Chapter 980: Act 153 – The Song of the Mortal World III
“Vladimir, do you intend to interfere in the course of history on this land?” The voice from the void said. This voice was as firm as steel, powerful and resonant; although it was merely questioning, it felt as though it were a denial.
“Respectable Lord Otu, Summoner, Dragon Wizard, that depends on how we define ‘interference.’ To me, meddling in politics and conflicts is interference. We are merely gathering precious knowledge and documents. For thousands of years, we have collected knowledge and documents on this land, and that isn’t something out of the ordinary.” Vladimir recognized the owner of the voice—Lord Serandu, the strongest array wizard in Vaunte. His character was much like his profession—always preferring to prepare in advance and considering the worst-case scenarios. As a friend of several centuries, Vladimir was well aware of this. His opposition wasn’t genuine; he was merely waiting for a sufficiently persuasive reason.
Of course, without that reason, Serandu might well feel offended by undermining his authority. Vladimir had no such worries: “In fact, we all know that what we truly care about is the opinion of the Silver Association. The Silver Association is indeed powerful, but their views only represent a portion of the populace. History has told us multiple times that power does not necessarily equate to correctness. The shortcut to correctness is caution, humility, and having a proper objective. Undoubtedly, I believe we can achieve this; the Silver Association cannot speak nonsense to us.”
“I agree.” Another voice from the void spoke, deep and serious, as if always interpreting history. It was the voice of Lord Rosadel of Winged Lion City, who was terse with his words and fell silent after offering his brief agreement.
“I also agree.” The last voice was that of a woman, the only one among the three whose emotion was discernible. Her owner was evidently quite excited, her tone high and stirring, as if ready to set off to execute this plan. Among the twelve wizard leaders of the Silver Alliance, there were few women, and the one with such emotional fervor was the Storm Queen Orathis, the foremost Elementalist of Vaunte renowned as the Elven Queen of the Mortal World.
With Vladimir’s agreement, three out of the four had nodded in consent. Serandu, understanding the personalities of his old friends, fell silent, no longer speaking. To those familiar with him, this silence signified agreement.
…
In “Amber Sword,” during the Year of Stars, Midmonth of Blooming Flowers, the first day of Eternal Night fell upon Vaunte. About one-third of the war tablets discovered were remnants of the lost knowledge of Babel Fortress. These fragments, aside from a few that landed directly on the surface and were fortuitously collected, mostly pierced through the crust, sinking deeply into the underground, ruins, or mountains. Over the next thirty years, more war tablets were unearthed, chiefly by the artisan wizards of Bud, followed by a few mortal wizard organizations from Vaunte, and finally by various national powers and players from across the continent. Typically, however, the rule was that the deeper the burial, the later the discovery, the more precious the knowledge inherited from that tablet.
The value gradation of war tablets was akin to equipment, divided into categories such as Black Iron, Brass, Silver, Fantasy, Ancient, and Mythic. Above Mythic, there were no inferior or superior divine artifact tablets, only Legendary and Ancient tablets. Among war tablets, those below Fantasy mostly inherited single branches of knowledge and skills, whereas those above Fantasy would impart structured hidden professions, or even bloodline abilities. To Brendel’s knowledge, most of the tablets unearthed eighteen years ago were below the Fantasy tier. However, after eighteen years, the discovery of Ancient and even Mythic tablets commenced, and it was said that the wizards of Bud had unearthed the first Legendary tablet since his crossing.
Yet there were exceptions—those tablets that existed before that day in Vaunte. This subset originated from several meteor showers prior to Eternal Night—essentially tablets that descended prematurely. These tablets were extremely rare and fell in varied locations. Unlike the war tablets that descended during Eternal Night, the magical response and earthly anomalies caused by this subset could typically be observed only by those within a few miles of the descent site. If there happened to be a town nearby, that was manageable, but if it fell in the wilderness or the Black Forest, it would often go unnoticed that tablets had dropped in that area.
