Chapter 1384 - The Mystery of the Golden Statues

The Gate of Abundance was getting absolutely stormed as Administrators flew from several buildings, sewer grates, or other hiding spots. People were carrying statues in their hands while also trying to orient themselves about who else was around them.

Jake, Sandy, the Sword Saint, King, and Caleb were all going together as a group. Their appearance garnered considerable attention, primarily because Sandy was a big fellow. What kept their attention was the Unique Lifeform and two Chosen of Primordials, all seen going together. And Caleb, but he was admittedly a little overshadowed by the company he kept.

Sandy had initially taken off on their own, but had allowed the others to catch up, likely in part to reduce risk. This did seem like a precarious moment with Administrators from all sorts of different factions filling the gigantic streets of the Inner City, but fortunately, people appeared smart enough not to create trouble under the watchful gaze of so many Cyclops Gatekeepers.

At least Jake assumed them to be until he spotted a group flying out from beneath a set of wooden steps leading up to a store, headed straight for a lone Administrator running with a statue. The Administrator was taken by surprise as she was attacked, but managed to defend herself for a moment as all the nearby Cyclopes turned to stare at the fight in shock.

“Hurry up!” Jake said, getting a bad feeling. Right then, more than a dozen Officers charged over, with the Gatekeepers remaining still thus far, seeing as the fight was happening a fair distance from the Gate of Abundance.

Behind them, others were caught up in the fighting as the lone Administrator desperately tried getting away, but the Officers also targeted her when she fought back, and other Administrators nearby, who had been running for the gate, were struck by attacks from either Officers or other Administrators.

One of them was blasted back, losing hold of their statue, and the second they did, the cyclopes nearby instantly turned aggressive as a spear descended and slammed the poor guy into the ground.

Others who were attacked but didn’t lose their statues continued to be ignored, and it appeared that only those who fought back got caught up in anything. In other words, as long as one remained passive, the natives wouldn’t be a threat.

“If anyone attacks us, don’t fight back,” Jake said as they were soon at the Gate of Abundance. “Any sign of aggression will make the cyclopes attack you.”

Caleb and the Sword Saint nodded as the King didn’t appear to respond, as he was busy with something else. The Unique Lifeform was a bit behind the rest of them, given he was a bit of a slowpoke, but it was only by a few hundred meters.

Right then, Jake prepared to send a mental warning as he spotted something, but the Unique Lifeform was way ahead of him as he raised a clawed hand. Right then, a figure of pure light shot out from a nearby group of Administrators as another figure had teleported towards them.

A second later, Jake and the Sword Saint were also attacked by people wrapped in light who charged straight for them with reckless abandon. It appeared they weren’t the only ones who’d noticed the rule of when the cyclopes would attack, and a certain faction was trying to take advantage of the scenario.

See, this is why I have no shame targeting those fucks, Jake cursed internally as the three Administrators from the Holy Church tried to take out their competition. They had sent three members, all of them warriors with melee weapons, who attacked the three of them without warning.

Fortunately, with Jake’s warning, the Sword Saint and King didn’t even try to retaliate, but simply blocked or dodged any incoming attacks. Jake also effortlessly slipped by the guy’s attempt to strike him before proceeding to teleport ahead right as five nearby Gatekeepers moved to squash his attacker.

The Sword Saint acted similarly to Jake, dodging the first hit before teleporting ahead, far faster than his attacker. Finally, the Forest King, who wasn’t fast enough to simply escape, blocked a few hits from his attacker before seemingly realizing how pathetically weak the Holy Church member was. Not even bothering to look at the guy anymore, the King allowed his passive defensive barrier to handle the rest until a formation created by the Gatekeepers trapped his attacker, after which he was quickly disposed of.

Sandy and Caleb hadn’t been attacked and rushed forward to join Jake and the Sword Saint, with Caleb looking annoyed but not surprised.

“Not really surprising,” the Judge said. “Even if it had a low chance of working, sacrificing a few regular members to take out the Chosen of a Primordial or a Unique Lifeform would have been more than worth it.”

“Just saying, this is why no one likes them,” Jake muttered, the four of them – with the King lagging behind – now about halfway through the lineup of Gatekeepers with their destination not too far away.

