Chapter 422 — Breaking a Lock

In the Shining Star Church of the Cecil territory, Gaoyang arrived with Amber and with Piyun, who had just come out of the alchemy laboratory, and there they found Wright.

By now Wright had shed that badly damaged suit of armor and put back on a priest's robe of coarse woven cloth. Compared with the weary, sullen figure who had first returned to the territory, his spirits were plainly much better; when Gaoyang led the others into the church, he was wiping down the stand that held the scriptures before the pulpit, looking calm and untroubled.

But Gaoyang knew that true calm and untroubled ease had long since left this priest. At this moment he was merely waiting to take up the cause of the Holy Light again.

Without question, submitting to examination and assisting the research—helping everyone understand the mystery of how a mortal might bypass the gods and obtain the power of the Holy Light—was itself part of that cause.

"You seem to have rested well these past few days," Gaoyang said with a nod, looking at the revived Wright. "How do you feel now? Any other changes in your body?"

"No, all is well. The Holy Light is as it has always been," Wright said with a gentle smile. Even with that shocking scar across his face, his smile still carried a reassuring, trustworthy quality. But then his brow furrowed. "Though I don't know whether it's my imagination—lately I keep feeling that something in this church is... not quite as it was before."

"Not quite as it was before?" Gaoyang asked, curious. "In what way?"

"I keep feeling that someone has come into the church," Wright said frankly, "but I never see anyone."

At those words, Gaoyang and Piyun instinctively glanced at Amber, who stood nearby with her mind wandering somewhere far off in the clouds.

The half-elf lady snapped awake on the instant, then began clamoring: "Hey, what are you looking at me for?! Do I look like the sort who'd just slip into somebody else's—just slip into the Shining Star Church? I'm the Chosen of Shadow! I have principles..."

Before Amber could finish her clamor, Gaoyang shook his head. "I don't think this has anything to do with you either—the most valuable things in this church are a few panes of crystal glass. That wouldn't catch your eye."

Amber nodded deeply in agreement, wearing a look of taking pride rather than shame in it, while Piyun at her side sized Wright up and down with an expression of lively interest. "Perhaps it's a slight distortion of perception brought on by breaking through a mental limit... Interesting. Quite interesting..."

Then, without waiting for Wright to speak, the little old man asked of his own accord, "I hear you've abandoned your faith in the God of Holy Light entirely?"

By now Wright could face and discuss such matters quite naturally. He nodded frankly. "I've chosen the path I believe to be right—an empty idol cannot deliver the justice of the Holy Light. Compared with the God of Holy Light, I now put my faith in the morality I hold to."

Piyun nodded. "Let me see your Holy Light."

Wright did not hesitate; at those words he spread his hands, and a hazy, limpid radiance floated up around him.

Watching that radiance drifting in the air, Gaoyang kept feeling that something flickered through it, but when he looked closely, it was only motes of dust drifting in the air.

Piyun seemed not to notice any of it. He merely observed closely the way Wright summoned the Holy Light so effortlessly, and inquired in finer detail, "You no longer need to pray when you summon the Holy Light? Then is there some casting process to replace it?"

"Calling the Holy Light to respond like this requires no casting—it's rather like an innate spell. But to bring forth a more powerful force of Holy Light, the aid of a casting ritual is still needed. Only the step of praying to the god, once required when casting divine spells, has been omitted; and when casting, guiding the Holy Light also draws on one's own spiritual power. At first I wasn't used to it, but now I am."

"That shows you have a fine gift for magic—the druids hold to one belief: what the clergy call a 'gift for the spirit' is in fact a kind of magical gift," Piyun said, rubbing his beard. "Also, though you can now summon Holy Light of considerable intensity and purity, there can't be many Holy Light techniques you're able to cast, am I right?"

"Yes," Wright said, without wondering how Piyun could know such details, simply answering all the old man's questions cooperatively. "In the working of most divine spells, prayer to the god is the most important component. Once that is omitted, the remaining incantation or spell model can hardly sustain a divine spell in operation. So now I can cast only a very limited few—their power seems to have grown, but there are indeed fewer kinds."

"That's because you are not a mage; you don't yet know how to deduce spell models the way a mage does. So you have a mighty Holy Light to spare but no good way to use it... But that's no problem. We've already produced a fair amount of research in the field of converting divine spells into magic, and Kamael is an expert in that area. He should be able to help you refine those casting techniques... For now, though, let's look into how it is that you can command the Holy Light on your own..."

Beside him, Gaoyang could not help asking, "Does the process by which Wright controls the Holy Light have anything in common with the druids of old?"

"Honestly, not really..." Piyun knitted his brows. "You should know that the druids' faith came to an end because of the 'Fall of the White Star.' That was iron proof of the God of Nature's demise—every druid witnessed the God of Nature fall with his own eyes. Willing or not, the druids all lost their faith then, or rather lost the object of their faith. And afterward natural divine spells failed outright. The druids came to master nature magic with no pressure or restraint from any god—but Wright is different."

At this Piyun glanced at Wright. "Even if you no longer mean to believe in the God of Holy Light, you didn't actually watch it die before your eyes, did you?"

Gaoyang could not help marveling at the little old man's sharp and peculiar art of speech—had the man before him been anyone but Wright, any ordinary follower of the Holy Light would have been spilling blood five paces away by now. He truly did not know how this old man had managed to live to such an age while being so cheeky; could his original motive for learning druid magic have been to keep from being beaten to death on the spot after running his mouth?

And even though Wright had already broken free of the God of Holy Light's hold upon his faith, hearing Piyun's blunt words still left him distinctly uncomfortable for a moment. Then he shook his head with a laugh that was half tears. "Of course I didn't see it... In my mind at the time there was only what belonged to me—my own emotions."

"That is the difference. When the druids gained the power to cast freely, the God of Nature was already dead, natural divine spells had already failed, and all of this was established fact. But is the God of Holy Light dead now? Have Holy Light divine spells failed? Plainly neither."

Gaoyang actually wanted to say that the God of Holy Light truly was dead—and not only the God of Holy Light: the God of War was dead too, the three gods of abundance were dead, even the God of Death was dead. He had no idea how that last one had been pulled off...

But unfortunately he could only mutter it to himself. Whether anyone would believe these facts if he spoke them was one thing; more than that, he could not be entirely certain whether the throne of the God of Holy Light stood vacant now—after all, the prayers of the Holy Light's faithful did receive answers.

And from Piyun's words he caught the old man's meaning: