Read Novel Full Chapter 880: Chapter 473: Where Is the Forest Guardian?
Chapter 880: Chapter 473: Where Is the Forest Guardian?
Louis followed behind the Supreme Mage Aurelian, stepping into the Mage Forest.
The outermost area already revealed an entirely different aura from the outside world.
Tall yet humble Mage Towers were scattered among the woods, their towers covered in the marks of time’s erosion.
There was no bustling, nor could one speak of affluence here.
Louis could see mages in magic robes busying themselves, some transporting materials, some recording runes, while others stood on open platforms repeatedly calibrating arrays.
When they saw Aurelian appear, their conversations immediately ceased.
Whether it was the older High-tier Mages or the Magic Apprentices who had just stepped into the field of alchemy, they all simultaneously stopped their work, cleared the path in the center of the road, placed a hand on their chest, and bowed their heads in genuine respect without any concealment.
Aurelian merely nodded slightly in response, his pace unaffected.
Louis followed closely, and as he stepped into the Mage Forest, he distinctly felt the change in magic power.
The air was filled with highly purified energy flows, more concentrated than any place he had ever been.
This was truly a sacred land of magic.
But soon, he sensed another layer of peculiarity; the air seemed unusually thick, with an indescribable sense of delay.
Even the sunlight passing through the canopy and spilling down appeared slowed by something, the light and shadow lingering on the ground longer than usual.
Louis instinctively slowed his breathing.
The time here seemed not to fully adhere to the outside world’s rules.
Aurelian did not explain.
He just led Louis forward, passing through one Mage building after another.
The outer workshops and towers gradually fell behind, replaced by core structures simpler in design yet subtly exuding a sense of danger.
The further they walked, the more pronounced the sense of time dilation became.
The sound of footsteps became blurred, the wind seemed compressed into the distance, even the rhythm of heartbeats started to feel unreliable.
Ultimately, they stopped before a Teleportation Gate.
It was a circular door frame standing in a clearing in the woods, without any superfluous decoration.
Runes quietly hovered inside the gate, slowly rotating as if waiting to be awakened.
Aurelian paused here.
He stepped aside to clear the way, leaving the position directly in front for Louis.
“I can only go this far,” the Supreme Mage said to Louis, “Please, Duke Calvin, you proceed on your own.”
Louis crossed the hallway beyond the Teleportation Gate.
As his foot fell, he instinctively thought he would again step into the forest.
Yet before his eyes lay an ancient city completely enveloped by huge mushroom caps.
Gray-white stone towers and arch bridges were frozen within translucent amber; streets, plazas, Mage Towers retained the contours from millennia past.
The once-flowing magic patterns now stagnated in the air like preserved specimens of time.
This was once the most flourishing city of mages, now only frozen remains.
Deep within the city, a giant tree soared upward.
Its massive trunk pierced through the surface and the dome, branches growing along fallen towers, firmly locking the entire city within its roots.
Louis paused before the tree, where an old man grew.
Half of his body had already entirely turned to wood, skin merged with bark, the rhythm of his chest rising almost in sync with the tree trunk’s pulse.
Only one side of his face still retained the outline of a human.
As Louis approached, the old man slowly opened his eyes.
They were eyes so serene they seemed almost drained.
The wooden mouth struggled slightly, revealing an incomplete smile: “Hello Duke Calvin, you may call me Forest Guardian, I’ve waited for you a whole age.”
Louis nodded, unsure what to say.
“You may not be the teacher, but you’ve brought his heart here.” The Forest Guardian’s gaze fell upon him, as if piercing through flesh and blood, “It seems you’re the chosen one.”
The leaves of the giant tree swayed slightly overhead.
“Before leaving a thousand years ago, the teacher spoke a prophecy,” the Forest Guardian’s sight turned far away, “When the roar of the Ancients Dragons resounds from deep within the earth’s crust, the prophesied one will arrive across the wind and snow.”
Louis was silent for a moment, then shook his head: “I don’t believe in destiny. I’ve come to gain leverage against the Dragon Emperor.”
Louis raised his head, meeting the Forest Guardian’s gaze: “Since you mentioned the prophecy… what is this prophecy?”
The Forest Guardian observed him for a long while, then his gaze shifted again towards the depths of the city.
“The old Emperor is not truly a dragon, nor can he be a Dragon Emperor; he’s merely a half-dragon in the developmental stage.”
The Forest Guardian’s tone remained steady.
“Once he absorbs sufficient knightly vigour, he will unravel the shackles upon himself, complete the transformation, becoming a real dragon.”
Louis said nothing.
“The Ancient Dragon Race were once the true masters of this land,” the Forest Guardian continued, “Humans were merely their livestock.”
“The so-called Fighting Spirit Knight and breathing methods are, in essence, breeding programs the Dragon Race embedded into human genes.”
His tone lacked mockery or pity.
“These made humans stronger, more durable, and more… palatable.”
Louis finally spoke: “You’re saying that now all the knights are nourishment for the resurrection of the Dragon Race?”
“Indeed.” The Forest Guardian nodded.
“The higher the knight’s rank, the deeper the dragon blood’s erosion in their bodies,” his mouth twitched slightly again, “making them more delicious.”
He looked at Louis, with a trace of almost imperceptible complexity in his eyes.
“For example, in the eyes of a dragon, you are an excellent main course.”
Louis did not look away.
