Tom Tom snorted and raised his chin as if to look down on Ares as he spoke his greatest riddle yet with unconcealed pride and a booming voice. "Though you've faced many obstacles hindering your path forward during your climb through the Riddlemyd, you now stand before the greatest of them all. Cowardice will not serve you well in my presence nor will your words sway me. To complete this room you must understand what I truly am and treat me accordingly as any intrepid adventurer worth their salt should. Do not falter, do not second guess, simply act with bravery as your guiding light and worry about the consequences of your actions later. Though this question's answer is a mere gateway to the truth you seek, I shall ask you anyway. You've seen me many times, I even exist in this very room, but what exactly am I?"
Ares raised an eyebrow at this extremely odd question and set-up. If the answer existed within this room then there were really only limited options that could ever possibly be guessed. Plus it was narrowed down by the fact that, whatever the answer was, it existed in every single room up until now. There was no way people were getting struck on such a simple question, they weren't idiots. Even if they were all they had to do was guess every single object in this room one by one and they'd get it right eventually, humanity getting collectively stuck on this riddle for over a century was implausible. Ares had a feeling he knew the answer too but did knowing the answer even really matter if it was just a 'gateway'? To check if his thoughts on this matter were accurate or not, Ares spoke his mind and guessed the most logical answer. "You are a sphinx." Ares had seen Tom Tom in every single room and he was currently standing before him in this very room too. None of the other adventurers here looked too worried about Ares' answer, so they weren't expecting a punishment, which just made him even more curious about what came next. If he guessed wrong then everyone should be alert right now but if he guessed right then this puzzle would be too simple...
"Correct."
"Eh?" Ares almost couldn't believe his ears. He was tempted to turn around and call everyone else here a bunch of idiots but he soon realised nothing was happening. Tom Tom was jsut smugly grinning at Ares and no doors or pathways to the next room were opening up... "So... What?"
"You are correct. Your answer is correct. You have solved the riddle. Congratulations."
"Tsk, asshole." Ares walked away from the smirking cat and went to go see what the adventurers were talking about as they probably knew more about this room than he did. What he'd ascertained so far was that knowing the answer did jack all and there was some other secret that needed to be interacted with or guessed in order to move on. No wonder the riddle was difficult, it was because it didn't even bloody matter to begin with! Hell even Aejaz would have gotten that riddle correct in due time! Tom Tom was being a sneaky sphinx... Ares took a seat in small gap in the circle of cultivators and, while everyone else kept chatting amongst themselves, the person next to Ares kindly informed him about the current prevailing theory for beating this room.
"We think the end goal here involves Siamun in some way."
"..." Ares sincerely hoped not! He literally blew that mummy's brains out two days ago! Siamun wasn't going to be solving anyone's problems at the very least until he figured out how to undeadify himself a second time. "What makes you say that?"
"The whole 'not worrying about the consequences of you action spiel' is reminiscent of Siamun's punishments for not following his tasks so we figured we were supposed to intentionally fail his orders during a combat trial."
"But this is a riddle room no? I don't see any pillars indicating otherwise..."
"There were some. We destroyed them to check underneath, inside, and above them. We figured the 'greatest' of all the obstacles we've faced means there's an unbeatable fight awaiting us and we're supposed to fail Siamun's punishment to find a way through the room. Our goal right now is to learn how to activate that fight, and the pillars that were here indicated there should be one, so we took to destroying anything that stood out in the room to look for a hidden switch or a button or something. The sphinx is a gateway to the correct answer because knowing the correct answer does nothing means this room has to have something to do with combat and not riddles... Or so we think. We could be completely wrong but that's the best guess we've come up with. We've collected information from every other room on every other floor up until now and tried to piece all the clues together to see if we could learn anything but we've made no progress in all the years this Riddlemyd has been here..."
"I see... If there were pillars here then it's basically a guarantee a fight will happen here at some point... What I'm worried about is the size of the room. Are you aware that the combat rooms will get larger from this point to accommodate bigger and stronger monsters?"
"The sphinx mentioned it in passing to a couple of cocky adventurers who were joking about how easy the rooms were. It seemed like saying as such hurt his pride so he leaked that information about a year ago. That's a large part of why we think there's supposed to be an unwinnable fight. 'Cowardice will not serve us well' so, in a rough and unwinnable situation, instead of running away or panicking, we need to face it head on and make things actively worse by failing Siamun's task. Of course if we do manage to trigger the fight somehow we'll play things by ear and not act too rashly. Everyone here is an expert cultivator and fighter so we're pretty convinced we'll make it out alive no matter what's asked of us. Rather, if this group can't do it then the challenge ought to just be impossible for the entirety of Sheryashka because every one of the twenty cultivators here is peak, or near peak, transition realm. They've come form all over the globe to have a look at this riddle and try to figure something out. There have been a great may treasures and resources worth small fortunes cropping up in the Riddlemyd so exploring unknown territory beyond this room will lead to incredible and unfathomable opportunities. There aren't too many unexplored gems left in Sheryashka and this is the one that's gripped the attention of ancestors of various clans and what not. It's why a lot of the group here is pretty old and dusty, perhaps even more so than the Riddlemyd itself..."
