Shades of the New World

Chapter 124: Inconcievable

The World of Alvox was one dominated by magic. Something like the previous explosion was unimaginable to Kal. As the red-horned Ivari worried about the future, Irene was finished with her spell. Everyone focused on the scene that was about to play out in front of them.

A giant apparition appeared in the onlooker's eyes. There was a colossal machine that floated above the ground, blowing sand everywhere, and what seemed to be a procession of people walking into it. When they tried to look at the people in the procession, they found that their faces were blurred. They also tried getting inside the gigantic machine, but some sort of unknown force would prevent them from doing so. 

"My powers aren't strong enough to recreate everything, I'm sorry," Irene explained.

Helpless, the group could only watch as everyone in the apparition entered the flying machine. The machine was huge, it's main body was slim, but almost a hundred meters long(90 ish yards) with a little tail on its back, and on its sides, were two giant metallic wings that had two huge thrusters that constantly emitted sounds were attached. Under the great machine, a variety of smaller thrusters were lined up to keep the thing afloat without movement. 

Kal and the others had never seen such a thing, but they didn't show too much shock, since they all knew that something like this was theoretically possible. Perhaps the other side had a great master of the World of Earth, who could create such masterpieces of metal. Though the amount of lodestones the thing might use made them all grimace in their hearts. 

Soon after, the procession ended and the machine was ready to move. The group looked at it anticipatingly. The giant device rose from the ground and started flying East with impressive speed considering its size.

Kal was a bit surprised, but this speed wasn't anything much in the eyes of the super-imposers. He flew while holding the Prophetess in his hands and cast a protective spell around her, so she could focus on her spell. He knew how fickle these strands of destiny could be.

Two hours later, the group reached the ocean, with most having surprised expressions. What could be found in the ocean? Dubiously, they flew behind the apparition. After another three hours of flying, the machine reached a tall wall made of thick transparent mana. The ocean water would hit the mana wall and would flow back without being able to bypass it. 

Beyond the wall, the endless Darkness could be seen. The machine flew right through the mana wall without slowing or pausing, but the group of super-imposers did not dare give chase. Beyond the mana wall, only death awaited them. 

"The Edge of the World" Kal muttered out loud, hundreds of thoughts swirling in his head.

"They can leave the Empress' Lands?!" the Puppeteer exclaimed with shock.

"Who are these people?!" everyone voiced out this question. Only Devin and Kal seemed to know something about the situation, but they couldn't quite talk about the matter freely. 

"Mage King, Puppeteer, the old man from the East, comb your countries for underground facilities. Hire specialists who are sensitive to Earth, and if it isn't plausible, beg the Beast Lords! Kortan, go to your labs and research the yellow ore that caused that explosion! Devin and Irene, go to the first base we found and search for further clues! Also, try to make those machines work one way or another. I will inform the Authorities! The Life mage will stay with me and the others can wait for what the Authorities decide," Kal spat out orders and the group dispersed through the special portals that Devin created for them.

They all knew that the weight of this revelation was much heavier than any of them could imagine. Some even wondered if the Final Empress would order a forced unification of the Countries. Everyone knew that they couldn't protest even if they wanted to. The Authorities were there to enforce the Empress' orders and any one of them was strong enough to unify these broken lands if they were ever ordered to. Just look at how easily they gathered them together.

Kal was left alone with the female mage from the East.

"What's your name?" 

"Lalaku. Could you tell me why you kept me here?" the woman said in an annoyed tone. Though Kal could see some apprehension and worry on her eyes.

"Don't worry. I wanted to ask about the Religion of Ascendants. At first I shrugged it off as nonsense, but now that I see some connection here, I can't quite ignore it now," Kal said.

Lalaku looked secretly relieved at hearing the explanation. Kal couldn't blame her since he could guess why she was relieved. There was a string of women that Kal had before he settled down with his wife. He had dispelled his love for women afterwards, but a bad name couldn't be erased so easily, so he was quite conscious about it.

