Chapter 222: Secret of the Midnight Lord

Luke reached the castle grounds, where the trail grew barren and lifeless. The few blades of grass were withered and gray, nothing like the vibrant green of the surrounding forest. No enemies lurked nearby. The angel mask covered his face, his ticket to moving through the capital without being torn apart. The statues thought he was one of them.

“No… not yet…” a voice whispered.

There was only one side effect to wearing the mask for too long: sometimes, he heard a woman’s voice. At first, he thought he was losing it. But after a while, he realized it was always the same words, always in the same tone: ‘Not yet.’

It belonged to the Fallen Stone Angel. Not constant, only in certain moments, as if the slumbering spirit inside the mask stirred reluctantly, displeased at being disturbed.

Ahead loomed the massive black castle. At night, torches burned in its windows, though nothing moved within. The place did have undead, but Luke had cleared them out on previous visits.

During his time roaming the capital, one of his main goals had been to find the Midnight Lord. If he could kill two of the lords here, only the Orc Lord would remain. He didn’t care about the orc itself, the prize was the loot. From the Beast Lord, he’d gotten a Familiar Rune, a legendary item. Useless to him in practice, since the beast trapped within wasn’t exactly friendly, but still proof that the lords dropped rare treasures. What would the Midnight Lord yield?

The monster was the master of the Midnight Wardens and Midnight Watchers. Luke suspected it was some form of undead. The Wardens were zombies. The Watchers… well, those were like zombie souls bound into stone statues. The Fallen Stone Angel was an angel’s spirit sealed in stone, now trapped in the mask. It fit his theory well enough.

But this was as far as he could go, not just in the castle area, but on the capital’s map. The castle and the long road leading up to it were on the other side of a massive translucent barrier. It was inaccessible. And perhaps the castle ahead wasn’t even real. It could be a mirage, sitting just beyond the barrier.

When he placed his hand on that invisible wall, a notification appeared.

[To lower the barrier to the castle area, please activate all three tutorial mechanisms]
**Mechanisms Activated: 1/3**

Bartholomew had already triggered Bastion’s mechanism, creating the Safe Zone and putting Luke one step closer to going home. He had killed the guardian of the third mechanism, the Beast Lord, leaving it unclaimed. All that remained was to return to the Wild Zone and activate the second.

The problem was, triggering the third mechanism would launch a tutorial event. He pulled up his system notification history, scrolling as far back as it would go, searching for one in particular. There it was, the message he’d gotten when he first approached the statue of the king standing before Bastion.

*Mission Statue Activation Detected*

You have reached the heart of the kingdom, the Grand Capital. Well done, Challenger. The fate of this world now lies in your hands.

Hidden across the vast city lie three ancient mechanisms. They hold shut the castle gates, sealing the path forward. You must find them. Activate them. Only then will the way open. But be warned, the journey ahead will test you.

Each mechanism is protected by one of the Three Lords, sovereigns of their domains and unyielding in their power.

– The Orc Lord, who bathes the weak in blood and rules through brute force.

– The Beast Lord, whose primal dominion commands the creatures of the wild.

– The Midnight Lord, the tireless guardian of the Capital and eternal servant of the throne.

But know this, there is a cost. Once the ancient seal is broken, the Midnight Wardens will never again rest. They will rise and march without end, consuming all that stands in their path. Even the long-abandoned lands will fall once more beneath their shadow. The Midnight Lord himself will awaken, bringing swift and merciless punishment to those who dared to defy the sealed order.

Beyond the castle gates lies a portal, the only exit from this world. But passage through it is not freely given. It is watched endlessly, guarded by forces that do not permit escape without challenge.

At the very heart of the castle, upon a throne forgotten by time, waits the Midnight King. Those who cross into his domain must face the Witch, once sealed away for endangering the balance of the realm. But she is not the final trial. For the one who truly rules these lands watches still, unseen, awaiting the moment to pass final judgment.

“This is the last big hurdle,” he murmured.

If he triggered the third mechanism, everyone in the Safe Zone would be slaughtered in a war unleashed by an army of creatures. It was here, standing in this place, that he truly grasped the scale of what such a war would be.

Still, most of the major problems were already handled. With the Beast Lord gone, the third mechanism was wide open. Nothing stood in his way now.

“Hey, Franky, you know what the Midnight Lord looks like?”

Frankzaroth, the Beast Lord, hadn’t exactly embraced the nickname.

“I am not speaking to you, human. Do not bother me,” the stone muttered.

Luke hadn’t made any real progress in befriending the serpent trapped inside it.

“And my name is Frankzaroth! Not Franky!”

“Alright, back to good old Rock it is,” Luke replied. “Your name’s too ugly anyway.”

“It is not!” the stone snapped.

“Yeah, no, your name’s crap,” Artemis chimed in. “Seriously, who names themselves Frankzaroth? Sounds like someone who’d crap their own pants.” She burst out laughing.

The Beast Lord clicked his tongue and went quiet.

Luke kept walking, thoughts turning over in his head. Facing the lords to activate the mechanisms wasn’t mandatory. Someone could have triggered the third without ever fighting the serpent, just by doing what Luke did and escaping. But ignoring the lords came with its own problems. If the war began when the third mechanism was activated, every lord would join the battle, each leading their army. Taking them out beforehand meant those forces wouldn’t show up.

That was one of the main reasons he hunted for the Midnight Lord. If he killed it first, maybe activating the third mechanism wouldn’t send the Midnight Wardens into the fight. The trouble was, if his suspicion was right and the Midnight Lord was holed up inside the castle, there’d be no way around the war. It would happen, at least with one lord and their army. Which meant all he really had to do was kill the Orc Lord and make sure its forces didn’t take part in the tutorial’s final event.

“That would just leave the Midnight Lord and his army, the Witch, and the Midnight King.” Those were the last bosses of the tutorial. After that, he could go home.

He glanced at Charlie. “Think we can handle it alone?”

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She shook her head.

“You really should have more faith in me…”

***

Luke lay stretched out on the bed in the cave where Samael and Kalysto had once stayed. It had become his resting spot in this part of the world. A day had passed since he’d hit level 56 in his class.

He sat up, already catching the mouthwatering scent of the meat he’d left roasting over the fire.

“Finally!” Artemis’s voice rang out. “I’m starving!”

“You’re always starving,” Luke replied.

Two months had gone by since he’d killed the Beast Lord. In other words… Luke had taken a vacation.

And honestly, he’d earned it. From the moment he’d fought the Midnight Warden, it had been chaos, getting chased into that place by the Beast Lord, meeting a demon god, grinding like hell to learn a profession, nearly being melted by a giant acid-spitting snake, getting locked inside a death trap of a forest, barely sleeping for days. And then there was the three-day countdown hanging over his head, the timer that would throw him right back into an area where that same monstrous snake would be waiting to eat him alive. When it was all finally over… he just stopped.

Not completely, he’d poked around, done a little investigation here and there, but in terms of leveling, he hadn’t gone far. Six levels was still impressive in the fifties, but most of that came from casually hunting monsters with his bow.

He started to whistle as he picked up a watering can.

“What are you doing?” Artemis asked. “The fire with the boar meat is in the other direction!”

“Everything in its time. My plants come first.”

She groaned.