novelraw Chapter 276: Demon of Knowledge
Chapter 276: Demon of Knowledge
Chapter 276: Demon of Knowledge “My luck really has improved significantly.” Soren sighed as he glanced toward his left. What reflected in his eyes was a visage of someone he knew very well. Clinging to the pummel of an unknown sword, he couldn’t help but be surprised by His features.
Long violet colored hair, skin more pale than snow, pointed ears no different from Myrin’s. . . He wore an elaborate, checkered black and white gown of loose robes that fluttered loudly in the wind as they swiftly climbed through the chasm. Although the surrounding darkness made it hard to see, Soren could still spot crimson tattoos trailing from His neck down to HIs feet. Every few seconds, the strange markings would pulse brightly, as if possessing a heart of their own.
However, what surprised Soren the most was His stature. . . He was close to Tyrel in height!
While balancing atop the sword’s edge, Tazzith glanced down at Soren who was tightly gripping the sword’s pummel and smiled. “You can thank your Mistress for that.”
Soren frowned slightly as he focused on the old demon’s facial features. Above His head hovered a crimson halo made of flesh-carved runes. They spun slowly, as if to announce their presence. His pale grey eyes analyzed him keenly. It felt as if he was being eyed by a predator that was willing to experiment with its food.
Soren decided to hide his trepidation.
“Are you saying that Mistress Sienna altered my fate?” Although he did come to a similar conclusion, hearing it from a Sovereign made him believe it even more. He truly didn’t know how to feel about it. There was certainly guilt and sadness, but also relief, happiness, and. . . respect. His teacher had truly sacrificed everything for the sake of this world’s future.
However, it still confused him greatly. “How is this even possible?” He asked while glancing below him. The chasm’s inner darkness screamed of isolation and loneliness, as if hoping for anyone to answer it back. “How can Sienna manipulate fate in my favor when she was still under Merlin’s control?”
“She was never under his control.”
“What?”
The ancient daemon turned to face the dim starlight leaking from above. “Sienna had never truly become his puppet. In fact, no one—not even Guntharion Himself—could ever kill or subjugate Sienna, the Last Witch of Star Fate.”
“Why?”
“The Orbits of Fate.” The name sent a chill down Soren’s spine.
I see. . . He finally understood the reason. “Fate itself was shielding her all this time.”
“Indeed,” Tazzith nodded softly.
“So then,” his eyes sharpened. “That would imply that Sienna’s capture was something the Orbits of Fate permitted?”
This time, the Demon of Knowledge remained silent prompting him to click his tongue.
It seems the Orbits of Fate allowed her to influence my destiny to equalize the playing field. Although He tacitly agreed to Merlin’s plan, He also doesn’t fully support it either. . . In His mind, whether it be the outcome I desire or Merlin’s that prevails in the end does not matter.
He couldn’t help but shake his head. “I was right. We really are all formless in the eyes of the board. . .” Glancing back up at the ancient daemon, Soren suddenly remembered something else that had been plaguing his thoughts.
“By the way, that form of yours. . . Is it your true form or something you created after I brought you here?”
Tazzith glanced back at him—His eyes full of confusion.
“Don’t play dumb. Why are you still masquerading as a child? Was having a high-pitch voice not enough for you?”
The Demon of Knowledge simply shook His head and sighed. “Idiot, do you think our Spirit Bodies are malleable things? The concepts I embody shape what my true form looks like.”
Soren frowned. There was no way to fully refute His claim. Even now, after successfully pulling off his plan, Soren was still largely uninformed when it came to how Spirit Bodies operated.
The idea behind it was pretty simple. By utilizing [Bloodrune Catalysis] on the Star Apostle, the Heartdrinker Sigil could then steal its magecraft affinity to perform a spellform on its behalf. Since Merlin was already attempting to kill it, it had no issue agreeing to this plan.
Soren theorized that since the Star Apostle was heavily related to the concept of Star Fate, whatever magecraft affinity it possessed likely also held a similar definition. This was due to everything he knew in regards to Sienna’s upbringing.
