A Sorcerer's Journey - Chapter 135

Chapter 135: Ancient Power Struggle

Three days later.

Gradually flying away from the flowing sea, Grimm looked towards the extremely far-off majestic and cloud-piercing mountain range, overwhelmed with shock.

The mountain range was almost completely covered with pure white snow from the base until right below the cloud cover.

Compared to the truly imposingly majestic mountain range before him, all the mountain ranges he had seen before were no more than little hills. If one were to look at Grimm and Peranos from a high altitude, the two would look like mere ants “slowly” flying toward the mountain range.

This mountain range was at least ten-thousand meters high or taller. For such a towering feature to appear from the level ground!

Hm?

Suddenly, Grimm found giant skeletons of primordial oceanic creatures starting to appear on the ground among the tall and dense weeds. The bones were already weathered by the wind, looking as if they were frail and dried white but able to maintain their shape, speaking of a segment of unknown ancient history.

The bones of these oceanic creatures varied in size and shape. Some were large while some were small.

Generally speaking, only those skeletons of giant creatures with a body length of 20-30 meters could be seen from among the cover of soil and weeds. Once in a while, the bones of sea monsters with comparatively smaller builds appeared where weeds were low or where topsoil was eroded by rain.

Peranos and Grimm streaked across the sky at high-speeds unerringly approaching the towering and grand mountain range in the distance. The oceanic skeletons gradually spread and also started to crowd together, to the extent the several piles of skeletons turned into a round shape.

At last, when Grimm was only several kilometers from the tall and majestic mountain range…

What entered his vision was a completely white skeleton forest!

Eh?

Grimm let out a soft cry.

Because the closer Peranos and Grimm approached the tall and lofty mountain range, some giant metal marionette remains and densely packed human skeletons gradually appeared in the horizon. It was just that these metal marionettes had not managed to endure the long passage of time and were dilapidated, so much so that some started to corrode, petrify, and turn into sand, and the human skeletons were only able to be confirmed by their characteristic and distinct skulls.

These marionettes were not only much larger than the worker-ant grade marionettes Grimm had seen at the competition stage, but the workmanship of these high-grade marionettes was also even more elaborate and complex. Grimm had even come across the mechanical armor wreckage in books.

The so-called mechanical armor was a gigantic armor machinists wore outside their body. It was greatly popular among machinists in sky cities.

Peranos abruptly stopped. The distance from here to the tall and heaven-reaching mountain range appeared to be 10 kilometers away still. Despite that, the majesty and might of the mountain range actually had already left Grimm breathless.

Such a tall mountain range which actually pierced above the clouds and into chaotic void. How could it be crossed?

It may be assumed that there certainly was an ancient battlefield of the sorcerer world here, in this place with so many strange skeletons of giant oceanic creatures. Could it be that a war had really broken out between sorcerers and oceanic creatures, a matter of life and death for the human sorcerer civilization?

“See that powerful and mighty mountain range?” Peranos lifted his head and asked indifferently.

Grimm swallowed. He asked, “Master, could there possibly be an even more ancient history before the civilization wars you spoke of previously? A war that broke out between ancient sorcerers and the sorcerer world’s oceanic creatures?”

“Hmph.”

Peranos gave a bitter smile. “It was not a war between ancient sorcerers and oceanic creatures. Rather, it was a hegemonic war fought over the sorcerer world between the world’s humans against the world’s oceanic creatures. Even if there were definite events, a low-level sorcerer like me is already unable to understand because it was too long ago. Still, the sorcerer world from the next war there on can truly be called the sorcerer world without a doubt!”

Even Master Peranos calls himself a low-level sorcerer?

Yes…

From a historical standpoint, to leave behind a trace of one’s existence in the sorcerer civilization, wasn’t it only possible for at least a stigmata sorcerer? And a level-three sorcerer was merely just a high-level soldier in the sorcerer world.

The sorcerer world itself really wasn’t called so because it was a sorcerer world.

Only once the ancient human sorcerer civilization succeeded in governing this world and become this world’s ruler did the sorcerer world genuinely become the sorcerer world.

As for what the sorcerer world was called before…

It was quite possible the Sea King Altar still had the corresponding records. It couldn’t be said the sorcerer world’s sky cities were historical sites older than the Sea King Altar. After all, according to what Peranos implied, it appeared the human sorcerers of that time were the weaker party.

That’s right!

Grimm’s body suddenly jolted. He firmly fixed his gaze on top of a mechanical armor wreckage that was around three meters tall, his expression once again changing.

These mechanical armors looked about the same as the ones he found in the black mirror within the remnants of the final crystal glass curtain, in the huge void battlefield behind it!

Based on the competition stage and also the clues Master gave and he obtained, apart from the sky cities, these mechanical armors and mechanical marionettes were already replaced by stigmata sorcerer familiars post first civilization war.

In that case, saying whether or not…

Were the traces a historical place of interest from before the first civilization war finished? Was it a place with real ancient remnants?

