Major Events

Li Lin and the others were unable to leave Dika as quickly as they had originally expected. Early the next morning, the entire city was placed under lockdown. Guards stood at every intersection, searching for the murderer of Weisilin, the adviser mage. Only then did Li Lin learn the name of the old mage he had killed.

But even with this unexpected development, Duncan did not seem to consider it a serious matter. He remained calm and told everyone to get all their belongings ready before setting out in the carriages. It was as though he had prepared for this long ago and was not at all afraid of being searched. In fact, paladins were rarely subjected to scrutiny on such occasions. After all, everyone knew how trustworthy paladins were.

Before boarding the carriage, Li Lin noticed the faint flush on Fina's face. Clearly, everything Angela had done to the young priestess had left her thoroughly conquered, with barely any ability to resist. He knew what the little one had in mind: start with the younger sister, make her a slave, and then use her to pressure and seduce the older sister. Training humans had always been a pleasure for Angela, and she felt not the slightest guilt or pang of conscience over it. In her eyes, all the humans in the world were her toys, hers to play with however she pleased, and no one had any right to criticize her for it. Of course, Angela herself knew where the limits lay. At the very least, she would not cause Li Lin trouble, so he tacitly accepted it and had no intention of stopping her. After all, Arcane Mages had always been people without principles or fixed positions. If they were too good or too evil, how could they make deals and negotiate with all the gods?

Their only position was that they had no position.

Mina also seemed to have noticed that something was amiss with her younger sister, but she opened her mouth and said nothing. Perhaps she had noticed, or perhaps she thought it was not something she should ask about.

Every misunderstanding, every moment of hesitation or wavering, even every worry, could become the perfect opportunity for a vampire to strike.

Li Lin shook his head without saying anything, then turned and climbed into the carriage.

When they reached the city gate, the guards stopped them, just as expected. The captain of the guard was evidently well acquainted with Duncan. He paused in surprise when he saw their carriages, then came forward to greet them. He explained that although the entire city was currently under lockdown and unauthorized people were not allowed through, Duncan's party were paladins and frequent visitors, not to mention that they were headed for the ruins of the Magic Empire. As such, there was no need for much of an inspection. Nevertheless, he had orders to follow and hoped they would cooperate with the investigation and at least register their names. Duncan, of course, had no objection.

The reason security was lax here was that beyond this gate, there was only one road forward: the road to the capital of the Magic Empire. It ran along the edge of a cliff, with no side paths to take. What was more, after the war a thousand years ago, passage between the Magic Empire's capital and the surrounding roads had been almost entirely cut off. Even someone who made it in alive would probably never make it out, so even if a criminal or two escaped through this gate, there was no need to bother looking for them. With luck, their bodies might be found a few years later at the bottom of the cliff or somewhere in the ruins.

Precisely because it was a place from which almost no one returned, the guards here were evidently more lax than those at the other gates. Duncan clearly knew this, which was why he had felt confident enough to bring the party this way.

After writing his name in the register, Li Lin returned to the carriage. He closed his eyes and thought for a while. Only when a knock sounded did he open his eyes, open the carriage door, and lift Angela inside from where she stood.

"How did it go?"

"Very smoothly."

Angela raised her head proudly. In fact, seeing how familiar the captain had been with Duncan, Li Lin had suspected there might be a problem. So he had told Angela to question the guards nearby while the others were busy registering and not paying attention. After all, no one would ask a blind girl to sign the register; her guardian only had to sign for her.

The guards were not especially cautious people, and Angela's harmless appearance, combined with her touching performance, was enough to win the affection and sympathy of every man in the world. A single "big brother" from her left the guards utterly flustered. On Earth, there had once been a historical record of a man who was so thrilled when a little loli called him "big brother" that he suffered a heart attack and died on the spot. Although these guards were not as fragile as he had been, under Angela's adorable smile and the sinister prompting hidden behind it, they obediently confessed everything they knew.

"There was indeed something unusual."

According to Angela, the soldiers had received Duncan here several times, and the members of his party had never changed. There had always been five paladins and two priests.

Five paladins and two priests, the same classes and the same number every time, yet he was the only one who came out alive each time?

Just thinking about it, Li Lin could smell a conspiracy.

"Also, that guard remembered that there was once a Divine Chosen in a party Duncan led."

Judging from the present circumstances, that did not seem to be a coincidence either.

Following that line of reasoning, Li Lin's first thought was some kind of sacrifice. But ever since its founding, the Magic Empire had adhered to the principle of "believing gods exist, but not worshipping them." There were no temples, much less altars. So even if Duncan had gone in there for such a purpose, it would have been rather strange. But there had to be something inside that required these people to be present.

What could it be?

