Elder Camila made a final bout to end her speech, and the young warriors, including Brand, stood in the front.
"Our expedition team, our warriors, led by Karl." Elder Camila declared. "They would bring victory and peace!"
Apparently, the sealed Demon's Rift would run wild every two years, when the solar eclipse happened.
The seal would be weakened, and the demons within would run wild.
After Elder Camila's speech, the newly formed expedition team gathered around Karl for the briefing.
But before that, Karl went up to Brand for a private conversation.
"This was your second time, huh?" Karl spoke to Brand.
"Probably?" Brand replied. He had no memories of any expeditions at all.
He didn't even know if the previous run was Essen's first run.
From the fact that Essen possessed the Vibrant Shield, he should be a skilled warrior.
Though it was weird that the villagers treated him like a 'newbie that ran away'.
'But why did Essen not bring the shield with him?'
'Was the event timeline correct?'
'Was the shield buried after he went missing?
But that would not explain why the villagers did not see him, or the cleaving of his hut.
While Brand was thinking deeply, both Karl and Ruby looked at him intently.
Karl looked at Brand for a while and continued. "It was my second time."
'18 years old now… He was drafted when 14 years old?'
While Brand was still pondering, Karl went up to the front to give his briefing.
"Our team will be raiding the Ritual Stone. We would enter at the moment the seal went loose, and push the demons deep into the rift, to defend the gate." Karl explained.
"That sounds intense…" Brand muttered. This sounds like an alien invasion through portals.
"We need to defend against the demon waves for it to be a successful raid." Karl continued to brief the plan to his team.
"Failure would mean hell broke loose in the village." He explained solemnly. "So, let's work hard together to prevent this worst-case scenario."
"After we complete the raid, we will go on to the other rift gates in the desert nearby."
"Anyhow, our priority was still on the Ritual Stone."
Karl finished his brief and turned to Brand.
"Let's work hard together." Karl grinned while repeating the phrase to Brand.
Brand felt uneasy with Karl's sudden addressing. He remembered how ruthless he was, behind the innocent smile.
'The foreign travelers in the tavern… bloody head… his innocent smile while doing the calculated instigation.'
Brand decided to stop thinking and tried to shift the focus of the conversation.'
"There were other stones like this outside the village as well?" Brand asked again, even if the answer was obvious. Karl has just mentioned in his briefing earlier, after all.
"Yes," Karl explained patiently. "Some don't even have chains and runic texts on them."
"Ahh, then what happened during the solar eclipse?" Brand could somehow picture the scenario. "Will they just surge out from the rifts?"
"Bingo." Karl was satisfied with his question, as he looked genuinely happy.
'His expression was too jarring to his action, especially during the tavern incident. He strategically placed those three idiots to…'
Brand snapped back to reality when he saw Karl looking at him, expressionless.
"Ahem. So the human settlement naturally avoided areas with such stones." Brand came to a conclusion about why the population was so scarce near the village.
The sealed Demon Rifts were like a scheduled natural disaster. So even if the oasis was blessed with permanent fresh water, people still would not use it as a settlement base.
There was a similar giant rock there. It would have the risk of a demonic beast running loose…
'…Wait. The timing… How about the goat skull?'
Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen Lena anywhere since yesterday night.
Hearing this, Seraphine, who was hovering in the air, hid her smile and flew to Brand.
"Thinking of something?" She asked.
"No… I'm just…" Brand urgently checked the beetle stationed in the oasis, with his shared sense.
'There was still no movement? Even after the unstable Demon Rifts were unsealed?'
Just then, the sky turned dark.
The Solar Eclipse was happening.
The villagers were tensed, but they placed their hope of survival in the expedition team.
The expedition team was how the village managed to survive for decades, in this brazen desert. T
"It's about time," Seraphine giggled.
The runic texts were shining more brightly than ever, painting the air in a red hue.
At this moment, the surroundings looked like it was in hell.
"Prepared." The expedition team declared.
The chains started to loosen, slipping over the rock's surface slowly.
When all the chains were loosened, Ritual Rock started to crack. The rock emitted a screeching sound, as if the beasts were screaming.
The rift gate was starting to reveal itself.
The Ritual Rock started to widen up from the center, and Brand was able to peek into a fragment of the scene beyond it.
Hundreds of worms' mouths were beyond the crack. As if they were wagering to break through the last remnant of energy of the seal.
All the warriors in the front were gulping and nervous.
Karl glanced at his fellow teammates and closed his eyes.
'What was he thinking at this moment?' Brand thought.
The young warrior who fought with him and displayed immense talent was standing still in front of the rift gate.
'Hmm, I had also faced a similar scenario, wasn't it?'
Brand reminisced about the Scarab Swarm he faced. There were thousands of Black Scarabs at the time.
He grinned. This was his experience. His confident.
Brand stood beside Karl and crouched, charging up his energy into his form.
'Might.'
'Haste.'
'Scarab Shell (Hand only)'
He activated the skills he had one by one, prepared for the attack skill he had.
Right when the rift opened, both Brand and Karl unleashed their skill.
"Phantom Slash!"
"Lightning Thrust!"
Brand and Karl rush forward, one of them brandishing his sword, the other thrusting his spear ahead.
—BOOM!!!
They entered the rift with earth-shattering momentum and began their raid.