Throne of Magical Arcana - Ambuscade

“Bragging and bragging… useless adventurers…” sneered Lilith. “All they have is muscles, but unfortunately no brain.”
    

“Don’t underestimate them.” Sala shook his head, “Many of them have been dealing with the many horrific monsters in the black forest and the Dark Mountain Range for a long time. They can’t be taken lightly.”
    

When he was talking, his eyes suddenly opened wide. The color of the candle was fading, and so was the color of the wall. Little by little, everything started to lose color. A thin layer of haze slowly descended.
    

Sala’s hand touched the table in the room when he took a step back, and he felt the moist of the wood, as if the table had been sitting there for over a thousand years.
    

“Run!” Sala took his sister’s hand and shouted, “Something’s wrong!”
    

However, his voice sounded so far away, as if it came from another world. Lilith looked very afraid and also confused. Grabbing Sala’s hand, she followed him and they started to run downstairs.
    

When the two magic apprentices were running, they took out some of their magic reagents and held the materials tightly in their hands in order to cast the spells for self-defense, if needed.
    

By the time they got to the ground floor, the tavern was already in a great mess. All those people, including the adventurers who had bragged about their strength for the whole night, were pushing each other fiercely in order to leave that place as soon as possible.
    

Seeing that there was no chance for them to get access to the door immediately, Sala pulled his sister’s arm and they ran together toward the tavern’s back door.
    

Directly kicking the back door open, Sala and Lilith found that the whole town was being affected and was turning gray. However, most people living there had already fallen asleep in their houses, so they did not notice anything unusual, and the town was actually very quiet.
    

Sala and Lilith started to run toward the exit to Massawa, the city close to Bonn. They had no idea what was going on there.
    

When they were about to leave the town, Sala and Lilith bumped into a few adventurers who were running toward the same direction.
    

“Something’s wrong with Elsinore Lake!” an adventurer talked aloud to the other people, “It must be the magic lock… The magic lock is… it’s collapsing!”
    

Before the other people responded, Lilith cried out and pointed at the adventures with her shaking hand, “You…”
    

Their skin started to turn gray as well, and some parts looked rotten already. However, the adventurers themselves looked very confused, as if they had no idea what was happening to their bodies.
    

Seeing that their eyes slowly lost focus, Sala pulled his sister’s arm and shouted, “Run! Don’t look back!”
    

Sala and Lilith were running so fast that they almost couldn’t breathe. A slight taste of blood rose from their throats.
    

The town behind them had turned into hell.
    

Finally, Sala and Lilith felt a bit warmer after the weird feeling of running through a thick curtain. However, they didn’t dare to take a rest. They kept running toward Massawa to stay away from that horrific town named Bonn.
    

…
    

“The magic lock…?!” Ilia, the silver-robed great priest, immediately noticed the unusual change when the color of everything started to fade away. “This is not what the Great Master told us!”
    

Then, he decisively commanded the high and common priests and the dark knights, “There is no more time for the blood sacrifice! The magic lock is changing. Cancel the sacrifice and gather all the people! We shall activate the summoning circle immediately to greet our true God!”
    

Receiving the order, six high priests flew up in the sky surrounding Bonn and Elsinore Lake, and twelve priests and dark knights were standing on the ground in a corresponding way. These people was all Argent Horn had now in the Duchy of Orvarit, and some of them, following the will of God, came all the way from other countries or even the Dark Mountain Range to support them.
    

Ilia also flew above Elsinore Lake and what he saw stunned him:
    

The surface of the lake turned solid within a few seconds and suddenly broke into small pieces, like a mirror being shattered by some great power. The Grand Cross was shining brightly at the bottom of the lake, surrounded by some kind of blood-red liquid which was wriggling as if it was alive.
    

Lots of ghosts, revenants and black shadows were howling and screaming while they were swiftly flying back and forth above the lake. As they were shouting toward the same direction, the sound waves joined together and gave shape to a translucent, huge ghost, who was wearing a long, black robe with a huge scythe in its hand, standing above the blood-red liquid. Underneath its hood, two black holes could be seen on its skull-like face.
    

Although being protected by his many spells, Ilia still shivered a bit from the scene, as if the warmth of his life was leaving his body.
    

