Monster Integration

“You have been lucky; you won’t be lucky next time. The next time we meet, I will kill you,” said Aege and released its aura, which shook nearly everyone who was standing.

“You have failed once, Aege; you will fail again,” I said to it without shaking even a slightest, to which it glared and walked forward. The Iron Scaled Snakeman beside it just looked at me and walked forward.

There is a lot of information about the Iron Scaled Snakeman in the crystal; it is as dangerous as Bearman. If I had come across it, I would have to give my all to kill the bastard.

I watched them as they walked through the gate, and after them, a few humans and some Grimms passed through it.

It had been only a minute since the gate had been unlocked, and I started walking through it. There is not much time; with a minute over, only eight and a half minutes remain, which is fine considering; there are not many people in this oasis.

Seven days had passed, and all those who had entered, only one hundred and fifty-three people were able to solve the maze.

This is kind of shocking, considering over five hundred people had entered the maze challenge. There are no empty numbers; I have predicted the number after viewing the people in the seed.

Not all who had returned had died, but more than half had sure would have died; as for those who had had not died but also had not solved the maze, they could be said to be good as dead because they would be sent to the special challenge, in which a very people could survive.

One by one, people entered the gate till less than ten remained. “Good Luck, Michael,” said Jill and stepped inside. “See you on the other side, Grandmaster,” said Lady Atkins and disappeared into the gate; after them, a few humans and Grimms walked into the blue stone gate till only I remained.

I did not wait long and appeared beside the gate before stepping inside.

The familiar darkness enveloped me before a numeric one flew out and passed on my wrist; this is my rank of the first challenge; if I were to finish all the seven challenges, it would help me tremendously; unfortunately, I have no wish to do that.

I have achieved everything I have wanted; I will disappear from this place the moment I see the exit.

The darkness should have cleared the moment number was pasted on my wrist, but it did not; instead, it remained. This time, I did not waste any time thinking why and just closed my eyes.

Little more than six minutes later, things became clear, much quicker than I had expected, but I welcomed it and looked around myself.

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I found myself in a forest, the forest so beautiful that I had mistaken it for the garden, but it was forest all right. The garden has symmetry, even those made to look like a forest, while the forest has the chaoticness that gardens don’t, unless, of course, you neglected it for years.

See!

I looked around before casting my glance at the mission board, and immediately, I sucked a deep breath. I am sure the others would have done the same; many people wish this challenge for not appeared, but it did.

It is the famed forest of beguile.

If the maze was difficult, then it was even more; barely a quarter of the people could pass the challenge, but that is not the worst thing about it; the worse thing is this forest beguile; it lets one’s deepest secret. Many people screamed at them, which made them live in embarrassment rest of their lives.

As the name says, this forest beguile; the effect is so strong that one would say out their deepest secrets and do embarrassing things.

It has created many scandals, but the biggest of them is the tree-hugging scandal or tree fu**ing scandle, where, two thousand years ago, a Grand Lord got naked and did with the tree.

It was recorded and spread into the outside world.

Even having the power of the Grand Lord, he was not able to stop the recording. The Grimms had copied the crystal by millions and spread it across the whole central continent.

It was the biggest embarrassment of that Grand Lords’ life; that for two centuries, he would remain isolated in a tower, coming out only when there was an extreme need.

I also fear this challenge; I have quite a lot of secrete. Every one of them would cast a ripple across the world; if spread, I have to be extremely careful about that not to happen.

I collected the map by mission board and studied it; I have five days to finish the challenge and no restriction, aside from that, I could not fly over three hundred meters above the ground.

Five days may seem like a lot of time, and it would been, if it had been normal forest. Crossing wouldn’t have taken me more than few hours with my new speed, but this is not a normal forest and if I dare to use my full speed; I will be making the rounds of forest rather than crossing it.

“It is time,” I said as I folded the map and activated my armor; as I did, over a million strings finer than hair came out of my body and begin to weave the armor in the most complex fashion. Those who would be able to see it and understand the process would be shocked by it.

Though, I am not an idiot enough reveal; it will be cloaked.

The strings weaved the armor; it is not the normal weaving, but a runes weaving. The runes are weaving a complex formation into the armor. I am first time done this complex, it is just beginning; If the armor worked as I expected, the next stage of it would be shocking.

It might seem like a long time, but it took a less than a moment to appear on my body.

The armor is silvery in color, just like my fire, but have vines like lines from across both shoulder lines from head to two, in forest green and blood red color.

There are also a design of academy and pyramid on my chest, but I cloaked them; I do not want reveal identity in this armor, it will be better if it remained secrete for little while, at least till I meet the enemies and dealt with them.

It is not the first time me materializing the armor, but once again; I couldn’t help but summon the mirror to see myself. I looked too damn amazing, for to not take out the mirror.

This time, I did not spent minutes staring myself; I just took a one look and put the mirror back, before taking step inside the forest.

I have extensive notes about this place and already have strategy on how to cross it and especially, things I should not do. The first and foremost, I should not use my common soul sense; the beguilement will latch on soul energy like liches.

It will quickly cover the soul and one would themselves, before knowing how.