There were also some more precious tablets, said to have been lost directly to the Four Elemental Realms and the surface of the earth when Babel Fortress was destroyed. Most of these tablets contained the most valued knowledge, among which the most famous was the Valkyrie tablet inherited by Freya. The origin of this tablet was wrapped in legend among players from Erluin and Cruz. Some claimed it was an artifact taken by the former king Eke from the Hall of Kings in the Temple of Fire, while others insisted it had always existed in Erluin, having been lost during the War of Dusk—supporting this theory was that Echis’s resting place was indeed in Erluin, not far from the hiding spot of this tablet.
However, another theory posited that this tablet was not a war tablet due to its distinct appearance, which greatly differed from most war tablets. Since Freya’s acquisition of it was through a different means, most players could not obtain a glimpse of its true form. Following the sacrifice of the Valkyrie, the tablet was lost, leaving no one to know its whereabouts. In fact, Brendel himself was unclear whether this tablet was a war tablet—although he knew where it was buried. What he did know was that, regarding the knowledge this tablet inherited, it was at least of Mythic level compared to other tablets. He even suspected it could be of Legendary or even Ancient caliber.
—If only he had not seen those two types of tablets.
For the knowledge inherited from this tablet was significantly stronger than that of other Mythic tablets.
Yet the types of war tablets extended beyond merely knowledge tablets. Historically, on the same day that the tablets descended, there existed another type of tablet known as Rule Fragments. These fragments had another scholarly name, called the Song of Martha. They constituted about two-thirds of the war tablets that fell on the first day of Eternal Night. These numerous fragments were referred to by players as artificial suns or solar fragments. Because these fragments were completely activated the instant they landed on the ground, a luminous chain reaction occurred across the world of Vaunte—regardless of how deep they had fallen—they were able to shine brightly and gradually ascend into the sky, ignited by a mysterious force approximately thirty kilometers away from Vaunte, linking each other to weave numerous small “Tiamat” laws.
Within the realm of these laws, the effects of Eternal Night were countered, and the rules and order of Martha, which had been pierced by the tides of magic, stabilized once again—even if only in a localized manner—allowing people to see the sun, sky, and clouds again. In fact, even in the game, players realized the usefulness and effects of these rule fragments only much later. Just like most of the residents of Vaunte at the time, players largely believed that Vaunte had merely experienced a small-scale solar eclipse; what they had over the local inhabitants in knowledge was merely the cause of the eclipse—namely the once-in-a-millennium Magical Tide.
It wasn’t until much later that traveling players began to discover the significant differences in the time of sunrise and sunset between regions—even differences in the status of seasons and weather. This difference was not merely caused by regional day and night disparities due to differing latitudes and longitudes on Earth, for as is well known, Vaunte is a round world, and the sun is merely a function of law; the Sun God Perkin walks daily above and below the sky, thus causing the day and night transitions. Therefore, as long as one is within the boundaries of Vaunte, in areas covered by civilization and order, the transitions of day and night in any region should be uniform and should not feature occurrences such as Erluin’s daytime equating to Fanzan’s nighttime, which would be commonplace on Earth.
However, after the arrival of Eternal Night, such occurrences began to materialize.
The most pronounced situation was at the junction between Fatan and the Great Glacier. This junction was precisely between two significantly divergently small “Tiamat” laws, resulting in people traveling from Fatan to the Great Glacier experiencing a change from midday to midnight over a mere few dozen miles, seasons flipping from sweltering summer to harsh winter.
Such distinctions were quickly validated by players in various locales, who summarized approximately twenty areas:
Kruz Central Law Zone, Cloak Bay Law Zone, Meiz—Ludwig—Evergreen Path Law Zone, and Anzeruta Law Zone (the first four collectively referred to as the Kruz Great Law Zone), North Saint Ausoor Law Zone, South Saint Ausoor Law Zone, East Madara Law Zone, Lunke—Jiufeng Law Zone (situated to the south of the Loop of Trade Winds and not part of mainstream Vaunte civilization), Central Fatan Law Zone, Greyshus Law Zone (located in eastern Fatan, near the Great Glacier), the Ten Cities Law Zone, North Sea Law Zone (between Erlandta, Erluin, and the Ten Cities), Altania Law Zone, Erlandta Law Zone, Saintly White Prairie Law Zone, Nazhe Law Zone, Cloud Layer Mountain Law Zone (to the east of Saint Ausoor, in the southern plains adjacent to Star Gathering Sea and White Mountain), Dragon Island Law Zone, Far East (west of the Great Glacier), and Far North Law Zone (to the north of Nazhe).
