Chapter 26: Smiling Moon
"For the first condition, you will just have to get every single one of your stat to cross a hundred."
'This doesn't sound that difficult in actuality,'
Licht knew that the zone he was going into held hundreds of calamities, and if he killed them all one by one, then not just a hundred, but even double of that would be easy.
But as if breaking all his notions, Mr. Flare spoke again.
"This may sound easy to you, but it is quite hard to get them past the hundred mark, especially when you lose the stat feature of the system when all of your stats become 50,"
"It doesn't matter if I explain it or not. You will experience it in the near future."
"The second thing is to awaken the god's mantle,"
"….."
Licht waited for him to complete his line, but even after some seconds, Mr. Flare didn't say a thing.
"Is that it? Are you kidding me?" Licht's frustrated voice echoed from the room's wall.
"Nope, you asked me about how to reach the first realm, and I told you,"
"But, I don't even know what a god's mantle is. Can't you explain at least some of it? Some?"
Listening to Licht's words, Mr. Flare pondered for a moment before he came to a decision.
"Well…ok. God's mantle is something you will unlock when the time comes. It is similar to the 'monster' and awakening but still vastly different to them."
"For your own, and the zone's benefit, I won't tell more, but if you persist. Then, I will just erase the memory of everything you have listened to here."
"Am I clear, sir Licht?"
Having no other choice, and fearing the mind wipe the hamster talked about.
Licht finally abided by his terms. "Fine,"
"If everything is finally clear, then I will send you off now!"
Mr. Flare murmured, making weird signs in the air with his umbrella as slowly wind converged to his left.
Suddenly a small spark ignited in the air, and it grew bigger and bigger until a portal manifested.
The portal was similar to the one Licht had first gone inside, its color growing in an eerily mix of black and grey.
The air swirled to Licht's right as his black hair tried to flow in it. It was like the portal would envelop and eat everything.
"It is time, Sir Licht. I bid you with my well wishes,"
"Uh, o-"
"An advice from me, the hardest choices require the strongest wills." Mr. Flare said as he caught Licht's arm with the handle of his umbrella and pushed him into the portal.
Licht's eyes flashed as the white room faded before his eyes and with the cute yet dreadful hamster.
"Couldn't he have done it in a better way? Was there really a need to throw me through it," he complained while dusting his butt off.
Just as he got up from the lying down position.
Licht's eyes widened at the scenery before his eyes. "Ah, shit,"
A massive gate was in front of him, adorned with many jewels and a cross in between its doors.
The wrought iron gate of what looked like a church stood tall and imposing, adorned with intricate patterns of inverted crosses and otherworldly figures.
Its white color contrasted against the black stone walls of the church, creating a striking and solemn entrance.
But what disturbed Licht were the arts on the walls. 'These figures, they feel too creepy.'
Everywhere on the wall were creepy monster-like figures. Every single one of them showed different types of scenes.
One on the corner wall showed a giant humanoid figure. It conjured hundreds of dark tendrils of something which laid ruins of the surrounding area.
They sprouted from the ground, the sky, and even its body, uprooting everything from the world as its clad hand held onto a long-bladed spear.
No one was safe from the power behind its rampage.
Shifting his eyes, Licht looked at another scene, a monster with hundreds of heads destroyed a city below it as lasers came out of its mouth.
Red blood scattered into the sky and then evaporated under the bombardment of its laser. The weight of its tentacle like legs crushed everything in all directions.
Its thousands of hands spread in all directions causing massive waves in the air, killing all lifeform surrounding it in one single sweep.
Out of all these harrowing scenes, one gave Licht trembles from even looking at its scenery.
It wasn't anything fascinating or too shocking at first glance, but the more he looked at it, the more his hands turned cold.
It was disturbing, too much at that.
The picture depicted a dreadful snake. A snake made of thousands, if not tens of thousand skulls.
Its body was as big as the clouds in the sky above, and its head adorned a crown.
It coiled around tens of islands on the water, wriggling its massive body as if celebrating the end of the world.
The water surrounding it turned swampy blue, and a strange gas enveloped the world.
This wasn't even the most blood-curdling thing about it. It was the people.
All the people around were going toward its body, reverence deeply seated in their shallow eyes, as the snake devoured their souls.
Finally turning his gaze from these ominous things, Licht's body trembled from deep within his bones.
'These are just paintings! Why do I feel so scared of them?'
"It is like they are something that isn't meant to exist in this world,"
Calming himself from the initial shock, he strolled further inside after checking that the gates couldn't be opened.
He wasn't spawned outside the church but inside it.
Beyond the place where the gate was situated, a peaceful pond shimmered under the moon's light.
Its gentle ripples reflected the dark and weird sky above.
Licht was happy to see the outside world and not feel constricted as he had felt in the sewers and cave.
But even this was short-lived as he gazed more at the moon-
"What in the bloody hell am I looking at?" he had thought that this world couldn't be more crazy, but he was wrong.
The moon was smiling at him.
No, it smiled at the world as what felt like blood dribbled down its crimson teeth, which shone under its shimmer.
'Well, let's hope it doesn't get any more creepy,' Licht thought, shifting his gaze back to the pond and the surrounding area.
As Licht knelt by the edge of the pond, gazing at his reflection, he couldn't help but notice the subtle change in his appearance.
His hand instinctively reached up to his face. Licht's face was much more mature than before.
'Did just one month of this hell make me this cool? At this rate, I will be a supermodel by the time I leave here.' he thought, trying to lighten his mood.
His hand instinctively reached up to touch his hair. Its rough strands flowed through his fingers.
What used to be a simple, black color was now evolving into a mesmerizing shade of white from the base of his head.
The reflection that stared back at him seemed like a stranger, a person he had never seen before yet knew all about.
This appearance was a stark reminder of the suicidal journey he had embarked on.
Author's Notes: Well,(I know, I used well quite a lot, new habit kek.) this is my first time trying to write this kind of harrowing description for monsters and whatever these were(no spoiler), so do tell me if it was bad or good and if you like this kind of things in the future!
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