Weird.

If the Candle Castle had not been carrying those heavy burdens at this moment, they would have been out in full force by now.

Being the center of faith of the church, it meant that there were countless clergymen here, all of whom wished that everyone could take out their holy emblems to deal a blow to Milim.

Seeking help from the outside world in this situation is tantamount to showing cowardice and damaging the prestige of the knowledge pantheon.

At this moment, the normal decision-making process would be to seek help from the Archmage and Friends of Candlekeep who are temporarily staying in Candlekeep - just as Stutin is doing now.

At that moment, a Milim rose into the air, crouched on the wall of the Central Library, and brazenly thrust her head into this spacious and bright office.

"...Evil beast!" This was beyond Stutin's expectations. The Oghma priest immediately raised his holy symbol.

"A phantom that can respond to the outside world..." Lanton was merely lost in thought, completely ignoring the dragon's skull that was so close to him. He shook his head and snapped his fingers at Milim, "Get lost."

In an instant, the silver dragon shadow that was originally ready to attack froze as if it had been electrocuted, then turned stiffly on the wall and flew into the air again.

Gazing at this astonishing scene, Stutin bewilderedly lowered his holy emblem. "...Sir Lanton, your strength is far greater than I imagined. Even Archmage Toss, when he suppressed Milim in her lifetime, didn't do it so easily."

"Toss? Ha!" The usually serious Landon almost laughed for the first time when he heard the name, but then he restrained his expression and said, "I'm used to hearing this kind of thing. I've said it before, I don't mind helping, but the question is, in what capacity can I help you?"

Stutin replied without hesitation, "From now on, you are a friend of Candlekeep."

Lanton sneered: "A friend who came to visit but was stopped everywhere and not allowed to enter?"

Most of Candlekeep is open to visitors.

——Except the inner court behind the arch.

Stutin could only say again: "All the knowledge of Candlekeep is placed in the outer courtyard..."

"Only the unspeakable things are placed in the inner court?"

After being rudely rebuked, Stutin could only bite the bullet and say, "The qualifications for entering the inner court have nothing to do with me. As the chief reader, I can only submit your application to the higher authorities. I guarantee that my recommendation will be the most effective in all of Candlekeep."

"However, there's no guarantee of ultimate success, much less of when I'll be able to proceed," Lanton said leisurely. "You're willing to sacrifice nothing, yet you're willing to pit your 'friend' against the dragon's ghost. Candlekeep's continued existence is undoubtedly unique."

This stinging mockery made Stutin blush. He held his head high and said, "No matter how much you mock me, I am completely unworthy of allowing you into the inner court. It is completely in vain for you to tell me this. This matter is entirely decided by the Book Keeper. I may be able to fulfill other requests."

Lanton finally turned around and glanced at Stutin. "The Chief Reader is quite famous outside, but it turns out he's just a servant of the Book Keeper in Candlekeep?"

"The word of the Keeper of the Book is law. This is the iron rule of Candlekeep," Stuttien replied. "Besides, I am inferior to the Keeper of the Book in every way—even in being conservative and old-fashioned."

Therefore, even if a chief reader had once stood up for justice and made the Book Keepers lose face - this had nothing to do with Stutin.

"...Oh, I see." Langton slowly sat down in his chair, as if the roars and freezing sounds outside the castle were just hallucinations. "Let's get straight to the point. I'm very interested in the inner court of Candlekeep. Can I guarantee that I can obtain the approval of the Keeper of the Book in a short time?"

"...It's difficult." Stutin sighed. "The Inner Court is different from the Outer Court. As long as you hand in your books, you can visit the Outer Court. Even the Red Robe Mages of Cyre have a record of visiting. But we are not ignorant of human nature. For a mage like you who is visiting Candlekeep for the first time, even if you are an extraordinary arcane wizard, we will have to observe you for a while before we can finally consider issuing permission."

"How to investigate?"

