Beatitudes

The tainted zones.

“It will be as you’ve spoken your majesty, I look forward to your advance into an entirely new realm.” Azure, the frost master spoke as he gave a slight bow.

With a nod, the frost king stretched out his arm slightly with his palm facing upwards. A small sized marble appeared  in it, after he injected the slightest of energy into it, a symbol appeared on its surface as the space around them began to distort slightly before engulfing them in a mini storm of rippling space. A second later, when the storm cleared the two members of the frost reaper clan were nowhere to be found, channeled away through space to a place unknown.

The areas beyond these zones are referred to as the tainted zones… There’s a lot of history and story behind it all, and the three of you have a lot of things to keep in mind. I wouldn’t ask you to think of yourselves as members of the hall though, we only have six months there.

“…”

Standing on a TRAPS glowing with the waning lights of a recent teleportation. The familiar group of four made to step off while Adam addressed them as he pointed to the horizon outside the massive sentry gates of the final checkpoint for the fighters heading out to the unknown.

Isaac wore a blank expression on his face as he heard what Adam said. “Hold up… Six months… what do you mean?”

Adam glanced at him as he explained, “What I mean is what you heard, exactly as I said. Six months is six months, there’s a goal in mind that follows a tight schedule, you’ll know of it soon.”

“…”

Trying but failing to ignore the silent glare directed at him, Adam sighed before he spoke again,

“The hall isn’t our final destination Isaac, don’t you think it’s way too odd to introduce the final plot this early into the story, the author wouldn’t stand by it. Honestly I wish myself that you could remember, it would save us all the trouble of making sure your head doesn’t explode from a clash of information. But sadly you don’t, and you don’t even know it…”

Hiya glanced at the duo as Isaac stared at Adam wordlessly. If she ignored the words that held secrets unknown to them that was casually spoken in their midst, What Adam said was definitely surprising, and if she heard well herself the undertones as he spoke, he sounded dismissive of the hall… this was in and of itself mystifying, his dismissiveness of the hall seemed instinctual and not something he used to parade with fake pride and majesty. It was the hall after all, she hadn’t heard much of the hall but what she heard was enough to let her know of its strength and depth as the strongest organization of the world. Could he be a member of a power above the hall? The hall basically spanned across the entire world across all place that haven’t been encroached on by those tainted ones, it was the representation of the alliance between the different races spread across. And it was exactly due to those tainted that the hall was forced to come together, if there was some higher power, why didn’t they step out to decimate the enemies when they thought to step in and invade…

She gave Adam a deep stare, whether he noticed it or not he didn’t respond. She was beyond mystified whenever it came to this peculiar being, and when it came to the number of men that made her feel intrigued, even adding both her past life to the equation, they weren’t more than five possible… but this guy… was the most enigmatic of the lot.

Isaac could only give up his attempts as he looked ahead and saw the various vehicles going around the checkpoint, up ahead in the direction they were walking he could see the big gates, beyond which was the aforementioned tainted zone. They were all decked in fighter gears as they blended in among the few people in the somewhat same gear that moved about as well, this was a checkpoint as well as a refill zone for the fighters, when one ran out of supplies, mostly food related, during their journey of c*****e, this same place served as a point to come back and get more from. Speaking of that, they were also actually set out to begin their own journey, a journey of bloodshed across the plains, he couldn’t help but feel a long lost thrill as he anticipated the battle against the unknown.

They finally got to the gates and Isaac stared with fervor as they crossed the threshold of the zones and their feet made contact with the tainted lands. He couldn’t feel much difference though but the existence of the gates behind him separating the lands made it obvious that they were in a different place now. A step away from the untainted and a vast tainted zone in their front to be explored…

“Alright…”

Adam ’s calm voice broke his train of thoughts as he they were a distance away from the gate at this point.

He turned his head in time to notice a holographic map unfurling in front of Adam, it spread even further to block their line of sight completely, only the layout of lands on the map was visible. While he stared at the map without making heads or tail of it, Adam explained slowly,

“This map is a map of the zone ahead of us, without it, it would be pretty hard to move around and explore. It was something that past fighters and explorers of the hall paid a price to establish. It’s a map that is connected to the main hall, the one hidden from common sight, and since it’s connected… it’s being automatically updated from time to time as the zone ahead gets cleared.

Basically it allows us to monitor the strange waters that is the untainted zone, as the fighters scour the area around this edge of the zone, the unknown forces are being kicked back steadily, giving ample breathing space to us. So I guess you can say that these are relatively safe waters even in the untainted zone…”

He paused for a second and gave the three a mischievous grin that spoke volumes of an unknown plot, a slight shiver ran down Isaac’s back, he could feel that Adam was about to do something like what he did when he ‘asked’ them to fight against beasts of the wild in the jade forest.

Adam continued oblivious of the fact that his intentions had been grasped by those he was speaking to, “Since this is your first expedition, I’ll allow you to pick a direction… where’d you want to head to, just pick a direction on the map, the rest is easy.”

Isaac’s face turned odd as he stared at Adam, ”Just picking?”

Adam replied without a ripple in his emotion, “Well yeah… that’s what I said.”

Isaac looked at the other two who had been quiet all the while as he asked, “Who wants to pick?”

They stared back at Isaac with their thoughts written all over their faces, ‘You think you’re the only one who can sense something wrong… I won’t touch that map in any case, you’re free to make the choice.’

Seeing that they made no move to do so, he sighed as he turned his head back to the map and scrutinized it carefully, there wasn’t anything amiss that he could sense from it, so after a while he gave up and pointed at a random point on the map, “Here, let’s go through this direction.”

Adam gave a nod as he said “Good choice, let’s go then.”

The state of the day was at its highest point as the nine suns in the sky glared down with roiling ferocity. The group of four trekking across the lands had already walked a fair distance into the untainted zone. Every single scenery whether the greenery of the few trees or the slowly diminishing numbers of vegetation on their way became increasingly visibly different from the norms of their appearances. Whatever color nature presented on them leaned increasingly to their darker shade little by little as the journey took them deeper into the untainted zones. It wasn’t noticeable at first but by the time Adam informed them to slow down, all flora and fauna around were visibly a shade or two darker compared to those at the edges of the zone.

The area they were at had seemingly transformed into a mountainous region as several small to medium sized mountains dotted the lands at irregular intervals. The mountains themselves almost seemed to impose a kind of illusory pressure on you, a pressure that spoke of danger if you dare to approach. It was at this point again that Adam spoke like the touring guide role that he had subtly accepted ever since breaking them out of the pit...

“This is where the real danger of the unknown starts, currently these mountains should be empty of any and all presence- “

“Empty?” Harry cut in with a confused look,

“Yeah empty. You can liken these mountains to breeding grounds of monsters, beasts with a strong instinct for bloodshed and c*****e. Within these mountains there are always several levels of beasts usually of different species. If you lead them to breed well enough for a long while, something similar to a beast tide occurs. A beast tide from a single mountain alone can cause a chip in the strength and resources of the sentry gates cutting off the two zones. although it’ll only be a little bit of loss, when up to five or so of these mountains erupt at the same time, the pressure and consequences on those manning the gates would be nothing short of terrible.”

After giving out that piece of information he looked at his listeners as they stared at the mountains with a now apprehensive gaze before he continued and reassured them, “But these mountains have already been cleared off, nothing should be present within them for now at least, the war against these tainted creatures is looking to be one of attrition in the end.” To the end of his words, he spoke with a smile that spoke of many things unknown.

ROARR!!!

Yet before he could continue, a resounding roar echoed out around them as a shadow flung itself with great speed at them.