The forest and the darkness of it were getting thick and thicker as Advik and the company were going more and more deep in the outrageous forest. He thanked the god to have those two with him or he wouldn’t have come this far on his own. Alone in the woods without any light, he would have fallen somewhere on the land just right after taking one step. The red moon was glittering there but the light of it was blocked by numerous tall and thick trees which were stood there.

The three of them were slowly walking in that dark-isolated land for some time. Advik thought that it must have been a long time since they started their journey. However, he didn’t know what the time it was so he asked, with a playful expression on his face, “Hey, Mr. Fireball, how much time it has been since we started to walk?”

“Ten minutes, only”, the Fireball gave him an on-point reply.

“Only ten minutes? Don’t joke! I think I’m walking for hours and you say only ten minutes! My legs will fall apart if I walk this much in a day”, Advik complained. The Fireball and the Firefly didn’t stop. They just choose to quietly listen to him and fly ahead. Advik pouted and angrily stomped his legs while walking a bit behind them.

The Fireball was annoyed by his childish behavior, so he stopped and spoke, “We cannot stay here but we will find a place for us to rest. So right now just bear with the pain.”

Advik grinned and nodded in the reply. The only things which were guiding his path were those two even though he was dead tired he was still smiling looking at them from behind.

He unexpectedly giggled when he saw them lead his way, “I was just dying a while ago but when I opened my eyes it suddenly becomes almost two thousand years since my death. I always wanted to live a simple life but that… just remained my dream. Now, here I am trying to escape from this unknown place. I was always afraid of death and now I’m a soul who’s roaming in this horrible forest. I think a good-happy life was always something out of my reach, haha.” Walking in that place made him remember and think about many things he would’ve never think at all.

Advik was lost in his own world but he woke up when the Fireball abruptly called him to hide behind a tree.

He immediately hid as soon as he heard to the Fireball, he questioned, “Hey! Now, what happened? Why am I hiding again? Really… I have to hide even when I am not a thief anymore!”

The Fireball and the Firefly also hid behind the same tree, “Shhh… Stay silent for a while if you want to enter the Real Gate of the Realm”

Advik made a stupid and a bit confused face when he heard the Fireball talk about the gate, “What! Another gate? Really… How many gates do I have to encounter in a day? Why here are so many gates?”

“Shhhhhhhhhhh….! Shut up!”, The Fireball and the Firefly came very close to his face to shut his mouth. The Black Fireball whispered, “Try to look at the gate, it’s the Real Gate of the Realm.”

Advik glanced at the gate while standing behind the huge tree. The gate was as huge as the last gate he saw but there wasn’t any guard around it, thus he normally said, “Oh! There is no need to hide we should just open the gate. There is no guard either. Let’s go, now I’ll lead the way.”

When he was going to step ahead, The Firefly and the Fireball grabbed his shoulder from behind. He turned his back, a bit pissed he asked, “What happen? There’s no one out there. We can easily slip away.”

“Don’t be reckless. Be extra careful when there’s no one in a place where it should be someone, always remember this. You are a thief, so, how can you be this carefree in a situation like this?”, said the Fireball.

Narrowing his eyebrows he questioned, “Did I ever tell you that I was a thief?”

“You were talking to yourself a while ago. I just heard it by chance”, Fireball answered.

The Firefly was also jumping high and low in midair as though it was also nagging or scolding Advik. He looked at it and chuckled, “You also want to scold me for my recklessness? Haha.”

“Focus”, said the Fireball.

“Oh sorry”, Advik’s eyebrow raised and he scratched his head before speaking again in a worrisome voice, “Eh, then you mean there is someone out there?”

“Yes, there is someone out there who can be a big problem for us.” Said the Fireball.

Advik again glanced at the gate to see and examine the gate again, “There is no one but now I think there is some kind of energy here, A Demonic energy!”

“That’s right.”

He turned in the direction of those two with a dumbed face, “Seriously… God! How did I not see or sense it before? There is someone actually there, more like the gate itself is that someone! Right, Mr. Fireball?”

The Fireball, “Correct.”

Advik lightly hit his forehead in a bit of frustration on himself. “How I didn’t notice it before! Stupid me and my eyes!”

“Don’t punish yourself for a tiny mistake. You’ve been through a lot lately so your mind was just not stable to see all these things. To notice dark or divine energy you need to have a stable heart and control on your mind and you weren’t in a condition to do that.” The Fireball said with a warm and comforting voice.

Advik laughed, “Thank you”, he thought that it was the first time someone didn’t blame him for something. “Even though I don’t know you two that well, you are still helping me. I don’t know what your real intentions are, yet you are giving me a very warm and family-like feeling, so I don’t mind your company, I think.”

The Fireball remained silent hearing Advik’s thought but the Firefly was jumping with joy, it was very happy hearing all that conversation like it understood every word of what they said. It flew and landed on his chest, close to his heart. He was surprised but soon he felt that the Firefly was hugging him so he closed his eyes and put his hand gently over the Firefly, “Thank you too.” He smiled. After some second the Firefly left his chest.

