Endless Horde: Through the Eyes of a Godking

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Despite knowing what to look for, finding it certainly wasn't easy. Especially considering how frustratingly confusing this maze was.

The architect certainly doesn't make it easy to find him either. Cedric could even sense their pride, smugness, and provocation through the hints they left behind, as if challenging whoever finds their traces to find them. Like they somehow knew that anybody who had come this far would cling to any hope of making it out of this maze.

The worst part is that they're not wrong.

According to the hints they left behind, to get to the final resting place of the architect, Cedric must first search for three unique sigils scattered all over the maze.

The locations of these unique sigils aren't static since the maze shifts and changes a lot. Luckily, the architect had shown mercy and didn't require Cedric to interact with all three sigils in a single run. That said, what's required is to interact with the sigils in proper order.

These three unique sigils are the sigils of Man, Earth, and Heaven. Cedric had to interact with them in that order, and the interaction itself had its own rules.

For the interaction to count, Cedric must knock on the sigils three times once, then wait for three seconds before knocking again thrice. He must do this a total of three times on each sigil in the order of Man, Earth, and Heaven.

He would know that he had done it properly when the sigil lights up and releases a sound that echoes through the entire maze, because that would signify the removal of the barrier that's blocking anybody from approaching the final resting place of the architect.

And this...this was just the first requirement. There are more aside from this one.

To this, Cedric had to thank his uncanny ability to understand languages. Because, you see, the rules and hints he had gathered so far were written in a language that Cedric never knew existed.

It's different from the modern human language of the Primitive Universe. In fact, there's not even a trace of similarity between the two. If it weren't for his miraculous ability to understand languages, Cedric wouldn't have known where to start.

Additionally, the hateful architect didn't even leave behind a record of what the sigils looked like. Cedric had to discover them on his own. Fortunately, the sigils themselves were labeled with their names.

The sigils looked like a bunch of lines and shapes within some sort of magical circle. That circle was double-lined, and in between those lines were letters that spelled out what the sigil represents. That's how Cedric was able to differentiate between the sigils.

So, one could only imagine how large of a role his innate ability played in this part. Cedric has never been so thankful for it, honestly.

It took Cedric at least 30 runs in the maze to get to all sigils in order. But once they're all activated, they stay like that, so it was fine.

However, the game of the architect doesn't end here. Oh, no.

Finding the sigils and activating them in a specific order? That's just a warm-up. The architect still has tests for whoever wants to follow in their footsteps, and it would just get more difficult from here on out.

Now that the barriers that were keeping the unqualified from accessing the location of the architect's final resting place were up. Cedric must now go there to take on the real challenge of the architect.

After the activation of the sigils of Man, Earth, and Heaven, the maze shifted once and stayed like that, presumably permanently until something or a specific event happens.

Upon entering, Cedric was met with a bewildering sight that he would never forget.

The twisting and ever-shifting corridors and paths of the maze disappeared. The main path took him to a place leading to a gigantic astrolabe with 99 rings.

Each ring was smaller than the next, yet the whole astrolabe was massive. Cedric's next challenge was to line up all 99 rings to reach the core of the astrolabe.

The rings were in perpetual motion. Some were moving slowly, others were moving too fast. There are even a few that are moving in a specific rhythm, making the challenge significantly harder.

Beneath the astrolabe, there was an altar with a single circular button. Pressing this button will stop the movement of the rings one by one, starting from the outermost ring.

The mechanics were simple, yet Cedric could already see just how much of a headache this could be.

The speed at which the rings moved varied greatly. Cedric had to learn each one, memorize them, and then time them so that when he pressed that button, they would line up perfectly.

Oh, but it doesn't end there, because if he failed somehow, his progress would be wiped, and he would have to start from the very beginning once more.

Additionally, time won't stay still for him. Cedric was still subjected to a rule where he could only stay within the maze for a maximum of three hours. Meaning that he had to line up all 99 rings within that time limit.

To say that this will take some time would be an understatement, actually.

Lining up the rings of the astrolabe was almost as frustrating as going through the maze itself. Cedric honestly doesn't know which one he prefers, or if he prefers any at all.

But one thing's for sure: he had come too far to back down now, so he will face this challenge.

**

As expected, the task was truly too time-consuming.

You'd think that just pressing a button to line up the rings would be a simple matter, but nope, this was a special maze. How can it be so simple?

It's the varying speeds of each ring that made this task more complicated than it sounds. It wasn't just about being fast or slow; there are layers to it.

The outermost ring rotated and revolved at a constant speed. Out of all the rings, this one was the most stable, perfect to become the frame for the initial outline.

As for the 98th ring, it moves just slightly faster than the previous ring, but it's still easy. The first 9 rings were this simple, and Cedric never had any trouble lining them up.

From the 90th ring onwards is where the problem truly begins.

The 90th ring continuously moves for five seconds, then pauses for another five before moving again. That's it, rules. The 89th ring moves for three, pauses for another three before moving again. The 88th ring pauses for three seconds after 10 seconds of movement. The 87th ring...

There's just too much information to consider, and once it starts, every step has to be correct, or else any progress will be gone.

Memorizing the patterns and movements of each ring wasn't hard for Cedric. He had multiple thought chambers to help him with this. But that's just memorization. Timing his button presses so that each ring lines up was another matter.

There's very little room for error here; the misalignment of each ring shouldn't be any more than five inches, or else it wouldn't count. And even though he knew and memorized the timing for each ring, he still found it difficult to align all the rings.

It took hundreds of tries before succeeding. And although he wasn't fighting anybody, Cedric still felt profound exhaustion after doing this so many times. Even the relief of finally making it didn't alleviate that fatigue.

After aligning the rings, Cedric had to insert the key that the architect left behind to open up the next path forward. Without that key, all of his efforts would've been for naught; fortunately, he has it.

Another straight path opened up before him. Upon reaching the end, he discovers a lone altar in the middle of a small room, which was located at the core of the astrolabe. The path he went through earlier was, in truth, inside the aligned rings; that's why he had to do that challenge.

Cedric stood on that altar, and suddenly he was bound. Then, he was scanned by a mechanism within the altar.

The strange part was that, even though this was only his clone, Cedric felt as if the scanner was able to transcend time and space and actually scan his real body instead.

After feeling nervous because of the scan, a change happened within the room.

The walls parted and revealed a flight of stairs leading to the top. This meant that Cedric passed this test with flying colors.

Yes, the scan itself was another test. What for? Cedric had no idea. The architect just said that if the one scanned was considered to be an enemy of the architect, they would die right then and there. It's that straightforward and merciless.

Cedric was confident that he wasn't an enemy of the architect. He had never even seen them before, so how could they become enemies?

The hints stopped here, which either meant that the tests ended from here or Cedric had to rely on himself moving forward.

And from what he had seen after reaching the end of the stairs, it seems that it's the former...