"...When?" Aries was the first to ask.
He followed the path of a Hunter and was the most sensitive to matters of war.
"Perhaps next year, or the year after." Hecate’s reply was calm, her three-toned voice layered together, betraying no ripple of emotion.
"Localized conflicts will first ignite on Hemes Island.
Once a spark is lit, it will spread through that web of messy alliances to the entire Old Continent."
"Within three years at the latest, it could evolve into a total war."
"...Why?" Prometheus asked.
All eyes at the table gathered on the head seat.
"The surface reasons are in the newspapers every day."
Hecate’s maidenly voice began.
"The unequal distribution of colonial interests. Germania rose too late and received too small a share overseas, so they’re envious.
Frank and Albion have centuries of old scores to settle, and the Ros Empire is desperately holding out for a warm-water port."
"These are all true, and they are all surface-level."
The motherly tone of her voice took over, gentle, yet it made one inexplicably want to shrink back.
"The deeper reason begins with the ’annual Curtain decay rate.’"
Richard searched his mind for the term.
Haldane’s Introduction to Curtain Dynamics had mentioned it.
"Over the past three hundred years, the annual Curtain decay rate has climbed rapidly. The Curtain is thinning."
As she spoke, the topic shifted to a level that those present wouldn’t even dare to contemplate on a normal day.
"At the level of an Expert, the Spirit and flesh have already mostly merged with what is behind the Curtain."
"As the Curtain thins, their ability to interfere with the Material Realm is, paradoxically, strengthened."
Richard’s breathing grew shallow.
"In the past, they could exert their strength in the Material Realm,"
Hecate continued speaking.
"But it came at a price. Every time they made a move on this side, it was like forcibly dragging a part of themselves out from behind the Curtain."
Richard suddenly understood something.
Based on his deductions from various texts, a Grand Mastery could cause city-level destruction;
An Expert, having undergone a qualitative transformation, could probably destroy an island or a small country with a wave of their hand.
Yet he had scoured newspapers and combed through the meager local historical records in the municipal library.
He had never read of any city or nation being wiped out overnight by a "high-ranking being" or a "natural disaster."
There were constant conflicts in the world, and wars broke out year after year.
But large-scale "natural disasters" that could erase an entire city at a moment’s notice? There were none.
This was a point he had never been able to figure out, and tonight, Hecate had filled in the gap with a single sentence.
Because starting from the level of Grand Mastery, their true battlefield was entirely behind the Curtain.
"Those high-ranking beings used to be entrenched in their own territories."
Hecate’s crone-like voice lowered.
"The world behind the Curtain was vast enough that they couldn’t reach one another, so they couldn’t be bothered to fight and just minded their own business."
"But as the Curtain thinned, this barrier of the Material Realm loosened."
"They rely on believers, sacrifices, Blood Soaking Points, sacrificial scars... and all other weak points that can continuously provide sustenance to support their own overly vast existences."
’So that’s how it is.’ Richard now understood why an Expert’s seat of power was located beneath the Unyielding Pit.
Aries had another question.
"But why will it start in the Hemms region?"
Hecate raised her hand, casting a pool of black water onto the center of the table.
"Let me show you something first."
As her voice fell, the pool of black water on the table began to churn.
Richard’s inspiration detected the change before his eyes did.
The images projected by the black water had a sluggish quality, as if they had been passed through many hands and translated multiple times before arriving here.
The first frame showed a peninsula.
Jagged mountain ridges and crisscrossing river valleys, with drab cities scattered among the mountains.
On that map, one spot originally glowed with an extremely deep and steady light, like an ever-burning lamp that had been lit underground for centuries.
"One month ago," Hecate explained, "in the southern part of the peninsula, a Grand Mastery fell."
No one at the table spoke.
Grand Mastery, the ceiling for all living Cultivators on the Old Continent.
A being of that tier, while alive, was the stabilizing pillar for an entire city.
"How did he die?" Nemesis asked.
"I don’t know," Hecate replied swiftly.
"My channels are only sufficient to know ’that he died,’ not ’how he died.’"
The subterranean, ever-burning lamp in the image went out.
In the place where it was extinguished, the lid was torn off the weak point it had been guarding, and something began to spill out.
Mist first seeped out from the well’s mouth in wisps, then began to surge out in thick plumes.
"What that Grand Mastery was guarding was a sacrificial scar over a thousand years old at the southern tip of the peninsula."
Another of Hecate’s tones took over.
"The Thracians made sacrifices to the chthonic gods in that area for hundreds of years. The scar is extremely deep, and the sustenance extremely rich."
