Free Web NovelLouis followed [N O V E L I G H T] behind Supreme Mage Aurelian and stepped into the Mage Forest.
The outermost area already revealed an aura completely different from the outside world.
Towering yet simple mage towers were scattered among the trees, their surfaces covered with the marks of time's erosion.
There was no prosperity here, nor could it be called affluent.
Louis could see mages in robes busy with their own tasks; some were transporting materials, some were recording runes, and others stood on open-air platforms repeatedly calibrating magic circles.
When they saw Aurelian appear, the sounds of conversation stopped immediately.
Whether it was the elderly high-level mages or the magic apprentices who had just stepped into the field of alchemy, they all stopped their work in unison, moved aside to clear the center of the road, and bowed their heads with their hands over their chests, their heartfelt respect unconcealed.
Aurelian only nodded slightly in response, his pace not slowing down because of it.
Louis followed closely behind; as soon as he stepped into the Mage Forest, he clearly felt the change in mana.
The air was filled with a highly pure flow of energy, more condensed than anywhere else he had ever been.
This was a true holy land of mana.
But soon, he noticed another layer of abnormality; the air felt exceptionally viscous, an unspeakable sense of delay.
Even when the sunlight filtered down through the forest canopy, it seemed as if its speed was dragged down by something, the light and shadow staying on the ground for a moment longer than they should by common logic.
Louis subconsciously slowed his breathing.
Time here did not seem to entirely follow the rules of the outside world.
Aurelian did not explain.
He simply led Louis forward, passing through one mage building after another.
The workshops and towers of the periphery were gradually left behind, replaced by core facilities with simpler structures that faintly exuded a sense of danger.
The further they went in, the more obvious that sense of time stagnation became.
The sound of footsteps became blurred, the sound of the wind seemed to be pressed into the distance, and even the rhythm of his heartbeat began to become unreliable.
Finally, they stopped before a portal.
It was a circular door frame standing in a forest clearing, without any extra decoration.
Runes floated quietly inside the door, rotating slowly as if waiting to be awakened.
Aurelian stopped his footsteps here.
He stepped aside to clear the path, leaving the position directly in front to Louis.
"I can only go this far." The Supreme Mage looked at Louis, "Please, Duke Calvin, enter by yourself."
Louis walked through the corridor behind the portal.
As his foot fell, he instinctively thought he would step into the forest again.
However, what met his eyes was an ancient city completely enveloped by a giant mushroom cap.
Gray-white stone towers and arched bridges were frozen in translucent amber; the streets, squares, and mage towers all retained their outlines from a thousand years ago.
Those once-flowing magic lines were now stagnant in the air, like preserved specimens of time.
This had once been the most prosperous City of Mages, but now only frozen remains were left.
City depths, a giant tree rose from the ground.
Its thick trunk pierced through the ground and the dome, its branches growing along the collapsed high towers, locking the entire city firmly within its root system.
Louis stopped before the tree, where an old man was growing.
Half of his body had completely woodified, his skin merging with the bark, and the rhythm of his chest rising and falling was almost identical to the pulsation of the trunk.
Only one side of his face still retained a human outline.
When Louis approached, the old man slowly opened his eyes.
They were a pair of eyes so calm they were nearly withered.
The woodified corner of his mouth twitched with difficulty, revealing an incomplete smile: "Hello, Duke Calvin. You can call me the Forest Keeper. I have been waiting for you here for an eon."
Louis nodded, not knowing what words to return.
"You may not be the Teacher, but you have come with his heart." The Forest Keeper's gaze fell on him, as if passing through flesh and blood, "It seems you are the Chosen One."
The leaves of the giant tree shook slightly overhead.
"Before the Teacher left a thousand years ago, he left a prophecy." The Forest Keeper cast his gaze into the distance, "When the roar of the Ancient Dragon sounds from deep within the earth's crust, the prophesied one will come across the wind and snow."
Louis was silent for a moment, then he shook his head: "I don't believe in destiny. I came here to obtain bargaining chips against the Dragon Emperor."
Louis looked up and met the Forest Keeper's eyes: "Since you mentioned the prophecy... what is that prophecy?"
The Forest Keeper looked at him for a long time, then his gaze moved back to the depths of the city.
"That old emperor is not a true dragon, much less the Dragon Emperor. He is merely a half-dragon stuck in the developmental stage."
The Forest Keeper's tone remained flat.
"Once he has absorbed enough knightly blood energy, he will unlock the shackles on his body, complete his transformation, and become a true dragon."
Louis did not make a sound.
"The Ancient Dragon race was once the true master of this land." The Forest Keeper continued, "Humans were nothing more than livestock they raised. The so-called Douqi Knights and Breathing Methods are essentially feeding programs the dragon race carved into human genes."
His tone held neither mockery nor pity.
"They made humans stronger, more durable, and also... more delicious."
Louis finally spoke: "Are you saying that all current knights are nourishment for the resurrection of the dragon race?"
"Exactly." The Forest Keeper nodded.
"The higher a knight's level, the deeper the dragon blood erosion within them." The corner of his mouth twitched again, "And thus, the more delicious they become."
He looked at Louis, a hint of almost imperceptible complexity in his gaze.
"For example, in the eyes of a dragon, you are an excellent main course."
Louis did not look away.
The Forest Keeper continued: "When the Teacher descended upon this land back then, what he saw was a wasteland violently distorted by the dragon race, where all things were food for the dragons."