"I see. Sounds reasonable enough. Guess I'll go take a look around the room and see what I can find."
"With those fiery eyes of yours, right? You're Ares aren't you? I remember hearing about how you fought the stepper so whatever means you have of seeing invisible things may very well help us out here. Please take your time and ask us if you need anything. Though we're competitors for the secrets beyond this place we are all at least co-operating until then. Our race can resume afterwards. Not that many people would be willing to pick a fight with you anyway or give you lip. Oh but please don't answer the sphinx's riddle again. You got it right, which is great, but there are punishments for getting it wrong like any other riddle room."
"Could that have something to do with the answer to this room? If you need to start a fight then getting punished might not be such a bad thing? Maybe it wants you to keep failing the riddle over an over again or something?"
"Yeah that was also an idea that was floated around for a while. Unfortunately none of the punishments ever seem to be combat encounters no matter how we respond to his riddle. Not this group but another once brought enough provisions and resources to safely fail this riddle a hundred times in a row and nothing came of it so we've sort of ruled it out. If you do want to explore that route again please let us know so we can at least discuss the validity of your idea first. Though, and I'm being honest here, it will probably get vetoed as we don't want to deal with the punishments without a good enough reason."
"No that's fine, it seems pretty pointless if it's already been attempted before and to such an extent." Ares got up and started inspecting the various walls and bumps on the floors. He even checked the ceilings but there was nothing out of place. At the very least there was nothing like the crack in the wall back by the lab so if there were any secrets hidden behind the walls then it wasn't obvious at a glance and would need to be inspected on a deeper level. While Ares was fidgeting around and not making much progress, Aejaz was staring intently at Tom Tom with narrow eyes.
Tom Tom was confident even the smarter people in the room wouldn't' figure out the answer so he was especially disdainful towards Aejaz for reasons that need not be extrapolated on... But there was something off about him and his dogged staring that began to make Tom Tom sweat a little. Surely there was no way this chump, of all people would be the one to figure it out?! There was no way he would...
"Grand Annihilation!"
The occupants of the room all turned to face the culprit who just launched an art only to find it wasn't the person they initially expected to to be. Ares was wide eyed, staring at his brother who'd just thrown an attack out at Tom Tom! "Hey wait! Don't..." Ares was about to try and stop Aejaz, who'd stolen his affiliation and was using it to batter the sphinx, but Ares quickly realised something that blew his mind...
This idiots has figured it out!
The reason Ares was hesitant to let Aejaz attack Tom Tom was because it was well established that attacking him incurred a punishment! Tom Tom would fight back if carelessly struck so nobody ever bothered pointlessly striking him, it was a form of conditioning that was implanted into basically everyone who made it here over the course of their Riddlemyd climb. Everyone was too 'cowardly' to attack him even though this was the correct answer! Tom Tom really was the greatest obstacle all along, and that answer to the riddle was definitely correct, but now he needed to be attacked and overcome like the obstacle he was. Any 'good adventurer' destroyed obstacles and killed enemies in their path. Put simply, the wall Tom Tom was attached to was a fake, a gateway, obscuring the rest of the room hidden behind him! Aejaz did not falter, he did not second guess himself, and he wasn't worried about the consequences of getting this guess wrong because when the hell had he ever been scared of such a thing?! Ares had personally seen this muppet spew completely incorrect answers out of his mouth rapid-fire stye before so why on earth would now be any different!? Aejaz thought he knew the answer so he wasted no time checking its validity even though there was usually hell to pay for such an action. He probably didn't even care about repercussions, or other people in the room suffering from them, because he expected Ares to deal with it in his place if he was wrong to begin with!
To think, after all this time, the person most suited to answering this riddle was the one least suited to answering any other riddle correctly precisely because he didn't care if he got it wrong like every other time he'd ever tried! In an unbelievable twist, idiocy had prevailed and Ares watched the stolen Grand Annihilation bust through the brick wall, knock it down, and drown out the Tom Tom head in a blaze of golden glory. Tom Tom was fine, his head just relocated to a new wall further away, but the wall he'd been stuck on previously was now little more than rubble at everyone's feet, giving way to a path that had been hidden for at least a century now. Ares almost couldn't believe his eyes... Aejaz had finally gotten a riddle right and left everyone stunned!
