Throne of Magical Arcana

In Observer’s Castle, Lucien stood in front of a row of bookshelves and was reading a book about the era ruled by dragons, in which different traditions and customs of the time were recorded.

The elegant study was well decorated, and the books on the shelves were well-organized. Except for the Age of Mythology, the books covered the rest of the past ages, even including the lost ones.

The study was not strange to Lucien, as this was the place where he took away Transformation Mask, but this time, the creepy garden and the magic plants could not intimidate him anymore.

Lucien read the book very fast because he had a spiritual library. Meanwhile, he was waiting for Rhine and the “Silver Moon” to come back. To reorganize and unite the congress, they would need to sign a formal agreement, and the witness would be their leader, the president.

Only the most innocent and inexperienced would expect that these top legendaries would bend their knees forever only because of the prestige and power of the “Silver Moon”, as the power of the “Silver Moon” could not easily beat all the top legendaries if they should come all together. Therefore, a good way would be securing what they had for now and seek cooperation with those who were not resolute. Then they would eat away the opposite power bit by bit and gradually absorb their power, or the congress would still fall apart eventually.

The top legendaries were for sure still pissed, but they still chose to follow the “Silver Moon” because of their best interests. The fits of anger in their minds were not intense enough for them to risk all they had to fight against Alterna. Therefore, the reassembly of the Dark Congress had finally got a pretty good start.

After half an hour, Rhine, wearing a red vest and a black long coat, took his time and walked in the study.

“Where’s the Hon. ‘Silver Moon’?” asked Lucien, who was going to ask her about the Age of Mythology.

Rhine sighed. “She felt bored and then disappeared again. Maybe she needed to resist her gluttony. After all, there are quite some lovely ‘desserts’ in her eyes…”

Lucien did not know what to say. After all, a president who kept going missing wasn’t a piece of good news to the Dark Congress…

Rhine smiled. “Don’t worry. She’ll be back when something big happens. You can count on her on that.”

“Sir, can you please summon her? I’ve got some questions…” said Lucien.

Rhine walked to the desk and sat down. “We knew what you wanted to ask, so Alterna has told me all, and I’ll be telling you.”

“You knew?” Lucien was a bit surprised.

Rhine’s silver eyes looked at Lucien, and there was a meaningful smile on his face. “The moment when you found the sun, Alterna knew you were coming. It’s about the strange things in the deepest part of the Boundless Ocean, right?”

“Yeah… Normally speaking, the deepest part of the Boundless Ocean should be like the atmosphere in the way that it should never go around and around in the same place. Based on my model, it’s almost impossible that this was naturally formed, so I guess that this has to do with the Age of Mythology. But I’m not sure…”

Rhine asked out of curiosity, “What model is it? How did you find it out? Viken even ignored it, as a demigod.”

“… Sir, are you interested in Arcana?” Lucien said after a short pause.

Rhine made a fake cough and picked up the quill-pen on the desk. “Never mind…”

Rhine started looking serious as he said, “At the very beginning, Alterna’s consciousness was only half-woken, so her sense of the world was rather blurry, like a dream. In Alterna’s dream, the soul did not have to depend on a body but could be like some spirits, or like light walking over the surface of a dark lake. At that time, some magic creatures that owned some extraordinary powers started to grow stronger and stranger, but the initial intelligence did not yet take place.”

Lucien listened very attentively. The progress of this world might not be identical to the evolving process of the earth, and this might be one of the most important clues for exploring the nature of this magic world. Lucien also believed that although the processes might be different, the rules hiding behind might still be the same. Perhaps the oddness of this world was caused by some other unexpected factors.

“When the Primordial Ancestor fully woke up and started walking on the land, many magic creatures emerged, and so did the Lord of Hell and the Will of Abyss. Out of their instinct, they launched bitter fights.” Rhine did not directly explain the oddness of the Boundless Ocean but started from the general background of that era.

The ancestors of the magic creatures nowadays were born a long, long time ago, but at that time, they already had some extraordinary powers…

Lucien frowned slightly, but he then relaxed. Based on the studies conducted by the congress on the origin of the world, soil, and some fossils, it seemed that this kind of initial stage of power only had to do with soul power but not with the environment.

