Chương 265

Orion opened his eyes to a ceiling of woven branches and pale leaves. He lay on a cot of braided vines, covered in thick furs. The strange dimensions of the True Heartwood were gone, replaced by the normality of what he was pretty sure was a druidic settlement. He pushed himself up, wincing as a dull ache throbbed behind his temples, knowing he'd pushed himself too hard. I didn't even cast anything! But I guess trying to grasp the powers wielded by Tier Five monsters would come with backlash.

"You're awake," a familiar voice noted. Pauline sat on a carved wooden stool near the entrance to the infirmary hut, idly tossing a ball of condensed shadow between her hands. She looked tired, but her clothes were clean and she was uninjured.

"How long?" Orion rasped, his throat dry.

"Two days," Pauline answered, tossing him a waterskin.

"You overdid it, and your mind slipped into a coma. If the High Priestess hadn't been there to tend to you, you might have suffered permanent damage." Orion caught the waterskin and took a long drink. The memory of the grove rushed back—the Alchemist's impossible equations, Seraphina tearing reality apart, and the fundamental laws of physics bending to their wills. Pauline's tone was mild, but from the worry in her eyes, he knew he'd be watched twice as closely from now on.

I'm more surprised that Mom isn't here, but then again, she's probably aware of my condition and busy with the war. This wasn't the first time he'd pushed himself in this way. Observing his mother's ascension to Tier Four had been damaging as well, and it had ruined his SDGs enough that he'd had to reforge them. That, he was pretty sure, had saved him from becoming brain-dead.

His current version, on the other hand, was much more resilient, thanks to the adamantite Daelin had added, which allowed them to transmit much more data. Given its sheer complexity, it was no wonder he'd ended up hurting himself so badly. Once he'd drunk and tentatively touched his connection to the Field without pain, he reached for his System interface, opening the backlog of notifications that had been waiting for him to regain consciousness. System Notification! Confrontation Survived between Rules.

Witnessed the collision of Tier 5 Authorities. Extrapolating Higher-Dimensional Spatial Topologies... Philosophical Divergence Acknowledged: Rejected the Path of Hostanes. Integration of [Holographic Principle] and [Bekenstein-Hawking Entropy] conceptualized. +2, 850, 000 Exp Level Up! Level Up! Level Up! Level Up! Level Up! The rush of power hit him, washing away the lingering fatigue in his muscles. He pulled up his status screen and noted sharp increases across the board. ORION A.

VOIDWALKER Class: [Causal Epistemologist] [B-rank] Level: 86 Mind: 500 Attunement: 490 Body: 67 Traits: Mana Manipulation [B-rank]; Hypotheticism [B-rank]; Falsifiability Criterion [B-rank] Breaking the five-hundred mark in his Mind attribute felt like unlocking a new gear in his cognitive processing. More importantly, he could feel a chunk of the glitching data he had recorded from Uther's and Seraphina's fight finally settle into a coherent, readable format within his CC.

The math was there, though it was incredibly complicated. The blueprint for overriding the Field by treating it as a lower-dimensional boundary was perfectly mapped out in his mind. But as Orion attempted to simulate the process in the CC, he hit a hard wall. It wasn't a lack of understanding; rather, his Attunement, though incredibly high for his level, was still bound by the constraints of Tier Two. He simply didn't yet have the depth of connection required to impose those concepts on reality.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. But he didn't despair, for the data was a blueprint for his eventual Tier Three advancement, a path waiting for him to reach the threshold. He felt a sharp pang of eagerness to delve into the numbers, to test the limits of what he had learned, but he'd already pushed it, given how close he'd come to death.

If he zoned out any more, Pauline would get suspicious that he wasn't just reading his notifications, and he didn't want to test her patience. Fortunately, she was prevented from asking any questions when the woven door flap was pushed aside, and Archmage Valentia stepped into the infirmary. He looked gaunt, with deep lines around his eyes that stood out in the filtered light.

In his right hand, he held a new staff that was clearly not the gilded artifact he once wielded but a carved length of ironwood topped with a sapphire. Unlike what he'd have expected after being so thoroughly smacked down, Valentia did not look humbled. He looked furious.

"Archmage," Orion greeted, sitting up straighter.

"Save the formalities, Voidwalker," Valentia said, his voice clipped and edged with anger. He clenched the temporary staff, looking as if he were genuinely considering giving him a smack, if that wouldn't risk aggravating his poor brain.

"I came to check if you had survived your own foolishness. Were you not taught to have an ounce of hesitation? Who even tries to grasp concepts three tiers beyond them?!"

"Perhaps I shouldn't have," Orion admitted, ignoring Pauline's eye-roll.

"But I could sense a similarity to the matter I'd discussed with the Alchemist and couldn't pass up the chance." Valentia sighed, looking up at the ceiling as if asking for patience.

"That is another thing. Why did you try to get his attention? We could have stalled in other ways, and now you have a target on you!"

