Chapter 667

Who exactly was the Ancient One?

She had built her power on the dark magic of the Void, yet understood a truth most people never grasped: admiration was perhaps the farthest thing from genuine understanding.

She had hidden that darkness from the world.

More impressively, she had hidden it from the people who had lived and worked beside her for years, allowing nearly everyone to believe she was an embodiment of pure goodness.

Perhaps that was what they meant by the old saying about the greatest traitors appearing more loyal than anyone else.

And there was more to her history than that.

Long ago, when she had still been young, she had been King Arthur, the legendary ruler who founded the idealized kingdom of Camelot.

The darker half of that identity had taken form as Morgan le Fay, one of the most infamous figures of Western legend.

So when Evenson had first met her, he had chosen his words carefully. He had lowered his guard, spoken humbly, and done his best to explain everything he knew.

But someone like the Ancient One would never accept another person’s story at face value.

On the surface, she had treated Evenson peacefully. She had listened to his opinions, discussed important matters with him, and even consulted him about something as significant as taking on a disciple.

Behind the scenes, however, she had never stopped trying to verify his claims.

Unfortunately, her sources of information were limited.

There were only so many ways she could investigate what Evenson had told her.

The matter of the coming darkness was relatively easy.

She did not need to ask anyone.

She only needed to watch.

Time would reveal whether Evenson had been telling the truth.

And so far, reality had been disturbingly cooperative.

Less than half a year after the Battle of New York, the Child of Magic, a being that appeared only once in a thousand years, was already approaching maturity.

Mephisto’s chief clerk, Lock, had nearly completed his incarnation. Had he succeeded, he would have been able to walk the mortal world in his full power.

And if not for the intelligence Evenson had passed to Clea, Kamar-Taj would have had absolutely no idea it was coming.

One incident alone might not have been enough to convince the Ancient One.

But then there was the second event.

The Convergence of the Stars.

Another phenomenon that occurred only once in a millennium was approaching.

And according to the Ancient One’s research, the power generated by the Convergence would not affect only R’lyeh.

The place where the gods sat upon their thrones seemed to be suffering from the disturbance as well.

At this point, the Ancient One had largely accepted Evenson’s warnings about the coming darkness.

But she still had reservations about everything else he had told her.

And those claims were much harder for her to verify personally.

Which was why she had turned to one of her oldest and most knowledgeable contacts.

Zahard.

Most of what Zahard had just reported was true.

Which meant some of it wasn’t.

The Ancient One had no intention of taking comfort in the fact that Evenson was mostly correct. Nor would she naively assume that her correspondence student had simply been careless when studying the history passed down by his predecessors.

Her first suspicion was an old trick.

Three truths followed by one lie.

Tell someone three perfectly accurate things, then slip a falsehood into the one place where it matters most.

A remarkably effective way to manipulate the direction of an entire situation.

The Ancient One’s expression sharpened.

"What part of his story is false?"

Zahard spread his hands helplessly.

If he had possessed eyes, he probably would have been rolling them.

"I had to pull favors from half a dozen people and call in every debt I had just to get this information. Are you really planning to listen to everything for free?"

The Ancient One stared at him.

"Oh."

She actually rolled her eyes this time.

Then she gritted her teeth and slapped a hand against the table.

"Fine. I’ll forgive you for what happened with Guinevere."

"What’s wrong with that?!"

Zahard immediately sounded offended.

"Wasn’t a king supposed to have a queen? And you were presenting yourself as a man back then!"

The Ancient One’s eye twitched.

"If you had merely put a decorative wife at my side for appearances, I wouldn’t have complained for the sake of the greater good."

Her voice grew colder.

"But Guinevere was a magical construct created from my own thoughts! Every action she took was under my control, and everything she experienced was reflected back into me. Do you have any idea what it’s like to marry yourself?"

She paused.

"Actually, never mind. I don’t want to think about it."

I’m me, my sister is me, my wife is me, and apparently even my son counts as me.

Was he trying to turn my entire family tree into a one-woman musical act?

"You were the one who demanded it," Zahard muttered carefully. "You said you didn’t want to waste some innocent girl’s youth."

Then, after a moment, he added, "Besides, it wasn’t exactly a bad arrangement. You may have presented yourself as a man, but you were still a woman underneath. Guinevere gave you an outlet for all that youthful romantic nonsense."

"Forget that."

Zahard’s tone suddenly became teasing.

"You remember it fondly, don’t you? That wonderful spiritual romance of yours."

The Ancient One’s expression darkened.

"Otherwise, why would you have kept the equipment of the Lake Knight when everything belonging to the rest of your knights had already been buried?"

"You always pretended you didn’t care, but you never actually got rid of it."

The Ancient One’s face went black.

Even the Void runes appearing across her forehead seemed to fade beneath the sheer force of her irritation.

And somehow, without Zahard noticing when it had appeared, she was now holding a magnificent golden greatsword.

"This planet forged this star-born weapon to defend itself."

She raised the blade slightly.

"Do you still want to test its power?"

"On second thought, no."

Zahard immediately waved both hands.

He knew exactly what that sword could do.

It was a holy weapon forged by the planet itself, created to protect its existence. And the Ancient One had been chosen as its wielder.

When the two became one, the resulting power was practically the universe itself declaring, I’m on your side. Good luck losing now.

"Get to the point."

A violent gust exploded from the holy sword in her hand.

It seemed to share its wielder’s mood.

"What is the Burning Legion?"

Zahard finally stopped joking.