Before anyone was allowed to inherit the Vessel of the Stars, the sisters at the Temple were put through rigorous training and education—all for the sake of grooming the next Witch of Star Fate. Their affinities—the Shades of Self that make up their personality traits itself—were altered in order to safely transfer the Soul Weapon.
And yet, even after all of this, Sienna’s affinity was simply labeled Stars. Although the symbolic connection was good enough to inherit the Soul Weapon, it was still not completely representative of the authorities the Vessel of the Stars embodied.
All of this implied that the original owner—the Star Apostle—likely had a much deeper connection compared to the inheritors. After all, the Hollowed Star fragments were essentially its heart. And so, he decided to gamble and see if the Heartdrinker Sigil could obtain the same powers. If they could manipulate fate through the Star Apostle’s approval, preventing this world’s total annihilation might still be possible.
“To think our plan worked this well. . . Sienna must have known all of this would happen. She wouldn’t have been so eager to die otherwise.” If she was not under Merlin’s control, it wouldn’t make sense for her to not resist him from the start. Not unless the outcome of her capture was something she implicitly desired.
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Of course, Merlin likely believed that her compliance was simply due to her being loyal to the Orbits of Fate. Since He demanded her sacrifice, she had no choice but to go along with it. He couldn’t have foreseen that the outcome wouldn’t be so obvious.
“Although it is clear that fate has somewhat steered back in our favor, I still can’t believe the overall plan for your resurrection worked as well. I never thought it would aim this heavily in helping to achieve your goal. The effects of that magecraft are truly terrifying. . .” It was this part that still left him confused in regards to how Spirit Bodies operated.
Hearing this, Tazzith simply smiled and shook his head. “The Orbits of Fate knows that His Apostle has no way of defending itself from Merlin. Therefore, the destiny it brought about could only be described as a miracle. One that was born out of desperation.”
Since the Heartdrinker Sigil was able to obtain that Affinity through [Bloodrune Catalysis], Tazzith was then able to cast its magecraft through the strengthening of His connection to the Sacred Treasure. The spellform he obtained from the Star Apostle was a magecraft incarnation called Fate Star Realignment.
At the time, Soren was simply expecting to use it against Merlin directly. Since the Star Apostle was still sealed beneath the Main Branch, he knew it had no ability to defend itself. That was why he was confident it would agree to his proposal. What he didn’t realize was just how eager it was to agree!
Not only did the spellform it provided allow for the Heartdrinker Sigil to ‘coincidentally’ arrive back in his hands, it also somehow influenced the rest of the fragments of Tazzith’s Spirit Body that were scattered across the Beyond to converge back together through sheer luck!
Any one of these actions alone would indeed be no different from winning the lottery ten times in a row. And yet, all of them occurred in such a way that Tazzith, an ancient Knowledge Demon sealed within the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, was able to be summoned back into this world after more than a thousand years of imprisonment!
Albeit, this was still not His complete form. Technically, a portion of HIs existence still remains trapped within the Subterrardean Shunning Grounds—no amount of influence on the Orbits could change that. The entity he was speaking with was simply a manifestation of the Heartdrinker Sigil regaining its original consciousness through its merger with its ‘sibling’ Spirit Body fragments.
“So what exactly is the plan now?” Soren asked while continuing to clutch tightly onto the sword. His eyes trailed up at the distant cosmos—the infinite chasm stretching beyond seemed unending at first, but he could tell that Tazzith’s navigation was accurate. Although they weren’t utilizing a loophole like Merlin, His strength at the moment was still more than enough to bypass infinity.
He was a bonafide Sovereign, after all.
“I plan to utilize the incantation the Star Apostle gave me to correct this World Star’s fate.”
“Are you talking about stopping. . . that thing?” The entity Merlin had summoned was clearly related to the Vynasians in some way. The fact that it required Sienna’s death and the subsequent unfreezing of this world’s fate meant that it could only exist during moments of collapse. The Vynasians themselves seem to be heavily tied to the ruination of worldly fate from everything he had seen from them.