"It kept him talking far longer than any of us would have lasted," Orion pointed out. It wasn't exactly a direct jab, but given how Valentia's jaw clenched, he seemed to take it as one. His eyes darkened, and he let out a self-reproachful chuckle.

"It bought time. Time I should not have needed. I have spent a century mastering the elements, only to be swatted aside like an academy novice. My staff, the legacy of five Archmages, became a useless paperweight because I failed." Orion met Pauline's gaze and could see she had no idea what to do with a depressed Archmage, either. Luckily, the man pulled himself back shortly after.

"It will not happen again," he swore.

"Are we marching on their position?" Orion asked, trying to steer the conversation away from emotion. He might have gotten better in this second life, no longer the empty vessel for research he'd once been, but that didn't mean he wanted to be saddled with that kind of baggage. He was no psychologist.

"I am not going to be here for much longer," Valentia corrected distractedly.

"I am returning to the Collegium. I'll need the full resources of the Archives to dissect the magics that man used. I will face him again when I have an answer about his powers, and we will see if it goes the same way." Considering that he was less than twenty levels away from ranking up, he might be able to do it, though Orion was well aware that each new tier of power brought higher exp requirements. Also, I'm pretty sure I only got that much experience from simply surviving because of my Class.

Being able to glean even a little of the powers wielded by those monsters must count as a major breakthrough. The Archmage turned toward the exit, pausing just before stepping out.

"I am taking Jonatan with me. He fought well, but the front lines have escalated beyond his current capacity. Archmage Suketh will arrive by nightfall to assume command of the Collegium forces here." Orion blinked in surprise. Set, his old mentor, the exiled wizard who had first taught him the true mechanics of the Field back in the Lunar Sanctum, was taking the field. It spoke volumes about the war's escalating severity.

"Survive this conflict, young Voidwalker," Valentia said, glancing over his shoulder.

"When the dust settles, the Collegium will welcome you." With his piece said, he swept out of the hut. Orion let out a slow breath, rubbing his temples. He turned back to Pauline.

"Fill me in. What happened after I passed out?" Pauline pursed her lips as she leaned back against the woven wall.

"The High Priestess sealed the corrupted root in a shell of lunar diamond. It stopped the decay from spreading to the rest of the forest's mana network, but she couldn't cure it entirely without excising the wound, which was just as likely to kill it. The surviving druid elders have locked down the gorge. They are studying the seal day and night, trying to come up with a permanent purge." That was about what he expected.

Uther's work had stymied them for months, and even with the power he'd wielded, he couldn't forget that the man's specialty was alchemy, not combat. Whatever he'd crafted to infect the Heartwood would not be easy to get rid of.

"And the war?"

"A sweeping tactical success, shadowed by a strategic nightmare," Pauline summarized dryly.

"While Uther kept us occupied, our main army pushed north. We shattered three of the Iron State's bases and reclaimed a vast swath of the Ironwood. It can be said that we have them on the run in the conventional theater."

"But?" Orion pressed, hearing the unspoken caveat in her tone.

"But the Alliance's leaders have halted the advance," Pauline said.

"We control the territory, but pushing deeper into their backlines would be suicidal. The knowledge that the Iron State has a Tier Five Alchemist operating in the field cannot be taken lightly. If we overextend, Uther could wipe out our entire army with a single alchemical trap, and we wouldn't even see it coming." It made sense. A single Tier Five entity stepping into the field warped the entire course of the war.

You couldn't use standard troop movements when the enemy commander could rewrite reality to poison the air your soldiers breathed. Of course, the same was true for the enemy. Seraphina's presence meant they could do little but lick their wounds, lest the High Priestess erase them from existence. There's a good reason every one of those monsters has kept away from direct fighting until now. But it is they who broke the unspoken rule, and so here we are.

"So we are essentially stalled," Orion concluded.

"We are reassessing the state of the war before making further moves," Pauline corrected. She stood from the stool, vanishing her shadow ball into the darkness of her cloak.

"Which brings me to why I was waiting for you to wake up. There is a High Council meeting convening in a few hours."

"Here?" Orion asked in surprise.

"Through divination mirrors in the command tent," Pauline explained.

"The faction leaders, not just their representatives, are gathering to discuss the threat, and the High Priestess has asked for your presence. You are the only one who spoke with him for more than a few words, and, given how satisfied he seemed with your understanding of his incoherent babble, you are likely the only one who can shed some light on his powers." Sighing, Orion nodded.

"Alright. Yeah, I guess I can see why they'd want to hear from me." As far as he knew, the faction leaders hadn't met for decades, possibly since the founding of Cyril, though he suspected there had been multiple encounters during the lead-up to admitting the Crimson Wheel to the High Council. That they were meeting now meant the situation had grown too dire to be left to their people in Valderun, which was not good. Worse, he'd have to face them all.

I can only hope that being Antares' son will keep them from prodding too much, because I doubt I'll be able to lie. Seraphina will be next to me the whole time, and I know she'd be able to tell. Before he could spiral into despair, the door opened, and his mother marched in. From the blank expression on her face, Orion could, using all his considerable mental faculties, deduce that she was displeased with him.