Chapter 330

When the Ancestor says that, a lot of people are just looking confused. However, the members of the royal family all have different stunned reactions. Duke Dorian has gone pale. Kai looks at Jacob first, before anyone else does.

“Everybody,” the queen says, “please remain here. The members of the royal family will now go and check.”

Jacob sees a sudden red halo under his feet, and before he can ask what’s happening, he’s teleported to a different place.

He’s in the middle of a forest, and there’s a large circle made of stone on the ground. The night air is cold after the ballroom. Tall, dark trees ring the clearing, and the only light comes from the center of the stone circle, where a translucent red portal stands, staining the stones red.

Jacob sees that all the other members of the royal family are there with him: his mother, his brothers and sister, Duke Dorian, Duke Arthur, Bastian, and Marcel. And then there is the queen, right beside the Ancestor.

“Emrys. What is happening?”

The queen has dropped the formalities. Her court smile is gone.

The old man walks toward the translucent red portal and puts his hands through it.

“This power,” he mutters. “This is madness.”

“As in, this is crazy?”

Everybody turns — other than Jacob, who just facepalms. They don’t recognize the unfamiliar voice. They see Lancelot, Jacob’s Squire, who has somehow been able to come here as well. The Sacred Grounds are not exactly super close to the summer palace. He’s still holding a pastry.

“No,” the Ancestor says, turning not toward Lancelot, but toward Jacob. “As in, this is the Mana signature of the God of Madness.”

Jacob feels his blood going cold.

Just the day before, the Headmaster told him that in one week — meaning now six days — King Baalrek’s sword would be unmade. Jacob had been racking his brain about how to save it. Trying and trying with his Primordial Grimoire to see if he could glean more information about the sword. He hadn’t really checked the sword in a while with the Grimoire, and it actually said the same thing that the Headmaster had said. With a little timer, too. It now reads five days, 18 hours, 22 minutes, 14 seconds.

“The God of Madness?”

Now, Queen Anthea turns toward Jacob as well.

Well, it seems like they both know. Or rather, they both immediately connected the God of Madness to me because of King Baalrek, Jacob thinks to himself.

However, he doesn’t say anything about the sword. He just says, “The Headmaster had warned me that there was a possible incarnation on the loose. In fact, I wanted to have a chat with you, Grandmother, about it. It appears I was too late.”

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The Ancestor looks troubled and strokes his long, messy beard before saying, “I abandoned my post. I left for a moment, believing that with Jacob Cloud far from the grounds, nobody would be able to threaten entrance.”

“How did they do it, Emrys?” Queen Anthea asks.

Princess Priscilla walks beside Jacob and explains, keeping her voice low, “Only the latest generation of the Valemont blood can enter these grounds. It’s an ironclad rule. Not even the Ancestor could enter them himself, even if he tried.”

“If the God of Madness infected Jacob Cloud’s Karma,” the Ancestor says, “then by gathering some of the kid’s blood, he could have triggered the opening. And it appears he has also triggered the trial, and therefore nobody can enter. I cannot even scry inside. There’s an aura of madness that has completely enveloped the Sacred Grounds. I am blind.”

Jacob immediately turns and walks toward the gate, but the Ancestor says, “Cloud, stay back.”

“Why?” Jacob asks. “I wanted to check something.”

“Stay back,” the Ancestor says. “You being anywhere close to this is a catastrophe.”

Jacob looks at the Ancestor and feels slightly insulted by this.

“Why?” he asks.

At that point, the Ancestor looks toward Princess Priscilla, who sighs and says, “The Sacred Grounds should react with your blood and offer you a great inheritance of sorts, since you carry both the blood of Rafnov and that of his greatest disciple.”

Jacob frowns and looks at the Ancestor, who still looks troubled. There is something that old man is not saying.

Suddenly, Jacob notices that even Vice Principal Lyanna has appeared here. She’s still in her plain Academy robe, hands in her sleeves, as relaxed as if she were back on the beach.

“An intruder?” the Ancestor says, narrowing his eyes at Lyanna.

“Just a friend,” Vice Principal Lyanna smiles warmly. “Just came here to make sure that my little students are not involved in anything, um, dangerous.”

Jacob then suddenly walks with a fast step toward Lyanna and says, “Yeah, I might need that.”

Suddenly, the Ancestor roars, “How dare you target me with a Skill?”

Lyanna, without taking her eyes off the furious man, whose aura is now rampaging, says, “Didn’t I tell you not to be rude with that?”

“That old man is lying,” Jacob says with a frown. Then he turns toward the portal.

It appears that the Ancestor is about to pounce on Jacob when Lyanna releases her own aura, and suddenly all the vegetation around them turns to ash. The ash drifts between them. Nobody in the royal family dares move.

“Let’s keep our manners, all right? He’s a kid,” she says.

“That insolent kid,” the Ancestor mutters.

So, there is a weapon inside, isn’t there? Rafnov’s Weapons Trial. That’s what the portal is called in the Grimoire, and the page of that man says the same, Jacob thinks, reading quickly through the pages of his Grimoire. Then he repeats a part out loud.

“So, there’s a weapon inside. What kind of weapon is this?”

The Ancestor growls, “The weapon is what I am sworn to protect. You are the key. Only someone blessed with both Rafnov’s blood and Luriev’s has the right to activate the ultimate trial inside of here. If you were to be trapped in there with the Mad God, he would use you to gain access to a relic capable of killing any god, but also of wiping entire civilizations away.”

Hearing that, a realization suddenly flashes through Jacob’s mind.

Is this the weapon that King Baalrek was after? The relic that the Mad God told him the location of — and, by doing that, ensnared him in his madness?

His thoughts, however, are interrupted by the queen.

“I am sorry, Jacob. You just revealed a great secret of our family, though, to two outsiders.”

Jacob turns toward Lancelot and Vice Principal Lyanna and frowns. Then he finishes reading the page of the Grimoire about the gate.

[Gate of Rafnov - Currently closed.]

[Flaw: It can be reopened with Rafnov’s Ruby.]