"Character, inclination, and, of course, achievements," Stutin said. "Anyone who can completely eliminate Milim's threat will probably be approved on the spot. For someone seeking to eliminate Milim's grievances, a few months should be more than enough."

"Should?" Lanton was clearly dissatisfied with the answer. "Then I'll just have to watch Candlekeep melt into ice here."

Just as Landon was leisurely admiring the dragon's rampage, he was suddenly startled.

The next second, a rain of steel that covered the sky and the sun roared down from the clear, cloudless sky.

These spear-like arrows seemed to have left the bowstrings at the same moment, and the roaring rainstorm instantly penetrated the boundaries of space. The aftermath of the arrows caused the room to shake slightly.

As the rain of arrows passed through the room like the sky collapsing, the bright moonlight shining above made the entire room slightly dark!

The arrow fell to the ground, and the raging dragon tide slowly subsided with the sound of breaking ground like a suppressed wave.

Landon was silent.

He slowly clenched his palm: "...Whose attack was that?"

At this moment, Stutin relaxed and leaned back in his chair. "I don't know. Candlekeep doesn't ask questions about the origins of its guests. Are you willing to reconsider now?"

"...Then let me change my question. If you refuse to answer, I will have no choice but to leave Candlekeep now."

At this moment, Landon looked Stutin in the eye for the first time.

Langton asked, "Has Candlekeep had any visitor named Metatron recently?"

Twelve Steel, Fire and Holy Water (I)

"In this attack, 48 monks were killed or wounded, and 110 visitors were killed or wounded. The damage to the books is too complex to count, and we're still calculating—but from what I've seen alone, we've already lost thousands of books in our collection, and dozens of rare copies were damaged by Milim's breath—the total losses must be dozens of times greater than this number. Not to mention the financial losses."

“And these losses were caused by those… those Milims in less than ten minutes.”

The scripture-keeper Lude had a cold expression on his face as he spoke out some shocking figures word by word.

Several hours had passed since Milim's rampage, and the dizzying rescue operation had finally concluded. Candlekeep had also received the damage statistics from the attack.

Even though not everyone present was from Candlekeep, they were all well aware that Milim must have caused enormous damage, but this number was far beyond their expectations.

"—So many?!" Apodel Adrian stood up in astonishment and asked with a hint of hope, "Casualties... the death toll shouldn't be that high, right? And are the recovered wounded also counted?"

In this world, death from injuries is not that common - only the lowest level of divine power is needed to stabilize a seriously injured person, and a little more effort can prevent wound infection.

Only those who died on the spot could possibly engage in philosophical speculation about whether they were willing to return to the world.

There are nearly ten churches in Candlekeep, with at least a hundred priests, and almost no one who can come to Candlekeep is extremely short of money: at least they can definitely come up with life-saving donations.

This situation is when divine arts are showing their full power. Why are there such exaggerated numbers?

During the late period when Elturgard was fighting against the devil, the total casualties within a few days were only of this order of magnitude.

"We received permission from our Lord to perform the resurrection spell." Lude was silent for a moment, "However, the spell was cast but it didn't take effect."

"What do you mean by 'not effective'?" Metatron frowned. "Is it that the deceased refused to return to the living world, or is it that the spell fell on deaf ears?"

Resurrection is a rather delicate thing in Faerun, just like death itself.

There are two key elements in this world that make death incredibly complicated.

——You can be resurrected within a certain period of time after death. Even if you are not resurrected, you will be led to the kingdom of the gods after receiving the judgment of the god of death.

Is the material world better than the kingdom of God?

If the answer is no, it means you believe in a good god - the main purpose of many cultists fighting for evil gods is to avoid being punished after death.

There is no reincarnation or afterlife in Faerûn. Death is permanent—and so is life in the Kingdom of God.

In this case, it is inevitable that some people will fall into this kind of thinking: If life after death is better than life before death, why don’t I die quickly?

