It was not only him but everybody was so. Nobody expected a magic circle to appear in front of the sixth gate and make the people around it disappear.
"I think that was a teleport circle, those people who were standing there might have been teleported inside the door" Hallie mused. Her master Karina was a little accomplished when it came to the field of space magic.
Being her direct disciple, Hallie too learned a few things. From what she could tell, those spatial fluctuations when the magic circle arrived, were definitely from the usage of space magic.
This is to say, that the people near the sixth door didn't just disappear but were actually teleported somewhere. This explanation of her was much easier for others to accept than the mysterious disappearance of the people.
"I see, then does that mean that the only way to go to the other end of the door is to trigger that magic circle or something?" Marcus came to the same realisation. He team and his were near the first door right next to the second door where Hallie and the mage guild were.
"But how do we do that?".
They have been trying to evoke some response from the doors for a while; however, no matter what they did it did not budge. As the crowd was searching for any kind of hidden mechanism, another magic circle appeared.
This time it was in front of the fourth door and teleported the people from the phantom light guild, sky slashing blade and a few other big guilds.
"Not again, how did those people do this?"…
"Is there something that we are missing?" the crowd discussed.
Some people were ready for something like this to happen thus they clearly saw the scene this time and pondered something over in their heads.
"It's because of the numbers".
Most of them arrived at the same conclusion. They were sure that there are no hidden mechanisms to trigger the magic circle, those people that were teleported earlier only managed to do so because of their numbers.
As far as they could tell, the people gathered around those two doors, at a time were around five hundred. A quick headcount told them that there were around 3500 people when they came to this inner hall out of which exactly 1000 people were missing.
If it was as they thought, then didn't it mean that all they had to do was…
The idea was worth trying. Marcus was the first one to move, he had brought over exactly 500 people from his team down to the pit. He and his team stepped in front of the first door and in front of many amazed eyes, they triggered the magic circle.
A magic circle with complex runes surfaced from the ground and with a glaring light teleported all of them somewhere.
With Marcus taking the lead, the other guilds also followed suit. Even the most simpleton ones also understood something after seeing so many people disappear one after the other and soon all of the 3500 people in the hall teleported inside the seven big doors.
-----
While all of this was happening, on another corner of the ruins. Blood and gore were spilled everywhere, adventurers were running like headless chickens as they stepped on the bodies of those slower than them.
Everybody was doing their best to get away even if they needed to betray their friends or drag them down with them.
A simple way to explain the situation would be an absolute mayhem, many people died just like by getting stepped on.
These people who were currently running away were none other than the adventurers from the few guilds that tried to secretly leave the ruins while the other teams gathered in the inner hall. The Baskerville guild, Absolute Sea Guild were some of the few among that number.
So who are these adventurers who are from the top twenty guilds of the kingdom, running from?
The answer was the being behind them that slowly galloped towards them on that wretched looking Antler. The being held an enormous scythe in his hand and was covered in a black robe from head to toe.
Yet when it looked up, inside those dark hood one could see a face that was the personification of pain and agony. Those hands that swung the scythe, were like countless snakes wiggling around each other, even if you cut them, they regrow and wiggle back once again.
Whether it be magic, or their skills, nothing could damage this nightmarish looking being that was standing guard at the entrance of the ruins.
In front of the overwhelming might of this being, none of their attacks mattered, their resistance was pitiful in front of its scythe that harvested their life with every swing. It was weirdly beautiful yet at the same time it raise all the hairs in their body.
The only thing fair in this current situation was perhaps the swing of its scythe that granted each and every one of them death without any partiality or bias.
"Fuck.. Fuck.. Fuck… What the fuck is that?!".
Bastille from the Baskerville guild screamed. He was one of the first people to run when he saw the high levelled adventurer he brought with him die in an instant. His idea to pretend to go along with the other teams to explore the mysterious ruin and then sneak out when nobody was looking, had completely backfired.
Who would have thought that a being like this would be waiting on the path where they came in from? If that thing guarded the entrance, there was no way they can go out of the ruins.
Desperate, these people stumbled upon the inner hall after running from that monster. However, finding the inner hall didn't evoke any joy from them, on the contrary, almost all of them had a ghastly white face as they looked at what lay in front of them.
As if the being behind them wasn't enough, two more similar beings were currently waiting for them in front of the seven enormous doors.
"This must be a nightmare" Bastille spoke, his eyes devoid of any hope.
------
Inside the entrance to the second door, a group of around 500 people teleported. What's unique about the group was that the majority of them were females belonging to the same guild while the others were from different guilds.
Tiana, her two sisters and the people she led, teleported in front of a dark passageway lit up by numerous phosphorescence crystals and luminant grass.
"Woah, elder sister it really did work?" Hallie commented after seeing that they teleported to a different place.
"So it really was the case. I was wondering why there was no mechanism or clues for opening the doors, it turned out that there was a hidden condition that we needed to trigger".
Tiana observed her surroundings, around there were exactly 500 people and behind her was the door, that remained unbudged no matter what they tried.
She looked at the door behind them for a while and only after seeing that nobody other than them had teleported, that she was sure of her guess.
Only five hundred people were allowed inside a door at a given point in time. That is to say, now that they were here, the other wouldn't be able to enter this door. It was also because of this reason that they were unable to enter the fifth and sixth doors that triggered the teleportation circle first.
This at the same time also meant that nobody would be able to exit this place without clearing whatever that was waiting for them ahead.
BOOOM… to further prove her words, a few girls from her guild fired consecutive magics; nonetheless, it did not even dent the door.
"Tiana, what are you planning to do?" A man donned in a leather armour that was clearly made of some high class beast's hide, said as he walked up to Tiana.
This man who had no presence to talk about whatsoever, carried a badge on his chest that depicted a dark black blade.
Assassins guild, there was no other guild that carried such a symbol on their chest.
Other than the people from the mage guild, the people from the assassins guild were also here.
"Gallio, so you are also amongst those people that followed us?" Tiana turned her eye towards the man. Because his presence was so low, she only just noticed him when he talked to her.
This man whose presence was so low that anyone would just pass by him without even noticing him, was also the future successor of the assassins guild, Gallio Stallard.
"Haha, don't put it like that. You make it sound like I was following you guys. My team is assigned with the task to follow you guys and report it back to the main camp, I cannot help it" Gallio shrugged his shoulders and smiled bitterly.
"By the way, I know that you have already noticed it but I still wanted to tell you that this place is weird. All of my sensory skills are flaring alerts to me, in my field of vision the path forward is covered with the colour of red".
Tiana's beautiful eyes which were indifferent up until now, trembled a little when she heard Gallio's words.
"In your vision, the colour red that you see, is it a deep shade?" Tiana asked, a shadow of concern could be seen on her face. She was one of the few people who knew Gallio had one of the extremely rare mutated physiques, the [Mystic Eyes].
In terms of rarity, the [Mystic Eyes] was even above a Rare Legendary skill because of how special the eyes were.
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