With the Iudex clearly ruling out most of the likely candidates, only one remained.

And it was a name Rhegnight felt his heart palpitate even just thinking about it.

“There’s no way! It can’t be the dragons, can it? We banished them!” His tone was very sharp and alarmingly high-pitched like even he could not believe he was suggesting such a ridiculous opinion.

“Maybe.” But the Iudex appeared to harbor the same suspicion.

Something which caused Rhegnight to feel a momentary bout of despair.

He would have felt much better even if the Iudex had blatantly mocked him.

But given such a reaction from a man clearly more knowledgeable than him, Rhegnight momentarily lost control of his emotions,

“But how! How can they escape? We with the other allied races used three legendary Level 10 spells to banish them.”

“That Great War of Extinguishment robbed us of so much- Our legacy, our glory, our future.”

“It resulted in the creation of so many Abominations, such distortions in the fabric of space and even the Ocean of Birthing Chaos came into being because of it.”

“Even the path to the Origin of Mana- The Root of the Erminsul Tree had to be severed.”

“Are you saying that realm extinguishing race will make a return even after all that?”

“Have you spotted any problem with the seal?”

Rhegnight looked very red and sounded even more flustered.

For a man of his standing, he did not think he would ever ramble so much, and shudder like a panicked squirrel.

But the dragons were indeed such formidable beings, able to cast their immense shadows in spite of their defeat and disappearance.

“No. The seal is intact.”

And finally, much to Rhegnight's joy, the Iudex gave at least one favorable answer.

Then as if to calm his agitated counterpart down, he reiterated,

“The dragons have been banished to outside this dimension during that war and the hole in the Primordial wall has been sealed with a Level 9 Earth spell, the patch being made from the corpses of all then-alive Rank 9 and Rank 8 mages.”

“Then to reinforce it, two more Level 9 spells were used over it.”

“And lastly a large part of Erminsol’s roots were moved to bind the three different spells together.”

“It is the ultimate achievement of the people of the Primordial Magic Age, an eternal testament to the heights they reached.”

“That seal might still be not as strong as the rest of the Primordial Wall, but it is still enough to stop even that half step into Tier 10 Ancestor of the Dragon from destroying it.”

“If they could they would break through it, they would have done so the moment they were banished.”

“But since they couldn’t, those fiends will never be able to break through.”

The Iudex sounded extremely sure of the matter and his emotions as he spoke of the matter were very expressive, much different from his usual cold demeanor.

It was like just talking about that stuff got his blood pumping, and the way he described the events sounded like he was there when all this happened.

This most prominently showed up when he uttered the word ‘fiend’, for the hate contained in it was palpable.

It seemed like there was a grudge between him and the dragons were hard to let go even after the latter were wiped out from this dimension.

And sensing this turbulence of pent up emotions, Rhegnight chose wisely not to poke any further.

Though his silence very much contrasted the turbulence in his heart, for just the few lines his counterpart had uttered produced so many follow up questions.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Some of the things the Iudex said were revelations even to someone as learned as him, sounding like a fantastical story to him since he had not seen any official text Rhegnight could find.

While others caused various inquiries he previously had to resurface once again-

‘Level 10? There really is a Level 10?’

‘How did the Dragon Ancestor get so powerful? All I knew was that dragons were three to five times more powerful than their similarly ranked counterparts from the other races.’

‘If the Dragon Ancestor could reach that rank, why couldn’t the Ancestors of the other races do it too?’

‘Why were the dragons so hostile towards most other races?’

‘If the Primordial Wall is so strong that even that Ancestral dragon cannot break it, how did a bunch of Rank 8s and Rank 9s from the other races do it, even if it was only a tiny, tiny portion?’

‘How are you so sure the dragons cannot break through the wall? Why do you say the dragons would have already broken through if they could? Why can't they break through now? Are there some additional secret bindings preventing them I do not know about?'

