After gathering more information about the temple Descartes wanted Lucas and Asta to visit, they took on the challenge. According to the legends, myths, and mostly rumors, the temple worshiped a God of Darkness. There wasn't much information on the god itself, but there were a lot of scripts about the function. Flying towards the temple, Asta voiced his doubts.
"If it's a place to repent, why build it so far away and make the surroundings inhospitable?"
Asta had read a lot, yet knowing the function, it just didn't make much sense. "Considering it was a God from ancient times, for all we know something else has inhabited it."
Lucas saw no reason to understand the cultural or religious part. To him, all Gods were fake, mere tools to keep the populace in place. Flying for a day or two, they eventually saw the ground losing life.
Asta kept flying, but Lucas descended. Landing on the ground, he touched the ground with his bare hands. There was no grass, nor any plant life for that matter. Even insects were absent from the dried grounds.
Floating above him, Asta stared at his actions, giving him time. Normally, he would critique actions he deemed of lesser importance. Rarely would he show such patience to others, only Lucas got this kind of treatment. "What are you thinking?"
Dusting his hands on his pants, he stood back up and joined Asta in the air. "It's not that life can't find a way, it's being prohibited. I simply tried pouring some water over the ground, but it all vanished after a few seconds."
"Evaporated or vanished?"
"Vanished. This is a form of Dark Magic, one I've not seen before."
"Does this mean our lives are also being eaten away at?", it was a reasonable question, but Lucas shook his head. "I don't know, I would find it hard to believe they put such an incredibly complicated spell or array near a temple of worship."
"Well, Gods are referred to as planet destroyers, so it wouldn't be impossible for them."
"Plural? How many religions are there? There's the order of Light, order of Nature, and some humans worship demons as gods, but they're idiots," Lucas asked as they continued on their journey. The lands below showed only dead ground. Not a single beast or even skeleton was visible. Only a very thin layer of dark mist covered the ground.
"Any mage in Rank 7 is supposedly a God. So I would assume a lot, though not all would bother creating a religion. I don't see myself wasting time like that, at least."
"Fair enough."
Flying further, they saw a pyramidlike structure in the distance. Each block of the structure pitch black, Lucas felt hesitant from afar. Seeing his reluctance, Asta scanned the area with his aura. Letting it encroach onto the pyramid, he got a good grasp of its structure. It was a lot more complex than a simple block painted black. No, it held a dark radiance of some kind, one hard to place.
"This is... similar to that place on the island," Asta concluded, not having anything else to reference.
Lucas took his time to think things through.
'Willpower infused darkness.'
'Why the hell is that thing here, then?'
'If we can learn how to create stable darkness, anyone can.'
'We only learned it through those weird dreams. Unless everyone's batshit insane, I don't think they'll have the same dreams.'
'Still, this isn't the exact same. The Darkness pool was darkness floating in the air, just pure darkness. Our spells are the same, but this, this is stone.. or metal?'
'Fusing darkness with another element, we do it all the time, what's the big idea?'
'Yes, but when we do it, it eats our spell as well. We just fire it fast enough to catch anyone dumb enough to stand still. This is a higher level of control.'
Asta saw Lucas stare at the pyramid for some time, not interrupting him since when it came to elements, Lucas was more of a master than he was, for good reason.
Eventually, Lucas steeled his resolve and they moved forward. Standing on the ground in front of the entrance, they weren't attacked by the darkness contained within the stone. Simple letters were carved on the ground, barely visible, but any wary mage would've noticed them.
"Shy away from light," Lucas read out loud, a simple command. Staring down the entrance, all that was visible was a pitch black darkness. It wasn't clear if it was a rule, a hint, or advice from a passing mage.
Asta stepped closer to the entrance. Even at a closer distance, he couldn't make anything out. "I assume this is about producing light?", Asta almost mocked the statement, since he wouldn't dare sully his hands with such an elemental sin.
