Chapter 1478 — Gao Song's Astonishing Speculation

It was the wild mage's notebook. By now, the contents recorded in this notebook had been copied, excerpted, and annotated into countless reproductions; much of the knowledge it contained had even become textbook material at the Imperial Academy, while this "original" was always carefully preserved in the Royal Library, never lent out to anyone.

The notebook appeared to exist in perfect tangibility, yet the expression on Amber's face was exceedingly strange.

"What's going on?" Gao Yang guessed at once from her expression that something must be wrong with the notebook, and immediately asked.

Amber said nothing, and simply placed the notebook directly in front of Gao Yang.

Its surface shimmered faintly—a mysterious radiance unlike any light in this world, one that had never appeared before.

Gao Yang froze for a moment, then instinctively reached out and opened the notebook. Only then did he realize that the mysterious faint glow filled every corner of the notebook—on every page, along every edge, in the crevices between the pages. The subtly flickering light seemed to want to saturate the entire book, a scene like the "conflict" caused by an "anomalous object" that shouldn't exist here forcing its way into residence in the real world. Yet Gao Yang had another feeling.

He felt as though it were some kind of protection... some force forcibly keeping this book here.

Guided by some inexplicable intuition, he flipped to the last page of this notebook of special significance. In his memory, it was a blank page—but to his astonishment, he saw handwriting emerging on the paper:

"In the end, the last trace the wild mage left in the mortal world was preserved thus, proving that he had truly existed."

...

The cold sea wind blew head-on, and fine waves rose wave upon wave in the wind, beating against the hull of the Coldstar. Yet this towering steel warship was utterly unaffected by the mild wind and waves; like a steadfast maritime fortress, driven by powerful mechanical engines, it sailed steadily toward that mage nation across the strait.

Mojin Wilde stood at the bow of the Coldstar, his gaze fixed on the coastline gradually becoming clearer in his field of vision. Victoria Wilde stood beside him, looking in the same direction.

This was a warship—not as powerful as the Coldwinter, but a steel warship sufficient to handle any crisis in this strait. After learning of the strange changes in the Violet Kingdom, Victoria had sent word to the capital directly according to the highest-level alert standards, then immediately brought out this warship that had been standing by at Northport.

In fact, if the Coldwinter hadn't been undergoing maintenance on its power spine, she would even have applied to the higher-ups to dispatch the Coldwinter as well...

"If the incident level really has reached 'divine calamity,' then this ship won't be enough to deal with it." Victoria suddenly said in a low voice.

"It's not like we're sailing this ship off to fight a god," Mojin grumbled. "Right now Violet's situation is still within the category of 'extraordinary anomaly.' Our first task is to investigate the incident..."

Victoria glanced at the Xuanyuan Sect member beside her, her expression turning somewhat grave: "Do we need to go to war with those 'shadow dwellers'? Did you discover anything when you fought them? For instance, are there signs they're entering the real world on a large scale?"

"That's hard to say. After all, I couldn't beat them—the numbers were far too overwhelming. The moment we met, all I could do was run," Mojin waved his hand. "But I don't think you need to worry too much. The shadow dwellers' 'invincibility' only holds under specific conditions. Shadow dwellers that enter the real world can still be destroyed by cannon fire and magic. That thick fog I saw in my dream-wandering state was probably located in an overlapping state between the Shadow Realm and the real world—that's why shadow dwellers emerged from it. But now it looks like that fog has already dissipated..."

Victoria nodded slightly and looked up at the distant coastline, its outlines sharp and clear under the light of the sky: "True, the fog on the island has clearly dissipated. But no one can say for certain whether its dissipation has anything to do with the sun rising. After all, that thing... Hm?"

Victoria's sentence broke off abruptly. She stared fixedly at the distant coast, and even her face—ordinarily as icy as a glacier—finally revealed a trace of astonishment.

The coast was still far away, but with an extraordinary being's vision, even without activating auxiliary spells like Hawkeye or Mage's Eye, she could clearly make out many details in the distance.

She pointed that way: "There... that should be where Prandell City originally stood, isn't it?"

Mojin followed the direction of her finger and looked, but saw only a bare stretch of coastline—a scene so wild and primeval it was as if no human had ever set foot there in thousands of years.

"You said the city of Plandel was swallowed by the thick fog... and that black flames turned the city's buildings into nothing..." Victoria slowly turned her head, looking at Mojin with a strange expression. "But it is only now that I finally understand completely what you were saying..."

"Ah, I have been speaking in declarative sentences from the very start—it is you all who assumed I was using figures of speech," Mojin said, spreading his hands. "For an adventurer like me, what gets written down is usually documentary literature."

The old mage appeared perfectly composed, but in truth at least half of that composure on his face was feigned.

He was just as astonished in his heart—for although he had seen in the "dream" the visions of Plandel swallowed by the thick fog and consumed by black fire, he had never truly expected that such a great city could simply vanish! And vanish without a trace, as though a city like that had never existed at all along the entire coastline!

He had roamed this world for several hundred years, and such a thing he had truly never seen!

"You do not look the least bit surprised?" Victoria's voice came from beside him just then. The duchess who held the North in her hand gazed steadily at her ancestor. "You said earlier that you had not actually witnessed with your own eyes what became of Plandel after the thick fog swallowed it completely..."

Mojin stroked his beard, his expression placid. "I have wandered the continent for several centuries. Though many things have grown dim in my memory, an anomaly like this is hardly enough to throw me into confusion."

As a member of the Xuanmai Sect, one had to mind one's image before one's descendants...

Victoria clearly did not give it much thought. Her calm gaze seemed to say "just as expected of you," and then her eyes returned to the direction of the Violet Coastline.

Footsteps came from the side, and Maggie, the dark-haired dragon-descended maidservant, stepped onto the deck.

"The city of Plandel has disappeared, and the crew await your orders," Maggie said, lowering her head. "Shall we proceed as originally planned?"

Victoria considered for a moment, then nodded. "Continue onward. Drop anchor four nautical miles offshore, then send out the scouting party."

(End of Chapter)