Chapter 123: Guardians of the Prairie

As they approached the area with the tall pillars of stone that were left all over the place Joshua was starting to feel a sense of danger coming from up ahead. At the moment he couldn't reach the area that the danger was coming from with his aura sense. It felt like a barrier was in place that was keeping him from being able to perceive anything within the center of the spot with his aura sense. Even so he was once again able to tell something was odd about the location from his instincts alone.

Once the group got closer to the location they decided to get off of Momo and go the rest of the way on foot. There were no other beast around within sight and it was obvious this area had to have some sort significance with the obvious difference it had from all the other areas of the prairie that they had seen up to this point. As they marched their way through the strange place Joshua took notice of the fact that none of the stones had any sort of carvings on them that would give hints to what the area could be used for. The only thing Joshua found a bit odd was how the pillars of stone were arranged around the place.

At first the pillars seemed a bit shorter and randomly placed all over the place. Many of these pillars were laid out on the ground with grass growing over them while others stood straight up in the air as if they had been planted deep into the ground so that they wouldn't be able to be budged. Even so some of the pillars were broken as if a creature had smashed them which immediately caused Joshua to become more cautious while approaching the area. The further in they went the more pillars started popping up in front of them and more often than not each pillar of stone they saw was taller than the last.

When they got close enough to see the center of area they were moving through Joshua got an odd feeling as he could see a layer of the stone pillars lined up in a way that they seemed to form an unorganized circle around the space inside of it. At first Joshua thought it was there to be an entrance to a dungeon with the obvious grandeur of the entire set up, but since he couldn't see any sort of entrance around the area he couldn't be certain. One thing that did stand out that everyone in the group was immediately attracted to, was a large stone slab set out in front of the group of stone pillars that seemed to be trying to form a circle.

The stone slab stood at about eight feet high and was just about half as wide which made it more than big enough to grab everyone's attention. The closer they got to the slab the more obvious it became that there was some writing on it for them all to read and figure out what was going on in this new landscape. "Well this is interesting. I wasn't expecting something like this outside of a dungeon." Henry said as he moved closer to the front of the group so he could get a good look at the slab.

"There's no way such a set up doesn't have something going on, right boss?" Jayce said as he had his shield out ready to defend the entire group just in case something was going to try to take their group by surprise.

"Wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've seen in some of our ventures, but it definitely fits the bill of something dungeon related." Vince said with a shrug as they all approached the slab close enough to where they could actually read what it was saying. Joshua took the lead as he stood in front of it and started examining it. At the top of the slab there was an image that looked similar to one of the many bobcats they had faced while exploring the outskirts of the prairie. That alone sent off warning signals in Joshua's mind of what this area could be. Beneath the carved image there was paragraphs of weird writings that was quickly translated by the system and displayed in front of everyone so that they could easily read it.

[Welcome explorers to one of the four guardian sites of this prairie. The basic idea behind these sights is a test to see if those who challenge it are prepared to take on the dungeon of the prairie in an attempt to claim the territory. Do not take on this challenge lightly or death will be the only future that awaits you. Each of these testing sights has one guardian deity that will be level eighty-nine with five stars worth of capability. This is only the case for the guardian deity and not its followers depending on which guardian deity that you encounter. Defeating all four guardian deities will open up the dungeon at the center of the prairie that contains an even greater threat. You will find these sights spread out around the outskirts of the prairie.

This specific testing ground has the guardian deity of a mutated bobcat that will be much stronger than any of the ones you will have met up to this point. Do not rely completely on your prior experience with dealing with similar beast in the past or you will regret it. You can take a look at the creature inside the arena by touching the slab in front of you, but the moment you step through the barrier be prepared to fight for your life. Good luck brave explorer.]

After everyone read the message they all had a good idea of how the challenges for this territory would end up working out. Joshua did find it odd that four seemed to be like some key number with all sorts of things that the world had been throwing at them lately. There were four sub-bosses at the canyon dungeon, now there were four guardians in this prairie. Hell there were even four guardians of the whole planet now that Joshua though about it. It seemed like a repeating occurrence that was hard to miss. Joshua put that to the back of his mind though as he focused on what was right in front of him.

"Seems like we've got a lot of work to do before we can get into the dungeon. It took us several days just to find this one guardian site, who knows how long it will take to find the rest of them." Madalyn said with a sigh as she looked up towards the circle of pillars. "I wouldn't have known there was a barrier of sorts laid out there if the system hadn't told us. It just like a circle of rocks to me."

"It might take a while to clear all of the guardian sites, but we're in no rush." Henry said with a shrug as he moved forward to inspect the slab some more to see if there was anything else going on with it. "As long as we have control over James Town no one else will be able to get to this territory unless they want to try to trek through the mountains. It's still going to be a while before anyone is strong enough to do that."

Joshua simply nodded as he walked over to the slab of stone that had given them all the information on how the guardians worked within the prairie. He decided to check and see what would happen once he touched it like the information suggested beforehand and he was surprised to see a barrier appear in front of him. From the fact that no one else in the group seemed to react to the barrier popping up it was likely that they couldn't see it at all.

The barrier that suddenly appeared seemed to be created by the circle of pillars right behind the slab. It explained why the top of the pillars seemed to curve inward as the barrier formed was a giant dome the size of a stadium or possibly even larger. It was more than big enough for all of Lilly's beast companions to move around inside of if it came down to a battle of some kind and Joshua wad fairly sure any creature that needed a cage this big couldn't be on the small side.

After the barrier appeared in front of him Joshua noticed a small hole forming in the barrier directly in front of him allowing him to see what was inside of the place. The moment the hole started to form the rest of the group was able to take notice of what was going on. Even though they couldn't see the barrier like Joshua was able to since he was touching the slab they were able to see the opening that was forming in front of them. From their perspective it was like a portal was opening up that peered into a completely different location. Joshua wouldn't be surprised if they though along those lines since what was on the inside of the barrier looked nothing like the empty area that was there before.

The first thing Joshua noticed inside of the barrier was the fact that there were several more of the large pillars all over the area, but instead of being simply worn down by nature they seemed to have been damaged by a beast. Some of the pillars had large claw marks that cut deep through them and looked similar in size to the wounds the bobcats would leave across Titus's vine armor whenever they were able to get in a clean hit. These markings could be seen on several of the pillars, but those weren't the ones that grabbed everyone's attention.

The pillars that had been cut clean in half were the ones that stood out in everyone's eyes. Some of the pillar were cut in half with the top part crumbled to the ground from being knocked over, but the more impressive sight were the pillars that were cut vertically with three cuts turning them into basically four separate pillars. Even the ground beneath the former large pillar had large gouge marks on it showing how powerful such a blow would have to be. Joshua wasn't sure how well Tank's shell could hold up against something like that, but he knew that it wouldn't be able to take on to many of those strikes.

Even with all of the destruction that was laid out before them none of them could spot the guardian beast within the barrier, but they could all feel the powerful killing intent pouring out of the barrier. If they stepped through Joshua knew that they would be fighting for their lives and he wasn't ready to put the group in such a situation yet, not when they had so much more prairie left to explore.