Hinterlands (II)

"Survive?" Magnus asked as his heart suddenly sped up.

Fear and excitement ran rampant inside him.

"Survive what?"

"I don't know!" The old man let out a manic laugh as he jammed his hands into the portal-like crack in the air, "Haha! Good luck, young man!"

Magnus' eyes dilated in panic, but he himself did not reject what came next.

Rrrrrrrrrip!

What usually was the sound of Scroll being ripped, was now the world itself making that sound. As for why the two sounded awfully similar was none of Magnus' business at the moment. He wasn't there for answers.

But for thrills.

"Alright then," He muttered as a smile slowly blossomed from his lips. "Let's see what lays beneath the veil!"

"That's the spirit!" The old man then focused his seemingly all-encompassing energy on just his body.

The overbearing pressure that he emanated before was nowhere to be seen. The old man was simply standing there. Simple and plain.

But he was menacing.

Magnus knew intuitively just how much power he could unleash.

RRRRRIIIP!

The old man tore open the world himself, widening the crack by a large amount. Under the influence of the old man's massive amounts of Spirit Energy, a fluctuation finally occurred. There was first a single ripple.

Then another.

And then yet another.

Soon, the calm of the cracks all around Magnus was stirred into movement. It was a jarring sight, like being in a room full of liquid mirrors.

Magnus blinked. Not even a blur occupied his vision as he felt a great force toss him inside the portal. The old man had thrown him in.

In the next moment, the world around him looked different. It was empty and dark, save for the timeless temple that floated around like it was an immovable mountain. Restiel's wings flapped at nothing. He was immobile as he flew over a great distance.

'Is this what space feels like?' Magnus thought as Restiel suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood.

'Hm? Something has infected us?'

Divine Energy rapidly churned within the angel, trying to expel whatever had entered his body. There were splotches of black ink spreading all over his skin as the white light of Divine Energy shone.

'It isn't working?' Magnus was surprised.

He discovered something that Restiel's Purification did not seem to have any effect on at all.

The infection rapidly continued spreading, as Magnus stared on. He had no other options save for switching bodies before Restiel perishes.

And so, he waited.

'I need to make sure I time this right,' Magnus thought as he looked behind himself. The temple he wanted to go to was much farther than he initially thought. It was going to take him another minute of high-speed flight to make it there.

And, if all of the active Hivemind members die, that would be when Magnus himself dies. After all, no one would be there to summon the others. Thus, the risk of having only one person out was humongous, especially in a place like this.

"Now!" Restiel was the vent to Magnus' emotions as he opened his eyes abruptly and yelled.

His skin was oozing in a pitch-black colour that was akin to that of his surroundings. Black blood leaked out of his pores, and the whites of his eyes had turned yellow.

He was just a step away from death when Magnus switched with him.

Magnus held the Half-Night Tome in his hand, circulated the Soul Devourer Art, and activated his ethereality—but his theory proved to be false.

Even as a ghost, he was still being contaminated by something.

The darkness spread across him.

But it thankfully didn't spread fast enough.

Magnus arrived at the stairs of the Greek-styled temple and slammed against one of its pillars. Only a quarter of himself had been infected.

Instantly, some type of gravity acted on his body, causing him to fall.

"Whew," Magnus wiped the black-stained sweat from his forehead as he reversed his own gravity.

The infection was painless. It was also odourless and void of anything at all.

And that was what made it terrifying.

Magnus could only guess when he was most likely to perish.

'I have a feeling that Restiel still had another few seconds to spare.' Magnus chuckled as he witnessed the infection stop spreading.

It simply lingered on and inside his body like a rash. It was itchy. The only feeling that it gave off. And it had only started doing this when he made it to the temple.

Magnus then looked around.

He saw a small crater on one of the temple's pillars. That must have been where his body had slammed against.

Some sort of veil was currently shrouding his vision. He could not see more than a few feet away from him. Magnus thus lowered himself to be closer to the ground. He summoned Javelin to lead the way and sense the area.

At first, Magnus floated around aimlessly, but after a minute, he made it in front of a wall. A caricature could be seen, drawn on it. It depicted some humanoid being with fangs and claws.

It wasn't a ghoul, but Magnus felt it looked familiar.

"A vampire?" He asked himself.

If it was really a vampire, it was the more grotesque species of them. Not the noble and good-looking vampires.

