Wandering Knight

"The gods I know of," Roland wrote, "seem to lack what mortals would call conscious will. Even their oracles are vague to the point of abstraction, and never once do they converse directly with their followers.

"Those who have tried—whether believers or magicians seeking to glimpse or commune with such beings—have without exception gone mad. Are these gods so exalted that the mortal soul simply cannot bear the emanations of their presence?

"So I thought, what if I could find a god who does possess consciousness, one capable of communication? Samuel is the most fitting candidate. As the Flamewarden, he has sealed himself within his library. To the outside world, he is known only by his title; few remember the name Samuel Hayden.

"The Watcher is said to be the successor of the God of Knowledge. That god did not perish in the Battle of the Abyssal Depths, but instead took upon himself the sacred duty of preserving civilization's fire, guarding its spark even in defeat, so that the legacy of wisdom would never be extinguished. A noble tale, isn't it?

"Ingram is the name I ascribe to this God of Knowledge. Time itself will answer my question: what is faith? Beyond its role toward the divine, what does this power mean for beings other than gods?

"Or perhaps even the nature of faith as it concerns the gods remains an enigma. Faith shapes the gods, alters them in subtle ways—and in turn, these changes ripple back to those souls bound to them by devotion."

As Wang Yu read this, his brows rose of their own accord. So Ingram was the name of the God of Knowledge. Yet according to Samuel Hayden's own accounts, that god had fallen at the Abyssal Depths. So Roland had fabricated the story of the god's survival and laid that mantle upon Samuel himself.

"This process will likely take a long time," Roland's notes continued, "but I have many other pursuits, so there is little need to hurry. Legendhood is not the limit. There must be a higher realm beyond that of the legendary wizard. This profession is far older than I once thought. It predates knights, magicians, and every other known path of power. The ancient ruins uncovered in recent years all point to that truth.

"And then there is the matter of the God of Eternal Night. I do not know His true name, yet His existence warrants deep attention. Oblivion, not death, is the end of all gods, and this god's power can bring about oblivion itself. He is a blade sharp enough to slay divinity.

"How I look forward to it... Too many mysteries remain hidden in the void. Each step forward only shows me how ignorant I once was, and of how much remains unexplored, waiting to be revealed."

The notes ended there, cut off amid Roland's awe at the vastness of the void. No further entries followed. Yet Wang Yu noticed a single scrawl in the lower corner of the last page—a name, written in Roland's hand: Yaslan. Judging by the casual penstroke, it had been jotted down the moment it crossed his mind.

Wang Yu pursed his lips. "This guy really left us with a lot to chew on." The amount of information they'd unearthed here was staggering. It was enough to leave both him and Avia mentally reeling. They would need time to sort through and verify it all.

"So Samuel's transformation into the God of Knowledge," Wang Yu murmured, "was actually part of Roland's plan. He wanted to witness a god who could be spoken with to uncover what faith truly is."

"The notes end here," Avia said quietly. "We don't know whether Roland ever achieved the result he sought, or even whether this notebook is complete. Its purpose, its conclusion... Everything remains uncertain."

She rubbed at her brow, the faint ache behind her eyes betraying her fatigue. Even for someone who understood wizardry far better than Wang Yu, the deluge of information was overwhelming.

"Let's organize what we've got first," she sighed. "There's nothing here about the utopia Selene mentioned, anyway. Our real purpose is still to find out what connects her and Roland."

Her gaze swept over the study: the bookcases, the crates stacked with old volumes. If a single, slim notebook held this much knowledge, how much more lay hidden in the rest?

"Give me a moment to think," she said. "Wang Yu, please record the contents of these books into the Midnight Library."

While Avia immersed herself in connecting the hidden threads of Roland's notes, Wang Yu took up the task of preservation. Using the Perfect Fractal lens, he scanned the books one by one and sent flawless copies into the Midnight Library.

A glance at their contents left him mildly disappointed: most were not Roland's own writings, but rather grimoires of high-level wizardry. They were valuable, certainly, yet trivial when compared to the revelations they had already uncovered.

Avia sat before Roland's desk, fingertips tapping a steady rhythm against the wood. It was a small sound that helped her focus. Her thoughts threaded the fragments together, tracing faint links between one insight and another.

"The God of Eternal Night... Lady Darkness... the God of Terror... and Selwyn, with those divinities that contained shards of the God of Terror's essence," she murmured. "Was Selwyn's research into divine power truly their own work?"

