Three Stacks of Purple Hyacinths

{Obelisk of Bael}

In the middle of a dimly lit spacious room with apparent grandeur, a man, whose long brown hair was billowing graciously, stood like the lone survivor of a war.

Countless of corpses of his slain enemies—Monsters that endangered humans; the terror of mankind—littered the ground around him.

His stature remained unperturbed; instead of taking pride in finally clearing the last Obelisk alone, he had a puzzled expression on his face. His sharp brows furrowed gently, and he bit his lower lip delicately.

"This is not right. The last word of the Obelisk Master, the Seven Princes' arrival, bothered me."

Obelisk Master, a term that was used to call the holder of authority in an Obelisk. An Obelisk Master was the leader of all the horde of Monsters produced by the Obelisk. To successfully clear an Obelisk, one had to slay the Obelisk Master.

In his last breath, the Obelisk of Bael's Master, Goliath, had spewed some threads of cryptical words to his slayer, Basil Pacifer.

"Ku-ku-ku.. you may think you have won..." He talked unintelligibly afterwards, and the last intelligible thing he said was, "Just wait! When the Seven Princes arrived, only despair shall await you!"

This, of course, took Basil's attention. His cautious nature naturally made him consider those words as a fact, not just some baseless threats.

However, he still couldn't think of anything that had something to do with the Seven Princes. While pondering about this, questions he had never thought about naturally popped up.

What is the true identity of Obelisk? Who created it? What is the purpose of its creation?

With those thoughts filling his mind, puzzlement naturally flooded his mind.

"Huuh ... can't help it." He sighed. "No matter how I think about it, nothing comes out."

He looked around the room, before his gaze landed on a black, gigantic door in front of him.

"Alright, let's explore the secret chamber first. Now that the Obelisk Master has died, I can consider myself lucky. I don't have to search the secret chamber anymore. It's right in front me!"

Though he had said it brightly, there was no happiness could be seen on his face. As always, he was stoic and cautious.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

His steps were gracious and quiet. Though he was walking, in the perspective of normal people, it looked like he was gliding through the floor.

It wasn't Art by any chance, it was just how he walked normally, which clearly showed how amazing of a Mage he was.

The highest level of Magic mastery, the Ninth Circle, was the level Basil was currently in. History had only recorded 4 people who managed to break that boundary, and attained a level above the Ninth Circle. However, it was believed to be merely a myth.

Nothing was clear about the history of humanity from 2000 years ago. That time was even called Age of Chaos due to how chaotic the situation had been.

Age of Chaos was started by the mysterious emergence of Obelisks—the beginning of an age that was true to its name.

At that time, Monsters poured out ceaselessly from the Obelisk for the first time, and Obelisk Masters hadn't yet cooped inside their habitat; they could still freely roam the outside world.

Many people had been slaughtered—humanity faced their first crisis which was worse than natural disasters—and the population had quickly dropped to 40% of the original population.

This however, in turn, stopped human from having a war against each other. They decided to unite themselves under one banner, that is, Humanity.

Although powerless, they had kept struggling with everything they had. Alas, the previously 40% mark, had still dropped to 35%, and kept dropping until it hit the 20% mark.

In the time of absolute despair however, at last, humanity found their hope; Four Heroes had miraculously appeared, and helped humanity to fight the Monsters. They were the very first humans who managed to grasp the concept of Magic.

Standing at the very front of the battlefield, they had slain millions of Monsters and tens of Obelisk Masters alike. Inspired by the four heroes, the people who had had lost their will to fight eagerly requested to be taught Magic from them.

Only then, humanity learned the existence of Magic Circle. Located on their heart, Magic Circle was the only way human had to utilize Mana effectively.

With the help of Magic and the Four Heroes, it had taken 40 years for humanity to win the war. Thousands of Ninth Circle Mages were born along the way, yet none of them had been close enough to match the might of the Four Heroes.

Right after humanity had achieved their victory however, the Four Heroes were gone mysteriously.