Not fully convinced, Lucas voiced his thoughts out loud, trusting Asta would be able to piece things together with him. "This temple is about repenting for one's sins. Is the darkness meant to scare the people who enter it?"
"That would seem stupid, we have willpower, we don't exactly need light unless we want to see colors."
"Then why bother setting up such a rule?"
Stopping in his tracks, it was a fair question that even Asta couldn't answer right away. "Either way, don't use light magic and stay away from sources of light. That's all we can gather from this."
Stepping further into the temple, Lucas and Asta spread their willpower. While it wasn't accepted socially to use willpower on someone else, they cared little for it. The sounds of their footsteps were miniscule, making Lucas think he was walking on carpet instead of a stone containing pure darkness.
Forming an image in their mind, it was just a simple square-shaped corridor with a few lines where the blocks touched each other. Walking through the completely dark entrance, their eyes had become completely useless. Out of curiosity, Lucas turned around to see if the light from the outside would get through.
It was just a wall of pitch black. The darkness wasn't just highly concentrated in the stones, the very air was seeped in it. Facing away from the entrance, Lucas took a step forward when he suddenly realized something was off. The lines of the stones seemed to have moved.
"Asta? What happened?"
An eerie silence answered, not even his soft footsteps were audible. "Asta?"
Cursing inside his mind, Lucas continued on his own. Returning to the entrance was a waste of time, since his willpower already told him he was stuck in a maze. Continuing on in the darkness, eventually even his willpower was taken away.
Completely blind, Lucas gave up on trying to squint his eyes and just stretched his hands out. Step by step, he reached a wall, taking a turn, he moved on again.
Stuck in complete darkness, Lucas heard nothing, not even his own footsteps. Grasping in the dark, Lucas had to trust there wasn't a hole in front of him with each step. The moment his hands touched the cold stone, he turned. Sometimes he turned into another wall, making him turn to the other direction.
Being quite good at keeping track of time, Lucas lamented the fact he had been slowly walking for about an hour. Luckily, he had himself to accompany him, otherwise he wasn't certain if he could keep his sanity in such a place.
Feeling the cold wall touch his hand, he sighed. Taking a step left, he encountered another wall, making him turn back and check his right, only for the same thing to happen.
'A dead end? Seriously?'
Turning from where he came, he stepped forward without his arm stretched out, making his face hit the wall that appeared as if from nowhere. Taking a step back, the supposedly dead end had opened up. Rubbing his nose for a second, he tried to not freak out and moved on.
'The hell is this place supposed to be? We're meant to repent here?'
'A constantly changing maze in complete darkness. You'd go crazy for less.'
'I just don't get this shit. Sure, you sinned, but no matter how bad it is, you just walk around in this forsaken place?'
'You do have a point. We haven't exactly sinned all that much, yet there was no distinction, Asta's probably going through the same thing.'
'Exactly, we never did anything with evil intent. This entire temple should just collapse already.'
As Lucas tried to keep his calm, he kept wandering randomly through the maze. Being in the complete dark, the urge to simply conjure up a light was extremely tantalizing.
Venturing further in the dark, Lucas had gotten used to having no sense of direction. Giving up on figuring out how the maze looked or finding a way out, he simply started to get bored from walking so much without anything happening. Lucas was, if anything, excellent at adapting to his environment.
While plenty of people would go insane from being in an unescapable maze in complete darkness. Lucas believed he would be okay as long as he followed the rules and persevered.
Despite being in an abyss, he still kept his eyes open as he moved forward. Walking forward, his hands reached another surface, one unlike he touched before. It was soft, hairy, and wet. A thick sticky, viscous substance flowed over his fingers as he hurriedly pulled his hand back in disgust and fear.
In that mere moment, a shrill, high-pitched shriek came from the complete darkness. Lucas rushed to raise his hand to fire a spell at it.
