In an eerie chamber filled with dark light, a man with skin as grey as the night sky and eyes made of orange flames, drank slowly out of a beast skull. He sat on a throne made of bones.

His chamber was in a cave on top of a desolate mountain. Five moons hung high in the sky and illuminated his black robes that were covered in time essences. His orange flame hair flickered in the wind.

An Ogre with green skin and several tusks and horns jutting out of his flesh, bowed his head on the cracked dirt floor before the throne of bones. He s.h.i.+vered in fear, "S-s-s-s-so Sir, My magnanimous Gatekeeper. Gatekeeper Maxus. I beseech please...please may I have a pa.s.s made for me. I know as a rule that you don't issue pa.s.ses and allow no one in or out of your realm. But...my child is so sick and the cure for his illness can only be found in the Deity Realms. I must go there for my child."

Gatekeeper Maxus[1] looked at the Ogre coldly, "And why should I make an exception to my rules for your dying child? Do you think your child is the only one dying in this Realm? Do you think your child is the only life that matters? There will be no pa.s.s for you, there will be no exception. If your child is going to die then they will die." Maxus said heartlessly.

The Ogres eyes turned red with rage at this response. It wanted to yell in frustration but it didn't dare.

"Then at least My Lord, can you heal my child. In return I would give you anything, even my soul." The Ogre said this as a last resort.

Maxus sneered, "I own this Realm, there is nothing you can give me that I don't already have. Do you think I'd want your rotten soul?"

The Ogre wanted to cry, "But there is nothing else I can give you."

Maxus was about to respond to this, but then his eyes widened, his orange flame hair blazing into a hot blue as he noticed something amiss.

"You are dismissed Ogre. GET OUT!" his voice thundered.

The Ogre quivered and scampered away from the chamber quickly.

Maxus picked up a red sound essence, he put it in his ear as he said, "Obsidian come quickly, there is a problem with the vault."

He then removed the now shrivelling sound essence before he jumped out of the mouth of his cave chamber.

He dived through the air, descending down the side of the large rocky mountain with high velocity. The Ogre that had been climbing down the long rocky steps, gaped, as he saw the Gatekeeper fall past him.

Maxus dove straight into a black hole at the bottom of the mountain. s.p.a.ce warped around him, and when his feet touched the ground he was in front of a Vault. It was made of black flames and had a dark aura around it.

The door was ajar.

Maxus cautiously creeped towards the vault, opening the unlatched door. His eyes widening as he saw the empty s.p.a.ce that laid beyond it.

"It's all gone!" he hissed

Just then he felt a movement to his left, there was someone still here. He turned around to face them but then his Gates wrapped his face blocking his view.

"What are you doing Gates!?"

"I'm sorry Maxus" his Gates responded sadly.

"Gates!!!"

At that same time Obsidian appeared in the Vault, "Maxus!" he yelled, but he could only watch in horror as the book wrapped around Maxus' entire body like a coc.o.o.n and swallowed him whole.

The Gates then exploded into cinders, destroying itself along with Maxus.

It all happened in an instant, and Obsidian could only stare with growing horror as he looked at the now empty Vault.

"No!!"

__________________________________

REALM 1, FLAME STAR FORTRESS

Obsidian rushed the down the long corridor of white flames, his black robes billowing behind him. He moved at an uncanny speed, faster than what a mortal eyes could see. He flew with urgency.

Before long he was in front of a large set of white doors. Silver flowers grew out of it, the ones that looked like white lilies and roses. They intertwined in the white oak and blossomed out of the golden patterned design across the front.

Obsidian slowed down as he opened the doors, closing it carefully behind him. "Argenti" he called out, "something big has happened."

Argenti looked up from her desk, her silvery white hair framing her brown face beautifully. "What's wrong Obsidian?"

"There's a problem but I can't tell you here, I need to tell you privately." Obsidian's face was deadly serious.

Argenti was puzzled, "Privately?" This was her private office, other than Obsidian n.o.body else was welcome here, and if someone had sneaked in and was eavesdropping there was no way they would escape her notice or avoid her security measures and traps.

Obsidian quietly touched his ear, looking meaningfully at Argenti. Argenti unconsciously felt her right ear, her puzzled face quickly turning into a frown. On her ear was her Book of Gates in the form of an earring.

"He wants to talk without our Gates watching" she realised. She slowly took her earring off and laid it on her desk.

"Gates wait here, Obsidian and I are going to my sealed meditation room for a very private conversation, nothing for you to be involved in." She said softly.

"Of course my lady. I will wait here." Her Gates said obediently.

Argenti then walked quickly with Obsidian, they flew high through the white flame walls until they came to a sealed room. The walls were made out of a similar bubble-like material to that of the exterior of a realm.