"He... He must be the riddle God!" Someone in the circle pointed at Aejaz and everyone else quickly fell in line with this wildly incorrect train of thought. This random guy arrived in this room for the first time ever, heard the riddle, and worked everything out immediately. There wasn't anyone in this room who didn't seen Aejaz have a staring match with the sphinx ever since he heard the riddle so it was clear he was internally deliberating over whether attacking the sphinx was correct or not. The answer came to his head almost immediately compared to all other adventurers who made it this far and never worked it out no matter how much time they were given. Attacking the sphinx was taboo, everyone knew this, and so it never occurred that was the real answer to any sane, punishment fearing individual. What was this man, Aejaz, if not a genius and a veritable riddle God? He strolled in here with irreverence towards Tom Tom, and the concept of riddles in general, and smacked the sphinx a new one in seconds flat!
A new Xascan legend was born on this day!...
... And Ares wanted to pull his damn hair out!
Riddle God?!
What riddle God?!
If there were a riddle God Aejaz might single handedly be the existence most diametrically opposed to them literally ever! How many hundreds of riddles had he gotten wrong before?! This was actually his first ever correct guess! If these people could see any of the crap he'd been pulling on the earlier floors they'd retract that nickname quicker than a hand on a burning stove! Even Aejaz himself was shocked by this development as his countenance was a stupid and confused smile. He didn't understand or comprehend how on earth he finally got a riddle right! He was not expecting to ever get this far, his wildest pipe dreams had come true and he didn't even know what to say or think about the matter. He went into his actions expecting them to be declared wrong or moronic again so he was still patiently waiting for that development even though it wasn't going to happen. Hearing the old fogeys behind him chant the name 'riddle God' did spur him on a little bit, though, and he couldn't contain a wide smile. He didn't even care if the name was tremendously inaccurate, he was a thief so why would he care about ill gotten gains?! If he went down in the history books as a riddle God it would be his greatest spite to the universe at large and the ultimate form of payback to the type of literary puzzlement that head bested him so many times 'till now. Who had the last laugh? Only Aejaz' small cackles could be heard right now so the answer was clear as day and there was no riddle left to solve to figure it out!
Meanwhile, Tom Tom was distraught! His perfectly crafted riddle that required brains and bravery to beat had been solved by a cowardly riddle flunky! What was the old saying? 'The best swordsman does not fear the second best. He fears the worst since there's no telling what that idiot is going to do.' Tom Tom was getting a double dose of this wisdom right about now and it tasted bitter! He'd so looked forward to Ares getting stuck on this room for days, weeks, maybe even forever! And of all the people to ruin that fun it had to be Aejaz!? Tom Tom would have accepted literally anybody else! Regrettably for him, though, no matter how much he wracked his brain for a way to annul this nightmare he could no longer stop it. It was beyond his and Ares' control so they could only stare blankly at one another with defeated looks in their eyes.
Ares' quickly redirected his attention elsewhere, however, as while this matter was pretty unexpected, there was a more pressing issue and he was about to have to rain on everyone's parade... The Anubis were back... and bigger than ever. There were two Anubis statues, each of which were about twenty foot tall, stationed near the furthest wall in this new room layout and they meant business. For now they were still coated in stone and unmoving but Ares had seen this before and was familiar with their antics. They would break out and cause a scene as soon as the combat in this room began so he was going to have warn everyone else about this threat. The Anubis only showed up on an earlier floor for Ares specifically and nobody else knew what he did about them. The Anubis from back then were pretty impossible for any of these people to individually beat and now this room was housing the stronger version of them as well? There were a lot of cultivators here, so maybe they could manage it, but if they went in blind it would be a massacre. It was their lucky day, however, and not because the riddle God was here... Ares was feeling pretty assured thanks to the existence of his war aura that he could deal with these Anubis. They looked mighty, incredibly so and way more than the first time he saw them, but he'd gone up a level or two himself since their last bout so it wasn't too problematic. If anything, Ares was feeling somewhat cautious about their third and final form. If the leap between the first fight and second was this big then how strong were they really, exactly? Better yet, if Tom Tom was stronger that even that then what manner of nonsense had Sevorus pulled with the sphinx clone's body?
"Stop!" There was no point fretting about the future right now so Ares called out to the cultivators who were all getting up and walking towards the previously sealed half of the room to see what came next. "Those statues on the sides are going to come alive. I've fought smaller versions of them before because the sphinx and I have a complicated connection and he gave me a different trial on one of the earlier floors. They're pretty gnarly so be prepared to fight for your life. They'll be tougher than even some of the monsters on the higher floors so keep your eyes open."
