Chapter 182: Ten Thousand Years Ago
He stopped, fury rising in him again. His nature had shifted, warped by the lingering resentment, growing quicker to anger without his even noticing it. He held himself still, quietly gauging how many pursuers surrounded him now. Smarter this time, he pointed toward a spot ten-odd cubits ahead and to his right, and a phantom shape flickered into being there — the instant it appeared, Anti-Magic Arrows and spellfire converged on it at once.
At the same moment, his own Meteor Fire Rain came crashing down from above, setting the forest alight in a dozen places at once, explosions rolling one after another. The moment Grawvor unleashed it, he flickered and vanished from where he'd stood — and in that same instant, a thief materialized right where he'd been, dagger thrusting into empty air.
The thief vanished again, but the instant he did, a pillar of fire burst up from the ground where he'd stood — catching nothing at all. Grawvor gave a cold snort, and a ring of fire flared into being around him, expanding outward in every direction. A scream rang out as a figure flickered into visibility, becoming a human torch in an instant.
He leapt into the air, another ring of fire bursting to life beneath him as he used Levitation, dropping into a different spot entirely. Where he'd been standing an instant before, arrows and spellfire poured down without mercy — but he'd already moved. The moment he landed, the fire ring expanded to its full radius. Two screams sounded, two more figures turned to human candles.
Two others managed to throw up a flicker of light in defense, drifting backward from the blast.
The moment Grawvor's feet touched ground again, something snapped shut with a crack — a trap, and his foot had landed square in it. He let out a pained roar, gritting his teeth without loosening his grip, twin pillars of fire shooting from his palms. The two men had been holding against his fire ring, and it abruptly vanished.
Delighted, they surged forward — straight into the pillars of flame. Their defensive light shattered at once, both screaming as they became human candles in turn. He swept a hand down, snapping the steel wire anchoring the trap, and lifted off the ground again, the trap still clamped around his left foot. He didn't stop to remove it — he knew that the moment he paused, he'd be left open to attack.
Airborne, he let out a savage roar, and hellfire swept across the whole area, countless jets of flame bursting up from the earth. Overhead, blister-like clouds formed out of nothing, molten fire dripping from them like lava, wreathing his own body in flame. Within a radius of nearly a mile, the ground had become a scene straight out of hell.
As the screams finally died down, silence settled over the scene — one that Evan's group caught almost immediately. Evan quickened his pace at once.
Grawvor landed and forced the trap open with brute strength, his left leg soaked in blood. He tossed the device aside, pulled another vial of alchemical potion from his ring, and drank it down in one go, the wound closing over almost instantly.
Someone was coming. His chest tightened. Then a dragon's roar sounded, and a monstrous creature rose up, a wall of water several cubits high crashing down, snuffing out the burning trees around him instantly. He froze, watching coldly as Evan arrived.
Seeing the forest fire raging, Evan had summoned the Water Dragon Beast on instinct, using its natural affinity for water to douse the flames before dismissing it. A blackened, scorched circle now marked the ground, Grawvor standing at its center.
A flicker of movement behind him — Jessica arriving with Jenny. Xiaoshuang flew above Evan's head. Evan studied Grawvor, a complicated expression crossing his face. "What should I call you? Grawvor, or something else?"
Grawvor let out a slow breath. "Grawvor will do. You're Evan Wang. None of this concerns you — I've fled Solomon. You're a Hollingburton mage."
"That's right. But I'm curious — what actually happened to the goblin empire, ten thousand years ago?" Evan asked. He made no move to attack, having already sensed someone else close by — not far from where he stood. His senses were sharp enough now that he recognized the presence: Eugene, from the market. Was the man hoping to play the mantis stalking the cicada, or did he have some other purpose entirely? Evan couldn't afford to ignore it. Several others had quietly closed in as well, surrounding Grawvor — but Eugene lingered close to Evan himself.
As Evan spoke, he reached Jessica through the minor telepathic link, relaying the full situation and warning her to stay alert, Eugene especially.
Jessica's expression flickered. She hadn't sensed anyone tracking them at all — fortunate that Evan had passed the image directly through the link, or she'd never have caught it.
Grawvor made no move to attack either. Wounded and still recovering, time worked in his favor the longer this dragged on. So he answered, "The full details, I don't know myself. Some organization launched a doomsday plan of some kind. I sealed myself into a regeneration pod and sank underground. An atomic explosion's power was what finally destroyed the goblin empire."
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"So that's it. Only something like an atomic bomb could produce power on that scale," Evan said, sighing.
"You know of atomic bombs? Has humanity actually developed them? That can't be right. We only stumbled onto ours by chance — we never understood the theory behind it at all," Grawvor said, startled.
