"Actually, I've wanted to meet you for a long time." Delilah sat in front of the white jade round table, elegantly taking a sip of the steaming black tea in the cup, looking at the man opposite him quietly with his eyes that seemed to contain endless stars.
"Oh? This really flatters me." Ian leaned back slightly on the chair, with a calm smile on his lips, "I don't think that a mortal Empire ruler like me has anything that deserves the special attention of the gods in the sky."
"You should know very well that at some point, excessive modesty will seem like hypocrisy." Delilah unceremoniously exposed Ian's politeness.
Ian paused for a moment, then let out a chuckle, "This is quite true. However, I am really a little surprised that you know my existence."
"In less than a hundred years, you actually transformed a purely technological world that was originally only Fifth Tier into a Higher Magic civilization of Ninth Tier level." Delilah's voice was ethereal and calm, as if describing an incredible miracle, "This extremely abnormal speed of civilizational transition, even in those ancient myths and epic legends, can be called a swansong unprecedented and unprecedented."
"Hahahaha! My great goddess, you have no idea how much your high praise has satisfied my vanity." A bright smile instantly bloomed on Ian's stern face.
However, in the face of Ian's slightly exaggerated performance, Delilah's beautiful face did not cause even a trace of waves. She did not take this joke seriously at all.
"At first, when this information was presented to me, I even thought it was a ridiculous mistake, thinking that this kind of thing could never happen." As the supreme being in charge of the entire [Cosmic Network network], she has been scorning this information about the rise of the Arcane Empire for a long time, firmly believing that this exaggerated development that violates the common sense of cosmic evolution must have some unknown special reason hidden behind it.
"So what now?" Ian raised his eyebrows with interest, "Have you changed your mind?"
"Yes, I believe it now." Delilah stared at him.
"Oh? Can you tell me why?"
"Because I can see that your true bone age and soul imprint are definitely far more than a hundred years old." Delilah's pair of pure golden eyes, like melted gold, became darker than the deepest Abyss at this moment.
Those eyes seemed to reflect the ultimate Truth at the bottom of the entire universe, exuding a fatal attraction that made the soul tremble.
For a thousandth of a second, even Ian, who had a rock-solid mind, felt a rare trance. Under the gaze of those divine eyes, he seemed to have an illusion - as long as he completely surrendered to this goddess, she could answer for him all the ultimate mysteries in the vast universe that he was eager to explore!
Fortunately, Ian's [willpower] honed on the verge of life and death countless times has already reached a level of terror that surpasses the sea of stars. The blur in his eyes only lasted for a very brief moment, and he instantly recovered his cold and absolute reason. He knew better than anyone else in his heart that it was impossible and not qualified for a mere Tenth Tier god to give him the kind of ultimate Truth that Transcendence was pursuing!
"If my deduction is not wrong, you must have had some unimaginable luck and obtained some core inheritance left by Ancient Magekind that disappeared in the long river of time. Moreover, that inheritance must contain an extremely rare thing [Time Magic Divine Artifact] that is enough to distort the flow of time."
Delilah was not aware of Ian's brief inner confrontation. She continued to use that condescending Divinity tone to express her analysis and conclusions in a clear and logical manner:
"After studying and thoroughly understanding that Divine Artifact, you not only gained a long time to accumulate knowledge, but also fully absorbed Magekind's crazy spirit of being desperate for the pursuit of magic and Truth, and used this as the spirit Cornerstone to single-handedly create today's Arcane Empire."
"At the same time, in the face of the already formed technological civilization system on the earth, you showed amazing courage. Instead of choosing to destroy it, you deeply integrated technology and magic with great genius. It is this unprecedented act of walking on two legs that pushed your empire to an outrageous and terrifying height in a very short period of time."
"Mortal, am I right?" Delilah stared hard into Ian's eyes, as if he wanted to use the sharp divine light to directly pierce all the secret disguises deep in his soul.
However, what disappointed Goddess of Magic was that in Ian's bottomless silver pupils, she saw only a suffocating silence and calm, even... mixed with a hint of frivolity and flirting.
'This man is definitely not just an academic lunatic who only hides in the laboratory and is obsessed with magic research. He is a peerless emperor who truly knows how to play with power and whose palace is unfathomable!'
Delilah was secretly surprised in his heart. Before that, because Ian and Arcane Emperor rarely appeared in public and almost always hid behind the scenes in this Milky Way-sweeping Cataclysm, the gods in the sky came to an extreme conclusion after analyzing the intelligence from all parties. Their ridiculous wrong conclusion - they thought that Ian was mainly just a political mascot who was pushed to the forefront, or a nerd who was obsessed with magic research and couldn't extricate himself. The gods took it for granted that Ian had long ago left Empire's complicated government affairs to his subordinates, and he only firmly held on to military power.
Until today, until this face-to-face confrontation across dimensions, Delilah realized with complete horror: How wrong the gods were! They had far underestimated the terror of this man!