Ares' warning was heeded by most of the sensible people here but, at the end of the day, he was still a 'young'un' compared to these 'wise' old 'sages' and so some of them just thought he was either being overly wary or trying to fool people into taking things slow so he could run ahead. At least three, but no more than six, cultivators seemed to think this way and they all began dashing towards Tom Tom to get him to open up the path forward. They were probably hoping that the wall being down now meant they could proceed through the next pathway just by talking to him as they wanted to use their speed boosting arts to get ahead of the pack. They were confident but what good was confidence when two large canes crushed them into blood splatters before they could even reach Tom Tom?
The Statues, as Ares forewarned, came alive and struck the group of cultivators to death in a few seconds flat despite them paying attention to the statues' movements 'just in case' Ares was right. Those who died barely even saw how it happened and only one of the reckless fools in that group managed to scramble backwards and make it out alive with a caved-in chest. Ares shrugged. "I told you. The ones I fought were weaker than this but even they, at their weakest, would still be able to kill about three or four of you at once. These ones could probably each take on about ten of you at once at their upper limit. Of course these ones might have even more tricks up their sleeve than I know of so, I'll say it again, keep your eyes open. Or don't. I really don't care. I can kill them both so if you die that's on you. If you want an easy path through this room you can sit back and do nothing, consider this a one time offer. Of course you can also band together and fight one of them while I deal with the other if you really want to be helpful and make this go quicker." Ares didn't expect them to help, they had no reason to throw their lives away or risk it, but what he was really implying here was 'if I beat them both I keep anything they drop'. Knowing Tom Tom he'd give out a reward to whoever beat his Anubis so Ares was giving these people a chance to get in on the action. He didn't need their help, and would rather have the reward all to himself, but as long as nobody had any untoward intentions towards him he would return the favour and respond in kind. Knowing what he knew about the kind of things he'd have to do in the future meant Ares would rather not senselessly bloody his hands just because other people were inconvenient. Now that might change if the reward was worth it, he almost did something unspeakably drastic back aboard the Federation, to get his hands on the Converter, and wasn't completely opposed to such actions, he just wouldn't get uppity over something barely worth his attention.
THUD
Both Anubis broke free from their stony shackles and stepped down onto the floor from their raised pedestals. They twirled their caners above their heads and rested them over their shoulders while standing menacingly in front of the cocky sphinx. Though Tom Tom had a feeling Ares could beat these two Anubis without much trouble at his current level, he was at least looking forward to killing the other cultivators if he could. His plans had all been ruined and he wanted payback! After all these years, the firs group to finally beat the riddle would come face to face with an unbeatable foe, for most anyway, and the loss of life, even if they somehow succeeded, would be tremendous. It would become a cautionary survivors' tale or, perhaps, nobody would survive and Tom Tom would get to watch another group go through the exact same horror and trauma one day. This room was the great filter, the half way point that battered and tested everyone's resolve while making sure only the most elite groups could make it past.
Tom Tom was a bit of a sadist as putting these monsters behind this wall specifically was diabolical behaviour! It was lucky enough that Ares had seen these Anubis before as everyone would have died here if he wasn't present to warn them. Even Aejaz would probably bite the dust, this room was just that deadly behind the veneer of 'harmless' riddles. Still, even though the other cultivators were backing off and taking defensive stances at the other end of the room, Ares wasn't feeling intimated at all. His war aura was being helpful right now and stifling any concern he may have felt... But, really, there wasn't much if any at all. They were big? Ares had fought bigger. They were fast? Ares was faster. They were strong? Ares' war aura was stronger. He felt no threat from these two dogs no matter how arrogant their presence was. The ol' 'bark is worse than the bite'. The Anubis even had an aura to them this time but what was the point of such a thing before Ares? It was like building a box fort to resist a real armada's cannons and Ares' war aura could obliterate their auras fully even with just smidge. In fact that was precisely what happened as the faint echo of drums reverberated through the room, reversing the tide and giving Ares' the grandest presence of all.
Yells from bloody vocal chords and metal clashing against metal rung true and one side of Ares' lip curved up, revealing half a toothy and diabolical grin as he reached forward and gripped a flag that formed inside his empty right hand. He'd flown this flag remotely quite a bit lately but this time things would be a little more personal. He, like the Anubis before him, rested his weapon over his shoulder and took bold strides towards the faltering Anubis. If Tom Tom wasn't careful about rescuing these little puppies, Ares might just accidentally kill them here and now before they could show off their true power later!