“[Land Fall]!!!”

At the sound of Maxwell’s voice, the eight swords pulsing brilliant red light immediately struck the ground, each one embedding its blade several inches deep into the wood flooring inside the torn up Guild Hall. As the blades struck the ground, large craters formed from the impact of each sword as a result of colliding with the ground, completely destroying the wood flooring.

“[Trinity Wall]!”

The Sage had casted his strongest defensive barrier, [Trinity Wall], right at the moment the swords had hit the ground. Three balls of condensed magical power surrounded the three that stood together, forming a triangle shape around them. The three spherical balls of energy each had a different glowing color. One was red, another blue, and the last yellow.

For a slight moment, the air became still, and a single gust of wind generated by the impact swept the area. The walls that had still been intact were blown apart. The entire Guild Hall was instantly destroyed by the heavy physical force of the swords slamming into the ground, revealing everyone inside to the outside world. The clouds above parted from the immense amount of force. However, that burst of energy was just the start.

A blinding red light immediately followed, and enveloped everything around them as the ground began violently shaking.

For a few minutes Reinsfield, Cray, and the Trinity Sage were blinded by the red light as the ground continued to shake harder and harder. They were unable to see what was happening around them; however they could feel that the ground around them was beginning to split apart as the shaking became more and more intense.

“It won’t last much longer!”

The Trinity Sage had shouted out at the other two, as the three floating spheres of magical energy grew dim.

Directly below them, the [Trinity Wall] had also protected the ground. However the barrier wouldn’t last much longer, as cracks began to form on the wall, while they were continually bombarded by the powerful energy before them.

“Get behind me!”

Cray immediately ordered the two behind him, as the cracks in the barrier became enlarged.

They quickly huddled closely, and as the barrier shattered into magic particles, Cray threw a small gem like object in front of him. The small gem like object let off a green hue right before the three of them were enveloped completely by the ominous red light.

The red shining light had covered almost a third of the capital as it continued to shine. After several minutes, the world that had been dyed in red, turned back into its natural color. The magic power that invaded the city had entirely died down.

The three that had been in the epicenter of it all, opened their eyes to the world around them. The scene around them was as if they had been transported into another world. Directly around them, they stood in the center of a large gorge several meters wide. Past the bottomless pit was an empty dirt wasteland.

“How did we survive an attack on that kind of scale?”

Reinsfield raised the question while stunned at the sight before him.

“Indeed, I would also like to know”

The Trinity Sage stood up asking, while rubbing his chin with his thumb and index finger.

“Absolute barrier, [Infinity Wall]”

“Non-sense, there isn’t anyone that’s able to enchant an item with legendary class magic, not to mention finding a medium strong enough to attempt it is hard enough as it is!”

The Trinity Sage cried out in surprise at Cray’s answer.

True enough, although there were masters of magic like the Trinity Sage in existence, there was no one who was skilled enough to enchant the highest level of magic onto magic stones. High grade magic stones were scarce because only high level demons dropped them, and high level demons were intelligent creatures that usually banded together with other demons, or controlled a lair with hundreds of monsters. Finding one alone without minions was quite rare. The only high grade stones in circulation were ones that were being auctioned off by advanced adventurers brave enough to enter a den of high level demons.

But nevertheless, they were alive because of the object Cray had thrown protected not only their lives, but the ground they stood on. Even if there were another barrier that could hold off the attack, they would still have fallen to their deaths below.

“It’s a long story, but they’re just some of the items passed that were down from Lester’s era. In any case, I no longer feel Maxwell’s presence in this area. I’ll leave Reinsfield in your care Kain”

Before either of the two could respond to Cray, his figure immediately vanished.

“Shall we move to a safer place?”

“Yea, it’s dangerous sitting here”

The two that were left, quickly jumped out of the small portion of land that had yet to crumble away into the deep never ending crevice surrounding it.

Capital City Serafall, inside the Castle’s Audience Chamber

“Maxwell, you’re late. Not only that, you’ve used your trump card much too early”

Maxwell emerged in front of what seemed to be a short girl with distinctly long eye lashes, and long black hair. She gazed at

Maxwell emotionless, and spoke in a dull voice.

“Cough! Aria cough!... Hah.. There wasn’t any other option for me. Haah…”

Maxwell replied breathing heavily, coughing out blood as he stumbled towards the girl named Aria.

“What of the key?”

“haa… She escaped…. Haah…”

“Useless, to think you were unable to complete such a simple task”

Aria ridiculed Maxwell as he continued to breathe heavily.

“Tell me more about this ‘key’, will you?”

“And you are?”

Cray had suddenly appeared in front of them.

“That cough! is Cray. He’s currently in charge of all guilds across this Kingdom cough! Lester’s blood runs in his veins. cough!”

Maxwell continued to cough out blood as he explained who Cray was.

“Where is the King?”

A question floated into Cray’s mind. Why were they in the king’s castle, and why was the castle empty?

“Oh? I see why you lost now, Maxwell. The King is where he’s always been, sitting on his thrown of course!”

With a snap of her fingers, the surroundings instantly changed. The stone walls which had looked new transformed into moldy aged stone bricks. The red carpet in the center of the room faded into a purplish color. Cracks formed on the stone pillars inside the audience chamber. The ceiling which shielded them from the sun was partly destroyed revealing the afternoon skies, and the worst of it appeared right in front of him. On the throne which had looked empty until now appeared a body sitting down. A crown lay on the ground next to feet, and his head looking down as if he were sleeping. A single dagger was embedded deep into his chest, likely piercing his heart. The King was dead.

“You may take this city back if you so desire, but don’t think it’ll be easy”

Aria raised her hand in the air while she spoke. In the sky outside, a large magic formation was beginning to take shape. The size of it most likely covered the entire city.

Cray immediately rushed at them trying to stop whatever it was Aria was attempting. However, just before he could come close, he was pushed back by a powerful barrier.

“Damn!”

“Unfortunately I don’t have time to play with you. However I’ll leave you with a parting gift~”

As Aria talked, the particles of mana in the air began to simultaneously swirl in a spiral behind her as the extremely large magic circle in the atmosphere quickly completed itself.

“Teleportation magic?!!”

Cray loudly exclaimed, as a portal tore itself open.

“Then we’ll be leaving first”

Aria looked back at Cray with a disdainful smile as she walked into the portal behind Maxwell.

As soon as Cray had recovered from staggering, they were already gone.

Thoughts began to circulate inside his mind.

Who was that girl named Aria? What was her purpose? Who were they referring to when they mentioned a ‘key’? And most of all, why was it that they knew how to use teleportation magic?

Teleportation magic was something only known by the elves. And while they knew teleportation magic, the most advanced type that was known had to be hand drawn. The complexity of teleportation magic wasn’t something so simple that magicians were able to freely use it.

However, he wasn’t able to process any of the thoughts. The magic formation in the sky had begun to shine brightly. In the next moment, a monster appeared in front of him. It was an orc, but before the orc could move, Cray had already sliced it into pieces.

“Summoning magic?”

Cray muttered to himself as more orcs along with goblins materialized out of thin air.

The monsters all encircled Cray as more and more appeared. The heavy breathing of the humanoid monsters could distinctly be heard as he quickly took out another sword.