‘Do you fear the boy is a Trojan horse sent by the dragons? Here to destroy the seal from the inside? Is the seal weaker on this side?’

Rhegnight felt his heart swell and thump uncontrollably in attempting to keep these maddeningly alluring questions inside him,

He wanted nothing more than to yell all these out.

But ultimately he took control of his heart and forcefully suppressed all these curiosities.

Rhegnight knew that although the man before him was nominally his colleague and peer, in reality, he was so much more that than.

The Iudex before had a very enigmatic past, the precise details of which even he was not privy to, only being aware of bits and pieces here and there.

Their Stosleria Empire has had many, many kings over their long existence and many different Iudexes.

But there was only ever one Grand Iudex and when people said the ‘Iudex’, it only meant one person.

Once Rhegnight had even tried to find more about the man, but found it completely blocked, even to him!

He who was basically the third most powerful man of an Exalted power.

Now, this strict confidentiality did allow Rhegnight to form some educated guesses, but from the looks of it, it seemed he had grossly underestimated the man in his original hypothesis.

The Iudex before him was talking about Rank 8s and Ranks 9s and even a near Tier 10 being without any scruples, whereas Rhegnight, someone who would describe himself as being quite arrogant, would subconsciously shake when bringing up those mythical beings.

This was because although these two were currently among the peak powerhouse of their time, in front of those beings, especially that dragon ancestor who was close to being tier 10, they would be little better than nameless, numbered grunts fit only to serve tea or carry their luggage like a bellboy.

So given the Iudex’s current attitude, it was hard not to let one’s imagination run wild about his true background.

But unless the man himself wanted to share with them voluntarily, Rhegnight knew he could not ask.

Besides, even if Rhegnight was to eschew all shame and manners and do so, it had to be remembered that magi followed the rule of equivalent exchange.

And he had nothing to ‘buy’ these priceless answers with anyway.

Hence Rhegnight could only shut up and try to cool his smothering heart while the first time he lampooned his own inadequacies.

He suddenly felt the heights he reached, something even billions or trillions could not hope to attain in a hundred lifetimes, was really not that impressive on the grand scale of things.

And while Rhegnight came to this epiphany, the Iudex also took stock of his own over-energized emotions, quickly reining them in.

And after that, the Iudex let out the last of his vexations,

“Although the safety of the seal is certainly very good news, it has also produced a dilemma for me.”

“Both the Prism and the seal have contradicted my prophecy.”

“This caused some reluctants to surface. A few of the Iudexes saw my initial proposal as being too extreme.”

The Iudex sounded displeased.

‘So you wanted to really kill the boy,’ And the wording made it apparent to Rhegnight what the man originally wanted.

Normally, if the Iudex has desired so it would have indeed happened, for most anything he wanted to happen in these lands, happened like it was the will of the heavens themselves.

But this instance was the one in a million exception.

Because it involved the king’s son.

“Did His Majesty intervene? Surely he has the foresight to notice the problem, right?’ Rhegnight did not believe the king would be that muddle-headed.

A child with two different fate readings screamed danger.

“*Sigh*, you humans are curious beings.” But the Iudex did not give a straight answer, only ruefully shaking his head slightly.

But that shake told Rhegnight everything.

‘Was it because it's his son?’

Since the Iudex did not think it was proper to talk about their liege so openly, Rhegnight too stayed silent, keeping his guesses to himself.

It was not unreasonable to think the king would choose to follow emotion over cold reason when it involved his son.

Besides, logically the chances of the Iudex being the one wrong were far greater than the Pentagrammic Prism of Perpetual Prescience being at fault.

‘To err is human after all’.

Although from that wording before, the Iudex did not seem to be human either.

*Zooomm!*

Rhegnight did not get to finish those thoughts as suddenly, breaking the silence between the men, the teleportation gate finally roared to life, forming an aqueous whirling circular curtain of spatial energy, as that short haired woman came to notify them they were ready.