206 Yeats

“Is that so? I can only blame myself for not being proficient enough back then,” said the girl, as she walked with a dignity that seemed out of place for her age and status, approaching the Tacma Church consultant.

She looked up at the elder with a gaze that seemed like an emperor inspecting a subject.

“It’s your duty to avoid all unexpected factors,” she said, looking directly into his eyes and speaking with the authority of a superior.

“The return of someone who has been missing for over a thousand years isn’t something we could have anticipated,” Hill replied, a hint of complaint in his voice.

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds before the girl lowered her voice and asked, “Is it really him?”

“It’s just a phantom,” Hill replied, gesturing towards the bronze holy emblem hanging on the girl’s chest.

“It’s a temporary illusion created by manipulating light—similar to you, or at least, not more real than the current you. After all, you still have a pivot in Currere to maintain your existence.”

As he mentioned the pivot, he pointed at the girl’s face.

“A pivot that can only hold less than 30% of my strength? The parishes these days are nothing but trash. This is the best they can do even with the help of Moon Realm existences?”

The girl’s young voice was filled with disappointment that seemed out of place for her age.

“And the moment that man returned, he triggered a tidal effect throughout Currere. Even after more than 800 years of preparation, that bunch of trash still couldn’t erase any traces of his existence…”

She took a deep breath of the mist floating around her.

“What… are you talking about?”

Morton looked at the two of them in confusion.

He glanced at the girl, whose words and actions were clearly different from before, then looked at Hill, the Tacma Church consultant. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, “Who is she?”

“As you can see, the Prophet of the Eighth Order,” Hill replied.

“Nonsense,” Morton said, drawing his blood-red sword. Golden patterns covered the sword and a faint layer of flames burned over it.

“Why did you call her… Terra? The founding emperor of that empire? Tell me clearly. What do you want? You told me before that you wanted to use the prophet of the Eighth Holy Spirit as a sacrifice to crown the new king. Was that a lie?”

Morton raised his sword and pointed it threateningly at Hill.

The coronation of the new king had always been the central part of the coronation ritual after the death of the former king, but the last King of Mist in the Ava State had died thousands of years ago. If Morton wanted Remides Shadowmoon, who he recognized as queen, to ascend, he needed to find a sacrifice to replace the King of Mist.

The Eighth Holy Spirit’s prophets were the perfect choice for this sacrifice. They could represent the empire’s emperor, who had died in the Wandering Battle and become a Mist Spirit. A prophet was more than qualified for this role.

But the conversation between the two didn’t seem to be following this plan.

It was then that the girl, ‘Diana’, turned her attention to Morton. She smiled faintly and explained,

“It’s normal for you to have doubts… here’s the thing. There are a few people acting as us holding a grand resonance ritual in Myriad Feet City’s Terra Church in Storm Province, about tens of thousands of kilometers away.”

Morton remembered that the girl in front of him had said that Myriad Feet City’s Terra Church’s layout was identical to the throne room here.

Although he had a feeling he knew what was happening, Morton still asked, “Resonance ritual?”

“To put it simply, it’s a mirror image that resonates with symbolic concepts. It’s like performing the same ritual in several different places at the same time,” Hill explained.

“By the way, the genius who came up with this ritual was exiled from the Tacma Church and eventually went to the Vic Continent,” the girl, Diana, added. “With the help of a benefactor, he used this technique as the foundation for a major project. Eventually, it became a pinnacle that future magic users could never surpass.”

‘Diana’ wore a strange smile and continued speaking after Hill.

Although ‘she’ seemed to be supplementing, ‘she’ kept looking at Hill.

“I don’t need you to remind me about Yeats,” Hill said, his voice filled with sadness. “Allowing him to leave Ava State was the worst decision I ever made.”

“So you think it would have been the right decision to keep him in Ava State and let him continue his research?” Diana asked.

“It was the right decision to imprison him in the Magic Prison when we discovered that his research had gotten out of control,” Hill replied.

“Trying to cage a fierce beast is foolish,” Diana said with a shrug.

“It’s cruel to release a fierce beast among a flock of sheep,” Hill countered.

“If you have to choose between cruelty and stupidity, I’m sure you’ll make the right choice,” Diana said.

Yeats was one of the three giants of the Unification War. He was Terra Riel’s Chief Mage, the first speaker of the Astral Council, and the creator and enforcer of the Astral Laws. He was also the second and last magic user in history to master all 13 spell types to the peak of the Divine Realm, after William Kane.

According to the empire’s official historians, Yeats didn’t participate in the Ava State expedition because he was busy developing the Astral Laws. This was the main reason for the Wandering Battle’s failure, even more so than the inexplicable storm.

“Are you saying that Yeats is a Tacma?” Morton asked in surprise.

“Not only that, but he’s also the most exceptional Tacma,” Diana replied with a smile.

“His idea back then allowed me to glimpse a corner of eternity and point out the ultimate path…”

Diana then looked at Hill and added, “If you hadn’t stopped it back then, this path could have shortened the journey by more than 800 years.”

The truth was that Hill had issued a warning on behalf of the Tacma Church, stating that if Yeats, a former Tacma, participated in the Ava State expedition, the Tacma Church would abandon its neutrality and ally with Ava State to fight the enemy.

Hill remained silent, his lips pursed together.

“Of course, it’s not too late even if you’re 800 years late,” Diana said. “From the perspective of eternal time, this is just a fleeting moment… They’re returning soon, right?”

As she spoke, she looked at the egg-shaped mist on the throne that was starting to tremble.

“A shadow of the past and a living relic of the past. I didn’t expect to have to compete with the past in order to expand the future…”

Just as she finished speaking, the mist dissipated like snow.

On the throne, a graceful female elf wearing a crown that resembled silver mist tore open the chains around her like a spiderweb.

Beside her stood a gray-haired man with silver eyes.