A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 313 Lifting the First Seal

The power of the Lord of Order combined with the most powerful analytical machine ever built by Istani produced a strange effect.

The physical body is nothing more than a machine, but it acts as a fulcrum, allowing the power of the Lord of Order to attach itself to it, achieving an effect even more exaggerated than the graphics card in Rorschach's previous life—supporting the virtual image of an entire squad of Burning Lion Knights.

No, they at least actually existed.

Caroline and Benedict couldn't understand Rorschach's actions, but they witnessed the people and things in the camp crumbling. With a few crashes, only a tattered and rusty plate armor remained where the knight commander had been standing. James, who had led them into the camp, reappeared. He recreated himself from the machine and walked backwards to the door as if playing a video in reverse.

Then it collapsed; the helmet rolled off, the sword broke on the ground, and the blade was already rusted through.

The barracks began to shake, and Caroline tried to move the falling stones, but found that they were no longer solid. The real sea breeze howled in, carrying the salty smell and the cold air.

The sea, nestled between steep cliffs and along the coast, is bathed in moonlight that illuminates the earth and the ocean, reflecting the real world.

Countless rays of light converged on Rorschach, making the machine pale in comparison, leaving only its original appearance—the protective paint had peeled off, and the structure, eroded by seawater and wind, was on the verge of collapse.

Rorschach landed, and Benedict was overjoyed to find he could speak again. He rushed over, though he was much more docile this time, only asking, "Where are we now?"

Rorschach pulled out a map, the contents of which had changed dramatically: "We've temporarily escaped the Shadowlands and been teleported through a rift to the western coast of the northern tip of the main island. The nearest city is called Lankshire."

"The entire camp and the knight squad were illusions?" Caroline was a little scared. She hadn't realized it at first, until Carton noticed something was wrong before entering the barracks.

But all I felt was that something was wrong; it seemed that Rorschach knew everything from the very beginning.

"There should indeed have been such a team in history. The broken flags and remains we found at the beginning were real. The analysis machine extracted and simulated a period of history from them."

"That bastard was also born from this piece of junk that tainted our elves?" Benedict was furious. This was a racial knight!

"Heh, unfortunately, they are all real. They are all 'Is Familia' that have been corrupted and degraded by the power of Is. Before the transformation, or rather, their ancestors were genuine elves." After saying that, Rorschach cupped his hands in front of his mouth, making a megaphone shape.

Instead of shouting, he used magic to vibrate the air, mimicking the monstrous screech. Within Caroline's Arcane Vision, the magic rippled, similar to the vibrations of the monstrous monstrous tentacles on its back.

Then Rorschach's mimicry was answered. Black monsters, numbering in the hundreds, sprang out from caves in the cliffs, from the rocks by the sea, and from the sea itself. They climbed the rock walls with great agility, screaming as they charged toward the location of the Analyzer and the three Rorschach.

"These fallen creatures, due to the power of Is, are naturally able to infiltrate the Shadowlands. The Lord of Order's seal, combined with the Analyzer, has simulated a squad of knights that has been resisting their invasion. The Shadow City exists day and night, and in fact, every night when they come out to move around, they try to break through the rifts."

As Luo Xia spoke, his hands never stopped. He transformed the ocean waves into sharp, high-speed ice crystals, and countless ice crystals harvested the lives of the bastards.

"Why are these Fallen Ones so fixated on the Shadow Cities?" Benedict wondered. Was it because the cities on the surface wouldn't accept them, and they needed to register in the shadow cities on the surface?

Of course, he started fighting as he asked questions. After putting on a mask, he held daggers in both hands and danced gracefully among the monsters. Every time he did a high-difficulty move such as a spin, the head of a bastard would fall to the ground.

"Because after the escape of the Is, only the Shadowlands retained the strongest Is power. They wanted to evolve and regain the favor of the gods, so they were naturally attracted to the Shadowlands. These fallen beings should exist throughout Istani, or they may have been wiped out. This should be a relatively large population." This is a sad story of an Is familiar that "wanted to progress too much," but the Lord of Order decided not to allow it after research.

Rorschach guessed that they lived by fishing and hunting, but they had indeed lost their minds and had been living like wild beasts for hundreds of years, without clothing or tools.

Caroline still attacked using spatial rift blades, sometimes teleporting to move herself to a safer location. She really wanted to ask Rorschach how he knew all this, but her intuition told her that Rorschach would just give her a vague answer now.

Is this boy who keeps eliminating bastards really Luo Xia? She was somewhat hesitant; sometimes he was, sometimes something felt off, very off.

The battle was over. Benedict removed his mask and bowed to the sea, as if completing a performance. "What a thrilling battle!" He finally had time to wipe his sweat, and the sea breeze felt refreshing on his soaked body.

But upon closer inspection, Rorschach and Caroline were extremely calm, standing gracefully on the edge of the cliff, without a single bead of sweat in their eyes.

"We need to get back to the Shadowlands quickly! Be careful not to become 'Wanderers'." Benedict was annoyed, but he could only remind the two mages standing proudly on the edge of the sea to hurry up and get down to business.

"No rush. Now that the seal here has been broken, we can cross the rift and return at any time. We have Teacher Caroline in our team." Teacher Luo Xiachong smiled gently, revealing a stunning three-quarters profile in the moonlight.

Caroline nodded: "I can already sense the gap in space, and it can be expanded at any time to allow us to pass through." But she was still thinking to herself, something's wrong with this child; she definitely wouldn't have laughed like this before!

Before returning to the Shadowlands, Rorschach had one more thing to do: he developed a keen interest in the Analytical Engine.

This sophisticated yet surprisingly open-air machine rivals the tallest building in Storm City, and what we saw at the camp wasn't even the whole thing. Built against a cliff, its lowest point houses the engine room, likely powered by a steam engine. Next to the engine room is a control room, with crates filled with boxes of paper strips, broken lamps, and dusty tabletops.

"It seems that in reality, this machine was never completed and was never operated." Rorschach saw the blueprints; the architectural sketches revealed its intended full form, with a shelter from the wind and rain, and it was planned to be larger than it is now. If Rorschach were to inspect the steam engine's furnace, he would see that it was spotless, without a trace of coal ash.

The blueprints and other technical documents were piled up in the control room, which also served as the archives. Fortunately, the room hadn't been destroyed by the Fallen Familiars. Rorschach rummaged through everything, shrinking all the documents down to about B5 size, and then put them all into his ring.

Caroline realized that he had used extremely advanced spatial techniques, not a simple shrinking spell, but rather he had used magic to envelop all the materials, isolating them from space, and then compressing the isolated space and matter within the "ether membrane." In this way, when the spell was dispelled, the shrunk materials would be restored without damage.

"Master Cano taught you this skill?" Caroline wanted to praise her student and junior apprentice.

"I taught myself this. Does Chief Cano know this magic? I've never seen him use it in the Tower of Stars." Rorschach's answer relieved Caroline.

She widened the rift, and the three of them returned to the Shadowlands, where they saw the familiar dusky sky.

"How many more seals do we have to break? The situation is tense and changing rapidly!" Benedict was a little worried. Shadow City is so big, how long will it take?

"No need. The seal of the Lord of Order is the entire system. We only need to remove the key nodes, and the seals on the other rifts will naturally collapse. I estimate that we can recover the power of order from the remaining two nodes."

(End of this chapter)