Grimm’s expression was bewildered and unsettled. He especially felt that within the historical remains, there had to be some secret waiting for him to unearth, with a high possibility of that secret being related to the sorcerer world’s first civilization war. Moreover, he had realized through Primal Curse Althio that the symbiotic insect culture actually started from Arminio parasites. Indeed, the Arminio parasite was originally an atypical parasite within the ancient historical remains…

Peranos saw Grimm blankly looking all around and was under the impression Grimm was shocked by this ancient battlefield. Smiling, he asked, “Do you know the name of this majestic and towering mountain range in front of us?”

Grimm turned clear-headed as he was contemplating. At a loss, he shook his head.

“Human Will!” Peranos said firmly and proudly from his diaphragm.

“Human Will?”

Grimm asked, “Don’t tell me that the ancient humans depended on this mountain range to guard their bloodlines in their moment of life and death?”

“From what my Master told me, the humans of that period faced a more vital crisis than the situation face within the second civilization war. In ancient times, this was precisely the dividing line between the sorcerer world’s ocean and land,” Peranos gloomily said as they stood before the Human Will Mountain Range.

Regarding this extremely ancient affair where humans and oceanic creatures fought an ancient hegemonic war, Grimm didn’t have much of an opinion.

Since as far as ordinary students or the common folk of the sorcerer world was concerned, people were already used to the sorcerer world ruled by humans. And humans followed the sorcerer rules set by the holy towers.

As for those “low level” oceanic creatures…

Although it was known there were some intelligent communities among them, other matters relating to them, however, were basically never thought of. A student would absolutely meet with heartless ridicule if they were to say the creatures from intelligent communities within the ocean had oppressed human sorcerers in ancient times.

Even as Grimm listened to his academic advisor speaking about the ancient times right now felt it was inconceivable, that the humans and oceanic creatures had a power struggle for the sorcerer world and that the humans were actually even faced with the danger of extinction.

If the present was recalled…

Originally when the ship was still controlled by the Lilith School and Dior was in the cabin, the sea devils struck. Dior seemed to speak of similar conflicts in ancient times between humans and oceanic creatures.

(First Volume: Chapter 13 ‘deathly flame’ has a mention. Interested friends can go back to look.)

It need not be said that the continent’s human sorcerers should have still been at the sprouting phase of the birth of civilization. The sorcerer continent might have even had other groups of living creatures still coexisting. Yet the rulers of the sorcerer world at that time—oceanic creatures—already felt dread?

But why could the sorcerers of that time win?

Grimm asked this question in his heart. Peranos then sighed and dully said, “The reason why humans won was because… of dark sorcerers!”

Grimm’s pupils constricted. Not daring to believe this, he asked, “Dark sorcerers?”

Peranos nodded in spite of Grimm’s disbelief. In a deep voice, he said, “That’s right, dark sorcerers exactly! It was precisely the lunatics among those sorcerers that had the sorcerer civilization terrorize and devastate other living groups for the first time. They established the foundation of the sorcerer civilization.”

Having said this, Peranos turned around to look at Grimm and ask, “Grimm, do you know why dark sorcerers were powerful?”

Ss!

Grimm honestly never thought that the notorious dark sorcerers of the sorcerer continent actually saved humanity from a matter of life or death in the distant past and were the saviors of humanity. Grimm felt an intense conflict emerge in his ideologies when he had no choice but to admit this fact, making Grimm feel rather absurd inside.

However since Master asked, Grimm earnestly thought and replied, “Dark sorcerers can absorb negative energy and use it. And in battlefields, this kind of negative energy can practically be said to be infinite. Thus…”

Nodding his head, Peranos still interrupted Grimm and asked, “What else?”

“Yes… Dark sorcerers’ chimeras require a great amount of organic flesh to carry out compound refinement and to breed biological variants. And far as dark sorcerers are concerned, oceanic creature’s corpses were just the perfect replenishing material for dark sorcerers to refine stronger chimeras as well as variant life…”

“No. No, no. The chimeras and variant beasts of ancient dark sorcerers did not have the technical standards of the present.” Peranos yet again interrupted Grimm.

Grimm wrinkled his brows. After thinking for a very long time, he lightly shook his head.

Peranos sighed. “Looks like you still don’t understand the point that dark sorcerers were truly powerful. You’re just temporarily stuck at this simple perception and nothing more. The aspect in which dark sorcerers were truly formidable lies in the dark sorcerers; targeted biological cultivation and transformation. This is also the most basic knowledge of dark sorcerer postgraduate students and necromancers.”

What?

Targeted biological cultivation and transformation?

Suddenly, Grimm recalled the time Sorcerer Dior original killed those sea devils. That strange insect called Hurado had completely disregarded the sailors and even had no reaction whatsoever to the large and strange octopus tentacle that was cut off on top of the ship. Its sole purpose had been to just kill those sea devils.

This Hurado… was it a targeted biological transformation the ancient dark sorcerers cultivated to counter oceanic creatures?