Even Li Lin could not fathom what Duncan was thinking. Still, whatever conspiracy lay hidden in Duncan's mission could only benefit him. After all, one of his goals was to make the entire plan fall apart, and now the likelihood of that happening was clearly not low. Next, they had more important things to do, and if they could turn these people into subordinates or slaves, things would naturally be much easier.

After passing through the city gate, the carriages slowly made their way toward the capital of the Magic Empire. They kept close to the sheer cliff face, and the road, wide enough for only four people to walk abreast, seemed rather narrow. Seen from the side, it was like a block of tofu with a slice cut away, leaving only a tiny crease in the middle. The carriages were traveling along that tiny crease, and the slightest misstep would send them plunging into the bottomless abyss.

Li Lin gazed silently at the cliff beside him. This enormous chasm, which could almost reach straight down to hell, was one of the remnants of that war. To stop the allied armies of the five nations from invading the capital, one of the Arcane Mages, who had always excelled at offensive spells, had cast the immensely powerful Destruction Bombardment. Its surging light of energy had swallowed an army of a million along with the land itself. Even so, it had not stopped the barbarians' advance. In the end, the Arcane Mage had held out on the battlefield for seven full days and nights before giving his life for his country.

Hundreds of millions had died in that war.

Even their bones could not have filled this bottomless abyss.

Li Lin drew his thoughts back, turned his gaze away, and opened the history book he had brought with him.

It was a book about the continent's history that Li Lin had bought before leaving Dika. In his view, it was full of lies and deception. Historians had disguised a war of invasion as righteous resistance, in which the evil power of magic gradually receded before the five heroes and the people who yearned for light and freedom. They had portrayed the Magic Empire as an evil realm that had committed grave crimes against humanity. The book also vilified races such as elves and dwarves, describing them as accomplices of the Magic Empire who had joined it in oppressing the good people. Every victory mentioned in jubilant terms in the book was an unforgettable defeat for Li Lin. Powerful as the Magic Empire had been, it had never ruled the continent. Under the Arcane Mages' leadership, it had always lived quietly, much less oppressed or exploited the people of other countries.

Reading such fabricated, even completely inverted lies naturally made Li Lin furious. But he could still calm himself and search these accounts for clues about the war. After all, the war had come too suddenly for the Magic Empire, and even by the time Li Lin was defeated, they had employed many means without fully discovering what had caused it. Now, however, looking through this history book, he might be able to find the answer. After all, since history was written by the victors, they naturally would not be reluctant to reveal their names and true faces.

But to Li Lin's disappointment, most of the history book recounted, or rather boasted about, how the five heroes had risen from adversity, led their nations to resist the Magic Empire's "oppression," formed an alliance, and finally destroyed it. These stories meant nothing to Li Lin. The Arcane Mages had learned of the five men's existence at the very start of the war and had never regarded them as the true masterminds. The Arcane Mages, who had lived through long ages, had long since realized that someone or some force had to be backing the five heroes. The five were merely its pawns, a symbol used against the Magic Empire.

Li Lin closed the history book and thought back over the circumstances of his battle with those five men, trying to grasp every memory.

They had indeed been strong, but they were no match for Li Lin.

However, they had clearly known Li Lin's weakness.

"The timing was too clever, and... too precise."

Looking back on that battle now, Li Lin found it filled with far too many strange details. In fact, his battle with the five heroes had been nothing like the book's account, in which he "drove the five heroes into a desperate situation at first, only to be defeated afterward by a fatal mistake." From the very beginning, Li Lin had been completely suppressed by the five men. They had carefully chosen to appear when his power was at its weakest, with such precision that one could not help suspecting they were superb actors, appearing at the perfect place at the perfect time. This had left him unable to do much at all, and in the end... it had also led to his defeat.

But this history book fell far short of what Li Lin wanted. It was filled from beginning to end with exaggerated descriptions, and even some of the author's unrealistic speculations. Li Lin was genuinely curious: given the five men's strength at the time, if he had really "summoned hundreds of abyssal devils to fight," would they have had even a one-in-ten chance of getting back alive?

Still, he had not come away entirely empty-handed.

Li Lin's only discovery was that the history book repeatedly recorded things that had never happened. The five heroes had "heard the divine oracle of the God of Justice and Light," and before attacking the Magic Empire, the soldiers had been "filled with courage beneath the blessing of the God of Justice and Light." Such descriptions appeared so often that one might suspect the temple had made them up. But this was a history book, after all, not the temple's scripture, and such blatant flattery would have served no purpose. Moreover, judging from Li Lin's past experience on the battlefield, those soldiers had received no blessings when they fought.

Could a god really have been involved in the war?

When he connected it to the exploration now being undertaken by the temple of the God of Justice, Li Lin's suspicions seemed to have gained a clear direction and a definite focus.