Chapter 388: The Sigil of God’s Will
The pieces fell into place. The God’s Stone of Retaliation didn’t suppress magic power itself — it suppressed the witch’s ability to use it. The distinction mattered enormously.
“Besides the Chaos Beast,” Roland asked, “did the Quest Society find any other way to produce Magic Stones?”
Agatha shook her head. “Easier said than done. The Union once had a witch who could convert God’s Stones of Retaliation into ordinary stone, but all she did was remove the magic power — not nearly enough to produce even the simplest Stone of Light.” She glanced at Sylvie. “You can see the form of magic power directly. Can you describe what you see in these crystals?”
“A ball of faint… fog,” Sylvie said, uncertain.
“One of the ways magic power gathers.” Agatha nodded. “The Quest Society examined and recorded nearly ten thousand witches and Magic Stones. Most unevolved magic power appeared as fog, cyclones, blowing sand, spheres of light, or flame. They look similar at first glance, but each contains infinite minute differences — which is why we concluded no two magic powers were identical. For magic powers that had condensed after a High Awakening, the variations were even more pronounced.”
“The stone is dimming.” Tilly pointed to the one still in Roland’s hand.
“Because I only channeled a small amount of magic power,” Agatha said.
“But I once saw a Stone of Light in the Fjord ruins that had been burning for what seemed like centuries, without fading.” Tilly’s frown deepened. “If those ruins belonged to the Union, could a Stone of Light actually shine for four hundred years?”
“Underwater ruins?” Agatha looked startled. “Union members went to the Swirling Sea?” She shook her head, setting the thought aside. “It is possible to sustain a Stone of Light indefinitely, but it requires more than ten witches.”
“More than ten…” Anna turned the number quietly in her mind. “Is it a transfer of magic power?”
“Yes. Some witches can replenish another’s magic power, or directly combine what two witches have gathered. That allows one stone to receive far more power than any single witch could provide — enough to sustain continuous output.” Agatha reached out and brought the Stone of Light back to its full brightness. “However, this method doesn’t work on every type of Magic Stone. It only works on the simplest kinds, Stones of Mist — Echo Stones, Stones of Light. They’re not useful in battle, but…”
“But they’d be extraordinary in the castle,” Roland said, already calculating. He looked at the box of Stones of Light with something close to reverence.
Before the Electrical Age, these were the best lighting available anywhere. He was exhausted by flickering candles — manageable in winter, punishing in summer, ruinous for his eyes over a long document. A dozen of these in the right positions could illuminate every room in the castle through the night.
“Extraordinary?” Agatha’s tone suggested she disagreed. “I think they’d be more useful in the laboratories. Especially if we want to sustain liquid oxygen production overnight — open flames near oxygen are too dangerous.”
She’s asking for night shifts. Roland tilted his head. “Ahem. Let’s look through the rest of the boxes first.”
A quick survey revealed that beyond the Stones of Light in various sizes and luminosities, the other boxes held an assortment of lesser stones. Agatha identified them as she went: Stones of Vigilance that sent signals, Stones of Pathfinding that located specific targets. Useful things, she acknowledged, but all the lowest tier. “I wasn’t managing the stone tower directly by the time of the collapse. I had become estranged from the rest of the Quest Society. What I brought out were the things that weren’t important enough for anyone else to claim.”
“And these books?” Roland indicated the black volumes in the remaining boxes.
“Laboratory records, mostly.” A faint color rose in Agatha’s face. “Some of them are copies of the General Principles. I wanted guides available for new witches who would be reclaiming wasteland.”
He glanced at her, curious about the embarrassment, but didn’t press.
He continued through the last few boxes, and then Sylvie’s voice brought everyone to stillness.
“This wooden box… is different from the others.”
Roland’s hands pulled back reflexively. “A trap?”
“No. An interlayer.” Sylvie leaned closer, examining the structure. “At the very bottom. I almost missed it — I thought it was just a thick partition.”
Roland pulled out the books stacked inside and set them aside, exposing the base. Anna cut through the wooden plank cleanly, and her hands drew out a cast iron box.
Roland opened the lid.
Inside lay a thick metal plate, inlaid with four colorful crystals. The craftsmanship was unmistakably deliberate — the design belonged to something made to be important, not merely kept. He turned it over in the light.
“Perhaps the Quest Society did leave you something of real value after all.”
Agatha went still.
Then: “This is impossible.”
Her voice had lost its usual edge. She picked up the plate, set it down, checked the box around it, lifted the plate again. Her hands moved with a shakiness that had nothing to do with the weight of the thing.
“What is it?” Roland put the plate back in the iron box. “What’s wrong?”
“This is the Sigil of God’s Will.” She looked up at them. The color had left her face. “How did Kagar get his hands on this?” She was still half-speaking to herself. “Did he steal it from the other witches in the Quest Society before fleeing?”
“Maybe his fleet was attacked and someone entrusted him with it,” Roland offered. “It’s been four hundred years — the original circumstances may be impossible to reconstruct. More importantly: what on earth is the Sigil of God’s Will?”
Agatha set the plate down on the floor very carefully.
“When certain Magic Stones are combined in a specific arrangement, they can interact — modifying each other’s properties, amplifying effects, or producing entirely new abilities. This was the Quest Society’s most important research field.” She spoke slowly, with the precision of someone determining which details are essential. “A combined arrangement is called a Sigil. The Sigil of God’s Will is the most powerful kind. Its Magic Stones all come from Senior Demons. There were only three or four of its kind in all of Taquila.”
Roland let out a low whistle. “How powerful?”
“It can destroy your entire castle.”
He choked.
“Don’t panic — it also requires a catastrophic amount of magic power to activate. The more Magic Stones a Sigil contains, the harder it is to use.” Agatha closed her eyes. On the metal plate, two of the crystals flickered to life. The third remained cold. After a moment she released the plate, panting. “The only witches capable of using the Sigil of God’s Will were the Union’s two Chiefs. Transcendents.”
Roland studied the plate. Then he looked at Anna.
“Let Anna try.”
“It won’t work,” Agatha said. “Transcendents use their magic power differently from ordinary witches — it’s continuous, always active. After their evolution, the amount they carry in their bodies far exceeds…” She stopped mid-sentence.
The moment Anna’s fingers touched the metal plate, all four crystals lit simultaneously — one after another in rapid sequence, faster than breathing. Golden light streamed from the edges of the plate, threading like lightning through the air of the basement. It built. The Sigil blazed like a sun rising from the floor.
“Let go of it right now!”
The light vanished the instant Anna lifted her hand, as though it had never existed. Anna breathed out slowly. She looked at the iron box and set the Sigil back inside it with careful hands.
“It does use a great deal of power,” she said quietly. “I could probably manage two uses.”
Silence filled the basement.
No one spoke.