Chapter 411 - Mefastello Tower

After only a few days of entering the ruins, Cecil had smashed his way through the highest floor of the ruins.

Even though he had reached the highest floor of the ruins, he still hadn't been able to find his family members or his disciples. There was no trace of them and he had made sure to comb through every nook and cranny of the ruins' floors on his way up.

On the top floor, Cecil looked around the large room and gritted his teeth in anger when there was no trace of Angelia, Gabriel, or Kira.

"Dammit, they were in the bas.e.m.e.nt then?"

Cecil had already noticed the large magic formation in the center of the room, but he didn't feel like going over there to trigger it. He had his priorities and finding his family was the most important priority.

He didn't blast his way to the top floor since there was no need for it. The second to the last floor of the ruins was rather straight forward since there was only one room and corridor that he had to walk through before he quickly found the staircase to the last floor.

Cecil was about to walk back down to the previous floor, but before he could get back to the staircase, the magic formation in the middle of the room quickly lit up and a magic barrier quickly rose in front of him and blocked the way down to the previous floor.

"..."

"Human, I commend you for arriving here!"

The voice originated from the large behemoth that emerged from the magic formation. Cecil didn't turn around and remained silent even after the large monster began talking to him.

"Since you are here, you now have the right to challenge me, the guardian of Mefastello Tower!"

"..."

Seeing as Cecil still hadn't responded to him or turned around, the large beast roared out in anger, "Human, you dare ignore me!"

"...Why do these f.u.c.k.i.n.g bugs keep getting in my way?"

"?!"

Cecil didn't bother acknowledging the ruins' guardian as he pulled out his weapons and began striking at the barrier in front of him. With each powerful strike, the barrier slowly began to waver, little by little.

"HUMAN! YOU DARE IGNORE ME!!!"

The guardian was immediately enraged when it saw Cecil's actions. It immediately roared out angrily and charged towards Cecil who still had his back towards it.

The result was tragic for the guardian. The so-called guardian was only an S-rank monster. It wasn't even considered a challenge for Cecil at his current level of power. Just his angered, offhanded strike was enough to send the monster careening towards the side of the room and smashing through the wall and outside of the tower.

Cecil continued to strike at the barrier blocking his way and just as he was about to smash through, the magic formation in the center of the room began activating once again due to him having already defeated the guardian.

His movements were suddenly stopped when a wave of mana burst out from the magic formation and enveloped the entire room.

A small golden ray of light emerged from the center of the magic formation before it slowly grew bigger and bigger. Once it was large enough to envelop the entire room, the pillar of light shot into the sky, and a large figure emerged from the light.

The figure was incorporeal, somewhat like a hologram. It was in the shape of a human but the figure didn't feel like it was human. It did have a mouth, nose, eyes, and everything else a human should have on their face but Cecil felt that the figure wasn't that of a human. It only had the shape of a human.

"The Heritage has been opened! The Chosen may now enter!"

"What the—"

Before Cecil could even do anything, his body was suddenly teleported away from the ruins.

*****

After Cecil, had disappeared from the ruins in a flash of light, things didn't stop there, many rays of light shot out from the large figure's body which was hovering above the ruins. The rays shot towards the distance and some even shot straight down into the base camp and enveloped a few people.

The people who were struck by these rays of light were enveloped in them and suddenly disappeared.

This phenomenon didn't just happen in the No-Man's Lands. When the first golden figure emerged from the ruins, all across the Midgard Continent, similar ruins suddenly emerged from the ground of mountainside with golden figures hovering above the top-most floor of the ruins.

"To enter the Heritage, aim for the highest point of the tower!"

They kept repeating the same words over and over again, and the native powers of the Midgard Continent quickly took notice of this. Their first actions were to send a few people out to investigate the ruins.

However, when their people got there, they all quickly found out that there was a certain age limit placed on the people that could enter into the ruins.

Only people who were 20 years and below could enter the ruins. All others would be barred from entering and if they did enter, they would only be teleported back outside.

The numerous factions of the Midgard Continent immediately began sending in their most promising young men and women into the ruins to investigate. It wasn't long before more people began clearing the higher floors of the ruins.

However, no matter how many people were sent, most of the teams or individuals got stuck on the halfway point of the tower. It was different for the people of the No-Man's Lands. Everyone in the Earthling factions was now in a state of uproar after many of their youths began disappearing in a flash of light after being struck by light rays that shot out from the golden figure hovering above the ruins.

This alerted many of the nations and they began sending people over to the ruins' location.

This continued for a while and when Ian returned with a report stating that Cecil, Medel, Kira, and a few others from their camp had disappeared after the golden figure appeared above the ruins, a few weeks had already passed by.

"W-what? You mean Cecil and a few others from the camp had disappeared?!" Anastasia asked.

"Yes, Ma'am..."

This was the second time that Ian came back to the Silvaria Family to report some bad news to them.

"W-what about Gabriel, Angelia, and Kira? Was Cel able to rescue them?" Lucia asked.

"I'm sorry, my Lady... but after we went to investigate the inside of the ruins, we weren't able to find anything. The upper floors had been thoroughly destroyed, most likely the work of Master Cecil, yet we weren't able to find any trace of the people who had disappeared..."

