The Most Arbitrary Wizard

Chapter 184: Chapter 107: Unfindable Kovri (2)

Sean glanced at him. "To help me, or to make it easier for you to escape?"

The soldier was speechless.

"Stop trying to be clever with me," Sean said coolly. "What I need you to do doesn’t require your hands."

In fact, it didn’t even require their feet.

Sean was just too lazy to waste Magic Power moving them out, so he made them walk on their own.

They were back on the street.

By now, the sky had grown dark.

It was winter in Kovri. The wind whistled, and the soldiers, cold and hungry, couldn’t help but ask, "Lord Statue, what is it you want us to do for you?"

Sean looked up at the night sky and replied, "I want to see a fireworks show."

The soldiers: "Huh?"

Fireworks??

’Wait... This is a restricted area. We’re not even supposed to speak loudly, let alone set off noisy fireworks. Besides, we’re so far from the city, and it’s nighttime. Where are we supposed to find fireworks?’

Sean turned the statue’s head and grinned. "You are."

The soldiers: "???"

Although they couldn’t see the statue’s face clearly, they could vaguely sense its expression, and a bad feeling instantly welled up within them.

’Is he planning to turn us into fireworks, send us into the sky, and blow us up??’

"Oh no, run!"

One terrified soldier shouted for everyone to scatter and flee.

But how could it be so easy?

With a cold snort from Sean, a massive Golden Matrix descended from the sky, trapping all the soldiers within it.

"Isn’t this the strange Magic that trapped Lord Klintor??"

The soldiers finally realized what was happening. Their eyes widened in terror as they stared at Sean. "It was you?!"

Sean said mockingly, "Yes, it’s me. The one who repays kindness with malice."

The soldier who had previously complained to Sean about his "grievances" panicked and hurriedly tried to explain, "My lord, it’s not what you think! Please, let me explain..."

But Sean couldn’t be bothered to listen.

He hated people who talked trash behind others’ backs, especially when the trash talk was completely made up.

If he hadn’t heard it, it would have been fine. He wouldn’t have been annoyed if he didn’t know, so it would be as if nothing had happened. But now that he had heard it, the matter wouldn’t end so easily.

He was not one to hold a grudge.

He usually got his revenge on the spot.

Like right now—

"Let’s start with you." A golden light gleamed in Sean’s eyes. His Magic Power roared out, seizing the soldier and pulling him forward. He then used a Truth Technique to condense a long "bandage," wrapping the soldier up like a mummy, leaving only his eyes exposed.

This Technique was "long," but its core expression was a single formula.

x⅔+y⅔=a⅔

The soldier couldn’t understand it, but he was terrified.

The enemy was terrifying.

Unknown Magic was also terrifying.

The two combined made the soldier’s face turn ashen.

In that moment, he thought of his mother back in the countryside.

"Don’t worry, you’re not going to die."

Sean had no intention of killing him. Or rather, if he were going to kill someone, he wouldn’t bother with such flashy theatrics.

This was the formula for a star-shape. When integrated into Magic, it could make an ordinary Magic Power explosion as splendid and beautiful as fireworks.

This was the Signal Flare he wanted.

"Up you go." Sean condensed a "leg" from Magic Power and kicked the soldier in the butt, sending him into the night sky.

"NO!!!" The soldier’s terrified shouts faded into the distance until he was swallowed by the night.

Sean: "Next."

"Please, Lord Statue!"

"No... Ah!"

"Oof!"

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

With Sean’s "help," dozens of soldiers were launched into the air one after another.

SNAP.

Sean snapped his fingers, and the Truth Techniques on the soldiers instantly detonated, exploding into bursts of colorful fireworks.

The "direction" of the explosions was by design. The aftershock would push downward, creating a massive current of hot air that would allow the soldiers to "float" in the air for a short time. The process would only last for about thirty seconds, but that was enough.

"How beautiful," Sean remarked, admiring the visual effect of the Star-shaped Technique. The next second, he vanished.

「At World’s End.」

On the cliff, Sean opened his eyes.

Seeing him "wake up," Elvire and the others asked, "Did you think of a way?"

Sean didn’t answer, simply looking up at the sky.

Here, it was daytime. Morning.

The sun was bright. Fireworks would be hard to see clearly in this light, but they could detect Magic Power fluctuations.

