As Doom gradually disappeared into the distance, Norwick entered the throne room. The relaxed smile on his face faded, gradually revealing an imposing majesty that no one dared provoke.
The civil and military officials stood in orderly rows on either side, each kneeling on one knee before the king.
During the three months King Norwick was away, Queen Daisy had handled the state affairs. Although she had performed admirably, some details had not been handled quite properly.
After dealing with the state affairs, Norwick removed his armor and sat in the empty study, his fingers tapping incessantly on the stone desk as he sank into deep thought.
A king was destined to see farther than ordinary people. He had to perceive everything with absolute clarity and seize every suspicious detail before he could see the danger hidden beneath the calm surface.
Doom's concerns had provided Norwick with a new line of thought. The exchange between father and son had brought a warning to the exceptionally wise king.
The son who had descended from the heavens had brought not only hope, but also new enemies and conflicts.
As the king of the Night Watchers, he had to find the enemy. As a father, he needed to discover who was plotting against his son.
Doom's arrival was no accident. Norwick believed that the only accident had been his getting there first and picking him up.
The information that could be confirmed was that humans had created Doom. There was no doubt about that.
Then who had exiled Doom—a remarkable product created by humanity—into the void, where he had eventually arrived at Nul?
A creation as powerful as Doom had never appeared, even during that glorious past.
Norwick would not naively believe that humanity had regrouped, reclaimed its scattered homes in the void, and developed technology far beyond what it had once possessed.
Nor would he believe that an achievement like Doom had become an asset that could simply be discarded, and that his creator did not care whether he was lost.
Everything seemed completely unrelated, yet there were traces to follow. It was as if some inexplicable clue connected a series of events.
"Fourth bookshelf, thirteenth column, twenty-first book." He ordered a servant to retrieve the book.
Norwick decided to search the classics for answers, seeking the truth among the sealed and unknown arcane knowledge.
"Get out! Tell the guards not to let anyone in before I leave!"
When his finger slid across the table of contents and stopped at the knowledge he needed, several large words suddenly appeared: Warp energy!
When Doom's amniotic pod descended from the heavens, what the Night Watchers found most unbelievable was that something had been able to penetrate Nul's shield.
The Dimensional Shield surrounding Nul was activated by several colossal crystals from the Ring of Nul. It pulled the entire planet out of the real universe, leaving it in a state of being "visible yet untouchable."
Using incredible dimensional-transference technology, the people of the past allowed Nul to enjoy the light of its star while avoiding physical attacks.
Under normal circumstances, even if a planet of equal mass encountered Nul, the two would not collide. They would simply pass through each other before drifting away.
Normally, Doom should have missed Nul and flown toward the deeper reaches of space. Yet he had truly arrived on Nul, just as unreasonable as the Orks.
The arrival of the Orks could still be explained. When they gathered together, they generated a unique force field capable of distorting the laws of physics. Perhaps it was the field carried by that meteorite that allowed the Orks to penetrate the Dimensional Shield.
King Norwick was perceptive. He knew that what the real universe could not accomplish, the Warp could.
As he looked at the forbidden knowledge, the doubts in his heart gradually cleared, and he slowly pieced together one clue after another.
He took a quill and wrote "Warp energy" on the paper.
When Doom detached from the Warp, the intense Warp energy carried by his amniotic pod had been enough to support a tiny object's passage through the dimensional barrier and its descent onto Nul.
He raised the quill again and wrote a name opposite the words "Warp energy": Isaac.
How had the High Priest of the City of Truth known that Doom would arrive? Norwick would never believe in anything like a psychic prophecy.
Nul existed in an independent dimension and had never interacted with the outside world. Psychic prophecy required "cause and effect," but Nul was connected to no timeline whatsoever.
Then he recalled everything Isaac had said on the day of the siege. Norwick's expression turned terrifyingly grim, and he wrote a single word in one corner of the paper:
God!
