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Chapter 601: Sanctuary

Allen unsheathed his sword and pointed it at the Beast God Giran.

Seeing that, his friends realized there was no going back, so they all quickly went into formation, ready to fight.

\'What are you attempting to do?\'

Giran, who looked like a silver wolf, stared at Allen carefully, but seemed confused by him.

"You attacked one of my allies. Do I need more reason to see you as a threat?"

Allen replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and that made his friends stand even more alert.

"Lord Tonies, please protect and heal us."

\'What now..? Is my age getting to me, or is that the Beast God Giran in front of you..?\'

Sophie manifested a spirit that looked like an old man wearing a soaked robe and holding a staff with a seashell on its end. That was the Water Great Spirit they had met in the Spirit Paradise.

As soon as he appeared, Tonies created a large barrier of water.

Shea also held her fists ready, jumping forward to block any attacks from reaching Sophie and Cecile.

\'That\'s quite an attitude to show towards me. Do you realize you\'re standing in front of a God?\'

"I wouldn\'t say I\'m the most religious person out there."

(I don\'t care about gods.)

\'Is that so? Then I guess you also don\'t know what happens with those who turn their swords towards a God.\'

Giran said, lowering his stance and extending his claws.

"Excuse my ignorance. But I assure you I always try to follow the due process for my friends. Also, Shea, I doubt you can take a blow from Giran, leave the defense to me."

(I wonder how he compares to the Spirit Beast God from the Spirit Paradise. I think I\'ll have to bring back my summons from the Earth Labyrinth though.)

Allen felt like standing against Giran was more important than the Earth Labyrinth right now.

"A-are we really doing this? I guess it can\'t be helped."

\'I\'m so sorry! Please stop! Why are you doing this!!\'

Before Allen could rush to where Shea stood, Luvanka shouted loudly and stepped forward.

\'What\'s wrong, Luvanka? They already said they\'re going to fight for you, so I just have to show them who they\'re trying to challenge.\'

\'I\'m so sorry, Beast God Giran. This all started because of my rudeness, please try to calm your anger.\'

\'I won\'t do that.\'

Giran would not allow such behavior towards a God.

\'I\'m the one who caused all of this, I\'m the only one who should pay…\'

Luvanka jumped forward and began to beg, prostrating his body on the ground.

(I thought Luvanka said he had no interest in becoming a servant of the gods. Though well, I guess he still feels indebted after they took care of him for so long.)

Allen knew Luvanka\'s story, so he could largely understand why he felt that way now.

500 years ago he had been born as a beastman in Albahar, but became a gorilla Sacred Beast to defend his village from a monster attack.

Garm had done that for him, likely sensing Luvanka had a lot of potential.

Eventually Luvanka was brought to the divine realm to train under the Mythical Beast Albahar, in hopes he would eventually replace the aging Mythical Beast.

(But Kuwatoro was left in the human realm because the Mythical Bird Rame is still young.)

Allen was starting to piece together the intentions of the divine realm from Luvanka and Giran\'s words.

Sacred Beasts and Mythical beasts still had a limited lifespan.

It was hard to know how long Giran had been alive, but judging from his old appearance he likely was not immortal.

(So they wanted Luvanka to become the next guardian of the Mountain God\'s area, but he decided to become my summon instead. Though I kinda forced him.)

In this world that existed for millions of years, Gods and Sacred Beasts were not immortal.

The Beast Gods Garm and Giran were trying to find suitable replacements.

The Mythical Beast Albahar did not seem to have much time left, and maybe that was why he had given Shea a portion of his power. He did not have enough time to become a Divine Beast.

It seemed like Sacred Beasts and Mythical Beasts had shorter lifespans compared to the divine people created by Elmea, or the angels birthed from Spirit Crystal Stones.

[Lifespans of various races]

-First Angels (Nearly immortal)

-Angels, Archangels, and Dominions (upwards of 100\'000 years)

-Divine people around 10\'000 years

-High elves and high dark elves, around 3000 years

-Dragonkin around 1000 years

-Elves and dark elves, around 300 years

-Humans, beastmen, birdmen, mermen, around 100 years

Luvanka had not desired anything. He had cast aside his name as a beastman, as he desired no fame. He only completed his duty as Sacred Beast as a way to atone for his sins.

He had readily accepted Allen\'s invitation because he likely wanted to get rid of his position as Sacred Beast.

The Beast God Giran watched Luvanka in silence for a while, and then retracted his claws.

