Inside the garden villa, Lucian looked at the still thick stack of incoming letters, shook his head slightly, let out a breath, then used Arcane Magic to inspect them one by one. Only after confirming there was nothing wrong did he slowly open them, skimming through each to prevent another incident like that overly extreme Pivi.
"
Discussing Archanist and Arcane Magic problems? The two of them specialized in different fields, belonging to the Elemental and Necromantic factions respectively — two schools with fundamentally divergent philosophies. They were both among the most promising young Archanists, the ones most likely to become legendary mages, making them genuine competitors. Although they had collaborated once in private, they couldn't even be said to have a basic friendship. They had never exchanged letters before, and with Felipe's proud temperament, how could he suddenly write a letter discussing doubts with him?
Attacking him? Insulting him? Threatening him? The Necromantic faction's views on the soul were close to the electromagnetic wave and electromagnetic field direction — undeniably supporters of the wave theory. After Felipe saw the new papers in the Arcane journal, it would seem perfectly normal for him to write a letter refuting this person he already disliked. But Lucian felt something was off. Felipe's temperament might be somewhat violent, but he was extremely proud. If he wanted to attack or slander someone, he would certainly submit a formal paper directly, not accomplish it through private correspondence like this.
"Something's not right..." Lucian inspected the letter once more, specifically checking for hidden marks related to curses, necrotic toxins, soul interference, and other dangers. He even performed an astrological divination on the danger level, activated numerous magical defenses, and only then opened the letter.
"A perfectly normal attack on the light quantum hypothesis... a perfectly normal Felipe tone..." As Lucian read on, his brows furrowed slightly. It was a perfectly normal letter — so normal that even the basis for the attacks lacked precise experimental verification, contradicted classical electromagnetic theory and models, with nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.
"...The frequency of spelling errors in the words is a bit high — twenty-seven or twenty-eight mistakes in just a few pages of letter..." Because he suspected the letter might be abnormal, Lucian read it very carefully. Although those errors weren't glaringly obvious and you could guess the original words from context and the majority of correct letters, without affecting the fluency of normal reading and making them hard to detect, Lucian — who frequently corrected Enick's,
Lucian had only seen Felipe's formally published papers and didn't know whether he also made frequent spelling errors in his usual writing. But "given his proud personality, when writing a letter to a competitor he despises, he would certainly check and recheck it carefully, just like when submitting a paper... Losing face in front of an opponent is something he would find extremely taboo and detestable..."
The thought struck him, and Lucian felt a jolt of alarm. His expression remained completely unchanged, but in his mind, the erroneous letters within those words were reflected clearly and independently, arranged in sequential order.
If he corrected those erroneous letters back to the correct ones, they formed a string of text that appeared to be several words.
"Necromantic provocation... wave-particle debate... internal strife... submit to the Council..." After roughly segmenting the words, Lucian read out the meaning Felipe had been trying to convey. But after these words, there were four more letters that were meaningless, unable to form any word. "What do those mean?"
No matter how he tried, Lucian couldn't figure out what those four letters represented. But the meaning expressed in the preceding portion was already sufficiently clear: the undead of the Necromantic World seemed to want to use the wave-particle debate to create internal strife within the Council.
As for their purpose, Lucian speculated it was connected to the Council's investigation of Haideler City.
"Submit to the Council... it seems Felipe doesn't have much confidence in either me or himself. Perhaps the enemy is someone of great stature like the Lord of Undead or a demigod lich, and the only ones he can rely on are the Council. Such a disparity in strength can't be bridged by mere cleverness and schemes..." Lucian stroked his chin. "Isn't he worried that I might also be colluding with the Necromantic World? Or does he know more?"
Lucian put the letter away, tossed it casually to the side, stood up and paced back and forth, thinking about how to submit it, how to make it effective, and how to completely expose the collaboration between the Pale Hand and the Necromantic World.
Walking to the bookshelf, Lucian's unfocused gaze swept across it. He was about to turn away when he suddenly noticed a row of linguistic books arranged there — Ancient Sylvanas, the Common Language, Ancient Mesket, Elvish, Demonic, Infernal...
Seeing these books that started from the very basics of alphabets, Lucian had a flash of inspiration. "Perhaps the meaning of Felipe's last four letters isn't as tortuous as I previously thought."
"This letter is the second character in the Common Language alphabet, this one is the twenty-third, this is the eleventh, this is the sixth... 223, 116..." Standing from the perspective of an Astrology-faction mage, the moment Lucian read this sequence of numbers in his mind, he recognized them as astrological coordinates. "The location is Haideler City... the entrance to the Necromantic World rift!"
"Let the Pale Hand lead to the Necromantic World and have the Council begin a gradual exploration... that seems quite good — it won't drag me into danger. I only know about this letter; even if someone wanted to silence me, it wouldn't be my turn. Mm, no need to do anything more — just submit it directly!" Lucian quickly made his decision, rose, and headed toward Council headquarters. Meanwhile, in his mind he was plotting a grand scheme, planning to lure both the unstable elements within the "Pale Hand" and the undead of the Necromantic World into revealing themselves, then catch them all in one sweep. He would use the momentum to dismantle and scatter the "Pale Hand," completely incorporating it into the Council system and eliminating any future threats.
.........
Gravestone after gravestone jutted from the barren plains — eerie, desolate, and inexplicably terrifying.
Inside a massive mausoleum, the Lord of the Undead, Vincent — his skin deathly pale, stretched tight over his bones — was hovering in midair, attempting to refine the magnificent golden dragon before him into a puppet lich.
Suddenly, the dark red flames dancing within his eye sockets flickered violently. The deathly still wind that had been blowing came to an abrupt halt, and the legendary magic — which had been raining down fragments of souls like a downpour — was forcibly interrupted.
The golden dragon roared toward the sky, its voice filled with pain. Seizing the opportunity, it tried to break free from its bonds and flee.
The twelve rings of Miranda's Life formation lit up one by one, holding the dragon firmly in place. Seeing escape was impossible, a flash of desperate resolve passed through the dragon's golden pupils. Its body swelled, and with a thunderous boom, it detonated completely, reducing the mausoleum to a scene of cataclysmic destruction — stone pillars, arched vaults, and archways collapsing and crashing down.