Chapter 56: The Fire Has Long Been Extinguished
Once destruction sets on its course, everything that follows spirals out of control like a runaway stallion.
Babel Province, Capital City, Outskirts.
Due to the massive influx of foreign magic power from the spatial rift, clouds, haze, and endless gales and lightning were spreading outward from Babel Province as its center. Although the mysterious elemental attenuation phenomenon slowed this spread in other provinces, within the region from the capital to Sapphire Port, the momentum showed no sign of stopping—instead, it grew ever more intense.
The light drizzle that had originally fallen over Babel Province had now transformed into a torrential downpour. Everything was submerged in an endless curtain of rain and darkness. Ordinary people could not conduct any activity under these conditions; even stretching out one's own arm, one could not see where it was.
However, on the outskirts of the city, amidst the ruins, a cluster of golden light was shining. The light pulsed, brightening and dimming as if beating in rhythm with a breath.
This was the chest core of the half-dragon. The once restless half-dragon now lay on the ground like a docile cat or dog in the dark rain. The rainwater around its body evaporated into steam due to the intense heat, and on its back, a human was holding a book, flipping through it continuously.
Sitting on Black's back, rainwater slid off the sides of his crimson battle qi barrier. Joshua was flipping through a book concerning the history of this world's elves and stone golems. By his side, many books that had already been read, or had yet to be read, were laid out.
The high-ranking officials of Babel Province still placed great importance on this warrior of unimaginable power. Joshua had merely made a simple request, and within half an hour, almost all the books that met the requirements and could be collected were placed by his side.
Afterward, the vast majority of the officials went to plan disaster relief efforts. Many elves who had hidden in their basements, only to have their houses collapse from stone golem impacts, were now trapped and in urgent need of rescue. The torrential rain flowed through the cracks in the rocks into the basements. If not rescued quickly, within a few hours, all the surviving refugees who had been lucky enough to escape would likely return to the Mother Tree.
For this reason, Loranda volunteered to help these elves with the rescue. Initially, the elves had little expectation of this golden-haired, blue-eyed man in casual clothes. However, the paladin's ability to instantly detect all life signs within a radius of several hundred meters still shocked them. As for his brute strength, which was enough to easily pry apart the rubble and beams on the ruins to rescue people, not many were surprised.
After all, he was the companion of that Volcano Dragon's master. How could he possibly be without any special traits?
Behind Joshua, Ying and Lin were whispering to each other. The silver-haired girl's firefly-like pupils shimmered with a hazy fluorescence, while the black-haired boy's golden eyes also sparkled with a brilliant light. Due to the overly abundant magic power, the two Divine Mechanisms felt their entire bodies' energy becoming active. While somewhat alarmed, the boy and girl also sensed an increase in their own power. Their conversation was an exchange of their mutual feelings.
But the warrior paid no attention to this. He frowned, flipping through the ancient texts in his hands, completely absorbed.
"This world once had a brilliant magical civilization. The wars of the First Dynasty through the Third Dynasty were all marked by the active presence of countless mages. But by the Fourth Dynasty, the final dynasty, the elves were left with only elite archers. Even if they knew a little magic, it was just minor, insignificant spells."
"And about three hundred years ago, a meteorite fall in Tengg Bay might have been the first time stone golems descended upon this world. The event two hundred years ago was the first large-scale invasion."
Murmuring to himself, Joshua's voice carried a hint of puzzlement. His expression was hesitant: "But that doesn't add up. If the gradual decline of mages was the Chaos Evil God interfering with the world, like the Famine Evil God did to the Carlis World, turning everything into a barren wasteland, then the timing of the stone golems' arrival and the elemental attenuation doesn't match."
Elemental attenuation had been a persistent problem ever since the elves had clear historical records. The signs of stone golems and chaos, no matter how far back one traced, could only be pushed to that three-hundred-year period.
There was only one conclusion—the world's thinning elements and magic power had nothing to do with chaos; there was another reason.
