Aurolio reached the summit of the mountain in less than a two minutes. Rias had been right. The mountain was larger than one would think. It suddenly broadened close to the base, arching into the forest he and the young man had battled in.
Naturally, he hadn't bothered with the powerful, chained Cluster General after Rias left. It was kept alive to keep the Cluster intact so there was no good reason for him to kill it.
Instead, he had scaled up the mountain, and found that the large landmass was not quite as normal as one would expect, especially for him who hadn't encountered an expositing Sky Watcher.
Even Aurolio was a little rattled by the mystical carvings, indecipherable writings, and twisted objects he found as he scaled the mountain.
More times than not, Aurolio had been sure he had heard a voice suddenly shriek close to him, or felt something touching his back, but when he turned, he didn't see anything.
It had suddenly grown much, much colder as he climbed ascended further. This cold wasn't the usual chill normal people felt.
In fact, Aurolio had discovered the specifics of his oddity a few decades after he accepted the proposal from the Book of Alignment.
What he felt as he cold, wasn't always related to temperature. That was indeed quite obvious. Instead, most of it was because he was very sensitive to any traces of anything that was dead. He only questioned why he felt cold on a daily basis because of habit. It had taken him a long time to figure out why he was so pale and cold, after all, and asking why, was just a way to get by.
That said, the reaction he usually got even from walking through a graveyard was never this intense. He had never heard voices like this, or feel like his wrist had been pulled, or that a blurry face had suddenly jutted out in front of him.
All this wasn't too surprising to Aurolio when he had found tens of thousands of graves all arranged neatly wherever he went, traces of weathered, white bone showing from some.
It had all spooked him a little at first, but when he went past the clouds in his ascent, he had breezed his way to the top without stopping, as the influence of the clouds was quelled.
This hadn't been the case prior to reaching the mountain.
Now, the pale man faced a bright, ethereal door that looked to have been made to accommodate the large Cluster General instead of any human. It had an inviting gleam, and Aurolio was pretty sure it could lead him outside, but then...
He turned back.
'When hearing about those followers of the Undead, I never imagined any one of them could be like me. If they were, they would have taken over this world already,' he thought. 'Void wouldn't admit it, but it's clear the Undead have the upper hand right now if they can make so many followers in other worlds, who can also somehow replicate their abilities among others.'
This was Aurolio's own interpretation of how the struggle between the Parallels seemed to be as of this moment. With this current development though....
The gleam green tinged with darkness soaring into the darkness beyond the clouds made him feel uneasy.
Aurolio hadn't lied when he said to Skullius he wasn't up for following whatever he was supposed to do as a bearer of Voided Death. He truly had goals that he had to accomplish before even considering it.
That said, he was only comfortable saying that because Skullius was nowhere near as strong as he was, thus he didn't seem him as threat.
But what about the one who held Undeath in this world?
Was he starting to show himself?
***
The group of four reached the source of the glaring light and vicious heat.
From several dozens of meters ago, the ground had begun to turn red, screaming whenever each of them took a step over it, their bodies guarded by mana.
They stopped at the edge of a cliff, and looked down to find a dying lake with strangely calm waters, somehow free from the scorch that emanated just beyond it, bellowing from a towering green mass of fire that didn't seem to be close to dying out at all.
The fire brewed from a plain that, like the lake, seemed undaunted by the raging heat as well, and very vaguely, at the foot of the green fire, one could make out the ends of a large... array?
The stench of Undeath however, grew a hundred times stronger, becoming unbearable this close to the flame, but the four soldiered on.
Skullius could barely keep it together.
Just being in the presence of Undeath made him recall a lot of unpleasant memories despite his confidence, which had been born from defeating Somanda once, while he was projecting himself in the body of the powerful magical tool, SoSei.
What was going on here, really?
"Looks like you were right," Vali said with a serious face. "I guess we were all suspecting it, but they are working with the Green Neolists."
Down below, just in front of the flame, two figures could be seen.
One, to Skullius' displeasure, was a man wielding a large glaive – its blade like a butcher's knife – over his shoulder, a notebook in his hand. He wasn't reading or scribbling into it this time. With a cloak of mana around him, he stood against the other individual before the roaring flame, his dark eyes staring contemptuously at him.