“The Holy Church is the most popular faction in the multiverse and has the best reputation as far as I know,” the Sword Saint chuckled. “Their propaganda machine also happens to be the greatest in the entire multiverse. A coincidence, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason the Court of Shadows and Order of the Malefic Viper aren’t seen as beacons of good. Bad marketing,” Caleb also joked around.

“Can’t see why that wouldn’t be it. Nothing wrong with murder cults and worshippers of a snake god that literally has malefic in his name,” Sandy added, the worm having nicely shifted their position a little, so that if others attacked them from the side most other Administrators were on, they would have to get around a giant spaceworm.

No one else attacked them before all five of them made their way to the Gate of Abundance, though the same couldn’t be said about others. Several factions tried to pull off the same tactic as the Holy Church, sacrificing some of their weaker members in an attempt to take out a far stronger opponent using the borrowed knife of the cyclopes.

It didn’t work for the vast majority of the time, but Jake did spot several cases where it did. A True Dragon that appeared fairly powerful was attacked by a beastkin that charged straight in front of the dragon, trying to pierce the far larger creature in the eye. The dragon responded almost instinctively, swatting away the weak beastkin, earning himself the ire of the cyclopes, quickly turning the dragon into blue wisps of light.

Several such cases occurred, but Jake wouldn’t have the opportunity to observe them as their group reached the Gate of Abundance. The entrance itself was a shimmering wall of golden energy one had to pass, and without the Cyclops Gatekeepers summoning a barrier to block it off, one could simply run through.

“See you on the other side,” Jake said to the others as they reached and passed the barrier. Seeing as Jake hadn’t been able to see anything on the other side, it was entirely possible it would teleport them all to another place, at which point there was a decent chance they’d be split up.

Jake had partly been correct, as they were taken to another place. He had been very wrong regarding pretty much everything else, as when he passed the barrier, it was just like running through a wall of light, and the second he was past it, his sphere instantly allowed him to see everything on the other side, along with all the people there, and the ones still running or flying by his side.

The world behind him was cut off again, proving they had effectively entered a wholly new space. Again, they kind of had to, given the small size of the Palace of Abundance from the outside, as Jake didn’t see a world where this final area of the Central Domain wasn't tiny compared to every other place they’d gone through.

“Still here,” Sandy said, stopping their flight soon after, taking the time to orient themselves. The rest also stopped, and a second later, the Forest King also made his way through the barrier and quickly went to rejoin them without a word. Just a slightly miffed look that they’d all left him behind, but in their defense, he was the slow one, not them.

Anyway, with a Pulse, Jake scanned their surroundings and found the space they were in surprisingly small. It appeared they hadn’t fully entered the Palace of Abundance yet, or, if they had, it was segmented, with each area sealed off by the power of system-fuckery.

Only a single massive hall showed up with Jake’s Pulse, the place bereft of anything besides other Administrators and what he assumed to be the way forward, far ahead of them. The Administrators who made it through before Jake and company were already running for the far wall, likely hoping to get a head start and continue on ahead.

Looking around, Jake also found the entire hall incredibly gaudy, fitting the design of the Gate of Abundance. The hall was lined with massive decorated pillars, the floors were tiled with intricate designs on them, and the walls were full of carvings and murals depicting something very familiar.

Jake stopped as he stared at a large mural depicting an eight-armed entity. The entire art piece filled a large part of the wall, and Jake wasn’t the only one staring at it either, as both his party members and several other Administrators also gave it a look. It was pretty hard to miss, too, as the mural was absolutely massive, stretching from nearly the floor to the ceiling, making it more than ten kilometers tall.

The eight-armed creature looked a bit like a cyclops at first glance, but rather than a single eye, it had an entirely blank face, the same as the statues they’d been gathering. In its eight arms, it didn’t hold a weapon in a single one of them, but instead held cubes and unfurled scrolls covered with runes. Runes that were remarkably small for such a grand mural. So small that they looked almost designed for human-sized individuals to read.

After staring at the massive mural for a while, Jake turned his attention to some of the other art pieces, finding them all rather curious. They mostly depicted cyclopes doing different things, though Jake quickly realized that all of them seemed to have some kind of theme. They all also had one cyclops front and center, wielding weapons, with two of them looking very familiar. One showed a cyclops wielding a massive sword, while another had a cyclops holding a perfect replica of the staff currently residing in Jake’s inventory.