The Forest Guardian continued, “When the teacher descended upon this land, he saw ruins twisted by dragon violence; all things were food for the dragon race.”
His voice lowered, carrying a touch of reverence, “So he borrowed the power of original sin, taming those forces meant to devour the world in the apocalypse into a power source, writing a set of new world operating rules.”
Louis listened, his face showed little disturbance, but rather, he seemed enlightened.
Those scattered memories and fragments all confirmed this point.
The dragon catastrophe, humans becoming slaves and food, the Primordial Mage leading humans in rebellion…
“I see,” Louis murmured, “This is the essence of magic.”
“Yes.” The Forest Guardian nodded, “Every magic thereafter evolved from this foundational layer.”
Louis felt a stirring inside; during his study of magic, he noticed irregularities. Those phonetics and symbols had a subtle resemblance to the languages and texts in his memory.
The Forest Guardian seemed to sense his thoughts, but did not point them out.
He simply continued, “Of course, borrowing the power of original sin was not without cost. After humanity won that war, true peace did not come to the world.
The Dragon King fell, and the power once suppressed and guided suddenly lost its sole outlet. Dragon blood fighting energy lost foreign enemies, Primordial magic lost its bounds; they began to flow inward.
No longer was it confrontation or expansion, but self-consumption; humans began to destroy one another.
A knight’s blood energy ran rampant within, a mage’s spell broke structure, conflicts erupted between cities, schools purged each other. Victory lasted a brief moment, then turned into more thorough chaos.”
“The teacher was the first to realize the problem.” The Forest Guardian seemed to be recalling a slice of history he was unwilling to touch again, “Power itself is neither good nor evil, but when it loses direction, it only keeps demanding. The dragon died but humans began to turn into new dragons, and true dragons would resurrect in the knights.
Thus the Primordial Mage made the final choice.
He sealed most of the original sin into the flesh, dividing it into seven parts each balancing the others. Each part of original sin corresponds to an extreme, and we seven individuals each bear one.”
The Forest Guardian lifted his already wooden arm, tapping his fingers against the tree trunk, emitting a dull echo.
“This is sacrifice, not only him but including us.
We seven disciples dispersed across the continent, using a long time to wear down the erosion of original sin. Not fighting, but enduring.
The portion I received was the smallest in cost.”
As he spoke these words, his tone was very calm.
Louis looked at his semi-wooden body, silent.
“It is sloth, hence time stagnates here.” Louis asked, “Isn’t it?”
The Forest Guardian nodded.
“This place was once the lighthouse of continental civilization. City of mages, researching and inheriting the knowledge left by the Primordial Mage, the light of civilization radiating outward from here; later, I had no choice but to seal sloth here.”
The air seemed to grow heavier.
“Sloth prevents things from losing direction. It makes people linger, makes things stop changing.”
Sunlight filtered through the giant mushrooms’ caps, yet seemed to slow down.
“The air ceases to flow, time loses its vector.” The Forest Guardian whispered, “In order to prevent the seal from spreading across the world, I can only completely isolate the city.”
Louis’s gaze went past him, looking into the distance.
The former main road was covered by tree roots, the Mage Tower twisted into the shape of a dead tree, buildings encased in mycelium, frozen in an unfinished moment.
“Mage Forest.” The Forest Guardian enunciated the name, “Not rebirth, but a millennium of slow decay. I’m merely the last Tomb Guardian on this corpse.”
He was silent for a moment, then continued.
“The other original sins are the same… most of my senior brothers and sisters died in pain.
Some were corrupted, some chose self-destruction, but before falling, they tried their best to consume and suppress the original sin they bore.
If there was no follow-up intervention, they could have remained sealed for a few hundred more years.”
The Forest Guardian’s gaze grew complex, “But in recent years, the seal has been broken.”
Louis looked up, thinking of the disasters he experienced over the years, the Nest, barbarian invasion, Church disaster…
“Perhaps it was Loken.” The Forest Guardian said softly, “The teacher’s son, our junior disciple.
He gave the Primordial Heart to you, detonating all the original sins. I don’t know why he did it, but it’s also written in the prophecy.”
The Forest Guardian looked at Louis, “And you, guided, began to gather these forces.”
Louis’s breathing slightly halted, suddenly understanding.
It is the Daily Intelligence System, searching for new carriers for original sin in this way.
The Forest Guardian slowly stood.
The giant tree trembled with it, amber streams of light emerged from deep within the trunk, gathering at his fingertips.
“Louis.” His voice turned solemn for the first time, “Do not evade… you already stand here.”
Your task is to prevent the Dragon King’s true arrival, and use the heart within you to regroup all the rampant original sins.”
He paused, “As for the further future… that is beyond our knowledge, wish you good luck…”
At this point, he raised his withered hand, placing it on Louis’s forehead.
The entire Mage Forest responded at this moment.
The magic power accumulated over a millennium in the entire city surged into Louis like a tide, without gentle guidance, unreservedly poured.
Louis’s consciousness was stretched to the limit, the whispers of original sin crisscrossed within him, forcing himself to compress everything into the Primordial Heart.
Finally, the original sin belonging to “sloth” was wholly entrusted to him.
Unsure of how much time passed, the world returned to silence.
Louis opened his eyes, the giant tree already completely withered, amber light faded, and the Forest Guardian’s figure disappeared at some unknown time.
All that remained here was a true relic.
Louis stood up, peacefully, “I know what to do now.”