As he finished the final stroke, the desk began to tremble. Blood seeped from the word, which slowly began to twist.
Feeling the temperature around him plummet, Norwick knew it was a psychic reaction.
His will was too sharp to be challenged. He raised his arm and struck the paper with his palm. With a thunderous boom, the force of the blow was enough to crack stone, and the stone desk split apart beneath his hand!
"Leave this place!" Norwick roared, shattering the psychic reaction with his most resolute will. At the same time, he drove away the guards outside the study who had heard the commotion and were preparing to enter and investigate.
"Hmph! A hypocritical illusion!"
Over the long years, the Night Watchers had faced no shortage of powerful psykers. They naturally knew all too well how to resist psychic powers.
A disdainful sneer curled Norwick's lips. He knew his line of thought was correct. He was not afraid of a reaction—he was afraid there would be none.
He picked up the quill again and wrote in the final corner of the paper: Creator.
This creator referred to Doom's creator. Everything on the paper was related to Doom, so he wrote Doom between the four elements!
Once all five elements had been written down, King Norwick suddenly saw the light. He now knew everything, and the truth was only one step away.
Just as he was about to connect everything together, the study suddenly shook violently!
It was not only the study. The entire building was being wrenched about, tumbling and turning in an irregular rhythm as if it were spinning rapidly inside a drum.
The bookshelves collapsed, and countless books fell open, flipping rapidly through a space with no up, down, left, or right!
"Rustle! Rustle!" The sound of turning pages merged together and surged toward Norwick's ears in wave after wave, like a rising tide.
The book covers gradually twisted and sprouted countless eyes. Rolling eyeballs scrutinized him. The opening and closing pages became gaping mouths, their ghastly white fangs savage and terrifying as they ceaselessly chanted and shrieked, spewing forth incomprehensible, clamorous knowledge.
The scene before him was not particularly frightening to a warrior, but it was extraordinarily bizarre.
Norwick remained seated as before, expressionless, taking an interested look at the supernatural spectacle before him.
He was a reef amid a storm. The raging hurricane howled around him, yet he remained unmoving.
Not the slightest trace of panic appeared on his calm face. He allowed the world before him to spin and turn as one bizarre phenomenon followed another.
"Put away your pathetic illusions. These little tricks cannot shake me!" A deep voice rang out, exposing the true nature of the terrifying scene. In an instant, the study returned to peace, as if nothing had ever happened.
Within the endlessly shifting Crystal Labyrinth of the Warp, Tzeentch silently stretched out His neck through the curtain and watched the man playing a "simple" connecting game before the stone desk.
King Norwick's revelation of the truth had generated an echo in the Warp.
The answers he sought were intricately connected to the existence of the gods. Anything involving the secrets of the gods was naturally extraordinary.
Tzeentch, the Lord of Conspiracy, soon noticed the man in the real universe who kept lifting the veil shrouding the truth.
He casually pulled down a handful of the threads of fate and saw Norwick's past—a glorious history, a past imbued with profound wisdom.
Yet He could not see Norwick's future, because his destiny was tightly bound to Doom's.
"Even mortal wisdom can reach the gods!"
A long sigh came from the Crystal Labyrinth. It carried both approval and wariness, and He decided to speak with him.
When Tzeentch's divine power pierced through the veil of reality and descended into the real universe, a special ritual involving Him quietly appeared.
Norwick saw the ninth book on the ninth horizontal shelf of the ninth bookcase standing against the wall being drawn out by some mysterious force and suspended in the void.
Although he could not see any physical form, every angle at which the book was pulled out radiated elegance. The sound of its pages turning was gentle and harmonious.
When the pages turned to the ninth page, symbolizing Tzeentch's sacred number, a voice suddenly rang out in the study. He spoke:
"Mortals are always audacious, foolishly attempting to comprehend the grand design of fate. Of course, I warmly welcome the thirst for knowledge possessed by wise souls~"
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