His voice lowered a bit, carrying a hint of respect: "So he borrowed the power of original sin, domesticated those forces that were supposed to consume the world at the end of days into power sources, and wrote a new set of rules for the world's operation."
Louis listened, his face not showing much shock, but instead becoming suddenly enlightened.
Those scattered memory fragments all proved this point.
The Dragon Scourge, humans becoming slaves and food, the images of the Primal Mage leading humans to resist... "So that's how it is." Louis said in a low voice, "That is the essence of magic."
"Yes." The Forest Keeper nodded, "All subsequent magic evolved on top of this foundation."
Louis's heart stirred. The abnormalities he noticed while learning magic—those pronunciations and symbols—bore a subtle similarity to the language and script in his memories.
The Forest Keeper seemed to notice his thoughts but did not point them out.
He simply continued: "Of course, borrowing the power of original sin was not without a price. After humans won that war, the world did not welcome true peace."
"The Dragon King fell, and the forces that were once suppressed and guided suddenly lost their only target for venting. Dragon Blood Douqi lost its external enemy, and Primal Magic lost its restraint; they began to flow inward."
"No longer for confrontation, no longer for expansion, but for self-consumption. Humans began to destroy one another."
"The knights' blood energy went out of control within their bodies, the mages' spells broke away from their structures, conflicts broke out between cities, and schools began to settle accounts with each other. Victory lasted only a very short time before evolving into even more complete chaos."
"The Teacher was the first to realize the problem." The Forest Keeper seemed to be recalling a piece of history he no longer wished to touch, "Power itself has no good or evil, but when it loses direction, it only continues to demand. The dragons died, but humans began to turn into new dragons, and a true dragon will also be resurrected among the knights."
"So the Primal Mage made the final choice."
"He sealed the vast majority of original sin within flesh and blood, then split it into seven parts that balanced each other. Each portion of original sin corresponded to one extreme. The seven of us each carried one."
The Forest Keeper raised his already woodified arm, his fingertips tapping on the trunk, producing a dull echo.
"This was a sacrifice—not just him, but us as well."
"We seven disciples were scattered across the continent to use a long period of time to wear down the erosion of original sin. Not by fighting, but by enduring."
"The portion I received was the one with the smallest price."
When he said this, his tone was very calm.
Louis looked at his half-woodified body and did not speak.
"It's Sloth, which is why time here is stagnant." Louis asked, "Right?"
The Forest Keeper nodded.
"This place was once the lighthouse of continental civilization. The City of Mages, where the knowledge left by the Primal Mage was studied and passed down. The light of civilization radiated outward from here. Later, I had to seal Sloth here."
The air seemed to become even heavier because of this.
"Sloth does not allow all things to lose their direction of progress. It makes people stay, and makes things stop changing."
Sunlight filtered through the giant mushroom's cap but seemed to have its speed slowed.
"The air no longer flows, and time has lost its vector." The Forest Keeper said softly, "In order to prevent the seal from spreading to the entire world, I could only completely isolate this city."
Louis's gaze went past him, looking into the distance.
The former main road was now covered by tree roots, the mage towers were distorted into the form of withered wood, and buildings were wrapped in mycelium, remaining in some unfinished moment.
"Mage Forest." The Forest Keeper uttered the name, "It is not a rebirth, but a thousand-year process of slow decay. I am merely the last Tombkeeper of these remains."
He was silent for a while, then continued.
"The same goes for the other original sins... Most of my senior brothers and sisters died in agony."
"Some were eroded, some chose self-destruction, but before falling, they consumed and suppressed the original sins they carried as much as possible."
"If there were no subsequent interference, they could have remained sealed for another few hundred years."
The Forest Keeper's gaze became complex: "But in recent years, the seals have been broken."
Louis looked up, thinking of the disasters he had experienced over the years: the Broodmother, the barbarian invasion, the Church Disaster...
"Perhaps it was Loken." The Forest Keeper said softly, "The Teacher's son, our junior brother."
"He gave the primal heart to you, triggering all the original sins. I don't know why he did it, but this was also written in the prophecy."
The Forest Keeper looked at Louis: "And under guidance, you have also begun to collect these powers."
Louis's breath hitched slightly; he suddenly understood.
It was the Daily Intelligence System; it was finding a new carrier for the original sins in this way.
The Forest Keeper slowly stood up.
The giant tree trembled accordingly, and amber-colored flowing light emerged from deep within the trunk, converging at his fingertips.
"Louis." His voice became solemn for the first time, "Do not run away... You are already standing here."
"Your task is to prevent the Dragon King from truly descending, and use the heart within your body to reassemble all the rampaging original sins."
He paused for a moment, "As for the distant future... that is already beyond our cognition. Good luck..."
Saying this, he raised his withered hand and pressed it against Louis's forehead.
The entire Mage Forest responded at this moment.
The mana accumulated by the entire city over a thousand years poured into Louis's body like a tide. It was not a gentle guidance, but an unreserved pouring.
Louis's consciousness was stretched to its limit, the whispers of original sin interlaced within his body, and he forcibly endured, pressing everything into the primal heart. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Finally, the portion of the original sin belonging to 'Sloth' was completely handed over to him.
After an unknown amount of time, the world became quiet again. freewebnσvel.cøm
Louis opened his eyes; the giant tree had completely withered, the amber light had dissipated, and the Forest Keeper's figure had disappeared at some point.
Only a true ruin remained here.
Louis stood up, his breathing steady: "I know what to do."