Like the rest of them, Gabel wasn't pleased with the undeathly presence, but the person several paces before him looked to be guarding it firmly.
It was Rias.
The young man noticed the group's arrival over the cliff, and sighed lightly.
For a moment, there was silence, and then Rias spoke.
"You have a choice to make here. Turn a blind eye, and leave. At least that way, you have a chance at living, even without 10,000 Units. If you do have that much, the gateway, the GOAL, will only remain open for two more minutes. You can leave this place. I can make it so, and as promised, you will be rewarded a place in our House, unharmed," the young man said before ejecting something from an unseen storage unit, and throwing it up into the sky.
From a short glimpse, it looked like a blue coin, and as soon as it touched the clouds, they whooshed and parted cleanly, revealing a wide path to the mountain far away.
"If you follow that trail, nothing will hinder you, and you could arrive at the gateway within less than a minute," Rias explained with his usual deadpan face.
The reward would be given.
Rias sounded serious.
A way to get to the mountain had even he made where one could rush to it unhindered!
But, to Rias' words...
"So the rules no longer apply now? Weren't you supposed to be limited to the area around that damn mountain? Why are you here? Was there any relevance everything here at all or could you do whatever you wanted with the Royale, and with our lives?!" Liura barked with a nasty scowl.
Rias was unmoved.
"The rules still apply, and they are still very much relevant. The Units, the items and all. None of this would be possible if that weren't the case," he replied calmly. "And you are right. As the Inhibiting Angel, I WAS supposed to be limited in my movements but..."
Rias paused, raised his hand, and stretched it behind him.
From nowhere, a cluster of massive, transparent glass panes emerged, and stacked themselves in the hundreds around the pillar of black and green flame protectively, making a large, tall bloated shield that almost diluted the texture of the fire!
"...as of three minutes ago, I now hold another title. I'm the new Game Master. The previous has been relieved of his duty, and burden."
...!!!
The group was not at all pleased to hear this, and a fair amount of shock rushed through all of them.
'New Game Master?' Skullius thought with a deep frown.
What did this mean?
What about Guissepo?!
Crap, what was happening at the stadium right now?!
The rush of implications brought a nasty horror to the Hybrid Luman's face.
"I know you all must be perturbed by all this, and may try to clear me from this place to dismantle what it is WE have been working towards. I'll tell you now, I won't hold back against any of you if you choose to meddle," Rias warned, his sword finally leaving its sheath.
As his mana flared, the group was smitten by its uncanny, almost boundless ferocity, and forced to recall who it was they were facing.
Liura shuddered a bit.
When she had first encountered the Retrievers, she had indeed wondered if the story about Rias single-handedly killing most of the creatures in this place was true. If there had been thousands of Retrievers here, some with more than six tails and a plethora of dangerous abilities...
Grutus gave a heavy sigh.
"So, what do we do?" he asked no one in particular. "Staying out of this does seem like the better choice. If what he says is true."
Skullius' face scrunched up.
'The rules really still seem to apply. If he needed to become Game Master to leave the area close to mountain, then he must be telling the truth. But... is there really a chance to beat this guy? I can't imagine how strong he has to be for him to have killed what? 60 Baddans? Some stronger?' he thought. 'I currently have 12,150 Units. Should I just leave?'
Of course, that was barely a question Skullius needed to think about.
While safety was a great option, he didn't know if it was the best option for him personally.
Besides, somehow... somewhere deep within him.... He felt as though ditching everyone; Tallo, Maxim, would ache his soul. They didn't have enough Units, surely.
'Why do I even care for that right now?' Skullius thought bitterly.
Before he knew it though, Vali gripped him and leapt with him down the fall after the cliff to the lake below!
"What are you doing?!" Skullius asked, more than a little upset.
"Oh please. Don't let my opinion of you fall from how high it is. You weren't about to chicken out, were you?" she said as the two landed on the water. "That wouldn't do for a man."
Skullius scoffed.
Gabel turned to the two, and a light shone in his eyes that the Hybrid Luman recognised.
Never in his wildest thoughts did he imagine he would be standing with these two against a common enemy.
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