Capítulo 2: Blind Sanctity

"Why did you allow him to take it?" Marium asked with anger.

"He will do it anyway!" Aaron said. "Deny him, and he will jump blindly into it. Death is what awaits him!"

"But, we could have stopped him!" She said this time louder.

Marium will have used her power to stop Eugene from going now but it was Aaron that held her in place despite her being higher tier than him.

He was about to answer her when there was a flash of force around them; the Ascendent had returned.

"They are back already," Aaron asked, shocked.

"Thank goodness, I'm wrong!" Marium said, full of a smile.

"Why are you here, where is Eugene?" Their mother asked and they all pointed at the gate.

"Damn it!" She cursed but turned around and stared back at around 23 thousand children aged 14 to 20 years.

"March them in?" A deep dominant voice echoed.

"What happened?" Aaron panicked, these are the entire children in the Ar land.

"It's a coalition of four lands; two are invading our Established Realms, and two are coming here."

Aaron smiled. It's time for him to challenge his Second Ascension Rite, and he said, "Where is father?"

"He will be here!" she just said that when the man appeared.

He threw something to Marium and as she caught it, her body was covered in diyam and was zoomed inside the Gateway.

Aaron, too, caught something, but his body zoomed back to their home.

Their father has managed to convince the Ascendent to delay Aaron's Challenge.

Aaron is the number one talent in Ar Land, and so they really want to craft an extremely powerful powerhouse that has a chance to reach Ascendency.

***

Eugene felt as if he was drowning, but if he struggled, he would fail to reach his destination and take Challenge the Ascension Rite.

He has to endure the drowning till the very end.

This ordeal can't be trained before now, because the suffocation transcends the body as it is at the spirit level.

That was why if your willpower was weak, then one would be repelled, and the Rite was close to him forever.

Eugene held on for as long as the time stipulated before he felt the grip leave him and he took a deep breath and collapsed with no strength in his body.

He didn't even have the strength to have a thought; he lay there panting for some minutes before he recovered enough to open his eyes, but he found them close.

Eugene raised his hand and touched his face, the place was covered with something so resilient that his hand couldn't even pry it away.

"Stop that Blind Servant!" An aged voice commanded, and like he was under control, Eugene's hands dropped down.

"You better prepare for the Blind Sanctity!"

Eugene felt a chill down his spine as his fear was confirmed, 'This is worse than what I bargain for!'

The already-given order made Eugene's body move as he walked around the room and grabbed a pair of trousers that barely reached his ankle.

Then, a weird robe that at the front stopped at his knees, but at the back, it moved longer than him. The flowing robe didn't touch the ground but floated in the air.

Eugene, by now, was terrified, and he did a bad job at hiding it. However, the owner of the aged voice doesn't seem to care about the boy's flight.

'Damn it. This is not what I prepared for. Our Ancestors have refined our path for decades. Why did I end up in this new unexplored realm!'

Despite his fear, his body was performing the job of preparation as he was ordered to.

The reason for his fear was from 4 months ago when a boy went back from the Gateway with no eyes and barely a remnant of sanity.

The fact he came back with no eyes means everything about this realm is wrong.

True, danger lurks everywhere in the various realms they can access, and death is just a hair away.

But once one clears a challenge, they will always come back with their perfect body as if nothing happened.

However, they may carry their mental trauma and memories of what they have been through but never a physical injury. Of course, if one obtained some ability that required it to show in the body, then that may be the case.

However, the boy has no ability that requires his eyes to be gone.

The second most terrifying thing about this realm was it was vastly unknown, the boy was the first recorded incident.

The last thing that scared Eugene was the stories given out by the boy. They are terrifying, to say the least, especially as a Blind Servant, his fate has been sealed.

Eugene finished preparation and he felt the force that made him do all this thing left him.

He can barely picture the room even though he has moved around it.

"Follow me!"

'Shit. I'm dead, I'm going to die here!' Eugene panicked more but his body still followed.

Gateway leads to another world, no one knows where or even if they are part of their world or not. The world is called Realm.

Numerous Realms have been explored, and powerful people with great establishments have anchored their bloodlines and beasts to some of them.

These people ensure that their scion always went there when challenging their Ascension Rite.

Though the report of failure was not new, that was why aristocrats refined the anchor continuously to avoid the marginal error.

Unfortunately for Eugene, the marginal error reached him.

Eugene reached a wide space, loud wind blowing freely, flapping his flowing robe back.

"Extend your hands!" A dignified voice commanded. This voice was far more powerful than the old man who commanded Eugene first.

Eugene did as he was commanded, and immediately he felt a heavy cane touch him, and he grabbed it. Immediately, a flash of dull silver grey appeared in his mind, and Eugene almost tumbled as he was overwhelmed.

The place was 300 feet by 500 feet and there were 300 boys and girls like him arranged along the line.

"You have been trained since birth on how to find your ways without the burden of your eyes. Today, you will face five challenges that will pave the way for your future." The dignified voice said again.

"Before you are 300 tiles. Grey tiles are safe, but any other one will involve a wrath between 1 to 10 flogs."

"No matter how many flogs you face, as long as you reach the end of the tiles, you pass."

"Begin!"

Like a push was applied to the kids, they all took their first steps, but thankfully, it was grey tiles.

But for those that step again, one can feel the sound of a whip snapping in the air and then capturing the skin of the Blind Servants.

Eugene didn't take a step again as he tried to control his emotions.

Truth be told, this place was considered worse because he would have to spend most of the time blind, which was something he didn't prepare for.

What he had prepared before was to go to one of the most dangerous Realms where he would make his Miracle Lion consume him and then the lion take the challenge.

With his spark of life in the Miracle Lion, he will be the subtle mind that will guide the lion in terms of complexity, but when power and battle are required, the lion will take care of that.

The main problem was that if the spark of life was too weak then the lion would consume it and Eugene would be truly dead

It's absolutely Forbidden to take that path without the Ascendant permission, Eugene doesn't care. If he succeeded, the worst was a punishment that he knew with his obtained strength, he would succeed.

'If Aaron can do it, I can too!' This was what he always told himself.

Apart from this, the Forbidden Path was three paths that had fewer consequences.

The first was the simplest, and that was, during the challenge, one must forge a pact with their Beast to borrow their power at a cost.

This was where the beasts felt they were the boss, you gave them food, washed and spoke to them with respect. They can also demand things you must provide. The better you serve them the better they will lend you their strength.

Most commoners take this route but there are legendary beasts that even powerful families have no choice but to follow this path in order to have the beast in their family.

The main problem of this path was that, if the beast was dissatisfied, it would just off and go, or someone could come and provide them better service, and they would now be lending their power to both of you.

This usually causes fights and wars that are hard to resolve.