346 Superfluous
“You’re really… a fool.” Sibylla sighed and commented.
Without waiting for the other party to reply, she continued, “Let’s go. Time’s running out for me.”
As she spoke, she extended a finger and pointed at the tunnel entrance. There, a barrier that relied on the World Tree to provide magic power kept them out.
Sibylla didn’t chant any incantations or construct any spells. Only a faint magical light lit up at her fingertips. Then, with a casual swipe, the barrier blocking the tunnel instantly dissipated like a thin spiderweb.
Nizemar could sense that the mana on the other party’s fingertips was only at the scale of an ordinary mage apprentice.
!!
However, with just a light swipe, she easily dispelled the powerful magic barrier.
As expected of a Judge. Even a will from thousands of years ago can temporarily control a weak body and display extraordinary abilities.
As expected of the first batch of apostles who followed the Eighth Holy Spirit… Nizemar exclaimed inwardly. Then, she couldn’t help but clench her fists gently.
As the first batch of followers of the Eighth Holy Spirit in this era, when could she reach their level?
“Back then, I re-investigated the Forest Elf ancestors’ colonial history and discovered contradictions in their records. On the one hand, faith in the Dark Mother does exist, which Nehe confirmed during the ritual. On the other hand, if Ravenwood was really a kingdom of the undead covered in all kinds of corruption before the Forest Elves arrived as they recorded, it would conflict with the birth conditions of Earth Mother.”
As Sibylla spoke, she walked deeper into the tunnel. A ball of light emitting a gentle white light floated in front of her, illuminating everyone.
Earth Mother, who devoured Her offspring to return life to its origins, naturally needed a natural condition where life was flourishing to have a chance of being born.
“These things are mentioned in the information you left behind. Although I still can’t figure out how you sensed the possibility of another history and how the Lady of Starvation was the origins of the Forest Elves…” Remides said. Her voice had returned to its usual calmness.
“According to the Presiding Judge, my eyes are unique in the entire world. Back then, I didn’t understand the true meaning of ‘unique.’ It wasn’t until a long time later that I understood that no matter where these eyes were or which possibility of history they were in, no matter who its owner was, as long as something was taken into its vision, I could observe things through them… I also invented a spell to send information to the future from abandoned timelines based on this principle.”
The Eyes of God could be said to be a true divine vision that lived up to its name.
“Of course, based on my thoughts as a mortal, I can only see the largest and smallest extremes—the smallest vision is based on my perspective to determine what might happen next. This is equivalent to a short-lived vision of the future. As for the largest vision, it allows me to see another possibility in history.”
The latter was often manifested in the form of dreams.
For example, in the past, Sibylla had betrayed Currere as a Presiding Judge and became the 13th Void Sovereign’s nightmare at the cost of sacrificing Judgment. However, strangely, Judgment in that dream had undergone a huge change. The Presiding Judge in the dream was even a woman.
However, Sibylla could clearly sense that the person’s soul was the same as the Presiding Judge’s.
Presumably, that was a wrong timeline that was destined to be pruned like her current state.
Pushing this unhappy memory out of her mind, she continued, “Generally speaking, when there’s a contradiction between the records of history and the situation in reality, I’ll assume that the Forest Elf ancestors tampered with the records of history, resulting in a contradiction. However, when I used Nehe’s soul box as a medium to observe the past and tried to use my gift, I saw in my dream that Ravenwood had two pasts that existed parallel to each other.
At this point, Sibylla turned to Remides. “After waking up from the dream, I conducted a verification using the two souls in the soul box… Speaking of which, do you still remember the final study I was carrying out back then?”
Remides shook her head. How could she remember the details of what happened more than a thousand years ago so clearly?
Upon seeing this, Sibylla revealed a bitter expression for the first time.
She sighed and said, “Alright, since you don’t remember, it proves that my research back then didn’t reach this era a thousand years later. To a certain extent, this can be considered a good thing. At the very least, it wasn’t ruined by later generations…”
Although she said that, one could still hear the deep regret in her voice—the research she originally thought would revolutionize future generations didn’t seem to make a splash at all. Anyone who realized such a future would have such emotions.
“Cloud mapping of the Currere soul cycle—used to investigate how souls who aren’t qualified to enter the divine kingdom end up participating in the Currere cycle after mortals die.”