However, although he had learned quite a bit about this continent called Ilgna, Joshua still had little understanding of the massive formation in the sky and the stone golems. The elves' gaze had never turned to the heavens; they had no idea where the Heaven's Revelation Array came from or what connection it had to the stone golems. This left the warrior, who had hoped to find some targeted information, feeling somewhat helpless.
These elves had spent three hundred years and still knew nothing about the arrival of their enemy.
Just as Joshua was sighing in frustration, a white, holy light appeared in the distance. It drew closer and closer, eventually arriving at the half-dragon's side.
"Joshua, do you have a moment?"
It was a steady male voice. Loranda's tone carried a hint of weariness. He looked up at the warrior sitting on the dragon's back and said, "Could you accompany me for a walk inside the city?"
After a moment's thought, Joshua saw no problem. He couldn't get any more information from the books for now anyway, so he might as well take a walk through the city.
So he jumped off the dragon's back and walked with the paladin toward the capital of Babel Province.
The journey was silent.
Passing through the outskirts and the city's edge, the two walked in silence through the ruins of the capital's center. Everywhere were fragments of flesh and stone, the remains of countless elves and stone golems scattered about. Rainwater washed over blood and entrails, making the stench strange and eerie, stirring a sense of disgust.
Joshua was naturally unaffected. He had experienced countless battlefields. Even the orc campaign on the Northwestern Plains, the pile of corpses where he first woke up—the smell there was far more nauseating than this. But Loranda's expression grew darker and darker, even drawing the warrior's sidelong glance.
That was not a look befitting a paladin... but knowing his future, it was not surprising.
Noticing the warrior's gaze, Loranda's expression gradually returned to normal. He let out a soft sigh, then spoke to Joshua in a low voice: "Seeing this world's miserable state under chaos invasion always fills me with fear."
Joshua raised an eyebrow. He knew that the paladin before him was by no means a coward. He must have a reason for saying this.
Sure enough, after a moment of silence, Loranda stopped in his tracks, surveyed the surrounding ruins, and spoke slowly to the warrior: "I do not fear death, nor do I fear battle. Fighting against chaos is one of the meanings of my life. My existence is to protect humanity. That is the resolve required of a paladin, of the Pope's adopted son."
"But every time I fight chaos, I can't help but wonder—what if I fail?"
As he said this, Loranda's face seemed to be covered in a layer of black mist. His voice was distant: "My companions would be slaughtered, my homeland would be ravaged, just like this place."
As he spoke, the paladin pointed at the ruins before him. Under the power of holy light, Joshua could faintly hear the wails of resentful spirits—the result of countless elves dying at the hands of stone golems. However, the warrior keenly noticed that the vast majority of these resentful spirits were rapidly disappearing, as if being summoned by something in the distance.
But now was not the time to focus on that.
"In a battle against chaos, not even the slightest failure can be tolerated. Not even the smallest possibility can be taken lightly!"
Now, Loranda's expression seemed to contain a bone-deep hatred and anger. His voice seemed forced out of his chest: "All chaos should die. Not one left, not one spared. But why? Why doesn't Father the Pope completely destroy the Plague Lands? He is a legendary expert, a deity walking among mortals. Accomplishing this would be nothing at all!"
The Plague Lands, like the Sealed Lands of Moldavia, were regions sealed with chaos. Just as the Radcliffe Family spent years exterminating wild gods, those places also required a large number of people to regularly clear out the monsters within.
This expression... had he lost comrades in battle against chaos?
Without needing the other to say it, Joshua could roughly guess the course of events just from his expression.
A paladin dedicated to protecting humanity, after witnessing the successive deaths of his comrades, began to doubt the meaning of his own battles. He started to regret, to question, and to hate the root cause of it all—chaos, and the powerful ones who had not completely eradicated it.
In other words, he didn't understand why, when a single strike from a legendary expert could destroy the Plague Lands, they still had to send ordinary knights like them to train—even if it was to adapt to chaos as an enemy, it shouldn't come with such great risk.
