Chương 48: Face to Face with the Divine Entity

The deepest chamber of the Sun Temple was an underground cavern as vast as the capital's central plaza. There wasn't a single torch anywhere, yet the entire space blazed with light from an enormous golden orb, more than thirty meters across, hovering in midair like a miniature sun.

Around the orb, thousands of magical chains forged from dark bronze alloy, each as thick as an ancient tree trunk, spread out like a spider's web, continuously channeling blinding streams of light down into the cracks in the bedrock below. The divine pressure radiating off the orb was thick and crushing, bearing down on every chest, threatening to grind the minds of every mortal creature that entered the hall. Sylvia and Eleanor immediately had to channel mana just to keep their footing.

Astra stood behind them, her ash-grey eyes fixed on the black chains, trembling violently. Ting! A System v2. 0 notification appeared in front of Lucian. [SCAN TARGET: DIVINE WILL OF SOLARIS] Estimated Rank: SS — World-Class Internal structure: unreadable from surface scan Energy output: exceeds current measurement range BOOM! The orb of light suddenly flared with blinding radiance.

A spiritual shockwave, carrying a thunderous voice that echoed from some infinite realm, slammed down into the hall, shaking loose dust from the cavern ceiling.

"FOOLISH MORTALS! SACRIFICE IS SACRED! WHO DARES BREAK THE ETERNAL COVENANT OF THE GODS?!" Lucian took three steps forward. His Dreamweaver skill blunted the divine spiritual pressure until it felt like little more than a passing breeze. He reached into his spatial ring, pulled out a small folding wooden table, and set it down on the stone floor with a sharp clack, directly in front of the orb of light.

Then he drew the dragonhide tube holding the thirty-page contract appendix, slammed the document down onto the table, and spoke, his voice booming through an arcane microphone.

"Cut the theatrics. Your covenant's copyright protection and legal validity expired three thousand years ago." The thunderous voice in the hall cut off instantly. The orb of light flickered twice, like a machine that had just hit an error condition never accounted for in its programming. Lucian pulled up a wooden chair, sat down, and flipped open the gilded parchment page by page, looking straight up into the blazing radiance.

"I'm the legal representative and auditor for the heir, Astra. Your ten-thousand-year-old contract is riddled with invalid clauses — blatant violations of basic freedom and illegal energy exploitation. Turn to page seventeen, read the Damages Clause carefully, and sign this amended appendix. Now." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The orb of light went completely still. No thunder. No curses.

That great mass of energy wasn't, in fact, an all-powerful god capable of hatred. Through the lens of his Syntax Weakness Detection skill, Lucian could see its true nature clearly: an automated defense-management system left behind by a pre-war civilization, one that had gone without maintenance for ten thousand years and had degraded into endlessly repeating the crudest, cruelest energy-extraction routines it had left. Layered Focus: Activate. Spell Control: 95, 200, 000, 000 points.

Lucian didn't wait for a response. He stood and raised his right hand into the air. Ninety-five billion points of Spell Control detonated at a microscopic scale. Millions of characters of Old Elvish, Sacred Tongue, and Ancient Demonic syntax, fine as motes of silver dust, poured from Lucian's fingertip, flowing together into a river of light that threaded straight through the outer radiance and plunged directly into the core matrix of the glowing orb.

His fingers danced through the air like a programmer live-patching the source code of the world's own operating system. He severed the brutal, forced extraction valves buried in Astra's soul. He restructured the clogged mana pathways that had sat untouched for ten thousand years. Buried beneath the Astra-only extraction routine, he found an older network of dormant external intake ports. He reopened them.

The ancient core had originally been built to accept distributed energy from across the continent; generations of later modifications had simply abandoned the network in favor of draining one bloodline. Lucian restored the old architecture and rewrote the conversion layer, cutting the barrier's waste to a fraction of what it had been. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Two of the remaining extraction chains — the Fourth and Third Seals — fractured and burst into glowing dust.

The final two layers remained, but Lucian rewrote their function. Instead of extraction locks, they became governors: safety valves that limited how quickly Astra's full output could enter her body. HUMMM... The colossal orb of light slowly shrank, its color shifting from blinding gold to a warm, gentle amber, soft as early-autumn sunlight. A mechanical voice, calm and clear, echoed through the entire hall. [STRUCTURAL UPDATE SUCCESSFUL.] [The Ancient Barrier system has been fully optimized.] [Energy consumption: Reduced by 90%. Barrier durability: Increased by 300%.] [TOTAL ENERGY INTAKE HAS REACHED A STATE OF PERMANENT EQUILIBRIUM.] [External patch authority accepted.] Behind Lucian, the priests stood speechless. One dropped his staff. Eleanor simply stared at the now-stable core, then back at Lucian. Ting! A System notification appeared. [RESTRUCTURING OF THE DIVINE COVENANT OF SOLARIS COMPLETE!] [5 SEAL LAYERS SUCCESSFULLY RELEASED.] [SKILL EVOLUTION] [Syntax Weakness Detection Lv. 9] → [COVENANT PARSER Lv. 1] Effect: Allows direct analysis and limited editing of encoded magical syntax that the Host can physically access and fully comprehend. Restriction: Cannot override unknown structures, higher-authority commands, or systems without a valid entry point. The orb of light drifted closer to the wooden table, condensing into a stamp of solid gold that pressed itself down onto the final page of the thirty-page contract with a firm thunk. Glowing magical text appeared across the parchment.

[AGREEMENT APPROVED AND SUCCESSFULLY SIGNED.] Lucian blew gently on the wet ink to dry it, folded the contract, and slid it into the dragonhide tube. He turned to Astra, still standing dazed in the warm glow.

"Done. From now on, you just work eight-hour days. Weekends off — go get some ice cream."