Chapter 409 – Find The Human
“The signal is confirmed?” Visneer asked his son.
“Yes, father,” Visault confirmed. “Another human has been sent to the ruins of Atlantis.”
“The spell being anchored to the ancient human capital at least means we know where to start our search. Have the Alfar begun to move?”
“Not as yet, father. The Alfar appear to be preoccupied with a project for some time now. I have not been able to discern what they were attempting, but I suspect they have intentionally caused Realm Breaches to appear on one of the worlds the human exiles have been thriving on.”
“Is it the world with the confirmed true mage?” Visneer asked, suddenly worried that the best hope they had come across in a hundred thousand years was going to be cut down before he was strong enough to try and fix the mess of this world.
“I don’t know, father.”
“Nothing we can do about it directly. I will send a message to our friend in that world. Last I heard, he believed he had identified the true mage and would do his best to find a way for him to cross realms. Could be that this new human is our true mage.”
“Isn’t crossing from their realm to ours dangerous? That world has not even completed a labyrinth,” said Visault.
“Some risks must be taken. While a Growth Breach would allow passage back and forth, between our world and theirs, the Exile spell works just fine to bring humans from any world here.”
“Is that why you left the Central Legion, father? To be closer to the anchor point?”
“Indeed. War with the Alfar can wait. Our forces are still evenly matched even without me on the frontlines. It is more important that we find the true mage before the Alfar.”
“I have never understood why the Alfar hate the humans so much. How many thousands of years have passed? You would think they would have moved on and decided to search for a solution to the problem of our world.”
“Well, they have found a solution, it is just that we disagree with them on their solution.”
“You mean allowing Realm Breaches to siphon the mana from our world and send it to others?”
“Precisely,” Visneer congratulated. “Their solution works, so far as we understand the workings of the Mother World. By sending mana out, it reduces the burden on the Mother World and allows us to continue to live here. But it comes with costs.”
“You mean Realm Breaches that form with their anchor points on other worlds? How they collapse and cause beast waves here, like our Realm Breaches do on other worlds when we collapse one anchored here.”
“Partially. The cost I am concerned with is the cost to the Mother World.”
“I don’t understand father.”
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“How many things are infinite, son?”
“Our studies of the realms show that nothing is without end. Even the stars in the sky will one day vanish.”
“Precisely. Nothing is infinite, so how can we expect the Mother World’s mana to be? Each year the amount of mana the Mother World produces increases. We have solved this problem for generations by sending the excess elsewhere, but even that solution is fading. What will happen if the Mother World suddenly ceased producing mana?”
“In time, the Mother World would die,” Visault reasoned. “Without mana, all things that feed on it to grow will fade, until the Mother World is nothing but a barren world.”
“That is my fear, son. The more the Mother World produces mana, the faster we move towards that inevitable conclusion. We may be far from the end of the Mother World, but that does not mean we should push the problem onto future generations, as the Alfar have done.”
“What if a human true mage can’t undo what was done in the past?”
“Then hopefully, we will have time to find another solution.”
“Are you sure, Mirax?” Matron Jysella asked.
The news her underling came with was important, but they could not afford to be wrong. Crossing such a distance and diverting even a portion of their army arrayed against the Iblis could be costly. Not to mention that the location humans always appeared was in the heart of their old territory. That land had collapsed in on itself due to the number of Realm Breaches opened during the purge. Any disturbance of the surface could lead to those Realm Breaches being released, along with millions of Demonic Beasts.
“I am certain. The Iblis received a signal that a new human has arrived and seem quite interested in who it might be,” Mistress Mirax told her Matron. “From the timing, I believe the human arrived towards the end of the beast wave we caused in world with the true mage.”
“An odd coincidence. But magic has a way of working coincidences into fate,” Matron Jysella frowned. “The Mother World seems determined to bring together all the races.”
“What is your command, Matron?”
“We cannot afford to dispatch a large force. The war will not allow it, nor can the former lands of the humans handle it. Should we disturb one of the few areas we have managed to accomplish our goals in we will end up undoing our efforts.,” Matron Jysella said, as she pondered her choices. “You will go alone. You are nearing S Rank now. You should be able to handle one human. See to it that the Iblis do not ruin our plans.”
“Yes, Matron.”
Mistress Mirax did not linger after receiving her task from her Matron. It was a long journey to the ancient human lands. Even if the borders of the Iblis, the Alfar and the goblins had expanded over the years to claim most of those lands, the center, the former capital city of Atlantis, was a forsaken place.
When the island city was destroyed, it collapsed in on itself. The underground tunnels and mines where the ancient humans had delved deep to procure magical metals, such as aurichalcum, mithril and adamantine, devoured most of the island’s landmass. With the number of Realm Breaches that had opened the water of the great sea the island sat in was sucked dry, flooding Realm Breaches that later collapsed, slowly stealing away the water until all that was left was a dry seabed. Without the water to flood the mines the island further collapsed in on itself, but somehow, either through the forces of nature or the power of the Realm Breaches, voids were left underground.
These large voids housed the Realm Breaches that remained from the destruction of Atlantis. The Demonic Beasts that were expelled from them over time strangely live and die underground, without seeking the surface. This was cause of everyone’s fears and why the region was largely considered forbidden. Should something disturb those Demonic Beasts, or should the remains of Atlantis finish collapsing into the underground mines and expose the Realm Breaches to the surface, the peoples of the Mother World would likely not be able to resist the onslaught that would be unleashed.
By going alone, Mistress Mirax would minimize the risk of causing a chain reaction and unleashing a beast wave the likes of which had never been seen. Unfortunately, by going alone, it would take her longer to find the human once she was there. Worse yet, she may even be too late to intercept the human before the Iblis find him.