"A fertile field, nurtured for a thousand years, whose sovereignty has just been vacated," Hecate said. "What do you think will happen?"
The second frame floated up.
This frame was even blurrier than the first, so blurry that shapes were almost indiscernible.
Two colossal entities, not of human scale, faced off in the sky above the peninsula.
Richard glanced at the two masses, and his inspiration began to sound a warning.
"The conflict between two Experts, all because of that freshly emptied well."
As Hecate’s voice fell, the two behemoths in the mist collided.
Richard couldn’t see clearly; he could only make out the changes that occurred on the peninsula itself after contact was made.
Hecate didn’t name the first Expert, only projected an image.
Among the mountains in the southern peninsula, all rivers reversed their flow at the same instant, then just as quickly, flowed back again.
The whispers of the ancient Thracian gods in the subterranean water veins were seized from beneath the earth and twisted into a single rope.
Fate, rivers, subterranean threads—all were grasped in this being’s hand and wielded as a weapon.
The second one was even harder to see clearly.
In the frame Hecate projected, all the shadows of the entire peninsula rose up from their owners’ feet in unison.
The shadow of the mountain, the shadow of the city, the shadow of man, the shadow of the tree... all detached from their physical forms and surged in the same direction.
It was just like the night Richard pried open the Seal of the Sphinx Lamp, when the shadows all over Nail Lane detached from their objects.
Except on that night, he had only pried open a palm-sized Oil Lamp.
This being before him was prying loose the "Lightless" of the entire Hemes Island.
There was no sound when the two Experts clashed.
It was completely different from the cataclysmic scenes of mountains crumbling, cities falling, and nations being destroyed that Richard often imagined.
The real battle was fought entirely behind the Curtain.
Only these few scraps could seep through to the material side.
The rivers flowed backward for three breaths; the shadows stood up and then lay back down.
For seven consecutive days in the southern peninsula, not a single baby was born, and flocks of sheep knelt in unison, all facing the same direction.
People would attribute these events to drought, plague, or a bad harvest year.
"One won, one retreated."
Hecate retracted the blurry image, and the black water grew calm.
"The winner is currently taking control of the well’s mouth."
She gestured toward Richard:
"Hermes’s deduction just now was more or less correct."
"The Industrial Revolution has altered many old weak points and has even given rise to new types of weak points that never existed before."
The atmosphere at the table sank to its lowest point.
"A new field where no one has yet planted their flag. The high-ranking beings are now scrambling to nurture it, to fatten it up."
"The method of nurturing is simple: induce mass death."
"The fastest way to form a Blood Soaking Point is war."
"And so..." Her three-toned voice spoke in unison.
"In a diplomatic note, have the ambassador’s wording be just a fraction harsher than usual.
In a military exercise, have the fleet’s course deviate by just a few nautical miles;
In a border skirmish, let that first shot be fired."
The table was deathly silent.
The clash between the two Experts on the peninsula, it was feared, was merely a prelude to this struggle.
From behind the golden mask, that layered gaze fell upon each person’s face at the table.
"I’m showing you this to tell you to hurry."
"The Curtain is thinning. Wells are emptying out one after another, and being filled one after another.
The high-ranking beings are playing their game of chess with increasing urgency. Once total war breaks out, the entire Old Continent will become one enormous Blood Soaking Point."
"At that time, no one will be able to stand on the shore."
"The few Techniques you have, your petty cleverness, they are worthless before that chessboard.
But they are also the only things you have to move yourselves forward right now."
Her three-toned voice concluded in unison.
"Those who walk too slowly... when the fire reaches your doorstep... I don’t need to spell out the consequences."
The four people at the table took a long while to recover.
Aries unclenched his right fist; his hand was trembling slightly.
The flame above Prometheus’s head flared up again.
Nemesis’s tilted Balance Scale had tipped almost completely.
Richard leaned against the back of his chair, steadying his own unsteady breathing.
"That is all for tonight." Hecate retracted her gaze.
"The next gathering will be in mid-April."
"You are all familiar with the method of departure."
"Close your eyes and count to seven."
Richard closed his eyes.
One, two, three.
In his mind, the half-open well on the peninsula and the two behemoths facing off high above retreated, layer by layer.
Four, five.
He thought of the Sphinx Lamp, and of the still-fledgling Shadow at his feet.
’Perhaps they share the same root.’
’But on one end is a Newcomer like him, who has yet to even carve his name, and on the other is an Expert who can pry loose the "Lightless" of an entire peninsula.’
Six.
’How long is that path, and how far will I walk along it in this lifetime?’
Seven.
The Star Sea dispersed.

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