4 Welcome To Ghuld

"Welcome to Ghuld!" Maxwell said with a creepy smile.

"The only place that will accept anyone no matter what they are!" He continued after a moment of hysterical laughter. "I welcome you two to my hometown, and I hope you can find this town to be a new home to you." He said with his smile fading away. He began walking without another word in the opposite direction from the town.

"Where are you going?" Topia shouted at him.

"A merchant like me can't make a living in a town like that." He said without turning around.

"I suppose he has a point." Topia's dad said while blocking her from taking chase.

"He brought us to some random place, and completely ruined my travel plans that I thought up." Topia said while trying to get past her dad without being too forceful.

"Don't you think he brought us here for a reason? He doesn't even want to stay here, but he let himself come too, to make sure that we ended up in the right place. I think so atleast." Her dad let out a sigh of relief when he saw her calm down from his words.

"I suppose you're right, but this better not take too long. Atleast make finding out where this actually is at a priority." She said showing a hint of excitement, excitement for new things and experiences. The two walked into the town that they showed up right outside of with great expectations that were soon crushed. The outside dark and creepy appearance does not change at all when you enter, and it even gets worse.

"Are there any people here?" Topia asked as she looked around to find an answer to her question. Luckily or rather unluckily as she thought of it, she spotted a pure white eye contrasting the dark background from behind a window. She tried to get a closer look but was interrupted when a group of people wandered out of the shadows to surround them.

"What do you want from us?" Topia's dad asked in a panicked tone.

"We just want to ask a simple question to clarify something." An old woman stepped forwards to talk to them, she also seemed to be the most normal looking one of the bunch. "You there, did you experience pain when you touched one of those golden orbs?" She said while pointing at Topia.

"Yes, Is there something wrong with that?" She asked her.

"That is a sign that you are on the path to becoming a chaotic god. In the upper realm there are 3 kinds of gods, and they are holy and demonic which are good and evil respectively. These two are equally as powerful, but the chaotic gods are neither good nor evil, and they are much stronger than the other two. However as a chaotic demi-god you have to take a different path than others." The old woman explained.

"What do you mean by that?" Topia wanted to know more about this.

"You need to do only the first 500 trials for both becoming a holy god and becoming a demonic god." She said.

"Is there a difference between the two? I have only heard of 1000 trials." Topia asked.

"Those 1000 trials are the ones needed to become a holy god, since this planet isn't too supportive of demons it is hard to find the trials to become a demonic god. Luckily for you I have many copies of a map that has all of them labeled." As she said that a creepy looking guy with snakes for hair came out of the crowd with a parchment in hand. The old woman took the parchment from him and passed it to Topia, who immediately looked at it.

"Oh wow, is this hand drawn?" She asked while looking at the extremely detailed map of the world. It had two circle images of the world that were right next to eachother. It was read as the end of one circle was continued on the same end of the other circle. Topia looked at the map for a few moments before speaking again. "It says that one of the trials is right here."

"Yes that is true, it is right there." The old woman said as she pointed right at Topia. Topia instinctually turned around as her dad who was not speaking by choice did the same.

"No, not behind you. The entrance is inbetween us, but in order to see it you need to percieve the darkness that is flowing out of it." The old woman explained. Topia thought about what she said with her eyes closed, and the image that came to mind was the void from the first trial. With that image in her mind she then opened her eyes to see a solid black door that had a black smoke oozing out of the cracks. She looked down at the door handle and slowly reached towards it, but as she did the air around her hand got progressively colder. She looked up from the door handle at the old woman, and she was suprised that she could straight up see through the door despite it being completely opaque a moment prior. She now grabbed the door handle and began turning it. The moment she opened it she didn't need to spare a thought to step inside because after opening it she was already inside. Her surroundings were completely black, and she felt very uncomfortable. It only lasted for a few moments before she was suddenly in a very familiar situation.

"No time, don't take too much." She heard her fathers voice coming from behind her as she looked down and saw that she had a handful of shirts. She looked around, and saw her room once more. Although it had only been a bit longer than a day it felt much longer as she had been through a lot.

"Kill the demon!" She heard her mother's shout. Not even a second later a guy jumped through her window weilding a dagger. Topia was startled by this and tried to reach for her sword but to no luck as she was stabbed in the back.

"AAAAH" She screamed out in pain.

"What is wrong?" Her dad said as he entered the room. Topia wanted to look away, but something was forcing her to watch as the man with the dagger stabbed her dad in the head. He could do nothing to stop the dagger from passing through is skull as Topia screamed once more from pain but this time not from her injury. She passed out once her dad fell limp to the floor.