BEHIND THE CURTAINS

Sun showered the world gently, casting its rays over the tepid lands beneath. Atop a flatland, where once a high, proud and mighty mountaintop stood, three shadows were cast onto the dry soil. Wind’s breeze blew past them gently, as though afraid it might wake them from their daze. Beneath the three were another five, lying listlessly and cold on the ground. The earth beneath them was stained red slightly, and their tattered clothes revealed wounds beyond what one can withstand. Some even had a missing limb or two, and one even had his entire heart taken out cleanly.

Lynne’s eyes danced between the five lying on the floor; his hair, now turned completely white into the color of fresh snow, fluttered behind him. His upper chest was entirely bare, revealing both muscular body and numerous scars which would cause many to wonder how is he alive. There wasn’t even a trace of youthfulness on him anymore; not his face, nor his eyes. What surrounded him was strange serenity, the air of belonging to the world, vague yet tangible at the same time. He appeared rather strange-looking, with white hair, eyebrows and beard, but faint traces of aged face aligned perfectly to give him a sense of traceless wisdom, something that cannot be attained even through countless lifetimes.

Next to him stood a man and a woman; he didn’t know much about the woman, merely that her name was Scarlett and that she was one of the eight Ninth Cycle Divine Mages set to defend the dimensional tunnels. Much like him, her clothes were in tatters, revealing dozens of scars and wounds – some of which were still spilling fresh blood – across her body. Her gaze was flickering from coldness, indifference, sadness, and myriad of other emotions. It wasn’t strange that she was overwhelmed. After all, unlike Lynne, she spent thousands of years next to those five that were lying dead before her. Of the eight sent to fight the gods, only three came back alive.

The remaining one was Retch. However, unlike his previous, heroic disposition, he appeared more broken than whole as he stared absentmindedly at his friends. He was missing an entire arm and was blinded in one eye, with terrifying gash running from the top of his head down to his jaw, across his left eye. His muscular body seemed to have thinned out considerably, and aged even more so, as though he burned his very essence not so long ago. The three stood there in silence for a very long time; after all, passage of days now appeared irrelevant to them. They, who had seen the pinnacle, edged the very truth of the World, couldn’t differentiate between a day and a year. All they could do is ponder in silence… and reflect.

Lynne’s thoughts drifted much further away than the other two’s. After his encounter with the true form of Source, he had learned something completely mind-boggling – the concept of Cycles. The World wasn’t infinite; rather, it had a rather finite expiration date. Over and over, it would destroy itself, and then be reborn from the former ashes. He was of no mind to share this with anyone, much less think about it too deeply. That was cosmic knowledge and process he couldn’t understand even if he was given eternity to ponder over it. It merely caused him to realize something: whether it was humans, gods, dragons, or even Laws themselves, and the very Source, there was no such thing as eternity. There was no meaning in pursuing it. Whatever or whoever begins must all the same one day end. There was no difference between a grain of sand and a King at the end of the day.

He glanced sideways at his two despondent accomplices. He had no words to heal the scars in their hearts. It was something they themselves will either have to get rid of, or live with until the day they die. They lived, while others died. From Lynne’s perspective, it was irrelevant. However, he would never say it out loud. Whether one lived for ten years or ten thousand years, it’s hardly a difference when it comes to seeing those closest to your heart die. He was much the same; even till this day, even with all the knowledge he possessed, he still felt his throat grow bitter when he’d think back to all the people who died near him on his journey. Some died to pave a path for him, some died because he was too weak to protect them, some died because there was no way to save them… and some died without him even knowing how and why. In the end, all he could do was press onward with the same heart as theirs, ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Yet, in the end, he still survived. However, unlike the two next to him, he didn’t feel as bitter about it. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he experienced much more death and heartbreak in his life than these two, or maybe it was just that they were different people at the core, but rather than being despondent over surviving, he very much looked forward to living out the rest of his life.

After a long while, Scarlett fell down on her knees and began sobbing silently. He didn’t know her well, but he knew that she was the first one to be chosen for this time’s Great War. Everyone else, including Retch, came under her wing later, so she was like a big sister to every one of them, even Lynne to a certain extent. Retch said nothing as he averted his eyes from his dead friends and landed them onto Lynne; his gaze was deep and piercing, yet Lynne looked back nonetheless.

“What happened?” Retch asked with a hoarse voice, clearly fighting back the urge to cry himself.

“… we’ve won.” Lynne said calmly. “In a way, I suppose…”

“… can this even be called victory?” Retch asked, chuckling self-despondently as he glanced over the five corpses.

“… if you’re this broken over these five,” Lynne said, smiling faintly. “Then it’s best you never leave this mountaintop for the rest of your life.” unlike Retch, Lynne knew clearly that many, many, many more had died fighting this Great War. Perhaps, at a certain level, number of them ceased to matter. Who knows just how many died without even a whiff of their corpse remaining?

