Black doors

"Heh... really fascinating"

The king of the mercenaries stood in front of a large door nearly five meters high and four meters wide. The door was a deep black color with an ancient architectural design, as if it represented the entrance to hell itself.

"Fascinating? What's so fascinating about the place that will lead us to our death?" Mesto stood staring blankly at the door.

"Last time we were here it wasn't so bad" Faye muttered as she approached the door.

Then, without warning it began to open slowly, as if inviting them in.

"Wasn't so bad... they're all crazy" Mesto whispered, being ignored by everyone.

They all stared inside, then the king of the mercenaries was the first to step forward. Next was Faye, who entered with an indifferent face as if she didn't care about their situation at all.

"Seriously... I curse them" Mesto was the last to enter grumbling.

The fifty or so people outside the gates stood there, for them to enter was suicide. Only those of second rank about to enter the third rank and those of third rank were able to enter without going to their death. 

Meanwhile, the purpose of all of them was to protect the civilians while the three of them took care of whatever they had to take care of.

As soon as the three of them entered, the gates closed completely again, so everyone was left without the protection of the most powerful.

The woman who was the first in command after Mesto, took control of the situation and began to organize everyone to prevent calamities from befalling them.

Gril and Tana stood near the closed door and looked at everyone with bored expressions. They didn't like being bossed around by the woman at all, but Faye had ordered them to listen to her, so they had no choice but to reluctantly agree.

Lynn stood beside them silently watching everyone, she felt strangely vulnerable without Faye, but she knew that her captain's mission was important to everyone's survival.

After the door closed, it wasn't long before the calamities began to arrive.

There were four people within the group who were second rank, so they were the ones who were always on the front lines facing the calamities while the first rankers supported them.

Gril, Tana and Lynn could handle a single second rank calamity by themselves. Their skills complemented each other very well with the young man in front and Tana and Lynn bringing up the rear.

Then, the calamities began to arrive as they finished organizing.

In less than a minute, everything was in chaos. 

In less than ten minutes, dozens of corpses of calamities filled the place and blood covered the ground, some people had died but most were still standing.

Explosions of essence could be felt from inside the doors, which not only paralyzed everyone present, but also the calamities.

Whatever was happening inside was simply on another level altogether. Something that no one outside could dream of facing... not now.

Meanwhile, almost a hundred meters away from where the battle for everyone's survival was taking place, Nathan was sitting on the bed waiting patiently. 

He wasn't using even a hint of essence so that no calamity would notice him, and he was taking advantage of the fact that they were all running towards the door listening to the sound of battle, ignoring the surrounding rooms.

'Not yet?' Amelia asked knowing it had been a while since the battle had started.

Nathan shook his head.

'As much as I'd like to go, I'm not heartless and unfeeling of human life either. I know they're fighting to defend civilians'

Nathan let his body fall back, leaning back against the soft mattress.

'I'm going to let the stampede of calamities end, to take them at their weakest moment'

As he said that, he continued to listen to the calamities growl as they passed in front of the room he was in.

'Other than that,... the military zone sure is something else'

Nathan had been mistaken in thinking that the military zone only had second and third rank calamities. But the truth was different.

Yes, there were plenty of second rank calamities... but no third rank calamities, or at least he hadn't seen any yet. 

The most prominent difference between the military zone and the residential zone was the absurd number of calamities.

When he was still in the residential area Nathan encountered five or sometimes more calamities per day.

But when he arrived at the fort, almost two dozen calamities were arriving daily. Even now there were dozens and dozens of calamities still arriving.

But Nathan had been relatively passive the last few days... limiting himself to training his essence inside the room, in other words feeding Amelia.

With each passing day, Nathan noticed that Amelia was remembering more and more things, but nothing from her past, only practical information about the castle.

Besides that, he noticed how the orb of light that had once been so small was now bigger, almost the size of a baseball compared to the marble it was before.

He still didn't know what Amelia was, perhaps a calamity that had tricked him into feeding her, or a person who had somehow been locked into the bracelet by some strange sleeve.

If Amelia turned out to be a real person, then that would somehow confirm the existence of people within the realms... something that was supposedly impossible.

If it turned out that Amelia was a calamity, Nathan would surely find out after he died at their hands somehow.

Not only that, Amelia could see his thoughts, so she knew many things... much more than anyone else knew, more than Syril.

Nathan heard Amelia sigh inside his mind.

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing... it's just that I feel like there's something wrong with all of this'

Nathan lifted his arm and looked at the silver bracelet on his wrist.

'What do you mean?'

Amelia was silent for a couple of seconds.

'It's just... I felt a familiar essence there'

Nathan frowned, it was hard to feel an essence and know who it belonged to. For that to happen he would have to have been in contact with the person the essence belonged to for a long time.

For example, Nathan could recognize Syril only by his essence. For that reason, he became suspicious since the only person Amelia had ever been with was him.

'Do you recognize anyone?'

Amelia fell momentarily silent again.

'Yes... but somehow it feels different...'

To Nathan, Amelia's words only sounded like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, with the most important parts missing.

Nathan lowered his arm again, then he felt the gravity begin to change and sighed, getting up from the bed.

Once the gravity changed, Nathan looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

'And I was comfortable'