Free Web NovelChapter 247: Chapter 247 - Buddy
"Mn." Lumi only averted his gaze for a mere second before refocusing back on Lena. He stared straight into her big eyes and leaned forward.
Mwah~
Held together by an embrace, the two shared another kiss. After about a dozen seconds, they slowly separated. "Thank you," Lumi finally spoke, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Not only are you a genius, but you reminded me to get back on track."
"Of course!" Lena was cheerful.
The group settled into a brief quiet. Eden clearly still had questions sitting behind his eyes, and after a moment he voiced the one at the top.
"So... are we accepting Lena’s theory?" He glanced between the three of them, a little uncertain. "It sounds reasonable to me, but I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly the most knowledgeable person here. I’m not sure what weight my agreement carries."
It was a fair point. He hadn’t grown up studying the old war or the nature of gods. He’d grown up on a farm. "Chirp chirp!" Sol chirped from his arm, offering moral support. It reminded Eden if the weight in his arm, and he brought his left arm over. "Buddy, could you...?" fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
Sol moved from his right to his left arm, relieving the pressure on his arm.
Regarding Eden’s question, Merath did not answer immediately. The old mage sat with his wand resting across his knees, his gaze distant, clearly turning something over in his mind. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t to give an answer so much as to think aloud.
"I find myself... rather uncertain," he began. "Which is not a position I often find myself in."
He paused, gathering his thoughts properly before continuing. "Lena beings up a key point I must agree with. The worlds only frame of reference for the power of a god has been the Dark One, as neither the Goddess of Time nor Goddess of Life have acted against mortals in such drastic measure as for us to understand the limits to their power."
He took a small pause, considering all that he knew. He continued. "Therefore, to evaluate the Dark One, we can attempt to look to his past. What I know of the Dark One’s origins is second-hand. It came from Alton, the Hero of Light, during the old war. Alton was not a man to speak improperly or exaggerate, so I took what he said seriously, though I confess I did not fully understand all of it at the time."
"What did he say?" Lumi asked, intently curious. Knowledge of the Dark One’s past was something he never gained in his past life.
"That long ago, the Dark One was a mortal. A light mage." Merath let that sit for a moment, watching everyone’s expressions. "He was considered something of a messiah. A man who traveled the world resolving conflicts, mending what was broken. He pursued what Alton called the ultimate light."
"Ultimate light?" Lumi repeated quietly, confusedly. It was a term he had never heard of. How would you even begin classifying something like that?
"Alton used that phrase specifically, and I will not pretend I understood what it meant then or now," Merath admitted. "But whatever it was, the Dark One found it. Or became it. Presumably so, because he became the God of Light."
The silence that followed was heavier than the ones before it. Eden looked as though he wasn’t sure the words had arrived correctly. "Hold on, he became a god? There’s such a thing? I mean, it was implied when you started earlier but..."
He trailed off, but a look from Merath prompted him to continue. "I didn’t imagine it was something you could just... do."
"If Alton’s account is accurate, yes, he was indeed a mortal who did so." Merath’s frown deepened. "And that is precisely the problem. A god is not a rank. It is not a title conferred upon someone for being strong enough. We know from the words of the Goddess of Life that godhood is entirely a matter of holding a special bloodline or circumstance during a vacancy. Otherwise, it should not be achievable by a mortal, no matter how extraordinary. And yet he did so through sheer power."
"If it is true," Merath continued, "then what it implies is that the Dark One, before his ascension, had accumulated personal power comparable to that of a god purely through his own growth. And then he became a god on top of that." He exhaled slowly. "At minimum, that places him at twice the baseline of what a god should be, if a god can even be measured in such a way. At worst, it means he had no ceiling. That he could keep growing stronger even after ascending."
"The most talented man to ever exist," Lena said flatly. She didn’t sound particularly impressed. She just sounded annoyed, very much so.
"To put it gently, yes." Merath glanced at her. "And that brings me to what you said, Lena. Because I have been sitting here turning it over, and I cannot dismiss it."
Lena tilted her head. "Good. Don’t."
"The authority of the Goddess of Time is time," Merath said. "The authority of the God of Light is light. Those are not the same thing. Light, particularly in the context of magical discipline, is fundamentally a force of creation. One that can freely be used offensively, forming the basis of at least half of all spells. Time, meanwhile, is a reality-warping power of an entirely different nature. Extraordinary, yes. Unsolvable in many respects. But not inherently built for direct confrontation."
"So in a direct fight," Eden said slowly, "light is actually superior to time?"
"In terms of raw combat application, that argument holds. And if the Dark One’s power was already exceptional before he ascended, and light is inherently the more combat-dominant domain, then yes." Merath nodded. "The Goddess of Time may well have been significantly weaker than him. Weak enough that mortals, given the right circumstances and preparation, could kill her."
"There is, however, one thing I cannot explain," he added. "Or rather, another thing no one can explain. And it bothers me." He looked at Lumi. "The Dark One pursued the ultimate light. He became the God of Light. His domain is light, which is creation, which is the most combat-applicable divine authority available to him." He paused. "Then why does he use dark magic?"
Nobody answered, because nobody had an answer. Even Lumi had only witnessed him using Dark Magic.
Except, strangely, in the final battle...
Didn’t he... manifest a creation of light out of Lumi’s own spell?
Despite Lumi’s inner turmoil, Merath continued onwards. "The power he demonstrated in the old war was dark magic. Dark magic unlike anything any practitioner had ever produced. Far beyond the known limits of the discipline." He shook his head slowly. "That is a question I have never been able to answer, and I still cannot."
"Does it matter?" Lena asked. "For the theory, I mean."
"For the theory? No," Merath said. "It changes nothing about the conclusion. But it tells us that the Dark One is not operating in ways we can fully predict or understand. Which is its own warning."
Lumi had been quiet for a stretch, listening, fitting pieces together. He spoke now. "At the end of it, though, Merath, you agree with her?" ƒгeewёbnovel.com
Merath considered this for a moment longer. Then he nodded. "I do. We cannot use the Dark One as the baseline for how gods function. His origins alone make him an outlier that has never existed before and may never exist again. Whatever he is, he is not representative." He looked toward Eden. "And Lena is correct that we had no reason to assume he was. We simply did so because he was the only god any of us had any frame of reference for."
Lumi nodded. "That’s where I’ve landed as well. Every assumption we’ve been making about the gods was built on him. And as Lena pointed out, there was never a reason for that. It was just the default we fell into." He paused. "Which means the Goddess of Time being killed by mortals is not only possible. It’s the most reasonable answer we have."
Lena smiled at that, but said nothing. Some things didn’t need a response.
A silence followed. Eden looked down at Sol, who had been still through most of the exchange, and found the phoenix looking back up at him with those bright fiery eyes. He’d asked to know the full shape of the threat. Now he knew it. He stroked Sol’s feathers once, slowly, and let out a breath.
"Alright," he said, looking back up at the group. "Alright. I think I’ve got it." His gaze moved between each of them. "Thank you. All of you. I kept pushing the conversation further than maybe I should have, but I needed to understand it properly. Not just the surface."
"You asked good questions." Lumi said simply.
Sol chirped. Eden smiled despite himself.
"I do have one last question," Eden said. His voice had quieted. He looked between Lumi and Merath. "The Dark One is sealed. The seal has held. Everyone believes it holds. That said, do you think he’ll escape one day?"
