PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

498 Chapter 498 Inverted Black And White

The effects of the first military confrontation between the two nations could already be felt in the atmosphere the next day, especially with the number of people in mourning. Still, none of that had much to do with what was happening inside the Astryd residence.

After the conversation and dinner the day before, Silvia had had time to think about Desmond’s proposal, making the decision to accept the said proposal; Silvia came to that conclusion as she watched her dear little sister sleep. In a way, Silvia and Desmond were quite alike; both had someone else’s safety in mind most of the time.

Silvia went to the Astryd residence as soon as she decided, finding a Desmond already prepared for her arrival. For this unique occasion, Claire, Sasha, and Cecilia opened a space in their diary, unable to contain their curiosity. The girls’ interest was not unwarranted, as Desmond had never shown anyone the ability he planned to use.

Guided by Estela, Silvia reached the house’s patio, where two stone platforms that had not been there before had been placed. Both stone platforms had been created and reinforced by Estela after receiving the request of her master.

Desmond didn’t explain much about the process. Instead, he spent an hour explaining mana’s basics to Silvia after leading her to one of the stone platforms. Desmond placed particular emphasis on understanding the characteristics of ice and the need for a strong image or concept to hold onto when controlling mana.

Silvia was intelligent and talented and quickly understood what Desmond was explaining to her. However, it was almost instinctive; she knew it would take time to digest this knowledge and see real progress in her abilities.

As soon as Desmond finished explaining everything to Silvia, he invited Sasha to stand on the stone platform on the other side of Silvia. Once both women met in the center of their respective stone circles, Desmond revealed the tattoo on his wrist and began channeling the Law into it.

From Desmond’s understanding, the laws of the arcana came in many forms, some being incredibly specific and others quite abstract. Unfortunately for Desmond, who was a person who didn’t much enjoy a lack of clarity, the Law he obtained was quite strange.

Knowing that many people were closely watching what he was doing caused Desmond slight discomfort. Desmond was not a shy person by nature, but his Law work was too theatrical for his liking; it made him look like a child playing to be a magician.

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Holding back the embarrassment and focusing his mind, Desmond cleared all of his thoughts and let the words flow out in a chant that echoed with a strong arcana.

“Black and white, good and evil, truths and lies intertwined.”

After the first verse, small feathers made of arcana began to spill from the tattoo on Desmond’s wrist, swirling gently around his arm. The spiral of feathers created a swirl of black and white around Desmond’s arm.

“Swords that shed no blood, crowns that hold no power.”

With the second verse, black and white feathers began appearing around the stone platforms on which Sasha and Silvia were standing. The sight was beautiful but exuded an overflowing feeling of mystery and confusion.

“Demons rise to sainthood, fallen angels rape their devout maidens, nothing is true, and everything is meaningless.”

The whirlwind of feathers around Desmond’s arm stretched back, fanning out, displaying what could only be described as a black and white peacock’s tail. At the same time, the stone platforms were covered by two feather domes, and without warning, Sasha and Silvia’s powers went out of control.

Sasha exploded like a supernova, entering her released form against her will, then her vermilion fire was devoured by the feathers around her. Despite the raging inferno unleashed by Sasha, all the fire was contained by the feathers; the only change that took place was that all the feathers on her dome turned white.

Similar to Sasha, Silvia’s ice spiraled out of control, creating an icy tundra around her and dyeing the feathers on her dome black.

At this point, Desmond was sweating, every word out of his mouth costing him immense energy, but he didn’t stop, and another verse was spoken.

“Life and death, chaos and order, only parts of the cycle, eternity come to an end.”

The domes around Sasha and Silvia collided with each other as they expanded, two opposing elements meeting in their wildest forms at the point where black and white become one.

Desmond felt like having his brain pierced by dozens of drills. The amount of pain and exhaustion was inhuman, but he didn’t stop; for Desmond, the pain was nothing more than a small price.

Clenching his fist hard, a new wave of black and white was released from Desmond’s arm, and with a bang, the spinning of the feather domes stopped; then came the last verse.

“In a world of illusions, only I hold the truth. .”

As soon as Desmond finished speaking, a mouthful of blood escaped his lips, something that would have drawn attention had it not been for the movement in the domes surrounding Sasha and Silvia.

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A sharp mind would have noticed one thing in particular when the feather domes formed and began to rotate, and that was that they both spun in the exact opposite directions, colliding hard at the point where the two circles met each other.

As Desmond finished his last verse, something changed, and something stayed the same, both domes changing the direction they were spinning but staying bumping into each other. The main difference was that the domes did not seem to conflict with each other, despite their opposite natures.

It was as if black could power white and white could feed black. Completely counterintuitively, the fire was making ice stronger, and ice was keeping the fire burning. In a way, such a thing didn’t make any sense, but at the same time, it quite aligned with the contradictory nature of the verses delivered by Desmond.

At first, due to the vast difference in power between Silvia and Sasha, the white dome glowed much brighter and rotated faster than the black dome, but as time passed, the difference became less significant.

It was quite a sight from the outside, but what was happening inside was pretty quiet. Sitting in their respective meditation poses, Sasha and Silvia had entered a deep trance, utterly oblivious to their surroundings. Occasionally, a tiny feather dyed black and white would fall on their foreheads before being absorbed into their bodies.

At that point, Desmond fell to his knees, and the manifestation of his Law began to fade rapidly. However, the whirlwind of feathers that encased Sasha and Silvia showed no signs of stopping, proving that this phenomenon had gotten out of Desmond’s control.

Seeing the chaos that encompassed most of his yard and remembering the poetry recital he’d had to give, a need for crying grew in Desmond’s heart. Desmond wanted to be able to pick up a rock and hit himself on the head in the hope that the Law he had acquired would change to a less troublesome and unpredictable one.

That’s right; Desmond couldn’t fully control his Law or accurately predict what he did with it, due to the very nature of Law. In simple terms, Desmond’s Law made opposite things cease to be opposites. By creating a cycle of contradictions between concepts of reality, Desmond could, so to speak, turn white into black and vice versa.

The problem was that such things were too open to interpretation and too abstract. Desmond had to focus a tremendous amount of intent and mental strength to create the cycle of contradictions, or things could get pretty weird.

So to speak, Desmond could accidentally contradict an aspect of himself, something like being alive; one could imagine how that could end. To avoid such results, Desmond had to recite a chant full of contradictions that would help guide his will and his arcana to obtain the desired result.

In the case of Silvia and Sasha, women who wielded ice and fire, respectively, shared contradictions that extended into their personalities, which inspired Desmond to think of a way to use his Law of contradiction.

In the five elements and the eight trigrams of Chinese culture, there was a lot of talk about the connection and interaction between the elements of nature; it was from there that Desmond got the idea of ??using fire to strengthen ice through his Law of the contradiction.

Of course, certain variables were involved, but after some experimentation, Desmond determined that there were no real risks to Sasha or Silvia. For some reason, when Desmond could not adequately control the process, his Law of contradiction could only hurt him instead of others.

Whatever the case, Desmond’s new ability, while complicated and quite challenging to control, was handy and opened up a whole world of possibilities for Desmond. Though Desmond wasn’t too eager to explore this Law, the theatricality and the randomness factor were not to the hunter’s liking.