Chương 134: Gate

Lloyd stood before the massive doors, which stretched nearly all the way up to a ceiling that vanished somewhere into the gloom high above. The doors themselves were made of dark, almost black metal, covered in small scratches and dents, as though someone had tried more than once to force them open by sheer strength and never succeeded.

A cold draft leaked out from the gap between the two halves, carrying with it a faint smell of metal and ozone, as though some invisible bolt of lightning were discharging nearby, over and over. On either side of the doors stood soldiers in blue armor, heavy and etched with intricate engravings that caught the dim light of the torches mounted directly into the stone walls.

They held long spears, their tips glinting faintly with a bluish sheen, and on each soldier's forehead pulsed a strange scarlet light, as though embedded right beneath the skin — flaring brighter, then dimming almost to nothing, in time with some unseen, mechanical rhythm.

Their faces stayed utterly blank, eyes fixed straight ahead, not a single muscle twitching as Lloyd approached, and that unnatural stillness sent a chill down his spine, an unpleasant, tugging feeling building in his chest, as if he were closing in on something better left avoided. He held out his license to them, careful to keep his hand from shaking too visibly.

The soldiers exchanged a brief glance — though it seemed as if neither of them had actually turned his head — and a moment later the heavy doors began grinding apart with a dull, drawn-out screech, letting in a gust of cold, stale air that smelled of dust, old stone, and something else — that same elusive, unsettling scent Lloyd had already learned to associate with the presence of phantasm.

He was met by an enormous hall, its ceiling lost somewhere in the darkness, its walls of dark stone patched here and there with moss, as though this place had existed since time immemorial, long before the very concept of a "guild" had ever come into being. Along the walls stood a whole crowd of identical soldiers — utterly identical, as if every one of them were merely a copy of the others, cast from the same flawless mold.

Not one of them moved, spoke, or turned his head — they simply stood in motionless rows, like silent statues posted to guard something far more important than the hall itself, and their sheer number alone — Lloyd counted no fewer than fifty — was enough to unsettle him. Lloyd's footsteps echoed dully off the stone floor, bouncing off the high vaults and returning to him muffled several times over, as though the hall itself was reluctant to acknowledge his presence.

At the very center rose an enormous black stone, blacker than obsidian — it seemed not merely to absorb the torchlight but to actively draw it in, leaving behind a ring of deeper, almost tangible darkness.

The stone was wrapped in thick ropes, darkened by age and, perhaps, by something else besides, from which hung dozens of small scraps of paper covered in strange, unfamiliar characters — they swayed faintly, though there wasn't the slightest draft anywhere in the hall, as if they were being stirred by the stone's own breath. The soldiers watched him closely as he slowly approached, and under the weight of their stares fixed on his back, gooseflesh crawled across his skin, his palms turning clammy with nerves.

A strange, almost tangible aura radiated from the stone, pressing down on his shoulders with a heavy weight, worming its way beneath his skin, making it perfectly clear that this was no ordinary stone, but something ancient — something whose origins were better left unexamined.

"So this is the gate," Lloyd thought, feeling his mouth go dry, his heart beginning to beat a little faster than usual. Reaching it, he paused for a moment, studying the cracked, weathered surface of the stone, then extended his hand and touched it — cold, almost icy, answering his fingers with a faint, barely perceptible tremor, as though the stone itself were alive and merely pretending to be an inert piece of rock.

Instantly, a strange energy — or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it phantasm — began filling his body. He was overtaken by the exact same sensation he felt whenever he used a Return Crystal: a light tingling that rose from his fingertips, up along his arm, spreading across his shoulder and then through his entire body, as if a thousand tiny needles had all pricked his skin at once. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The colors of the world around him rapidly faded, as though some invisible hand were erasing them one by one, starting from the farthest corners of the hall and slowly working its way toward him, while Lloyd himself began to glow faintly from within, wrapped in a thin, almost translucent light that shone straight through his clothes and skin.

A moment later he scattered into countless white sparks, which surged upward and swirled through the air in a swift, silent vortex, as though he had briefly become some kind of precious relic — too fragile and too valuable to exist in only one place at a time. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing before an identical, colossal stone — only this one was pure white, glowing with a soft, almost soothing light, a stark contrast to the oppressive blackness of the one before.

The hall here looked different too: the walls were built of pale, almost bleached stone, and tall, narrow windows let in soft rays of daylight, in which tiny motes of dust floated lazily, lending the whole space an unexpectedly cozy, almost homely feel — a striking contrast to the crushing darkness he'd left behind.

He was surrounded by the same kind of motionless soldiers, except their armor gleamed not blue but a pale, almost silvery shade, and the scarlet lights on their foreheads seemed somehow less ominous here, as if their very color was in harmony with the surrounding light. Lloyd summoned his Player License and displayed it once more, feeling the last echo of that strange energy ripple through his body. He left the hall through a narrow passage in the far wall and found himself in a long, unremarkable corridor.

There were no soldiers here now, none of that crushing tension that had filled the hall with the stone — only bare stone walls, cracked here and there with age, and the occasional torch casting warm, flickering light across a floor worn smooth by thousands of footsteps that had passed this way before him.

The corridor curved gently, and with every step Lloyd could hear a muffled hum of voices growing louder ahead, along with the clinking of dishware and snatches of someone's laughter, growing clearer and clearer until at last the corridor opened out through an archway into a noisy, bustling space.

Scattered here and there were mismatched tables, almost all of them made of roughly worked wood, preserving that same guild atmosphere he remembered from the other side of the gate — the same smell of old wood, now mixed with the aroma of ale, roasted meat, and something faintly sweet, like caramel.

The wooden benches were worn smooth by countless visitors, and here and there the tabletops bore initials carved with a knife, even crude little drawings — evidence of the long hours spent here by those who had once sat in this very same spot. Players of every race sat at the tables: some in battered armor still coated in the dust of a recent dungeon, marked with dark stains that looked uncomfortably like dried blood, others in light traveling cloaks thrown over their ordinary clothes.

They rounded out the atmosphere of the hall with their loud stories, punctuated by bursts of laughter, heated arguments over recent achievements, and the clink of mugs colliding again and again in someone's ragged but heartfelt toast. Somewhere in a far corner, a bard strummed quietly on a battered lute, his tune occasionally lost in the general din of voices, though it didn't seem to stop anyone from savoring this rare moment of calm between expeditions.

And now Lloyd stood before a set of doors that, unlike the ones before, weren't made of wood like the hall he'd been standing in just a couple of minutes ago — these doors were heavy and metal, covered in runes darkened with age, forming patterns too intricate to make sense of at a glance. A strange cold seemed to radiate from the doors themselves, as if whatever lay behind them was utterly foreign to the warm, noisy atmosphere he was leaving behind.

Letting out a long breath and holding it for a moment, as though bracing himself for something important, Lloyd pushed the doors open, and before him unfolded a sight he still found difficult to get used to.