The Grand Cross was slowly collapsing. The main world and the black-and-white world were overlapping.
    

Ilia took out a huge pale hand, and every knuckle of it had sharp bony spurs, shining with some faint light.
    

Raising up the hand high in the air, Ilia started to chant a long mantra which could drive people crazy. Many silver lines came out of the priests and dark knights, were they in the air or on the ground, and joined together around Ilia to shape a complicated magic circle.
    

When Ilia finished casting, he directly threw the huge hand into the center of the magic circle. Countless silver lines jumped up and devoured the hand like a monster’s huge mouth.
    

As a silver gate slowly appeared in the sky, the Grand Cross underneath was almost completely gone.
    

All of a sudden, a bright, burning light beam shot the silver gate right in the center, from a higher position in the sky.
    

The colors of black and gray suddenly disappeared, and the whole area was filled with sacred light.
    

As soon as the ghosts, revenants and shadows touched the light, they disappeared like vapor, and even the undead creatures in the town all turned into ashes instantly.
    

This was the eighth circle divine spell, Sunburst!
    

“Amelton… Gossett!?” Ilia was shocked, “How come…”
    

Floating high in the air, Vila Amelton was holding a cross-shaped badge carved with a pattern of a sun in the center, and Gossett was right beside her.
    

Count Hart Rafati, Count Hayward, who was the deputy commander of Violet Knights and also a gold knight, and another two radiant knights were also there.
    

On the other side, Salvador and Clown were leading the other night watchers to block the whole area.
    

Half of the most powerful people of the duchy were there tonight.
    

“How come?” Putting back the level eight divine badge, Vila said to Ilia coldly, “We’ve been waiting for you here for a long time.”
    

Although Ilia knew that the Church would definitely send some people here to investigate the usual changes happening around the lake recently, he never expected that the ambush would be this powerful.
    

“Who betrayed us!?” Ilia’s fists clenched tightly, but a moment later an evil smile appeared on his face. “If the true God cannot come, all of us will die here tonight by the hands of what’s sealed, or even worse, all of us will become its slaves.”
    

…
    

In the wilderness at the junction of Melzer Black Forest and the Dark Mountain Range.
    

“Lucien, why are you here?” Natasha asked Lucien with confusion. Her voice was slightly trembling.
    

Lucien looked down at the black robe he was wearing and realized that he needed to tell Natasha at least part of the truth, “I found the secret of the magic lock from the poem provided by Mr. Deroni and a roll of manuscript brought to me by two strangers who visited me the other day.” Lucien paused a bit and continued, “You know me, Your Grace. I always want to be stronger and more powerful to protect my friends and family, so I decided to take a risk to see if I could find any useful potion in this magic lock.”
    

Natasha’s eyebrows frowned a bit.
    

“As soon as I arrived in Bonn, I was sucked into a creepy hole. The world inside of the hole was all black and white and I almost died there. When I was being chased by a bunch of horrific undead creatures and plants, I found a gap and I jumped in it. Now I’m here… it’s very weird.”
    

“I see… some benefits from being a historian, uh?” Natasha put on an exhausted smile. Although she did not really trust Lucien’s words, her mind told her that asking too much right now would benefit no one in such a situation.
    

“What happened to you, Your Grace? And where’s Lady Camil?” asked Lucien.
    

Natasha’s eyes dimmed and she looked down, “I got some information about the magic lock the day before yesterday. Out of curiosity, I decided to go to Elsinore Lake to take a look. But we were ambushed. My curiosity led my team into a horrible trap…”
    

“What?!” Lucien was shocked.
    

“In order to make time for me to leave, Camil stayed to cover me. She was confronting a radiant knight and a senior-rank mage…”
    

Natasha’s voice became lower and lower.
    

“Who attacked you?” Lucien’s eyes opened wide.
    

Natasha looked very depressed, and by the time she could answer Lucien, an army arrived and surrounded Natasha’s people and Lucien.
    

Lucien looked up and saw Verdi sitting on a weird-looking horse with two goat horns. Silvia was right beside Verdi, looking rather sad. However, Silvia’s father was not there.
    

“My dear cousin, please give up.” Verdi was covered with a suit of dark-purple armor, “It’s too late for the Church or the Violet Knights to come and save you.”