blenderwars Chapter 43 Possibilities
Chapter 43 Possibilities
We set off at dawn.
When Arthur returned to his room, the sky outside his window had already begun to transition from pure black to deep blue.
He didn't light a lamp; his dragon eyes were just as clear in the darkness, and the candlelight would only interfere with his perception of the flow of magic.
He sat down by the bed and placed the sword in the stone and the sword in the lake side by side on his lap.
The two holy swords shone brightly in the darkness, the sword in the stone blue, the sword in the lake gold, their light undisturbed, like two rivers flowing in parallel.
Arthur closed his eyes, and the Dragon Power River unfolded completely.
More than forty rivers extend outward from the heart of the dragon's furnace, passing through bones, flesh, and skin, and reaching into the air outside the body.
Each river channel is a sensory tentacle, allowing him to "feel" the depth of every carving on the stone wall.
You can "taste" the lingering, icy blue scent of Morgan's magic in the air, and "hear" the even heartbeats of the horses in the stables at the bottom of the castle.
And there was that touch of coldness.
It floats quietly deep within the Longli River.
It stood side by side with the pure black mark he had rubbed off the voodoo dorsalis, like a pair of interlocking gears, slowly turning at the rhythm of the four beats of a dragon's heart.
The Lord of the North said that the white dragon was looking for the red dragon, and the gray mist was Vortigern calling to him through the dragon power of the same origin; the more he resisted, the stronger the resonance became.
Then don't resist.
Arthur sank his consciousness into the deepest part of the Dragon Power River.
This was the first time he had actively "touched" that touch of coldness.
The moment he touched her, his heart skipped a beat.
It's synchronized.
The four beats of the Dragon's Heart and that chilling pulse completely overlapped, like two melodies that were originally flowing separately suddenly merging into the same river.
The coldness spread outwards, surging upwards from the depths of the Dragon Power River, washing over bones, flesh, and skin.
Arthur's fingers began to grow cold, his feet began to grow cold, and even his breath was tinged with a very thin layer of white mist.
He did not resist, letting the coldness wash over him, like the first snow of winter falling on his body.
The field of vision began to change.
The room vanished; the light from the stone walls, the stone bed, and the two holy swords faded into a gray-white background, replaced by a vast, boundless space.
Trails of the Stars.
But this time, it wasn't the previous "passive reception of fragments" model; he walked in on his own.
Countless rays of light extended out from beneath his feet, reaching in all directions, towards all "possibilities".
Every ray of light is a world line, and every twinkling point of light on a ray is a "moment".
It is a choice being made in a certain world, at a certain moment.
Arthur looked down at his hand; it was translucent, with a faint golden halo around its edges.
This is not his physical body, but his consciousness.
His consciousness stood inside the trajectory of the stars, as if standing in an infinitely vast library woven from light.
"You finally walked in on your own."
Meryl's voice.
Arthur turned around.
She stood at the fork of a beam of light, her long, silvery-white hair floating in the stream of light from the star trails.
Instead of wearing the white magician's robe, she wore a very simple light purple dress, and walked barefoot in the light, as if standing in a stream.
There was no mockery in his amethyst-like eyes.
"Merry."
"Don't misunderstand, this isn't my true form." Meryl waved her hand.
"It's just a... how should I put it... instruction manual, formed from the 'words I spoke' that remained in your Trails of the Stars."
"...Instructions for use?"
"Yes, since this is your first time walking in on your own initiative, someone has to tell you how to use this place."
The "instruction manual" in the form of Meryl stood with her hands on her hips, her face regaining that familiar "big sister who cares about her juniors" expression.
"What do you think Trails of the Stars is? A wishing well? You think you can just toss a coin and see whatever you want?"
Arthur looked at her.
"You know about Vortigern."
"I know, he was among the fragments you saw the day you drew your sword."
The burning Camelot, the shattered round table, Morgan standing amidst the ruins… In that entire sequence of images, Vortigern is the background noise; you just didn't notice it.
Arthur fell silent; he truly hadn't noticed.
There were too many fragments, too many random things, and they flooded into his consciousness too quickly. He only had time to grasp the most glaring images.
The rest slipped through my fingers like water.
"I want to see it now," he said.
"What are you looking at?"
"Among all the possibilities, is there one... the possibility that I have severed Vortigern and returned alive?"
The "instruction manual" resembling Meryl stared at him for a few seconds.
Do you know how much it costs to "actively choose and fix possibilities"?
"I know, only when the Dragon's Furnace Core is fully awakened can it withstand the full load."
"Your Dragon Hearth has indeed fully awakened, but 'bearing the load' and 'bearing the load with ease' are two different things."
Meryl's phantom took a step closer, her amethyst-like eyes staring straight at him. "After you use this, you'll be unable to move for at least three days. Vortigern won't wait for you for three days."
"Then one day."
Meryl's phantom blinked.
"Morgan said at most a month, so I'll spend one day finding the answer and the rest of the time killing him."
"...You." The phantom of Mary shook her head, but the corners of her mouth curved up.
"Fine, I'm just a user manual anyway, you can't persuade me otherwise."