Finally, Jake looked at the back wall of the hall, which would definitely serve as the path onward. What Jake saw did leave him rather confused, though.

From top to bottom, left to right, the entire wall was covered with archways on small platforms, each platform having a depiction of an eight-armed, human-sized statue above it. All the archways had shimmering barriers of gold, indicating they were portals like the one they’d walked through to enter the Palace of Abundance.

Jake estimated there had to be more than a thousand of these individual platforms with statues and portal archways on them. Also, when he looked more closely, he saw that the archways were covered in runic script reminiscent of that used on the massive mural.

These scripts weren’t a language, since Myriad Tongues didn’t translate them; instead, they seemed to be some kind of code. In fact, the more Jake looked around, the more certain he became that they’d finally found the secret of what the hell was up with all those golden statues. A conclusion that it seemed the Sword Saint had also reached.

“A puzzle, huh? Curious,” he said with a smile, looking at the statue he was holding before glancing at the massive mural. “Let us head closer to the back wall. I cannot quite see the statues from here.”

“I can,” Jake stated completely unnecessarily, just wanting to flex his Perception a little.

“Would have been a lot of wasted stat points if you couldn’t,” the Forest King commented before starting to float towards the back end of the wall while also keeping his guard up somewhat. “While I’m not keen to discover the answer, I do want to note that we’ve received no message that fighting in this space is prohibited, nor are there any cyclopes to enforce non-aggression.”

“Oh, true,” Jake nodded, not even having considered that. Every other Administrator that had made it in thus far seemed too preoccupied with discovering the purpose of this hall and how to move forward, with no one having attacked anyone thus far. People were already very spread out, sticking to their own small groups or standing alone. Beasts and other monsters had also all made themselves small, or at least smaller than usual, so as not to attract too much attention or take up too much space.

Hopefully, no one would be dumb enough to start anything, as while the hall was massive, so was the scale of attacks from B-grades, meaning that should a fight start, everyone would be affected. While Jake didn’t believe he would be in any danger, it would be annoying. Another reason why it would be dumb to start anything was that it would piss off everyone present, which now also included two Chosen of Primordials and a Unique Lifeform.

The five of them moved towards the other side of the hall at a steady pace, finding all the Administrators in their path moving aside in advance. Their group definitely was the scariest one present, even if there were a few other notable people present... with a few more having just entered through the Gate of Abundance behind them.

Jake smiled and turned around, as moments later, a streak of green shot towards him, reaching the top of Jake’s head in less than a second while making several Administrators in the hall jump with fright at the sudden display of energy.

“I was wondering what took you so long,” Jake said, still smiling as he reached up and nuzzled the hawk standing on top of his head.

“Ree!” Sylphie said, rubbing her head on his hand while complaining about how slow the other elementals she’d teamed up with were.

Speaking of her temporary elemental allies, they also quickly made their way over after Jake and company had stopped, their group led by Wintermaul, the top-ranking elemental on the Nevermore Leaderboards.

The elemental had taken a more humanoid form than usual, though he definitely still looked a little uncanny, indicating he probably didn’t plan on using such a form too often.

“We meet again, Chosen of the Malefic One,” he said in a respectful tone, though the gaze that clearly sized him up wasn’t very polite. Wintermaul also very quickly directed his eyes to Sylphie. “My Lady, we-“

“Ree!”

“I find it inappropriate not to-“

“Ree!” Sylphie insisted, forcing Jake to suppress a smile as he was reminded of the good old days. Wintermaul seemed insistent on using overly formal methods to address Sylphie, while she just wanted him to use her name like a normal person. Really brought Jake back to the days he had to constantly tell people to stop being so goddamn overly polite. He’d kind of gotten used to it by now, but clearly Sylphie hadn’t.

Behind the elementals, more and more people were entering the Gate of Abundance, with more familiar faces soon arriving. Everyone was carrying at least one golden statue, and between the mural, other art on the wall, archways, statues above the archways, and everything else, chances were they would spend a little while in the hall trying to solve the puzzle of the golden statues.

At least that’s what Jake assumed they were meant to do... but when had he ever been good at doing what he was supposed to?