Chapter 498 — Public Trial

That was a good thing.

"Look over there, at the people in the square—do you see them?"

Amber nodded. "I see them."

"Everyone fed and clothed—that is the greatest justice."

...

This was a city of boundless expanse, standing in a far-off place beyond reach, present now, present before, and present forever in the ages to come.

The majestic Holy Light was the brick and cornerstone of Xuanyue City, its sky above and the earth in which it took root; every brick, every wall, every tower and doorway was steeped in radiance and filled with endless sanctity.

As the saint Dumont had said:

I saw a vast city, boundless in expanse, with light pouring forth from between its bricks and stones, the whole city as though forged of light.

And at the heart of this light-forged city, upon a magnificent square whose scale the eye could scarcely judge, countless streams of light came surging from the distant horizon, converging above a gigantic crystal that ceaselessly shifted its form.

This radiant, holy crystal turned in silence, ruling over the light-forged city for a thousand years as though a single day, radiating outward the truths it contained—tranquility, radiance, peace, shelter—while those streams of light gathered from every quarter were at once the source of the power it amassed and the channels through which it released its influence.

Yet today, the immutable order of this light-forged city had shifted ever so slightly. Among the streams of light converging from all directions, some had quietly changed color and course; they grew clearer, and as though beyond all control they swept past the crystal at the square's center, flowing freely through the sky toward the distance...

The crystal still turned as it had for a thousand years as though a single day, a pleasant chiming like wind chimes ringing around it—an ethereal, holy sound that yet resembled the most chaotic noise, without melody or pattern. Amid that chaotic and holy ringing, the crystal merely changed its form once more, as though it cared nothing for the streams of light in the sky that had altered their course, nothing for these negligible "losses"...