Chapter 3865: Luminous Path (Part 2)

"Once I’m done with her, we’ll take care of the rest of the Organization. Once I make the powers of the Master’s hybrids mine, not even Father will be able to stop me anymore." Raum activated a long-distance surveillance device to check on Xenagrosh’s condition.

"I will finally be able to show him the error of his ways, and once I persuade him, Father will accept my help. I’ll free him from his prison, and with Father by our side, the Guardians will have to join our cause or die."

***

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, Leegaain circled around the steaming hammers.

"It seems that Azith didn’t even try to damage the Fury and the Absolution." The Guardian mused. "Judging from the lingering traces of dimensional energy, he must have Warped them away to disarm you.

"A smart strategy, considering that between the hardness and the self-repairing properties of the Davross, destroying the hammers would have taken him too much time and energy.

"This way, Azith would have taken you alive and collected the hammers upon their return. If he planned to sell them or keep them for himself after he was done with you, is anyone’s guess."

"Wait a second." Lith wobbled on his knees, and Bytra went to his help. "To send the Absolution and the Fury so far away, Azith must have used a Chaos Warp. How could he use a Chaos spell while under the effects of our darkness sealing array?"

"It’s a good question." Leegaain nodded. "One for which I don’t have an answer. Yet. My turn. What was that Forbidden Magic spell Azith used in the souls’ memories?"

"I’m no expert on Forbidden Magic, but I’m pretty sure I identified what kind of spell it was." Lith replied.

"And so did I." Leegaain said. "That’s why I wasn’t asking you."

A wave of the Guardian’s hand shared the vision of Raum conjuring the Forbidden Magic with Menadion, Bytra, and Solus via a holographic projection. Leegaain chose not to use a mind to spare the women from the emotions he and Lith had experienced while witnessing the scene.

There was no sound either. There was only Raum and his spell, accurate down to the smallest detail that the souls had noticed in their fury.

"I can tell that’s a Forgemastering spell, but what your son is trying to achieve is beyond me." Bytra said, and Solus nodded. "I’ve never seen anything like that before."

"Can’t you decipher it with your Leegaain Eyes?" Menadion asked.

"I wish, Ripha." Leegaain sighed. "Yet just like the Eyes you crafted, mine don’t work on a hologram, let alone memories. Wandering souls are single-minded, and their mystical senses appear to be no better than human eyesight.

"If it were something like Life Vision, I could have at least seen the runes of the Forbidden Spell as Azith casts it. I only get to see the final product, and only because he shoves it in his body.

"Not a single soul ever averted their eyes or whatever they have as a sensory organ from him. Had he used the spell on someone else, I wouldn’t have seen it at all."

"Show them the rest." Lith panted.

"The spell is always the same." Leegaain countered.

"Yes, but we don’t know when those memories take place or if they are in random order." Lith said. "Maybe, Ripha and Bytra can notice a detail and arrange the memories chronologically.

"Maybe they can identify the oldest version of the spell, when the cloaking runes weren’t good, and we can work on that."

"I’ve already checked, but found nothing of sorts, Hatchling." Leegaain said. "Yet you make a good point, and it costs nothing to try."

Another wave of his han,d and the Guardian projected the dozens of variations on the same spell that he had witnessed.

"Again please." Menadion said, and Leegaain obliged. "Again."

A few minutes and hundreds of replays later, the First Ruler of the Flames stomped her foot in fury.

"Nothing!" She grumbled. "I can only tell you that’s a sphere and is charged with a powerful mana. Your son must be mad paranoid to put so many cloaking runes in a spell that he practices alone."

"Say that again, Ripha." Leegaain’s eyes narrowed.

"I said that your son must be even more paranoid than Lith." Menadion sighed. "I mean, he used that spell on himself, not on an artifact he’s going to sell. On top of that, no Forgemaster practices his craft in front of witnesses.

"There was no reason to use cutting-edge cloaking runes like Azith did."

"What if those are not cloaking runes?" The Guardian pondered. "What if we are looking at this the wrong way?"

"If they are not cloaking runes, what can they be?" Bytra shrugged. "Their complexity exceeds that of any spell I know, and makes the visible rune sequence impossible to read."

"As Lith said before, none of us is an expert on Forbidden magic." Leegaain tapped his lips. "I believe Azith didn’t change the cloaking runes but the spell itself. If I’m right, what we’ve seen are different versions of his spell as Azith perfected it."

"That would be great, but how can we make sure of that?" Solus asked.

"It’s actually pretty easy." The Guardian conjured a hologram for each spell he had witnessed from the souls’ memories and then removed all the nonsensical runes, assuming they belonged to the Forbidden Magic part.

This way, they could look at the various spells all at once and compare notes.

"Isn’t this a pseudo core for a lightning weapon?" Bytra pointed at one of the images.

"Yes, and this looks like the pseudo core for some kind of armor." Menadion pointed at another hologram.

"How can you tell?" Solus was flabbergasted. "Everything looks like gibberish to me."

"Silly child." Menadion chuckled. "These are all ancient runes that were employed by long-lost civilizations thousands of years ago. They were already considered useless garbage when I was alive.

"You have focused your studies on modern runes and those of the Forgemasters whose legacy, or at least workings, survived. You have no way of knowing runes that even the Odi would have considered outdated."

"I get that Leegaain-"

"Grandpa!" Salaark’s voice echoed.

"Fine!" Lith yelled at the sky. "I get that grandpa knows them, since he was alive at the time, but how do you two know runes this old?"

"What do you think?" Bytra shrugged. "Menadion reinvented Forgemastering and Runesmithing, while I focused on improving Runesmithing further. When making something new, you’d better take a look at the old stuff to make sure you are not going to repeat the same mistakes of your predecessors.

"Also, there’s always the possibility that a few lines of their research have not been properly explored or were unfairly dismissed due to the limited Forgemastery techniques available back when such theories were postulated."

"What about these?" Leegaain pointed at the holograms that contained no known Forgemastery rune. "I think I know what they are, but I need to be sure."

"I’m sorry, I have no idea." Menadion replied.

"Me neither." Bytra shrugged. "I have never seen a spell like this. To be honest, I’m not sure it’s a spell at all."

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