With their sudden disappearance, people had assumed they had attained a level that was simply too much for the world to bear, therefore they had to leave the world to keep its balance.

Although it was yet another myth, many people believed it. Unfortunately back then, people had only thought of survival, so there was not a single documented information could be found about it.

"Such a long history of Magic, but rather than improving, the quality keeps degrading from time to time. It is already to the point where stagnancy is something to joy about; improvement is considered a miracle," mumbled Basil.

Exactly as what Basil had said, rather than increasing, the number of Ninth Circle Mage was decreasing. Even currently, there was only one Ninth Circle mage, which was no other than himself; the other existing Mages were stuck as an Eighth Circle Mage.

Because of that reason, he was hailed as humanity's hope. Of course, whenever he heard it, he would snort and say, "I am neither your hope nor your saviour. Help yourself, don't bother someone else."

Upon arriving in front of the gigantic black door, Basil quickly made his existence known.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

After knocking on the door, Basil waited for a few seconds before pushing the door open.

"Three knocks and three seconds rule. If there is still no response, you are free to barge in," he uttered righteously.

Of course, it was only applicable for someone like him. If just anyone had done it, they would have their head rolling on the floor even faster than they could blink.

Creak.

A loud sound that was produced by the clashing of the door's lower part against the floor resounded in the room that was far bigger than the one had belonged to the Obelisk Master.

Whoosh.

In a closed space naturally, there will be no wind blow can be felt, therefore it was not wind, but an aura of oppression that was enough to make any Eighth Circle Mage and below wet their pants.

Basil became more alert, and straightened his posture even more. He exhaled softly, before muttering, "Here we go again."

Quickly observing his surrounding, he made his first step inside the secret chamber. There were no lightings inside, but it posed no problem to him; he could even fight with his eyes closed.

Upon stepping his feet inside the chamber, he could see two notable things inside: an altar that was as big as a house, and a tablet that was displayed inside a Magic Barrier on the altar.

Although nothing shiny could be seen from the tablet, in Basil's eyes, it was blinding.

"Well, isn't it a jackpot?"

He had finally arrived in front of the tablet. Although it was inside a magic barrier, the barrier didn't obstruct his vision in the slightest. Therefore, Basil could easily see the content of tablet.

As he expected—

"What kind of person has this chicken scratch like handwriting?"

—he couldn't understand a single thing written on the tablet.

He sighed, and decided to stop trying to comprehend it; he could still do something about the Tablet. Basil extended his hand, then gathered his mana on the tip of his index finger, as an amethyst like aura was quickly exuded from it afterwards.

Soon enough, an oppressive aura that was incomparable to the aura the secret chamber was exuding surrounded his body.

"[Heaven Piercer]!" Basil muttered softly.

Such a domineering name!

It wasn't that his naming sense was bad; it was what his Art actually did. Once he used it, he had the capability to pierce the heavens! At least, that is how it looked. Basil was aware he couldn't pierce the heavens ... yet.

Boom!

Crack!

The Magic Barrier that was protecting the tablet slowly broke under the crazy power of Basil's Art.

When it was completely broken, a stone tablet with the size of a book was revealed to the world. Looking at it with a normal person's eyes, it was just an ordinary stone table, however in Basil's eyes, it was shining even brighter than before.

He felt impatience—a feeling he had not had for a long time already. However, this time ...

'I am attracted to it. I have a gut feeling if I were to hold on any longer, I would lose it!'

Then, incautiously, Basil touched the tablet. It was shining even brighter, to the point where Basil was forced to close his reinforced eyes.

Not stopping there, as he had a direct contact with it, he felt as if an extremely powerful wave crashed onto him.

However not long after, the crushing power he was feeling abruptly disappeared like a lie, and by the time he opened his eyes, the stone tablet, along with its blinding light were gone too.

"Eh?"

Undoubtedly, his current facial expression was the most comical one he had ever made.