its abrupt expansion rate.
It enclosed an large area of four square kilometers on it's floor, where the final fated battle of them was going to take place.
Comming back to present, they all were inside the fourth division and were surprised by the changes taking place inside at a rapid rate. " Did we entered into an spatial artifact? " Mark exclaimed out in surprise.
Though the fourth division was the final part of test track, located within the seventh platform.
It was not possible for it alone to expand at such, considering it's position in platform grounds which was relatively close to the enclosed walls of the platform by few hundreds of meters.
So if an actual expansion was to take place, the fourth division could at best stretch it's boundaries by few hundreds of meters, let alone the possibility of two thousand meters it roughly stretched.
The actual expansion which took place breaks all logic, if it wasn't for it being a spatial artifact, used to test individuals.
Hearing the words muttered by mark, Levi snorted a bit, with an angry face, bellowing " An artifact! How could anyone artifact hold us alive? Could any one explain me, since when does the spatial artifact became capable enough of contain living souls and their bodies?
Even a fool could say that this is micro realm owned by arena! Don't mislead others if you not confident with your words! " Mark became angry after listening to her words.
She was repeatedly insulting him with heavy words, taking in account of the things he done to her previously.
If not for that, he would for sure talk back to her with face smacking words, which would cause her embarrass at her own ignorance.
Miss levi this whole dungeon you are living is a huge spatial treasure to begin with, which could even be turned out to be a high class relic if calibrated! So are you some ghost who managed to live in this spatial treasure by your reasoning? "
Mark wanted to exclaim these words out his mouth, but didn't. As he did not wish to create a permanent wedge between them, as relations are always tends to have fights before they actually bind more harder than before, with strong understanding.
After cursing her internally, mark glanced at his front, only to be terrified by the results he found.
A huge stage, several hundreds of humanoid puppets that were arranged orderly, like some soldiers in a battle formation.
Enemy commanders and generals, heavily armed infantry, multiple equipped elites and cavalry, the scene was more of a battle field than some simple test.
Mark had almost underestimated the difficulty of fourth division, but was startled at the results.
With the loss of excess gravity that made them agile as before, Mark thought that he could fight at full potential, but couldn't guarantee his victory under these conditions.
But the frightening scene of battling an entire well designed army had made him loss as his words in fright, had all such puppets were of the caliber he fought before in third division.
Though the space enclosed by the fourth division is roughly a cuboidal one, with a square platform. Not all of its regions were going to be used as a battle field to begin with.
The battle field where the final test was going to take place was roughly an rhomboid one, an elongated one at that, with its sharp points at the middle of two opposite sides of the floor.
One at the entry point where the testers had entered in, while the other being the yellow line which the testers need to cross, if they wish to exit out this test track for good.
It was similar to have two javelin pitches thrown on the stage, where the running track with its tapering end starts from the sides of the square floor, and meets up with each other near the center.
The rhomboidal battle field was enclosed by an milky opaque barrier, which restricted the testers from moving out the battle track.
The track also had some black linings at regular intervals, to inform the testers about the distance they had covered so far.
A first line was about hundred meters from their position, and was the area where the first set of humanoid puppets were stationed.
They were ten in number, serves like an appetizer before the main dish could be served.
They roughly carried the length of an average human, with a set of sharp blades in their arms. Which would be launched readily, had they crossed that line black line to begin with.
They were purely covered in white plated armour, with a completely enclosing helm that had a single horizontal slit at middle, which emitted golden brown light, indicating that they all were run on reserves of mana, supplied from below.
Though they were ten in number, the aura emitted out their bodies were of initial order aura lord, not a thing challenging to him at his current strength.
This information he found out their bodies had made his eyes widen with excitement.
The puppets aren't self-repairable, they didn't had a smaller cores like the cases he seen before. And their bodies aren't much durable like before, at most could take a single punch from him to become a waste piece of metal, waiting to be devoured of it's mana by mark.
Just like appetizer, a couple hundred meters from them was the place where the next set of puppets were being stationed, but this time they were hundred in number, entirely surpassing the previous count by ten times.
But with the presence of existing model, an new type of puppets were also introduced.
They were present before the army of hundred white platted soldiers as they leaders, which were much more stronger than the previous type, as the aura of an middle order aura lord was released from them.
The only noticeable difference from the previous variety was the existence of a two crossed stripes on the chest armour, which runs over the white plates uniformly.
