City of Sin

Book 7, 45

Breaking The Myth

The first thing Richard noticed about Sharon’s residence was the new doors. The grand gates had been destroyed by Voidbones, and in their place was some unknown azure-bronze material that felt like stone. It was quite obvious that it was neither produced in Norland nor specifically tailored to the Deepblue, and the workmanship on the edges was quite shoddy as well. The thing had likely been something Sharon had obtained in the past now put up in a hurry as a temporary measure.

The elven puppet guarding the place was dull and lifeless, a far cry from the lifelike realism of the previous batch. Even within, the Mirror of a Thousand Forms had been destroyed and all that remained was empty floors and walls that were broken apart in all sorts of places. The entire thing was practically in ruins, with scorch marks and what looked like once-melted glass everywhere. A breeze was blowing in from the east, likely from what was originally the storage area or power source for the formation that was now just a heap of rubbish that was three people tall.

A ridiculously small number of puppets were moving through the enormous residence, cleaning up the rubble. Sharon would have to undertake this part of the restoration herself, and it was unknown just how long that would take.

As he entered the legendary mage’s bedroom, he noticed that the only things intact were the long window and the crystal platform that Sharon had slept on while hibernating. Now that she was healed, she obviously wouldn’t want to sleep on such a hard surface; a large mattress had been dug out from somewhere and thrown carelessly beside the window.

Sharon herself was floating in the air as she poured blue energy into the walls to mend the damage. Without the icy blue radiance from the crystal surface, he finally saw the inner walls that were a bizarre blue metal he wasn’t familiar with at all. The metal seemed to soften as she controlled it, wriggling around and even recovering part of its structure slowly.

“Fill the bowl,” she instructed without even turning around, sending her enormous fruit bowl flying towards him. Richard didn’t say anything and flew over to her personal warehouse, filling the bowl to its brim before carrying it back to her.

“There’s a few meteor titanium ingots over there, bring them over.”

Richard ran out again, adding a few strength buffs to himself and activating Mana Armament before he could lift the metal. While each ingot looked to be the size of a regular brick, they actually weighed at least a dozen tonnes.

The entire afternoon passed in these simple odd jobs and errands, but Richard felt oddly content. He even caught himself smiling on many occasions and had to admit that it felt like he had returned to being a student instead of being expected to lead. However, he didn’t believe this was all Sharon wanted him for; these ingots were immune to most magic, so it was quite inefficient to have a mage do it. Even though he was plenty strong with his buffs and runes, a saint warrior would have a much easier time.

The sentient lock of hair lay limp across Sharon’s forehead, looking deeply disappointed or fatigued for some reason. However, the legendary mage ignored it and continued on with her work, only stopping once the magical clock rang that it was time for dinner. She turned around and glanced at Richard, “Alright, you can go rest.”

That was it? Richard nodded, but he couldn’t help but feel something was amiss. Sharon seemed to have something to say, but she was avoiding the topic. He didn’t possess the courage to ask himself, but for some reason Sharon’s hair seemed to be fed up as it shot straight away and pulled on her scalp with all its might. It didn’t manage to go anywhere, but she winced in pain and snorted angrily, “You’re asking to die!”

However, this disruption seemed to give her a conclusion to some agonising struggle. Richard had already turned to leave, but she stopped him, “Wait right there, I’ll be back.”

Although Richard hadn’t interacted much with her during his education in the Deepblue, every moment he had spent in her presence had trained him to obey her every word. It wasn’t something she specifically trained her students for, but few were willing to get on her nerves. Even now, that ingrained obedience hadn’t faded and he froze up in place.

Sharon flew over to her warehouse and rummaged through it in search of something. Eventually finding an exquisite golden balance, she pulled out a number of weights before running out. Finding no flat table to place the balance on, she simply put it on the floor before casually taking a weight and placing it on one of the pans. She then started adding weights on the other side, muttering under her breath.

Even as a number of weights were dropped in the second tray, it still remained high up in the air. More than a dozen weights eventually failed to match up to the tiny one that had been placed first. The legendary mage was starting to get annoyed, her eyebrows rising further and further She rolled a weight around between her fingers before tossing it into the higher tray, something that would surprise those who knew her well. The reserved appearance was only a facade, and the fact that someone strong enough to crush Tiamat’s horns with one hand didn’t destroy the weight showed how sturdy it was as well.

More weights were thrown on the tray, but the balance refused to budge. Standing at the side, Richard recognised it as the same set that he had once seen years ago, one that she had used to make a decision regarding himself. He had no idea what it was made of then, but now he used Insight to examine it and found that there were faint lines intersecting each other atop the scales. Every new weight changed the interconnections completely.

It didn’t take long for him to realise that these lines represented the power of some law. For the balance to be able to affect something like that was extraordinary, a characteristic exclusive to divine instruments, but he just couldn’t tell what the actual laws affected were.

His first train of thought was to try and establish a model to analyse these laws with, but after a few attempts his brow furrowed. He couldn’t find even a hint of a pattern in his vision, making it completely impossible to build a model of any sort. Even the laws of chaos itself had a basis, something that tied them together; however, he couldn’t recognise any such pattern here. Even the laws atop the Resting Orchid Plane and the temple of the Sacred Tree Empire were vastly inferior.

Richard continued to try a few more times, but eventually gave up and concluded that it was an impossible task for him as he was. Instead focusing on what the legendary mage was muttering to herself, he barely caught a few words like runecrafting and something about an astral something. The weights stacked on top of the tray and filled up with no place remaining, but the other side still didn’t budge.

Sharon puffed her cheeks and suddenly grabbed the last weight before grunting and throwing it down, “Tender and delicious!”

A dull thud echoed as the weight was thrown down, the heavens themselves seeming to respond as the balance slowly tilted towards the other side. The legendary mage watched on, awestruck, as the first weight finally lifted upwards.

Just the same as all those years ago. Richard felt like he had witnessed an invisible hand playing with fate, the same last straw breaking the same camel’s back once more. However, he didn’t have much time to muse over the drama as he suddenly shivered; Sharon had turned and fixed her gaze on him, eyes glowing bright!

In a mere moment, it felt like a catastrophe was looming as the entire planet would strike him head-on. This wasn’t too much of a delusion either; Sharon had jumped straight at his face!

The legendary mage was quite average in height, standing a head shorter than himself now that he was fully grown, but the sheer might as she pinned him down felt like an entire continent falling atop him. There was no way for him to dodge. Richard felt everything go black as Sharon became the only thing he could see or even think about; he called himself invincible below the legendary realm, but he was sent to the floor without any way to resist. The term legendary was only a vague modifier to Sharon’s title; a legendary being could be level 21 or level 30.

Sharon’s body heated up, quickly growing so hot that it felt scalding even to an Archeron like himself. Her mana gathered and shredded their clothes apart, before disappearing into the background like the ambient energy of the void. Richard couldn’t move at all under her hold, bloodline, truenames, runes all ceasing to function. He couldn’t even utilise his bodily strength, not because it had been sealed but because of instinctive fear. Eventually he managed to gather some mana, but there was no use at all as the delicate hand holding him down seemed heavier than the Deepblue tower itself.

Even Tiamat herself could only submit to Sharon’s torture; Richard was nowhere near as strong. Giving in to her whims was his only option.