Chapter 97: Coven (4)
[Realm 145, Somewhere in Scandinavia]
Lady Winter sat in her cream coloured office and gazed out the window at the thick forest that lay beyond. Ever since Qi Zhou had died she couldn't shake this ominous feeling in her gut, as if something bad was looming above her.
This was all the fault of the Western Council. The Council was made up of the most powerful mages in their Coven, and that very same Council had decided, without informing her, to expel Qi Zhou from the Coven.
Because of that expulsion Qi Zhou ran to the Gatekeepers people and got herself killed by a Mage Hunter, and that same Mage Hunter had kidnapped Frank Wang.
After that incident the whole Coven had been on edge, worried that the Gatekeeper would punish them for indirectly causing this issue, but after several months nothing had happened.
The Gatekeeper hadn't come to blame them for Frank Wang's kidnapping. The Mage Hunter who had taken Frank hadn't been harmed either. In fact even after all this time Frank was still being kept by those hunters like some pet, as if he'd been forgotten.
Lady Winter had considered going to the hideout of the Mage Hunters to save Frank Wang and gain some favour with the Gatekeeper by doing so, but the Mage Hunters were an extremely dangerous group, especially for Witches like herself. Even though Lady Winter was an extremely powerful practitioner even she was wary of heading into a Mage Hunter sect.
Mage Hunter sects were cults. All their members were unhinged and extremely loyal to the cause, none would hesitate to sacrifice themselves to kill a single Witch or Warlock, all carried a ridiculously deep seeded hatred towards mages.
Mage Hunters employed all kinds of defences against spells, barriers, elixirs and incantations. Defences that they had been perfecting for centuries.
Lady Winter didn't have the confidence to go to their hideout and survive. Nor did any of the other Elders and members of the Council.
Since the Gatekeeper hadn't done anything about the matter, after a while the whole Coven had believed they were in the clear. Perhaps the Gatekeeper didn't care that much about Frank Wang and they had worried for nothing.
But Lady Winter couldn't help but have doubts in her head.
Gatekeepers were usually extremely temperamental and oppressive, although the new Gatekeeper of Realm 145 seemed kind, would he really forgive such an incident that affected his friends so easily?
As Lady Winter was thinking about this, she heard a 'Boom!'
The whole room shook, she could see debris falling into the Forest from her window, had something happened in the Coven?
A Few Moments earlier...
Max had been reading a new spellbook that he'd gotten from the Coven's Main Library. It was a levitation spell so he had gone up to the roof to practice.
The whole Coven was hidden under a protective barrier, so to any mortal, it probably looked like Max was standing on top of a tall tree in the middle of an empty Forest.
Just as he cracked open the spellbook he saw something coming from the horizon.
At first he thought it was a distant plane, or perhaps a falling meteorite, which wouldn't matter much since the spells and formations around the Coven could protect against any large impact, even a nuclear bomb wouldn't get past their barriers. But as the unidentified object grew closer Max realised,
"Oh Shit it's a person!"
Just as he cried out, Chàng Bo who was hurtling towards the Coven in a fireball of Celestial Essence, grabbed Max's face. He crashed into Max, smashing through the roof of the Coven and breaking through several layers as he fell down into their headquarters.
In the lunch hall where young Mage disciples were eating and chatting away, the roof suddenly collapsed, the illusions of the sky that were painted across the ceiling, caved in. Screams filled the air as Chàng Bo stood up, removing his hand from Max's broken face.
"Eww, it seems I swatted a fly" Chàng Bo laughed cruelly as he wiped Max's blood off of his hand.
He walked away from the corpse and appreciated the destruction he had caused, various young Mages lay crushed by the debris, some were using magic to heal themselves and others ran away, fleeing the moment they saw Chàng Bo.
"I haven't done something like this in a while, look at them run away in terror, isn't it fun?" he asked Little Red.
Little Red was in her bird form and was quietly sitting in his top pocket.
"Y-y-yeah it's fun," she said. Little Red was terrified, she had guided him here knowing that he was probably going to punish the Western Witches Coven, but she was still shocked by his actions.
She had lived for a long time and had seen a lot of death but she had never seen someone so ruthless and filled with blood lust. He was more of a demon than a person, to think he was a Prince of the Star Realm. He would have been more suited as a Prince of the Demon Realm. The Gatekeeper had really made a Monster his Fate Companion.
"You know for a Coven called the Western Witches, there are quite a lot of Warlocks, what's up with that?" Chàng Bo asked as he sensed the number of Mages in the building and noticed a lot of Male mages.
"I-i-in this Realm m-m-many Covens of the past were made up of only females, hence most Covens have the word 'Witches' in their name. Men used to normally go down the path of Martial Arts with the exception of a rare few like Merlin. It only changed recently, these last few centuries. a lot more men have chose the path of a Mage." Little Red explained.
"This Realm is so weird, I don't understand the weird divisions based on gender, clothes that men can wear but a woman can't, things a woman can do and men can't and vice versa. It's all really ridiculous." Chàng Bo commented as he thought back to the peculiar customs of this world.
"Oh well, whatever" he shrugged.
"Hello!" Chàng Bo yelled, his voice was amplified with essence and resonated across the whole compound "Mages of the Western Witches Coven, did you really think you could get away with messing with a Gatekeeper and his people?! I am here, I am your Consequence!!"
All the Mages in the Coven shivered, Lady Winter's face turned pale at those words.
...
[Realm 1, Flame Star Fortress]
Argenti wrung her hands nervously.
