Chereads / Sky Chasers: Scale of Judgment / Chapter 4 - The Mysterious Array

Chapter 4 - The Mysterious Array

Luis traversed deep inside the forest. The trees got thicker and the shades got dimmer. Different sounds echoed together with the rustle of the wind as the sky started to change its shade from blue to orange.

He walked a little further as he finds a place wide enough to place a tent. Luis stopped near a river and assembled the tent a little bit further from it and after that, he made a fire, which was taught to him by the old man, out of the firewood he gathered along the way. Night crawled in and Luis ate his dinner and settled in the tent for the rest of the night while the sound of water rushing echoed together with the chirping of the crickets.

As soon as the sun rose, he packed up his things and continued his journey towards his destination marked on the map.

Three hours passed by and Luis arrived at an expansive space that was covered in grass, and a temple lies at the center which emitted an ancient vibe like its been at this place for centuries.

Even though this temple looked old, its structure was still solid. Vines crept up to its cobblestone walls where one can see red flowers seldomly bloomed around.

He entered the temple and from the place he was standing, he saw a stone slab with words carved with the same style as the scribbles written on the student handbook, and a circle can be seen carved on the ground with five holes in it, four of it were cup-size holes which occupied the four cardinal directions and the fifth one was placed in the center with which its size is as large as a basin.

Luis roamed around the circle trying to find out what to do because, unlike the student handbook, this slab doesn't have any translations or images depicted on it telling what to do next.

Hours passed and the sky slowly changed its hue into orange. He surrendered finding clues and decided to take a rest. He sat down at one side of the hall, his back facing a wall covered with thick vines.

As he tried to lean his back against the wall and take a nap, he didn't felt the cold and stiff quality of a wall but instead, his back just passed through and he fell down the ground, and when he looked towards it, he discovered that it was a passage leading to another place.

He followed the path and there he saw a spring with crystal clear water that one can see the bottom of it. He immediately drank the water to quench his thirst and he also washed his sweaty face. As magic happened, his exhaustion immediately disappeared, he regained his former energy, and then he continued to investigate the slab and the circle.

He walked back to the place where the slab and circle are found, he glanced at the slab as thoughts and ideas surged to his mind.

"Upper Teleportation Array... Wait... How on earth did I understand that?" Luis marveled as he suddenly gained an understanding of the oddly written words.

"The Upper Teleportation Array works when the directions are filled with a sudden flow of knowledge that can be described as an insight." Luis read the other written words on the slab as if he learned it since he was a child.

"A riddle? Oh my! I thought I can solve this easily." Luis thought as he looked around the temple, he walked around as he brushed his hands against the vines, but he suddenly caught sight of scribbles behind the vines, he pulled out the other vines and it revealed a list of what Luis thought to be names of people.

"Amarilla Delmont." He read the name which caught his interest.

"Why does this name feels so familiar?" He thought.

He continued to pull out the other vines and he found nothing behind them. He reached the room where the spring is and pulled out the vines, he was disappointed when he still saw nothing. A rock that looks strange suddenly caught his attention.

"Wait, why does this rock have moss while the spring itself doesn't have any?" He thought when he saw that it looks too strange.

He cleared out the moss from the stone and words appeared from it.

"Spring of Enlightenment." He read.

"Wait... A sudden flow of knowledge that can be described as an insight... Isn't that mean enlighten?" He realized as he got excited and scoop a handful of the spring and ran to the circle but when he poured it out, he felt like he's pouring air, nothing drops and nothing remains at his hand.

He tried it a few times but still, the same thing happened. When he got tired of trying, he sat down next to the rock which has the words, "Spring of Enlightenment" carved on it.

"Damn! This is stupid! How can I fill those if it keeps disappearing like that!" Luis raged as he picked up the rock with carvings on it and tossed it in the water out of his anger.

The stone sank at the bottom of the spring as words projected on the surface of the water.

"The water can only be borne by the being whose innocence from death is pure. A person is guilty, for life can't be removed from their daily servings, and an animal is guilty, for they prey life to live. What being could it be that can strive on its own without consuming life?" The words depicted in a riddle, which made the raged Luis think.

"A man can't and an animal also can't... Then it should be a plant? Wait... Right! I'm sure it's a plant! A man can't live without eating meat or plant and the same thing applies to animals but a plant can live without consuming meat nor plant!" Luis cheered when he found the answer to the riddle.

"I remember that grandpa taught me how to make a container out of tree fibers and leaves!" He remembered as he goes out of the temple in the middle of the night and gathered some leaves and extracted some fibers from the tree trunks. An hour passed and he sewn a bowl-like container made out of leaves.

He scooped some water from the spring and tried to transfer it to the holes of the circle.

"Yes! It worked!" Luis celebrated as he filled out the three remaining holes. When the fourth hole was filled, the water flowed from four directions towards the basin-sized hole at the center. The circle brightened as it slowly devoured Luis.

Different colored lights swirled from Luis's sight as it blinded him for some time. His energy slowly faded as these lights slowly consume it.

The light disappeared and Luis found himself lying on the cold ground in the middle of a forest. He tried to look around but he can't move his body as he felt exhausted and his vision slowly blurred and darkness ruled over his consciousness as he fell into a deep slumber.

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"Are they the prophesied children from above?" An old man with a long white beard asked.

"No, the prophecy only stated one child." An old bald man answered.

"Then their chances of getting a Legacy from a god are high?" A long-haired woman asked.

"Maybe, but let's not ignore our initial purpose." The old man with a beard reminded.

"Hey! Why so serious? Thinking about something strange?" The woman poked a young man aged around 20s.

"Uh, it's nothing, just feeling apprehensive about this." The young man replied.

"It's nothing kid, don't overthink things!" The old man with a beard comforted.

"I guess so." The young man replied.

"I wish that this feeling can be wrong, just this time." The young man muttered to himself as they continued the meeting.