Lucien then noticed something strange. “At that time, there were only three demigods and there was no conflict in their interests. Except for the Will of Abyss, which would launch random attacks, it seems that the Lord of Hell and Her Hon. had no reason for fighting. And why were there only three demigods? How does this match the Age of Mythology?”

“When they were first born, the two demigods only had endless lives, but they had not mastered their own wills and powers, and they were greatly influenced by their instincts. The Primordial Ancestor once told me that there were many, many potential ones that could grow into demigods, but in the end, only three made it. The rest of them all failed, like the ancient elven tree, like Blue Gate. They were only half awake but never made it further.”

Rhine then added, “Then, when more intelligent creatures were born, some powerful ones started collecting their followers and became fake gods like what you saw in the dimension.

“… So in the entire Age of Mythology, the Will of Abyss kept killing and slaughtering, the Lord of Hell kept seeking for ways to grow more power, while the half-awake ‘wills’ were joining the Primordial Ancestor to fight against them. The fake gods were all trying to grow stronger and stronger by eating each other, and they thus were lured by the Lord of Hell and became its experiment subjects. The Lord of Hell could figure out why there were fake gods and what their powers were. In fact, the Lord of Hell gave it the name—the power of faith…”

Lucien rubbed his chin. “The Lord of Hell named it?”

“Yes, but in the end, the Lord of Hell got nothing, until the genius, Thanos, figured out a way to produce demigods by combining the ancient devil power and the power of faith and even the way of becoming a true god. I’ve been thinking that it was the Lord of Hell who purposefully released the information to Thanos in the first place,” Rhine said with his fingers crossed.

“Then how were the Lord of Hell and the Will of Abyss trapped out of the main material world?” Lucien did not rush into asking the oddness about the Boundless Ocean, as he believed that it should be about the same thing.

Rhine grinned. “The climax of this whole thing was a big-scale fight among those gods. In the fight, almost all of them fell. The ancient elven trees lost their wills, completely, and became part of the world. The Lord of Hell and the Will of Abyss were sent into exile, and the Primordial Ancestor could no more walk on the land at her wish anymore.”

Even if very few of them survived, they must have all been killed by the World of Souls.

“Like how?” Lucien did not understand how they were restricted.

Rhine pointed at the sky above the Dark Mountain Range and said, “In the Age of Mythology, the Dark Mountain Range didn’t look the same as what we could see today. There weren’t that many space gaps. Instead, there were many stable channels heading for the other dimensions, and there was a demigod-to-be sleeping there, as well as in the deepest part of the Boundless Ocean. However, at that time, the depths of the Boundless Ocean and the Moonlight Ocean were like the atmosphere. You could keep walking further and further, but you just couldn’t ‘see’ how you came all the way.”

“Does this oddness start from the very beginning?” asked Lucien thoughtfully.

Rhine looked a bit confused. “At least since the Primordial Ancestor woke up. But earlier in the Primordial Ancestor’s dream, that place was less odd compared to the time after. Land could be faintly seen through the atmosphere. However, it was just one of the Primordial Ancestor’s dreams, and many of them have been proved wrong or twisted. Don’t take it seriously.”

Lucien slightly nodded and waited for Rhine to continue.

“At the end of the war, those half-awake existences including Blue Gate sacrificed their wills and helped the Primordial Ancestor twist the time and space, and thus the direct connection between the main material world and the dimensions were cut off. Only those space nodes were left for traveling. And the Boundless Ocean and the Dark Mountain Range became what we see today.

“… Also, because of this disconnection, the Lord of Hell and the Will of Abyss were kept away from the main material world as there were no stable channels, and it was the same for the Primordial Ancestor. Therefore, the Primordial Ancestor created the vampires and werewolves in advance and left me with the power to summon her. This way she can land at some key moments by breaking the limit,” said Rhine, who felt it totally fine with being used as a tool.

Lucien asked, “Then why were time and space twisted into this model? How did Alterna do this? Was there something… like a hint?”

“At that time, they fought and cast out their instincts. So out of instinct, the Primordial Ancestor felt that worked the best…” Rhine was sure that the Silver Moon wouldn’t have been a mathematician there to solve the problem.

Lucien smiled. One of the biggest problems in his mind had been solved, and that had ruled out a possible hidden danger.