Single Spell Sorcerer-Chapter 143 - 9th Carriage’s Trial : Monster Horde

Jax woke before dawn, the weight of anticipation heavy in his chest. He freshened up, still nervous despite planning what they were going to do for the past day. Ning was already awake, looking out the window into dark skies.

It wasn’t even dawn yet.

Jax went by and saw on his own bed, taking in deep breaths. Gemma trailed down from somewhere, onto his lap.

"Big day," she said with a hint of a smile in her voice. "Are you excited?"

"Excited? More like scared," Jax said with a nervous laugh.

"Why? You’re prepared, aren’t you?" she asked.

She wouldn’t understand. "Why do you leave my side?" he asked. "When I enter the trial ?"

"Mhmm," Gemma said.

"Well, then I guess I’ll see you on the other side again. You will have a clearer body on the 8th Carriage, right?" Jax asked.

"I won’t just be a floating piece of light, if that’s what you mean," Gemma said. "But don’t expect too much. It will take a while before I get proper definitions to my body."

Jax nodded.

Jax woke Roman up, who quickly got ready. He was perhaps the most nervous of them all.

"Everyone ready?" Melayne came asking a few minutes later.

They had gathered in the common area of their hotel, each wearing their best gear and carrying their weapons. Roman kept adjusting his armor straps, while Ning sat perfectly still, his own dark armor glistening in the warm indoor lights.

Lucille stared before her at the emptiness. She was likely staring at her status page. After a while, she went over the few pieces of information about the upcoming trial that she had already gone over before they went to sleep.

She wanted to hammer in the information one last time.

The minutes crawled by like hours.

They spoke in hushed tones, going over their strategies one more time, checking their equipment, and trying to calm their nerves. Roman was unusually quiet during that time, the only thing he did being his nervous fidgeting.

Even Ning seemed more alert than usual, his eyes occasionally darting around as if to make sure nothing bad happened within the last few minutes before the trial.

"Ten minutes," Lucille announced, her voice steady.

They sat ready at the table, watching the countdown slowly go down from ten minutes to just five, then to two, then one, and finally into the seconds. When only 10 seconds remained, they looked at each other and nodded.

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2...

1

Silver light erupted around them, brilliant and overwhelming. Jax felt his body dissolve into pure energy, his consciousness stretched to an infinite distance. Then, it snapped back in itself, and his body returned to how it was.

Then, suddenly, they were all standing on solid ground again.

The world they found themselves in was similar to the Maze trial. Above them stretched a black sky completely devoid of stars, creating an oppressive dome of absolute darkness. There was still light somehow, allowing them to see where they were.

The ground beneath their feet was hard-packed dirt, and beside them rose a small mound about 5 meters tall.

"Where are we?" Roman whispered, his voice barely audible in the eerie silence.

Lucille had said they could be transported to anywhere, but he hadn’t expected a simple dirt ground.

They stood at the center of what appeared to be a circular arena. In every direction, roughly a hundred meters away, towering walls rose up bleeding into the darkness above. The walls were so tall that they couldn’t likely get out of here even if they wanted to.

"Look," Melayne said, pointing toward the walls. "Those walls have gates."

Indeed, at regular intervals around the circular barrier, four openings lay on the otherwise smooth surface. Each hole was large enough for several people to walk through side by side, and from their position, they were placed in all four directions.

"That’s for the monsters to come through," Lucille said quietly, her voice carrying a note of understanding.

The realization hit them all at once. The name of the trial and what they had to do here was obvious now.

Monster Horde.

"So we’ll be fighting all the monsters in this tiny arena, huh?" Jax said, trying to keep his voice light despite the growing nervousness in his stomach.

Before anyone could respond, a voice spoke from the darkness around them. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, a disembodied presence that filled the arena with its words.

"Welcome, participants, to the Monster Horde Trial."

The voice was neither male nor female, neither young nor old. It simply was, carrying an authority to it that made everyone fear it.

"I am the host of this trial, and I will now explain the rules of this trial, and requirements by which you will be judged."

As the voice spoke, lights began to appear across the black sky above them. At first, they looked like stars beginning to shine, but as they watched, the lights slowly coalesced into readable text.

Emberhorns.

Bonecrushers.

Sentinels.

Vanguardians.

Dungeon Crawlers.

Breakers.

Eagle-eyes.

Worldsmiths.

Librarians.

The names continued to appear, dozens upon dozens of them, each one glowing with its own light against the darkness.

"What are those?" Roman asked, his voice filled with wonder and confusion.

"Names for the parties," Lucille answered, her eyes narrowing at the number.

"There must be thousands," Jax said in surprise, watching as more names continued to appear. They knew just how many parties had to be participating in this trial, but the sheer scale of it was only now becoming clear.

There were thousands upon thousands of names in the sky, each one bright and clearly belonging to a party of five. Looking at the amount, they realized that there had to be hundreds of thousands of participants attempting this Trial.

"There," Melayne pointed up at the sky. "Transcendents. That’s us."

Indeed, among all the glowing names, their party designation shone with the same steady light as all the others.

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