Chapter 131 — The Eternal Slate

Viscount Andrew's own magical talent was modest, and he had no aptitude whatsoever for the transcendent professions—knight, wizard, or otherwise. But as a noble, he had to ensure he possessed the basic "transcendent qualification," so he had always been keenly interested in potions, mystical rituals, and anything else that could enhance transcendent ability. His steward had served him for many years, was a learned man with some understanding of the occult, and could always procure various effective potions—and so had won Viscount Andrew's deep trust. But who could have imagined that such a steward, who had shown not the slightest tell for decades, would turn out to be a claw of the Order of the End of All Things?

Unfortunately, that claw had fled even earlier—once the cultists had gained initial control of the castle, the steward vanished from everyone's sight.

From these scattered bits of intelligence, Gao Yang surmised that the "steward" was very likely an "outer member" specially cultivated by the Order of the End of All Things. Such a person possessed no transcendent talent of his own but did have some knowledge of the occult, making it relatively easy for him to win a noble's trust—and to escape suspicion. And once the Order's cultists took action, outer members of this kind would withdraw swiftly, perhaps to resurface in disguise at another noble's side, perhaps to sink deeper into the organization...

What truly worried Gao Yang was that this was likely no isolated case.

Viscount Andrew was no great house capable of swaying the fate of the kingdom, while the Order of the End of All Things was a colossus that had spread across many nations. It was hardly plausible that such a cult would plant an agent to lie dormant for decades beside a mere viscount on the Ansul border. The only explanation was that planting eyes beside nobles was routine practice for them.

Just what kind of monster had the Church of the Gloaming, fallen seven hundred years ago, grown into today?

And soon Gao Yang learned why the cultists had made Viscount Andrew issue the martial law decree.

"I told him the Eternal Slate had already been promised by me as an offering to the King, and that I had long since arranged for men to carry it out of the castle," Viscount Andrew said slowly, a flicker of grim satisfaction on his face. "His dark arts could control my limbs, could control my tongue, but they could not control my mind. He could make me speak the lines he arranged, but he could not make me speak what I knew in my heart. So he had no idea where I had hidden the Slate—he could only impose martial law across the city and search house to house in my name. And until he found it, he dared not let me die..."

So that was it... Gao Yang nodded in understanding. The fallen druids did indeed possess dark arts for controlling a person's words and actions, but it was not the mind control of the necromancy school—it was a shallower control of the body's nerves, twisted and mutated from the original druidic spell "Animal Dominion." Faced with such a spell, so long as one had a resolute will to resist it, one could not be forced by the cultists to divulge anything.

What Gao Yang had not expected was that this Viscount Andrew, who looked like a sickly man overdosed on potions, should possess such resolution of will.

"So the Shadow cultists buried the people from the castle in the courtyard to extract their thoughts, also to interrogate them about where the Slate fragment was..." Amber had caught on by now, and looked at the frail Viscount with some surprise. "But they have no idea where the fragment is—only you know that. Which means... could it be that you never sent the thing out at all?"

"Of course I never sent it out," Viscount Andrew said with an effortful smile. Weak as he was, he still strove to lift his head. "I am a son of the Leslie family. I could starve to death, die out there in the wild, throw myself from this very spot—but I will never submit to a cultist!"

Though the phrasing struck him as faintly, subtly familiar, Gao Yang still regarded the frail traditional noble with considerable admiration. This was the nobility of this age: truly hidebound, truly backward, truly given to actions that from a god's-eye view seemed foolish—but at the same time possessed of a so-called "noble spirit," a spirit that upheld a pride bordering on the unreasonable, and that pride was such that even in death he would not bow his head to a cultist.

"Then where exactly did you hide the Eternal Slate fragment?" Gao Yang could not help asking.

"Ha... haha..." Viscount Andrew laughed with relish, laughing until he was wracked by coughing. "Right under that fellow's nose the whole time! Right under his nose!"

As he spoke, the Viscount laboriously climbed up from his chair, and then lifted away the thick cushion.

"That fool opened my treasury, ransacked my chamber of magical materials, searched my bedroom and my attic, pried open every locked chest and cabinet in the castle—but he will never, ever imagine that I was sitting on it the whole time!!"

Once the thick cushion was lifted, Gao Yang saw it.

It lay quietly on the seat, no bigger than a palm, its thickness by eye not even half a centimeter. And what differed even more from Gao Yang's conjecture was that this so-called Eternal "Slate" was not a slate at all.

It was a pale gold metal plate, its surface impossibly flat and smooth, etched with mysterious patterns.