To Fly the Soaring Tides

Chapter 280 - 273 - Shrouded in Time

Cira stared at the little wisp for a few minutes as if trying to see through the Archive's intentions. After some time had passed, she could only let out a resigned sigh.

"I still don't know what you want," She decided to let the wisp float around while she finished reading. It swayed a little, but seemed intent on waiting. "But don't make me scold you again. Surely, you have enough wisdom to accomplish that."

The next part of the book was dedicated to shining a light on the inconsistencies in recorded history pertaining to the primordial genocide. For some reason, almost every region possessed differing information about it.

Cira had experienced some of this first hand, having heard in class that it occurred just over a thousand years ago, while later reading it was over ten thousand. Some kingdoms referred to in the book regarded it as an event that occurred a hundred thousand years ago, while others believed it was in excess of a million years.

Just looking at this book, Cira had to assume it alone was thousands of years old, so that immediately discredited many people.

Additionally, the consequences of the primordial genocide were widely disputed.

Some say half of all life or less was lost, while others say it was over ninety percent.

These inconsistencies were especially vexing as each civilization had the historical records to support their claims. This made the contradicting timelines difficult to investigate, but in the end, the Yon scholars came up with a remarkably simple theory.

More than one primordial genocide had in fact occurred. This bone-chilling revelation led to a breakthrough in the case, and they were able to make a map of Kazali's grand formation. With this they found that there had been a total of seven events. Arranged over a provided map of the sky, this formed an octagonal magic circle with a major island at each corner.

The only problem was this octagon lacked a single point, where an island on the map was marked "Yon".

Cira's eyes went wide upon seeing this, but she could only imagine how the scholars felt to make this discovery. Of course, a chill ran down her back as her gaze moved to the center of the array. This area was represented as a ball of dark clouds, and it was denoted as "The Cursed Skies".

Alas, just as she expected, the scholars of Yon divined that the activation of the grand array would result in the birth of the new law spirit. Only the Four Domains of Yon needed to be sacrificed now in order to see this through.

In the beginning, the scholars all thought Kazali's chance of success would be abysmally low. There would certainly be massive losses of life, but creating a primordial law was thought to be impossible. It ran against the very nature of this world.

But seeing the full scale of Kazali's grand array, they had no choice but to accept that he would likely succeed. Cira took another glance at the map. It had a strange shape, like it were a flattened globe, so seeing the shape of the array truly put into perspective how massive it was.

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It indeed spanned most of the world, and the scholars surmised that this posed the very real threat of being able to bypass the natural laws of this world. Meaning they had to prepare for the worst.

Yon was doomed.

A cursory investigation concluded that the enchantments on the mainland of Yon had already been in place for countless years, and no one possessed the power to dispel them. Furthermore, some of the outer magic circles had already begun to light up.

After a few panicked years of futile effort, they evacuated the four domains. The brightest minds of each were gathered, along with everything of value or related to the legacy of Yon, then cast off into the dead skies to evade this crisis. Only in this way could they preserve their findings and one day rise up against Kazali.

The book stopped shortly after this, and Cira was floored. A simple historical study escalated into a firsthand account as they faced the threat of extinction at the hands of Kazali. She decided to sit down and take a moment to process all this while the purple wisp floated patiently before her.

Something just didn't feel right to her, and it all started with this dusty book.

I've seen plenty of books in my day. Enough to know this thing is thousands of years old. Even the leather is starting to turn to dust. And if the scholars of Yon are right… that means a primordial genocide must have occurred sometime between my birth and the day Gazen found me. So… only ten to twenty years ago…

The Four Domains of Yon dispersed, and Cira suspected the Kingdom of Yon was formed from their remnants. Even if that wasn't the case, these places were in such a distant past Eliza or Fitzgeralt didn't know about them. That meant an incredible amount of time had passed since the destruction of Yon and completion of the grand array.

Could it be…?

Cira was well versed in magical arrays and knew that the final point constructed in an array was often known as the ignition point. Once placed, the array would activate. Just like when she would craft a camping stove, the flames would burst upon completion of the array. She would then turn it off and stow it away.

The next time she wanted to use it, she would have to send a surge of mana into it to alight the array. However, with an array as massive as Kazali's, there was no way even he could manage such a feat. As such, the only way to activate the array again would be to add another ignition point.

It was typical for these to be placed in specific areas, thus constructing a far grander array with each activation.

She shuddered. Does this mean there are more like me…? Has every activation before me ended in failure? Was I the last, or… will there be another after me?

Cira quickly copied down the map from the book and stowed it away. Judging by the book and her vague guesswork of how long ago Yon existed, there shouldn't have been more than one or two activations beyond the initial completion of the array.

She didn't know how large the Four Domains of Yon were, but she chose to assume it was about four skies, or regions, large. That made it many months of travel by ship across. It was represented on the map as a single island, likely its capital. But judging by the distance between points of the array, the scale was unfathomably large.

Cira wasn't going to change any of her plans, but this was an incredibly important revelation. Kazali never stopped his massacre, and the only thing to do was slowly gather information when she had the chance. Cira needed to figure out how many events have occurred since the destruction of Yon, and where they were. As luck would have it, Porta Bora sounded like just the spot to further her research.

But this wasn't something she could uncover overnight. Cira let out another sigh and stood up, gesturing for the wisp's attention. "Go ahead then. Show me something else."

The wisp obliged, drifting slowly toward the floor before a dimly lit staircase was revealed, as if the floor had been an illusion the whole time. Cira took a few cautious steps down until the ceiling closed above her. She was left in the dark aside from the faint purple light leading the way.

There were no bookcases in here, nor was that familiar smell of pages in the air. It was like she had stepped entirely out of the Archive.

"You sure we're going the right way?" Cira mused aloud.

The wisp offered no response as it led her into the dark.