Lucian was first taken aback, then caught the deeper meaning hidden in Fernando's words: "Master, you're saying that even if the plot is still being prepared, hasn't even begun to be carried out yet, a legendary powerhouse can sense it?"
That seemed far too exaggerated.
With his current clearance level, Lucian could redeem most non-legendary materials from the High-level Arcane Library, but his understanding of the legendary realm was still limited to what he'd read in *Astrology and Elemental Theory*—two legendary class advancements, the corresponding legendary magic construction—plus his master Fernando's occasional remarks. More complete, more detailed, more nuanced, more systematic legendary knowledge was essentially zero.
And so, this near-divine premonition left Lucian thoroughly astonished. Back when he was still a formal mage, he had relied on the main star of fate's premonition of danger and his own decisive action to thwart Baron Habro's plot against his life. But at that time, Baron Habro had already begun executing his plan, and the two of them were inside the same castle, so foreseeing danger in advance wasn't strange. Yet barely a dozen minutes ago, Lucian had merely organized the plan in his mind—he hadn't even had time to explain it to his master—when the Lord of the Dead Souls had already perceived the danger in advance, preemptively "sacrificing a pawn to save the king." It was truly beyond belief.
Fernando kept a straight face as he said, "The advancement to legendary is a qualitative transformation of life. In the early days of the Dawn War, according to the preaching of various Churches, a legendary powerhouse was equivalent to a demigod. If your plan could truly threaten Vicente's life, then even a tiny fluctuation in his fate trajectory could be amplified within his Cognition World into an extremely strong danger signal."
At this point, Fernando paused, apparently searching for a good example to illustrate the point, so that Lucian wouldn't grow careless about legendary powerhouses during future expeditions: "Before, when you were planning against the vampire prince Dracula to rescue 'The Observer' from his predicament, did you ever think about actually killing him? Did you have a real plan that could cause his fall?"
"No." Lucian shook his head gravely. From the very beginning, it had been about rescuing Rhein—Dracula had nothing to do with it. If not for the conflict of interest between Dracula and Rhein, there would have been no need to take such an enormous risk by asking Natasha to lure him away.
With Dracula's peak-legendary capabilities, to design his death would require calling upon Lord Douglas, Lord Bric, and his own master working together. The situation at the time simply hadn't permitted it. And even Natasha's proposal to tell Saer de and set an ambush for Dracula had been vetoed by Lucian himself.
Thinking back on this, Lucian suddenly realized what Rhein's arrangement had been. It wasn't until he summoned the Silver Moon Goddess Etana to fight the mysterious existence of the Necromantic Plane that he truly understood what Rhein had been preparing to deal with.
Along the way—opening the Sphinx Tomb, the Sun King's underground palace, the Koutao fishman altar—he had only known it was to help Rhein break free and to eliminate the disturbances from the Necromantic Plane. The specifics, Rhein had never explained in detail. This was clearly to evade the danger premonition of the mysterious Necromantic existence, and combined with that entity's incomplete awakening, the deception had finally succeeded.
And among the legendary powerhouses he had dealt with before: the Nightmare King had "brought doom upon himself" by drawing out the mathematical problems buried deep in Lucian's memory; the Sphinx King Fenkes had been sealed away by someone, caught between life and death in a stuporous state; with Saer de, Lucian had only confirmed his strangeness and used his hand to eliminate the Clown, never truly planning to deal with him; and regarding his master, the Chairman, and other legendary mages, Lucian had always carefully evaluated and laid the groundwork before presenting his subversive papers, to prevent too great a shock.
Seeing Lucian's grave, contemplative expression, Fernando knew he had developed proper wariness on this front and gave a slight nod: "In the future, if you obtain intelligence of this nature, don't start making plans on your own. Hand it directly to me."
He still seemed somewhat uneasy and added another reminder: "However, subversive papers are a different matter from this kind of danger—they still require review and groundwork." He had a lingering feeling that Lucian was precisely the sort of fellow who might produce a subversive breakthrough at any moment.
"Legendary powerhouses can't sense the danger of subversive papers?" Lucian asked, puzzled. This was different from what he'd just been thinking.
Fernando fixed him with his scarlet eyes and said, "The Cognition World becomes semi-solidified, merges with the soul, and exists between the illusory and the real, beginning to interact with the real world and the starry sky of fate—that is the fundamental transformation of a legendary mage. Combined with the reflection of the main star of fate and legendary-tier astrological divination magic, it forms the source of a legendary mage's ability to foresee danger. If a subversive paper could pose a danger to a legendary powerhouse, then it would undoubtedly be fundamentally contradictory to the primary composition of his Cognition World. In other words, his Cognition World doesn't acknowledge the existence of that research result, so naturally it doesn't register them as dangerous and cannot sense them in advance."
"So that's how it is…" Lucian now had a rough understanding, and then asked with some concern: "Then will the Lord of the Dead Souls divinate that I'm the one plotting against him? Will he find out that Felipe betrayed him?"
Being targeted by a Grand Archanist would be far more terrifying than facing powerhouses like Dracula or Rudolf II. After all, a Grand Archanist's methods were far more varied—especially one who excelled in necromancy, curses, and life transformation.
Fernando's lips curled upward as he scolded with a laugh: "Have you forgotten your identity as an Arbiter of Fate? The most likely outcome of Vicente's divination is that it pointed toward me. Remember, these premonitions are vague and ethereal, our relationship is quite close, and your plan would certainly need to be carried out under my direction. So don't worry about Vicente tracing it back to you—and if he can't trace it to you, naturally he won't trace it to Felipe either."
That was quite the deflection… Lucian still asked anxiously: "Master, won't the Lord of the Dead Souls hold a grudge against you then?"
"So what if he holds a grudge? Am I supposed to be afraid of him?" Fernando glared. "All right, go on back. We're convening a Supreme Council meeting to discuss this matter, and after that we need to 'interrogate' the undead from the black-white-gray world."
"I wonder what's really strange about them," Lucian said with considerable curiosity. He wondered whether they had been planning against him—like that high-ranking undead who had foolishly been killed by him in the cave of the dwarven ruins…
Fernando straightened his face: "If it's appropriate for you to know and falls within your clearance, I'll naturally tell you. However, having passed through Vicente's hands, the real memories we can 'interrogate' are most likely the memories he wants us to see."
Lucian suddenly recalled that the Lord of the Dead Souls, Vicente, was also a "chief expert" in the domains of the brain and soul memory. Apart from those octopus-headed creatures in the Dark Mountains who loved toying with minds—their Central Brain—there was probably no existence that could rival him in this field. Invading the brain, rummaging through memories, deleting memories, falsifying memories, fabricating memories—all were his specialties.
Douglas, Fernando, and the others could naturally distinguish false memories from real ones, but they had no way of discovering which portions of memory had been deleted.
…………
"So the undead from the Necromantic Plane were trying to use me to stir up internal conflict within the Council. If Felipe hadn't warned me, things could have gotten extremely troublesome…" Lucian sat in his office at the Atomic Research Institute, reading through the interrogation results that his master Fernando had filtered.