"What about the bas.e.m.e.nt?! Did you go there?"

"We did, but we only found out that it was a gimmick floor that went on endlessly. Just turning back around would immediately get us back to the ruins' first floor."

"...So Cel and everyone have disappeared?"

Before Ian could answer, the door to the room was opened and someone walked in.

"Yes, but it's not just them."

"Quinn!"

"My Lady," Quinn greeted with a bow.

After being sent to the frontlines of the war between the Goldenia State and the Faustus Archduchy, Quinn had finally returned.

"I've been gathering information about all the other Earthling factions when I saw the golden rays of light that would cause people to suddenly 'evaporate'."

"What happened to them?"

"I'm not sure, Lady Lucia, but I was able to get this," Quinn said and presented Lucia with a drawing of a magic formation.

"I was able to draw this from memory of when one of my men was struck by the golden ray of light, I'm not sure what it is, but I'm guessing that the golden rays were a magic spell since they were able to leave behind a magic formation."

Lucia took a moment to analyze the magic formation before quickly concluding, "It's... a teleportation formation...I think. It looks a bit ancient, but it has similarities with a teleportation formation."

"If that's the case...that means the people who were struck by these golden rays weren't killed but was instead teleported somewhere."

"This spell formation is too ancient. I can't trace or analyze the target area of the teleportation. Send this to my mother. I'm sure she'll be able to—"

Lucia was quickly cut off when the doors to the room were rudely flung open. A woman with a large protruding belly stomped her way into the room and made her way to Ian.

Lucia was about to speak up but the woman quickly grabbed Ian by the collar, lifted him, and roared, "WHERE'S MY DARLING?!"

"Ugh...M, My lady, I-I can't—"

"WHERE IS HE!!!"

"S-Seri, why don't you put Ian down? I'll explain it to you..."

The angry lady was Serilla. She had been resting earlier when her maid came in and told her about the disrupting news of her husband disappearing.

"Lulu, please tell me that it isn't true... he didn't disappear, right?"

"..."

"Right?"

"...I'm sorry, Seri..."

"...I'm gonna kill him when he gets back."

"S-Seri?"

"I swear to god that if he doesn't come back before I give birth, I'm going to kill him!!!"

*****

Over at the Regulus Kingdom, Rowan and Karen were busy helping their father manage the kingdom. The Kingdom was sent into an uproar when an ancient tower had suddenly appeared in the middle of the Roaring Plains, close to the kingdom's capital.

The message that the golden figure kept on repeating was like a boon to King Nemus. He had been living in fear of the Silvaria Kingdom for a while now but the news about the emergence of the Mefastello Tower was like a ray of hope for him and his kingdom.

Information on the Mefastello Tower was an ancient history that was passed down from previous generations to the next generation of the royal family and the emergence of this tower was the sign of great prosperity or the sign of a great crisis.

It wasn't only his kingdom that had news about the Mefastello Tower. Only a few ancient and secluded families and factions of Midgard knew about the tower. While most of the inhabitants had to send investigative teams into the tower, these powers sent their next generation's most promising figures to tackle the challenge of the ruins.

They weren't like the teams of the factions that didn't know what the tower was, the youngsters of these powers push through each floor of the tower and they made short work of the floors that the weaker powers were struggling at and proceeded to the higher floors of the tower.

The Regulus Kingdom had already sent a team of their most promising youths into the tower. This team was led by Karen and it consisted of mostly the talented young nobles of the kingdom.

Rowan had already received news about the situation back in his fiancée's kingdom so he quickly prepared to go back to the Silvaria Kingdom to inform them about the Mefastello Tower.

"Son, are you going back to help those barbarians—"

"Your future daughter-in-law is one of those 'barbarians' as well! Mind your words father. You may be the person who brought me into this world, but you neither cared nor shown me your love until only recently when I was finally useful to you!"

"You ungrateful—"

"I'm ungrateful?! You should be thanking my fiancée because you're alive! If it wasn't for her do you think our kingdom would still be here? If the Silvaria Kingdom wanted to, they would be able to conquer our kingdom easily with their power!"

"..."

"Stop meddling in my affairs. My fiancée and her family, which will soon also be my family, need my help and the information that we hold. Why must you insist on viewing them as enemies when they could instead be our allies?"

King Nemus remained silent and didn't say anything.

"If what's inside the ruins can help bring prosperity to our kingdom, don't you think that having the Silvaria Kingdom as allies would help us instead? You know as well as I that the other kingdoms and Empires have begun their conquest of the tower. We'll all be competing in the next trials after the Mefastello Tower, having one more ally is better than having another enemy."

"...Fine. Do what you want."

"Thank you, father."

"It's just that...that young prince, Cecil...he's dangerous..."

"You won't have to worry about Cecil. As long as you don't touch his family, he won't be making any moves on the political side of the kingdom."

"I find that hard to believe."

Rowan didn't say anymore and he didn't linger any longer. He rounded up his entourage and quickly made his way towards the Silvaria Kingdom's satellite city in the Merkruz Principality. From there, he would use the teleportation formation in the city to teleport to the kingdom's capital city.