Chapter 2202: News of the Illuminati

"Demon Descendants are truly a huge headache!"

Thinking this, Xia Duo had already arrived at Cliff Territory; if one only looked at the size of the territory, Cliff Territory could be considered quite miniature within all of Netheril.

But the six towering Mage Towers in the territory made it clear to anyone at a glance that it was not to be trifled with; such a territory was less of a territory and more of a station for Mage Towers.

Of the six towers, five were on the periphery and all featured the classic cylindrical shape of Netherese Mage Towers; only the highest one in the center, the Guanghui Zhi Ta, had a rather unconventional design.

It was composed of three flattened rectangular prisms with square bases stacked together, the largest at the bottom and the smallest at the top, and above the smallest rectangular prism, there was an extremely tall, extremely sharp obelisk.

And at the top of this obelisk, which was three times the height of the main body, was a massive Holy Emblem of the Lord of Radiance—a golden sun with a solar corona ring on its edge.

Under the sunlight, that huge golden Holy Emblem also emitted a strong but not blinding light, almost rivaling the sun in the sky, or perhaps it was the projection of the sun on the top of the tower.

After entering the Guanghui Zhi Ta, Xia Duo did not see Kelifu himself right away; the one who received him was Kelifu's student, Maersi.

Previously, when Kelifu and Xia Duo went to the Astral Plane, Kelifu had accidentally died once; Maersi had performed the most outstandingly among the many students, and now he had been established by the unmarried and childless Kelifu as the successor to the territory, the Mage Tower, and all other resources.

"The teacher is currently in Meditation and must not be disturbed. Please wait a moment, Lord Xia Duo; the teacher will receive my message after finishing Meditation."

"Mm, I understand. If you have anything to attend to, you don't have to stay here with me," Xia Duo said relaxedly.

He did not believe Kelifu would deliberately avoid him; if it were someone else, that might be possible, but for someone as nearly pure as Kelifu, it was almost impossible.

The "Meditation" Maersi spoke of and the Meditation Training Xia Duo performed every day used the same etymological root from Elvish, but Xia Duo's meditation was closer to the original meaning in Elvish, which was conscious activity during rest.

Maersi's usage was an extended meaning, generally a specific term used by outsiders to describe a believer's prayer. Xia Duo had come at an inconvenient time; it was almost noon, and usually, at this time, followers of the Lord of Radiance would pray for a while.

Casual believers might just recite a few "Proverbs" under the sunlight, but devout believers would very piously prepare a prayer ritual that might not be grand but was certainly very solemn.

Besides the devout believers' attitude toward "Truth" itself, there was another situation Xia Duo had already learned about: because of the need to research resurrection Spells and help the Seven Towers with prophecies, Kelifu's Divine Grace had been consumed quite significantly.

To make matters worse, Xia Duo had previously asked the other party to help investigate the Illuminati and the Ailan Kingdom, and Kelifu was not just a professional detective; such an investigation clearly required going to the Kingdom of Radiance or asking the Lord of Radiance, which again consumed Divine Grace.

And prayer rituals could, to a certain extent, increase Divine Grace, so let alone waiting for a little while, even if he had to wait for a day, Xia Duo was perfectly willing.

It was just that Maersi's company made him feel a bit uncomfortable; this guy's serious expression looked as if he had just been swindled out of hundreds of thousands. He hadn't learned the essence of Kelifu, only these superficial affectations.

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But young people, it's understandable.

After Xia Duo took the initiative to start a conversation, Maersi's attitude softened somewhat, but he was still meticulous when speaking, which didn't seem much like a young person; he was like an old pedant.

Fortunately, this awkward chat scene did not last long; before long, Kelifu, dressed in formal attire, walked in from outside the Reception Room:

"Lord Xia Duo, sorry to have kept you waiting, but this is also the price you have to pay."

Kelifu made a small joke, but Xia Duo felt a stir in his heart, "Are there results from the matter I asked you to investigate before?"

"There are results, but the results might not satisfy you."

In the gap while Kelifu was speaking, Maersi had already found an opportunity to exit the Reception Room. Seeing this, Xia Duo went straight to the point:

"What exactly is the result? Could it be that the Illuminati does not exist? Or is the Ailan Kingdom completely unrelated to the Demon Descendants?"

"Neither."

Kelifu shook his head, an unnatural expression appearing on his face, and then explained: "The Illuminati does indeed exist, but it should not be the Demon Descendant organization you are looking for."

"Then what is it?"

"The only Illuminati I found is a Combat Squad of Spellcasters from the Kingdom of Radiance; they have been fighting on the front lines against the Abyss for thousands of years."

"Thousands of years?" Xia Duo asked subconsciously.

After asking, he realized that the flow of time in the Outer Planes was almost different everywhere, and there was no absolute synchronization with the Material Plane; perhaps one day in the heavens was one year on the ground.

It was also possible that one day on the ground (Material Plane) was one year in the heavens (Heavenly Realm, Outer Planes); there was no telling. Unless someone or some method was used to deliberately anchor the time relationship between the two, one might not even have a basic concept of time.

The Shenguo should be such an anchoring method. The mysterious space reflected by the radiance emitted when Belief Power collided with his soul on the periphery of Xia Duo's soul had locked the time of the place he called "Daxia Homeland" in the Outer Planes with the Main Plane.

And because the Reincarnators in Daxia Homeland were all people who inclined toward Xia Duo's philosophy, or were simply reincarnated souls of the dead from his Territory, it was also called by him the "Shenguo Chu Xing".

It was conceivable that the Kingdom of Radiance should also have such a function. Perhaps before the Kingdom of Radiance was formed, the time flow in that area was uncertain, and later it might have received souls from different Material Planes, making the flow unsynchronized with the Main Plane.

Xia Duo's personal experience told him that there was a clear difference in time flow between the Kingdom of Radiance and the Main Plane, and the differences varied in different regions.

Therefore, he did not doubt that the Illuminati mentioned by Kelifu had been fighting for thousands of years, but could the Illuminati that had been fighting for thousands of years not be the Illuminati of the Main Plane?

Perhaps it was precisely because of those thousands of years of combat experience that they were so difficult to deal with in the Main Plane.

Or perhaps, precisely because they were a Demon Descendant civilization of high-level Mages from another possible parallel space-time of the Main Plane, they were able to fight in the Outer Planes for thousands of years!

Xia Duo absolutely did not believe that parallel space-times could send people here without limit; this would simply negate the foundation of the current space-time's existence, so the Demon Descendants directly related to the parallel space-time must be few in number.

As long as those few Demon Descendants, or those who had not yet manifested as Demon Descendants in the current space-time, were killed, then the current space-time would no longer be in danger of collapsing, at least not because of the Ailan Civilization from the parallel space-time.