At this point, Sibylla sped up slightly and said, “The final conclusion is enough to overturn the hypothesis that the Wheel of the World—the most authoritative authority in academia—is the hub of reincarnation that reconstructs the entire Storm and Undead spell systems from ground up… If the relevant information is left behind in real history, we should be able to find relevant records through the guidance of the Eyes of God. Remember to remind the Presiding Judge later…
“I think we’ve sidetracked. Let’s get back to the soul box. My study involved the domain related to the genetic inheritance of the souls. After analyzing the remaining two souls in the soul box, I searched for their ancestry in the sense of a soul through ancestral retrospection. I finally came to the conclusion that their souls had been sealed in the soul box for 5,000 years and displayed characteristics extremely similar to the Lady of Starvation Camilla’s Void Incarnation back then.”
After advancing a distance, a second barrier was in their way. Sibylla did the same thing and broke the seal that was augmented by powerful magic. Her movements were as easy as opening a lock with a master key.
“These things weren’t explained clearly in the information you left behind back then. You only gave me a conclusion and left without a word,” Remides complained.
If not for that, why would she seek help from the Tacma Church later…
“There’s nothing I can do about it. If I hadn’t verified my guess back then, I wouldn’t have had the chance to tell you this now,” Sibylla replied.
“What guess? Couldn’t you just wait a few more days for me?”
Sibylla shook her head with a heavy expression at Remides’s question. “It’s not that I didn’t want to wait a few more days for your conjecture about World’s End, but I really couldn’t afford those few days…”
Before she could finish speaking, the trio merged beyond the last bend and arrived in front of the last barrier.
The last defensive barrier left behind by Nehe back then was an absolute defense reinforced by the peak Frost spell, Inverse Entropy.
There were only three magic chanters—including William—who could remove this barrier.
However, by the time they arrived, someone had already beaten them to it.
Floral, who had left, and Bishop Sigmond of the Second Order were on the other end of the barrier.
The latter was holding a curved tool with the Mother holy emblem and carefully trying to remove the Oak Heart from the stand.
Floral turned around when she heard footsteps behind.
The surprised expression only lasted for a short moment. Then, she smiled at the newcomers and pointed at the barrier covered in mist before shaking her finger.
You can’t come over. The expression on her face said.
“Hurry.” Remides immediately turned her head and reminded Sibylla, but Sibylla was faster.
With misty eyes, Sibylla’s hand instantly lit up with several precise magic spells. At the same time, the barrier also lit up with ice-blue spells that intertwined with it.
However, the two forces only touched slightly, and Sibylla’s expression immediately changed drastically. She turned to look at Nizemar and asked anxiously,
“Did the Presiding Judge come here when he went down to the underground root system?”
Nizemar recalled that the Presiding Judge seemed to have mentioned it, so she nodded.
“That… fellow who likes to do superfluous stuff!” Sibylla gritted her teeth and cursed. Then, even denser magic spells lit up around her again.
“What’s wrong?” Remides asked in confusion.
“When he came here previously, he definitely used destructive methods to open the barrier. Then, before he left, I don’t know what idea he was having… There’s a high chance that his incomprehensible obsessive-compulsive disorder made him add a barrier to this place and even reinforced it with three layers!”
As Sibylla spoke, the whiteness in her eyes began to spin crazily like a nebula.
It might take less than a minute to undo Nehe’s unmaintained barrier, but it would take ten minutes to crack William’s barrier.
Ignoring the fact that the duo had beaten them to it, she had no idea if she still had ten minutes left.
“What if they get the Oak Heart?” Remides asked as she nocked an arrow named Karma on Glazed Moon.
After hearing Sibylla’s words, she began to imagine the worst.
“The birth of the Lady of Starvation requires two Origins of the Moon, and the other should be on the other side of the timeline. However, if both fall into their hands, they only need to obtain the souls needed for the reincarnation ritual to replicate Nehe’s foolish actions back then.”
“That’s terrible, but it doesn’t seem that bad…”
With that said, Remides released the bowstring in her hand. The arrow named Karma instantly drew hundreds of different trajectories in midair, searching for a path that could pierce the bishop’s head.