Premonition

Gawain found the small wooden house, now reduced to ruins, only a few hundred meters from where the group had been attacked.

It lay collapsed among the trees. The scorch marks showed that it had been destroyed by a fire that started from within, but the flames had not spread any farther—perhaps a rainfall had arrived in time to save this patch of forest. Knight Byron examined the remaining traces around the house and concluded that the fire had occurred more than half a month ago.

Heti, meanwhile, detected an extremely faint magic reaction at the scene.

"What we saw in the Shadow Realm was probably a reflection," Gawain said, looking at the ruined cabin in the forest clearing. "This Wild Mage had lived in seclusion here for years. This place was outside the territory; not even hunters came here, so no one knew a hermit had lived here."

"The question is... how did the accident happen?" Heti frowned. "There is only a weak Magic Power Focus here, and the Wild Mage who lived here was not very powerful either. Even if one of his magical experiments had gone out of control and burned down the house, he could not have created such a long-lasting projection in the Shadow Realm, much less such a powerful Vengeful Spirit Mist... The magic required for all this was far beyond what a mere Wild Mage could provide."

"Perhaps this notebook can answer your question." As Gawain spoke, he handed a battered notebook to Heti.

It was the notebook they had received from Betty in the Shadow Realm. It was both the unnamed Wild Mage's diary and his research notes.

Following Gawain's instructions, Heti opened the latter half of the notebook and began reading carefully.

"...Ansu 729, Month of Fire, XX day. It has been half a year since we moved here. I found a Magic Power Focus at the edge of the Cecil Family's territory. Though its strength cannot compare to the public Magic Power Focuses in the City of a Thousand Towers, it is enough to support my laboratory. The Elemental Power here is singular and stable. Annie's condition should improve.

"Ansu 729, Month of Harvest, XX day. Annie seems to be getting better. She has not had an episode in a long time—but I do not yet know whether it is the environment here or whether my rituals and potions are truly working. The Magic Power Focus here is too weak. Even with amplification arrays, my rituals are greatly weakened. Perhaps I should reconsider those formulas I derived before... Though those people in the Arcane Society always mocked my calculations, I have left the Arcane Society anyway. They cannot control what I do here...

"Ansu 730, Month of Mist, XX day. Those formulas and deductions have completely met expectations! No, it should be said that reality has developed exactly as I calculated—the new amplification method has enormously strengthened the Magic Power Focus! With the aid of this additional magic, I can finally begin the next stage of Annie's treatment. Though she has barely fallen ill in recent months, the treatment must continue, because she cannot endure any more setbacks...

"Ansu 731, Frigid Moon, XX day. After the treatment, Annie could actually get out of bed and walk around. She even made a meal! There were fried sausages and vegetable soup. I feel as though I have not eaten anything this delicious in a hundred years—though the sausages were burnt, and she forgot to add salt to the soup... This proves that my treatment plan works. As long as the Magic Power Focus here continues supplying magic steadily, Annie's recovery will be close at hand..."

After that, the diary mostly recorded the writer's daily life with his daughter. Heti quickly skimmed past those entries until a series of messy, hastily scrawled notes appeared on the final pages:

"Ansu 734, Frost Moon, XX day. Annie has fallen ill. Damn it!!

"I do not know what went wrong. Every treatment has proceeded as planned, every step of the ritual was correct, and the potions too—they have been used for years without a single problem! But Annie still fell ill, and badly... Worse than every previous time. I must find the cause quickly. I must write down every detail, every... I must find the cause. Annie will be fine...

"Ansu 734, Frost Moon, XX day. Annie still has not improved. The new potions have had no effect. She is still growing weaker, and... gradually leaving this world. This morning, I saw her hands becoming transparent like mist, and many blisters appeared on her face. This world is rejecting her, pushing her into the Shadow Realm. What should I do...

"Ansu 734, Month of Mist, XX day. That damned sun, those dark-red patterns on it seem to be mocking my helplessness! I have finally discovered the problem, but I am powerless to solve it... The elements are concentrating, concentrating abnormally. Magic is surging. This weak Magic Power Focus cannot contain such excessive magic. Even removing the amplification arrays is useless. The sensible thing would be to take Annie away from this place of elemental concentration, but she has remained here too long. Her body resonates with the elemental environment here. That resonance has prolonged her life... but it will also take her life!

