He spoke with complete sincerity. Kwenfield's complexion looked somewhat better, though he was far from fully restored, and he had never once considered the many suggestions the other had made since they began cooperating. Two people equally unhinged would never allow the other to freely interfere.
"That's enough," he said flatly. "Next, I need you to recalibrate the ice demon spirit and make sure the vessel succeeds, especially after the true Ice Spirit returns."
"Ho," Salva replied, narrowing his eyes and rubbing his hands, light flashing within them. "You know that at this stage, pushing forward will take a lot of work." He was willing to pay something for art, but working for nothing was out of the question.
Kwenfield remained expressionless. "I will gather the remaining believers in the the Northlands. No matter the number, you may use them as you wish. With the plan changed, this is all they are worth to the Lord."
"Then what made you abandon the stage where I could best display my art?" Salva asked. "And made you give up your altar for the descent of the Lord?"
Their original plan could have affected nearly the entire Icefang Territory and even more. For one, it offered a stage vast enough to display unparalleled life art. For the other, it allowed the flames symbolizing the Lord's glory to spread as far as possible and let Him truly manifest.
Mentioning this only made Kwenfield's face grow darker. "It is merely a small warning from the Lord. Just a minor detour on the road of fate, a result that was inevitable."
Salva answered only with a look that clearly said to stop speaking nonsense. After a pause, Kwenfield continued, "As you know, with Dotleivy gaining the help of the Ice Spirit, we can no longer act without concern. Some arrangements are no longer usable, and the impact is far worse than we imagined."
The one acting was not only Vann. Other forces and beings sensed something amiss and moved to cut off the abyss's reach. A city-scale Beast Tide was bound to draw attention.
Places with multiple Gold Rank experts were hard to swallow, and no one knew what Vann paid or promised, but he actually persuaded those stubborn figures. It even faintly attracted the attention of that detestable, hypocritical Holy Light. Kwenfield might be mad, but he was not stupid, and he knew he could not fight the entire world alone.
Before the plan truly unfolded, they were meant to lie low. Their ritual was supposed to be completed in a very short time, with endless monsters drowning all life and souls in their path. Their resources would snowball until nothing could stop them, and by the time anyone noticed the truth, it would already be too late.
"I know all that," Salva said. "So what comes next?"
"Next is what we both know," Kwenfield replied. "The true Ice Spirit's return, and that dragon." At this point his expression became especially complicated.
The core of such rituals was delicate and easily disrupted, so he had prepared many backups. The return of the true Ice Spirit was a heavy blow, but not enough to collapse everything. In his revised plan, that being was even included on the altar, and mortals who noticed him were still within acceptable limits.
What he never expected was that the failure would not come from the delicate parts. It came from the most basic and least noticeable part, the vast monster horde. He had planned to use their lives and souls to clear the path, remove obstacles, and serve as the first course on the sacrificial table.
Monsters possessed great strength but weak minds. A small blessing was enough to stir their already unstable souls. With such an enormous base, any losses along the way would only be a small fraction and never a problem.
That belief lasted until a certain dragon appeared. He never imagined that any being could slaughter hundreds of thousands, even millions, of monsters alone. Even if their overall level was low, the sheer number itself was crushing.
With creations modified by Salva, some with strength comparable to silver and even gold, acting as the spearhead, it should have been flawless. Yet this spear was aimed at a true dragon. It broke, as expected.
The foundation collapsed. The remaining monsters were far from enough to overrun the cities of the the Northlands, and the original super-scale sacrificial ritual died before it could begin. Worse still, the dragon hunted day and night, destroying ritual nodes and slaughtering monsters without rest.
It felt like a bank robber who had studied every lesson, planned every step, and prepared countless contingencies. Everything went smoothly up to the vault door. Then the ceiling burst open, and a man in a blue suit with a red cape descended, eyes shining as he told you to surrender.
Kwenfield realized that if the ornate top of a tower is damaged, it can still be repaired. It is troublesome and time-consuming, but possible. If the collapse starts from the unnoticed but essential foundation, then there is truly no way to save it.
"Dragons, dragons… dragons again. How interesting."
Just a single Ancient White Dragon, a dying old dragon, and it could do this much. It was truly interesting. Salva recalled the small test pieces he had sent out earlier.
Their craftsmanship had minor flaws, but with enough materials stacked by many well-meaning contributors, some of them could even reach Gold Rank. His original intent was not combat anyway, as battle was only one way for him to display his art. They served as ritual nodes within the Beast Tide, constantly applying mental conditioning to monsters, while also acting as the the Lord force to crack tough targets during assaults.
So what was their fate in the end? Salva thought about it as his soul will sank deeper into the darkness, and as he pondered, glowing eyes of various sizes split open across the walls in the dark with Rend. Because these were recent works, he could easily find their places among the dense souls, shattered memories, and remaining stock.
He then slipped into them from a first-person view. Most endings were similar, usually after a sweeping Blizzard that left the body shaking with cold. Depending on distance, they would be frozen into ice statues by a falling torrent of icy breath, then smashed apart as their brittle flesh gave way under the impact.
Or they would be crushed outright by a massive, fast-moving figure, using claws, fangs, tail, or even wings, applying overwhelming force to grind the tiny insect flat. Before dying, they could see wind blade vortices falling from the sky, forests of ice spikes bursting from the ground, and huge, never-before-seen Magic Circle lighting up as they efficiently swept away monsters that still clung to life. It was always like this.
Recently, one piece survived a little longer because it had stronger regenerative Rend, and it even attacked another city. That desperate struggle only bought a bit of time before it was swiftly killed by the pursuing dragon. What surprised Salva was that most of these memory fragments were incomplete, like chopped-up edits.
To better learn from past flaws, he had injected many of his works with recording Magic, and he could also read memories from what could still be called their brains. The latter was difficult since most had no intact bodies, and the clearest memory came from the lower half of one specimen. The former, however, was different, because there was almost nothing.
Yes, nothing at all. He did not receive even a trace of memory-bearing Magic. What did that prove?
"Either it noticed my methods and erased or intercepted my Magic, or there is another possibility."
It swallowed everything. Every bit of Magic he left on his works was completely consumed. This was not targeted malice, but equal treatment.
The other slaughtered monsters were likely the same, stripped down to bone and marrow by a dragon more greedy than the rumors claimed, blood and flesh alike devoured, not a drop of Magic spared as all of it vanished into that abyssal maw. It was perfect. Salva's eyes flared with a long-lost frenzy, reflecting the massive form of that dragon.
"A mutated White Dragon? Able to eat this much and swallow others' Magic without condition? I see now, that kind of spell output makes sense." "Excellent material. Many ideas I have piled up should be realizable on you."
Although Magic was close to a universal energy, each individual's carried unique markings. Its weight, aura, and properties, every subtle difference was a distinct sign. These signs could be forged or hidden, but just like no two leaves were exactly the same, disguising the surface could never truly change the essence.
Magic contained personal mental will, so even a Gold Rank archmage would be severely disturbed if too much Magic carrying others' strong wills mixed into their body. Techniques to absorb others' Magic did exist. But that dragon did not just consume the Magic he planted, it swallowed millions of Magic from different kinds of monsters.
So many energies of different quality and size gathered in one body, countless wills washing through it, going mad would be the best possible outcome. On top of that, his unique blessed Magic was mixed in, making it even worse. "That makes everything clear."