Chapter 283 : Chapter 283
Chapter 283. Logaris: Too Underhanded
Maggie took a deep breath, calmed her surging emotions, and stared intently at Logaris.
“When I was exploring ancient ruins back then, I only vaguely inferred the existence of this Authority of ‘Secrecy’ through a few scattered murals and fragmentary scrolls.”
Logaris pushed up his rimless glasses and pondered.
“How could Moran, a human politician, possess the Authority of a dragon? Or rather, how could that sort of power have found him?”
“No. He may not have fully mastered the Authority of ‘Secrecy.’” Maggie coldly made her conjecture.
“If he had truly gained complete control over that Authority, then with your current Sixth-Tier level, you absolutely would not have been able to detect even the slightest abnormality afterward. What he has displayed now is most likely only the concealment effect produced by some relic or secondary derivative.”
“But even if that is all, it remains extremely troublesome. The power of secrecy means you can never figure out his trump cards. You do not even know how many blades he has hidden in the dark.”
Logaris fell silent for a few seconds.
“Is there a way to brute-force it?”
“No. If it were my true body, there might be a chance.” Maggie shook her head and refused very decisively.
“But the current me is only a Memory Construct. That probe just now already told me everything. Unless the target of the divination has an extremely strong bond of fate and causality with me, in my current state, I absolutely cannot pierce through that shielding.”
The air sank into silence. Logaris stared at the pile of wastepaper on the table as his mind worked at high speed.
What other method was there?
Logaris’s gaze moved away from Moran’s name and landed on the map of the Royal Capital beside it.
The King.
A flash of lightning crossed Logaris’s mind.
“Since we cannot divine Moran, then we will go around him.” Logaris spoke quickly, his logic clear. “No matter how airtight Moran’s defenses are, in the end, they are only his personal shell.”
“He now controls the entire country, but he still has to rely on others to act. Among them, there must be one person he cannot avoid, and that is the old King, Astrelia VI!”
“Divine Astrelia VI!” Logaris said, enunciating each word.
Maggie paused for a moment, then understood Logaris’s intention.
The current members of the royal family were all descendants of Roland and Maggie, perfectly meeting the prerequisite of having a major causal connection with Maggie.
“You are right.” Maggie raised an eyebrow with interest and drew upon the mana around her without the slightest hesitation.
“Using my bloodline descendant as the guide! Truth Retrospection · Bloodline Resonance!”
At the center of the array, the layer of mist that had originally tried to block the prying gaze was forcibly scattered, and light and shadow began to interweave and combine wildly.
Countless fleeting phantoms appeared in midair. At first, they were only insignificant scenes: in a resplendent Council Chamber, the old King sat high upon the throne, listening as Moran reported government affairs from below.
Or in a study late at night, the two of them discussed some secret deployment from opposite sides of a long table…
These trivial everyday fragments flashed past like flowing water. Then the light and shadow suddenly darkened, and the shifting image abruptly came to a halt.
A few seconds later, an obviously top-secret scene from the deepest part of the Royal Palace began to slowly condense in midair.
The field of vision gradually changed from chaotic darkness into a dim, ghastly green.
It was an underground secret chamber that had not seen the light of day all year round.
The surrounding walls of the chamber were smeared with layer upon layer of twisted incantations written in a dark-red, viscous liquid. The floor tiles had been completely pried open, and the entire floor of the room had been carved into a massive circular array diagram.
Logaris reached up and straightened his rimless glasses.
He recognized this thing.
It was a spellwork that had been explicitly banned several hundred years ago: a high-tier variant of “Blood Craver,” usually used as a forbidden life-extension spell.
For this array to operate even once, it required the sacrifice of the life essence of over a hundred high-tier Magical Beasts, as well as an extremely demanding alignment of the stars. And it could only be used once.
A person stood at the center of the array eye.
Astrelia VI.
This old monarch, who had ruled the kingdom for decades, was standing in the middle of the array eye.
As a genuine Sixth-Tier Knight, his body was far from as shriveled and withered as that of an ordinary person. His broad frame and solid muscular outline still displayed the formidable strength he had once possessed.
However, the shadow of death could not be avoided in the end. His face was covered in deep wrinkles, revealing an irreversible, extreme old age and a profound exhaustion that could not be concealed.
The old King had his eyes tightly shut and his hands raised high. His weary face was slightly twisted from pain as he greedily absorbed the ghostly green energy gathered by the array.
Failure was only a matter of time, Logaris professionally judged in his heart. The reason this forbidden spell was forbidden was precisely because it was extremely unstable and demanded nearly exacting control over energy. Once it lost control and suffered backlash, even the powerful physique of a Sixth-Tier Knight would die violently on the spot.
Immediately afterward, Logaris’s gaze narrowed slightly, and a chilling conjecture surfaced in his mind.
The King had ruled Astrelia for decades. No matter how much he feared death, he was definitely not a fool without common sense. How could he rashly activate such an extremely unstable forbidden spell, one that would kill him on the spot if it went out of control?
Unless… someone had been secretly pushing him from the shadows.
Logaris immediately thought of the serving Prime Minister, Moran, as well as the silent and imperceptible Mental Suggestion he himself had once suffered.
If Moran had used Mental Suggestion to amplify the old King’s fear of aging and greed for lifespan over many years, inducing him to desperately try anything in his illness, and then used the Authority of “Secrecy” to erase the traces of his own interference…
A chill ran through Logaris. This combination of abilities was so underhanded that it was almost obscene.
As expected, in the image, when the array’s energy backflow reached its peak, it erupted into chaos with a thunderous roar. Blood-red impurities appeared within the ghostly green pillar of light, and the array’s veins snapped one after another.
The old King opened his mouth wide and sprayed out a large mouthful of purple-black, viscous blood. His eyes rolled back, and his withered body collapsed like a sack with its strings cut, crashing stiffly onto the cold stone floor. His chest stopped moving completely.
Logaris stared at the motionless old body in the image and tapped his fingers twice against the side of his thigh.
He could feel that this matter was not over yet.
In the image, the change followed immediately afterward.
The heavy hidden door of the secret chamber gave off an extremely dull grinding sound. Then it silently slid open.
Accompanied by a certain extremely oppressive, heavy tread, a pair of spotless, pure-black handmade leather shoes stepped without warning into the deathly silent chamber.
Prime Minister Moran slowly walked in.
This head of the Cabinet, who held overwhelming influence throughout the court and the realm and usually always wore a gentle smile, had now shed his disguise. In its place was a horrifying indifference.
He was still wearing that well-tailored dark formal suit without a single crease. Even the knot of his tie was positioned with perfect precision, as though he had just finished attending a sacred funeral.