The Soul Fire of a Morning Star Wizard bore a mysterious connection to the wizard's true body. Its strength or weakness often reflected the wizard's own life fluctuations.
And now Friess's necklace was exhibiting exactly this phenomenon, which meant that Duke Blood Emma's true body in the alien world had surely suffered some devastating blow!
It was because the wizard herself had been gravely wounded and her life aura weakened that the Soul Fire she had left behind would undergo such changes.
"Master! Master!" Friess clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes instantly rimming red.
Before Leilin Farell could step forward to comfort her, the arcane imprint on his body began to flash urgently.
"Faisal, what is it?" Leilin Farell furrowed his brow and activated the arcane imprint.
"Lord Farell… my master… the Grand Elder's Soul Fire went out completely one minute ago…"
Faisal's voice was hoarse, devoid of all hope — the voice of a dead man walking, steeped in utter despair.
"Went out?" Leilin Farell stroked his chin.
When a Morning Star Wizard's Soul Fire extinguished on its own, it meant the true body had certainly perished as well.
For high-ranking warlocks like Faisal who belonged to the Grand Elder's faction, the one thing that had sustained their morale was the belief that the Grand Elder was still alive — merely lost in an alien world, with hope and a chance of returning.
Now that last shred of hope had been snuffed out as well. Faisal's state of mind was entirely understandable.
"But what exactly happened? Everything was fine before, wasn't it?" Leilin Farell was perplexed. The sheer coincidence of it all carried a thick scent of conspiracy.
"Leilin! Leilin!"
Before he could even close Faisal's arcane imprint, another communication request pushed through, carrying Kasha's frantic voice.
Only when she was completely beside herself would she forget Leilin's current standing and address him by name outright.
"What's going on, Senior Kasha?" The thread of unease inside Leilin Farell tightened further.
"…I'm sorry, Lord Farell!" Kasha paused on the other end, then immediately caught her earlier slip. "It's like this — the Soul Fire our master, Duke Gilbert, left with me has been fluctuating violently and very unstable. I… I'm very worried…"
"Understood!"
Leilin Farell nodded, his voice growing heavy and solemn. "Pass along my order — all Crystallized Warlocks are to assemble in the conference hall immediately. I'm afraid we're in trouble…"
Unlike the old days when high-ranking warlocks were scattered across their own territories, the upper echelon of the Ouroboros Ring was now tightly concentrated in Phosphorescence Swamp. The order went out, and nearly everyone had gathered outside the conference hall in short order.
Leilin Farell suspected that had the matter not involved their own master, these people would not have arrived so quickly.
"Duke Farell!" Once Leilin Farell arrived in his voluminous robes, the anxious faces of the assembled warlocks visibly eased.
"Everyone, take your seats — please, make yourselves comfortable." Leilin Farell settled into the head seat. The authority he had cultivated through years of killing and warfare radiated from him, and the atmosphere in the conference hall immediately turned grave.
"Thank you, Lord Duke!" Several Crystallized Warlocks bowed and took their seats one by one.
Friess, benefiting from her status as Leilin Farell's wife, sat directly at his side, drawing more than a few envious glances.
Leilin Farell sat upright and surveyed the seven or eight Crystallized Warlocks below him, silently lamenting that the last great battle had dealt the Ouroboros Ring a blow far too devastating.
The loss of high-level combat power, in particular, could not be made up in just a few years.
To fully restore the Ring to its former glory would require a span measured in centuries.
"Shate — give us the situation." Leilin Farell's gaze swept across the room. Once silence had fallen, he called on Shate by name.
"My lord!" Shate wiped the condensation from his thick-lensed glasses, stood, and bowed to Leilin Farell before speaking with a grave expression. "The Soul Fires of the three Elders, stored in our Technical Division, all began fluctuating violently twenty-four minutes ago. The Grand Elder's Soul Fire went out entirely. I'm afraid…"
Even he felt a pang of loss and uncertainty — after all, this was the fall of a Morning Star.
Though Shate did not finish the sentence, Faisal and another Crystallized Warlock had already hung their heads. Losing the Grand Elder's protection would be a devastating blow to both their factions and their confidence.
"Additionally, I've reached out to the students of the other two Morning Stars. The fluctuation of Soul Fires was not an isolated incident — it occurred across the board, which means the other two Elders have surely encountered tremendous trouble in the alien world as well…"
At that point, there was nothing left to say. Once Shate sat down, every warlock in the room turned their gaze to Leilin Farell.
Seeing this, Leilin Farell gave a light cough. "Shate — have the coordinates of the alien world been determined?"
"I'm sorry! My colleagues in the Technical Division and I have been working on this problem continuously. We currently have two highly probable coordinates and will send them to you immediately, my lord!"
A flush of shame crossed Shate's face. This matter was a disgrace to the entire Technical Division. They had once boasted of solving it within days, yet it had dragged on for nearly five years — nothing short of dereliction of duty.