Chapter 74: The Truth Revealed
The super-large teleportation circle had only ever appeared once before in history: at the fall of the Dwarven Kingdom. But now, it had appeared again, and this time, it was used by the Sky-Winged. It was hard not to draw a connection.
"It's hard to say. There's not enough information," Norne said, shaking his head. The implication was too shocking; he didn't know how to respond.
Rhodes didn't immediately agree with Serie's theory. He just used his levitation spell to fly up into the air. The entire dwarven ruins had been reduced to a massive crater. The magical beasts, the countless treasures... everything was gone.
"This is the strongest magical attack on the continent. The Divine Strike of the Sky-Winged," Serie said, having flown up beside him.
They descended into the center of the ruins, and the others followed. Eirik kicked at the rubble. "It's all gone," he said in a dejected voice. "Everything is gone..."
Except for the few grimoires they had taken with them, everything in the treasury had been destroyed. It wasn't his, but it still pained him to see it. It had been the most precious treasure on the continent. Those damned bird-brains were completely insane!
"Those bastards! How dare they do this to our ancestral home!?" Somme trembled with rage.
For all dwarves, the first Dwarven Kingdom was their ancestral home. Every dwarf dreamed of reclaiming it and restoring their former glory, even after it had been overrun by hordes of monsters. But now, that hope was completely gone.
"No, there's still a chance," Rhodes said, his eyes fixed on a spot in the ruins. "The power of the Divine Right Sword, Org, could withstand the Divine Strike. That means the pedestal it was resting on might have survived as well."
In truth, their own power could never have withstood such an attack, not even with the stored mana of the 'Light of Ersten'. It was only when they were on the verge of being overwhelmed that Org had released its own power, reinforcing their magic barrier. It was only with the power of both holy swords that they had managed to survive.
And in his opinion, the holy relic shouldn't have been so easily destroyed. It had to still be here, buried under the rubble.
The group began to search.
Using her natural sense for mana, Serie quickly located the unique mana signature of the holy relic. "It's here," she said.
They gathered around and began to dig through the thick layer of debris. At the bottom, they found the stone pedestal. It was covered in cracks, but its overall structure was still intact. And, to their surprise, the force of the Divine Strike had created a crack in the center of the pedestal, revealing a glowing object inside.
"What is..." Norne carefully brushed away the debris and took out a palm-sized, blood-red stone slab.
It was inscribed with ancient runes and was surprisingly light, a stark contrast to the heavy pedestal it had been housed in.
"I see!" Serie finally understood. "So this is the real holy relic. The stone pedestal was just a disguise!"
She and Rhodes had already been thinking about breaking open the pedestal to see if the slab was inside, but they had been worried about causing a mana leak. And just as they had finally decided to do it, the Divine Strike had descended. But the end result was a good one. They had found the real stone slab.
Rhodes took the slab and felt the immense power within it. "The pedestal must have been specially crafted by the dwarves to amplify the slab's power, which is why we mistook it for the relic itself."
Just then, without the support of the holy relic's mana, the stone pedestal completely shattered into a pile of small stones. And amongst the stones, a special piece of animal-hide parchment caught their attention.
"What's this?" Norne asked, picking it up. It was covered in a dwarven script he couldn't read. "What was this doing inside?"
"It must have been hidden in a secret compartment," Serie said, taking the parchment. She frowned at the complex script. "It's the same kind of ancient text as the one on the pedestal, but a little different."
"Can you read it?"
"I can," she said with a newfound confidence. "This was clearly written in a hurry, so it's not as complex as the text on the pedestal. It shouldn't be too difficult to decipher."
She spent a few moments reading, then her voice was grave as she read it aloud: "The gods, divided by their faith, have become true and false. The true god is not seen, and the false god reigns. The dwarves, having touched upon the forbidden, have incurred a divine punishment. All will be lost under the might of the gods' most loyal chosen ones. May future generations, upon seeing this, convey it to all dwarves, and raise the sword of rebellion against the false gods..."
The writing grew more and more frantic, and then abruptly ended.
A long silence followed. They were all stunned by the revelation.
"If... if we were to tell this to others, no one would believe us," Norne said, a cold sweat drenching his clothes. The true god was gone, and the god the elves and the Sky-Winged worshipped was a fake. And this false god had punished the dwarves for 'touching the forbidden', and had destroyed their first kingdom. It was just too sensational to be true.
"The gods' most loyal chosen ones... aren't those the Sky-Winged? So it was them who destroyed the first Dwarven Kingdom?" Eirik asked in disbelief.
"No!" Somme said, refuting his claim. "My grandfather was one of the survivors. It was an army of magical beasts that destroyed the Dwarven Kingdom. There's no doubt about that."
"Is it possible," Rhodes proposed, "that the so-called false god's 'chosen ones' are the magical beasts, or rather, the demons?"
They were all stunned by his shocking theory. Even Serie looked at him with disbelief. If his theory was true, then what was the point of the war at the Great Elven Forest? The Sky-Winged and the elves, worshippers of the false god, were fighting a war to the death with the false god's own chosen ones? What was the meaning of such a war?
"Impossible! If that's the case, then why would the god allow the three races to unite to cleanse the world of magical beasts?" Serie shook her head vehemently. She wanted to slay a god, yes, but she could not accept the idea that she was being played like a puppet.
"No! She's doing it on purpose," Rhodes said, his face grim.
He remembered now. The bad feeling he'd had, that nagging suspicion... it was the truth about the annihilation of the elven race in the future.
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