Chapter 422: Breaking a Lock
At the Cecil territory’s Holy Light Cathedral, Gawain arrived with Amber and Pittman, who had just come out of the alchemy lab, to find Leight.
By now, Leight had changed out of his heavily damaged armor and back into his coarse, roughly sewn high priest’s robe. Compared to the exhausted and gloomy figure he’d been when he first returned to the territory, his spirit was noticeably brighter. When Gawain and the others entered the cathedral, Leight was calmly wiping down the stand where the sacred texts were placed, his demeanor serene and composed.
But Gawain knew better than to take that calm at face value. The true peace Leight once had was long gone. At this moment, he was simply waiting to take up the cause of the Holy Light once more.
There was no doubt that cooperating with examinations and research—helping everyone understand how mortals could bypass the gods to wield the power of the Holy Light—was part of that sacred mission.
“You look like you’ve had a good rest these past few days,” Gawain nodded at the now revitalized Leight. “How are you feeling? Any other changes in your body?”
“No, everything’s fine. The Holy Light remains as ever,” Leight replied with a gentle smile. Though a harsh scar now marked his face, his smile still carried that reassuring, trustworthy warmth. Yet he frowned slightly and added, “But I can’t tell if it’s just my imagination—lately, I’ve felt like something in the cathedral is… different from before.”
“Different how?” Gawain asked, curious.
“I keep feeling like someone’s entered the cathedral,” Leight said frankly, “but I never see anyone.”
At this, Gawain and Pittman instinctively glanced at Amber, who was standing nearby, lost in thought.
The half-elf snapped out of her daze with a start and immediately protested, “Hey, why are you looking at me like that? Do I look like the type to just sneak into someone’s… sneak into the Holy Light Cathedral casually? I’m a Shadow Chosen! I have principles…”
Before Amber could finish, Gawain shook his head. “I don’t think this has anything to do with you. The most valuable things in this cathedral are a few crystal panes—hardly something that would catch your attention.”
Amber nodded vigorously, wearing a look of proud innocence, while Pittman, with a keen interest, scrutinized Leight up and down. “Maybe it’s a slight perceptual distortion after breaking through mental barriers… Interesting. Very interesting…”
Before Leight could respond, the little old man took the initiative. “I heard you’ve completely abandoned your faith in the Holy Light God?”
By now, Leight could discuss such matters naturally. He nodded calmly. “I chose the path I believe is right. An empty idol cannot uphold the justice of the Holy Light. More than the Holy Light God, I now trust the morality I hold dear.”
Pittman nodded thoughtfully. “Let me see your Holy Light.”
Without hesitation, Leight spread his hands, and a faint, clear radiance shimmered beside him.
Gawain watched the floating light, sensing something flicker within it, but on closer inspection, it was just dust particles dancing in the air.
Pittman seemed oblivious to this and instead studied Leight’s effortless summoning of the Holy Light. He asked in detail, “When you call upon the Holy Light, do you no longer need to pray? Is there a substitute casting process?”
“Simply calling the Holy Light to respond doesn’t require casting—it’s like innate magic,” Leight explained. “But to wield stronger Holy Light power, a ritual is still needed. The step of praying to the god during casting is omitted, and channeling the Holy Light requires my own mental strength. At first, it was hard to adapt, but now I’m used to it.”
“That shows you have strong magical talent,” Pittman said, stroking his beard. “Druids believe that what clerics call ‘spiritual talent’ is actually a form of magical aptitude. Also, although you can summon Holy Light of considerable strength and purity, you probably have very few Holy Light skills, right?”
“Yes,” Leight answered without questioning how Pittman knew such details. He cooperated fully with the old man’s questions. “In most divine magic, praying to the deity is the core. Without it, the remaining incantations or spell patterns can barely sustain a divine spell. So now I can only cast a limited number of divine spells—though their power seems stronger, the variety has definitely shrunk.”
“That’s because you’re not a mage. You don’t yet know how to reconstruct spell patterns like a mage would. So you have powerful Holy Light but can’t fully utilize it… But that’s not a problem. We’ve made progress in converting divine magic to arcane magic. Kamail is an expert in this area; he should be able to help you refine your casting skills. For now, let’s study how you manage to control the Holy Light yourself…”
Gawain couldn’t help but ask, “Is Leight’s way of controlling the Holy Light similar to how the Druids did it back then?”