This stripe had an combination of two colours, Thick black border containing crimson colour at middle.
They also have a long cape which was red in colour, with a strong overbearing spear which appeared to be of superior quality. They also held a silver buckler on the other arm as a defense, which looked quite sturdy.
All in all they were the superior version of ordinary puppets, and were numbered two in that group.
Right at the middle of the battle track, the main body was present, with an enormous toll of four thousand, leaded by hundreds of strong commanders, with fifteen over powered generals which were emitting aura of peak of aura lord, seated on an mount of heavily armed mechanical horses in black, which was larger than a regular one by two.
These varieties had a black platted armour, with white stripes borders by red line. They all had were equipped with a majestic silver coloured lance, which looked quite frightening, and a buckler as usual was attacked to one arm, that had some strange runes encrypted.
If it was just this, Mark wouldn't had been troubled to begin with! But a special squad of twenty, black cavalry, with the existences of half step king, stationed in a rows of two around a red puppet was puppet.
Like some royal guards stationed around the king, the black cavalry guarded the red coloured puppet like their king, which was apparently the boss of this fourth division to begin with.
Just as a king should be it's aura was no less than a powerful cultivator at high order aura king, that could rival a weak peak class one with number of artifacts present in his hold, whose power and luster didn't pale before an peak grade artifacts.
But all of a sudden the attention of all went towards the white coloured magic array, which was present on floor in dormant state.
When this array felt the presence of people around, it started glowing white. Reveling a stone monument popped out of it, inscribed by some instruction and two red coloured array flags side to it.
" Fighting against thousands is unfair, control the array to your use if eligible! " After reading these words some became dull, while others weren't.
Mark who was standing before it had his eyes attracted to the array. He extended his palm wanting to touch the monument and immediately activate it to test it's potency to his heart's content, as it was an army summoning array!
" Miss levi, this fourth division requires... an array master to complete! " Clain exclaimed depressingly.
Looking at the strength of mark and levi, clain retained some hope earlier, but clearing this division seems far tougher than they actually imagined it to be, as it requires the presence of an array master to ease their burden.
If not for the array master to be present, these six should be facing against these thousands of monsters all by themselves.
But Clain didn't knew that Mark had turned out to be an array master, if she had known that matter, she wouldn't necessarily have to frown on this matter to begin with.
Knowing that the prerequisite for clearing this stage is to have an array master, who will operates the flags for them, to assist in their conquest with troops, she became depressed.
Looking at the depressed face of clain, levi exclaimed with a cheering face, stating " Seems like you all can only depend on me this time! Let me take the command, go kill those ugly things, I will assist you with troops! "
Clain along with others were startled, they were not able to resist their anxiety within and exclaimed out excitingly " Miss levi are you an array master!? "
Looking at their excited faces which froze in shock, she gave a cough to bring back. the silence to the scene.
" Seems like we have to depend on miss levi this time! " Haylin was the first to boot lick her followed by Clain and Sidmon.
But Gregor who was standing at a corner came near to mark, standing next to the stone monument and exclaimed " Boss why aren't you taking the lead? " He asked with a puzzled face.
" Gregor... what you mean by that? Miss levi is an array master. If not for her who should probably take the lead? It's not like I am going to become jealous of her limelight to begin with! " Mark replied back to him, putting a little smile over his face, thinking that his follower was worried about his lime light being stolen by the women before him.
He wanted to hide his profession from the eyes of others, if not he would become an absolute target for elimination.
Good thing that Gregor came to interrupt him at the right time, if not Mark would had long since activated the array while touching the stone monument.
" Boss do you think that i gregor is also at dark, like those boot licking fools! " Gregor came closer to mark and muttered few words to mark's ears, which changed the composure on his face a little.
Mark had his eyes open in wide from shock, wondering how this follower of his came to knew of his secret?
Mark clearly knew that he hadn't carelessly spelled it to outside, to let other learn the secrets of his.
" Boss aren't you an array master too... and a peak of grade one on top of it! Why bother hiding it from the eyes of others? " These were the words Gregor muttered in the ears of mark.
" Gregor, let's see what she trying to do by being the lead! And I don't think that my intervening would do any great to our party... At most will increase her hatred towards me by an additional degree! " Exclaiming it out mark places his left arm over his shoulder before moving away from the monument, to let Levi activate it.
Author's notes.
The teat arc's last chapter will be released next time. Extremely excited here!š¤
Sorry been held back by work in my univ, so I was late in uploading.