Kevin had been in the military for two whole decades now. He had worked his way up from the bottom with his own hard work. The people who said that he had used his family's influence to get to his current position were simply jealous peasants. After all, going drinking with important people was hard work.
He had long been looking for an opportunity to lead a bigger deployment in order to boost his record and get promoted again. He had been asking around for months now and finally, he got his chance! He was to lead a deployment into the alps to find a lower realm where a group of criminals was said to be hiding.
If he successfully completed this mission his promotion was basically guaranteed. The unit he had been assigned was a group of a hundred mages with a few high mages mixed in. Not the army's best but a strong unit none the less. Sadly, he didn't know that the last team that had entered the lower realm consisted of archmages and only one of them had left alive.
The last human bastion was on one of the lower plateaus of the alps connected to the military base below through a cable car. From that point onwards was the monsters' territory. Every cave was the residents of a horde of mountain goblins or a bunch of rock trolls. There were even rumors about some goblins building bases.
In the early morning hours, Kevin and his unit left the cable car, made their way through the gates of the plateau base, and began to ascend the mountain.
At first, everything went smoothly and they only met small groups of goblins that we're easily dispatched. However, as they were approaching the mountain pass indicated by the map a group of goblin riders assaulted them.
Commonly, mountain goblins didn't use mounts due to the difficulty of both obtaining and using mounts, mostly wolves, in the mountains. These goblin riders on the other hand were using a wide array of mounts ranging from lynxes to ibexes to brown bears.
A rather mixed bunch but very agile in mountainous terrain.
By continuously charging the units' flank before retreating the goblin riders became an incredible headache for Kevin. When the goblin riders were finally wiped out the unit had lost three mages. A humiliation considering that they were mages fighting lowly goblins.
97 and Kevin left...
After crossing the pass they reached a valley within the alps as indicated by the map. The valley was inhabited by many goblins and even the occasional rock troll. Only after a grueling battle that claimed another three mages.
Finally, they found the cave where the gate should be located. To no one's surprise, the cave was filled with more goblins. Kevin was already cursing when one of the high mages stepped up and flooded the cave with a large scale fire spell. All goblins died from the fire, lack of oxygen, or smoke they inhaled.
94 and Kevin left...
Entering the cave that was filled with charred corpses they found a glowing blue gate at the very back.
"We found the gate. But why didn't the goblins escape through the gate? Can they not enter?"
Kevin was a little confused by this strange occurrence but put it to the back of his mind. It was already late in the afternoon and he didn't want to camp out in this goblin-infested mountains.
The unit entered the gate in combat formation and soon emerged on a grassy plane with occasional fruit trees all over. Unicorns were peacefully grazing and on the trees were rainbow-colored snakes lounging around.
"Now, where are those criminals? We'll first have to clear the area of these monsters and continue to search."
Following Kevin's orders, the unit approached one of the unicorns and hurled a few spells at it. The unicorn's horn lit up as a lance of light was fired. The spells were all dissipated by the light lance and the unicorn retreated a couple of meters returning its attention to feeding on grass.
"It's not hostile?"
The unit experimented a few more times and discovered that neither the unicorns nor the snakes were hostile in any way. They would respond to an attack by blocking it and retreating before going back to whatever they were doing.
Kevin was still contemplating their next move when one of the mages picked an apple from one of the trees and took a bite. The others were all looking on with interested gazes since everyone wanted to know the effect of the apples. After taking one bite the mage's face lit up as he quickly took another bite.
The apple was evidently not poisonous and based on his reaction it was good stuff. Most of the mages picked a few apples and began to eat them. Kevin did so too and discovered that the apple raised the amount of magic in his body making him stronger.
The unit had completely forgotten about their mission as they were too immersed in the process of stuffing their faces with apples. Most of the trees didn't have more than twenty apples so the group unknowingly walked deeper and deeper into the grassy plane until the gate was left far behind.
Time went by and the sun slowly reached down to touch the horizon. Darkness began to take over the land of paradise but went unnoticed by the unit advancing further still.