\'I guess that\'s your decision then. I\'m the one who started this fight, so I\'ll draw back as well.\'

Ending the conflict that way, Giran sighed and stood up with his 100 meter long body, calmly walking above Allen\'s to go up the hill.

"Ugh, you almost made us lose everything."

(That was definitely a chicken game, and the first one to chicken out lost! Anyway, there\'s only one thing left to do now.)

"But Cecile, you just saw how he forgave us. That\'s just how generous the Beast God Giran is!"

Allen turned around to face the hill and knelt reverently.

Everyone else also lowered their heads in apology to the Beast God.

\'I believe you addressed me as only Giran though…\'

"That was just a joke. Meeting you has truly been an honor."

\'Hmph…well, no matter.\'

"Mhm."

Allen remained kneeling while Giran watched, and there was a short moment of silence.

\'How long are you planning on staying there like that?\'

"Huh? I mean, we still haven\'t heard what Shea\'s trials are…"

\'Oh that? That was just a joke…actually no. I just never thought such a perplexing day would come, I really must be getting old.\'

"There\'s no need to exaggerate. But so…"

\'I guess we\'re just rolling with it, alright then. My trials will be…\'

Giran closed his eyes and began to think.

(Why are you thinking about it now? I gave you plenty of time before we got here.)

Allen began to fear the trial would be something really random, so he decided to nudge Giran along.

"I hope the trials are intense enough to warrant a portion of your power for my allies."

\'Right. I\'ll give you a trial then, go and reach my Sanctuary.\'

(That\'s not what we agreed on, I thought you said we\'d get 2 trials. One for a Divine Technique and one for a Divine Artifact.)

Giran only mentioned the first trial.

"Huh?"

\'That means to get up here.\'

Allen felt that saying "Go up the hill" would have been a better way to put it, but he waited patiently as the trials were important for Shea.

Everyone in their group looked at each other for a bit, then began going up the hill which had a slope of 45 degrees.

The hill was not even 1000 meters tall, and at the top was something like a big rock, lodged into the hill.

After going up a few hundreds of meters, the white stone platform was just in front of them.

The stone platform was around 10 meters thick, jutting out from the hill, blocking Allen\'s group from proceeding forward like some sort of enormous rat guard.

"Can we step on it?"

\'Of course. I\'m sure all of you are curious to see what\'s up here as well. Come on up.\'

"Thank you very much. Let\'s go then."

Everything was governed by stats in this world, so jumping a few meters high was an easy feat for Allen\'s group, and they quickly got on top of the platform.

"Oh, I wonder if this looks like a nice circle from the air?"

"Yes, it\'s a perfect circle."

The surface of the platform where Giran stood was carefully polished and even, shaped like a circle with a radius of around 500 meters.

Giran stood on the circular platform on top of the hill, carefully looking at Allen\'s group.

Allen used his Bird E summon to look at it from above, seeing that the wolf was sitting on top of the strange circular platform.

Giran\'s 100 meter long body was sitting on the circular platform, a short distance away from where Allen\'s group stood.

(So what\'s the trial? A fight up here? Though it\'s a pretty small area, maybe it\'ll be like a sumo fight, it\'s pretty much built like an arena for that after all.)

Allen thought back to the fight against the Spirit Beast God, which had been a harsh battle.

The circular platform had a radius of around 500 meters, which looked pretty small compared to Giran\'s 100 meter long body.

Around 50 meters in from the platform\'s edge, there were 10 centimeter tall protuberances from the otherwise uniform surface, placed in regular intervals going all around the circle.

The circular platform looked small compared to Giran\'s body, and seen from the Bird E summon overhead, it looked like a sumo arena.

Considering there was not much room, fighting Giran there would be hard, so Allen wanted some sort of handicap for him.

Earlier when Giran killed Luvanka, Allen had hardly been able to follow his movements.

Allen looked to the side and saw that Shea shared his sentiment.

"I think his trial just got way harder because of Allen. We can\'t do anything with so few members, at least give us your summons."

As they walked towards Giran, Cecile complained loudly while swinging her staff around.

"Huh? What did I do? It\'s true that this might be hard though."

Completely rejecting the notion that he had made things worse, Allen continued walking and was about to cross the circle of protuberances.

\'Allen, stay there and don\'t take any further steps forward. My Sanctuary begins there.\'

"Huh? What does that mean?"

(Eh? Maybe it\'ll be like that time with Kurena…)

Allen recalled the main fights of the Gates of Trials.

\'Shea, you\'re the only one allowed to enter my Sanctuary. So prepare yourself and come forth.\'

"Wha-?! I have to do this alone?!!"

Shea was utterly shocked.

"