Richard's eyes narrowed as he thought of a terrible possibility... He had resisted the temptation and not recited the remaining two spells, but Abel was another matter.
After all, Abel had spent nearly his entire life pursuing this path. Now that he had discovered the cruel truth, the blow had hit him hard. It was inevitable that he might act irrationally. Though the scroll had remained with Richard, Abel had studied it carefully for quite a while and was fully capable of memorizing and reciting it.
Then...
Thinking of this, Richard did not hesitate. He immediately abandoned Otai's Brain, which had been plagued by mishaps, and hurried outside.
Soon, Richard emerged outside and reached the summit of the mountain where Otai's Brain had been placed.
On the stone platform at the mountaintop, Richard saw Abel.
Abel's expression was extremely complicated. He squinted toward the distant horizon, his breathing slightly hurried. Sensing Richard's arrival, Abel turned around. After meeting Richard's eyes for a second, before Richard could ask anything, he voluntarily admitted what he had done.
"That's right. You probably guessed it—I recited a spell. The Fourth Spell," Abel said. "Because it was truly difficult for me to accept one reality: that nearly a lifetime of effort had merely been following behind someone else and eating their dust. How ridiculous. How tragic.
"I don't believe the contents of the Five Spells are true. I don't believe the White Light Cataclysm and Plane Disasters of the past all originated from the spell experiment of someone hidden in the shadows. I would rather believe this is a joke, an enormous joke, and that the spells written above are all lies. So, I tried it. I tried the Fourth Spell, to see whether it was true or false."
After a pause, Abel looked