352 Hellhole

"Meow!"

As light jumped to the roof from the sudden loud sound, I caught him and gave him a few pets as a small smile formed on my face, it seemed like not that much time would be wasted.

"Yes?"

Opening the sliding door to my courtyard, I scanned the apprentice wearing a certain uniform which had a starless tag attached to it.

'An executive committee enforcer…?'

It seemed like he was a member of the neutral group that simply enforced orders and laws, though I did know who might be the cause of me receiving this 'mission', this fellow who seemed to be a bit rude was probably just doing his duty a bit too enthusiastically.

"You are to head out within 3 days into the 5-star Dark Nest as located on the map to exterminate the possible danger of a Dark Wave occurring. Here's your mission tag which you can use to check the further details about it in the mission center."

Handing me a small scroll as well as a small coin shaped object, the enforcer immediately left with haste.

'Is that how they are going to do it?'

I obviously had no plans on waiting for two days as I only went back to the courtyard to pack my stuff and ready myself before I made my way to the mission center…

`~~`~~`~~`

Elsewhere…

"Do you think it's really correct to send such a new talent to that grave?!"

The green Wind called out loudly towards the man of similar age with a fiery red beard, he appeared to be extremely irritated as he said so.

"What do you mean? Wasn't that usually our routine so far? That Dark Nest is an extreme time bomb that we haven't been able to do anything about for a long while, not only does it have a very tight age restriction, but the dark spawns inside of it are quite capable, with the possible power-up caused by dark wave eruptions, if that nest is left to erupt, even the sect master might not be able to handle the sheer numbers, the casualties would simply be too great!"

Stroking his beard which had its distinct fiery red color as a side effect of his achievements on practicing his elemental art, the bald middle-aged man stated his point while keeping most of his composure.

"But isn't that strategy what caused us to lose half the young talents in the sect? You and Water always insist on this but was there ever a different outcome other than the increasing loss to the Elemental Blade?"

While it was true that the latest dark wave eruptions had increased the strength of the dark spawns by 2 stars of higher, Wind obviously didn't believe it was right to throw talents into that hellhole just to try and suppress an expected danger, especially if it was a new apprentice that barely spent two weeks in the sect!

He had originally thought that he would be shielded by the sect master who would accept him as a personal apprentice when he guided him two days ago, but no announcement has been made nor did the sect master interfere when this killer mission has been assigned to Lan in the council meeting yesterday, even his messages that he sent to inquire about it from the sect master remained unanswered…

"This time is different! Didn't they mention that this new apprentice achieved a miracle in the tower a few days ago? I believe that he can achieve such a miracle as well, it's simply our last try with the most hope. If he really did unfortunately fail to come out, I will completely stop trying that and start formulating a plan to get ready for the dark wave eruption instead."

'Well, I will have to give up this weakening spot but getting rid of that pest is worth it! Who told him to be so flashy as soon as he joined the sect, did he really think he would get to be that youthful old man's apprentice…?'

The red bearded baldy stared at Wind as he thought to himself, showing a light smile as Wind seemed to have given up, with no other Division Masters supporting him as they simply stayed neutral, he could only do so.

'Too bad, your arrogant show of talent is going to be your first step to the grave, hehe…'

`~~`~~`~~`

Exiting through the big gate of the Elemental Blade, I simply took a look back before marching ahead, while I was offered a good horse by the sect, I refused using the fact that the dark nest was quite close to the sect, not that I needed one even if it was far away.

The target of this extermination mission was to erase the danger of a dark nest that had been proven to have an impossible difficulty, with the lowest estimated strength of the monsters inside of it having power similar to that of a 3rd stage practitioner…

Further details attached to the mission was the fact that this special mission had already encountered 5 failures in a row, which was the exact number of times this mission had been handed out.

Other than that, nothing worth remembering was there, providing little to no importance other than warning the one who got issued the mission that he was walking to his death with nothing that he could do since this mission was a compulsory one.

However, seeing all of this had little effect on me, in fact, it reassured me that nothing went wrong so far.

"Meowwww…"

Patting little Light who was still lying on my shoulder playing with a piece of paper, he jumped as he morphed to his two meter tall Black Lion form as I got on. Since I had estimated the journey to take about hours long on Light's back, I decided to simply go over the small holes in the plan and fill them with what suited them according to the situation instead of running on my own.

...

"Meow!"

Coming out of my deep thinking trance with the help of Light's 'fierce' meow, I threw a quick glance at the huge cavity filled with darkness within the small mountain in front of me, seemingly not being that much different for the regular look of corruption gates, making it hard for one to think that this was the impossible gate mentioned in the mission description…

Of course, as Light had already checked the map scroll a few times, he couldn't have missed the place, especially with me making sure that we didn't deviate much from our path during my semi-trance.

"Long, wake up."

Not rushing to enter the gate, I first rubbed my main spatial ring before calling out as if I was summoning some sort of a genie.

"Sigh… once again, calling me out at troublesome places. Be careful, this gate doesn't seem to be normal…"

The calm and obedient persona of Long that lasted quite a bit seemed to have been finally replaced by a new one that seemed to be a mix of laziness and wisdom.

"I know, you don't need to worry about it, just do as I told you before and it should go well."

"Oh, it's this one?"

"Yeah."

Long's expression went slightly stiff as he flew back to the ring while Light shrank back to his smallest size and jumped into his bag before I darted into the unsuspicious looking gate.

Being transported inside, I immediately noticed something moving within my vicinity which soon came to light as soon as 'Omni-viewing Eye' quickly recovered from the effects of the quick spatial transfer…

'This is…!'