A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 293 Nodes and Fields

The black-clad monk's expression changed slightly. He hesitated for a moment before slowly releasing his pressure on Luo Xia.

Therefore, Rorschach's domain expanded on its own, but the amount of magical flux he needed to convert was greater, and the burden was also greater.

The two domains form a dynamic balance, with different forces converging and canceling each other out at the interface. Tiny, invisible crystal particles at the edges precipitate out of thin air and are quickly broken up and destroyed in the torrent.

As the area expanded, the strange phenomena that Rorschach saw became even more blurred. What was already like seeing flowers through a fog was now even more blurred, with the fog itself beginning to dissipate.

His brain seemed to be churning and boiling with the magic of the cycle, his temples thumping in unison with his heartbeat. At the last moment before the node disappeared, Rorschach reached out his hand. Of course, the node had no physical form, but to him it was more like a symbolic adjustment, an attempt to shake it.

Why did he have this idea? Luo Xia couldn't explain it either, but he had a hunch that the nodes could change according to his will.

Rorschach's intuition was correct, but he didn't know what he had triggered at the last moment.

"Why do I feel colder?" Freddy had just caught his breath when he felt himself inhale a large gulp of cold air, chilling him from his chest to the top of his head. The words he uttered were also slowed down.

Singrev then threw the hammer at the black monk, but both his movements and the hammer's motion became sluggish.

Cold, stagnant. The energy level of the entire field was falling, accompanied by the birth of new magic as it plunged. Both the poet and the little soot sprite felt as if their consciousness and body were disconnecting, and that they had gained a new sense.

Only the dwarves were completely unaware of what was happening.

The old man also noticed the change in Rorschach's domain. Without further hesitation, he decisively stopped the supergravity within the church. This process was swift. Originally, the existence of Rorschach's domain was predicated on the counteracting force of the Black Monk's domain. Now, the circulating magic broke free of its restraints, surging and erupting in all directions.

The cycle was broken, and Luo Xia stopped moving with a muffled groan. The blurred node had completely disappeared, and an invisible impact washed over the main hall, especially "washing" the old man thoroughly, causing him to fall straight down.

"Huh? That feeling is gone?" The poet savored the experience of that brief moment. Although his body had endured the bitter cold, the new sensation was wonderful. He felt that if he had plucked the strings then, something interesting would have happened.

Unfortunately, both the internal and external domains have been closed.

With a wave of his hand, Luo Xia caused the black monk to shift from freefall to a slow descent, while bats scattered and fled from the main hall.

At this moment, Singrev and Freddie, wielding hammers/harp heads, pressed closer to the old man, but were stopped by Rorschach. The boy could finally see the black monk clearly—no, he should now be called the gray monk.

His robe was filthy, revealing uneven patches of gray, whether it was naturally like that or had become like this from wearing it every day was hard to tell. Only a small portion of the charcoal-black surface remained, slowly recovering at the collar and hem.

Is's power is quite tenacious. The impact just now was equivalent to Rorschach unleashing a fully charged [Divine Expulsion] and [Reverse Ray], yet the Black Monk did not completely lose the energy bestowed upon him by Is.

"Cough cough." The old man's hands were very thin, nothing more than bones covered by a layer of bloodless, loose skin, but his face was well-groomed, with his withered beard and hair not messy.

A wave of energy emanated from Luo Xia's palm, but was stopped by the cultivator: "Don't use Oak Tree's methods, I won't fall for that."

Oak Tree Guy. You mean the Druid? Rorschach obeyed the old man's wishes and gave up treating him.

The others were still confused, but the dwarf pulled out a rope: "Why are you chatting? Let's tie this guy up first and then interrogate him, it won't take much time."

The old man chuckled: "Goblin, if I really wanted to kill you, you'd be almost completely digested by the bats by now."

Wait, why did the defeated boss's mouth suddenly become broken? Originally, Luo Xia thought that the Black Monk was always a high-class riddle-solving charlatan, but now that he has become weaker, his mouth has become harder, and he is not holding back in firing verbal attacks at the dwarf.

"Say that again? I think you're too old to live anymore, go eat a hammer and go to hell!"

"If you don't like being called a goblin, then call me a dwarf? You're not even as tall as the pumpkins I used to grow. When dragons come to hunt, they start with the tall ones. By the time they've had their fill, you're still too big to catch."

Singerev suddenly attacked, and Rorschach and Freddy respectively subdued the dwarf and the monk.

Carrying the dwarf was still a bit of a struggle, so the poet simply lifted him up. Freddy said, "Old man, you didn't kill him, but you still gave me a hard time."

"You're quite smart; it's good that you know."

"Then why did you attack us?" Singhlev retorted, feeling that it would be a waste not to give the old man a good punch.

"What nonsense are you spouting, you stinky fish-eating bastard?" The cultivator slumped to the ground, his face showing shock, and accused, "Use your brain, which's been spinning around in that helmet, to recall if you guys were the ones who started it. I was just teaching an unwelcome guest a lesson."

It seems that the dwarves and bards were indeed the ones who intended to fire first?

Singrev calmed down for a moment: "You're playing tricks in the dark, with your beard bared and waving your arms around. Don't you think we should defend ourselves?"

The dwarf's words made a lot of sense. The dark monk had appeared and disappeared mysteriously, and when he got excited, he even waved the whiskers under his robes, just like a monster's prelude. After the strange events on Harold Avenue, Rorschach and his group were already on high alert.

The black monk sighed, "I'm sorry. The power of the Forsaken has influenced me too deeply, especially when my emotions are strong. Those things are not something I can fully control." Clearly, the "Forsaken" is Is.

Rorschach looked up; the painting on the ceiling was still shrouded in a cloud of ethereal light. He focused on the unfinished part: "So what happened? Did Is leave?"

"He was born to descend, so leaving would be easy for him." The black monk had recovered somewhat, and his hands were hidden in his robes again, with one or two whiskers peeking out from under his beard. "In the Silent Era, our time, the battle between the earth and the sky became fierce, and Ish would probably no longer dare to linger in Istani."

He said, “You should know which two beings I am referring to as the earth and the sky. Rather than comparing it to the sky, it is better to use the sun as a metaphor.” The monk did not dwell on the rhetoric for long: “In short, the rejected one has abandoned his believers without hesitation, abandoned his covenant people, and even violated his covenant.”

Freddie, who had always been instilled with traditional mythological beliefs, disagreed: "Ish has already helped the kingdom break free from the dominion of the old empire and the Lord of Order. He has simply left us. What is there to condemn?"

The old man bluntly rejected the poet's idea: "Child, do you think the gods come to this island piled with bird droppings to do charity? If there really are so-called benevolent gods, they are precisely the villains in the kingdom's history books, the Lords of Light and Order, haha, only in relation to humans."

(End of this chapter)