Chapter 775: Locke’s Astonishing Discovery

As that full moon rose within the Stygian River, Locke drew upon a Second Circle wizard's sensitivity to planar force and perceived the true nature of the Stygian River's waters.

"It is memory, emotion, and consciousness. What rolls through the waters of the Stygian River is nothing but human consciousness."

Although he had read a fair number of popular science journals and so was not entirely ignorant of soul studies, possessing at least a grasp of the basic concepts and some simple apprentice-level magic, ghost studies was a unusual branch within soul studies.

It fell entirely within the domain that only black wizards researched. Within white wizard society there was virtually no relevant material on the subject whatsoever, and so it was only at this moment that Locke came to realize something.

'The Stygian River is different from the soul rivers of the afterworld. What flows here is not souls at all.'

Even the abyss worms and demon fish within the Abyss River were reincarnations of soul bodies, but the Stygian River was something else entirely.

Locke wished at this moment to verify his conjecture about the Stygian River, and so he needed to raise his Moon of Evolution higher and observe this river from above.

But at this moment, countless resentful spirits within the Stygian River reached out their hands toward Locke, as though trying to drag that moon down to the river's bed.

An immense pressure bore down upon Locke's soul.

'Now I understand. When I was at the First Circle, no matter what I did I could not escape the water ghosts.'

'Swimming out of the Stygian River was possible because the countless consciousness bodies within this river were suppressing the me of that time. How could a single consciousness ever escape the weight of so many other consciousness bodies flowing as one river?'

Locke recited an incantation. The Moon of Evolution rotated slightly, and in the next moment the entire moon turned black, for he had struck his archaeology spell model against his Moon of Evolution through the Legendary History.

In an instant, the History Reenactment spell model appeared.

"From within three hundred days of the past, I borrow one hour."

The deep crimson river of faith belonging to the Crimson Deep Court appeared.

That river swept in like a flood overrunning a canal and poured into the Stygian River, and the crimson water and black water came into violent conflict.

The Moon of Evolution rose slowly amid the fierce collision of red and black currents, freeing itself from the suppression of the local Stygian River.

After all, Locke's main body and physical form had not truly entered the Stygian River. He was only connected to a portion of the Stygian River's area through a thread of soul, and the contact between the two sides was still shallow.

And at this moment, using his archaeology magic, he had summoned the Crimson Deep Court battlefield that had once been illuminated by the Moon of Evolution. In truth, this was nothing more than a piece of magic that the black wizard cultist had once used against him.

At this moment he was simply using the Legendary History to call that magic forth from the past.

He could not actually control it. But that magic had altered the environment to such a drastic degree that the moment it appeared, it threw the Stygian River into complete turmoil.

In the present world, the moment Witch Stephanie realized that Locke was not a wizard in the soul decline period, not a First Circle wizard, but a Second Circle wizard, her expression changed drastically.

A Second Circle wizard possessed an absolutely crushing dominance over First Circle wizards.

Even if she were to pool every last foundation of her entire wizard academy, it was far from certain she could so much as injure Locke.

Whether the ancient magic inherited from the Pale Pilgrimage could truly exert any effect on a Second Circle wizard was something she could not be certain of.

In truth, the Ghost Sacred Order's magic still had one final move, which was to burn the collective souls of all the Ghost Sacred Order's formal wizards, ignite all the ghost fireflies, and launch a suicidal strike at the enemy in an attempt to perish together with them.

But at this moment, Witch Stephanie could not muster the courage to deploy this magic.

First, the conditions required to activate this magic were extremely demanding, relying heavily on the various wizard ruins at the Ghost Sacred Order's main headquarters.

Second, the conjecture itself had already caused her heart and spirit to tremble so violently that she could no longer hold herself together.

At this moment her only desire was to flee.

Yet the moment she looked up, she saw Hussein's Eleven-Pull Death Blood Curse sealing the area, and she saw her own ritual magic, and she understood that she had absolutely no way to leave.

Any large action on her part would cause the ritual magic to fail, and the moment Locke's consciousness broke free of the Stygian River, she would still die.

High Priestess Stephanie understood clearly in her own heart that four years ago she had very nearly killed Locke.

If Locke were now only a crystallization wizard, that might be one thing.

But Locke was a Second Circle wizard.

That made this offense an extremely grave one.

She had absolutely no hope of escaping a Second Circle wizard's wrath.

If she had known it would come to this, she would never have dared to offend Locke in the slightest back then.