Magnus walked to the right, and there he found another caricature.

"...A lightning god?" Magnus' eyes then zoomed in on a certain hammer that crackled with electricity, "Thor?"

Magnus walked to the next caricature.

"Tsukumogami?" He identified the spirited inanimate objects of Japanese folklore.

Then the next,

"Rings with eyes..." Magnus' mouth gaped at the horrifying sight of Merkabah angels.

And the next,

"A four-faced Buddha..." Magnus saw a sight he once saw during his tours of Earth.

Every caricature was that of something that came from his homeworld.

Magnus continued walking, and it went on for dozens of different works of art.

He began becoming unable to identify them all. Some cultures of Earth were a lot less known, and Magnus was not a scholar of their myths and legends.

But it soon came to an end as Magnus realised that he stood at the corner of the temple. He followed the wall again and this time, he discovered statues instead of caricatures.

Magnus identified the great villains of Earth's history.

Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Nero.

Those three were among the many that could be identified. Magnus was a lot less knowledgeable of History and thus had difficulty telling who was who.

Soon he reached the end of the wall once more and discovered paintings of Earth's different landscapes.

He saw the Alps, Yellowstone Caldera, the Marianas Trench, and many, many others.

As many as the legends on the opposite wall.

When he reached the end, Magnus found himself back at the entrance.

But this time, he had an estimate for the temple's size.

He drifted towards the centre of the temple, and there, as per his guesses was a small pedestal. There was a box on the pedestal, but four different-coloured chains locked it down.

Uniformly,

Four runes could be seen on the ground near it.

They were all glowing brightly in four different colours.

Red, blue, green, and purple.

Curious, Magnus went to the red rune.

He touched it with the tips of his toes and the world changed. This time, Magnus found himself in a world of white with nothing but an enemy standing in his way.

A minotaur.

"Huff!" The minotaur exhaled a gust of air as it padded the white floor.

Magnus squinted.

And the minotaur charged.

'A 1-star threat?' Magnus thought as he instantly began fighting.

Gravity pressed down on the minotaur, forcing it to tumble onto the ground as its balance was messed with.

Swoosh!

Magnus launched his stone spear through the air.

It struck the minotaur before it could even stand back up. Blood poured from the wound in its head as it crumpled into the ground like a plastic bag.

'Weak,' Magnus thought as the world returned to the way it previously was.

'... I wasn't able to collect its main characteristics,' Magnus lamented his loss for a moment.

He then went to the purple rune this time and touched it.

Before Magnus, there appeared a shadow wielding a sword. Its poise and form spoke of its abilities as a martial artist.

The moment Magnus became conscious of its presence, it lunged out.

Swoosh!

A sword was heading straight for Magnus' heart at a speed much greater than the minotaur's charge.

'1.5 stars...' Magnus thought to himself as he invoked,

"I am the cause of creation,

The maker of stars."

Whoom whoom whoom!

A low hum of energy erupted from where Magnus stood as a powerful attraction acted upon the swordsman before him.

The swordsman's speed greatly increased as it primed itself for victory.

But Magnus was not going to allow it.

Abruptly, he sent out a powerful wave of repulsion, halting the shadow in its steps. Bits and pieces of its shadowy body separated from it. The swordsman seemed to flinch, and Magnus used this chance to send out his gravity orb.

Dong!

With a familiar combination of attraction and repulsion, Magnus blew the shadow's head off. The sound of a gong accompanied his easy victory.

This time, Magnus did not bother hoping that he could take the shadow's main characteristics for his Trial. For one, he had no idea what it was, and two, he was sent back instantly once again.

Slightly familiar with the process, Magnus walked up to the next colour: Blue.

He touched it and this time he was sent to fight against an eagle that had a 2-star rating. It was a big jump in difficulty, but Magnus was eventually able to defeat it after summoning Javelin to help him.

He tore the eagle apart, bit by bit, feather by feather, using claws that were not yet sharp enough to reliably cut through something with a 2-star rating.

When he returned to the temple and attempted the final mark, he was faced with a naga.

"It really is at 2.5 stars..." Magnus sucked in a breath.

He did not have Restiel, and thus lacked a huge portion of his offensive abilities.

The angel was still currently out of commission.

Such a reason was why Magnus had difficulties with just a 2-star beast.