And so, to restore peace, I assumed the duty of slaying the gods, for it is I who bears the moniker of the God's Bane.
"...."
"Eden?" Grace called out softly as she shook my hand.
"Y-yeah," I replied, but my gaze was still fixed on the slate
"Why are you looking at that?" She asked as she followed my gaze.
"That's strange. The text that was in front of the path is here as well," she mumbled as she looked at the slate.
"Um.... Eden, do you understand what's written on that?" Aeloria asked, frowning, as I blocked the path of the stairs.
"No," I mumbled as I took a step down, and we arrived in a different place.
The staircase brought us to a different pathway, or to be more precise, it brought us to a tunnel.
A tunnel whose end we couldn't see.
'That's an unexpected text I encountered,' I thought as I moved forward inside the endless tunnel.
At the entrance, what the text written was not that complicated.
If I have to say it in simple words, it meant that at the beginning of this world, there weren't any gods.
Which matched with what I know.
Before the 'demise of deities.'
Before the era of gods, there was a time that the world knew nothing about gods.
The world's history that got lost as time progressed.
A time when gods weren't present.
But things get complicated with what was written on the last slate.
There was mention of 'they' and 'order.'
But the question is, who are 'they'?
What 'order' was it talking about?
But the most concerning thing was the language that was used to write those words.
Was there some kind of relation between the Human God and the Phoenix clan?
'Anyway, I will have to talk with Sylvia about this.'
A sigh left my mouth as I took deep breaths to clam my unresting heart as I thought about what to do with this information.
"Why are you sighing?" Aeloria mumbled as she arrived beside me.
"What time should it be now?" I asked, ignoring her question.
"I don't know," Aeloria replied, and Grace also shook her head.
'Edda?'
[4 hours until sunset.]
'Hmm.'
"When did you steal one of them?" I grumbled as I looked at Aeloria, who had one of those shining stones in her hand.
"From the first time I saw it?"
"Give me that."
"No, I won't."
"Why?"
"It's warm, and I feel cold right now."
I let out a deep sigh as I let her be, as this place was slightly cold.
"If you don't want to get us in trouble, don't touch anything from now on. Got that?"
"...yeah."
Well, at least she knows her mistakes.
As we moved in the seemingly endless tunnel, I kept looking at Grace.
She had a stoic look on her face, but the way she kept rubbing her hands made it clear that she was also feeling cold.
"Hmm?" As I moved towards the wall and took out a light-illuminating stone, I passed it to Grace.
"Take it, it'll help you with the cold," I said as I passed it to her.
With a slight nod, she pressed it tightly in her hand.
"Hey! You just warned me not to touch anything, and you did the same thing," Aeloria said, her face showing betrayal.
"I knew it wouldn't trigger any trap," I replied, shrugging my shoulders.
"Liar!"
"Think what you want."
"There are so many of them, can't I take one more?"
"Don't even think about it."
"Come on, jerk."
Ignoring her grumbling, I looked at the stones attached to the walls.
They were placed at intervals of a few meters and were abundant.
'They can be useful if I should take them with me.'
Of course, I am going to take all of these for myself. No way in hell am I going to leave any of these for the royal family.
"Hey! I can see something!"
After walking for quite a while, we could finally see something that looked like a wall blocking our path.
I also looked around the place anxiously in case there was another text like the one I found at the entrance, but to my relief, there wasn't anything like that present here.
"A seal?"
As I got closer to the wall, Aeloria, who had run ahead of us, was touching the wall and mumbled.
I looked at the wall, and sure enough, a complex magic seal made with runes was carved on it.
'A seal with special conditions?'
I thought as I looked at the seal. No matter how advanced the seal could be, the basics remained the same, and from the basics, I could tell it required a special condition to open it.
"It requires a condition to open it."
I looked at Aeloria in surprise as she mumbled those words.
"You know about this rune?" I asked, curious.
In no way was it easy to understand this complex rune easily in a few seconds and tell what it was for.
"Yeah, and this one needs a special condition to open it," she mumbled with a perplexed look as she pointed at the door.
"And what is that condition?" Grace asked.
"...hmm, I need time to give an accurate answer for that."
"...can't we just undo the seal with brute force?" Grace asked again with a frown.
'Why is she thinking about using fists?' I thought, looking at her.
"We can't do that," Aeloria replied, shaking her head.
"Why?" Grace asked.
"If it was that easy to break into a seal made by runes, people wouldn't use it in the first place," Aeloria explained as she touched the runes.
"So are we going to go back?" Grace asked, sounding tired.
'Well, we've been walking for a while now, so it's reasonable for her to be tired,' I thought to myself.
"Aeloria, can you tell us what the conditions are to open it?" I asked.
"I need some time," she replied.
"Hmm," I mumbled, contemplating our options.
"Fine, try what you can do," I replied, walking a little further,taking a seat and leaning against the wall as I closed my eyes.
Before long, I sensed another presence sitting beside me.
"Are you upset, Grace?" I asked, still keeping my eyes closed.
"...."
Silence followed.
"You can say if you have something on your mind," I encouraged.
"I hate you, Eden," she replied.
"I know," I responded calmly.
"I hate my father as well," she continued.
"I know," I acknowledged.
"I hate Angelina as well, and the royal family," she added.
"So do I," I admitted with a light chuckle.
"Eden, don't give me hope, please," she whispered, her voice heavy with emotion.
I glanced at her; she had buried her head in her knees, refusing to meet my gaze.
'She's still haunted by the past', I thought.
"Hey! Come back here, I think I know what the conditions are!" Aeloria's sudden shout snapped us both out of our reverie, and we hurried over to her.
"What is the condition?" I asked.
"Blood," Aeloria replied.
"Ahh, fuck.."
I cursed softly as the meaning dawned on me.
"Someone's blood from the royal family, huh?" Grace said, understanding the meaning of her words.
"But there is another condition," Aeloria continued after a brief pause.
"And what is that?" I inquired.
"If a specific energy is passed through the seal, it will open as well," she explained.
"What energy is that?"
"I don't know, but I've already tried spirit energy and mana, and neither are working."
"Hmm," I hummed thoughtfully, placing my hand on the seal and attempting to pass Aura through it. As expected, it didn't work.
"Guess we're going back again," I mumbled, feeling slightly disappointed of not discovering what lay beyond the wall.
"Good work, girl," I said as I gently patted Aeloria's head.
Poor girl seemed too shocked to respond.
After patting her head twice, I turned around to walk back.
[Eden.] Edda's voice suddenly echoed in my head.
'What?'
[You have more than one energy in you, remember.]
'No, that's not possible, Edda. Only I have star energy in this world, and that seal was made thousands of years ago. It cannot be opened with it.' I quickly and firmly rejected her suggestion.
I began to walk again, refusing to look back at the wall as I tried to calm my racing heart.
[Eden, destiny cannot be changed; it can only be altered.]
I stopped at her words, taking a deep breath.
I didn't want to do this, but I couldn't run away from it either.
If I ran away now, I would be in the dark again, and I didn't want that.
Letting out another sigh, I walked back toward the wall again.
"What are you doing?" Grace asked, puzzled.
"Eden?"
Ignoring both of them, I once again placed my hand on the wall and closed my eyes.
I allowed a small amount of Star energy to flow out of my body toward the seal.
—Clang!!!!