At that moment, the Blood Curse Court's Wizard Stanley and the Ghost Sacred Order's Witch Virtani both heard the high priestess Stephanie's cry of alarm.

The first thought that flashed through their minds was: impossible.

The second thought was: we are finished.

Both of them had wronged Locke, and so at this moment their hearts went cold as ash, knowing that catastrophe was upon them.

Who could have imagined that a young wizard they had wronged four years ago, who had only just become a formal wizard, would in a mere four years become a Second Circle wizard.

Standing so far above them as to be untouchable.

Every trace of hatred Wizard Stanley had harbored toward Locke vanished without a trace, replaced entirely by dread and fear.

Witch Virtani even thought of simply fleeing outright, but looking at the wizards who had fallen under Hussein's Eleven-Pull Death Blood Curse, she discovered that she had nowhere to run.

Within the Stygian River, as the Crimson Deep Court and the Stygian River commingled their waters, the two different currents generated severe conflict. Vortexes appeared one after another, even affecting the Stygian River in portions of the Stygian Plane.

In the Stygian Plane, a short section of the Stygian River's water began to surge and overflow, vortexes crowding together as water splashed in all directions.

At the same time, the moon that Locke's consciousness had transformed into within the Stygian River finally broke free, rising up above the river's surface as the bright moon shone upon the great current below.

Only then could Locke look down upon the Stygian River from above.

Standing high, one sees far.

It was only now that Locke confirmed his view of the Stygian River.

"The water of the entire Stygian River does not carry true souls. It carries consciousness."

"The Stygian River is like a soul shell, and the Stygian River's water is the water of consciousness."

"In a certain sense, the Stygian River can be compared to the soul of a living organism. The consciousness flowing within a person's soul shell is also consciousness water."

"And so the Stygian River can summon all manner of consciousness into itself. Looking at it this way, the principle is actually not so complex."

Since the Stygian River was a shell, the other party needed only to use ghost studies magic to establish some form of connection between themselves and the Stygian River's soul, and then construct a magic that blurred the boundary between the two, in order to draw one's consciousness into the Stygian River's course.

What was called ghost studies magic should be the product of a deep combination of soul studies magic and the Stygian Plane.

Through the Stygian River one could efficiently harness the soul energy of the Ghost Sacred Order's apprentices and wizards, which was what made the construction of those crudely made yet effective ghost magical artifacts possible.

The Stygian River was the core of ghost studies.

Locke understood this.

At the same time, he also understood something else. The Stygian River was a river of consciousness capable of drawing in vast numbers of consciousness bodies, which should include the consciousness of plants.

"Though exactly how to make use of this mechanism, I have not yet formed any ideas."

Locke looked down upon the Stygian River. He could disengage from this ritual magic at any moment, but simply chose not to yet. At this moment he noticed a grey-black iron pillar protruding from the surface of the Stygian River, wreathed with numerous ghost fireflies, standing like a pillar anchoring the Stygian River in place.

The Stygian River surged and churned without cease, and that pillar bobbed up and down.

"The core of the Ghost Sacred Order's ghost studies spell, in its entirety, is contained within that pillar," Locke said, forming his judgment after careful observation.

"It appears that some wizard placed that pillar into the Stygian River. If the essence of ghost studies is deeply tied to the Stygian River, then the entire ghost studies system carries a trace of ritual magic throughout it."

"Low-level ghost studies wizards would simply not be qualified to use ghost studies at all without assistance. And so that pillar was placed there to lower the difficulty of use."

"That pillar is the foundation of ghost studies." Locke gathered moonlight, intending to pull the pillar free.

Eight ancient magical characters immediately appeared upon the pillar's surface.

Their approximate meaning was:

Resentment Erosion, Fear Feeding, Delirium Staining, Numbness Binding.

All eight magical characters were written in an obscure ancient script. Locke recognized them directly as a niche form of magical script from the Age of Stars, something he had only learned a little of in passing while consulting materials for his earlier articles about that era.

The magical rune formed by these four phrases flared with a burst of magical radiance, scattering Locke's moonlight and pushing the Moon of Evolution far away.

Seeing this, Locke immediately understood that he could not shake the foundation of the Ghost Sacred Order.

"A small place's wizard academy turns out to have its own secrets after all."

"What was I thinking? Looking at things now, the wizard world is fundamentally one interconnected whole. Many places have all sorts of ties to other higher-ranking wizard territories."

Locke estimated the magic pressure emanating from that pillar.

"At least a moon ring wizard... The magic pressure is lower than the few sun ring wizards I have seen, roughly comparable to Wizard Chad."