In addition, there were many fragmented rule zones, often very small and trivial, numerous in number, some enveloping merely the size of a city, others stretching to encompass an entire kingdom. These varied rule zones typically followed a common point: most rules in areas adjacent to the four great empires tended to be similar, while the closer one got to the boundaries of the original civilizations, the greater the variance in rules.
Later, players continued to discover regions unencumbered by laws—such as White Mountain, the northern and western parts of the Saintly White Prairie, and other territories—even many formerly civilized areas had been completely swallowed by darkness. The countries and civilizations in these zones were either obliterated or migrated, with darkness breeding a multitude of monsters that began to encroach on areas still maintaining rules. This resulted in subsequent decades of upheaval and unrest, producing vast waves of refugees.
Brendel had previously experienced such an event in history; thus, when Eternal Night descended that day, he alone among everyone else fully understood the plight of the wise creatures and civilizations on the Vaunte continent that lay ahead. While the influences of the war tablets and the arrival of Eternal Night wouldn’t immediately affect the entirety of Vaunte, soon, waves of refugees would begin to emerge, and incidents of monster attacks would drastically increase. The earliest area discovered by people that had not recovered from the darkness was a small vassal state south of Cruz, where refugees fled, driven out by the monster tide, to what is now Anzeruta in the east, causing this news to surface.
Yet Brendel was uncertain if history would repeat itself. Today’s Anzeruta was still under the control of the Jotungrund people; the refugees might not necessarily be discovered immediately, nor would they flee north. They might head toward the Scorpion Tail Lion Duchy instead, and given the south was enmeshed in war, the news delay and other factors implied that the outbreak of the refugee tide might take longer than anticipated.
Regardless of how it was delayed, what was meant to come would eventually arrive, and he wasn’t particularly surprised by everything unfolding. Long before, when he and Nemeses obtained the first war tablet in Gravel Town, he had already sensed both the premature Magical Tide and the early arrival of Eternal Night. He just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. He quickly ordered heightened vigilance around Fatan Port to guard against monster attacks while actively assigning personnel to search for fallen war tablet fragments around Fatan Port—most of these tablets, including the rule fragments, were manageable by humans.
He was acutely aware of this; historically, people would soon discover that rule fragments from other regions could be utilized to refine and enhance their own local rules, allowing for further expansion—like a spark of fire. Indeed, this included those trivial fragmented law zones as well. Thus, later uprisings began in this manner; no one wished to live in eternal darkness, nor could they survive. A faction of ambitious individuals who had acquired rule fragments—mostly wizards—began establishing independent nations. Over the following decades, diverse new countries emerged across the continent, excluding the four great empires.
That era sparked the most brutal Wizard Wars, nearly extinguishing the civilization flame of entire Vaunte. As someone who had been through that, Brendel understandably wished to avoid experiencing it again. He aimed to prepare in advance and even set aside the impending conflicts with the Queen.
The nobleman class around Fatan Port evidently struggled to understand his actions, including the Crown Prince, while the southern exiled nobles, completely uninformed about the Witch Wars, felt a great sense of relief as long as they didn’t oppose Her Majesty the Queen.
Brendel decided to gather several of the historically most significant war tablets near Fatan Port.
However, he hadn’t gotten around to implementing this plan when, early the next morning, as he was about to leave Baron Castle, he was stopped by someone:
“The legacy of the Silver Horse Knight, Dragonhide Technique, the Auregel Rune—such vital things are all around Fatan Port. Don’t you have any thoughts on the matter?” The black-haired Lady Knight leaned casually against the doorframe, one hand propped against it, effectively blocking Brendel’s path. With a smile and a meaningful look toward Brendel’s face, she asked in a calm tone: “Dear little Brande…”