She let out a slow breath. "It feels as though an unseen hand has always hovered over the continent, nudging, shaping, and manipulating events toward an overarching goal. It acts in ways so reasonable that no one ever notices the interference at all."

She clenched her fists. Now that she knew of that hand's existence, the girl found that she didn't much mind. "So what if it exists?" she thought. "As long as neither Wang Yu nor I become its puppets, that's enough."

Whatever link it represented, which had likely already been forged through Selene, there was no point in resisting it now. The only answer left was to grow stronger, strong enough that no outside power could drag them along in its wake.

"The Year of Turmoil... Could those events that appeared across the continent be caused by that thing?" She murmured the thought under her breath, then turned to help Wang Yu sort through the rest of the books and records.

Meanwhile, in the city of Winterhold far to the north, once the old capital of Selwyn and now part of Aleisterre's dominion... 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Compared to the days when it lay buried under a relentless snowfall, a place of exile and ruin, its fortunes had improved beyond measure. The Grand Duke's seat of power had moved further north, and this city now marked the farthest edge of Aleisterre's northern frontier.

Soldiers under the Grand Duke's command patrolled the streets, where the snow had long been cleared. The old buildings once belonging to Selwyn's realm had been put back to use. Most stood sound, and after inspection were given directly to citizens of Aleisterre for residence. The few damaged structures were swiftly repaired and reopened.

Now, life had begun to stir. The city was starting to prosper once more. New settlers from Aleisterre proper were gradually growing accustomed to the harsh cold, finding ways to live within it—rushing along the streets, working toward their modest ambitions.

Beyond the city, in the direction of the Endless Sea, towered the St. Anna Peaks. On one of its sheer mountainous walls yawned a vast, ancient hole, one that had existed for far longer than the time Wang Yu had passed through these lands on his journey to the sea.

The people of Winterhold had almost grown used to that gaping wound in the mountain and to the faint, glacial silhouette within: the frozen outline of a city, sealed deep beneath the ice. Most travelers could glimpse it even before entering the city. Its frozen spires were half-lost in mist, the grandeur of an age long gone.

Ruins such as these were hardly rare across the continent. Many beings, after all, sought to leave some trace of themselves upon the world even in death. The City of Sin beneath the Ashen Wastes, the ancient gnomes' Mechanized Fortress—each was one of countless remnants of forgotten civilizations.

As for whether these ruins held treasures... They usually did, but the risks far outweighed the potential reward. Adventurers and mercenaries seldom ventured in alone.

The traps laid by those long-dead owners, determined to guard their relics even in the grave, were as deadly as could be imagined. Some had even turned themselves into liches, lying in their own coffins, waiting patiently for grave robbers to arrive just to strangle them with skeletal hands.

Given the danger, any gains would come at significant risk to life and limb. Most people valued their one and only life far too much to gamble it away.

So how were great ruins like these truly explored? Usually, it was the work of kingdoms or powerful adventurer guilds, well-organized expeditions with ample manpower and supplies. They advanced like a demolition crew, dismantling and investigating as they went. With enough numbers and scale, even the most cunning traps and arcane arrays lost all meaning.

There were no laws of preservation here, nor any notion of protecting historical heritage. Once an expedition began, the ruin would be stripped bare, every inch scoured clean. In the process, the organizers often invited freelance adventurers to assist, letting them keep what they found or trade it for rewards.

The frozen city beyond Winterhold was no exception. Many had already been waiting for Aleisterre's royal court or the Grand Duke of the North to mount an organized exploration. Yet the site lay far from the heartland. With manpower and supplies being so scarce, so no such expedition had yet been launched.

But just because humans had not begun exploring did not mean the ruin itself would remain unchanged.

A sudden thunderous crash split the air. The deep, grinding roar of shattering ice echoed through the city of endless wind and snow. Guards and citizens alike turned their eyes toward the source: the St. Anna Peaks, or more precisely, that vast hollow in the mountain where the ice-entombed city slept.

The glacier was moving, heaving outward under some unseen force. Layers of rock and ice that had once been fused together tumbled from the cliff face and crashed to the ground below.

Without warning, the frozen shell encasing that long-lost city, a city that clearly did not belong to this era, began to break. The ice split, splintered, and slowly... receded.