Chapter 594 — Early Warning Response

Bayila Augustus, the earliest member of the Typhon royal house, one of the strongest human druidic hierophants, once the most devout and most steadfast protector of life.

If Selina Gale of those years had been the guardian of the pioneers' spirits, the harbor sheltering people's souls and dreams, then Bayila Augustus of old was beyond doubt the pioneers' "saint of healing." She had once selflessly healed everyone, from nobles to commoners; the lives of a thousand hundred people had been prolonged because of her. She had once devoutly believed in the gods of nature, even though none of her prayers were ever answered. And what had left the deepest impression on Gao Yang was the sentence she most often spoke after prayers that met with no answer:

"The god did not answer me, but He did once bring us the miracle of healing life, and that miracle continues in our hands to this day. I am not beseeching Him — I am only thanking Him."

So then — such a "saint" as that, if she learned the truth, if she fell and became a dark hierophant... what would she pursue?

Gao Yang quietly sorted through the memories from Gao Yang Cecil, speculating on Bayila, or rather on the ultimate goal of the entire Church of the Final End. He had to shut out those emotional factors in the memories that might cloud his judgment — such as his favorable impression of Bayila — so that he could analyze on.

Half an hour later, he rose from behind his desk and came to the window covered in alchemical resin, casting his gaze into the distance.

He saw the hazy illusory glow of the Great Wall, saw the whirlwinds of dust and smoke spiraling over the Wasteland, saw the overcast, chaotic sky — and at the farthest edge of his vision, he could faintly make out a towering spire standing quietly against the backdrop of murky dust and skylight.

That was another Sentinel Tower, to the east, on the Typhon side.

As for this civil war in Ansul, Gao Yang was almost certain that Typhon was one of the greatest hands behind it, and in the Typhon emperor's actions he could also catch the scent of the Church of the Final End.

Daniel had once reported that he had seen beside Roland Augustus two twin elves of nearly identical appearance, their words and deeds in perfect synchrony, like twins — and this matched exactly the pair of elf sisters Gao Yang had seen in his dream last night.

Late last night he had contacted Daniel once through the psychic network, shown the other the image of those twin elves, and received a confirming answer.

Then that Typhon emperor, who had direct ties to the Church of the Final End... would he know of the existence of Bayila Augustus? Would he be in contact with her?

Nor was it especially far.

Back at his desk, Gao Yang dashed off a letter, sealed it with his own sigil, and sent Amber to fetch the elven courier Suoyou.

"I'd like to entrust a letter to you," Gao Yang said, smiling as he handed over the missive he had just sealed with wax. Suoyou, who had come hurrying over with curiosity written all over her face, received it; "I trust you don't mind helping out?"

Suoyou took the letter curiously, but did not activate her psychic power to sense its contents. Instead she raised an eyebrow: "I'm a courier — delivering letters is within my line of work. But where is this going? You've even stamped it with the full ducal seal..."

Gao Yang answered frankly: "The Typhon camp. To Roland Augustus. I intend to pay him a visit."

Amber, who had been standing nearby enjoying the show, was struck dumb: "What?!"

"Since the completion of the Great Wall, the miasma of the wasteland has cut off the various kingdoms, and for several hundred years the nations of the continent have not seen the kind of all-out cooperation we have today," Gao Yang said, seated upright behind his desk with a grave and solemn expression. "This is a great event — humanity once again joining hands and pressing forward together, the first time we have been united after all these years of cold isolation. With the Typhon camp and the Ansell camp now so close to one another, I think it necessary to call on the descendants of an old friend. It is the proper attitude to take."

Suoyou was moved by Gao Yang's righteous and dignified manner. She could not help but gaze deeply at this old friend before her, as though seeing in him that era of seven hundred years ago when people weathered the storms together, that time when people made no distinctions between one another, between races, but pressed forward hand in hand. She gladly agreed to Gao Yang's request to deliver the letter, and declared that she would charge only half price for it —

Her own fee as a courier could be waived, but Gugu needed meat, and if it was to fly over the wasteland at such close range, Gugu would also require some psychological counseling.

Considering that Suoyou was indeed the finest courier currently at hand, and that dispatching a whole Cecil courier team across the belt-plain to deliver the letter would only cost more, Gao Yang said nothing further.

After Suoyou had left, Amber came up to Gao Yang and looked him straight in the eye.

The high-sounding words Gao Yang had just spoken to Suoyou were genuinely stirring — polished up a bit, they could even go into a textbook. But Amber did not believe a word of it.

The old dumpling was rotten to the core. When had any of his righteous pronouncements not been the prelude to some scheme destined to bankrupt a certain unlucky bastard? The bones of Count Horsman still had not been fully gathered to this day.

"You're not thinking of asking Roland Augustus to his face about Bayila Augustus, are you?" the half-elf lady guessed at Gao Yang's intentions, based on the intelligence she possessed. "That blunt and brutal?"

"Of course it can't be that blunt and brutal — Roland Augustus is connected to the Church of the Final End. Doing so would be announcing to those cultists that I was the one who invaded their communications system," Gao Yang shook his head. "I'm just going to observe, to confirm a few things, and then... see whether I can do a bit of business."

Amber's mind didn't catch up for a moment; she had no idea how Gao Yang had suddenly leapt to that topic: "Business?"

Gao Yang laughed: "That's right, business — trans-national trade."

This was indeed his purpose, and it was not a notion that had just occurred to him.

He had long intended to make contact with Typhon — though Typhon was Ansell's fated adversary, though Typhon had long since readied its fangs and claws and stood ready to devour Ansell's flesh and blood at any moment, in the eyes of Gao Yang, a "transmigrator," so long as Ansell and Typhon had not yet gone to war, he did not mind doing a bit of "business" with Typhon.

Call it a war before the war.

Amber blinked. She saw the familiar smile spread across Gao Yang's face — to others it looked no different from his usual smile, but she knew that when this old dumpling who had clawed his way out of his coffin smiled like that, it usually meant he had concocted another man-eating scheme.

And one that did not even spit out the bones.