Naquel looked at her and nodded. Then, as if determined to drop a bombshell, he took a small metal magic box, only a few inches across, from his robes. "When I left the temple this time, the Grand Elder specifically told me to bring it out. This is the true form of the All-Seeing Eye. Actually, ever since the era that belonged to it passed, the divine power residing in the All-Seeing Eye has faded away. The All-Seeing Eye left in our world is merely an utterly ordinary divine artifact.●⌒,"
The knights instinctively scattered with a roar, staring at the tiny box in Naquel's hand. Adeni did not react quite so dramatically, but her emerald eyes remained fixed on it.
"I... I'm not dreaming, am I? This... this is the All-Seeing Eye." Her expression immediately changed. She grabbed Naquel's hand and forced it back. "Gods, how dare you take this thing out just like that? Is your head carved from elm wood? Do you know that this is the sacred relic of our entire Great Desert?"
Naquel seemed to realize that as well, so he did not take his hand out again. Instead, he said to the others, "The All-Seeing Eye isn't as sacred as you imagine. Adeni, you should know about the Azure Spear that brought the age of mortals in the previous era, right? It is actually the same kind of thing. Even today, that holy spear is merely an ordinary divine artifact."
"Even the Azure Sky..." Adeni seemed to feel that her entire worldview had been overturned. It took her quite a while to recover. "Are you saying... that fellow—I mean, the man carrying the Sun God's holy sword—might also have the Heart of Jade?"
"It's only a possibility." Naquel did not seem particularly agitated. In fact,