THE FORBIDDEN GROUNDS
"This scroll describes a reward to enter a forbidden area in the Conjurer Court, the Forbidden Grounds", he told me.
"What are the Forbidden Grounds?" I asked him.
"There is a powerful divine weapon left in the Forbidden Grounds for those who could claim it and there is a magic constellation skill that goes with the weapon. However, few conjurers..no.. no conjurer has ever managed to retrieve the magic weapon or the constellation before", he told me.
"We'll take this reward", Meera said to me suddenly.
"Alright, this reward it is", I told the manager of the Mission Center.
"You are still short of a few vouchers to receive this reward", the manager told me.
"What are you saying?" I shouted to him angrily.
"I… I'll give you a discount on the reward", he replied to me after I intimidated him.
I was after all the Bully of Starri city.
"Why do you want me to go to the Forbidden Grounds?" I asked Meera.
"I can feel a familiar magic in the scroll. I am sure there is something in the Forbidden Grounds that belongs to our religion", Meera told me.
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I found out later that I wasn't the only person going to the Forbidden Grounds. Although few people have ever gone into the Forbidden Grounds recently, once I bought the ticket to enter this realm, many conjurers decided to join.
"It is suspicious why so many people will go to the Forbidden Grounds with us all of a sudden. Isn't this an unpopular mission?" Ratatouille asked me in my mind.
My golem friends were connected to my soul when they were reborn as golems, so they could enter into my soul realm easily with their magic.
However, only Ratatouille was comfortable inside my soul realm.
My soul realm was now occupied by the nascent soul of the Dark Angel and the realm was filled with dreaded malevolence. Ratatouille was the Anti-Saint of Greed, so he felt at home in this environment.
Chash, Cassandra and Meera, on the other hand, don't feel comfortable inside my soul realm, so they seldom went inside and even if they did, it would be for a short period of time.
"If these people didn't come along, Chash and Cassandra will come along with us", Meera told me in my mind.
Because there were conjurers who followed me into the Forbidden Grounds, I couldn't bring Chash and Cassandra. They wouldn't want to stay inside my malevolent soul realm for extended periods, so they stayed out from this mission.
Meera, on the other hand, was determined to come because this was a mission related to her beliefs, her religion.
"Are you sure you will not reconsider going into the Forbidden Grounds?" Conjurer Iras asked me.
"Don't worry about me. I told you I wouldn't go in alone, see all these fellas coming with me", I told him.
"These people are what I am most worried about. All of them belongs to or are affiliated with Conjurer Ivior's sect. After how you humiliated him earlier, he might want to harm you in the Forbidden Grounds", Iras told me.
"Isn't it illegal to harm conjurers in the Conjurer Court?" I asked him.
"The Forbidden Grounds is not a part of the Conjurer Court, there are precedents of conjurers fighting and hurting each other in there without consequences from the Conjurer court", he told me.
"That is fantastic. I don't need to restrain myself. No wonder so many people took the ticket to the Forbidden Grounds so suddenly", I told him.
"Are you going to fight with them, those conjurers who goes into the Forbidden Grounds with you?" he asked me.
"If they behave themselves", I replied to him.
Suddenly, the magical portal to the Forbidden Grounds was summoned.
"See you later, Iras", I told Iras before walking into the magic portal.
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Upon stepping through the portal into the Forbidden Grounds, I found myself transported to a different dimension.
This desolate realm was characterized by vast rocky plains below and enormous floating islands above, gracefully orbiting the central mainland.
The magic within this realm was both potent and tightly concentrated, creating a palpable pressure that bore down on us as we traversed the rugged plains.
Amidst our journey, we stumbled upon the remnants of past explorers and conjurers who had ventured into this mystical land, only to meet their demise without ever returning to the city of Tarah.
While the realm did not seem to harbor any overt dangers or lethal predators, the escalating atmospheric pressure posed a significant challenge for less resilient templars attempting to move forward. The air itself became an obstacle, making progression difficult for those lacking in strength.
Suddenly, the conjurers who had accompanied me into this otherworldly domain began to falter under the relentless pressure, succumbing to the unforgiving environment.
-----
"We can't stand this environment anymore, now we kill this bastard here", one of the conjurers who followed me into this realm told the rest.
Soon, all of these conjurers banded together preparing to attack me. They amassed their magic before launching them on me.
"We will kill the bastard in one conjuration. He is too sneaky, the master told us not to withhold our strength", another conjurer told the others.
Hundreds of conjured spears appeared in the sky which rushed toward me. Hundreds of flying daggers were following suit. Showers of meteors piled above the flying daggers while freezing hail dropped over the meteors.
The conjurers launched perfectly timed conjurations that would strike me in consecutive waves with little time in between them to prevent my escape.
These conjurers were among the strongest in the Conjurer Court. They were probably ranked at least at Yellow tiered Legendary between Levels 1 to 5. I, on the other hand, was only ranked at Yellow tier Legendary Level 2.
However, the Conjurer Court's ranking system was an imperfect science.
Soon, to the surprise of the conjurers, I was decimated completely, extinguished into the ground after being hit the first time. Waves after waves of magic fell upon where I was but they were rather pointless, I was already gone.
"Huh, there is no reason to be conservative with this bastard, he couldn't take even the first wave of our attacks", one of the conjurers told the others.