'The fuck are you doing!', holding back the mana, it exploded inside his own arm, causing Lucas to scream in pain. The intense feeling of fire scorching the inside of his arm felt excruciating enough for Lucas to forget about the thing that just screamed.
'What are you doing!'
'You idiot! You can't produce light here! Just run away!'
Part of Lucas felt the world slow down for a mere instant. If the battle hungry part of him suggested running away, there was no way in hell he would even bother thinking about it. Turning around, Lucas rushed through the darkness. Shooting stones in front of him, he used the noise to calculate the distance. When he reached a wall, he randomly chose a direction.
Having a fifty-fifty shot of not turning into another wall, Lucas could only hope things worked out. The pain from his arm hurt with each pulse, which only quickened due to his pace.
The shrill shrieking behind him was accompanied by metallic sounds. As if whatever chased after him had metal at the end of its legs. The almost unrhythmic metallic tapping messed with his mind as it seemed to be right behind him.
Fighting against the beast or monster chasing him was initially a good idea, but he didn't know the first thing about the creature. Combined with the fact that he didn't know what would happen if the stones containing so much darkness broke. Using a Dark Beam would probably solve it all, but if the stones also got destroyed, would the darkness within swallow him?
Writing fighting off due to uncertainty, Lucas rushed through the dark hallways as the constant shrieking and metallic sounds chased him. The seemingly endless hallways started to build fear in his heart.
Right as he turned a corner and ran into a long hallway in the pitch black, the loud metallic sounds right behind him vanished as he heard it in front of him. Halting in his tracks, part of Lucas froze in place as he couldn't understand what just happened. Turning around, he ran again, as the sounds started to get closer and closer.
At a certain point, Lucas couldn't even tell where it was at, as he heard it from above and behind him.
Turning a corner, he saw an exit. Two torches lit up what seemed to be an entrance. It lit up enough of the maze to show it was his only way forward. Sprinting towards it, he suddenly stopped halfway.
'The hell are you doing?!'
'Following your advice. Shun away from light. With the light from the torches, we'll have some visibility, think you can handle it?'
'Screw it, give it to me.'
Changing control, Lucas instantly hardened his skin to steel and conjured a shield and sword. Taking a strong stance, he let his fists be decorated with shards of his own skin, creating a small morning star out of his fists. The pain was terrible, as his arm hadn't fully healed yet, but part of Lucas couldn't care less.
The incessant shrieking came closer and closer, the metallic tapping became more frantic and seemed to speed up, yet Lucas stayed stoic.
Gripping his hand on the sharpened stone blade, he waited. The noises got louder and louder until they felt like they were right on him, behind him, above him.
Lucas couldn't rely on his willpower to check, but felt that if he looked away from the dark, he would be ambushed. So, he simply ignored the sounds that seemed to crawl right into his ears.
Suddenly stopping, there was nothing. Not a single sound except his own breathing. Using the light from the torches in the distance, he tried to keep his focus. Two strange, large blade-like legs appeared in the light. The metal looked rusted, attached to a hairy body that looked wet from afar.
Steeling his resolve, the torches behind him suddenly went out.
"Motherfuckers!", part of Lucas was furious, not due to the fact he lost his light, but because he felt scared for a moment. Rushing towards the dark, Lucas swiped his sword near where the creature was supposed to be. Hitting nothing but air, he bashed his shield forward, pushing against the void.
"Running away from me, you bastard!", Lucas rushed towards the dark, slicing away, yet never capturing his target. He kept going, until his shield hit the wall. Seeing it could withstand his strength somewhat without breaking, Lucas grew even more daring.
After chasing the monster that vanished into the darkness, Lucas eventually dropped his guard. He hadn't heard or seen a thing from it.
"One of those stupid illusions Asta talked about?"
'No, I touched it and can tell you it felt as real as anything. Also, I've finished healing our arm, you can exert more strength now.'
"Against what? There's nothing here."
Right when Lucas finished his sentence, the noises appeared again, this time coming from behind him. Turning around, Lucas didn't put his guard up.
