Chapter 182: A New Way to Find People

The colossal mushroom cloud slowly dissipated, but deep within the earth tremors still rumbled like silent wailing. A fierce wind whipped up clouds of dust, carrying the scent of death and leaving a scorching sensation on exposed skin. The Northern Mountain Range was not a single peak but a vast, unbroken chain, and even from outside its borders the effects were unmistakably clear. Natasha gained an entirely new understanding of the power of the legendary spell "Eternal Blazing Sun": "It's comparable to Dracula's Scream…"

She had once ventured deep into the Dark Mountains to witness the site where Lucian had clashed with Dracula via the Observer's Castle, and had been stunned by the devastation. Today she experienced something similar once again.

"It's still quite a distance away. Once the incantation for 'Eternal Blazing Sun' can be streamlined directly into 'Atomic Fusion,' the power might truly rival a Divine Descent." As a native of Earth, Lucian had an instinctive fondness for fusion magic, and he regretted deeply that it could only be cast once by borrowing Etna's power. To become a living hydrogen bomb, he would need to reach at least Legendary Tier Three—the level that some of the current Grand Archanists occupied. Moreover, the upper limit of this spell depended solely on the caster's strength and understanding of its underlying principles. One day, it would not be surprising if it could destroy the entire world.

When that day came, the Magic Parliament would have to solemnly vow never to be the first to unleash "Lucian's Tsar Bomba."

"The core temperature is extremely high, and the sunlight it produces is particularly effective against undead and devils," Etna said from beside him with meticulous precision. Her golden hair was combed to the left and hung down over one shoulder, and she wore a white robe that made her look far more like a princess than Natasha did.

Lucian didn't know whether she could actually read the special relativity and mass–energy equivalence formulas he had written, or whether she had simply deduced it from the spell's configuration and his descriptions to Natasha. But this touched upon the secrets of a quasi-god, and asking carelessly might have unforeseen consequences. He swallowed his curiosity and said with a wry smile: "Lady Etna, didn't you say it would take seven days to finish absorbing the fragments of that mysterious entity from the Plane of the Dead?"

The moment the words left his mouth, Lucian's heart tightened. He had assumed Etna was one of those straightforward, instinct-driven types—combined with her natural friendliness, he had dared to voice a complaint. But in reality she was the brooding, dark type, and also a revered quasi-god. Speaking to her this way might anger her and get him killed outright.

If, after all the trials and tribulations, he had escaped without a moment's hesitation only to be struck down by the Silver Moon over a careless complaint, that would be the ultimate injustice.

Oh—and would she even dislike the name "Etna"? Perhaps she preferred "Aetna"?

Etna replied with a perfectly serious expression: "Slow eating takes seven days."

Lucian and Natasha were both speechless. In other words, if she ate quickly it would only take a day or less: "If you can absorb them faster, why not just eat quickly?"

They both understood that Etna was deliberately doing this to draw out the true mastermind behind the scenes. This question had simply crystallized from several days of constant fear, tension, and peril.

Etna placed her right hand on her face and answered with the same earnest seriousness: "Slow eating. Waiting for the main course."

The main course? Lucian knew this referred to Maldimoth, the Lord of Hell. But the core of the "Eternal Blazing Sun" had been so blazingly hot, the energy release so tremendous that his projection—if it hadn't been at the peak of Legendary power—could not possibly have survived. What was there left to eat?

If the goal was merely to weaken him enough to enter Hell and fight him there, the loss of a single projection might bleed back into his true self, but at most a light wound. Under Hell's augmentation, Maldimoth would be powerful enough to contend with Etna, who would be fighting outside her home domain.

According to the Parliament's accounts of the two quasi-gods—the Lord of Hell and the Abyssal Will—they differed subtly from Etna. They seemed to be constrained by the world they existed in, unable to freely descend into the Material Plane. Even when they did, they were correspondingly weakened. The sole exception had been during the Dawn War, when Maldimoth had leveraged a terrifying grand conspiracy, gathered sufficient power and sacrifices, opened the Gates of Hell, and descended directly into the Material World—only to be blasted back by the Pope's "Divine Descent."

The reverse was also true: in Hell and the Abyss, their power was amplified. The weakest footholds of the Northern and Southern Churches, apart from extraplanar spaces controlled by other organizations, were precisely these two realms. Even the Pope dared not enter them rashly.

At this thought, Lucian felt a pang of heartache. If even two Legendary-level powerhouses could leave no traces, then nothing—no items, no materials—could have survived in that place.

Etna seemed to have read the questions on both their faces, her expression still that same meticulous seriousness: "That charred goat? That was hardly the main course. What it displayed—that was the main course."

What it displayed? Lucian and Natasha exchanged a shocked glance. The Lord of Hell's understanding of the nature of the God of Truth? The means by which he had borrowed the Heavenly Mountain's projection to distort space and briefly break through descent restrictions? The technique that had temporarily elevated an Eighth-tier Heavenly Knight to Legendary Tier Three? Or the extraordinary powers of "life and death dominion" he had displayed during battle?

The moment Natasha recalled that event, her expression turned deeply conflicted. The fact that the Lord of Hell could indirectly bring the Heavenly Mountain into the Material World shook her faith in a way it had never been shaken before.

Of his own suspicions, Lucian leaned toward the first: "The God of Truth?"

Etna neither nodded nor shook her head. Instead she said with extreme, utmost seriousness: "Do not walk this path. It is very likely wrong."

After speaking, she glanced at Lucian's left hand: "My residual power and the cake's residual power have merged into your left hand. You should take some time to feel it properly."

Under the Silver Moon's powerful restorative magic, the left hand Lucian had torn away had already regenerated. He calmed his mind, extended his spiritual energy toward it, and examined it carefully.

Without a sound, Lucian was once again engulfed in that illusion of looking down from on high, observing all things from an inconceivable angle. And as if he were truly touching the mysteries of death and the soul, a faint, secret connection to the Plane of the Dead formed within him.