Sunshine poured down like a golden waterfall.
Stretching Ian's silhouette long.
He stood at the edge of the space fissure, almost touching the thick, tar-like darkness within. The black-robed wizards' whispers rustled from the dark fissure.
Fear was growing among these people.
There was no choice.
Ian had mentioned ravens again—you could tell this group was truly afraid of ravens, almost as if they were allergic to the term.
"Raven... you want to know about the raven."
Zeus lifted his hood, his azure eyes flickering with intertwined vigilance and memories. His bony fingers tightly gripped the bone staff, the eagle head staff ornament glinted coldly in the sunlight.
"Titans created us to oppose the raven."
"These self-proclaimed Titans also have their fears, and this fear is called the raven. They created us to counteract this fear of theirs."
"Use you to fight against the raven?"
Ian frowned slightly, surprised by the statement.
"Yes, the raven is an ancient god, older than the Titans. Legend has it... at the world's end, it will descend and claim all souls, including death, including everything."
Zeus's voice grew solemn, and like his kin, he spoke with fear, which was precisely why he dared not oppose Ian's threat.
In fact.
Zeus was always a man with a temper, but having a temper didn't mean he was foolish—he knew when to be angry and when not to be.
"Including death?"
Ian thought the opponent might be referring to the God of Death, but in these people's language system, the term "god" now specifically referred to the Titans.
Of course.
Also used to refer to the older-than-Titans raven.
"That's right," Zeus continued, "The Titans feared this prophecy. They didn't want to accept the fate of ending, so they decided to create a force to counter the raven. That is us—the wizards."
His tone was low.
This statement indeed caught Ian by surprise, it turned out these people also knew they were wizards, and the earliest wizards were indeed to become the future gods.
Moreover.
The term wizard was actually created ahead of time.
These people knew they were wizards.
"Using you to fight against the raven... but magic seems unable to hurt the raven?" Ian continued to inquire, finding the facts sounding somewhat contradictory.
He knew well that the raven had absolute magic immunity.
How could the Titans expect wizards to fight the raven?
"You're right."
Zeus sneered, "Magic indeed cannot harm it. But initially, the Titans didn't expect us to use magic to fight the raven; they hoped we would use magic to create a force that could counter the raven."
His aged face appeared exceptionally profound in the shadows, and Ian, hearing this, thought of the fallen Sky City and those metallic beasts.
A glimmer of thought flashed through Ian's eyes.
"What was that for?"
He asked knowingly.
"Research, to make us think for them." Zeus's voice was deep, "Titans bestowed magic upon us to let us research a power to fight the raven—alchemy."
Sure enough.
This old man's statement matched Ian's conjecture. Ian thoughtfully, again recalling those fallen metallic beasts and the ruins of Sky City.
No doubt.
Those metallic beasts were what the Titans hoped wizards would create to fight ravens, yet obviously, even he, who stumbled upon the raven's corpse, found these beasts couldn't deal with it.
Perhaps.
The Titans, along with these ancient wizards, the future gods, were not particularly knowledgeable about the raven? Ian couldn't help but feel a tiny bit confused.
"Yes, exactly alchemy." Zeus continued nodding, "They had heard, in that ancient prophecy, the raven once personally told a shadow-like person that only this 'true creator,' unknown to anyone, could oppose it, and the power the true creator mastered was alchemy."
Another prophecy.
It seemed the Titans really relied on this stuff for their understanding of the raven. Upon hearing this, Ian's expression instantly turned odd. The true creator is the raven itself—these Titans were clearly fooled.
He couldn't help but rub his forehead.
"So you were created to study how to use alchemy to defeat the raven?"
Ian was sorting through the received information. He felt a sense of familiarity, wasn't the true creator the raven? Well, from this perspective, the raven wasn't really lying either.
Isn't this just artful speech?
Ian was slightly speechless.
His mind was also spinning rapidly.
Meanwhile.
Zeus didn't notice Ian's anomaly, continuing, "Regarding alchemy's ability to counter the raven, the Titans were utterly convinced. They forced us to delve day and night, forging weapons, building machinery..."
This statement.
Seemed to evoke painful memories from those black-robed wizards behind.
Zeus's voice gradually took on resentment.
"The Titans treated us like slaves."
Then.
The voice became somewhat gratifying.
"Sky City, metal beasts, were weapons we forged using alchemy. Titans granted us magic to make us study alchemy in place of them, these lazy beings."
"However, they didn't realize that in alchemy, we found freedom, found a way to imprison them. Their arrogance in immortality left these Titans oblivious to our plans!"