'What are you doing? That this is coming closer!'
"Shut up for me, will ya? Trust me."
Part of Lucas would've sighed if he could, instead, they focussed on the shrieking that got closer and closer. Eventually it was right in front of them. Lucas could hear it's ragged breath, the noise of its saliva dripping to the floor.
"You ain't a monster, are ya?", reaching out, Lucas didn't even hold his sword anymore. Using the palm of his hand to touch the wet, hairy being, Lucas made sure not to let the spikes hurt it.
A growl came from deep within the creature, yet it didn't do anything. Eventually, it retreated itself. Removing the saliva on his hands with magic, Lucas continued down the dark corridor, but didn't use stones or his hand to check his surroundings.
'You're going to walk into a wall like this.'
"Nah, only you're that stupid."
'What is that supposed to mean?'
"This place is supposed to make you repent. That's bullshit. They throw in people who committed crimes and their fear got them killed, that's it."
'Hmm, according to that logic, the people who have nothing to fear wouldn't have to be scared?'
"That's why this place is just shit, any normal human or demon for that matter would piss their pants meeting that thing in complete darkness."
'Still doesn't explain how you won't hit a wall with our face. While not extremely handsome, I do like to use our looks sometimes, you know?'
"Shut it. Wouldn't I already have walked into one? It's fear that controls this place, so just show no fear, and you'll get out."
Continuing his walk in complete darkness, sounds sometimes appeared to freak him out, but part of Lucas simply picked his ears. Eventually, he felt the ground beneath him shake. Showing no fear, he felt the ground going downwards.
The floor opened up, letting him fall down into an open field. Flying above the ground, Lucas checked his surroundings with a frown.
"What in the-?"
He felt like he was back on Aurora, green grasslands, a blue sky, birds tweeting in the distance. Spreading his willpower to its fullest, Lucas felt glad to be freed from that maze.
"Oh? He's here as well."
Seeing Asta in his mind, he quickly flew towards the place. He found Asta sitting next to someone who was using a campfire to roast some boar. Landing on the ground, he retracted his willpower.
"You're the Rank 4 mage, right?", there was a strange glint in his eyes, part of Lucas felt a headache coming on, but he wasn't in control in the first place, so it wouldn't hurt him.
Asta shook his head slightly, "This man is Yaldor Kleine, he's a loyal guard for my father. Sir, I suggest you tell your own story, this is Lucas."
Yaldor, had an average appearance, slightly darker red skin, large horns that looked like sickles and a wand at his side. The only notable thing besides his horns was the fact that he wasn't all that tall. Despite the large age and power gap, he was a head smaller than Lucas.
"A human as your companion?", Yaldor looked at Asta with a strange look, not one of displeasure, more intrigue.
"I believe all intelligent life is the same, equally sinful and magnanimous," Asta lifted his head in pride, truly thinking he was superior to most.
"I don't mind. Lucas, I'm Yaldor, I've been here for about 4 years," the man said as he stood up and presented his hand to shake.
"Cool, would it be possible for you to train me?", shaking it quickly, he held his hand awaiting a response. Asta picked up on the strange glint in his eyes.
"Which Lucas is in control right now?"
"The hell do you mean?", without thinking, Lucas spouted out his remark.
"I see, would it be possible to change?", nodding slightly in understanding, Asta knew what was going on.
"If he promises me to fight later," Lucas said as he crossed his arms. Asta smiled deeply and simply nodded towards Yaldor.
"I'm a knight for the lord, I don't mind sparring with you."
Suddenly, Lucas straightened his back, coughed lightly, and put on an awkward smile.
"My apologies, sir Yaldor, please forget about what I just said. After going through that place, my mind was in a bit of a mess. Frankly, it took me some time to figure out the gimmick of that place," instantly letting go of Yaldor's hand, he distanced himself slightly.