"This is my most private place, a small realm within a realm. I made it while experimenting with s.p.a.cial essence. No one, not even our Gates can listen in on anything said here." Argenti explained. "Well then, what's going on Obsidian?

Obsidian's rather youthful face seemed much more sombre. His black bottomless eyes were filled with tiredness. He sighed heavily, "Maxus is dead."

Argenti gasped, her face paled. "What! How!?"

Obsidian leaned closer to her as he said in a low voice, "Someone broke into the Vault of Wonders. When Maxus went to investigate his book of Gates turned on him, it devoured his body before destroying itself."

Argenti's eyes went round, her lips quivered in shock, "No...no...no the Vault was robbed….d.a.m.n...what do we do Obsidian?...no wait who else knows about this?"

"The only person that knew about it before was me, and now I've told you so that makes two of us."

Argenti frowned, "Was everything in the vault taken?"

"Yes everything, when I got there all the 400 puppet slaves and the 92 keys were gone." Obsidian said flatly.

This was bad, this was very bad.

5 billion years ago, after the great war that nearly destroyed the 400 Realms and wiped out most of the original Gatekeepers. They were able to kill Gatekeeper Dawn's daughter, Nyx. And they were able to gain the one hundred judgement keys. However eight of those keys were stolen and they couldn't destroy the other 92 keys. This was because the judgement keys were made to distort reality. Gatekeepers could do nothing to them, they defied essence. So instead they lied, claiming that they had destroyed them and hid them instead.

When Argenti became the Gatekeeper of Realm 1, five billion years ago, she learned that the judgement keys had never been destroyed. And in fact they had been hidden deeply in the Realm of Death. Inside the Vault of Wonders.

Only Gatekeeper Obsidian, the Gatekeeper of Realm 3- Gatekeeper Maxus, and herself knew of this.

For five billion years they'd kept this secret and they'd made all kinds of defences to protect this vault.

Yet now not only had the Outsiders somehow found out that the keys still existed, but they had stolen them back. This meant that if they were planning to use Judgement, the 400 Realms were in grave danger.

"d.a.m.n this...but we put defences against the Outsiders all around Realm 3. Maxus never let anyone in or out of his Realm. How did the Outsiders find out that the keys weren't destroyed, how did they get to the vault?" Argenti muttered.

"I don't know, but who says the Outsiders did this." Obsidian said darkly.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it Argenti. Lately we have noticed that someone or something is going in and out of our Realms without us detecting them. I noticed this when Ju Juan's artefact was stolen from my Realm, and Zither noticed this when the same artefact appeared in her Realm." Obsidian stared deeply into Argenti's eyes, "If the Outsiders were able to get into our Realms without us noticing do you think they would have done something so petty.

No. They would have killed countless and launched some grand scale invasion by now. That's why I think it's something else, or someone else. Not the Outsiders, and they are the ones that stole the 92 keys."

"So we have some new enemy besides the Outsiders" Argenti felt a growing headache,"Then what are their aims. Why would they steal the keys? Are they working for the Outsiders?"

"How would I know that? I don't. All I know is that something strange is going on and our only way to solve it is through that boy Chàng Bo."

"Chàng Bo, what relevance does he h....Oh I see." Argenti's eyes lit up as she realised.

"Yes Argenti, whoever stole our keys have some strange interest in that boy. They framed him and poisoned him. And don't forget his mysterious mother that appeared as quickly as she disappeared. That boy is involved in all of this." Obsidian said as he gripped Argenti's shoulders.

"Not to mention the boy possessed and used one of the eight keys... then we need to protect that boy, we need to put the other Gatekeepers on high alert."

"No..no we can't do that Argenti. We can't trust anyone. If these people can even manipulate the Gates then who knows who they have on their side. It would be better if we keep this quiet." Obsidian said, he let go of Argenti and paced around paranoidly.

"But that's ridiculous Obsidian. If we don't trust anybody how can we get anything done. We need to at least trust the Gates, get our books to go and protect the boy." Argenti suggested.

"We can't trust the Gates, we couldn't trust them before and even more now. Whoever our new enemy is, they were able to control Maxus's Gates to kill him. Who knows when we might be next."

"We have always been slaves that are unknowingly chained to the Gates. They have secrets that even we don't know. They punish us when we defy the rules, they always watch and monitor us. Even the way they chose us to be Gatekeepers is suspicious.

Filled with talent, pure in heart and strong in virtue? Ha, does anyone truly possess these qualities. Is that what really makes someone eligible to be a Gatekeeper?" Obsidian said this quickly, "Argenti for billions of years we've shared the same doubts about the Gates, you know we can't trust those things anymore… we need to do this on our own.

We can't trust anyone."

[1] I slightly mentioned Maxus in chapter 37, he was the Gatekeeper with the ranking of 3 that had time essences on his robes and and hair made of orange flames.