“To be honest, not really…” Pittman frowned. “You should know that the Druids lost their faith because of the ‘Fall of the White Star’—a definitive proof that the nature god had fallen. All Druids witnessed the death of their deity. Whether they wanted to or not, they lost their faith, or rather, their object of faith. After that, natural divine magic ceased to work. Druids mastered nature magic without divine pressure or restrictions. Leight’s situation is different.”
Pittman glanced at Leight. “Even if you no longer believe in the Holy Light God, you didn’t see it die before your eyes, did you?”
Gawain admired the old man’s sharp and unique way with words—if this were any other Holy Light follower, they’d probably be bleeding on the floor by now. He wondered if Pittman had learned Druid magic originally to avoid getting himself killed for his sharp tongue.
Even Leight, having broken free from the Holy Light God’s faith, felt awkward hearing Pittman’s blunt words. He shook his head with a wry smile. “Of course not… At that moment, my mind was filled only with my own emotions.”
“That’s the difference. When Druids gained free casting, the nature god was already dead, and natural divine magic was defunct. That was a fact. But is the Holy Light God dead? Has Holy Light magic failed? Obviously not.”
Gawain wanted to say the Holy Light God was indeed dead—along with the war god, the three fertility gods, even the god of death himself. He had no idea how that last one had gone down…
But he kept those thoughts to himself. Whether others believed it was another matter, and he wasn’t even sure if the Holy Light God’s seat was truly vacant—after all, the prayers of Holy Light followers were still answered.
From Pittman’s words, Gawain caught the old man’s meaning:
The Druids gained free casting because their god was truly gone, freeing them from divine constraints.
Leight, however, forcibly gained Holy Light power while the Holy Light God was still alive.
“There are many Druids who study the history of the White Star’s fall,” Pittman said, his expression growing serious. “We’ve always believed that mortals can convert divine magic into arcane magic and use it freely only when the corresponding god has fallen and its binding power vanished. But after seeing you, I have a new idea—maybe the real breakthrough isn’t in the gods, but in mortals themselves.”
“Could there be another possibility?” Gawain decided to cautiously suggest, to prevent Pittman from going down the wrong path. “What if the Holy Light God, like the nature god, actually fell long ago, but no one knows? So every Holy Light follower is unknowingly binding themselves…”
“That’s a bold idea,” Pittman said, surprised. After a moment’s thought, he took it seriously. “We don’t have any believers in the Holy Light God here, so we can boldly hypothesize this. But there’s a problem—when Leight broke free from his faith’s constraints, he still believed the Holy Light God existed, right?”
“Yes,” Leight answered solemnly. “Even now, I believe the Holy Light God exists, though I no longer worship it.”
“Either way, our theory points in one direction—the so-called divine magic restrictions might only exist in our own minds,” Pittman said, raising his eyebrows in puzzlement. “Could it be that if a follower truly believes they can act free of divine limits, they really can use the corresponding divine power on their own?”
“That can’t be,” Amber shook her head in disbelief. “If it were that simple, there would have been a few ‘free-spirited’ clerics by now who successfully converted divine magic into arcane magic. I remember a Holy Light cleric once tried to control the Holy Light with a magic circle, but he failed…”
“Maybe their ‘self-affirmation’ wasn’t strong enough? Or their minds hadn’t fully broken free from faith’s influence?” Pittman speculated, then looked at Leight. “Do you remember how you felt and what you thought when you broke through your faith’s limits and gained the Holy Light? I know that memory might not be pleasant, but it’s important for our research.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” Leight smiled gently, then furrowed his brow as he recalled that pivotal moment. After a long pause, he broke the silence. “I remember having only one strong thought… If the gods can’t be trusted, then I’ll trust myself.”
“If the gods can’t be trusted, you trust yourself?” Gawain repeated. “Just because of that one thought?”
“Just that thought, and it was the only one I had,” Leight said. “My mind was blank except for that idea exploding inside me. Driven by it, I completely abandoned all dependence and hope in the gods. In a brief instant, I felt like I broke something—like a lock. Then, before I knew it, I had regained the Holy Light.”
Pittman stroked his beard again. “You broke a lock…”
(Recommended read: The Regular Pentachoron—a time-travel rebirth story, still a budding work. I’m mainly watching to see if it’ll survive the hype…)
(End of chapter)