Not out of fear, but to lower the man's guard ever so slightly. It was still a Rank 4 monster standing in front of him. He looked to be friendly with Asta, but that didn't give him any insurance he would be so kind to him.
"Gimmick? It's just a question, no?", Asta spoke up as he tried to figure out how to elegantly eat the flesh on the bone with cutlery made from pure mana.
"What?"
"If you just followed the maze and mapped its structure and kept track of its changes, it spelled letters. Combining the letters, you would reach a large string of letters that when split at the right places gave you a simple question. Answering that led me here."
Lucas felt baffled, his mouth opened slightly at that revelation. Even Yaldor was nodding slowly in acknowledgment.
"That's right, it took me forever to figure it out, especially with that monster chasing me."
"You just have to kill it, it's not that difficult."
Grabbing his face out of slight embarrassment, he realized if there was ever a trap that challenged his directional awareness, he would be dead.
Looking for a way to change the topic, Lucas quickly brought up something he found strange. "You said you were here for 4 years? Does time move so slow here?"
"Yes. Asta told me it's only been a few weeks since I left for this mission. Considering that, a week's worth of time could be around a year here."
"Wasn't time magic extremely difficult?", directing himself to Asta, all he got was raised shoulders.
"It is, there's barely any mage that knows how to handle time in any kind of form, let alone use it like this."
Yaldor walked to the boar to grab himself some meat, it was clear he knew something, yet kept it to himself. None of them present needed food, but that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy it. Changing the topic, Yaldor explained the temple's origin. "This temple was initially built to worship the God of Darkness. He's quite capable."
"Another false deity?", Lucas had grown tired of hearing about it, but Yaldor shook his head.
"I've lived for a very long time, more than a thousand years," taking a stick, he started to draw on the ground, making a small house, "When I was a child, I was once invited to a strange archeologist's home. I learned about the ancient history from him. The God of Darkness was a living being at some point."
"My point stands then, a God is an undying omnipotent force. To call him a God when he can die feels wrong."
"We don't get to choose the names ourselves, you know? Even I've been called a God every once in a while. I passed by some village and helped them out every now and then. Hundreds of years passed, yet I still visit that village every once in a while. To them, I've become a God, a bastion in the passing of time."
"So it's just perception? Frog in the well doesn't know how big the world is?"
"Yes, but the God of Darkness wasn't named by peasants and the magicless, they were named by mages of Ranks higher than me."
Putting it in perspective, this person must've lived an eternity. They had just been talking for a small amount, but Lucas had dropped his guard considerably. Yaldor had a strange calm with him. Perhaps due to experience or just his personality, but Yaldor didn't look worried about being trapped in this place.
"Enough about the Gods and whatnot, why haven't you been able to escape?", Asta directed the conversation to the right place once more. Eating as he talked, Yaldor explained how this space worked.
"We're in a subspace inside the temple. This place is quite big, but there's nothing in it. No monsters, no puzzles, or riddles. It's just grassland with a forest. I checked the borders and searched high and low for a core or something similar, but there was nothing. So, I've been stuck here, trying to figure it out."
Hearing the calm explanation made Lucas think it wasn't that bad, but when he coupled the fact that Yaldor was here for over four years, it turned sour. Not that Lucas had given up hope, the fact that time moved slower here compared to the outside wasn't set up for no reason.
'There are multiple ways to solve the labyrinth, this place might work similarly.'
'That shitty maze was bad, but how does this relate to repenting?'
The gears in his head started to work overtime, something Asta picked up on. Standing up, he invited Lucas to investigate the land. After flying for a few hours, the words of Yaldor rung true. There was nothing of note here.
A few barely built houses holding no beds or furniture. If there was something of note, that would be the gray obelisk standing in presumable the center of the space. It held but a single riddle;
You've walked the edge of every tree, mapped the winds, named every sea. You've searched the ground, the stars, the sky, yet missed the place where answers lie.The door is here, but cannot be seen, until you look where you have been.
What must you do to leave?