Chapter 227 - Meaningless

"Enough of this childish talk. Let's discuss this man called Gokma." Erica steered the conversation in a more constructive direction. "You said he stopped the meteor Erdes summoned with his hand?"

"That's right."

"The spell she cast seems to have been the pinnacle of 7th Circle magic..."

"First Impact. That's right."

"If you went so far as to use that spell... you really must have lost your head."

"Weren't we going to talk about Gokma? Why are we changing the subject?"

"In any case, it has the greatest firepower of any 7th Circle spell. Whether he stopped it with physical strength or magical power, he would have needed magic beyond the 7th Circle..."

As Erica was about to sink into thought, Ferda offered a theory. "What if that wasn't just Gokma's own magical power?"

"What do you mean?"

"Through Gamigin's Legion, the king of Heinkel concentrated every human's power in himself and created a fortress. What if that power extended not only to the king, but to Gokma as well?"

"With all those humans gathered in the kingdom, that would be powerful... but even then, stopping that attack should have been impossible." Erdes objected. She seemed genuinely curious herself, and her manner was unusually serious.

"Of course, as you say, mana produced solely from the subjects' lives wouldn't have been enough. But thanks to the king of Heian sending infiltrators on his own authority, we learned something."

"What was it?"

Ferda offered them a clue. "There's something inside those walls that can bring someone to the 3rd Circle in a week."

"The 3rd Circle in a week?!"

Forming even one Circle in a week would have been astonishing, yet they were adding two more layers on top of that.

"Even with Red Circles, achieving that is difficult. How could they possibly bring someone with no connection to magic to the 3rd Circle?"

"Red Circles are based on emotion..." Something occurred to Erica. "Could they be using Trauma?"

"Trauma? What's that?"

"A creature we discovered in the Land of Demons. Its eye makes anyone who looks at it recall memories of despair."

"All it does is make people remember things? What's so remarkable about that?"

"You wouldn't say that if you'd experienced it yourself."

Erdes didn't seem to grasp it. Like anyone else, she couldn't understand its destructive power without experiencing it.

"Despair alone doesn't make everyone develop one. I know better than you how Red Circles are formed."

With her hatred of devils, Erdes was an authority on dark magic and Red Circles. She would have observed everything imaginable. But observation was all she had; she would have no experience of it herself.

Ferda had experienced that despair. He could still vividly recall that terrible pain digging into his wounds, that emotion which reached its peak and stayed there without relenting.

'But as Erdes says, that alone isn't enough.'

Yet Ferda had seen something else as well. "What if despair is only a stepping stone?"

"A stepping stone?"

"To create a Red Circle, a single emotion has to become excessive, or be concentrated to that same degree, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"To reach the threshold needed to generate a Red Circle, they trick the mind into treating a negative emotion—despair—as its baseline."

"Why would they do that?"

Ferda recalled exploring Gyeonghui Palace with the adventurers. He knew how the adventurers afflicted by Trauma had behaved. The first man they found had been in despair. And the adventurer they found later...

"For the ecstasy that follows."

That adventurer had clung to the lump, vowing never to let go again. Like someone reunited with a mother or wife lost long ago.

"They're turning them into fanatics...?"

Words hovered on Erdes's lips, but she couldn't argue either way. She wanted to say it was possible only in theory, yet with an actual example before them, she couldn't dismiss it.

"If Red Circles are formed that way... it wouldn't really matter if their minds collapsed."

"They can just use them as mana tanks." Erdes gave a hollow laugh. "The domain Gamigin created, combined with a Demon's ability to manipulate emotions... I underestimated them when I thought First Impact would take care of everything."

"Even so, they can't have come through it unscathed."

"At least several thousand of the humans used to fuel their mana must have died."

"It may not have laid waste to the kingdom, but it must have hurt them."

In other words, her attack hadn't been entirely meaningless. But what would happen once the siege began in earnest? The thought of what other tricks they might be concealing was unsettling.

Ferda asked Erica, "What has Lord Blancaros decided to do?"

The chair of the Grand Council, which deliberated and ruled on matters affecting the entire continent.

"He considers it a crisis... but he's still holding off."

Ferda wasn't pleased to hear that. "Wasn't the Grand Council founded to keep the Demons from destabilizing the continent?"

"It has never exercised its enforcement powers since its founding. Such matters were either dealt with beforehand or never showed any sign of surfacing."

"But they're openly displaying their ambitions now, aren't they?"

"And the humans have stepped forward to resolve it themselves."

"He intends to respect their wishes?"

"Yes. And he seems to want nothing more than for the dragons to stay out of it."

"Why would he..."

Suddenly, Ferda remembered what the Bronze Dragon Phrontesis had said.

["Valdrova and I are growing weaker. The twilight of the dragons is approaching."]

The twilight of the dragons. Phrontesis and Valdrova were growing weaker. Though it hadn't been stated outright, Iorga was weakening too. What if the same was true of the other dragons? If they were weakening...

'They might end up in a position much like Erdes's.'

Those whose authority came from their fangs and claws met death the moment they lost them. For such beings, relinquishing their place among the powerful wasn't easy. If they grew weaker, an obsession with power was inevitable.

'Then they might want to become like the king of Heinkel.'

If that was Blancaros's underlying concern, this was a trial humanity had to overcome. Ferda set aside his criticism for now.

"We'll do what we can to resolve this with the humans already here. And..." He turned to Erdes. "Madam Chair, you'll need to sit this one out."

Erdes frowned. "Dark magic is running rampant, and you want me to turn a blind eye?"

Knowing that this was her concern, Ferda answered immediately. "I'll destroy Gamigin's book of dark magic myself."

"And why should I trust you?"

"If you wish, I'll bind my heart with an oath."

Ferda was adamant that he had no interest in dark magic. Yet she merely scoffed at his pledge.

"Bind your heart with an oath? Is that supposed to prove something to me?"

"Yes."

"That's no proof. You're saying that because even you aren't certain what you'll do."

For a moment, he was speechless. He tried to deny it, but deep in his chest, Ferda felt that she might be right.

When he remained silent, Erica came to his defense. "Erdes, Regent Ferda is a man we can trust."

"And that means I have to sit quietly while he tells me to stay out of it?"

"You acted on your own this time. It wouldn't be unreasonable for them to hold the magic society responsible. For your own sake, you should stay out of this until we determine that the kingdoms can't resolve it with their current strength."

"If I cared about my own safety, I wouldn't have come here. And it's not as if I just dropped a spell on them and shirked all responsibility!"

"Whatever the case, there were casualties. Your intervention has become an unpredictable factor. Regent Ferda has saved you. Come along quietly while you can."

"Ugh...!" Erdes rose with a resentful look.

Just as the meeting seemed about to end, she sat down again. "While I'm here, let me ask you something, kid."

This from someone who looked like a much smaller kid herself.

"Go ahead."

"How much do you remember about your mother?"

Ferda scowled reflexively. "If you start talking about my mother, I won't care about the consequences either."

"I didn't bring her up to insult her. This is quite important."

Despite her words, Ferda continued to glare at her warily.

"Then shall I lay out my own family history first? I'm the only daughter of House Roton, conceived in a test tube. I've never even seen my father's face. Perhaps my exceptional sensitivity to mana from birth made my mother greedy. I was fed more drugs than milk, and spent more time meditating than being allowed to act like a child.

"That was how I opened my 1st Circle at three. When I failed to meet her targets, she beat me herself. When she grew tired of beating me, she'd peel off my skin and dig her nails into the exposed flesh. That was the piece of trash she was. Even now, hearing the word 'mother' makes my hair stand on end."

Her expression seemed to ask whether that was enough. A woman who couldn't endure humiliation had exposed her own shame. It made Ferda curious about what she wanted to ask.

"What do you want to know?"

"As I just asked, how much do you know about your mother?"

"Anna Rosnova is a good mother."

"That's all?"

"Yes."

Erdes eyed him suspiciously. But Ferda had spoken the truth. He had never thought of his mother in any other way. Dwelling on her brought longing rather than comfort, allowing loneliness to settle in his heart. So he tried not to think of her whenever possible.

"Has it never once occurred to you that your magic might originate from your mother?"

"Are you calling my mother a witch?"

"No. A mere witch doesn't begin to describe her."

Erdes recalled what had happened in the Rosnova domain. The woman she'd seen that day was no mere witch. A mere witch could never have made her feel so utterly powerless.

"Think carefully about what sort of being gave birth to you and raised you." With those final words, Erdes left the tent.

* * *

The inner castle of the Heinkel Kingdom.

Gokma returned inside from the tip of the spire.

"You've returned."

He turned his head slightly to find the king of Heinkel. Empty eyes. Dry, rasping breath. The man now exuded the scent of death, far removed from anything human.

"Are you all right?" His eyes flicked toward Gokma's right hand.

"As you can see, it was a devastating attack." Gokma raised his right arm. Where an arm should have been was a mangled ruin of broken bone and skin. The impact had been so powerful that even a Demon's innate healing ability was ineffective.

"Had either one of us been absent, we would have been helpless against it."

First Impact, the pinnacle of 7th Circle firepower. He had only been able to stop it because the Legion's power was firmly established. The king of Heinkel had become a Great Mage, and Gokma, whom he served as his master, could now use his magical power as well.

"What a relief."

"How many lives did this cost us?"

"Four thousand out of eighty thousand died. We're still fine."

"Those four thousand were also mana sources we'd brought to the 3rd Circle. Sources like that aren't easy to make from ordinary commoners..."

Gokma stepped into the corridor, and the king of Heinkel followed.

The place had once served as the knights' training ground. The king remembered how it used to look. Symbols of the religious order and the kingdom had stood in prominent places to foster faith and loyalty. Beneath them, countless knights and cadets had honed their martial skills.

Now an enormous lump with an eyeball occupied that spot. People packed the training ground like chickens in a coop, gazing up at it. It looked like a cult gathering.

"Ah..."

"My life was so utterly meaningless!"

"What joy... What joy to have reached the truth...!"

Freed from the shackles of this mortal world, they sang praises to the void. No trace of reason remained in them. There was only twisted ecstasy. And in that ecstasy, they felt something within their chests.

"One of them has embarked on a new path," the king of Heinkel said.

It was the sensation of an emotion-fueled Red Circle forming. Today, another person had become a source of magical power.

"O King! Today we have another lamb to offer you!"

"Emptiness be upon the king!"

Ecstasy gave rise to fresh ecstasy. To these people, everything was meaningless, and only one absolute being was everything. Red Circles spun ceaselessly within their bodies.

But such madness couldn't last forever. Red Circles were as dangerous as they were quick to form, and the backlash was inevitable.

"Aaaargh! Gack, urgh..." Someone vomited blood and collapsed. Their body had been unable to withstand the excess of emotion, and their Circle had crumbled.

And this, too, brought fresh ecstasy.

"Your son has returned to emptiness!"

"Ah! How I envy him!"

They would not stop. Whether someone died or was injured, it was all a path toward emptiness. That eye alone was their happiness.

The king of Heinkel smiled as he watched them. Yet his smile wasn't quite complete; something left him uneasy. He felt as though he had lost something immense within his heart. But soon he realized it was meaningless and let the thought go.

To be born and to perish was the natural order. For those of us trapped in that cycle, only the void remained. Life was so utterly meaningless.