To this, Joshua thought for a moment, then spoke slowly: "Regarding your doubts, I have a guess, but I'm not entirely sure."
"Loranda, have you ever heard a legend that the world originated from the light of existence, the First Flame?"
"...I think I've heard it."
The paladin was taken aback. He frowned. Among the Seven Gods, there was no creation myth, not even the Sage had said such a thing. Loranda vaguely felt that he had heard of this somewhere before, but he was still a bit hesitant: "But I don't remember it clearly."
But how could Joshua care about the other's hesitation? He was merely narrating his own guess. The warrior raised his eyes, scanned the dark world before him, then raised his right hand, conjuring a crimson light. The city ruins, previously shrouded in darkness, were instantly revealed under this light. He said calmly: "Look, a flame ignites, releasing light. The tangible world is born under the illumination of light—but for flowers to bloom, they must cling to soil. A floating duckweed must drift on a river."
"For a flame to burn, it naturally needs fuel. And the operation of the world can never be an eternal, unchanging cycle. The First Flame burns chaos, creating worlds. So, for a world, what do you think is the best fuel?"
The answer needed no further explanation. As one who had once become the Soulflame King, burning chaos and reshaping the world, Joshua naturally knew the answer.
Upon hearing Joshua's words, Loranda remained silent for a long time. His heart was filled with turbulent waves.
The warrior's words were something Pope Eagle had also said to him, but only in a few brief sentences, without detailed explanation. Now, Joshua had voiced his own guess to him. Corroborating the two, the paladin found that he had actually stumbled upon a possible truth.
A truth that was astonishing.
"Just as people need food, and fire needs fuel, for an orderly world to be maintained, it can only rely on the burning of chaos as its source."
He murmured softly to himself, his voice trembling slightly. The paladin recalled the truth that the Pope had calmly spoken to him in the temple on the Seven Sacred Mountains a thousand years ago: "The fire seed was already poured out a thousand years ago. Without these tumors as a source of fuel, the fire on the Mycroft Continent would have long been extinguished."
"Is that so? It seems you know a few things as well."
With a laugh, Joshua could see that the other had already sensed some truth. He had long had his own guesses about this truth, but now, through the paladin's words, he had confirmed it.
The two stood amidst the ruins of the city. The warrior extinguished the crimson light orb in his hand, and everything returned to darkness.
But suddenly, a faint hum sounded in the sky.
This hum was so subtle that even Loranda did not notice it. The paladin was frowning in thought. Only Joshua keenly detected it.
The world's binding on space was weakening.
But how could that be?
Joshua turned his head, looking at the churning black clouds and lightning in the sky. Behind them, ten massive points of light were slowly taking shape. A white light arc reflected in the warrior's pupils, and his crimson eyes revealed a hint of caution.
Others always thought he was a brute who knew nothing but fighting. But how could a brute truly be invincible in battle? His perception of the outside world had always been sharper than most.
"More stone golems are about to descend?"
Since he didn't sense extreme danger, although Joshua had prepared himself and Loranda beside him for evasive flight, he still had the energy to ponder this question: "Or is that array going to hit me with another light cannon?"
The warrior had a vague feeling that things were not that simple.
The ten points of light in the sky appeared for a while, then gradually faded away. After that, the magic power in the space grew even denser. Purple magic lightning bolts churned endlessly among the dark clouds. They danced wildly, then crashed down to the earth, producing a continuous, ear-splitting roar. The rain also grew heavier and heavier, falling more and more intensely, and a trace of chaotic power could be faintly sensed within it, stirring a sense of unease.
This was no longer ordinary rain. If this rain continued, it would undoubtedly turn into a natural disaster called a flood.
In the heavy rain, Joshua stared at the sky.
What was the purpose of this chaos this time?
Meanwhile, in the outskirts, the half-dragon and the Divine Mechanisms were happily chatting with each other.
But countless massive shadows slowly emerged from the darkness.