"If you insist on thinking so, then just treat it like this." Ian neither admitted nor denied, but gave an ambiguous answer in an extremely perfunctory manner, as if he was watching a boring drama.
"Really?" Delilah narrowed her beautiful eyes slightly. This dangerous micro-expression made her look more coquettish and seductive, "So, your hidden Emperor, do you know the miserable fate that you Arcane Empire will face next?"
"Oh? I'd like to hear the details." Ian made a gesture of invitation, his posture still relaxed.
Delilah did not speak immediately. She felt a little troubled by Ian's calmness that remained unchanged despite the collapse of the mountain. She originally thought that this was a kind of toughness deliberately disguised in order to gain leverage in negotiations, but with the divine perception, she was shocked to find that this man was really calm! His absolute confidence coming from the depths of his soul was not a show at all!
"It is absolutely impossible for us gods to allow a heretic Empire like you who not only possesses extremely dangerous atheistic ideas but also has bottomless development potential to continue to exist." Delilah suppressed the doubts in his heart and coldly conveyed the gods' final Judgment, "Once The old bones of Guznader cannot hold up and can no longer provide shielding protection for this galaxy. The first step of our gods is to use Law of Thunder to completely cleanse Arcane Empire! Your people will either be ruthlessly wiped out or completely enslaved and will never be able to stand up again."
"This is the destiny that you Empire cannot escape from!"
"So?" Ian tilted his head slightly, a hint of boredom flashed in his silver eyes, and his tone seemed to hear not a warning of national destruction, but a sentence of "It may rain tonight."
Faced with this extreme contempt, Delilah finally showed a trace of undetectable anger on her smooth and jade-like forehead. But as a high-ranking god who has survived for countless epochs, she still showed strong self-control and forcibly suppressed this displeasure:
"So, if you still want to save your own life and your family in your huge harem... your only and only hope at the moment is to completely surrender to me!"
"Let me guess what's going to happen next." Ian didn't give her a chance to finish what she said. She interrupted without politeness, with an extremely mocking sneer on her lips, "You want to say that as long as I kneel down obediently, I will become your most loyal believer... No, to be precise, I will become your 'Holy Mercenary'. As long as I obediently dedicate all the cutting-edge technology and magical knowledge that Arcane Empire has accumulated over the past hundred years - especially the ultimate set of technologies that I used to shield Aether Mana Network - to you without reservation, you can mercifully deal with me at the round table meeting of the gods and save my life."
"Your Majesty the Great Goddess, is my guess accurate?"
Delilah stared at Ian, and the pure golden eyes finally showed a touch of extreme shock uncontrollably! She even felt a chill from the soles of her feet to the sky. The man in front of her, his eyes were like a trump card that could directly see through the depths of her soul, so sharp that it made people feel creepy!
"Don't look at me with such nervous eyes, don't worry, I don't know anything about Mind Reading." Ian looked at the other party's stiff expression, waved his hand very casually, and mocked in an almost hurtful tone, "It's just because your calculations are too easy to understand - easier to see through than I expected."
"Are you calling me stupid?!" As a superior god, Delilah had never experienced such shame and humiliation, and his voice instantly became cold.
"I don't dare." Ian spread his hands in an extremely perfunctory manner, "Okay, there is no need for us to waste our precious time discussing those illusory futures. If I remember correctly, when you Self introduced you just now, you said that you were the goddess in charge of [magic], right?"
"Yes, so what?" Delilah asked coldly.
"Then it proves that in this plane, you are definitely one of the handful of powerful Divine Power people standing at the top of the pyramid of the gods?"
"Although I do have powerful power, I am not so arrogant as to think that I am the strongest person in this universe." Delilah frowned, completely unable to guess Ian's intention to suddenly change the subject at this juncture.
"Empire There once was a very famous philosopher who gave an extremely classic definition of magic." Ian looked at her with burning eyes and said word by word, "He said: 'Magic itself is omnipotent, but the user who controls magic is not'."
"This is a wise saying that contains Truth." Delilah nodded in agreement, "There is indeed no upper limit to the potential of magic. Its only shortcoming only depends on the cognition and control of the caster."
"Since you agree with this point of view, let's make an interesting hypothesis." Ian suddenly leaned forward, and a suffocating sense of oppression spread from his body. "Imagine if there was a being who completely controlled [Authority of Magic] at the bottom of the universe. Then, how terrifying would this person become? As long as she is willing, she can single-handedly completely overthrow and destroy your seemingly indestructible civilization of the gods!"
"You... you are simply alarmist! It's nonsense!" Delilah's expression finally changed.
"Am I really exaggerating?" Ian did not give in, his eyes were as sharp as knives, "The underlying logic of the entire divine civilization is based on absorbing the [beliefs] of mortals! If someone can develop a method that can cut through The ultimate forbidden spell that cuts off the connection of faith between gods and believers - even if this cut off can only last for a very short period of time - it is enough to make those high-altitude gods fall to the ground Divine Altar in an instant and be slaughtered as easily as chickens!"
