Supreme Magus novel Chapter 397

Dragging the dead weight up to the stairs took Redan quite some time.

Lith was waiting for them and took care of the unconscious body with one hand. They brought Meru back to his apartments to avoid getting interrupted.

Lith splashed the high priest with cold water since healing magic was off the table. The cleric’s eyes were foggy, but after a few seconds, he understood what was happening.

"You are worse than I thought, Redan. You sided with an enemy of Kaduria!" He said watching at Lith’s foreign clothes and tanned skin typical of the men of the south.

"I’m not an enemy. I apologize for the kidnapping, but I have my reasons." Lith avoided exposing the Dark Star’s façade. After all, the man was a cleric. It would be more likely for him to put his faith into a sacred object rather than a stranger.

"I don’t care about your reasons. Kill me, torture, whatever. I don’t care."

"I’m not here to hurt you, but to help you." Lith lied through his teeth. "I’m a mage too. I studied the High Lord’s projects before coming here, hoping to fix it, but there are still too many unknown details."

"Why should I believe you?" He looked at Lith with eyes full of suspicion, yet inwardly praying he was telling the truth. Hope was a rare commodity.

"First of all, I still have my powers." Lith chanted a simple spell, materializing a sphere of light. "Redan told me you can’t fix it by yourself because magic has disappeared. Also, do you know why there is a barrier around Kaduria?"

Meru stared at the sphere in awe. He had almost forgotten about the beauty of magic. He shook his head while his mind was invaded by the memories of all the great spells he had mastered, of the feats he had performed.

"Because as soon as the black rain stops, the High Lord explodes."

"It’s impossible!" The cleric couldn’t believe his own ears.

"That’s not all." Lith played it by ear "At first everyone mourned Kaduria’s fall, but after a few years, the artifact started to rebuild itself. We were afraid the explosion would happen again, so we sealed the area. Sadly, we were right."

Meru’s mind was spinning. Lith’s words were feeding him a series of dots of half truths letting him fill the blanks.

"This explains everything." The cleric held his head between his hands in despair. "I always believed we were somehow stuck during the summer of the year 10562, the day when we activated the High Lord for the first time. Yet it never made sense. Such a powerful barrier would require a lot of planning."

"Exactly. You are not stuck in time. In the outside world is the fall season of 11086. After every explosion, The High Lord rebuilds itself, Kaduria and then it explodes again. It took us centuries to decipher your language."

"Is that the reason why you strangers never talked to us before?" Meru asked, receiving a nod in reply.

"Why you butchered out people? What did we do to you to deserve such an inhuman treatment?" The high cleric was now filled with outrage. Lith might not be an enemy, but someone had to pay for the suffering of all the Kadurians.

"Are you kidding me?" Lith yelled. He pretended to be even more outraged.

"Do you have any idea how many people die every time the High Lord explodes if the barrier collapses? Thousands! The reason you get butchered is that for some unknown reason, it weakens the explosion. While you get back to life, our dead don’t!"