Although the lives of most Faerunians are not so difficult as to require them to immediately end their lives and rush to the kingdom of God, bringing the dead back to the living world inevitably faces this problem - resurrection requires the deceased to give up their good lives, endure the painful process of reuniting their souls with their bodies, and return to the dangerous material world.

So, it is not uncommon for the living to wish to resurrect the dead, but for the dead to be unwilling to come back.

However, if all the dead do not want to be resurrected, that is another matter entirely!

"...So, how many people refuse to be resurrected?" Apodel asked.

"First of all, it's not that we refuse resurrection. We don't know what happened," said Stutin, the chief reader sitting next to the Book Keeper. "Please allow me to describe it in detail—we cast Resurrection on these recently deceased individuals whose bodies were intact, but nothing happened."

"Is this true for everyone, or just visitors?"

"Everyone is like this. Including the monks of Candlekeep." Lude stood up and supported his hands on the table. "All the dead have not responded. The resurrection failed - they may still be resurrected, but at least we don't know."

While the bigwigs were discussing heatedly, Emilia was studying hard in the corner of the conference room.

Mr. Emiya's arcane knowledge was at the top of his age group, but it was far from enough to solve the puzzle that had baffled the bishops and archmages present.

Moreover, this meeting was more like a press conference—everyone was completely confused. Candlekeep was merely there to inform the archmages, visitors, and bishops present about what was happening.

During this brief silence, several great wizards present officially broke the silence.

There were both men and women among them, but they were all obviously elderly.

One of them said, "Just a few days ago, I heard the monks confidently say: 'Candlekeep considers the phantoms appearing everywhere to be of no concern.' ... I think what happened today is enough to overturn this conclusion?"

Lude nodded gravely. "...Yes, it's clear that the spread of the phantom has reached the next stage. We have no choice but to start looking for a solution to this crisis while preventing the next attack."

The several great wizards present exchanged glances, and one of them asked, "Then, can I assume that this calamity will only grow stronger?"

Lude was silent for a moment, and the Chief Reader took over. "All we can say is that the assumption that Milim will resolve herself is... overly optimistic."

At this point, she paused and said, "There's a question I should have asked right from the start: Why are there dozens of Milims?"

The two leaders of Candlekeep shook their heads in unison. "We've been busy recuperating after the war and haven't had time to discuss this issue. Does anyone here have any ideas?"

"Inspiration?" An archmage in a gray robe, representing neutrality, laughed angrily. "I was peacefully reading a tome in Candlekeep when a dragon ghost suddenly appeared outside the window without warning and poked its head through the stone wall of Candlekeep. I was so flustered that I almost lost my life. Why did this dragon appear? On this issue, we should be the ones listening!"

Another white-robed wizard said even more dissatisfiedly: "Lude, you Candlekeep are really not hiding anything from us? Candlekeep is our friend, are we really Candlekeep's friends?"

This is a bit too harsh.

Ludd was silent for a moment, then said, "I can say that there are indeed secrets within Candlekeep that are not revealed to everyone. But is this secret related to this attack? I swear to Oghma that I truly do not know."

The gray-robed wizard asked, "Really? You can't tell me?"

Lude's forehead was slightly sweaty: "Sorry, this is not just my business, I can't say it."

At this point, Emiya couldn't help but say, "Regarding Milim... We speculate that it might be due to the overlapping shadows of the dead—those extra Milims appearing aren't victims of death, but rather perpetrators of death. Over the years, Milim has likely killed more than a few dozen people, right? Each shadow of a deceased person should likely summon another Milim."

There was one thing he hadn't said yet.

—Everyone who died in this war could potentially summon Milim’s phantom again in the future, repeating today’s nightmare.

If this bizarre surge in negative energy abundance cannot be curbed, Milim's attacks will only intensify like an epidemic.

However, Emiya's remarks only made the atmosphere worse.

A gray-robed archmage heard his words and didn't comment. Instead, he looked at Lude angrily and said, "Ha. In that case, you should seek help from those young archmages. I'll take my leave now."