"A powerful force. One of the few powers in existence capable of contending with the Void."

"Contending with the Void?"

The Ancient One frowned.

"Then wouldn’t that make them a force for good?"

If they opposed the Void, weren’t they protecting reality?

Yet Evenson had described the Burning Legion as an utterly evil force.

Was this one of his lies?

"Good?"

Zahard nodded slowly.

"On an extremely broad scale, yes. The Burning Legion does have a positive effect."

Then his voice took on a strange, almost philosophical tone.

"But what does the justice pursued by giants have to do with ants?"

The Ancient One said nothing.

"Imagine two giants fighting. Their battle accidentally kills several anthills beneath their feet. Which giant is the righteous one?"

Zahard continued.

"Now suppose one giant intends to eat every ant and every nest. The other wants to stop him, so he pours boiling water into every anthill before the first giant can get there."

He paused.

"The Burning Legion is indeed fighting the Void. But their method is to turn every world into a charred wasteland before the Void can reach it."

"I see."

The Ancient One slowly nodded.

From the perspective of reality as a whole, a force dedicated to stopping the Void might indeed be considered a positive influence.

But from the perspective of ordinary mortals...

What the hell is the difference between dying to the Void and dying to the Burning Legion?

Dead is dead.

So an enemy’s enemy was not necessarily a friend.

Hell, beings at their level might not even qualify to use the words enemy and ally.

To creatures like those, ordinary humans were probably little more than bacteria that happened to reproduce inside the universe.

They weren’t targeted.

They weren’t protected.

They simply weren’t important enough to notice.

"Has their crusade begun again?" the Ancient One asked, concern creeping into her voice.

"No."

Zahard gave her another answer that contradicted what Evenson had previously said.

Before she could question him, he continued.

"The Burning Crusade never stopped. So there was never a second beginning."

He sighed.

"And as for identifying which world was destroyed before sending that message to the warlock here, that’s impossible to verify."

"If you knew how many worlds the Legion has destroyed, you’d understand what kind of workload you’re asking me to take on."

"The warlock said it happened recently."

The Ancient One gave him a sidelong look.

"I received your information immediately. Just check which worlds were destroyed during that period."

"You make it sound so easy."

Zahard’s voice rose in exasperation.

"How long is ’recently’? Yesterday? A year ago? Do you have any idea how quickly the Burning Legion operates?"

"By the time we’re finished talking, another dozen worlds might already have been reduced to ash."

"The Legion is so vast that mortals can’t even comprehend its scale. Their main force may currently be tied down in one world, but countless other detachments are constantly roaming the Twisting Nether."

"They find a world."

"They invade it."

"They burn it to the ground."

"Then they leave."

"Believe me, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of these operations happen simultaneously."

Zahard spread his hands.

"How am I supposed to investigate that?"

"Even if you gave me the exact hour, I would still have to account for the different rates at which time flows across different worlds and somehow synchronize them."

"And after all that, I still might not be able to find anything."

"Understood."

The Ancient One nodded.

If the Burning Legion operated on that scale, then there probably really was a destroyed world matching the warlock’s description.

She could live with not knowing which one.

"What about the identities of the two female demons?"

"Are their stories true?"

Zahard paused.

"The Eredar. Lady Sacrolash and Lady Alythess, right?"

He was recalling the names the Ancient One had asked him to investigate.

"Honestly, this information was even harder to obtain. I had to call in another favor from an old friend."

Then his tone shifted back toward complaint.

"Sometimes I envy that old bastard. He recently took on a new apprentice."

"A girl, too."

"Beautiful as anything, and apparently overflowing with talent. Her future is practically guaranteed."

Zahard suddenly noticed the Ancient One’s increasingly dark expression.

"Not that you’re lacking!"

He hurriedly corrected himself.

"It’s just that you’re human, while his apprentice is an elf born on a high-magic world. Sometimes the difference between races really is that absurd."

"Fine."

The Ancient One’s grip tightened around the sword.

"Enough about your friend’s apprentice. Tell me about the two demons."

"Right. The Eredar."

Zahard finally became serious.

"They really are one of the Burning Legion’s core forces. And the two demons were telling the truth about their origins."

"The Eredar were not originally demons."

"Their homeworld, Argus, really was one of the great jewels of magical civilization in the multiverse."

"And the Legion’s master, the immensely powerful fallen Titan, personally went there to tempt them into corruption."

The Ancient One listened without interrupting.

"As for those two, they’re known as the Eredar Twins. They were once the subordinates of Kil’jaeden the Deceiver, one of the Legion’s two great Eredar leaders."

"However, not long ago, they suddenly disappeared from the Legion’s battle formations."

"There are rumors that a group of warlocks captured them."

"But apparently, they didn’t resist particularly fiercely."

"Since then, they’ve even acted against the Legion several times. Kil’jaeden was reportedly furious."

Zahard paused, evidently doing some calculations in his head.

"And if I account for the difference in the flow of time here..."

He muttered under his breath.

"Then convert it against the time flow over there..."

His voice trailed off for several seconds.

Finally, he looked up.

"The timing matches."

"Their capture by the warlocks and the moment you discovered them are close enough to line up."

The Ancient One considered that.

Traitors were often more hated than enemies.

If the two women had truly betrayed the Burning Legion, they might have been driven into hiding by whatever orders Kil’jaeden had issued against them.

Perhaps they had sought political asylum from the warlock group that captured them.

And perhaps that was how they had ended up in this world, working alongside Evenson.

For the moment, at least, the pieces fit.

...