Chapter 726 - 505: "World Thief" Divine Spirit and the Nature of Faith
Chapter 726: Chapter 505: "World Thief" Divine Spirit and the Nature of Faith
Mage Delin’s words plunged the entire Alchemy Workshop into a dead silence.
You could hear a pin drop.
Parasites.
Thieves.
Bloodsucking leeches.
Coming from the mouth of the always gentle and refined Mage Delin, these words were so jarring, and yet so... apt.
Standing to the side, Raylo felt an icy chill shoot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
He finally understood.
He completely understood.
Why the Mages of the "Heart of Arcane" world detested "faith" so profoundly.
Why the Light Deity, after being refused the right to spread his teachings, had unhesitatingly launched a world-ending war.
Because, for a Divine Spirit, there was essentially no difference between spreading faith and waging war!
Their goal was one and the same!
To plunder!
To plunder a world’s origin!
It was just that the former was a "gentle," sustainable method of plunder.
While the latter was a "crude," one-time method of plunder, like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs!
When the "gentle" method failed, they would rip off their hypocritical masks without hesitation, revealing their most hideous and rapacious fangs!
This discovery completely overturned everyone’s understanding of "gods."
The Mages naturally thought of the Light Holy See, which was aggressively spreading its faith in their world. According to this new theory, the Light Holy See, established by the so-called Light Deity, had been sucking the "blood" of the world they lived and thrived in for a thousand years.
If Mage Delin’s theory was true.
Then there was absolutely no possibility of peaceful coexistence between them and the Light Holy See.
This was a... war for survival!
A fight to the death between civilizations, between a world and its "thieves"—a war for survival!
"I... I must... report this discovery to the Mage Council immediately!"
Master Fran said.
For the first time, an expression called "fear" appeared on his ancient face.
He had lived for over three hundred years and weathered countless storms, but nothing had ever made him feel so... helpless.
He stomped his foot abruptly.
HUM!
A silver Space Array lit up beneath his feet once more.
"This matter is too significant! It’s beyond our scope to handle! This information must not be leaked under any circumstances. Wait for me to return. Before I get back, no one is to contact the outside world or reveal any of this!"
Master Fran glanced at Delin, then at Raylo, his eyes filled with complex emotions.
"You all... wait for my word!"
Before his voice had faded.
The Space Array flared with brilliant light, completely engulfing his gaunt figure.
The light dissipated.
In his place, only faint spatial ripples remained.
Inside the Alchemy Workshop, the remaining eleven Legendary Mages stared at each other, their faces etched with gravity and unease.
Today, they had uncovered the tip of a colossal conspiracy that shrouded the entire world.
And beneath that iceberg lay a chilling truth, one that would make anyone tremble.
Master Fran’s figure vanished into the light of the Space Array, taking with him the earth-shattering discovery that could overturn the entire Continent’s understanding of the world, but leaving behind a room full of silence and oppression.
Inside the workshop, none of the remaining eleven Legendary Mages spoke a word.
The air seemed to have solidified, so heavy it was hard to breathe.
Elemental Tyrant Gregory, the notoriously hot-tempered and arrogant Legendary Mage, merely leaned against a cold wall with his arms crossed, his lava-like eyes fixed on the floor, not saying a word.
His chest heaved violently, each breath expelling a searing gust of air as if he were suppressing a towering rage about to erupt.
Master Wendel paced back and forth, his face clouded over.
Mage Delin stood still, his head lowered, staring at the grain-sized yet immeasurably heavy World Power Crystal in Mage Morpheus’s palm. The light in his eyes flickered, his thoughts unreadable.
The others were much the same.
Shock, anger, confusion...
They were Legends, beings who stood at the pinnacle of this world’s pyramid, powerhouses who were like gods in the eyes of countless Mortals.
They once believed they had fathomed most of the world’s secrets and grasped enough Power to change its entire landscape.
But today, they discovered just how wrong they were.
They were like a school of fish in a pond who had always believed the pond was the entire world.
Only today did someone tell them that beyond the pond, there was a vast and far more dangerous ocean.
And they, along with their "pond," were nothing more than "food" in the eyes of more powerful predators from that ocean.
"I remember two hundred years ago, a Legendary Mage named Laniris left behind a report. It mentioned that the source of a Divine Spirit’s Power of Faith was not the Spiritual Power of its believers."
"He proposed that every world has its native races. The minds and souls of these natives serve as vessels, carrying the Power of the World. Divine Spirits then use these vessels’ minds and souls as conduits, plundering the world’s Origin Power in the name of faith."
The speaker was the Legendary Mage Nancy, who held the title "Blue Moon."
She continued, "His report caused a huge uproar at the time, but back then, Mage Laniris had only presented a hypothesis, with no actual evidence to support it."
"He fell in an expedition not long after, so the hypothesis was shelved and gradually forgotten..."
Mage Morpheus looked at the crystal in his hand and said slowly.
"Now, we have found the proof!"
This enormous cognitive shock was difficult for even these old monsters, who had lived for centuries, to accept all at once.
Raylo stood in a corner, equally silent.
His feelings were even more complex than those of any Legendary Mage present.
Because he knew more than they did.
Scenes from the apocalypse in the "Heart of Arcane" world surfaced in his mind uncontrollably.
The shattered continents, the dried-up oceans, the dead cities...
And the last testament, filled with indignation and resolve, left behind by a Legendary Mage at the Catastrophe Level Peak before marching to his death.
’...We cannot accept a ’god’ who needs to rely on the ’faith’ of believers to sustain his own existence...’
’...That newly appeared sun is fighting with our world’s sun for dominance! It is frantically plundering our world’s Power of Origin!’
’...The ’god’ we rejected—he was no mere passing traveler. His departure wasn’t him giving up; he was preparing for a... long-premeditated invasion.’
’...Remember, that new sun is the Palace where a Divine Spirit calling himself the ’Light Deity’ resides...’
And then there were Grand Elder Gu’s meaningful words as he left Black Stone Territory.
"The storm has already arrived. Both your world and ours are now caught in it."
Two suns in the sky.
The storm.
The Light Deity.
The invasion.
The plunder.
At this moment, countless clues seemed to be strung together by an invisible thread.
A vast and terrifying black web, one that spanned endless planes, slowly unfurled before his eyes.
And the Light Deity was the most avaricious spider of all, sitting at the very center of that web.
It used the seemingly gentle net of "faith" to "catch" the weak and compliant worlds.
But for those powerful and proud worlds that dared to resist, it would unhesitatingly use the sharpest butcher’s knife of "war" to utterly destroy them and then devour everything they had!
"Raylo."
A voice pulled Raylo back from his chaotic thoughts.
It was Mage Delin.
He had, at some point, walked over to stand in front of Raylo.
His face had regained its usual composure and calm, as if his brief loss of composure had never happened.
"You seem... less surprised than the rest of us."
Mage Delin looked at Raylo, his deep eyes seeming to peer right into his heart.
"Do you... know something else?"
Mage Delin’s question made the other ten Legendary Mages in the room turn their gazes toward Raylo.
They had also noticed Raylo’s unusual reaction.
Although he had shown shock, his reaction was far calmer than that of these old-timers.
It was a calm that didn’t seem forced, but rather like a sense of understanding... as if he had anticipated this all along.
Raylo looked at Mage Delin, at the questioning gaze in his eyes, and fell silent for a moment.
He knew that, at this point, there was no longer any need for concealment.
Faced with a catastrophe that affected the entire world, any concealment could lead to irreversible consequences.