Evan blinked, not expecting that answer. So the goblins' development had come about through pure coincidence — theory unprepared, and yet the thing itself had somehow been built regardless. Jessica felt a flicker of real shock at this — it seemed Evan was carrying some considerable secret of his own, and she found herself recalling how he'd guided her thinking more than once before, as though he'd already known things he shouldn't have.
"I only guessed that tremendous energy lies hidden within the atom itself — it seems my guess was correct. You've lived ten thousand years, which tells me goblin biotechnology must have been remarkably advanced. Did you ever work with genes?" Evan shifted the topic.
"Genes — a fine word for it. We called it hereditary matter. Yes, goblin biotechnology reached the point of reshaping living creatures. Goblins were born unable to use magic, and once we saw humans wielding it, we launched the God-Creation Project. For reasons I still don't understand, the project failed. The handful who were successfully transformed into something close to gods went mad, and used atomic bombs to begin a doomsday cleansing, meant to purge this world entirely. In the end, it was the goblins themselves who were nearly wiped out," Grawvor said, emotion rising in his voice for the first time.
The other hidden mages, listening in, couldn't follow much of this, though they found the goblins' madness genuinely disturbing all the same, and the word gene stuck with them despite not understanding it.
If anyone present truly understood, it was Jessica. Evan had mentioned the word to her before, and she'd asked him about it directly, and with her own recent work standing at the forefront of this world's biology, she followed the conversation clearly. As for atoms, she remembered an old Xilun school of thought holding that all matter was built from atoms — it seemed a great deal of energy lay coiled within something so small after all.
"Grawvor, carrying knowledge like this — it would be a genuine waste for you to die here. Let me offer you another path. Come to Hollingburton with us. It's the finest magical academy in all of Tyrenese. You could continue your research there. What do you say?" Evan proposed. Jessica and Jenny both perked up at the suggestion.
Evan noticed Eugene's breath catch behind him, and the others' breathing shift subtly as well. Grawvor hesitated for a moment. Evan watched him, a small smile on his face.
Grawvor shook his head. "I'm nothing but a goblin, one who's left his homeland behind. I wouldn't dare harbor such ambitions. I only ask that you leave me be."
"You carry knowledge of a lost prehistoric civilization. Do you really believe humanity would ever let that go? Wearing a human face won't protect you forever — without some kind of shelter, how long do you think you'd last?" Evan pressed.
"Better to die standing than live in shame. Save your words. Your purpose here is the same as everyone else's. If you'll simply turn and walk away, I give you my word I won't strike you from behind," Grawvor said.
Evan nodded. "Very well, I won't press the matter further. Mechanical civilization holds a certain appeal for humans, no doubt, but it's an outward-facing civilization at heart, while magical civilization runs deeper inward. On the level of the individual, magical civilization holds far more appeal, wouldn't you say? I do have one question, though — how did you make it through the Gate of Legend?"
This was what genuinely concerned Evan most. He knew Grawvor had originally been a senior mage, and yet his current strength stood at legendary rank at minimum — unorthodox as the path there had been. He couldn't possibly have passed through the array known as the Path of Legend, the one that triggered mental resonance and assimilated the whole self, ultimately advancing a mage to legendary rank.
That array demanded an almost unimaginable quantity of resources, and required a legendary mage's guidance, even direct triggering — well beyond any individual's own means. Even now, Evan couldn't gather even a quarter of the materials such an array demanded, and plenty of them simply couldn't be found on any market at all.
Grawvor gave a bitter smile. "I understand what you're after — you're hoping to learn the secret of advancing to legendary rank through me. Truth is, I don't fully understand it myself. My path was fundamentally different from yours, and I couldn't explain it if I tried. But spend ten thousand years asleep, and your mental power is bound to grow formidable whether you intend it or not. Now — will you walk away, or shall we settle this?"
"Humans have a saying: those not of our own kind will always think differently. Since that's how it is, let's settle it," Evan said flatly, slipping in that instant into a state of union with everything around him. He held no illusions at all where this opponent was concerned.
Both of them struck in nearly the same breath. Evan summoned his Water Dragon Beast, a towering wave crashing forward straight at Grawvor.
Grawvor threw up a hand, and flame roared skyward, thunder rolling through the air. There was a deafening crash, the forest around them collapsing, the Water Dragon Beast scattering into vapor and dissolving away as fire and water met and canceled each other out entirely.
Evan had expected exactly this outcome. Grawvor was fire-aligned, and whatever he'd inherited would naturally follow the same affinity. Goblins had never excelled at magic to begin with, and two days of sharpening his new skills, however remarkable, simply wasn't enough time. Add to that the fact that Grawvor had originally been a senior fire mage with no proper framework to handle his own sudden surge in power, and the Water Dragon Beast's natural advantage against fire — the exchange had ended, fittingly, in a draw.
Eugene moved then — not against Grawvor, but straight at Evan.