Ultimately, the calmness that had persisted since their entry was broken by hundreds of pained neighs. Since all the mages present had gone through military training they immediately became alert. Still, only half of them stopped eating apples while the others continued at a feverish pace.
The pained neighs came from the unicorns. As the unit observed with horror, one of the snow-white unicorn close to them was writhing on the ground. The unicorn slowly turned black, its eyes a scarlet red. The glowing white horn atop its head broke off while two blade-like horns grew on either side of its head.
The transformation had been completed and the creature had once again grown silent. Its bloody eyes quickly found the shivering humans, it opened its mouth revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, picked up its former horn with its mouth, and shattered it with a powerful crunch.
Meanwhile, the mages who had kept eating apples also started to raise panicked screams. The apples they had been so greedily eating had turned rotten in their hands and they felt like their stomachs being shredded by countless knives. They attempted to throw away the remains of the apples in their hands but found that their bodies were paralyzed. Thankfully the effects only showed on those who had kept eating the apples after nightfall.
At a shrill his the unit's gazes drifted towards the treetops where the rainbow snakes had turned into spectral apparitions that slithered through the branches. These phantom serpents were well visible due to their milky white bodies in the dark of the night.
And above it all, a crimson moon had risen. Red clouds approached from all directions bringing a rain of blood with them. The high mages in the group were the first to react by summoning various shields and barriers to block the red rain.
The others followed suit but were a moment too late. Some of the liquid touched their bodies and immediately began to corrode all it touched.
"There are too many monsters and unknown dangers here! We aren't their match. Everyone retreat and regroup on the other side of the gate!"
Kevin had decided that he wasn't willing to risk his life for a promotion and gave the order to retreat. Following him, 39 members of his unit began their sprint for the gate and their lives.
The other 55 were left behind, their bodies paralyzed, and only a few barriers keeping the outside dangers away from them. The blood rain was quickly corroding its way through the barriers and phantom serpents were poised to strike.
High up in the dark sky a humanoid figure was levitating. The figure's gaze was following the fleeing group at first, then it drifted back to the paralyzed group.
"You will pay the price for entering my garden and eating from my apples. This time not even one of them will escape me!"
The figure waved its hand prompting a myriad of thorn bushes to sprout from the earth. With a snap from the same hand, all the thorn bushes burst into flame while giving off a strong divine pressure that instantly obliterated the barriers of the paralyzed group.
No sooner had the barriers disappeared did the phantom serpents shoot forward with deadly accuracy to reap the lives of those foolish intruders and to crush the resulting bodies in their mighty maws.
39 and Kevin left...
The retreating group was only doing slightly better. After the burning thorn bushes had rid them of their shields the eleven high mages in the group had barely managed to raise theirs again and hold them above the group despite the divine pressure. However, this took all their focus and left them vulnerable to attacks from the transformed unicorns and phantom serpents. The remaining 28 mages desperately tried to protect the high mages hoping they would last until the gate.
The figure in the sky simply snorted and vanished. He appeared right before the running fools and as soon as they lay their eyes on him they all turned into pillars of salt in human shapes.
"The image of God isn't meant to be seen by mortal eyes. None shall defile my garden with their filthy presence. And now you are the only one left little coward."
0 and Kevin left...
Kevin was scared shitless. Literally, his stomach had emptied all its contents into his pants until there was nothing left. He was hiding behind a pillar of salt that had once been a high mage.
The sound of approaching hooves grew stronger and Kevin could see the milky-white serpents descending from above. He could hardly feel the blood rain corrode his skin and the fact that his entire body was shivering completely escaped his notice.
All Kevin wanted at that moment was to leave that place alive.
"I didn't know that we weren't permitted to enter your garden. Sir? We just came to apprehend some criminals who were said to be hiding here."
"Are you implying that I, the last judge, would grant shelter to someone undeserving? You wish to pass on judgment without my consent? I judge your sins to be unforgivable!"
No one left... Total wipeout.
"But it is strange. No one has entered this for years and they thought sinners to be here? It must be the humans and their foolishness again."