She took a step back, spread her arms, and the countless rays of light from the Star Trail hummed softly, like plucked strings.
"Choose one, which one to start looking at."
Without hesitation, Arthur chose the middle one.
The phantom of Mary reached out and gently touched the countless rays of light.
A ray of light stands out from the background, brighter and thicker than the others, like a stream illuminated by a single light.
"Touch it."
The moment Arthur's fingertips touched the light, the scene before him changed.
He stood three hundred feet underground in the abandoned watchtower, where Vortigern's true form occupied the entire cave, its grayish-white body filling the entire field of vision.
That can no longer be called a "dragon".
It has no scales, no wings, and no distinct head or tail.
Countless grayish-white, constantly wriggling roots spread outward from the pure black core at the very center.
Arthur stood before Vortigern, his hands gripping the sword in the lake, its blade shining brighter than ever before.
Kay, Gawain, Tristan, Lancelot, and Bedivere—the magic of five people flowed into his body from five directions.
Morgan's sealing array rotated on the cave ceiling, and the icy blue light, like an inverted bowl, fixed Vortigern's body in place.
Three more beams of light came from the far distance.
A streak of silver-white light—it was Merry's Avalon blessing.
A crimson line—that's Scáthach's guardian rune.
A warm golden light... it was Guinevere's prayer coming from the direction of Camelot.
Ten rays of light.
The sword slashed down into the lake.
The core of the vortigern split open, its grayish-white body convulsed violently, and countless roots broke, withered, and turned to ashes.
The pure black kernel was split in half, then into four pieces, and then into fragments...
But at the very center, there is a tiny point, a color even darker than black, a level deeper than the pure black kernel.
The sword light missed its mark the instant it struck that point...
It was that little bit that "slipped" open on its own.
Like a drop of oil on the surface of water, pressed down by a finger, then slipping away between the fingers.
That point sank deep into the earth's veins and disappeared.
Twenty years later, it will sprout again.
The image is shattered.
Arthur opened his eyes, his breathing rapid, the four beats of the Dragon's Heart were almost twice as fast as usual.
My fingers were trembling because the sensation of that sword strike was still lingering on my fingertips.
The moment he shattered the core, he could feel the holy sword's blade cutting through layer after layer of "unwillingness to end."
A scream rang out from each floor.
That was the will of Vortigern, the will of the island, the will of the gods who refused to relinquish power.
He shattered it, but the core point is something deeper than "unwillingness to end."
He failed to sever it.
"What is that little bit?"
Meryl's phantom did not answer, because she was merely an "instruction manual," only able to show what Arthur already knew or should have known.
Arthur didn't know what that point was, so she couldn't answer.
"Let's look at one more," Arthur said.
Meryl's phantom conjured another ray of light.
Arthur touches.
The pressing was successful. The sword in the lake and the sword in the stone were inserted into the ground in a cross pattern. The entire dragon power channel was opened, pressing Vortigern's body along with that pure black core back into the depths of the earth.
The gray fog stopped spreading, the stones disappeared, and the dotted line that ran through Britain dimmed again.
But the scene didn't end.
Many years after the suppression, Mordred rebelled, the Round Table split, and Camelot burned.
Vortigern did not awaken, but suppressing him consumed too much of Arthur's dragon power, too much of the magic of the Round Table, and too much of the Britannian ley lines' endurance.
When Mordred's sword pierced through, Arthur's Dragonheart was so depleted that it could no longer sustain a single full heartbeat.
He collapsed in the burning Camelot.
Vortigern didn't win, but neither did Arthur.
The image is shattered.
"Let's look at one more," Arthur said in a hoarse voice.
Meryl's phantom flicked out a beam of light.
Arthur touches.
He stood before Vortigern, holding only the sword in the lake, without any god-slaying skills, and he could not see Vortigern's "death line".
The light of the holy sword struck the grayish-white body, leaving wound after wound, but each wound healed within a few breaths.
The gray mist seeped into his dragon power channels, this time not through resonance... but through erosion! His red dragon power was like a stream facing the ocean compared to Vortigern's white dragon power.
He chopped for two whole hours, and finally, the Dragon's Furnace overloaded and exploded.
A third of Vortigern's core was shattered, and Arthur's chest was blasted open.
perish together.
The image is shattered.
"Let's see..."
"Enough," Meryl's phantom interrupted him.
The voice was devoid of its playfulness and the calm of "instructions for use," and her amethyst-like eyes stared straight at him, as if Meryl herself were standing there.
"You've already seen three versions: one a Pyrrhic victory, one a bet that ends in defeat, and one a mutual destruction. What else do you want to see? How do you win yourself?"
Arthur looked at her.
"right."
Meryl's phantom fell silent.
Then she sighed, a Mary-esque sigh, a sigh that was both helpless and gentle.
"You are something else." She reached out, but instead of picking out a particular ray of light, she placed her hands at the intersection of countless rays of light and gently flicked her ten fingers.
The rays of light began to rearrange, recombine, and reweave.
It's no longer about finding a single "existing possibility," but rather about identifying the "pieces that can be pieced together" from all the possibilities.