Chapter 62: With this thing, the Royal Capital can rest easy!

"I never expected there to be a hidden realm beneath the imperial palace."

To Iluvias, who had lived and grown up in this imperial palace since childhood, it felt utterly alien at this moment.

"Let's go inside. It'll also satisfy a rare bout of curiosity for me."

Fram stepped into the realm of inheritance a pace ahead of Iluvias.

Yet, she was soon disappointed.

Here... there seemed to be nothing at all.

Just an ordinary lake and a sword of unfathomable depth.

The only thing worth mentioning was the scenery, which was identical to the one in Fram's memory.

It was as if it had been copied straight out of Avalon.

Except for the absence of the colossal tree connecting heaven and earth, the scenery here was indistinguishable from the lakeshore beneath the World Tree.

Back when she was just born, her parents had quite liked taking her there to play.

"It seems like there's nothing here, Lady Fram... Are we really in the right place?"

Iluvias was also somewhat bewildered.

The scenery here was indeed pleasant, but as a chamber of inheritance, wasn't it a bit too crude?

Fram shook her head. "We definitely haven't come to the wrong place. There's no reason for Salah to deceive me."

"Perhaps the secret lies within that sword. Why don't you go touch it?"

"That sword?" Iluvias looked at the blade planted obliquely by the lakeshore, then stepped forward, placing her hand on the hilt with the intention of pulling it out.

Only, Iluvias felt a sharp pain almost immediately.

The energy erupting from the hilt forced Iluvias to let go in pain, and it also unleashed a shockwave that blew her backward.

Fram channeled her mana into a gentle breeze, catching Iluvias as she fell. "It seems it's not quite so simple, after all."

"However... a line of text has indeed appeared."

Fram pointed above the sword, where the surging primeval mana was gradually condensing into two lines of verse, catalyzed by the power radiating from the blade's body.

[In this mortal dust, the doomed mortals attain nine of ten]
[All laws of the world originate from its beginning]

Iluvias instinctively looked toward Fram, hoping to ask for a clue regarding the verses.

Fram, meanwhile, was quite surprised at that moment; she had not expected to see a fragment of this poem here.

She certainly recognized the verse, for after all, it was carved upon an ancient stone tablet beside the roots of the World Tree.

"Lady Fram, you seem to know the origin of this poem?"

"Yes, it is carved upon an ancient stone tablet beneath the World Tree." Fram nodded, then continued, "I heard from my mentor that this poem chronicles the origin of all magic in the world."

"You could call it a legend; after all, the era in which this stone tablet and poem appeared is sufficiently remote, even for elves."

"The origin of magic?" Iluvias quickly grasped the crucial point.

"Indeed. But that doesn't matter. Look, the true contents of the inheritance seem to have appeared."

Fram interrupted Iluvias, who clearly still wanted to pursue the matter further.

For one thing, that line of verse had already transformed into a sphere of golden light, quietly floating in mid-air, evidently representing the true inheritance.

And for another, Fram simply did not possess any further information.

Among the elves, she was considered quite young, barely reaching the age where she no longer needed her parents to worry about her.

She wasn't very interested in topics related to such ancient legends.

Compared to the origin of magic, she cared far more about how to advance the development of magic.

Hearing this, Iluvias temporarily put aside her curiosity, walked over to the sphere of golden light, and thrust her hand into the radiance without hesitation.

...

A scroll unrolled within Iluvias's consciousness. After spending a moment, she comprehended the contents of the imagery.

The royal capital.

Everything in the royal capital was presented upon this scroll.

The imperial palace, the Royal Capital Magic Academy, the Ministry of Military Affairs, the General Bureau of Inspection, the royal capital branch of the Adventurers' Guild, the office of the Continental Historical Records Society, and the Grand Cathedral of the Holy Theocracy.

Everything familiar or unfamiliar to Iluvias was revealed upon it.

She instinctively wanted to zoom in on a certain corner, and subsequently, the scene in that area truly was magnified.

It was Kephas—the empire's de facto strongest individual today and the Director of the General Bureau of Inspection—who was uncharacteristically shaking off his decadent aura and solemnly leading a team to clear out a stronghold of the Brotherhood of Chaos.

Beside him were the elites of the General Bureau of Inspection, along with the Hatters assisting in the operation.

Iluvias swiped her finger, and the view shifted to the Royal Capital Magic Academy. The plaza before the academy's main gates was currently packed with students who had been forced to attend the principal's opening-term speech.

Oh, isn't this Roland?

Let's zoom in and take a look.

Tch, why is he chatting with that pet? Still feeding it?

Ugh, bad luck, I'm not looking anymore.

Just as Iluvias's attention was captivated by this map that allowed for arbitrary zooming and panning, a faint whispering brushed against her ear.

[Layout... Surveillance... Manipulation... Space...]

A vast amount of information accompanied the murmuring whispers, flooding into Iluvias's mind as she fully absorbed everything related to that sphere of golden light.

The next moment, the golden orb of light merged into Iluvias's mind, and she officially assumed control of this royal inheritance.

In essence, it was simply the control authority over a massive array and magic device.

The array was the royal capital itself, while the magic device was the imperial palace itself.

With the imperial palace as the core body and array center, the controller could observe every corner of the royal capital. However, evading this surveillance was quite simple; one only needed to use certain spells to conceal and disguise oneself.

Therefore, this was not the core of the inheritance.

The core of the inheritance lay in the fact that the spatial structure within the royal capital itself—which served as the array's core—could be manipulated at will.

Disrupting the spatial structure of the royal capital, creating traps and encirclements according to one's own will.

This was the royal inheritance of the Hestia Empire, a safeguard sufficient to ensure the royal capital would never fall!

Moreover, the imperial palace itself was a gigantic, terrifying magic device equipped with spatial-cutting spells.

One could say that the three siege battles had left the Hestia Empire with a certain degree of post-traumatic stress, something clearly discernible from the royal family's inheritance.

Given such a peculiar function, it was hardly a surprise that control could only be inherited by the emperor personally or by a designated successor.

After all, holding the control authority over the array essentially meant holding the power over life, death, and transit across the entire royal capital.

Through Iluvias's observation, aside from the outermost ring of the city, which had been expanded over the past fifty years, the entire royal capital lay within the influence of the array.

She could now, with a mere thought, transform the entire royal capital into an intricate labyrinth harboring hidden perils.

Yet... if this was the royal family's inheritance, what about the sword?

Did it belong as part of the inheritance?

Why was the array's control authority housed within the blade?

What was its origin, and why did it appear here?

Even Fram, acting merely as a spectator, was curious about this question.

This was not the holy sword Durendal.

Therefore, the words carved on the stone at the entrance were, just as the hero had said, nothing more than nonsense.

That made the origin of this sword all the more mysterious.

However, before Fram and Iluvias could ponder for long, the longsword—having been touched for a second time—now transformed into a halo of light, gradually fading away into this hidden realm.

And Iluvias, who had just inherited the control authority over the array known as the Dimensional Labyrinth, clearly perceived that the sword had not vanished.

It had simply run away.

Using the portion of the array's control authority that it wielded itself.