“… the one I was fighting with suddenly stopped,” Retch said, pushing back the thoughts about the countless dead to the back of his mind. “And retreated. Do you know why?”

“… I’ve made a deal,” Lynne said, looking up toward the sky, beyond the horizon. “There will be no more Great Wars in the future.”

“Eh?” Scarlett exclaimed softly as she looked up at him.

“As there will be no Divine Mages.” Lynne added, smiling faintly.

“… what do you mean?” Retch asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“From the very start, it was the matter of insufficient Mana,” Lynne explained slowly. “Humans were never meant to grow as strong as we did. Due to our sheer number, we pulled more and more Mana to our own domain, leaving Primordial Realm diluted… because of this, eight Primordial Gods sacrificed their lives to tear open a dimensional tunnel connecting our two realms periodically. You can understand it as us being too good at using Magic. In the end, there’s a finite amount of Mana in the World. Because of the fact that Divine Mages have enormous lifespans, the Mana they absorbed never went back into the World. The lack of Mana strained the fabric of reality itself, and Primordial Gods felt threatened. Before the first Great War, not a single Primordial God was born for nearly half a billion years. Even nowadays, they are lucky to get one or two between Great Wars. To sustain all of this, the Source itself had to relinquish its personal Mana to sustain the World from collapsing. In the end, Great Wars were simply an extreme through which the Source tried to balance things out. Eight of us pooled together carry more Mana than the rest of the humanity combined. Giving us strength to fight Primordial Gods meant taking away from others, which is why Sixth Cycle and upward Divine Mages were rare ever since the first Great War. However, that was just a temporary solution. In the end, even the Source found it impossible to keep the fabric together. Which is why I’ve made a deal.” Lynne paused for a moment, sighing lightly.

“By now, there’s not a single Divine Magus within mankind,” he continued as he saw that neither Scarlett nor Retch were saying anything. “They all reverted back to peak Grand Realm, and the excess Mana was used to restore the fabric of reality and prevent its collapse. The deal included set barrier; the Source will completely destroy the eight dimensional tunnels connecting us to the Primordial Realm, while Mana in our realm would dilute and grew thinner, making it nigh impossible to cross the border between the Grand Realm and Divine Realm. And, even then, if one were to cross it, he would be killed on the spot.”

“…”

“Don’t think too much about it,” Lynne added casually. “In the end, humans were never meant to learn Magic in the first place. Were it not for the Dragons who taught us out of pity, we would never rise to the prominence.”

“…”

Lynne wasn’t surprised that neither Retch nor Scarlett said anything as they entered deep contemplation. After all, he himself still found it rather unbelievable, and he was the one to make the deal. He also excluded the fact that the sheer scale of fights between Primordial Gods and Ninth Cycle Divine Mages sped the tearing of fabric of reality, and if Lynne and Ignis actually clashed within that small spatial lock, there was a chance they would cause irreparable damage, which is why they were forcibly brought into the heart of the entire World, the Source itself; the only place that was able to sustain that clash and nullify it. In addition, even though the immediate danger was avoided, it’s not as though everything was fixed; by Lynne’s estimate, it would probably take hundreds of thousands of years for things to revert back to the way they’re supposed to be. This will be aided by the fact that there will no longer be humans that could live for tens of millions of years and absorb Mana ceaselessly. While lengthy lifespans were still possible, it will never reach that scale.

However, what happens afterwards wasn’t something Lynne cared about. If someone breached the rule, they would be killed. What humanity did with the sudden change, even if he was the cause of it, had nothing to do with him. In the end, as always, they’ll adapt. Perhaps not in a year, or even hundred years, but, eventually, they’ll adapt and learn to live with what they have. After all, they have no other choice. According to the Source, this was the first time throughout over Sixty Cycles that it was forced to intervene into the dealings of the World. One could say that humans of this Cycle were the greatest variable and anomaly; according to the Source, humans in previous Cycles – or at least similar variants – were never able to contend with Primordial Forms, not on any level. Rather, they would usually go extinct long before the Cycle neared its end.

However, all these things that he had learned had to reason to be released upon the world. It’s not a knowledge that was necessary and it would bring nothing good. He already said more than he had to, simply because he knew that Retch and Scarlett weren’t ordinary people. Even though they appeared stunned now, they will quickly grasp the immensity of the knowledge, and probably won’t share anything beyond the ‘no more Great Wars’ and ‘no more Divine Mages’.

“… don’t give up you two,” Lynne said as he suddenly turned around and prepared to leave. He had about two more days during which he’ll be able to use Magic, and he wanted to use that time to settle some things before finally retreating from the world at large. “Live well. Come over for drinks sometimes.” and so, with a single step into nowhere and nothing, he disappeared, leaving behind only howling wind and a silent pair, as though he was never there to begin with.