The Fireball called again with the low voice, “…Okay, listen to me, kid. That huge gate ahead of us is a Demon. Well, he used to be a demon with a human body, however, he was captured by the Emperor Agni and he turned him into the Gate as a punishment when he tried to escape from the prison of the palace.

Advik looked at the Gate again and spoke, “Oh, if he had a human body that means he was a powerful demon”, Looking back at the Fireball he continued, “But he was a demon or not is not important to us.”

The Black Fireball sighed, “Yes, it is not, the problem is that that demon is still very powerful and that could be a problem for us.”

“Is that so? Hmm… do you know anything about his past life, maybe some information about him can help us.” Said Advik.

“Yes I know”, the Fireball replied.

“He was a very powerful demon since he was born. There was no one as strong as him, in his clan. For him everything was easy and there was nothing he could not obtain with his power. He was so strong and loved by everyone that soon he lost he’s all interest in everything he did. However, one day he accidentally found something that he could never get tired of, and that was a book of riddles made by his grandfather who was a riddle writer who gave up on his family, clan, and responsibility for his passion. His grandfather died years ago but he left his books of riddles which became friends for his grandson. From that time on the kid also emerged himself with those books, never letting them out of his sight even for a second. Inspired by those books of his grandfather he also started to write riddles of his own. It was the only time he was happy but soon his father who was the leader of their demon clan found about his hobby. He burned down all of those books even the one written by his father and son because he was afraid that his son will bring shame upon their family if anyone found that the only son of their family is writing some stupid riddles instead of polishing his sword arts, just like his late father did. That incident made a huge impact on his heart. The little kid was so angry with his father and his family for not understanding his small dream that in a flash, he destroyed his own village and family with his abnormal cultivation. He was still lost when some gods and the Emperor Agni surrounded him to imprison him for his deed. He realized what he did but it was too late to correct what he did. In that prison, he again found his love for riddles. Hence he tried to escape from the prison to become something. And that was when the Emperor Agni turned him into the Demon Gate as punishment for trying to escape from the prison. Since then he is stuck here as the Demon Gate.”

They all were still hiding behind the huge tree, Advik quietly whispered, “Okay, so that was his past but it did not give me any good information about him.” He looked at the Fireball, “Do you know any of his weakness, something anything which we could use against him?”

The Fireball sighed looking at the guy who was overly excited to meet the Gate, “The Emperor Agni has ordered him to protect this realm at every cost. He had to do what the Emperor ordered him even if he doesn’t want to. However, he has some grudge against the Emperor for locking him up in that horrible prison and so, once in a while he let some people or anyone come in or out through him if they offer something unique or precious to him. Although you still have to solve his riddles which are hard to crack but I think we can find the answer for his riddles. And we have to listen to his riddles no matter what because he loves to recite and create riddles.”

“What a character!” Was the first line Advik said after hearing the whole story. He thought, “How can I always encounter people like him?”

The Fireball replied, “Yes, he is something but he has his reason to be like that and for doing what he did. Be careful because he is a demon, a greedy demon after all.”

Advik smiled, “Everyone is greedy, don’t you think?” He looked down at the ground, smiling.

The Fireball called out to him and he abruptly shook his head, “Yes, now what can we do? Face him head-on? Haha”

“Let’s go because that’s the only option we have.” The Fireball said and flew in the direction of the Demon Gate. His eyes widened when he saw the Firefly also followed the Fireball, leaving Advik behind the two were floating some meters ahead of him.

“Hey, wait!”, Walking behind the two he asked, “So what’s the plan?”

“There is no plan.” Said Fireball, “We have to solve his riddles if we solved them he’ll let us go but if we couldn’t then we can never ever come here again. That is the only condition he has. And he only asks one riddle from a person. That means there will be three riddles for us. Prepare yourself, kid.”

Advik wanted to ask how the Firefly is going to answer the riddle but he didn’t ask because he had other things to worry about. He was amazed by the fact that a Fireball knew so much about this place, so he just asked out of curiosity, “Umm… hey! Mr. Fireball, how do you know so much about this Realm and why are you helping me?”

“No reason behind helping you. I am just doing what my heart is telling me to do and I’ve lived here for many years, thus I know numerous things about this place. Even the one which is unknown to most of the people here.” A cold but straight answer he got from the Fireball but to him, the reply seemed to be truly honest. Hence, he did not ask anything further and choose to quietly follow them.

Soon they arrived in front of the Demon Gate.

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Hey everyone! It’s me your slow and lazy AF author of this novel. Sorry for this late and short update. I think this chapter was the shortest chapter that I’ve written so far but I’m trying to make the chapters of my novel a bit shorter without cutting or missing any story. Sorry because I couldn’t update my novel on time because I have high fever for 8 or 9 days and there are some other family problems also, So can you please be patient with me as you can see I’m so messed up with my entire life, hehe!

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