Since the beginning of this cross-dimensional confrontation, Delilah's beautiful face, which has always maintained its sanctity, has experienced violent mood swings for the first time!
Although this change only lasted one-tenth of a breath, for Ian, a top master of capturing micro-expressions, it was enough for him to confirm his fatal guess!
Therefore, Ian not only did not stop, but continued to pursue and fight with a cruel smile that understood everything:
"Of course, the difficulty of developing a forbidden spell of this level is simply despairing, and has even exceeded the limit of my abilities. But... if it is for a god who has already firmly held [Authority of Magic] in his hands, as long as she is given enough time to deduce it, this is definitely not a fantasy!"
"This kind of forbidden curse cannot exist at all!" Delilah finally tore off the disguise, her eyes Blink showed an extremely dangerous cold murderous intent, "And your despicable trick of trying to sow discord among the gods with a few sweet words is even more ridiculous!"
"It can't exist? You said it too absolutely. The reason why it doesn't exist is probably not because it's technically impossible, but because of some disgusting... political reasons, right?"
Ian's silver eyes were as deep as the Black Hole that swallowed everything, piercing directly into the depths of Goddess of Magic's soul.
"The gods in the sky are not idiots. How could they allow a time bomb that could overthrow the rule of Divine Authority to sleep beside them at any time? How could they allow anyone of the same kind who has mastered [Authority of Magic] to survive and grow peacefully in this universe?"
Delilah The originally calm tea in the cup suddenly began to ripple violently. However, she remained sullen and did not say a word.
"I have an extremely reasonable theory that can perfectly explain this contradiction in your body." Ian's voice was like a devil's whisper, each word hurting his heart.
"My theory is: Those fearful gods once shamelessly united together in secret, and used some higher rules to impose extremely strict shackles and restrictions on your [Authority of Magic]! They extremely viciously deprived you of your most core abilities as Goddess of Magic - that is, the qualifications of [innovation] and [creating new spells]!"
"If my guess is correct, if you want to obtain any new magic, you will not be able to deduce it yourself. You can only be like a miserable beggar, waiting for your followers to independently create new spells in the mortal world, and then give them to you in the form of sacrifices!"
"Great Goddess of Magic, have I wronged those gods in any way with my speculation?"
"Boom--!"
There was a loud bang! The extremely delicate bone china tea cup in Delilah's hand instantly vaporized into nothingness under the terrifying pressure! With her as the center, the surrounding virtual space groaned in overwhelming pain, and even large space cracks collapsed!
However, in the center of this destructive god's wrath, Ian seemed to be fine. He still sat on the chair as steady as a mountain, picked up his tea cup extremely elegantly, blew the hot air gently, and took a sip.
"I bet that those were definitely the darkest and most humiliating years in your long divine life. If you continue to develop according to the script arranged by the gods for you, your majestic Goddess of Magic will eventually become the weakest and most pathetic god in the entire universe, and will be stepped on forever and suppressed!"
"However, you are a goddess with great wisdom and amazing skills. In order to break this deadlock, you cut a bloody road - you used some unknown method to forcibly gain absolute control of [Aether Mana Network]! It is this shocking feat that has caused your status and strength to skyrocket!"
Under Ian's indiscriminate analysis, Delilah's emotions gradually calmed down. Because she knew in her heart that although Ian's speculation was terrifyingly accurate, it was only half correct.
In order to break the blockade of the gods, she did not directly control Mana Network, but stole the unknown [Authority of Knowledge] with great forbearance. It was through Authority of Knowledge that she frantically sent down miracles, protected and guided her followers to create countless amazing magic and theories.
It was her absolute control over Aether Mana Network and [Cosmic Network Network] that made her rise to the top of the gods, so that those old guys could no longer impose any more restrictions on her.
"Arcane Emperor, are you saying so many rebellious things just to anger me?" Delilah looked at him coldly.
"Of course not, how dare I have such an idea." Ian smiled extremely hypocritically.
"That's enough, put away your disgusting hypocrisy!" Delilah completely lost his patience, his voice was as cold as ice, "Although you have been trying to hide it, I can clearly sense that deep in your soul, you are filled with an extremely arrogant contempt and contempt for me and the gods in the sky!"
"If my attitude has made you feel uncomfortable, then I would like to express my sincerest apology to you." Ian put away his smile, and the cold face of the Arcane Empire and the highest Overlord finally appeared.
"You are right. I really Mind's Eye despise you group of so-called gods. In my opinion, you are just a group of extremely pathetic [Parasite insects]! Like Vampire, you greedily lie on the weak, unfortunate and poor people in the quagmire of suffering, and survive by squeezing their faith and spirit!"
"However, even so, I am still sincere today and hope to have a candid conversation with you about the future."
"What exactly do you want to do?" Delilah's eyes were full of unabashed Wrath and extreme indifference, and he coldly spat out four words, "Explain your purpose."
"Very good." Ian slowly put down the tea cup in his hand and leaned forward slightly. In those silver eyes, Blink had a terrifying ambition that could subvert the underlying order of the entire universe.