Unsure what Sean was up to, the others instinctively followed his gaze and looked up at the sky.

"Are you looking for something?" Elise asked.

Yisha looked puzzled. "There’s nothing there."

Places far from the city always felt refreshing. The sky was a pristine, azure blue, filled with warm sunshine. It was beautiful, but it was no help to their current situation. They hadn’t come here to sightsee; they had come to find the Holy Sanctuary.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of anything unusual in the sky.

"How can this be...?" Sean muttered.

He thought there was a problem with his Truth Technique, so he closed his eyes and returned to Kovri.

But the fireworks in the sky were blooming perfectly, and he could even faintly hear the soldiers’ howls.

Even normal fireworks could be seen from several kilometers away. And with the boost from the Truth Technique, the magical explosion he’d designed had an extremely wide range of fluctuation. Even if his own Tier was too low to sense it, Adelf and Sopea definitely should have noticed something.

But when he returned to the cliff, the sky was once again clear and peaceful.

It was like a television had suddenly changed channels.

Adelf seemed to guess Sean’s thoughts and said, "Whatever you’re looking for, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it’s not there."

Because of World’s End’s extreme altitude, you couldn’t even see a single bird—only blue skies and white clouds cleaner than those over the city, and the endless Black Sea like an abyss at their feet.

"Why not?" Sean didn’t understand.

’Was my approach wrong from the very beginning?’

’Is Kovri not near World’s End?’

’But if it’s not near World’s End, where else could it be?’

’And the "New World"...’

’Why can a phantom world built from spirit affect the real Kovri, yet here at World’s End, which is also real, I can’t find any trace of Kovri’s existence?’

’Or is it that the Kovri I reached by logging off from inside the statue in the Void Technique Space is also fake? This isn’t the bug I thought it was, but another way to reach the Consciousness Riverbed?’

’But I clearly didn’t use Meditation. "Logging off" is supposed to mean "returning to reality," isn’t it?’

Countless questions swirled in Sean’s mind.

He wracked his brain, trying to find a reasonable explanation.

But he couldn’t find one.

No matter how he analyzed it or what hypotheses he made, he couldn’t answer all the questions.

And when he went to Kovri a third time through the Void Technique Space, he realized a new problem.

’Something’s not right!’

Sean gazed at the fireworks in the night sky, his eyes trembling slightly. He suddenly realized the sky here was dark.

Logically, World’s End should be extremely close to Kovri, so there shouldn’t be a difference in the sky he saw. But the reality was that a time difference still existed between the two places, and it was almost the same as the time difference between Alola Town and Kovri.

In other words, they had trekked all the way from Alola Town to World’s End, thinking they were getting closer to Kovri, but in reality, they had been running in place, or maybe even getting farther away?

’No, no, no, that’s not right either.’

Sean kept refuting his own guesses.

’If Kovri had already vanished into the river of history and no longer existed, and everything in the "New World" was an illusion of the past, then my going to the Kovri Ruins via the statue would be, to some extent, reversing time—going back to the past. That’s even more fantastical and inexplicable than the problem we’re currently facing.’

’Time is irreversible.’

’That was the indisputable conclusion reached by countless Grand Mages and Mystic Scholars during the Era of Polymath.’

’And we currently lack the power to question it.’

Sean opened his eyes again and walked to the edge of the cliff, looking down at the darkness below that seemed capable of devouring everything.

He had a gut feeling that no matter how many questions there were, he would find all the answers as long as he could pass through this darkness.

Elvire ran over and grabbed Sean’s arm, her eyes watching him warily. "Don’t do anything stupid."

Adelf had stated outright that he couldn’t do it; if Sean dared to jump, he would surely die.

"I know." Sean patted the young woman’s hand and smiled, reassuring her.

He wasn’t that impulsive.

Elise also tried to comfort him. "If we really can’t find it, let’s just forget it for now. We can go back and try again next time when we’re more certain."

Sean nodded. "Okay."

Kate was unwilling to give up. "Is there no other way?"

"There is," Sean said. "But let’s go back first before we discuss it."

After spending so much time getting to World’s End only to find nothing, he was also unwilling to give up.

Going back didn’t mean giving up.

Sean just wanted to find a more suitable place for Meditation.

A flicker in his eyes, he said, "Since we can’t find Kovri starting from Alola Town, then let’s start from Kovri and find Alola Town."

...