Seeing that the girls were gone Daimon turned around and followed Erin’s instructions, the more he walked down the trail, he noticed the forest was rather quiet, which would have normally been good but in this particular case it was tenebrous.
The sunlight didn’t reach the parts which were covered by trees and the temperature kept dropping the more he went deeper into the forest.
After walking for about half an hour, he reached his destination, in front a huge black wall which extended as far as he could see stood still, Daimon frowned his brows, there were no trees near the wall so he should have been able to see the wall when they were floating in the sky above the island.
So, the only thing he could think was that there was a magic formation which hid this place, so that those who passed flying near the island would not be able to notice anything.
Daimon started looking for an opening on the wall, but there was no such a thing, instead he noticed a little cabin about three hundred meters away from his current spot.
He approached it and was welcomed by the sight of an old man which was sitting on the ground warming up near a campfire as he drank some kind of hot drink.
“Mm?”, the old man gave Daimon an apathic gaze as if he has seen been in this situation quite a few times already, still he seemed to evaluate Daimon from head to toe before he left his cup.
“Welcome to the Caedes Fortress, I wonder what kind of sin have you committed to be sent here… judging by your looks I guess you slept with the wrong woman?”.
“Huh?”, Daimon was confused by the old man’s words, he took out the badge Erin gave him and showed it to him.
“I was given this token and told to ask for instructions here”.
The old man nodded, as if he understood what was happening, “Oh, sorry about my previous assumptions kid, normally those who arrive at this place are prisoners”.
“Still, it’s been quite some time since someone came here by his own will… are you aware of what lies behind those walls?”.
Daimon shook his head, apparently, he was here to kill someone, but the girls didn’t give him any details so he was in the dark.
The old man sighed, “Youngsters nowadays are reckless, whatever, this place is a prison for those who have committed horrible sins, to the point that death isn’t a harsh enough of a punishment… and they don’t have a strong enough background to pressure the beast faction to release them”.
“So, their lives are free to take for any member of a family or force of the beast faction, of course it’s not as simple as that, you need the permission of either a clan head or someone of a similar status”.
Daimon looked at the token which Erin handed him, apparently this was the “pass” he needed to enter this place.
“Okay and what are the rules, how do I enter there and how do I leave?”, he said.
The old man handed Daimon a black coin and then explained its function.
“Only I can open the entrance of the prison from the outside, once you are inside you will have to stay for at least three hours, once you finish what you have come to do, then just break the coin and you will transported back to this same place for a safety check”.
“You are one star ranked mage so you will be going to the first area of the prison, fill this form and then let a drop of blood fall on the coin so that only you’ll be able to use it”, said the old man as he handed a paper to Daimon.
The form was basically for him to fill his name, the family to which he is affiliated and things like that.
Daimon did as he told and the coin changed its color from black to red, now that preparations were done, the old man did a few symbols with his hands and a bunch of runes illuminated on the walls.
“Don’t lose the coin or you’ll be trapped inside for one day, because there is a safety lock of 24 hours between each trial… by the way you’ll appear at a random spot so be prepared to run for your life”.
“Also, you’ll see it once you are inside, but don’t try to leave by digging on the ground or flying or you’ll be killed by the magic formations”.
Daimon nodded, he kept the coin on his storage and only then the old man waved his hand and Daimon disappeared from his sight.
Silent remained in the cabin until the old man let out a sigh, he opened a desk which was at the corner of the room and threw the form Daimon filled, inside of the desk there were an unmeasurable number of similar papers.
“I hope that kid knew what he was getting into, because there won’t be enough of him left for a coffin if he didn’t”, thought the old man before he returned to his previous spot near the campfire.
…
The transportation took just a couple of seconds, the next thing Daimon saw was that he appeared on top of a mountain, he kept his guard up since he didn’t know what was waiting for him.
He turned to see the sky and his eyes widened a bit, instead of the sky of Lykos the only thing visible was a huge magic formation which covered the whole place.
“Mm?”, Daimon noticed that the mana concentration in the air was really thin, to the point that it would take a few days to recover the amount used to cast a one-star spell.
The mountain gave Daimon a good perspective of the place, but the only thing he could see were trees and a river, the only difference to is that the trees inside of the walls were of a black color and were covered with thorns.
The breeze at the top of the mountain was quite cold, apparently the magic formations made this place harsh for those who lived here.
“Let’s go near the river, if there are people here then I should be able to find them there”, he thought as he went down the mountain, once he was at ground level a strong stench of blood assaulted his nose.
Although he knew it was probably a bad idea, he looked for the origin of the smell and found a trace of blood, there was signs of something being dragged through the ground, so he followed the trace.
After walking for a few minutes, he found what he was looking for but unlike what he expected, the responsible for the blood trace wasn’t a prisoner but a magic beast… which he has never heard off.
It was a black beast which had four legs with three fingers on each and the claws of a predator, but that wasn’t all, besides the four legs it had two arms with longer fingers, its mouth was incredibly wide and it had spike like teeth and a variety of eyes of different sizes similar to those of a spider.
“What the hell is that, it looks like a mix of several beasts”, thought Daimon.
*Crunch*, the thing moved its jaws and the sound of bones cracking echoed through the forest, Daimon looked downwards and he noticed there were rests of a corpse and a lot of bones, which was the result of that beast hunting its meal.
Contrary to what he expected, the scene of a magic beast munching on someone didn’t make him feel anything, at most he was a bit disgusted by the foul smell of rotten meat and death which filled the place.
The thing suddenly screeched and turned around, somehow it noticed Daimon and jumped disappearing into the trees, apparently the long claws were not only to gut its prey, but to move through the trees.
*Screech!!!*, with a high-pitched sound the beast propelled itself towards Daimon with its jaw opened as if it was trying to engulf him in just one go.
Daimon’s image flashed from where he was standing, the beast crashed against the ground and Daimon appeared behind it, with a snap of his fingers the thing exploded in white flames.
*Roarrrr*, the beast went crazy, it tried to crash against the trees and roll in the dirt to set off the fire but nothing worked, Daimon jumped and sat on the branch of a tree, he just stayed still while the beast kept screaming until it consumed itself leaving nothing but a burn corpse.
*Ding*
[You have successfully slayed mad chimera, no skills attainable due to genetic and brain damage]
“Chimera huh… more like a defective experiment”, thought Daimon.
According to Evangeline, the system used the vital energy and memories of the beast which was slayed by Daimon to recreate the abilities as skills, that’s why the corpse disappeared when he wanted to learn their skills because it was scanned and converted into skills.
This beast was created artificially and it was defective, so there weren’t enough “materials” for the system to do its magic, even the corpse was apparently useless for him.
*Thud*, Daimon landed on the ground he looked on the bones and rests left behind by the beasts and recognized a few things, there were badges with the emblems of different families, with a wave of his hand the pit on which the beast accumulated its “trophies” light up in white flames.
He then approached the corpse and inspected it, there were seams on the limbs the creature used as arms, so clearly someone took them from another magic beast and literally attached them to this one.
The creature didn’t have any cultivation but its physical body was enough to overwhelm one and maybe even two star ranked mages.
Daimon sighed.
“I wonder if this thing is a “guard” of the prison, or if it is something created by one of the prisoners… whatever might be the case I now understand what the old man meant when he said this place was a punishment for those which didn’t deserve to be so freed by having an easy death”.