Obsidian sighed, "This is a highly sensitive topic, luckily our Gates aren't here or we would have been killed by them for talking about such a thing so openly... but... I guess this is the opportunity to discuss this. However, you should keep this between us. If the other Gatekeepers find out it could lead to much disruption in our group. Many may feel very alienated by this knowledge."
"Believe me," Mao Lu said with a serious look, "None of what we speak of today will ever reach the other Gatekeepers."
Obsidian sighed again, "Okay then." He had a solemn sombre look in his eyes as he began his story.
"I'm the oldest Gatekeeper, I lived through the war with Nyx, I was there at the very start of the 400 realms. So I know and I've learnt many secrets over the years. One of the secrets I know is that One, the creator of the 400 realms isn't a God, but a scientist, and all that we know, all that we have ever experienced is just apart of a wider more sinister experiment."
"This isn't the real world. Beyond the 400 realms exists the Real Realm, the real Macrocosm, the real Universe. A place called the Endless Plains.
We live in a bubble. The Realms that we think are so big are probably a small ball in a big lab."
Mao Lu's face paled, this....this was insane. "Than are we not real, are we not people, are we simply simulations. Are we artificial?"
"That's not the case" Obsidian shook his head, "That's why the 400 realms is even more abysmal. We are real people. Real people, being kept like sheep on a farm except we don't even realise there is a farm or even Shepherds. I don't know how they did it but they made perfect worlds with real people and lives, and they are manipulating us to their own end."
"For what purpose, what would be the reason for creating 400 small real universes filled with real environments and living people?" Mao Lu asked, he really couldn't wrap his head around this.
"Think about it," Obsidian explained, "Imagine there is a virus with no cure. Imagine if you could release that virus in a completely identical environment. Then you can wait until the people in that replicated world find a cure or someone in that world gets immunity. Then you can use that cure or immunity to save your own people from that virus. Imagine if you wanted to test a new radical law. Then you can test it in a world that's exactly similar to your own and see the results. All types of tests and experiments are happening in the 400 realms, on a scale, you could never imagine."
"All of it is run by those scientists and enforced by our Gates. The real reason Gatekeepers exist is to regulate these experiments. We're the control variables. And we're also there to defend the realm from possible intruders. The Outsiders from the Endless Plains, those who wish to disrupt these experiments. Why do you think Gatekeepers have such rules, they are there to keep us in check and to ensure that we keep our Realms in check."
Mao Lu finally understood why Cahir had told him not to trust the 400 realms. To think such a thing was happening, it really put your whole perspective on life into question.
Mao Lu suddenly understood how Neo must have felt in that movie, 'The Matrix'. Discovering that your world isn't real, that your reality held no substance, and that everything around you was being manipulated by forces completely out of your control.
It made everything seem weird, scary even.
'We're being treated like Guinea pigs or disposable game characters', he realised.
"The war with Nyx was actually a battle between the scientists of the Realm and a terrorist or rather Freedom Fighter group that Nyx created that wanted to liberate the 400 realms.
The reason Gatekeepers are forbidden from having children is that a child isn't constricted by the rules and can't be as easily monitored and controlled by the Scientists. We have phenomenal powers as Gatekeepers, gifts that those in the Endless Plains don't have, without control we are terrifying threats to them. Rogue elements that they want to keep contained. As a Gatekeepers child, Nyx was powerful enough to break out of the 400 realm project and go to the Endless Plains."
"When Nyx left the 400 realms, she proved to those that lived in the Endless Plains that we, the people used in their experiments, were real people with real souls and lives. She proved that this experiment went against rights and morality in general. She started a movement that aimed to liberate us from the control of the scientists."
"But of course an experiment of this scale has many interested parties and many investors. She was unable to liberate us through legal means so they went to war and attempted to destroy the 400 realms using the weapon called Judgement, the remnants of that weapon are now what you call the Gatekeeper keys."
"Nyx lost the war. Due to that war most of the Gatekeepers of that time, excluding myself, were replaced and I had to hide the secrets I knew. I had to play dumb or else I'd also get replaced. I've been doing that for 6 billion years." Obsidian sighed.
Argenti nodded in contemplation, her expression just as surprised as Mao Lu, "I guessed some of this. I didn't live through all of those events since I came in mid-way through the war to replace Dawn as the first Gatekeeper. And because of the presence of the Gates, Obsidian and I have never openly spoken about this before, not until now. Even I'm surprised by some of this."
Obsidian leaned forward and said, "For billions of years the scientists have kept their distance, influencing everything from afar. However, things have started to change recently. Our Gates started attacking us, our stash of keys got taken. All kinds of strange occurrences have been happening, especially strange circumstances surrounding your Chàng Bo. There have been people who are moving between the Realms that we Gatekeepers can't sense. And then those Creatures from before that were set on killing us."
"It all confused me before until that Scientist came up to you earlier [1]."
Argenti nodded, "Things also became more clear to me when I heard what that Scientist said."
Mao Lu thought back to the strange miss-shapen creature that had appeared before him. He recalled its words:
"Enough Gatekeepers have been killed for the seeds to be sewn and the Gates have gotten rid of most rotting fruits in this crop and are being re-calibrated to await the new Director."
Mao Lu's eyes widened as he also came to a realisation.
"It seems," said Obsidian, "That One the original creator and leading scientist of the experiment has been replaced. There's a new Director and this whole thing is coming under new management. All the deaths all the strange occurrences, it's due to some restructuring that's happening in the Real Realm to the people that run this experiment."
[1] If you forgot, Three was introduced in chapter 90.
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