Chapter 20: A Glorious Defeat
Under Laurent’s leadership, the Wizard Council quickly flourished, but there was always one problem: the wizards were somewhat mad and unwilling to be restrained.
Laurent simply chose not to restrain them. He only needed to find like-minded individuals among the many wizards.
Five years later, led by Laurent, Dawn, and Gus, they commanded over 76,000 wizards to march against the Dominator.
This grand campaign ended two days later. Or rather, after two days of marching, they met the Dominator and were defeated before the battle even officially began. After drinking the potions to become wizards, they simply had no qualification to oppose the Dominator.
All 76,000 wizards were slain. During the battle, Laurent was pierced by a tentacle that appeared out of thin air. Before he turned into a blob, he said one sentence: ‘Also, the White Goat.’
Fortunately, after transforming into that state, Laurent’s combat power skyrocketed, successfully covering Dawn and Gus’s retreat.
Afterward, Dawn became the leader of the Wizard Council. The three of them ‘submitted’ to the Dominator, using civilians as laborers and the knowledge Laurent left behind as a foundation to build Heru City and the Wizard Council headquarters.
From then on, the Wizard Council became an even looser organization. The only thing that kept it going was the Morn family’s potions—after all, they were Laurent’s descendants and knew more.
Dawn ordered the sealing of the tenth floor and above of the Wizard Council, while the Old God Church became the residence of the three of them.
After fighting the Dominator, all three were more or less affected by it. They discovered that their deaths had been postponed—a warning of what resistance would bring.
Not only that, but the Dominator also came to Heru City to hibernate there—a second warning.
For a long time, Dawn and Gus were trapped in despair. Their spiritual leader, Laurent, had turned into a blob. The blow to them was unimaginable.
During this time, Dawn became paranoid. She firmly believed that numbers were utterly useless; only powerful individuals could deal with the Dominator.
Through constant searching, Dawn eventually found a young girl. This girl was not only a natural-born wizard but also possessed some of ‘their’ divinity. This gave Dawn hope.
As for Gus, he chose to set aside his selfishness and trust Dawn one more time. Gus had long ago discovered the Old God’s method of dealing with the ‘Darkness’—Holy Silver. To obtain Holy Silver, one needed to burn an Old God, extract ‘iron’ from its body, and combine it with pure silver.
To face ‘them,’ the most basic requirement was not to be corroded by the Darkness. Gus burned himself to obtain a small amount of Holy Silver, but it was far from enough.
Thus, Dawn and Laurent both lay in the furnace. They had already failed once and could no longer face the Dominator directly, so they placed all their hopes on Nia.
Nia did not disappoint the hopes of these three. She was the light growing in the darkness. To avoid the Dominator’s gaze, Nia, only twelve years old, lived in the deepest dungeon beneath the Wizard Council.
To prevent her from being lonely, Dawn created the Maiden of Sorrow and entrusted the blacksmith, Hughes Archid, to forge the Holy Silver into a headpiece, wrapped in ordinary silver, and placed it on the Maiden of Sorrow’s head.
The blacksmith, Hughes Archid, was the old wizard sitting in a wooden wheelchair that Su Xiao had met.
Nia did not speak to anyone except the Maiden of Sorrow. Every time she saw Nia, Dawn felt guilty, even prepared to die at Nia’s hands.
It wasn’t until Nia came of age at eighteen, stronger than any known wizard and reaching some kind of limit, that she left the dungeon.
‘Come back, okay? I’ll wait for you here.’
These were Dawn’s last words to Nia. Nia only smiled at Dawn—a pure smile that made Dawn want to cut off her own head and kneel before Nia to compensate for her sunless childhood and flower-like youth.
Nia had only one doll, a firm heart, and a sword mixed with a trace of Holy Silver—Broken Moonlight. Besides that, she had nothing.
Nia lost. After cutting off half of the Dominator’s head, she lost. This made the Dominator even angrier, so it deprived the world of nearly all sunlight, making it damp and cold.
“We… are truly selfish.”
Dawn sighed. She had resisted and lost, but she didn’t regret it. The only thing she felt guilty about was Nia.
“Are you done?”
Su Xiao exhaled a puff of blue smoke. Beside him, Bubu Wang, Baha, Amu, and Kaiser each held a bucket of popcorn.
“Huh?”
Dawn looked at Su Xiao with slight confusion. Su Xiao’s cheek twitched noticeably.
“Where is the Dominator? We were just talking about that.”
“You’ve already decided to face it? It’s in Bone Harbor, in a room on the third street. You can find it there, or rather, it will actively pull you to ‘that side.’ Specifically… you’ll understand when you get there.”
Dawn’s fingers lightly tapped the stone armrest of her chair. With a click, a small silver vial popped out.
“Take it. Our hope is dead; keeping it is useless. This was originally prepared for dealing with the ‘White Goat.’”
Dawn’s withered, branch-like hand picked up the small silver vial and handed it to Su Xiao.
[You have obtained ‘Holy Silver Dilution Solution.’]
[Holy Silver Dilution Solution]
Origin: Wizard World
Quality: Epic
Type: Item (usable once)
Effect: Apply this solution to a melee weapon. For 10 minutes, when fighting against an Ancient God, each attack will deal 129 to 350 points of Holy Silver True Damage (damage intensity depends on the user’s Intelligence attribute).
Rating: 700++
Introduction: The expectations it carries are far greater than imagined.
Selling Price: 400,000 Paradise Coins.
…
Seeing the information on [Holy Silver Dilution Solution], Su Xiao basically understood the situation. The Dominator was an Ancient God, similar to the Moon God—both were a type of divine being.
Indeed, in Su Xiao’s view, gods were also living beings, and Ancient Gods were just a category within gods. The Goddess of Fortune, on the other hand, belonged to another category of gods, leaning toward goodness and good luck.
The Moon God was actually quite innocent. It was minding its own business in the Earth City when Su Xiao came knocking to kill it. Clearly, in that incident, Su Xiao was the villain, and he even gave the Moon God an ‘intracranial hyperthermia.’
As for the Dominator, it didn’t fall into the innocent category. This thing had stretched its claws too far, stealing something from Reincarnation Paradise. Otherwise, Su Xiao wouldn’t have had to search the world for it.
“So it’s an Ancient God.”
Hearing Su Xiao’s words, Dawn’s dim eyes brightened a little. In the distance, Gus’s eyes widened.
“Kid, Ancient Gods are more terrifying than you imagine. In some ways, they are almost omnipotent. See what this world has become? That’s the consequence of an Ancient God’s invasion.”
Gus’s somewhat displeased voice came. This guy had a foul mouth, but the old man was a good person. He could tell Su Xiao didn’t belong to this world, so he had repeatedly hinted that Su Xiao should leave—this place wasn’t good, and he shouldn’t go looking for the Ancient God Dominator. Dying for this matter wasn’t worth it.
“So you know about Ancient Gods.”
Dawn, unlike Gus, had always wanted to eliminate the Ancient God.
“I know. I killed one not long ago. That thing was pretty strong.”
Su Xiao walked toward the exit of the Old God Church. Since he already knew where the Dominator was, he would just go straight to confront it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t killed an Ancient God before.
“Huh?”
Dawn was stunned for a moment. She seemed a bit more lucid now, staring in disbelief at Su Xiao, who was already walking away. In her judgment, someone like Su Xiao was unlikely to tell such a lie.
“Dawn, it looks like this time… we’ve got a monster here. I hope those Ancient Gods experience the same despair we did.”
Gus, hanging upside down, laughed heartily. But as he laughed, the smile faded from his face, because he saw the statue of Nia in the center of the church.