He pointed to the corner of the room and said, "For example, that young man over there with red hair, who is already wearing the robes of a great wizard at such a young age."

As he said this, the grey-robed wizard actually stood up and walked away.

The friends of Candlekeep who shared the archmage's views were clearly quite upset, and quite a few left the room. In an instant, nearly one-fifth of the people in the huge conference hall were gone.

After the last slam of the door stopped, the white-robed wizard was silent for a moment, then stood up and said, "Well, let me state my stance. I can stay and help, but I have a few conditions. First, Candlekeep must give up its illusions and ask those powerless visitors to leave and return home. I don't want to waste any more time and energy protecting these powerless nobles and scholars who have lofty ambitions."

Lude nodded: "Of course."

"Okay, the second condition." The white-robed wizard knocked his knuckles on the table. "Candlekeep has secrets, I accept. In this case, I will only protect the safety of the monks of Candlekeep. Anything else has nothing to do with me. If the enemy claims to be coming for your secrets, then I will decide for myself whether to help. Don't wait until then to bring up your identity as a friend of Candlekeep."

"...Okay." Lude let out a long sigh, "I agree to everything."

"That's it." The great wizard clenched his staff somewhat unwillingly, glanced at Emilia, and without looking back, walked out of the meeting room with a group of people.

Now, only 70% of the people were left in the meeting room, most of whom were leaders of various churches who were already in Candlekeep.

Stutin whispered a few words to the stern-faced Lude, and Lude's expression eased slightly: "...Is there anything else you want to ask?"

At this moment, the person Lude least expected stood up.

——Priest Hus, leader of the Gond people who support Candlekeep.

The priest glanced at the mages' backs, sneered, and turned to look at Lude. "Master Keeper of the Scriptures, our help from the Gond Church is of course unconditional. We just have two small wishes."

It's still the same.

The Scripture Keeper's eyelids jumped: "--I have to say in advance, if the condition for your support of Candlekeep is to require the full permission of the Church of Oghma and the Church of Denil to roll out the printing press..."

"No, no, no." Hus waved his hand. "You misunderstood. I'm not in charge of the printing press in Baldur's Gate. I can't do that kind of delicate work. If other Gond people are carvers who heal their eyes, then I'm a carpenter. The smallest movement is a saw and a plane."

"First request." He held up a finger. "When we arrived at Candlekeep, we were only allowed to use arquebuses. With all due respect, if the situation continues to deteriorate, our arquebuses combined can only bring down a few ghost dragons. We request increased firepower."

Emiya's eyebrow twitched involuntarily.

In the previous duel with the ghost dragon, many Gond people took out the so-called "wall guns", which were large muskets or cannons that could not be used by one person because of their large size and had to be mounted on a bracket or wall.

Such weapons are considered to be insufficient in firepower. What on earth do they want to move?

Lude was clearly well-versed in the nature of the Gond people, and he couldn't help but gasp, "That kind of thing... can really be used inside the city walls?"

"We know what we're doing," Huss said. "If the enemy isn't that strong, we certainly won't use it. But if they're strong enough, then maybe artillery alone won't be enough."

"...You'd better know what you're talking about." Lude covered his face and took a deep breath. "I agree. What's the second condition?"

"The artillery is incredibly heavy, having been transported all the way from Baldur's Gate. Milim might have already come here several times." Huss clapped his hands. "We're not Candlekeep's closest partner, so I have a request I'd like you to convey: we'd like to borrow someone."

Lude couldn't help but frowned. "Convey it on my behalf? Who should I borrow it from?"

Huss stopped pretending and rushed to Emya in two steps, even knocking over several chairs along the way. "Mr. Emya... Your Excellency! Master Gutenberg has made it very clear that we can ask you for help with any difficulties we have! Now is our critical moment!"

"Why are you asking me for help?!" Emilia was shocked.

Didn't Gunde leak the news of his competition with Gunde to the church?

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