“If I can somehow manage to correct this world’s fate—even momentarily—it might outright prevent the Vynasians from advancing too quickly. Though, I doubt it will stop their invasion completely.”
Soren nodded. “Then my focus will remain on rescuing Cassia.”
If he could manage to free her from Merlin’s enthrallment, then perhaps there might be a way to unseal the Star Apostle by returning Them the Hollowed Star fragments. Of course, Soren doubted whether They could stop the Convergence from happening—even Merlin seemed to doubt that possibility. That was why he enacted his plan of erasing this world to begin with.
However, even if the possibility was close to none, he would still rather take the chance. Whether the Convergence happens to reset both Yarian and Earth or not didn’t matter. Both worlds were still his home. He simply couldn’t take one realm’s side over the other—Merlin’s choice was simply too selfish for his own tastes.
If either world was fated to disappear, he would much rather let it play out naturally, rather than try to force an outcome. After all, Merlin himself said he was lacking as a scribe.
A scribe wasn’t just meant to chronicle information. They were meant to pass it along as well. If Convergence was inevitable, he would much rather guide the inhabitants of those worlds to come to their own conclusion, rather than allowing himself to be the sole decider of their fates.
“It seems we’re finally here.” Tazzith’s voice startled him out of his own thoughts. He blinked as he glanced up at the now nearby falling stars. Somehow, the space which had seemed infinite had been crossed before he could even realize.
Before he could even reply, the Demon of Knowledge chuckled then said something strange:
“It seems the Gods have been restless ever since the Divine Accord’s enactment.”
He didn’t understand what He meant, until his eyes gazed upon the once pristine Estuary of the Stars. Devastation was a complete understatement. One couldn’t even describe just how mired this space had become.
Dreamfire storms that raged wildly, oceans of silver that made his soul feel heavy with every passing wave, vines growing from beneath the reflections of the continent that seemed eager to expand and grow. . . There were even strange clouds that rained gold coins, pears, and other expensive jewels from the sky, blotting out even the cosmos above. No matter where he looked, there was not a single place he could point to that remained ‘normal.’
Most scary of all was the strange fracture in space—peering through the gap was a colossal silver moon that now held its own shadowed iris. It stared back at him keenly, as if expecting them.
The Silver-Eyed Moon. . . He thought inwardly. Indeed, he didn’t expect all of this at all. Unlike the strange Vynasian entity which announced its presence through the Collective Subconscious, Soren hadn’t detected anything from the battlefield above while he was still trapped in the Main Branch.
In the distance, he could also see a colossal cloud of dark mist. At its center rested an even bigger black cauldron with the strange miasma pouring out from its edges. It was entirely identical to the one he had seen in Cassia’s memories of her tribe’s massacre.
“Guntharion,” he whispered the name. Somewhere in that cloud, Cassia and the Holy Shrine Maiden were likely trapped. And more than likely, Merlin was also there. . .
He then glanced above the ancient chasm where the massive fissure caused by the Rift Gate could be seen. This was where the strange Vynasian entity had arrived from, but it was gone—likely already descended unto the continent below. As terrifying as it was, its actions were still somewhat. . . delayed? It seemed as if it was still awaiting a greater result.
Perhaps it requires the consumption of the Star Apostle first? There was no time left for him to ask questions. He needed to act fast. Securing Cassia was key to securing this world’s ability to decide its own fate. . .
“Well then, I’ll be going my own way from here.” Tazzith jumped off the sword’s tip and landed next to the chasm’s edge. Soren still remained hanging from its pommel, confusion marking his face.
Tazzith smiled and gave him a quick salute. “I’ll let Noema carry you there. Aren’t I nice?~”
“Wai—”
Before Soren could object, the blade shot forward like lightning, aimed straight at the colossal cloud of mist that concealed endless secrets.
“Hope to see you soon—if that’s even possibly by now,” His words faded into a heavy sigh.