GUARDIAN OF THE END

"Girl, I hope you didn't kill him because we could have used him for some minor interrogation." Risa whistled as she jumped down from the trees.

She landed beside Buster's fallen body and immediately provided him with the necessary treatment.

"Are the commanders too weak or is May just too strong?" Jason wondered.

"This guy was no commander. Julian likely chose some random strong guy, promoted him to this position and sent him here for some kind of test." Risa explained, her eyes setting on the stones. "It definitely has something to do with these stones."

Jason was about to agree when he noticed something weird. The smallest of stones, which was the size of his hand, was rapidly losing all of its divine energy.

Simultaneously, Buster's body started heating up. Risa noticed this and immediately stopped all the treatment that she was giving to the commander.

"Step away from the body and prepare some kind of protective covering." Risa instructed as all of them stepped away from the body.

Jason's eyes were fixated on the rock which was losing its divine energy. In less than a minute, the rock was deprived of its divine energy.

Upon closer inspection, Jason noticed that the divine energy oft her rock was observed by the others near it.

A crack appeared in the middle of the rock and split it apart. Much to his surprise, Jason saw that cracks had started appearing throughout Buster's body as if he was made from stone.

"Grandma, observe that rock."

Risa immediately looked at the collection of rocks and saw the cracked rocks turning into ashes. The same thing happened with Buster, leaving no trace of his body behind.

"Now I know what this is…" Risa murmured as he stepped closer to the gathering of rocks.

More than a hundred rocks were placed together to form some kind of weird structure. Jason also noticed that all of them varied in size and the amount of divine energy present inside them was in an ascending order according to size.

"This collection is called a 'prison bond', something that can only be done if all the participants of the bond agree to its formation. In it, if someone is on the verge of death or has been defeated in a major fight, the creator can use a trigger.

The trigger will convert all the energy inside the person into something that can be used by other members of the bond. It will result in the death of that person. This collection of rocks is the representation of the bond." Risa glared at the rocks.

"He left it here knowing that we will find it?" May asked.

"That is the reasonable explanation for it however that's incorrect. We might have never found it. Julian simply left it here showcasing how much power he has regardless of whether we will find it or not." Risa sighed.

She suddenly started drawing a circle near the base of the rocks. Risa didn't touch a single rock and simply encased it inside a circle.

"I am pretty sure we can take this to our field. Julian likely made it transportable so that he can allow us to take it wherever we want to keep track of things." Risa explained

"He just wants to show off that he has the power to do such things and we can't do anything but watch." May guessed.

Even she was getting used to Julian's behavior and was wondering how she could help the Syrward family in defeating him.

It was easy for her to be influenced by the thoughts of those around her. However, May had actually seen Julian do things to harm Jason and the others.

She had grown close to them and wanted to protect them from such things. That was why she was dead set on learning how to control her powers and grow stronger.

"I will take it back. You both can roam around a bit more or you can return back to the field and train." Risa informed before turning into particles of light.

The cluster of rocks moved away with her as both of them went in the direction of the mansion.

"Do you want to continue the exploration?" Jason asked.

"I guess. I want to know how much we will have to travel before encountering a beast. If we are in danger, we can fight our way out of it or we can wait for Amon as well." May replied with a shrug.

But just as the duo were about to advance ahead, a gurgling sound echoed inside their ears. 𝐟𝗿𝒆𝐞𝓌e𝒃𝒏𝒐ѵ𝒆𝒍.c𝚘𝗺

They turned to look at the ground where the rocks had been present a few minutes ago and noticed a weird seal on the ground.

Multiple circles were overlapping each other while a scythe was present in the middle of the circles. The scythe seemed to be cutting a small portion out of each circle.

Emerging out of the seal was a silver cube which looked oddly familiar to Jason.

'Why do I feel like I have seen something like this before?' Jason wondered with a frown.

[ It looks similar to the cube Albus, the principal of the academy, had used to start the trial of fear. It is giving the same vibes as that and the only difference is its color. There's a good chance that a deity is trapped inside it. ]

Jason immediately warned May to stay away from the ground and not go after the seal no matter what it did.

"So you are Jason Syrward huh. Phobos and Veritas were telling the truth about you." A deep voice came out of the cube as it suddenly launched into the air.

Just for a split second, Jason saw the image of a hooded figure floating in air with a scythe in hand.

His face was covered by the hood yet Jason could tell that he was smiling.

"Who are you?" Jason asked as he felt his voice break unconsciously. The feeling that he got after seeing the image had sent chills down his spine.

"I guess you have the right to know my name since you have indirectly helped me escape." The voice came out of the cube again. "I am Apophis, an exiled god. I am trapped inside but I am sure we will meet in the future. Until then, goodbye."

Without any warning, the cube shot towards the sky and vanished. Jason stared at it for a few seconds before he sensed bursts of divine energy coming out of the ground.

Rotten hands emerged out of the ground and started grabbing the duo's ankles. Jason immediately recognized the hands to be those of goblins and the system confirmed it as well.

Jason sent thunder throughout his body and fried the hands grabbing on to his legs. May did the same thing except she had to shock the hands twice before they let her go.

The duo jumped backwards and looked at the ground with guarded expressions. Slowly, a dozen goblins emerged out of the ground.

Their eyes were swollen and their green skin appeared rotten. It was as if they were already dead and someone had summoned them using necromancy.

'Wait, was that the reason for them not dying despite facing multiple injuries?' Jason suddenly thought.

[ I think that was the reason that the goblin in the past couldn't face any pain either. If they are already dead, it doesn't make sense for them to feel any pain or feel anything at all. It must be a high level of necromancy. ]

'If that god named Apophis was responsible for this, then maybe the level of necromancy should be high.' Jason shrugged.

[ I can't seem to remember who Apophis was which is quite shocking. I am quite old and know a lot of gods. If I don't know someone means that they are older than me and were likely sealed off before I could know them. ]

_{𝑓r𝘦𝘦𝘄eb𝒏𝙤vel.c𝙤𝙢}

'Do you know anyone else who might have more knowledge about Apophis?'

[ Flamey might know him since she was one of the major twelve gods. She also heard a lot of things from her customers who wanted her to craft special things. ]

'I will ask Amber about her later on I guess. At least one of the past mysteries of that weird zombie was solved. We will move on to the next mystery after defeating the zombies.'

[ To beat them, you both just have to use attacks charged with divine energy. That will deal a heavy blow to the zombie goblins who are also remade with the help of divine energy. ]

"May, use divine energy attacks to defeat them." Jason relied on.

"Um, I am pretty sure I will only use divine energy most of the time to attack others. My usage of mana is very limited."

"Right, I forgot you were a demi-god with a whole source of divine energy. My bad."

"Was that sarcasm?"

Jason sighed and simply pointed forward towards the zombie goblins.

"Let's just fight. We will have this discussion later on."