章 20: Escape from terror

Within a cavern under the city's Royal Palace sat an old man in a deep meditative state. Suddenly the man was startled out of his meditation, a dark repressive aura had reached even him.

This man used to be the ruler of the city some 500 or 600 years ago, the reason for secluding himself from the mundane world was to pursue that which wizards on their continent and those cultivators from across the Dark Sea seek... Immortality.

The dark aura that had startled him awake caused him to pause for a brief moment.

"Have the daemons manage to finally breach the barrier?" - Briefly paused, and started to mumble some incantations under his breath, each word spoken lighting up a rune engraved upon the walls and the very floor he sat on.

"No, that's not right." - He furrowed his brows in slight confusion as he kept on searching for any possible breaches.

The further he looked the less he could find when he decided to look towards the source of the repressive aura.

"It looks like it was actually summoned to our dimension, perhaps that odd looking statue has something to do with it." - He had found nothing of concern on the barrier and he soon was intrigued by the Statue of Summoning that Joseph had summoned.

The statue's design was something he had never seen before in the entirety of his life. "Could it be some one from another continent?" - He thought carefully to himself, this could potentially be much larger than the minor incident he was witnessing.

He would remain hidden unless things were to turn for the worse and those who who had taken charge of the city were not able to extinguish this daemon then he would, but only then.

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Back on the street, there stood a giant and not a sound could be heard.

Some of the stronger willed people were quiet as a mouse, they almost not dared to breathe as they watched on with an ever growing sense of dread.

Despite having a System and one that seemed quite over powered in Joseph's mind, he still found himself being affected by daemon's presence.

"System, how come the blood binding failed? I thought it being part of the cost to summon anything it would be successful. Did something go wrong?" - Joseph had been struggling to stand under the demonic presence.

.....

(That is correct Host)

...

(When conducting a summon, the summoned entity would normally be within the range of the Hosts's capabilities to handle.)

...

(System has detected a spatial intrusion at the start of the summoning process and the entity originally being summoned had been forcefully replaced.)

...

(Warning - Energy levels rising from the Ancient Corrupted Sentinel Guard)

...

(Host is advised to leave the area once more)

.....

Joseph suddenly realized that the System was right, it was best to leave this area soon. He was quite confident in the higher powers being able to take care of the horrible creature he summoned at random.

And the most important reason for leaving the area was that there could be a chance of himself being found out to be the summoner if he stayed any longer. As far anybody was aware it was just some strange hooded man who did the summoning.

When Joseph reached Ann and her mother, the two of them were both huddled together shuddering in fear while tears streamed down their faces, the repressive aura was taking a large toll on them.

"System I need something to calm them or we won't be getting anywhere" - Being unable to calm them down, he had to try the system.

.....

(Wait for a moment Host - Scan Initiated)

...

(Scan Complete)

...

(Five objects have been found usable)

.....

Within Joseph's mind the familiar System menu appeared once more with a few items displayed for sale.

(Item - Moon Tea Leaf - 15 AME)

(Item - Viper Moss - 10 AME)

(Item - Bitter Salt - 5 AME)

(Item - Veil Wood - 25 AME)

(Item - Potion of Serenity - 35 AME)

As Joseph looked over the items the System had brought up, his mind's eye went directly to the potion being displayed and from the short description he knew it was what he needed and could only bear the cost for now.

Joseph purchased two potions and quickly managed to pour its contents into the Ann and her mothers mouth, very quickly the two seemed to have calmed down and looked around them to see what was happening.

"We have to leave right now quick" - Came a whispered voice into both of their ears, unintentionally triggering an emotion throughout their bodies.

"Don't look back" - Came Joseph's voice from behind the two women as all three of them raced through the back door and ran into the trees close by.

As they were moving further away a sudden noise cause them to fall to the ground rather hard, in the distance the demonic giant made of metal had opened its ungodly maw to let out hellish scream.

The sound wave reduced the closest buildings to dust, unfortunately the same fate occurred to the city guard, even Jothal who was slightly further away did not manage to escape this fate. The people watching much further away and escaped the sound wave had fallen to ground, their knees long gone weak and unable to support their frames.

The hellish scream was enough to rouse the elite units protecting the cities rulers, while the daemon had been summoned within the lower class outer circle of the city, the threat it represented was by far too real and not something city guards who simply managed the population of the city could control.

Joseph had been rather lucky that some other people had managed to escape so they were able to blend in with the escaping crowd.

As the crowd reached towards the main gate, three shadows broke away and darted between the alleyways and they made their way towards the Fallenwind Household.

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