"I'm also as surprised as you are. The religion just popped out into existence one day and took over everything. It's a bit embarrassing to say, but the East is that kind of place, where anything is possible. But the security department that I head still performed an investigation on it, to see if it was connected to some shady business. But surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, we found that it had originated from a mental asylum. Some mage with a permanently broken mana-core who kept insisting that he was a Child of the Empress like a literal child that she conceived," Lalaku explained.

Kal nodded for her to continue. 

"But we met a lot of cases like these, where the true masterminds would have another catch a snake in their stead, as we like to say in the East. So we investigated everyone that the man was associated with, but as you might guess, we weren't able to find anything to work with, so we dropped the case. As for the religion itself, obviously some nefarious hands have recently been using it to further their greed, but compared to this incident, they're rather tame," she finished.

"What about the man who originated it?" Kal asked.

"He's been dead for quite some time now"

"What kind of mage was he?" 

"That we don't know, the man himself insisted that he was a master at every one of them, because of the whole Empress thing he believed"

'A dead end...' Kal grimaced. 

"Perhaps they were just borrowing the name of the religion?" Kal wondered out loud, thinking about the organization that left behind such a powerful weapon.

"Perhaps so, in our belief, the religion itself was quite legit when it started. Only now it is showing signs of corruption and fraud," Lalaku commented. 

"Thank you for your time, do tell me if you find anything about secret bases like these," Kal said and dismissed the woman through Devin's portal.

Kal was then left alone at the Edge of the World with a pondering face. Shaking his head, he opened a portal to Kena's place and walked through. Instantly, his senses were overwhelmed by the pressure that the Authorities gave off naturally. It took him almost a full minute to get used to this suffocating atmosphere. Since he was stronger, naturally he was more sensitive to such things compared to the people in the city who probably didn't even realize their city had become a den of monsters.

'When will they stop drinking and chatting?' Kal cursed under his breath and entered the lounge like room in which the Authorities were sitting.

"Oh, Kal, you're back already. How was your little trip?" Va'eri said, her voice slightly tipsy. 

Kal began to explain the events of the day and a rare serious expression appeared on the Authorities' faces. Kal was shocked, but found it fitting. He had never heard of anyone passing through the Edge of the World and surviving.

The Authorities eyed each other silently before Two Tales sighed and declared that he will inform the Empress.

Walking through the streets of the non-mage area, Evin was awfully happy. On his hands he held two snacks made of bacon and eggs, wrapped something akin to a tortilla. Reaching the familiar stall, Evin happily declared.

"Rheaa~ Beautiful as ever!" Evin shouted and gave one of the snacks to the stall owner and sat down. Rhea took the food gracefully and started preparing two cups of coffee. If one might look deeply into her eyes, slight confusion could be seen in her pupils. 

Evin noticed this, but decided it was nothing. He sat down and breathed out a long sigh of relief.

He was finally done with the illusions in the book. It took him almost a month to memorize the various illusions in the book, even with the help of the World of Thoughts. During this month, he would madly memorize the various spells during the morning and try them out during the afternoon. 

At the end of it, he had learned a total of 874 spells! Although he couldn't use some of them, he would still know when he was under the effect of it. 

Truly, the imaginations of the various mages were vast and unending. Hallucinating illusions, visual illusions, auditory illusions, tactile illusions, trapping illusions, formation type illusions, intelligent illusions, and illusory spells. And each of these big groups would also have countless subtypes. It truly was a nightmarish month.

With such a vast array of knowledge, Evin's need for the Necklace of Knowing had lessened greatly, so he gave it to Arza. Evin made sure to remind the boy that the Necklace of Knowing could be bypassed if the the enemy illusionist knew of its existence.

This morning, he had finally taken the test under the specialist that resided in the Tribe Grounds. To celebrate, he came to bother Rhea again.