"It is this pillar that provides the public ghost studies service for the entire southeastern quadrant's Ghost Sacred Order."

"This approach is remarkably similar in concept to the shared virtual root I envisioned for my Second Circle wizard shoe."

"But..."

Locke thought it over for a moment.

"In the end, I should still capture a few Ghost Sacred Order wizards and bring them back to slowly explore this secret."

Though this would likely draw in the Pale Pilgrimage from the five great wars, inviting the ire of the Pale Grand Sovereign.

But they were only a group of black wizards. There was nothing to fear about offending them.

And in black wizard circles, a fearsome reputation had to be earned through killing. Having a high standing meant little.

Locke made a circuit around the area and, finding nothing else of use, was about to leave. The Stygian River was a fairly dangerous place, and he did not want to overextend himself here.

But in the next instant, something changed suddenly.

He saw his black moon expelling streams of the Crimson Deep Court's river, but then in a single instant the Crimson Deep Court broke free of his control.

Something within the Crimson Deep Court seemed to have come through.

Locke furrowed his brow.

"What is happening."

The thing from the Crimson Deep Court seemed different from other magic, not so easily borrowed.

What should have been the Crimson Deep Court reproduced through the negative energy particle field from a past moment in time had suddenly broken free of his spell model's control, and something was coming through along the Crimson Deep Court's river.

A voice appeared at Locke's side.

'Thief of divine realm power, die!'

The fallen angel had actually crawled through along a phantom projection of the Crimson Deep Court, and it appeared extraordinarily furious, its pupils filled with savage violence.

As it crawled forward it continuously slapped the river's surface with its hands, producing sounds that inspired deep dread.

The scale of its magic pressure was beyond imagining.

It was not an ordinary Second Circle level, for the magic pressure was too savage and violent, making it impossible for Locke to accurately gauge its range.

And that fallen angel had barely crawled out, just poking its head through and about to direct its furious gaze at Locke, when in the next moment it was swept by the Stygian River's current.

The Stygian River seemed to be trying to absorb the fallen angel's consciousness into the Stygian River's course.

This was the Stygian River's instinctive response.

Because the Stygian River was a river of consciousness, it would instinctively absorb any existence that possessed a consciousness sea into its flow, and so it swept directly against that savage angel.

The savage angel erupted in fury.

"The Supreme True God says: truth is violence, truth is bloodshed! Therefore, only by wielding violence can one touch the truth."

In the next instant, it struck the Stygian River with tremendous force.

As an embodiment of one of the Crimson Deep Court's four cardinal values, the savagery of the Crimson Deep Court, its tributary river of savagery poured directly backward into the Stygian River's main channel.

Two kinds of river water now ran through the Stygian River's course.

In the Stygian Plane, this section of the main channel was flooded by the river of savagery and the water level rose sharply, bringing a risk of the banks bursting. The Stygian River's water spread beyond its levees.

The creatures of the Stygian World near the Stygian River, upon seeing the banks about to burst, scattered in all directions in a panic.

"Something terrible has happened, the Stygian River's banks are breaking for some unknown reason."

"The banks of the Stygian River are breaking, life and death are being confused, what on earth has happened?"

"Raise the Stygian River's levees quickly!"

"But if we raise the levees, the flooding water will rush toward the downstream. Several of the worlds connected to the Stygian River downstream will all suffer terrible devastation as a result."

"At a moment like this, who can afford to think of all that?"

"If the people downstream also raise their levees, will the water flow back toward us? Then it will be us who are flooded!"

"If this section of the Stygian River cannot be stabilized, when those above us blame us for this, I do not think any of us have enough heads to bear the responsibility."

The creatures of the Stygian World argued furiously among themselves.

At the same time, above the Stygian River, Locke had not anticipated that his magic would trigger a chain reaction, causing the Crimson Deep Court to flood into the Stygian River's course.

Locke watched the Stygian River's water surge and churn, causing the water level to vary from place to place.

One section higher, one section lower.

This caused the portion of the grey-black iron pillar below the waterline to be exposed before him for a single brief instant.

"That is not an iron pillar!"

Locke was suddenly struck with a realization. "That is a magical plant."

"What level of magical plant is it?"

For in the area where the surging waves had caused the water level to temporarily drop, a segment of what lay beneath the Stygian River's surface was revealed: an iron tree.

That so-called iron pillar was merely the topmost branch of that tree.

"There is an iron tree planted beneath the Stygian River!" Locke reflected. "Then my earlier estimate of its magic pressure was completely wrong.”