Chapter 1273 — The Truth Behind the Truth

Kamael watched in silence the interference fringes forming on the thin silver-white alloy plate, and at the other end of the communication device, the Great Astromancer Velania was watching in equal silence the image displayed upon that plate.

It was the "truth" she had pursued for fully half a century.

In this world, every corner was saturated with "magical background interference"; the ubiquitous noise made it impossible for scholars to directly observe the interference phenomena of magic under controlled conditions—the static would over-"expose" any observation apparatus. To solve the problem, scholars had to construct an "ideal darkroom" capable of completely isolating magical background interference. Yet in the real world, Velania and her team had spent half a century failing to achieve that goal—until today.

The entire Divine Kingdom of the God of War was itself one vast "darkroom"—its "darkness" was no optical darkness, but a state of magical vacuum; and within that chamber, shielded from the interference of the foundational magical stratum, seekers who had long pursued truth at last caught a glimpse of the true face of this world's most essential secret.

The silence lingered a moment, and then Kamael said softly at last, "It really does have wave properties..."

He had not expected that when this moment truly came, his own voice would be so calm. And in the next second, he suddenly seemed to hear cheers like mountains and seas rising from every direction—layer upon layer of cheering, like a vast surging tide. The ancient mage looked up instinctively and cast his gaze around: in the empty arena stood rows upon rows of vacant seats, the illusory projection of the God of War sat enthroned upon the high seat, and for that instant it was as though invisible multitudes cheered a miracle, as though even the god looked on with approval—yet in the next second, all these phantoms scattered to the winds. The empty arena remained desolate, and the figure upon the throne remained a phantom.

Kamael felt as though he were waking from a dream, and turned to those beside him to confirm whether such visions had truly occurred—only to receive their confused and nervous responses. It had been nothing but hallucination.

But even if it was hallucination, the ancient mage still felt something stir within him. He looked toward the spectral undead figure nearby who had remained silent all this while—Malm Dunite stood quietly there, and upon the God of War's pope there seemed to rest a faint smile. Only when he noticed Kamael's gaze did he give a slight nod.

"I do not quite understand what you are doing, but I suspect it must be of great importance. If the Lord were still here, He would surely smile at the courage and success of mortals."

On the other side, far away in the Hall of the Shining Vault, Velania at last withdrew her gaze from the holographic projection. The elven Great Astromancer stood upon the platform in a posture of silent stillness for a long while, until her apprentice beside her grew so bewildered and nervous that at last she let out a long, deep breath, and a radiant, beautiful smile burst suddenly across her face—one the apprentices had not seen in a thousand years.

Standing nearby, the young apprentice (six hundred and fifty years old) could not help but entertain a peculiar thought at the sight: if that smile were ever turned upon some gentleman, the mentor could surely have been married off long ago...

"Go and bring out my finest reserve!" the Great Astromancer suddenly turned her head, her excited tone startling the apprentice greatly. "I must celebrate! I must celebrate properly!!"

"Y-yes, Mentor..." the apprentice answered hastily, but just as she turned to leave she heard the mentor call after her: "Oh, and that Sodalim—wasn't he looking for me the day before yesterday? Tell him to wait for me on the upper platform! This time I mean to have a proper talk with him!"

The apprentice froze on the spot, as though unable to believe what she had heard. Eyes wide, she stared at this Great Astromancer renowned throughout the Empire's academic and social circles—so stunned that she quite forgot how rude it was to stare so at her own mentor. "You mean... Master Sodalim? So the one you finally chose was Master Sodalim?! How truly surpri—ah, yes, I'll go and inform him at once! Is there anything else you would like me to convey to Master Sodalim?"

"Nothing to convey—he is my defeated foe already. We argued over a single question for thirty years, and it is time that fool faced reality," Lady Velania said with a cheerful laugh, her smile brighter than ever. "I shall slap the truth of magic's wave nature right across his face, and then, just as the wager we made when we first quarreled thirty years ago—he must jump from the highest tower of the Hall of the Shining Vault!"

The young apprentice instantly realized her earlier judgment had gone awry: "...Eh?"

But the Great Astromancer was already glaring: "What are you standing there for?! Go!"

The little interlude in the Silver Empire did nothing to affect Kamael's test site. The experiment that had torn away the veil of truth was over, and the humming within the arcane energy source gradually subsided; but the bands of light and shadow left upon the alloy plate remained as a witness, imprinted forever upon the metal's surface. Kamael stepped forward and passed his hand over the plate; a dim blue glow spread across its surface, and the microstructure within the metal shifted accordingly, passing from an active to an inert state.

In this way, even when returned to a normal magical environment, the patterns upon its surface would remain stable and preserved.

"We have at last unveiled a truth of the utmost importance... now at last the many phenomena of magic in its propagation and transformation have solid theoretical grounding," came the low humming from within Kamael's body as he turned toward Milmina. "My lady, if magic is confirmed to possess wave properties, then my formula for the magic field... my lady?"

Milmina seemed not to have heard Kamael at all. The "Goddess of Magic" still stood blankly beside the experimental apparatus, head bowed, staring motionless at the bands of light and shadow on the alloy plate. In the pair of eyes visible beyond her veil flickered a faint pale-violet fire, so faint it seemed ready to gutter out at any moment—and this unusual state finally drew the notice of those around her. Windsor Mapel, who had stood apart and scarcely spoken, stepped forward at once, tense: "Lady 'High Tower,' are you all ri—"

She had barely spoken half the sentence, her foot not yet lifted, when Milmina's eyes suddenly flickered. The "Sovereign of Magic" seemed to wake from a great dream, or to have just returned from a long journey no one else knew of; she raised her hand and examined her fingertips, and from beneath the veil came a murmuring whisper like one speaking in sleep: "Wave nature... confirmed. So my essence is... a ripple."

In the next instant Milmina's figure suddenly shifted from solid to intangible. Beginning at her fingertips, the whole body of the Sovereign of Magic was swiftly enveloped in a watery, rippling sheen and dispersed in every direction—Kamael had not even time to reach out his hand before the former Goddess of Magic vanished from sight before everyone's eyes.

That a former deity should conceal her form before mortals was, of course, nothing remarkable in itself; but having witnessed the scene with his own eyes and sensed the unusual magical fluctuations around him, Kamael understood that this was no "concealment" or "spatial transference," but something... far beyond imagining—something perhaps only Milmina herself could comprehend.