"Ansu 734, Month of Mist, XX day. The magic throughout this entire region is wrong, churning violently. The border of Cecil Territory seems to have fallen into the legendary sea of magic. I can no longer reverse the changes in Annie. Half her body has already left the material world. This morning, she even said she saw the whole house turn black and white. Perhaps... I can only seek another path...

"Ansu 735, Month of Fire. The long preparations are finally complete, and Annie's weakness has reached its limit.

"This is my only chance. There is no other choice.

"Since I cannot keep Annie alive in the material world, I may as well choose another path.

"The ritual of Shadow Transformation is recorded in the books, but the magic it requires is unimaginably vast. Yet for me, perhaps it is not impossible. I have used new amplification formulas and methods of drawing arrays, and I will harness the power of the Magic Surge. The magic in this region is in an unusually active state. I have suppressed the energy accumulated within the Magic Power Focus for several months, and today it is finally barely enough. All that remains is to wait until the sun reaches its zenith, when magic is at its strongest, and I can begin the transformation.

"Annie, hold on. Father will save you, and Father will go with you to the Shadow Realm. We will live there for a long, long time. You will never hurt again."

The diary ended there.

Heti was about to close it when Gawain suddenly pointed at the corner of the last page. "There are a few more words here."

Heti immediately focused her attention—there was a dark blot of ink in that corner. At first, she had assumed it was a stain from an overturned ink bottle, but after examining it closely, she realized that it was actually a few hastily written words scrawled with ink-stained fingers:

"Magic has gone out of control... the sun is red..."

Heti repeated the words in confusion. "The sun is red... How could the sun be red?"

"Could it have been during the last Sunspots eruption?" Rebecca suddenly said, as if recalling something. "That was more than half a month ago. There were far more Sunspots on the sun's surface than usual. If that Wild Mage was not in his right mind at the time, perhaps he thought the sun was red..."

Heti blinked, seemingly accepting Rebecca's explanation. Then she shook the notebook in her hand. "With this notebook, we can explain many things. It seems that this unnamed mage set up a fairly large Magic Array here to treat his daughter. Later, he came up with the mad idea of transforming both himself and his daughter into shadow forms to prolong their lives. But his transformation ritual went out of control because of the Magic Surge, causing the fire half a month ago, the formation of the Vengeful Spirit Mist, and what our ancestor saw in the Shadow Realm..."

"That is not the important part," Gawain suddenly interrupted Heti. "Whether it is the Vengeful Spirit Mist or the cabin in the Shadow Realm, both can be directly explained by the diary. What I want you to note are two details mentioned in it—one concerns the dark-red patterns on the sun's surface, and the other concerns a large-scale eruption of Sunspots on the sun's surface."

Noticing the grave expression on Gawain's face, Heti grew tense as well. "Ancestor, these two matters..."

Gawain waved a hand. "Also, the Magic Surge mentioned by this Wild Mage in his diary—you two are mages, so you should have sensed it as well, right?"

Heti and Rebecca exchanged a glance and nodded together. "There have indeed been several Magic Surges in Cecil Territory recently, but Magic Surges are perfectly normal—every bit of magic in the world comes from the sun, and the sun is constantly moving and changing, so the magic on the ground naturally rises and falls. The magical fluctuations within the territory have been frequent recently, but not enough to draw concern."

Gawain looked at the two of them and spoke slowly. "In Gondorian Calendar 1736, reports from across the empire observed large-scale dark-red patterns on the sun's surface. In 1738, the largest Sunspots eruption in history was observed, with nearly half of the sun's surface covered in red patches. That same year, twenty-six provinces across the empire reported widespread magical fluctuations—the scale was not great, but they covered nearly two-thirds of the nation. In 1739, the Blood Sun hung overhead, and the entire country was shrouded beneath a dark-red sky. Yet no disaster occurred. Instead, a large number of infants with exceptional magical talent were born. According to records, nearly one-third of the newborns born that day possessed innate elemental affinity. Even newborn testing facilities everywhere faced shortages of resonance stones, so the Court Scholars declared that day the 'Dawn of Magic.' But that same year, the Azure Well, the largest magical power facility near Gondor's imperial capital, suffered a massive explosion. The cause was that the Magic Power Focus containing the Azure Well suddenly filled with chaotic and powerful magic. The extraction arrays could not process those turbulent forces, ultimately causing the core to melt down..."

Gawain fell silent, but Heti continued with a pale face, "...Gondorian Calendar 1740, the Magic Tide erupted, and the most powerful human empire in history fell within a few months..."